Pushing sexual activity into shadows doesn't eliminate risk—it eliminates outreach.
Nearly four decades after Minneapolis enacted a ban on adult bathhouses during the height of the AIDS crisis, the city is preparing to reckon with what that prohibition has meant — not only as a public health measure, but as a chapter in the longer story of how societies regulate intimacy and marginalize those who live outside dominant norms. The City Council heard testimony from over thirty residents, most urging repeal, with advocates arguing that criminalization never eliminated risk but only made it invisible — and invisibility, in matters of health and human dignity, carries its own cost. A council vote is expected next week, with the mayor signaling he would sign a repeal into law.
- Decades of criminalization have pushed sexual activity into hidden spaces where public health workers cannot reach the people who need them most.
- Over thirty residents testified in favor of repeal, creating rare civic momentum around a topic that has long been treated as too fraught to revisit.
- The ban's own complicated origin — championed by an openly gay council member dying of AIDS — forces the city to hold both good intention and structural homophobia in the same hand.
- Council Member Jason Chavez is drawing a careful line between honoring a predecessor's legacy and refusing to let that legacy obscure the discrimination baked into the ordinance's support.
- With Mayor Frey signaling he would sign a repeal and a vote scheduled for next week, the ban's reversal appears likely — closing a chapter that outlasted the crisis that created it.
Minneapolis City Council held its second public hearing Wednesday on whether to repeal a 1988 ban on adult bathhouses, with more than thirty residents testifying — most of them in favor of striking the ordinance from the books.
The public health argument anchored the case for repeal. Researcher Jay Orne told the council that criminalization doesn't end sexual activity; it simply drives it underground, where outreach workers lose access to the people they're trying to reach. Visibility, advocates argued, is a precondition for intervention.
LGBTQ+ activists placed the ban within a broader history of legal exclusion. Patrick Scully, who lived through the original ordinance's passage, described a lifetime in which same-sex relationships were criminalized and marriage was forbidden — the bathhouse ban one thread in a larger fabric of state-enforced marginalization. Supporters also pointed to economic benefits and the potential for regulated venues to promote safer practices in ways that hidden spaces cannot.
The ban's origins complicated the debate. In 1988, it was championed by Brian Coyle — the first openly gay Minneapolis council member — who believed it was necessary during the AIDS crisis. Coyle, who had been diagnosed with HIV in 1986, died of AIDS-related complications in 1991 at age 47.
Council Member Jason Chavez, the only openly LGBTQ+ member currently serving, acknowledged Coyle's intentions but argued the historical record couldn't be separated from the homophobia that also drove support for the ordinance. Honoring Coyle's memory, Chavez suggested, didn't require preserving a law that others backed out of outright rejection of LGBTQ+ existence.
Mayor Jacob Frey indicated he would sign a repeal if the council passed one. A vote is scheduled for next week.
Minneapolis City Council convened Wednesday for its second public hearing on whether to overturn a ban on adult bathhouses that has stood for nearly four decades. The ordinance in question would repeal the 1988 prohibition and establish new regulations for venues where consenting adults can engage in sexual activity. Over thirty residents testified, the vast majority urging the council to strike down the law.
The case for repeal centered on a public health argument that proved difficult to dismiss. Jay Orne, a researcher with the Aliveness Project, told the council that criminalization does not eliminate sexual activity—it simply drives it underground. When such spaces operate in shadows, he explained, outreach workers and educators lose the ability to reach people with prevention tools and information. The logic was straightforward: visibility enables intervention; invisibility enables risk.
LGBTQ+ activists framed the ban as a relic of discrimination that had always targeted their communities. Patrick Scully, who lived through the original ordinance's passage, spoke with the weight of lived experience. He described a lifetime of legal exclusion: same-sex relationships were criminal in Minnesota until he was in his fifties; marriage remained forbidden until his sixties. The ban on bathhouses was one thread in a much larger tapestry of state-enforced marginalization. Scully's testimony suggested that asking LGBTQ+ people to abide by rules designed for heterosexual life was itself a form of coercion.
Other advocates highlighted economic and community benefits. Supporters argued that repealing the ban could strengthen Minneapolis's tourism industry and, more importantly, create safer spaces where the LGBTQ+ community could gather without legal jeopardy. The Safer Sex Spaces Coalition emphasized that regulated venues could promote health practices in ways that criminalized, hidden spaces simply could not.
The history of the original ban added complexity to the debate. In 1988, the ordinance had been championed by Brian Coyle, the first openly gay member of the Minneapolis City Council. Coyle believed the measure was necessary during the AIDS crisis, and the Minnesota Star Tribune reported that many in the LGBTQ+ community supported it at the time. Coyle himself was diagnosed with HIV in 1986, though he did not publicly disclose his status until 1991, the year he died of AIDS-related complications at age 47.
Current Council Member Jason Chavez, the only openly LGBTQ+ member serving today, pushed back against the notion that repealing the ban would dishonor Coyle's memory. Chavez acknowledged Coyle's good intentions during an epidemic but insisted that the historical record could not be separated from the homophobia that also drove support for the ordinance. Some who backed the ban, Chavez noted, did so not out of public health concern but out of a fundamental rejection of LGBTQ+ existence itself. That distinction mattered.
Mayor Jacob Frey indicated to Minnesota Public Radio that he would sign a repeal if the council passed one, though he stopped short of making it a priority for his administration. The council is scheduled to vote on the ordinance the following week, setting up what appears likely to be the ban's reversal after nearly four decades on the books.
Citações Notáveis
Pushing sexual activity into less visible spaces does not eliminate the risk. It makes outreach and education more difficult.— Jay Orne, Aliveness Project researcher
I have lived most of my life criminalized and excluded by the system. Don't expect me to live my life like you live your life if you're heterosexual.— Patrick Scully, LGBTQ+ activist
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does a bathhouse ban from 1988 still matter now, in 2026?
Because it's never really been about bathhouses. It's about whether the state gets to criminalize the intimate lives of LGBTQ+ people. The ban was written during the AIDS crisis, but it outlived the crisis by decades. Now it's just a law that says: this community cannot gather, cannot exist in certain ways.
But wasn't the original ban supported by gay people themselves, including the council member who passed it?
Yes, and that's the hard part. Brian Coyle was trying to protect his community during a catastrophe. But you can hold both things at once: his intentions were real, and so was the homophobia of others who used the same law for different reasons. The ban didn't distinguish between those two motivations.
The public health argument seems to be winning the day. Is that the real reason people want repeal, or is it cover for something else?
It's both. The health argument is genuine—you can't educate people about safer practices if they're hiding. But it's also true that people want the freedom to exist without state surveillance and criminalization. Those aren't separate things. They're the same thing.
What does it mean that this is happening now, not in 1995 or 2010?
It means the community finally has enough power and safety to ask for it. For decades, asking for this would have been politically impossible. Now there's a council member who can say it out loud, researchers who can back it up, and a mayor willing to sign it. That shift didn't happen by accident.