Opinions
Breeders: Can straights be queer?
Our identities are not solely about our sex partners
![](https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2024/06/odd_man_out_insert_by_Bigstock.jpg)
As a barback, Iām pretty damn annoying.
I push past you with my ice buckets. I take your glass away, sometimes before youāre finished. I bump into the bartenders, tell patrons to step aside, and cut the bathroom line, all while covered in sweat, stains, and sometimes a little vomit.
In contrast, the bartenders get all the glory. They charm your socks off with pleasant conversation and ā oh, would you look at that? They made you a fancy drink, too. How lovely.
While I might sound bitter, I enjoy observing how the bartenders approach customer interaction. Some rely on wit, others on speed, a few on good ole fashioned kindness and, on occasion, a master who can employ all three. Yet thereās one bartender so charming, so magnetic, so comical, he leaves patrons (and some staff) swooning in his glow.
His name is Fred. Hereās the thing about Fred: Heās a six-foot-three-and-a-half-inch hunk of a man oozing what kids today call the rizz, or charisma to us older folk, and in the wake of this rizz comes scores of adoring fans. Hereās the other thing about Fred: heās straight.
Gay gasp ā a straight bartender in a gay bar? The mere notion may cause some waves. And here, in a queer publication, just before Pride no less, I dare to ask whether straights can belong in the queer community. Time to roll out the cancellation carpet, folks.
Admittedly, that reaction is understandable, for we gays are protective of our spaces. Fighting for nightlife is a cornerstone of our history; Stonewall was pivotal for a reason, after all. But the world is different now, isnāt it? There are more queers, more queer identities, and more allies all around us. As a result, weāve made some significant strides.
Yet the tone toward our straight allies isnāt always the most positive. We detest the straight bachelorette parties, those gay-baiting straight dudes, that shrieking straight girl piercing our ears, and the overly affectionate straight couple taking up space. For many, the straights remain our adversaries, so much so that we degrade them with terms such as the title of this piece.
Take, for example, a few months ago at the Pub. It was an early Sunday afternoon just before the post-brunch rush when a sizable group of straight-looking college dudes overtook three tables on our covered patio. As they strolled in, every queer glared them down like a scene from a spaghetti Western. A few patrons even complained.
That was before we learned the group wasnāt there for a heist but rather their friendās 21st birthday ā the same friend who came out to them the night prior. Out of support, they all joined him in his first legal foray into a gay bar. If youāre not already thinking it, Iāll spell it out for you: That is fucking cute.
So, why were we so hostile? Are we projecting our own trauma? Are we always like this? To help me understand, and in what can only be described as the most sound scientific study the world has ever seen, I messaged 10 D.C.-area straight friends with a simple question: Have you ever felt judged inside a gay bar? After half replied yes, I grew more curious and asked 10 D.C. gays the same question. Of those, seven said the same.
Queers: me thinks we have a judgment problem.
Perhaps I should be surprised, but Iām not. I, too, have felt judged in gay bars. Certainly Iāve been the butt of jokes, and if itās not me, itās someone else. Yet according to the history weāre oh so proud of, gay bars should be safe spaces for queers. Now Iām left wondering: What does it mean to feel safe, and who qualifies as queer?
For the first question, consider my anecdote from earlier. To me, the birthday boyās straight friends were as critical in facilitating a safe space for him as the bar they entered, for they encouraged him to be himself, which is what safety is all about. In fact, many of us have straights who support us ā when we come out, when we discuss our lifestyles, when they join our gay escapades ā all while defending us to others. In my own life the straights sometimes feel like a reprieve, particularly from the hard knocks the gay community can deliver, and thereās no better example than my good friend Alec.
Alec and I attended college together, and every so often he and I meet up at his house, order food, and smoke a ton of weed in his basement. Weāll catch up on life before diving into a show; right now, weāre watching the āChuckyā TV series (Yes, Chucky the scary redheaded doll, but the show is remarkably camp and queer. Turns out Don Mancini, the creator of Chucky, is gay).
