Three years ago, a disagreement erupted on some ball fields just south of Seattle. The 2008 Gay Softball World Series was under way, an alternate universe of competitive sports that moves each year to a different city, bringing with it nearly 200 gay softball teams from across the United States and Canada, as well as thousands of spectators. Drag queens rally the fans. Shouts of “Giiiiirrrl” carry across the grass. Guys with their arms draped over other guys stand in the dugout, next to women with biceps bigger than their own.

It’s serious competition, with all the usual intensity and emotion—including, in 2008, suspicions of cheating.

For the Seattle world series, the San Francisco Gay Softball Association, one of the oldest gay softball clubs in the United States, sent a team that called itself D2. They’d been together for some time, but so far the best they’d ever done at the Gay Softball World Series was place fourth. LaRon Charles, a short, scrappy, goateed military veteran, was serving as the team’s coach. As he would later recount in court documents, he and his team decided early on that in order to win, they would need to push themselves “harder than we ever had.”

Down in San Francisco, during the regular season, D2 added practices on weekdays for the first time in the team’s history. Players traveled to weekend tournaments to get in top form. The club held fundraisers to defray hotel and airfare costs for getting people to Seattle.

The work paid off. On August 30, 2008, having sailed through the early rounds of competition at the Seattle Gay Softball World Series, D2 found itself in the semifinals. Their opponents were the Atlanta Mudcats, and they beat them in a blowout, 23–3.

There was just one game left: a championship match against the Los Angeles Vipers.

The night before that final game, rumors began to swirl.

D2 was cheating, the rumors went, and doing so in a way that is unique to the world of organized gay sports.

The accusation, which ended up spawning a federal lawsuit that could change the way gay sports are played around the country, was simple and yet very hard to prove: D2 was fielding too many heterosexual players.

The North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance, which puts on the Gay Softball World Series, was founded in the 1970s by gay players in San Francisco and New York seeking to promote a safe and separate space for gay softball. The group has a long history of limiting the number of straight people allowed on the field during world series play; in the organization’s early years, straight people weren’t allowed on the field, period.

Which is not to say that many straight players wanted in. This was the 1970s and 1980s, after all.

It wasn’t until 1993, as hardened cultural animosities toward gays were beginning to crack, that the flat-out ban on straight people loosened. “The rationale for changing the rule,” said NAGAAA commissioner Roy Melani, “was that we now had advocates in the straight community. Plus, we also had family members, whether it be sons or parents, who wanted to play.”

A new rule was adopted: Two straight players per team were allowed during the Gay Softball World Series.

Melani and I were seated across the table from each other at Scandals, a gay bar in Portland, as he told me about this evolution. He’s 51 and trim, and wore a purple striped dress shirt. He pitches for a gay team known as the Portland Brewers, and he apologized in advance for the way he speaks—explosive emotion, chopping hand gestures—saying it’s a combination of his passion for gay sports and his Italian heritage. His lawyer, Roger Leishman of Seattle’s Davis Wright Tremaine, sat next to him, listening closely.

Melani told me right up front that playing against straight teams in the Portland city leagues has convinced him it’s important to have a cap on straight players for NAGAAA’s premier annual event.

“The amount of slurs and the amount of abuse that we take—in Portland, Oregon!—is amazing,” he told me. “Last year, we arrive to play against another team, and the umpire says, ‘Oh, here come the crossdressers.'” On the field, he’s heard opposing players call out “Faggot!” or “You throw like a girl!”

“Meanwhile,” Melani said, “we beat the shit out of these guys.”

He went on: “There was one time, a few years ago, where we split a double header with a straight team—they were ready to take baseball bats and come to blows because we were gay. Mind you, my team was not out there hugging and kissing everybody. That was not what we were doing. We were playing softball. And we were beating them. And that was a problem for them.”

This is one of the many hard-to-duplicate experiences that come with playing on a gay sports team, this opportunity to humble—and enrage—straight people who aren’t used to gays being good at sports. It’s a reminder that, to make the clichéd metaphor literal, the playing field still isn’t even. Even in our quickly shifting culture, gay people still face discrimination and hostility, still spend a certain amount of time crisscrossing the divide between explicitly queer spaces and dominantly heterosexual spaces. Partly because of this, for many in the gay community there’s still a powerful pull toward moments, like the Gay Softball World Series, in which that kind of divide-crossing gets put on extended pause.

