The number of queer bars is declining nationwide according to a new study examining the effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns on U.S. LGBTQ spaces. The study’s author, Greggor Mattson, a professor of Sociology at Oberlin College who also curates the Who Needs Gay Bars project on Twitter, found that between 2019 and Spring 2021, the number of gay bars in the U.S. dropped by about 15%.
Compared with the similar decline between 2017 and 2019, Mattson writes, this indicates a steady rate of decline in recent years.
Mattson and his researchers compared historical from the Damron Travel Guide and compared it to an online census of gay bars taken from February to May of 2021.
“36.6% of gay bar listings disappeared between 2007 and 2019,” Mattson tells Chicago’s ABC7 News. “So more than a third of gay bars closed in a 12-year period.”
According to the study, bars serving LGBTQ people of color fared particularly poorly, dropping by nearly 24% between 2019 and Spring 2021. Meanwhile, Mattson and his associates found that no lesbian closed during the pandemic, possibly due to “intensive media and philanthropic attention,” including from the Lesbian Bar Project.
The potential causes for the decline in gay bars around the U.S. cited by Mattson are, on their face, positive. Social equality and greater acceptance of LGBTQ people have led to more welcoming attitudes in bars that don’t cater specifically to the community, as well as a greater willingness of queer people to socialize in non-gay venues. There’s also the rise of social media and the prevalence of location-based apps like Grinder and Scruff that allow LGBTQ people to meet virtually.
The study cautions, however that “Rates of change in listings may not reflect actual changes in the number of establishments.” It also suggests that the decline in gay bar listings was not dramatically increased by the pandemic.
Still, Mattson finds the numbers troubling. “In most parts of the country, gay bars are the only public LGBTQ+ place,” he says. “In other words, they’re the only place where queer people can reliably encounter other queer people in public.”
That could certainly have larger implications for LGBTQ culture. “If the only bar with a purpose-built drag stage closes, then it leaves drag queens and drag kings without a place to practice their art,” Mattson added. “If they’re doing diverse things, then I get really sad when such a bar goes away because they’re special.”
A California gay couple was attacked during Pride weekend in midtown Sacramento’s LGBTQ-friendly Lavender Heights district. The couple was enjoying a night out at Kiki’s Chicken Place before a homophobic man began attacking the pair because of a discarded cigarette.
In a video, it can be seen that the perpetrator of the attack threw a punch landing on one of the victims before a brawl broke out involving several of the restaurant’s patrons. Customers of the establishment broke up the fight before the attacker could do even more damage to the couple.
After the incident, the couple immediately gave a statement to police to investigate the attacker who had disappeared after customers had intervened in the fight. Now, the couple is speaking out about the attack and the ongoing investigation.
“I’m just hoping for justice. I’m hoping there is someone out there who can help identify who these people are,” Derek, one of the victims, told ABC 10.
The search for the suspect is still ongoing, so the victims have not gone public with their last names or images. The only problem is that Sacramento PD has suspended their case.
“I’m mostly upset at Sac PD (Sacramento Police Department) at the moment, due to the fact that there are plenty of leads. I would like more attention from Sac PD. I would like them to re-open the case and do something about it,” the second victim, Jose, said in a statement.
Police have confirmed that the investigation was briefly closed but has now since been reopened. Police said the case will be investigated by detectives assigned to the Bias Crimes Task Force. This task force specifically looks at hate crimes and Derek and Jose’s case qualifies as a hate crime against LGBTQ people.
“As a department, we take all allegations of bias-related crime seriously and remain committed to conducting a comprehensive investigation into this incident,” Sacramento Police Department said in a statement.
The couple discusses the fear they experienced when enjoying a regular night out in their favorite neighborhood.
“It’s scary to think about going out at night to a restaurant or for a drink and not feeling comfortable in the city you are living in,” Derek said.
The couple said this started when a customer at Kiki’s Chicken Place threw a cigarette on the ground.
“I don’t like litterbugs,” Jose said. “So, I went and picked it up and threw it away inside the restaurant. He started approaching me with a very intimidating attitude. He started telling me if I had a problem to let him know because he can go ahead and smoke us both.”
The situation escalated when the perpetrator began shouting gay slurs at Derek and Jose, and the attacker, seen on the video provided by the couple, is shown punching Derek in the face.
Jose is seen jumping up and fighting back. He ended up covered in blood with scratches, bruises, and a broken nose. The couple said they filed a police report after the incident on Friday only to learn the case was suspended days later for a so-called lack of evidence.
Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester called the couple to speak to them directly. Now that the case has been reopened, the hope is that Derek and Jose will receive the justice they deserve.
Tuesday’s primary elections represented significant milestones for LGBTQ candidates in California, Iowa, and Montana. In total, six candidates endorsed by the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which tracks out LGBTQ elected officials nationally, advanced their campaigns to the November elections.
California saw four Victory Fund “Game Changer” candidates advance their campaigns in national and statewide races. In the state’s 41st Congressional District, out Democrat Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, won his primary and will now face off against incumbent Ken Calvert. The Victory Fund calls Calvert “one of the most anti-LGBTQ members of Congress.”
“Will’s victory sets the stage for a battle between an LGBTQ candidate and an incumbent member who opposes that candidate’s most basic rights,” the organization’s President and CEO Mayor Annise Parker said in a statement Tuesday morning. “As anti-LGBTQ bills flood legislatures across the country, voters will have the opportunity to elect someone who has made it his life’s work to increase equity in his community and fight for justice and accountability.”
In California’s newly formed 42nd Congressional District, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia (D) will face off against Republican John Briscoe in November. Garcia lead with 44.7-percent of the vote according to the New York Times, indicating he could become the first LGBTQ immigrant ever elected to Congress. And Rep. Mark Takano, the Democrat incumbent representing the state’s 39th Congressional District, will advance to November’s general election.
Elsewhere in California, out incumbent state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, a Democrat, won his race against Republican Robert Howell, while Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin appears to have lost his bid for State Controller.
In Montana, Zooey Zephyr made history, winning the Democratic primary in the state’s 100th state district. Competing in the heavily Democratic district in November, the progressive candidate could become the first out trans woman ever elected to the Montana state legislature. If elected, Zephyr will become one of only eight out trans state legislators in the country, according to the Victory Fund.
Meanwhile, Iowa state Rep. Liz Bennett (D) advanced her candidacy in the state’s 39th senate district. Bennett remains Iowa’s only LGBTQ-identified state legislator, and if elected she will become the first LGBTQ woman ever to serve in the state’s senate.
Both Zephyr and Bennett were named “Spotlight” candidates by the Victory Fund, which provided additional support and services to their history-making campaigns.
Late Wednesday night, Ohio Republicans passed a bill requiring certain high school and college athletes competing in women’s sports to have their genitals inspected to ensure that they are not transgender.
H.B. 61, known as the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” was intended to prevent transgender women and girls from participating in school athletics.
Under the Ohio High School Athletics Association’s (OHSAA) current guidelines, transgender women and girls must have completed a minimum of one year of hormone treatment and/or demonstrate that they do not possess physical or physiological advantages over “genetic females of the same age group.”
The new law would prohibit trans women and girls from competing with cisgender women and girls. What’s more, anyone would be able to accuse an athlete of being transgender, thus forcing her to undergo evaluations of her external and internal genitalia, testosterone levels and genetic makeup.
“This is truly bizarre medically and nonsensical, but looking at it practically, this bill means that if anyone decides to question a child’s true gender, that child must undergo a sensitive exam,” argues Democratic state Rep. Dr. Beth Liston.
Supporters of the new rules argue that trans women and girls possess unfair biological advantages over cisgender women and girls. Both Equality Ohio and OHSAA confirm that in the seven years since the current rules have been place, there has never been more than on transgender girl participating in girls’ high school sports in any given year.
What’s more, the new rules could have unintended consequences for cisgender girls “accused” of being trans as well. In addition to the invasive genital examinations, Bruno points out that, “Women will sometimes have more testosterone completely naturally than folks would prefer a transgender athlete to have. So they actually are functioning at a lower threshold for what they are allowed to have hormonally to compete.”
Though the bill was not on the state House legislators’ schedule, its language was included in an unrelated bill, H.B. 151, which would revise Ohio’s Teacher Residency Program. House Democrats and even some Republicans had not seen the bill at the time of the vote, according to local ABC affiliate News 5 Cleveland.
“Having this third bill now slipped into an unrelated bill at the last moment is just such an additional slap in the face to our entire community,” said Equality Ohio’s legislative policy director Maria Bruno. “I know that there are a lot of folks in the LGBTQ community who are sitting there asking themselves, ‘What did I do to them? because they keep coming after me’ and I can’t blame them for having that perspective. But the answer is nothing, just existing.”
