gaycation magazine - issue 13 archive heart of the west
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This is a free sample of Gaycation Magazine issue "Issue 13 Archive Heart of the West" Download full version from: Apple App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id903033857?mt=8&at=1l3v4mh Magazine Description: Gaycation Magazine was created because the personality of LGBT travel is changing. The world has grown smaller and more accessible, yet more homogenized and less exotic. Our goal is to inspire and guide those who travel the world to connect with its people, experience their cultures, and understand their perspectives. Todays LGBT travelers demand more than the superficial, the mass-produced, the mass-consumed and the mass-experienced. They look for the authentic in people, destinations, and prod... You can build your own iPad and Android app at http://presspadapp.comTRANSCRIPT
20 | Gaycation Magazine www.gaycationmagazine.com
By David Perry
Say what you will, but line dancing is a very adaptable art form. The sequin-spangled saddle in place of a disco ball took a little getting used to, but the crowd at Billy Bob’s Texas did not miss a beat when the Kenny Chesney ended and the Kylie
Anybody who calls it “Dallas-Ft. Worth” clearly never went to Ft. Worth
Heart of the WestMinoque picked up. Things just a little more hip-grindy.
The world’s largest honky-tonk — a country music dance hall — Billy Bob’s is one of the undisputed must-dos along the rhinestone-studded roads of Ft. Worth. Outsiders may think of Ft. Worth as nostalgia-obsessed also-ran to Dallas. And they’d be right.
Except for the “also-ran” part. While Brokeback Mountain romanticism
abounds in places like the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and the Ft. Worth Stockyards, this is not a city stuck in its past, however colorful. The city nicknamed “Where the West Begins” may be spun from the
Gaycation Magazine | 21www.gaycationmagazine.com
Heart of the Westyarns of O. Henry and Louis L’Amour, but Ft. Worth proves any good fairy tale can be reinterpreted to fit the modern age.
Learning From History“Everything in Texas is big” and they mean it.
The serving sizes, the sequin-counts, of course the hats, and occasionally, the colossal screw-ups.
In 2009, Ft. Worth burst onto the gay scene for all the wrong reasons when local police descended in an armed swarm for no reason in particular on a local gay bar, the Rainbow Lounge. Coming on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, the city found itself on the wrong side of a stampede of outrage from
citizens and, worse, the media, which reported verbatim the subsequent trial, cartoonish gay-panic defense, homophobic indifference from the mayor, and big, fat slap in the face from the court in favor of the Lounge.
There was nowhere to go but up, and the city passed some of the most sweeping LGBTQ protections in Texas.
That a place is raid-worthy is all you need to get me on board, but the most damning thing I experienced was the doorman determining I was old enough to enter without an ID-check. Not to trod on any toes, but the Rainbow Lounge is…well, a club. And a dancefloor. And some notably