The problem comes—as NAGAAA is now finding out in federal court—when a group of people tries to defend queer space by enforcing a limit on exactly how many non-gay people can be included.

In Seattle, figuring out who had a right to be included involved a kind of tribunal, with players being hauled before a “protest committee” to answer pointed questions.

All the suspicion made a competitive atmosphere even more charged. “In the first innings of the championship game, we were playing well,” LaRon Charles, the D2 coach, recounted in a March declaration to the court. Then, suddenly, the game was stopped for a discussion of the fact that D2 was being officially protested based on the allegation that it had too many straight players. Charles went on:

The game resumed, and we were leading the Vipers by about 10 runs when play was stopped again in the third inning. Again, there was a discussion about the protest against our team. Then the game resumed. This happened at least one more time… People had started coming up to our dugout asking questions about different players and what their names and jersey numbers were… Between the interruptions and the buzz growing in the park about our team being protested, we lost focus and lost our momentum. We ended up losing the championship game, 31 to 28.

What happened next is at the heart of the federal lawsuit, filed in April of last year by the National Center for Lesbian Rights on behalf of Charles and two other D2 players who were brought before the tribunal.

NCLR lawyers allege that at the tribunal, Charles and the two other D2 members had their privacy unlawfully invaded and were illegally discriminated against based on their sexual orientation and race. (All three plaintiffs are “men of color,” according to court documents.) The NCLR is demanding unspecified monetary damages for the “emotional distress” suffered by its clients—described in court documents as “vivid flashbacks,” “loss of sleep,” and feelings of “humiliation, embarrassment, and anger”—plus a nationwide injunction against enforcement of the two-straight-players-per-team limit at the Gay Softball World Series. “Nobody should be put into a situation where they’re marched into a room and forced to answer questions about their sexuality,” said Chris Stoll, the NCLR’s senior staff attorney.

This is the first time the NCLR has ever sued another gay group. It’s taken the unusual step, in part, because it has a profoundly different sense of the current culture—and what’s required to defend gay space—than Melani’s organization does.

“These rules are a legacy of an older time,” Stoll said, speaking of the two-straight-
players-per-team cap at the Gay Softball World Series. “Given how much progress we’ve made, they seem kind of antiquated. Today, a rule that limits participation based on sexual orientation just isn’t necessary to have in a gay sports league, or any kind of gay-friendly space.”

The disagreement is bigger than just this lawsuit. Across the world of gay sports, there is wide divergence on how to handle straight players.

This summer, Vancouver, BC, will play host to the North America Outgames, an Olympics-style competition involving gay teams competing against each other in soccer, swimming, hockey, volleyball, running, mountain biking, badminton, golf, poker, and, yes, softball. The Outgames makes an explicit point of not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation—meaning straight players and teams are theoretically welcome. That’s a very different policy than at the Gay Softball World Series or in the National Gay Flag Football League, which also limits the number of straight players allowed on a team to 20 percent.

This kind of protective discrimination is not unique to gay sports. According to court documents, the Black American Softball Association allows just four “non-black” players per team and demands birth certificates as proof of race; the Native American World Series has a cap of two non-Native softball players per team and requires players to carry “Indian identification”; and the SMASH Softball Tournament for Asian/Pacific Islanders allows only three non-API players and requires “proof of ethnicity.”

The 2008 tribunal, Charles recounted in his court declaration, “was held in a small conference room inside a complex at the park.” All the D2 players waited outside as, one by one, their teammates were brought before a panel composed of leaders in the national gay softball association. Accounts of what followed differ considerably between the plaintiffs and the defendants, but Charles said in his declaration that “more than 25 people were crowded into the small hearing room” and that “the atmosphere felt like a circus.”

According to Charles and his fellow plaintiffs, people inside the hearing room were texting private information to people outside while the questioning was taking place. “When I came out of the hearing room, people I didn’t even know were making comments about my marriage and other things we said in the hearing,” Charles said. (He is married to a woman.)