A pair of vans, cosmetically weathered but carrying an unmeasurable amount of personality along with over 12,000 lbs of food, medicine, and hygiene supplies, were used by a motley group of heroes to deliver critical supplies to two towns still under attack in northeast Ukraine.
Agatha Williams, a metal fabricator from Denver, Colorado turned front-line aid worker aiding civilians amid the Russian invasion, joined the relief effort for the first time. Piloting one of the vehicles, Williams, who goes by the pronouns they/them and identifies as queer, left the United States for the first time to make a difference in the lives of those suffering through the daily horrors of war.
Members of the self-styled Renegade Relief Runners, 3XR for short, have been driving those vehicles across the war-ravaged countryside for the better part of two months, providing humanitarian aid in places that few international groups know exist.
On a recent trip to Zolochiv, which has a population of about 45,000 when counting the surrounding villages, the 3XR team rolled in, making their second trip in two weeks to the local administrative center.
Agatha Williams handing out supplies in Kharkiv Oblast.
With tattoos running down the sides of their face, and stretched holes where gauges once sat in their ears, Williams cuts a striking figure, especially among the usually staid Ukrainian populace. On the day of the delivery to Zolochiv, they and their fellow members of the 3XR were given a heartfelt welcome by the town’s vice mayor. After offloading the first 4,000 pounds of food to residents dealing with the worst kind of food insecurity, Williams and the crew moved on to the local hospital.
After taking an in-depth tour around the destroyed medical complex, the chief doctor asked Williams and another 3XR member, Ken Brady from Oregon, to inspect the hospital’s generator system. As the sounds of artillery explosions thundered in the air above them, they tried to figure out why the generator was emitting diesel fumes.
Seeing how well they worked together, how did Brady think his openly LGBTQ associate was being received in the seemingly conservative nation?
“I admit some trepidation myself, about being out of place as a snarky, tattooed Asian-American, but together we have experienced zero prejudice that I’m aware of,” Brady responded.
He continued, “Ukraine needs and appreciates all help, and each of us is here to provide exactly that. In addition to Agatha, many of my LGBTQ friends at home will be equally surprised and, I hope encouraged, by the presence of a transgender reporter asking this question. Traveling to some of the hardest hit areas with members of the queer community has shown me Ukraine is not messing around, and that help is welcomed despite identity.”
On 3XR’s second day of deliveries, the mission took them west to Parkhomivka. This time more than 8,000 pounds were offloaded under the guidance of the town’s relief coordinator while the mayor came by to express his appreciation for the group’s lifesaving work.
Again, Williams was in the middle of the action.
Agatha Williams carrying supplies in Parkhomivka.
While directing logistics, and bringing comfort to those around them, William’s body language expressed the clear sentiment of feeling ill at ease in the role of hero. Yet their teammates were full of praise for them.
Drew Luhowy, the 3XR’s resident Canadian, observed, “The collective diversity of those who came here to Ukraine to help push back against Russia has been strengthened because we found each other as a team, and thanks to our individual identities, we’ve been able to accomplish much of what we’ve set out to do so far.”
3XR’s Chris Tiller, an airline pilot from Nashville, Tennessee, who has been in Ukraine since early April and was the initial member of the Renegade Relief Runners, spoke directly to the challenges facing Williams on their mission.
“As soon as Agatha made their concerns known as to what adverse impact their identity could have on us in a country such as Ukraine that is thought of as conservative, we made it known, that not only would they never face repercussions for living their truth when we were together, we’d take 100% of Agatha if given the chance.”
“I don’t think my identity played a role in me coming here. It was more a product of how I grew up, in foster care,’ Williams said after everything was handed out and prior to departing Kharkiv with the others. “I’ve identified as queer, and have been Agatha for twenty years, and I’m 37 now, so I’ve always been me. The main reason I came, was to try to help do something to alleviate this senseless suffering.”
“Yes, people seem to keep a distance when they see me, but that is probably as much because of the war and them keeping to themselves as it is about how I look or who I am. Working with people here, Ukrainian or otherwise, has never been a problem.”
As they prepared to depart, I asked the four members what came next. Luhowy was succinct.
“Who knows? We’re all just here to help Ukraine.”
Members of the Renegade Relief Runners. From left in back: Ken Brady, Drew Luhowy, Chris Tiller, Agatha Williams. Front row: Ukrainian civilians Andre and Anna
It turns out that a large number of Republicans believe that teachers can actually make children turn queer.
