Hong Kong’s lesbian bars are vanishing, but for LGBT people it’s actually a good sign in the traditionally conservative city
- There were as many as nine lesbian bars in the Hong Kong scene’s heyday in the early 2000s, but that number has dropped to two: Virus and L’Paradis
- Hong Kong’s increasing tolerance of LGBT people means that many lesbians feel they can hang out at ordinary bars, ‘and people won’t look at us weirdly’
Tse Tong, the owner of Hong Kong’s first lesbian bar, does not mind that the lesbian bar scene in the city is declining as it reflects the traditionally conservative society’s increasing tolerance for LGBT people.
Where once lesbians felt excluded and marginalised in most places in the city, and went to lesbian-only bars to find friends and lovers, nowadays the only two remaining such bars in the city are a very different type of venue: men and heterosexuals are also welcome.
“[These bars] are no longer for meeting new singles,” Tong says. “They are a place for entertainment and for people to drink, which is different from the very beginning, when customers would come out every single week.”
Tong opened Virus bar in 1997. Now located in the trendy Causeway Bay area, it has moved several times but always remained on Hong Kong Island. When it opened, there was nowhere else in Hong Kong catering exclusively to lesbians. The city’s gay bars were largely men-only.
In the 90s, women could only go into gay bars if they were good friends with the venues’ male regulars, Tong recalls. Sometimes, according to the Hong Kong female queer activist group Les Corner, the bars would have quotas – a few women would be allowed to enter if they were accompanied by a much larger number of men.