Meanwhile, the hearing itself seemed to have incomprehensible and shifting standards for how to prove one’s sexuality. Bisexuality, in this recounting of events, was not sufficient evidence to convince the members of the tribunal that a person was not heterosexual.

“Someone on the Protest Committee read me NAGAAA’s definition of ‘heterosexual,'” said Steven Apilado, one of the challenged D2 players, in a March declaration to the court. “I was asked whether it defined me, and I said yes. Then someone on the Protest Committee read me NAGAAA’s definition of ‘homosexual,’ and I was asked whether that definition defined me. I said yes to that question, too.”

Apilado, who is African American and Filipino, had been introduced to the gay softball world when his brother invited him to play on his team. He was ruled “non-gay” by the tribunal and claims that until the hearing, “I had never disclosed my sexual orientation to anybody.”

Charles, who is African American, said that when he, too, professed bisexuality, one of the NAGAAA board members in the room told him, “This is the Gay World Series, not the Bisexual World Series.” Multiple votes were taken with regard to Charles’s sexuality, he said, and “on the final vote, I was voted to be ‘not gay.'”

John Russ, another of the challenged D2 players, refused to answer the tribunal’s questions. “I didn’t want them getting into my personal business,” he explained in court documents.

Russ is African American. Just like the other men of color brought before the tribunal, he was ruled “non-gay.” Curiously, Russ said, another D2 player—a player who is not a plaintiff in the lawsuit—was questioned by the tribunal and refused to answer. That player is white and was ruled “gay.”

What was the racial makeup of the tribunal? “All but one of NAGAAA’s protest committee members were Caucasian,” according to court documents filed by the NCLR. Leishman, the lawyer for Melani and NAGAAA, said there were five committee members, four men and one woman. One of the men was Asian and the rest were Caucasian.

All five committee members have been offended by the suggestion that racism played any part in the proceedings, Leishman said, contending that they made their decisions based only on “the demeanor of the individuals”—meaning, Leishman said, “which ones seemed evasive and not forthright.”

“By the time the voting was over, I was extremely upset,” Russ said. “I raised my hand and I asked how they could ask me these few questions and determine what my sexuality is. Nobody responded.”

With three of D2’s players now ruled “non-gay,” the team was retroactively disqualified from the Seattle Gay Softball World Series and forced to forfeit its second-place trophy.

“I felt like we had gotten hit by a train,” Charles said.

“I started to cry as we were leaving the complex,” said Apilado. “I didn’t want this to end there.”

It did not end there, and Melani now hotly disputes the plaintiffs’ recounting of what went on that day. “First of all,” he told me, “I want to say: They were not treated poorly in any way, shape, or form.”

They certainly feel that way, I told him.

“I know that,” he said. “But you need to hear the other side of the story. This is a really hot button for me. They are at the Gay World Series. Is it unreasonable for someone to say, ‘Are you gay?’ at the Gay World Series? It is not.”

Even so, did this particular line of “Are you gay?” questioning go a bit off the rails?

“They have said that this is a kangaroo court that they were brought in front of,” Melani replied. “In no way, shape, or form was it done like that.”

Central to Melani’s account is his contention that the D2 players never said at the hearing that they were bisexual. “If they’d have said that,” he told me, “we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

At the time, the policies of NAGAAA allowed bisexual players to play in the Gay Softball World Series and not be counted as straight, said Leishman, admitting, “Some people seem to have been confused.”

But he contends that no one with a vote on the tribunal was confused, nor did any of the voting members make any statement about it being “the Gay World Series, not the Bisexual World Series.”

In any case, Leishman said, the gay softball association’s policies have now been clarified. Bisexuals are even more explicitly allowed to play in the world series—as are lesbians, transgender people, and limited numbers of straight people—and the way the organization determines a person’s sexuality is simple: self-declaration. “We don’t have cards, we don’t have pink triangles, and no one’s gaydar is perfect,” said Leishman. “All you can do is ask.”

Stoll, of the NCLR, isn’t sold.

“It’s hard to understand what’s particularly important about the magic number of capping it at two heterosexual players,” he said. “And the real problem is that any way you try to enforce a cap like this is going to have real, devastating consequences. Just look at what happened to the guys in this case.”

