How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gay Bar
THE BARS ARE OURS: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After, by Lucas Hilderbrand In the gloam of a nightclub in 2011, Amanda Lepore looked just like she had on the internet: all curves, no angles, champagne and cream poured into rhinestones, yanked into an hourglass.
I trembled before her, crown jewel of the Club Kids who ruled Manhattan nights in the early ’90s. As a teenager, I had dreamed of Amanda’s New York.
Her famous mouth — pumped taut, crisis red — parted. I expected it to smirk, but it didn’t. “I’m Amanda,” she purred. I told her the name I answered to at the time, a name I would soon revise to sound sweeter, more potable.
Feminine. “You’re fabulous,” I croaked. “I mean, you’re the most famous transsexual in the world.” (That’s what she called herself.) Finally, she smirked, not just with her lips but with her whole body. “Would you like a drink?” she asked. “Yes,” I squealed.