During these hangouts, it often strikes me how connected Alec is to queer culture: he loves watching Bravo, his place is impeccably decorated, and heās often showing me whatās popular on gay Twitter. Last time, having just read an article about actor Darren Criss identifying as culturally gay, I asked him, āDo you ever feel confined by straight culture?ā
Alec repacked his bong as answered, āabsolutely.ā
When I inquired further, he explained, āMy thoughts on straight culture can basically be summed up as āit’s boringā and gay culture is a lot more fun. I’m not super into sports. I don’t golf. I don’t date. I’m not MAGA. I watched āThe Sopranosā but once was enough. There’s not a lot for me in straight culture. I do, however, follow pop culture and entertainment news, I listen to good music, I take pride in my house and how it’s decorated, I love the āReal Housewives.ā There’s just more for me in gay culture.ā
Now back to the second question: who qualifies as queer? Must we look a certain way? Dress a certain way? Some might say enjoying sex with the same sex, but what if youāre not sexual? What if someone happens to be straight but rejects the same traditional norms and values we do? And what if that straight makes us feel safer than some gays for simply being who we are?
I usually prefer nuance, but when it comes to the question of whether straights can be queer, my opinion is absolutely. Definitely not all, but certainly some. Why? Because being queer isnāt solely about your sex partners. Rather, itās about embracing non-normative sexual and gender lifestyles to allow queerness to flourish, and a heterosexual is just as capable of that mindset as a homosexual is of rejecting it (unfortunately those exist, but Iāll save that for another piece). Better put: when a straight person feels like a fish out of water in the pond of their own kind, well ā whatās more queer than that?
Speaking of fish out of water, the other day I asked my favorite straight bartender how his time at a gay bar has been.
āItās been very gay,ā Fred so aptly replied, āand I mean that in the best way. Itās been a blast. Really couldnāt ask for a more accepting and open team than the one at LGP. Iāve learned more about the gay community in six months here than I wouldāve learned in 10,000 years outside of it. It was a front flip cannonball into the deep end in the best way.ā
That warmed my heart to hear. And if there was any doubt in my mind about Fredās true orientation, his cannonball metaphor all but erased it.
Jake Stewart is a D.C.-based writer and barback.
![](https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2024/06/20240627_Donald_Trump_and_Joe_Biden_at_CNN_Presidential_Debate_in_Atlanta_screen_capture_insert_2_via_CNN.jpg)
Joe Biden was clearly ready with some facts for this debate, the sad part is he couldnāt articulate them. He sounded raspy, and lost track of what he was saying in the first few minutes of the debate. He did get better as the debate progressed but came off sounding and looking like an old man. For those of us hoping he would sound like he did at the State of the Union, or the speech he gave on anti-Semitism, it was a huge disappointment.
So, where his campaign goes from here is anyoneās guess. Behind the scenes some Democrats are calling for him to step down as the candidate. But that is much more difficult than it seems at this time. And then, will there be a fight for who the candidate will be. Will it automatically be Kamala Harris, or will it be someone else? So many unanswered questions over the next couple of weeks.
The only positive take-away for Democrats from the debate was how deranged Donald Trump sounded. He refused to deal with any issue, refused to say he would accept the results of this election, refused to acknowledge climate change, or Jan. 6, and kept saying how the states should control the issue of abortion, and womenās health. Every one of these things should be frightening to so many people. It is clear if Trump is elected, we will have a dictator in the White House, who believes Hitler did good things. His election is scary for women, young people, Black Americans, and the LGBTQ community. If states control issues related to any of these groups, they are screwed.
One of the very few good lines Biden got across was when he said 40 high-level Trump appointees, members of the Cabinet, and his vice president, have refused to endorse him as they know him best. People need to take their word for how bad he will be should he be reelected. Trump kept talking nonsense and it was hard to keep up with the lies. The moderators didnāt call him on any of it, but CNN has said before the debate they wouldnāt. But then Biden missed so many chances to call him on the garbage he was spouting. I kept hoping he would turn to him and say clearly, āYou canāt believe all the BS you are spouting. You sound like a deranged six-year-old and someone who would take our country down the tubes.ā
Now I accept the fact Biden speaks more slowly and softly. Though after the debate they said he had a cold. He could have said that at the beginning of the debate, if it was true, and explained his voice to the audience. And while we know he has a stutter, it seemed so much worse during the debate than it normally does. Was it nerves, maybe, but difficult nonetheless for him, and for those listening. We must have compassion for anyone with any kind of a disability. Then one had to ask, was he over-prepared for this debate? Was he so scripted he didnāt dare say anything off script. When he did, they got into this thing about golf handicaps and both sounded so childish.
Biden did manage to talk about the things he has done, and the successes of his first administration. There have been many. First bringing the country successfully out of the pandemic. He spoke about unemployment being the lowest it has been in decades, and the more than 15 million jobs created since he took office. He was honest about inflation and the fact that not all the economic successes the country is having are trickling down to every American. He understands that rents are high, and grocery bills are still too high. He made clear he wants to raise taxes on the rich and Trump wants to lower them. He had a plan to ensure Social Security would stay solvent, Trump had nothing as usual.