Plus, what about the cap’s implication that a gay team can’t—

Melani cut me off.

“Don’t misconstrue,” he said.

“But you know what I’m going to ask.”

“I know exactly what you’re going to ask,” he said.

“Okay, let me just ask it, just for the formality of it: Are you saying that a gay team can’t beat a straight team?”

“No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that they have, and that’s breaking down the barriers of sports.”

Still, Melani feels there’s a place for that kind of majority-gay versus majority-straight competition, and a place for majority-gay versus majority-gay competition—and the Gay Softball World Series is the latter.

After his trip through the tribunal, Charles came away with a very different impression.

“I felt, and still feel, offended that someone would think that having players who were voted by a group of strangers to be ‘non-gay’ would make the difference in whether we win or lose,” he said. “A straight player is no better than I am.”

A trial is set for June in Seattle before US District Court judge John C. Coughenour. One of the more interesting legal questions that lawyers are preparing to debate is whether the Gay Softball World Series, as it manifested itself in Seattle, constituted a “public accommodation.” The phrase is important because it connects to Washington State’s nondiscrimination law, which is designed, for example, to prevent people from being denied access to a water fountain because of their race or kicked out of a business establishment because of their sexual orientation.

As we were sitting at Scandals, Leishman pointed out: “This is a public accommodation.” His message was that if the bar were located in Washington State, a person couldn’t be denied entry because of his or her race or sexual orientation.

In court filings, the NCLR has argued that the Seattle Gay Softball World Series was a public accommodation (it was played on public fields and advertised widely) and that by denying “non-gay” people the ability to participate, NAGAAA violated the state’s nondiscrimination law.

Leishman, returning to his example, explained that essentially what the NCLR is demanding here is not just the right for anyone to enter a gay bar regardless of race or sexual orientation, but also the right for anyone to leap over the bar and start pouring beer for customers. At the 2008 Gay Softball World Series, anyone could buy a ticket regardless of race or sexual orientation, but not everyone was allowed on the field. “You can’t just walk off the street and pick up a bat and start playing on a team,” Leishman said.

Additionally, Leishman argues, the group that puts on the Gay Softball World Series is a private organization—like, say, the Boy Scouts of America, which explicitly excludes homosexuals and in 2000 successfully fought all the way to the US Supreme Court to defend its right, as a private organization, to do so. It just so happens that NAGAAA discriminates in the opposite direction.

Melani, frustrated by a sense that his group has been unfairly singled out, challenges the NCLR to be consistent. Why, Melani asks, has the NCLR not also filed suit against lesbian softball teams that allow only women, or taken some of the race- and ethnicity-based softball competitions to court?

“Are rules like that possibly illegal?” Stoll asked in response. “I think it’s entirely possible.”

Talk to Melani about his path into the world of gay softball, and it quickly becomes clear why a safe space for gay players is so important to him.

It begins with a flashback to high school, which is common: Adult gay athletes are competing not just against their on-field opponents, but also against the memories of what happened to them back then. Craig Kelly, the coach of the Seattle Quake rugby team, sees this all the time in new players, many of whom have never before played organized sports. “In high school, they probably weren’t encouraged to be athletes,” Kelly said. “They were probably singled out as nonathletic when they were younger. Or maybe their own desires were growing—you don’t want to pop wood in the shower.” Michael Coleman, who runs Jet City Hoops, Seattle’s gay basketball league, sees the same thing. “They were either the last person picked on a team, or not picked way back when, and they just want to come out and be a part of that now,” he said. “There’s obviously a comfort level if you’re with other gay people and other people at your skill level.” Plus, he said, “You can say to your fellow players, ‘That guy’s kinda hot.'”

“I played football, I played basketball, and I played baseball,” Melani said of his high school years. He was good, and no one knew he was gay, though Melani was beginning to wonder.

He also was beginning to observe how gay men who had a harder time masking their homosexuality were treated. “I remember,” Melani said, “when we were in gym class, and there were a couple guys I knew were gay. You just know. And the poor guys were the last ones picked. And I remember some sense of ‘If I could make a difference in that situation…'”

I asked whether a kind of survivor’s guilt—a guilt at being able to pass as straight and thrive in the world of high school sports—was behind Melani’s later involvement in the world of gay softball.