40% of Republican adults said that they believe teachers can influence students’ sexuality and gender identity, according to a new Morning Consult poll. Only 27% of Democrats and 29% of independents agreed.
Respondents were more likely in the poll to say that teachers can affect students’ academic performance, social skills, intelligence, values, and even religious views, but the alarmingly large number who believe that sexual orientation and gender identity are learned at school may be why so many Republican parents don’t want LGBTQ people to work with children.
The survey found that 31% of Republican parents are “uncomfortable” with LGBTQ people working with their kids, and another 13% had no opinion. Slightly over half – 57% – said they were “comfortable” with LGBTQ people working with their children.
In contrast, 84% of Democratic parents said that they were “comfortable” with LGBTQ people working with their kids and only 10% were “uncomfortable.”
The survey also asked parents if they were comfortable with lessons about “the LGBTQ civil rights movement” being taught in school, and compared that to whether they were comfortable with discussions of “sexual orientation and gender identity.” Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law bans discussions of “sexual orientation and gender identity” in early grades and requires them to be “developmentally appropriate” in older grades – without defining what that means – and many advocates on both sides have taken that language to mean that discussions about LGBTQ people are restricted.
59% of Republican parents said that they oppose lessons about the LGBTQ civil rights movement in schools, and 60% opposed lessons about sexual orientation and gender identity. Democratic parents were less homophobic; only 25% opposed lessons about the LGBTQ civil rights movement and 29% oppose lessons about sexual orientation and gender identity.
Conservative pundits have been saying that parents, generally, don’t want LGBTQ people mentioned in schools. But it looks like it may just be Republican parents who get upset with teachers who mention their same-sex spouses (but never their opposite-sex spouses).
A doctor refused to let a Republican Congressman derail a House Judiciary Hearing by asking for a definition of the word “woman.”
The hearing was held to look address how the Supreme Court is probably going to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the federal right to an abortion in the U.S., and Dr. Yashica Robinson, who provides abortions in Alabama and is on the board of directors of the group Physicians for Reproductive Health, was called to testify about abortion access.
But that didn’t stop Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) from trying to troll her and bringing up a random conservative grievance about the practice of sharing one’s pronouns to help others avoid misgendering people.
“In your written testimony, I noticed you said that you use she/her pronouns,” Rep. Bishop asked her in the hearing. “You’re a medical doctor. What’s a woman?”
“It’s important for you to understand why I said I use she/her pronouns,” Dr. Robinson responded.
Bishop tried to stop her from explaining why she shared her pronouns and again asked, “What is a woman?”
Robinson wasn’t deterred: “I think it’s important that we educate people like you about why we’re doing the things that we do.”
“So the reason I use she and her pronouns is because I understand that there are people who become pregnant that may not identify that way and I think it is discriminatory to speak to people or to call them in such a way as they desire not to be called,” she continued. “It’s important that we respect each individual person.”
Bishop cut her off again: “Can you answer my question of what’s a woman?”
“I’m a woman,” she said.
“Is that as comprehensive of a definition as you can give me?” Bishop asked.
Robinson had had enough and reminded Bishop that the hearing was about abortion, not pronouns or the definition of a woman: “That’s as comprehensive of a definition as I will give you today because I think that it’s important that we focus on what we’re here for, and it’s to talk about access to abortion.”
Several major anti-LGBTQ politicians – including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) – won their primary elections in Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia yesterday and Texas’s run-off elections.
Greene – who tried to shut down the House of Representatives twice because it was debating a ban on anti-LGBTQ discrimination and who has a transphobic sign in front of her office – won her primary yesterday with 69% of the vote in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. 73% of her district voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 elections, so she has an advantage going into the general election.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) won his primary after being challenged by Trump-endorsed former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA). Kemp signed three anti-LGBTQ bills in April, which banned trans athletes from participating in school sports, allowed parents to challenge any material taught in school, and banned “offensive” books from school libraries, which has been understood to include books with LGBTQ content.
Also in Georgia, former NFL player Herschel Walker won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate and will face Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in the general election.
“Don’t call- Don’t put that ghetto g-word on me,” he said in a Twitch stream in January. “I just like masculine men. I’m not a— I don’t wanna be lumped in with the rainbow people.”
In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey (R) won her primary yesterday with 54% of the votes counted so far. Ivey signed a law earlier this month that would throw doctors in jail for providing gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth and young adults, but a federal court stopped the state from implementing it.
