"This project is about documenting how we got to this point so future generations can look back and understand." "There are a lot of (milestones) people never thought would get here, and now they're here," Shore said. The group will partner with Phoenix Pride and Arizona State University Libraries to collect and preserve materials that chronicle the "seismic shifts" in gay rights over the years, as well as narratives detailing daily life as an LGBT person in Arizona. Shore, Lazos-Ferns and other community leaders recently formed the Arizona LGBT+ History Project to reverse the trend. Though gay history has been well-preserved in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, it has been largely ignored in the Southwest, he said. Other LGBT-community icons in Arizona could easily meet the same fate, Shore said. Developers demolished the building in 2015 to make way for a condo complex, and most of the club's performers have long disappeared. Now, the lounge mostly exists in patrons' memories. It was like, here's a community that embraces you and can help you understand these aspects of you that aren't part of wider society."īy the time Lazos-Ferns became a 307 Lounge regular in the 1980s, the bar had served as a safe gathering space for Phoenix-area lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents for decades. Arizona historian Marshall Shore, who is gay, called the club part of "the beginning of our community as we know it." "All of a sudden, I forgot where I was, and my fear just dissipated. "I walked in, and a drag queen with big, beautiful hair and a white sequined gown was lip-syncing on stage, banging on the floor," he said.
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307 GAY BAR PHOENIX ASU BJ BUDD CRACKED
"Finally, one night, the door was cracked open and I could hear that Jennifer Holliday song from (the Broadway musical) 'Dreamgirls,' which was popular at the time.
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"I'd go up to the door and walk away, go up to the door and walk away," said Lazos-Ferns, now 50. The 16-year-old wasn't sure what he was afraid of - he didn't actually know what he'd find inside the Phoenix gay bar - but he knew the club was in a "seedy area" along Roosevelt, far from his rural Chandler home. Jeffrey Lazos-Ferns had tried to work up the courage to walk into 307 Lounge at least three times before.
![307 gay bar phoenix asu bj budd 307 gay bar phoenix asu bj budd](https://media2.phoenixnewtimes.com/phx/imager/u/slideshow/11478097/retro-lgbtq-bars-phoenix-photos-trax-1724-mcdowell-road-1986.jpg)
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