“It may well have been,” he said.

If his gay softball association hadn’t had insurance against lawsuits like the one the NCLR is bringing, Melani said, “we would be defunct.” The pretrial legal bills alone would have sunk NAGAAA.

But there’s another money issue that Melani now worries about: If, as a result of this legal fight, the purity of the gay demographic at the Gay Softball World Series is diluted by court order, will NAGAAA still be able to receive lucrative sponsorships from gay-targeting beer companies and the like, the kind of sponsorships that make the event possible?

Adding frustration to his fears, Melani said that one of the men who’s suing NAGAAA over its cap on straight players has himself been playing in the SMASH Softball Tournament for Asian/Pacific Islanders—that’s the tournament that sets a cap of three non-API players per team and requires “proof of ethnicity.”

Interestingly, all the parties involved seem to think that someday there will no longer be a need to fight in federal court over how to defend this country’s gay sports space.

The sticking point is just whether that day is in the future or right now.

Jeff Card, commissioner of the Emerald City Softball Association, which oversees 35 gay softball teams in Seattle, told me: “My view is that eventually this cap on straight players will probably go by the wayside, anyway. It’s just a matter of when. If there’s any judicial action, it would have the effect of simply speeding up the outcome.”

During the regular season, Seattle’s gay softball teams don’t enforce the cap—and aren’t required to by NAGAAA. A good number of straight players participate, some because they simply find gay sports teams more supportive and fun than straight teams. However, Seattle’s gay softball teams are required to enforce the cap when sending teams to the Gay Softball World Series. And the Seattle association has repeatedly used its vote at national board meetings to uphold the world series cap because, Card said, the experiences of gay softball teams in less tolerant cities—”like Tulsa and Oklahoma City”—make a cap on straight players at the world series “a lot more pertinent.”

When I told Melani and Leishman that the lawyer for the NCLR had called the cap on straight players “a legacy of an older time,” Leishman quickly shot back:

“Maybe it is in San Francisco.”

Melani immediately added:

“Not in Birmingham, Alabama, or Memphis, Tennessee.”

Both are places with gay softball teams that need a separate space for gay sports far more than, say, major coastal urban centers. Melani continued: “It would be wonderful to say that we live in a world with no discrimination, and that gay men and women are free to marry and be without discrimination in a job—it’s not the reality that we’re living in. And until that changes, that’s the basis of what we need. Especially in sports. You tell me one Major League Baseball player who is out and proud, and I’ll give you a million dollars.”

I asked: When I can tell you one Major League Baseball player who is out and proud, will you declare mission accomplished and shut down the Gay Softball World Series?

“Yes,” he said. recommended

Eli Sanders was The Stranger's associate editor. His book, "While the City Slept," was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He once did this and once won...

136 replies on “Gay Ball”

  1. Setting aside the ridiculous policing of another person’s sexual expression, isn’t it a GOOD thing that “straight” players would want to join a gay team? Are these idiots seriously suggesting that the kinds of “straight” people would would want to join a gay team are exactly the kinds of straight people who yell slurs at them on the field? A straight is a straight is a straight, right?

    And I also find it ridiculous that the Bona Fide Gays were sooooooo upset that their decisions could be construed as racist. Their instant outrage at the suggestion that their decisions certainly LOOK biased (please, as though anyone could look at that decision and not have it cross their mind) says to me that these queers are not being honest with themselves about it. Like closet cases, they seem to be in denial about something which is pretty suggestive to everyone else. Not saying these dudes would, say, burn crosses or anything, but I’d bet they are tossing some n-words to each other about these players for not shutting up about all this. Just saying.

  2. As I read this, I just kept substituting “Negro League Baseball” for “Gay Softball”, and “white” for “straight”, and it got silly really quick.
    It may still be a few years off, but that gay Jackie Robinson dude is probably going to be a hell of a player and an incredible person.

    Maybe then, we can look back and think how silly something like a gay sports league is.

  4. Thanks Eli, for the most cogent balanced presentation of the sticky issues surrounding this lawsuit. As an active member of the ECSA in Seattle, it’s a shame that we’re somewhat tarnished with the publicity from this suit (because the actions took place during our year hosting the national tournament), even though it was not the Seattle league that made the challenged decisions. It will be an interesting trial to follow.