“I thank you with all my soul,” Ivey said on Tuesday night. “I am so proud to be your governor.”
In Texas, the incumbent Paxton won his run-off election for state attorney general against George P. Bush. While Paxton got the most votes in Texas’s primary in March, he didn’t get a majority of the vote and had to face Bush in a run-off yesterday.
Bush said that he challenged Paxton because he wanted to advance “good government.”
“This campaign is about good government – making sure we don’t have indicted felons serving at the top of the chain of command of our law enforcement officials here in Texas,” he said on Texas Public Radio.
Earlier this year, Paxton published a non-binding opinion that allowing transgender youth to transition violates their constitutional right to reproduce, a right that is not mentioned in the Constitution. His opinion was so full of medical errors related to transgender people that Yale medical and legal researchers published a report about it and said it was “not grounded in reputable science and are full of errors of omission and inclusion.”
“These errors, taken together, thoroughly discredit the AG opinion’s claim that standard medical care for transgender children and adolescents constitutes child abuse,” the Yale researchers wrote.
Trump-era White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders won the Republican primary for Arkansas governor, winning a campaign where she avoided talking about state issues and instead focused on national Republican talking points.
Sanders attacked LGBTQ equality repeatedly when she was at the White House, including saying that “religious liberty” requires allowing “a baker to put a sign in his window saying we don’t bake cakes for gay weddings” and saying that allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military is “a very expensive and disruptive policy,” even though experts did not agree with that statement.
An internet forum where people pretending to be parents forcing their children to be transgender has gotten shut down after it was found to be full of fake stories.
As the U.S. plunges even deeper into a moral panic over children who are supposedly being forced to transition, some anti-transgender people are reacting to the fact that that never happens by making up stories about it and trying to pass them off as real.
“Anyone else have trouble convincing your teen kids to continue transitioning?” user “Funkyduffy” wrote on the subreddit r/TransParentTransKid. “My 15-year-old daughter (AMAB) has started refusing her estradiol so I’ve been crushing the pills and putting it in her cereal in the morning.”
Reddit is a largely anonymous internet platform where most users create unidentifiable handles and connections between users aren’t the focus, a contrast to social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This makes it easier and more accepted for people to create temporary profiles to say whatever they want on various forums called subreddits.
One such subreddit, r/TransParentTransKid, was started last August when some users decided to post fake stories to it to promote the negative stereotype that parents and schools are forcing kids to be transgender. In reality it is common for schools and parents to be obstacles to trans kids expressing their identities while it’s unheard of for schools and parents to impede cisgender kids the same way.
The user who called for the subreddit’s creation said that it would be “filled with stories about how our real/adoptive children magically learned they were also trans after finding out about their parents,” according to Reuters.
According to another subreddit, r/AgainstHateSubreddits, r/TransParentTransKid was shut down for violating Reddit’s rules because they were “engaged in promoting hatred of transgender people, as well as targeted harassment.”
But the stories still spread outside of Reddit to rightwingers who were all too willing to believe them.
“This is fucking child abuse and I’ll die on this Hill,” wrote libertarian author Justin O’Donnell on Twitter, posting a picture of Funkyduffy’s fake story. He got almost 46,000 likes for it.
Ian Miles Cheong – who has a history of posting misinformation about trans people online and even riling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) up – shared the story with the words “Good parenting.”
The story comes as conservative politicians and activists are claiming that there is a massive effort by schools and parents to turn children transgender.
For example, Rep. Greene said in February that there are “these mothers that think [having a trans child] is like having a handbag. They need to have a boy, a girl, and a trans child like as if they’re some kind of accessory.”
Funkyduffy’s story may have been one that pushed her to believe that such parents exist.
“I have never – not once – heard of a child being forced to transition,” said the ACLU’s Gillian Branstetter. “The exception is intersex children who are frequently forced into surgeries, yet every effort to ban gender-affirming care exempts those surgeries.”
In 71 countries, being queer makes you a criminal. In 11 of them, the punishment is death. Some countries differentiate between having gay sex and actually being gay, but the result is discrimination no matter the reasoning.
America’s religious right is clamoring for crackdowns on gender expression and LGBTQ rights similar to the laws enforced in less advanced countries. Some prominent Republicans and pastors have gone so far as to suggest America should be a theocracy like some countries on the list.
Iran, parts of Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates proscribe the death penalty for anyone proven to be homosexual.