Finally, I was surprised that in his two-minute closing, Biden didnāt go back to the issues of abortion, climate change, and saving democracy. Did his debate prep team tell him not to? If so, they were wrong. Whether it remains Joe Biden on the ticket, or is someone else, I am 1,000% committed to do everything I can to see Democrats are elected across the board. It is clear to me, and should be to all decent people, electing Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans, will be the end of our country as we know it today.Ā
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.
Opinions
As fewer anti-LGBTQ bills pass, the fight gets harder
A growing indifference to suffering that is baked into the legal system
![](https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2024/06/law_gavel_bw_insert_by_Proxima_Studio_via_Bigstock.jpg)
In recent years, advocates have faced an unprecedented avalanche of anti-LGBTQ legislation each spring. In 2024, however, the onslaught seems to have faltered somewhat. While hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills were once again introduced, as many state legislative sessions draw to a close, fewer bills have been enacted into law.
While that may seem like cause for celebration, itās also cause for concern.
To be sure, the slowdown in anti-LGBTQ legislation is welcome. Beginning in 2020, legislation targeting transgender rights in particular had sailed through state legislatures, with the number and scope of hostile bills increasing each year. Unlike earlier years when one or two prominent anti-LGBTQ bills triggered a national pushback that often chastened lawmakers, hundreds of bills have been introduced during legislative sessions in the last four years, often with little debate or scrutiny, and dozens of them zealously passed into law.
Those bills do real damage when they are enacted, cutting LGBTQ people off from material benefits like health care and domestic violence shelters, recognition by the state, and equal participation in public life. Even when they fail to become law, they have devastating effects on the mental health of LGBTQ people, throwing their lives into disarray and sapping valuable time and energy from LGBTQ communities. This especially affects children, with more than 90 percent of LGBTQ young people in a recent Trevor Project survey reporting that politics had negatively affected their personal well-being.
But the recent slowdown, far from being a positive signal, may well reflect a growing indifference to the suffering of LGBTQ people that is now baked into the political and legal system. Opponents of LGBTQ rights have normalized hostile rhetoric and enacted draconian laws that seemed unthinkable just a couple of years ago, and even ardent supporters of equality find themselves unsure how they might reverse state laws that unapologetically strip away LGBTQ rights.
If anything, it has become apparent that the damage that has been done since 2020 will most likely reverberate for a generation, and the past year shows that restoring and advancing LGBTQ rights will be a painstaking endeavor.
And one sobering reason for the slowing pace of anti-LGBTQ legislation is that, at this point, many conservative states have already stripped away important rights, particularly for transgender children. As of 2024, half of the states in the U.S. prohibit transgender girls from playing school sports, and half have banned or criminalized at least some forms of medically indicated healthcare.
Put differently, lawmakers arenāt targeting some rights this year because theyāve already eviscerated them.
Yet even as the pace of legislation slows, critical rights continue to be stripped away. According to the ACLU, more than 30 anti-LGBTQ bills have been enacted in 2024 ā fewer than the 84 enacted in 2023, but still far too many. Among them, Utah and Mississippi restricted transgender people from accessing bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools and other government buildings.
Lawmakers in Ohio overrode the governorās veto to ban transgender children from receiving gender-affirming care or playing sports consistent with their gender identity. South Carolina and Wyoming similarly enacted blanket bans preventing transgender children from accessing gender-affirming care.
Many of the bills that have been introduced this year sought to expand existing anti-LGBTQ legislation in new ways. Alabama, for example, successfully expanded its bathroom ban from K-12 schools to colleges and universities. Even those that didnāt pass are in many cases likely to be reintroduced after the 2024 election, particularly if anti-LGBTQ lawmakers increase their showing in state legislatures or if governors who are supportive of LGBTQ rights are no longer positioned to veto hostile legislation.
In many states with anti-LGBTQ legislation, administrative and regulatory agencies are being used to curtail LGBTQ rights even further. Florida offers an instructive example. Even after years of anti-LGBTQ legislation, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles took things a step further within its mandate, and decided in 2024 that transgender people could no longer update the gender marker on their driverās licenses. This echoes recent regulatory crackdowns elsewhere in the United States, from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigating parental support for transgender children as child abuse to school boards across the country stripping away lifesaving resources in schools.