  5. I agree with the first comment, it is silly to prevent straight people from joining a gay team. In fact, it is counterproductive. If what you are really trying to do is change the culture, then maybe having say, Ken Griffey Jr. join a team would be great. Besides, it is a bit like the historically black colleges and universities. If you are white, you can go to Howard. You might feel a bit out of place, or, depending on your background, you might feel right at home.

    At worst, the gay players get crowded out by straight people, so that only the best of the gay players can play. But isn’t that what folks want, but in the major leagues? In fact, isn’t it what we already have, just with less openness (hell — I’m tempted to out one of those guys, just to collect the million bucks)? If a “gay” league transforms itself into a “gay acceptance” league, and then proceeds to challenge and beat the crap out of a tradition league, wouldn’t that be a good thing?

  7. Thanks Eli, for the most cogent balanced presentation of the sticky issues surrounding this lawsuit. As an active member of the ECSA in Seattle, it’s a shame that we’re somewhat tarnished with the publicity from this suit (because the actions took place during our year hosting the national tournament), even though it was not the Seattle league that made the challenged decisions. It will be an interesting trial to follow.

    My sentiments exactly.

  8. Eli, nice to see this look at a compelling aspect of gay sports and, in particular, gay sports leagues.

    As a decade-long participant in the local gay soccer scene, I’ve heard dozens of different reasons from teammates for why they are attracted to play in a gay league. Many of them are certainly “good enough” to play in the highest levels of general league play…but they choose to keep at least one foot in the gay league.

    Why? For some it’s nurturing. For some it’s like a living Grindr with shin-pads. For others, it’s a fitness thing. Or maybe, it’s all the above…and then some.

    As differing as the reasons are, there seems to be a near-universal consistency around simply finding comfort in one’s own tribe.

    Of course, as intuitively warm and fuzzy as that sentiment sounds on the surface, it is inarguably one of the the foothills of a slippery slope that can ultimately manifest in male-only, white-only — or woman-only, black-only — institutions that are more energized by who they exclude rather than who they embrace. And where collegial transforms into bigoted, we must act against it.

    But I don’t think the bunch of nice gay guys I play with every week have a nefarious purpose in mind when they take the pitch. And, frankly, the few straights who show up to play with us are always welcomed as allies…and objects of extreme curiosity. What, one wonders, is the REAL reason these straight guys are here? The mind wanders…

    I wish there was a way these assemblies of like-minded folks could be left to thrive, so long as their purpose was constructive. The problem is, no one can agree what that word “constructive” seems to mean, and there is a legacy of exclusion and discrimination among certain affinity organizations so deep that there is never likely to be an easy solution.

    In the end, for me, being part of a gay league is a chance to throw weighty cares like those in your article to the winds and, for 90 minutes, do something social, healthy and uplifting with 21 other of my gay brothers.

  10. The problem of too many straight guys in gay sports is a great problem to have and a sign of the times if you ask me.

    I would say it’s in places where there the most homophobia – like Birmingham or Memphis that you’d most want to encourage that kind of mixing of gay and gay friendly men, and it would be very unlikely you’d have a ‘ringer’ team in that environment.

  11. This reminds me a little bit of all the straight people, especially women, who come to gay bars, often brought there by their gay male friends.

    At one level, I get it. The gay guy who brought them is too insecure to cruise by himself, and doesn’t have enough gay friends to come out with. The women want to go out, but for one reason or another don’t want get hit on.

    At another level it really pisses me off. Look, girls, most of the guys in that bar are there because they want to meet other dudes. You get in the way, and not just physically. You ruin the vibe; you are the graphite rods in the nuclear reactor. Get the fuck out.

    And to you, the gay dude who brought them, what the fuck were you thinking? It’s not as if the rest of us are all that confident either. But if you’re too much of a chickenshit to cruise for guys on your own lonesome, then would you kindly take your girlfriends somewhere else? We’ve got some work to do here, and you kill the vibe.

