Another Gay Bookstore Bites The Dust

Last week, the DC Agenda reported that Lambda Rising, one of the nation’s oldest gay bookstores, will be closing at the end of the year after 35 years of operation.

With the number of bookstores catering to the LGBT community already hovering at around 60, down from a peak of 300 in the early 1990s, it appears that another hallmark of LGBT culture is on the verge of extinction.

Long before the LGBT community was deemed visible and profitable enough to catch the eye of mainstream companies, gay bookstores performed an integral function, offering meeting space and hosting events in addition to selling literature that other stores would not carry. Indeed, you can say that the modern LGBT community center has its roots in the gay bookstore.

The demise of the gay bookstore can be attributed to internet vendors like Amazon, who, with their low prices and vast catalogs, are doing to independent outlets what Wal Mart did to mom-and-pop stores twenty years ago. Online purchasing also offers the appearance of anonymity to customers scared by the prospect of going to a gay-identified space.

Some will say that the demise of LGBT-specific companies is a sign of increasing acceptance by society. It is true that LGBTs are not as ghettoized as in past decades. But I believe the availability of gay literature in Borders or Amazon is driven by a desire for profit rather than any connection to the LGBT community. We are just another source of revenue, and should gay lit come to be seen as a risk (either from declining sales or pressure from right wing groups), they are likely to reduce or eliminate their LGBT offerings.

Sometimes I feel that LGBTs and African-Americans are the only groups that consider the loss of community institutions as a positive development. Perhaps that is because people see them as one more step towards having “arrived” in society. But a community is only as strong as the cultural and economic strength it holds. With the decline of the gay bookstore, much like the perilous stage of LGBT publications, we are weakened as a people.

Rather than viewing the closure of Lambda Rising as “progress,” we should be thinking about ways to preserve our unique LGBT culture in a changing world.