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We are more home-bound domestics now, rarely going to gay bars. My future husband and I got to know each other there, dancing, making new friends, and making future plans. Over the years, the people there became a kind of family where I could be open, becoming myself and eventually being comfortable enough to come out. There were rare incidents when people came looking for fights in the parking lot, and more than once someone set off a canister of pepper spray inside the bar to send everyone running from the burning cloud of gas. But The Corral provided me with a place to explore a side of myself that I kept undercover anywhere else. I am typically introverted, keeping to myself and preferring alone-time to social events. Growing up in south-central Montana, albeit in the state’s largest city, meant keeping pretty quiet about being gay.Īs I came of age, the local gay bar on the outskirts of town, The Corral, was where I and others could go and be open about who we really were. This place provides a haven, an outlet and a time that most are not soon to forget. Fortunately for me I am still able to go there and relish the familiarity of the place and to see how it is becoming a beacon for younger people who have that same lost look in their eyes before they walk in. Town helped me define myself in a time when I was on the verge of making terrible choices with my life. The best of these times revolved around driving 2.5 hours to Town in DC, not to drink but just to go dance and be around a group that I felt like I could finally start to identify with. ‘It helped me define myself.’ Town nightclub in Washington DC.