    The other issue, with both gay bars and gay athletic teams, is that there’s a well-known pattern. First, a few “cool straights” are there, usually because their own places are such soul-crushing disasters that they feel a need to be a remorra fish on someone else’s vibe.

    Over time, more and more straights come, and they’re not as cool anymore. Eventually, you check a dude out and he says, “What you lookin’ at, faggot?” I’ve seen it happen, and without those rules for the athletic teams, their gay identity will be lost within 10 years, or maybe sooner.

    Straight people, we welcome your tolerance and acceptance. We really do. But please stay away from our bars, even if your gay friend invites you, and don’t try to join our teams unless you decide that you’re playin’ for our team, if ya catch my drift.

  12. p.s.: Straights, for every gay person who welcomes you in our spaces, there are several who your presence make them feel uncomfortable. We are not all one big happy family in all places, at all times. There are a few places where most of us want to be with each other.

    Please try to understand that. Believe me, no matter how cool you think the straight world has become, there are all kinds of places where we keep things quite low-key. Having our own places lets us exhale. We still need that. Thanks.

  13. The one question I kept asking myself while reading this is do we want to really make being gay something you must prove? I think I could live with the knowledge that people want to play in a gay softball league and they may not be gay.

  14. I see this as being kind of similar to the Race for the Cure. Back in the day, when I still ran it, it was a women’s-only race, and it was awesome. It had a completely different feel to it than your typical road race and I really looked forward to it. But eventually, the guys said, “hey, our mothers and sisters and wives and sometimes even we get breast cancer and we should be allowed in the main event too.” Well, I guess I could see their point, but it killed the event for me. I will always be an ally to my gay friends, but sometimes being a good ally is recognizing when a group of people needs something that just belongs to them. In this case, I think the best ally would go and cheer for their favorite gay team and then buy them a beer after.

  15. What @13 & @14 said…do a lot of guys feel that way? I’ve certainly been guilty of that (going to gay bars to dance) with my friends. I felt welcomed by the guys who danced with us, but…were there a bunch of other people wishing we weren’t there? It’s something I wondered about at the time, and I’d like to know how many people feel that way, if straight women really shouldn’t ever go to gay bars?

  16. oooookay, mr. g., i will definitely stay out of any and all gay bars. and i will not patronize gay businesses (can’t have those nasty straight people in our stores). i am also no longer donating money to gay organizations, because i don’t want to taint their cause with my heterosexual money. so, thank you, Mr. G., for opening my mind and making me realize that the reason i was asked to leave a committee on a local LGBT organization wasn’t because i was incompetent, but because i was the wrong sexual orientation! now i feel so bad because of all the discomfort i caused to my fellow committee members!

    well, i’m sure i won’t be missed at all, and i can sleep at night knowing i did the right thing and that the LGBT community can breathe a sigh of relief now that i’m no longer donating money or consorting with them.

  18. @13 Oh Mary. A gay at a bar surely has to be going to a bar for the exclusive reason of Cruising, and not to socialize with people. No, all gay bars are pick-up places exclusively. Gay bars can never have a Cheers-esque attitude because, in gay world, Norm would be picking up a different person every night and ignoring everybody else.

    Gay bars have a duty to be havens against prejudice, but not against the whole outside world. If a gay brings his very accepting straight friend to have a drink with on his turf, that’s fine. But, on the other hand, I do have more issues with gaggles of insulatory straights using the gay bar to seem hip or cool, or to feel safe while at the same time treating gays like extras at their own bar.

    Gay sports leagues, on the other hand, WERE created for the exclusive right of protecting and shielding gays from the outside world. And, having straight guys vie for a position can start to feel like getting picked last on the field for that really hot straight guy…AGAIN. The gay sports leagues allow straights to support their gay friends as spectators, but not as participants. And, I’m fine with that. It’s not about ability or ringers…it’s about safe spaces and insulation.

  19. The idea that some areas of the country are hostile towards gays, and therefore non-hostile straights shouldn’t be allowed to participate is ludicrous. For one – don’t hold the World Series in hostile territory. And for two – show folks that hey – gay men aren’t trying to convert straight men, and we can all get along and play some damned softball.

    As another ECSA member (Throttle to the Bottle!!!), I can say that straight folks on our teams don’t have an adverse effect on game play. And, if anything, the worst comments come from other gays (never me, of course).

