Tommy
Fontenot's typical day begins in the dead of night.
The gay 36-year-old works the late shift as a
blackjack dealer, handling $25,000 bets at one of Las
Vegas's most glamorous casinos. When noon rolls
around, Fontenot gets in his truck and drives to his
brand-new 1,800-square foot house in southwest Vegas.
The Louisiana native and former paramedic has lived in
Sin City for four years, and it's finally
starting to grow on him. "I didn't like Vegas
at first," he says. "If you're
looking for a place just to be gay, this isn't the
place. But that's not why I moved here."
Thousands of gay
people like Fontenot are escaping burned-out factory
towns and priced-out megalopolises for a better life in
America's 21st-century boomtown. Some are
scooping mashed potatoes at the Stratosphere buffet,
others are squeezing Cher into a bustier for her
upcoming show at Caesars Palace; all are helping fuel Las
Vegas's $80 billion economy and turning the
formerly red state of Nevada purple.
Just like
transplants proliferating in New York, Los Angeles, and San
Francisco, many people in Las Vegas are not from Las Vegas
-- the city was only incorporated in 1911, when it had
about 800 residents. But the gays streaming into
southern Nevada have little in common with the urban
pioneers who descended on the Castro or the Village 40 years
ago. Seeking safety and freedom, young gays crashed
these coastal cities, helping forge the identities of
their neighborhoods, art scenes, and political
dynasties. The gays moving to today's Las Vegas
arrive with less lofty but no less valid goals --
finding a job and enjoying a decent standard of
living.
"People
tended to move to these gay urban meccas in order to
'become' gay," says Jay Groth, a
36-year-old Las Vegan. "It just seems the people
I meet in Las Vegas are so beyond that."
Groth, a flight
attendant who's lived in the city for 10 years,
shares a spacious home with his partner in the Green
Valley neighborhood. Groth loves his adopted city for
its ethnic diversity, affordable housing, and shopping
and dining options but holds no illusions about its gay
community.
"People
come here expecting the gay scene to be on the same level as
San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, New York," he
says.
"They're not going to get it. They're
just not. We don't have the established
community that those other cities have. It's still
very much in its infancy. But [residents] are becoming
less transient and are a little more willing to invest
in the community."
Among U.S.
cities, off-the-Strip Las Vegas most resembles Los Angeles
or Phoenix -- it's a sprawling suburban-style
city built in the 20th century. But while Los Angeles
and Phoenix have pockets of urbanity,
Vegas--with a metropolitan-area population of over 2
million -- does not. Most residents live in enormous
subdivisions and drive to work. This isn't
necessarily a bad thing, according to author Richard
Florida, who in his book The Rise of the Creative
Class says successful cities are ones that attract a
young, educated work force, including a healthy number
of gays and lesbians. These people typically work in
"creative" fields like architecture,
theater, and engineering.
"A
downtown core is not the key element of success in the
creative economy," Florida writes in an e-mail.
"The most important factor in attracting and
retaining quality young talent is creating a sense of
place and community."
As part of his
urban studies, Florida rates American cities on indexes of
creativity, tolerance, and gay-friendliness. Las Vegas
scored among the lowest in creative positions but
slightly better in tolerance and gay-friendliness.
"Las Vegas
is significantly behind the U.S. national average in terms
of creative workers," says Florida. "The
creative class is the core force of economic growth in
our future economy. Without a focus on all three T's
-- technology, talent, and tolerance -- Las Vegas's
growth will be unsustainable."
The closest thing
Las Vegas has to a "gayborhood" is a forlorn
intersection called the "Fruit Loop" that
houses a few bars, a few clubs, and a gay bookstore in
a strip mall. But that's not evidence of any
deficiency, says Candice Nichols, the feisty executive
director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of
Southern Nevada [see page 39].
"I think
in the same way ethnic populations have assimilated in
Vegas, so has the gay community," says Nichols.
"[Gayborhoods in New York and Los Angeles]
started for safety issues. We don't have that
here."
While Nichols
claims queers are generally free of physical danger in
Clark County, she doesn't contend they're
showered with support. Her community center, located
in a seedy shopping plaza between a bathhouse and a
straight sex club, receives zero money from the state,
county, or city and instead relies on donors for much
of its $350,000 2008 budget (the Los Angeles Gay and
Lesbian Center, by comparison, receives substantial
funding from all levels of government and has a 2008 budget
of $43 million). Las Vegas's Democratic mayor, Oscar
Goodman, widely seen as a jovial, liberal cheerleader
for the city, didn't respond to repeated
requests for comment.
Nichols insists
that even without bureaucratic support, Vegas gays are
growing more cohesive by their own volition. It's
taken a while because it's opportunity, not
orientation, that brings people to Las Vegas. "Gay
people come here because there are jobs -- construction,
entertainment, etc.," Nichols says. "And
it's more affordable than other places. So our
community is everything from show kids to doctors to
lawyers."
Nathan Frye and
his partner, Allen McMullen, are theatrical stage
managers who came to Las Vegas for work 13 years ago and
never left. "We love Las Vegas," the
44-year-old Frye says. As far as Vegas's lack of a
gay village, Frye backs up Nichols's assertion,
saying gays and lesbians are spread throughout the
city.
"We're involved in the Human Rights
Campaign," Frye says. "We know a lot of
[gay] people, but we don't limit ourselves to
that.... It seems sometimes when you do have the
West Hollywoods or the Villages, you are limiting
yourself to who you socialize with and who you expose
yourself to." Groth puts it more simply:
"We're just comfortable here. We don't
miss any of that stuff we had in the large cities."
Frye also points
out that he represents the demographic of many gay Vegas
transplants: settled, typically coupled, over 35, and their
idea of fun is Saks Fifth Avenue and Wolfgang Puck,
not Krave -- the city's preeminent gay dance
club.