In fact, the number of queer bars/clubs in places like the US and the UK has been in steady decline for a long time. In major metropolitan areas, the decline is less noticable than in smaller cities and towns, but it's quite real.
Even in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, arguably the hay day of gay and lesbian bars and clubs, lesbian-only spaces were rare. In New York City of that era, out of dozens of gay and more generally queer bars/clubs, no more than three or four ever identified as specifically/permanently lesbian. Only one (if I'm not mistaken) remains. Gay bar numbers have also declined significantly.
The relative scarcity of lesbian bars/clubs has been put down to multiple factors, women's lack of access to capital during the 20th century being just one of them.
The general decline of interest in queer bars/clubs today compared to decades ago is complex and in the view of many LGBTQ advocates and leaders, probably largely positive. Apparently, young queer people feel less need for specific community safe spaces today, feeling more welcome in more inclusive spaces. Also, much of the "meeting" function of queer bars/clubs has been taken over by online/digital dating and community functions.
In the '90s, if I wanted to meet a gay man for a possible romantic interlude, I'd go to a gay bar. Today, I'd open an app.
Many bars that existed primarily for the purpose of meeting and greeting have closed due a lack of demand.
Some say this is positive, meaning that centering safe spaces around alcohol was never the most brilliantly healthy thing for our communities.
I don't know, but I know finding safe inclusive spaces and community today often means more than finding a bar known as lesbian or gay. That's an old fashioned paradigm and hardly a useful metric.
I network with queer advocates and leaders all the time. When I'm working stories, I call up sources at queer advocacy groups, I speak to queer lawyers, I get the latest scoop from queer community leaders. Often as not, I end up on the phone or in an email chain with a lesbian.
Lesbians are everywhere. Lesbians are influential. Lesbians are part of the beating heart of queer advocacy and LGBTQ community.
I know of very few lesbians like Bindel and Stock who believe that changes in queer culture are erasing lesbians or making life difficult for lesbians.
A lesbian colleague of mine, for example, works in reproductive advocacy. She spends her days helping lesbians learn how to become parents either through medical care or fostering/adoption. She's a busy lawyer dedicated to improving life for queer women in the speciality she's focused on.
Most of her clients are cisgender lesbians, but she has transgender clients too. I don't think it's ever occurred to her that having transgender clients somehow hurts her cisgender clients.
She's too busy advocating for queer women to focus on excluding a subset of queer women for ideological purposes.
She's doing the kind of real work for lesbians that Stock and Bindel only imagine they're doing when they rave about trans women hurting the interests of lesbians.