And while many believed that courts would provide a bulwark against discriminatory legislation and regulations, in part because of strong Supreme Court precedent to suggest that anti-transgender discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, that has not consistently been the case. Trial courts have largely found in favor of transgender litigants, criticizing the insufficient justification and discriminatory purpose of anti-transgender laws, but some appellate courts have nevertheless allowed the laws to take effect.
Perhaps most alarming, there are advocates and lawmakers who, if in a position to do so, are eager to carry out an even harsher attack on LGBTQ rights. Project 2025, which a group of conservative organizations has drafted as a roadmap for a second Trump administration, promises an even more draconian attack on LGBTQ rights. This would include rolling back existing nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people, reinstating the transgender military ban, and codifying state restrictions on transgender rights at the federal level, in addition to limiting recognition of same-sex relationships.
The anti-LGBTQ backlash may be waning in certain respects ā but in other ways, it has only just begun. As we celebrate Pride, LGBTQ people and their allies should be mindful of the need to support those communities whose rights are being eroded, invest in transgender rights organizing, demand that lawmakers prioritize LGBTQ rights, and fight for the independent institutions and protections for basic freedoms that are essential to hold power to account.
Ryan Thoreson is a specialist on LGBTQ rights at Human Rights Watch and teaches at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.
Commentary
LGBTQ people deserve freedom, a sense of home, and belonging
Latoya Nugent found refuge in Canada after fleeing Jamaica
![](https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2024/06/20240516_LaToya_Nugent_at_Toronto_LGBTQ_Rights_March_insert_courtesy_Rainbow_Railroad.jpg)
Seven years ago, my fight for queer liberation in notoriously homophobic Jamaica culminated in a violent and brutal unlawful arrest and detention. This was the peak of decades of persecution due to my sexual orientation and work as a queer human rights defender and activist. It completely broke me and silenced me. I suffered severe emotional trauma, from which I am still recovering years later.
Following that life-threatening arrest, I became a shell of who I once was. I cut off communication with my community for several years, unable to face my fear of the police and the hostility of the world around me.
In 2022, I was one of the 9,591 at-risk LGBTQI+ people who reached out to Rainbow Railroad for help. Through the organizationās Emergency Travel Support (ETS) program, which relocates at-risk LGBTQI+ people and helps them make asylum claims in countries like the U.S., I resettled in Canada where Iāve been living safely with dignity and pride.
This Pride Month, Iām reflecting on what it means to be safe. Who has access to safety and why others are excluded from it. What is our collective role and responsibility in expanding safety for our queer and trans communities, especially those in the over 60 countries that criminalize LGBTQI+ people?
Safety means different things to different people depending on our experiences and journeys. For me, itās the difference between suffering and thriving, feeling worthless and worthy, and feeling hopeless and hopeful. It is the difference between displacement and belonging.
Rainbow Railroad recently released a report that examines the state of global LGBTQI+ persecution, drawing on data from 15,352 help requests spanning 100+ countries. This report is significant for several reasons, chief among them is the reality that no other organization or government captures the breadth and depth of data on LGBTQI+ forced displacement, perpetuating the invisibility of queer individuals in humanitarian responses. The report is an important contribution to the discourse on the intersection of queer identity, LGBTQI+ persecution, forced displacement, and humanitarian protection systems.
Of all the data and insights uncovered in the report, I was most struck by one statistic ā 91 percent of at-risk LGBTQI+ individuals relocated through the ETS program reported an improved sense of personal safety. This statistic is particularly personal to me because ETS was the only relocation option accessible to me in 2022 when I reached out to Rainbow Railroad for help.
I am in that 91 percent because I am now thriving. I feel worthy. I am hopeful about life. And I belong.
Today, among the 120 million forcibly displaced people around the world, queer and trans individuals face compounded complications from homophobia and transphobia while trying to access protection and safety. And while the anti-gender movement continues to swell in some states, I firmly believe that the U.S. remains a global leader in refugee resettlement ā which is why the U.S. government must uphold its international obligations and reverse its recentĀ executive orderĀ that imposes severe restrictions on the right to seek asylum.Ā
Queer and trans individuals deserve freedom, a sense of home, and belonging ā realities that flourish only when rooted in the bedrock of safety.
There is a lot more work to be done. It’s challenging. It’s complex. It’s costly. But I have experienced firsthand what the transformative impact of Rainbow Railroadās work has on someone’s life ā that ability to lift people out of danger into safety is something worth celebrating this Pride.
Latoya Nugent is the head of engagement for Rainbow Railroad.
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