1999

There were no “LGBTQ+” people in 1999 OP. There were gays and there were lesbians. There were also “transsexuals” but they weren’t in the clubs. They were on Jerry Springer.

The “queers” were goth back then. And the “nonbinary people” back then were just…….. gays and lesbians!

Seriously, for me that was the last great year.

There's also Columbine, the second Congolese war, war in Sierra Leone and the Kosovo war.

And Y2K...

We also lost our moon.

Just like non-gay people, the gays are staring at a screen many more hours per day than they were in 1999.

Wasn't Rosie still pretending to have a crush on Tom Cruise in the 90s?

JFK JR Died.

Datalounge seems like the last dinosaur left from that era.

Rosie was still in the closet, and coming on to the straight men during this time. This was the year the wheels started slowly coming off her "Queen of Nice" persona when she feuded with Tom Selleck on her talk show.

Ellen's career was in a slump as well. There was a backlash to her coming out, even from members of the community who felt she went too far. Her career wouldn't start to turn around until she hosted the 2001 Emmys.

To each their own, but it wasn't a great time. There was slightly more tolerance, but you were still dealing with homophobia trying to be normalized. A lot of gay friendly entertainers (looking at you Madonna and Elton) defended Eminem when he got called out for homophobic lyrics. That was not fun.

And the fucking teen pop brigade and the rise of reality TV with that stupid Survivor? Ewwww.

I met a ton of women in 1999 using online lesbian dating sites. I could write what I wanted in a woman and what I didn't want like: no fatties, no butches, no trans, no men.

Life was good.

Staying in Atlanta with a friend at his former college roommate's house. I went to sleep on a sofa bed, pretty drunk on Saturday night. I woke up around 3 am to find the former college roommate riding my raw cock. It was my first bareback fuck.

That was 1999. And it was amazing.

When Rosie was becoming well-known, there was a Blind Item. If a certain TV personality doesn't want private life made public, "she should stop doing kissy wissy at Henrietta Hudson."

[quote]There were no “LGBTQ+” people in 1999 OP. There were gays and there were lesbians. There were also “transsexuals” but they weren’t in the clubs. They were on Jerry Springer.

When I was a young gay man going out and about to every gay bar and club in NYC in the 1990s, I seriously cannot recall any trans people. Like, none. In all of those places it was like 95% gay men and the rest were women, both straight and lesbian. That was it.

I can't remember any real trans presence in NYC in the 90s except the hookers over by the West Side Highway. To hear it now, they were out and about everywhere you went and that is simply not true.

Yay, non-consensual unprotected sex in AIDS times!

Non-consensual but at least the guy wasn't penetrating him, r15. That would have been much more of a violation, imo.

R14 The woke/trans/non-binary/multiple pronouns cult today was created by religious extremists to destroy gay people.

You're right, they were not there back in 1999.

R12. So, he raped you and you gave him a disease of some sort. Good times....

I judge this kind of time of time line The Newhart Scale. From the start of the Newhart show, until the last one, it is a different time. Then things flipped over night. The Newhart show was all white, no cellphones, no internet, no Amazon, etc etc etc. A few months after the end of the show everything changed. Yes I know some of the things I mentioned were around but not for the masses.

It turned into a whole gay drama, r18.

But STD? No. I got tested because I was pretty sure I seroconverted 2 weeks later. I was fine.

And the moon was stripped from Earth’s orbit!

I would stand in a gay bar and good looking and very good looking guys would walk over and stand next to me and cruise me by giving me looks and leaning into me and leaning forward to try to catch my glance. At 59 years old I would be COMPLETELY invisible in a gay or queer ( as some call it now) gathering place.

Yeah. Thanks kitten.

R22, you would be mobbed with bachelorettes wanting selfies with an actual gay.

Columbine would like a word.

OP, other DLers have noted the flaws in your post, but I think your point may be that there was a greater sense of community among gays and lesbians in the 90s. We still had safe spaces like gay bars that weren't yet overrun by straight women or driven out of business due to waning interest. Hooking up — or just meeting someone interesting — was still initiated in person rather than by swiping. We had parades that still gave us a sense of pride and family. We had fewer gay movies, and watching them usually meant going to the arthouse theater, and the audience was 99% our kind. It didn't matter that the quality was often mediocre; we still related to the inside jokes and subversiveness. Yes, we have far more rights and equality now, but there was something to be said for being in the rainbow trenches together in the old days. I miss it.

We're not supposed to say it but once the secrecy and seediness was gone, and we became respectable, it wasn't as much fun.

That’s true for all ages and orientations, r27.

We just got old.

Well, the fat man in the White House and his friends might make your dreams come true, R27.

I was in high school which I hated but the world at large was more fun then.

R25 is right. I was a senior in high school when Columbine happened. Those last two months before graduation sucked.

🎵 I fell in love with a beautiful stranger 🎵