    NAGAA’s rule is discriminatory, plain and simple. And to defend it with the Boy Scouts case, as I recall NAGAA doing when this story first broke last year, is moronic. Just because the Courts have said discrimination in private organizations is okay doesn’t make it okay, and dammit, we’re better than this.

    And great piece, Sanders. Long…very long…but there’s a lot to take in. Thanks for following up on this!

  21. There is more to this than the “straights play better” myth. That shouldn’t even be considered.

    This comes down to the level of acceptance and the atmosphere provided by having a cap. I have seen straight players both on and off the field that are ok being on a gay league when they are winning, but you can see and hear the homophobia/heterosexism come out when the straight player is frustrated/angry.

    On a bigger scale, a problem can occur not only on a player-by-player basis, but by a team-by-team basis. I have witnessed in the gay soccer league, which as far as my knowledge does not have a cap, teams made of mostly of straight players that join the gay league and then throw their personalities around on the field and harass the other gay teams.

    I understand the sentiment that “if straights want to play on a gay league, isn’t that a level of progress that should be welcomed with open arms?” but the truth of it is that not all straight people want to play on the gay leagues for the right reason nor have a strong enough handle on their homophobia/heterosexism to be in situations of high competition and adrenaline.

    The Quake Rugby Club, a team started for gay players, is a team mixed with gay and straight players that play in a predominantly gay league. The homophobia/heterosexism demonstrated by the other teams is unfounded at times, and it affects the straight players of the Quake as well. So while it’s awesome that the Quake Rugby Club is made up of such amazing people that they can play together without discrimination, it shows that even the most accepting of situations can turn ugly quick.

    I will agree that the tribunal style is a bit extreme. I will point out again that this does not reflect the Seattle-based ECSA, but the national-based NAGAA that runs the Gay World Series. But unlike the race- or gender-based leagues, a sexuality-based league cannot determine eligible players by sight, and so there would have to be a more personal process to determine eligibility.

  22. @14 I find your comment interesting. I wonder if a straight individual were to ask that homosexuals not visit a predominantly heterosexual haven how long it would take for their comment to be shouted down as discriminatory and narrow minded. It’s sad, but I find myself agreeing with @18 and @19 that maybe those of us who believed that funding charities that support primarily homosexual recipients, supporting business that profess their queer-friendliness and who have tried, against years of being raised in places where ‘Queer’ was a dirty word to view people as people and teach our children the same should amend that to say ‘Unless the homos just don’t want us around’

  23. I was there. I was not in the conference room. Everything the plaintiffs report as having been said there, however, was said a million times in the stands, on the field and in the dugouts of certain teams. The hostility was palpable.

    Legally? Private league, their rules. Personally? I gave up defending the existence of my own sexuality years ago – and the ones who always questioned me, got in my face and pretty much demanded genital monitor readouts? The Bona Fide Gays. Fuck ’em. I’m out, I’m happy, I’ll do my thing.

  24. I have no issue with straight people coming into gay bars, with one caveat: Gay bars are not a tourist attraction; We are not here for your amusement. If you and your boyfriend/girlfriend are so afraid of being mistaken for gay that you have a death-grip on each other for the entire duration of your stay, then you need to get up out of here and head back to Belltown where you belong.

    If, on the other hand, you can treat the gay patrons around you with the same respect and courtesy that you would like for yourself (even including any outlandishly dressed gays that comes standard in these parts) then you’re more than welcome to stay.

  25. @24 Probably a simple typo, but I’d like to clarify that the Quake Rugby team plays in a predominantly STRAIGHT division (we are the only team that caters primarily to gay players, ever since the Portland Avalanche folded).

  26. To say you are all “country backward-ass racists” would be an insult to racist! Not to long ago gays, lesbians, blacks, and who ever else, where sprinting to the courts to impose “non-discrimination” laws. Now that you have a “private league” using public property you have no problem discriminating against anyone not in your very shallow swimming pool! Congratulations….. It didn’t take long for you discriminating racists to bring the issue full circle. Where do I send my cash to support the lawyers shoving your ignorance up you ass?

  27. Fascinating article on a very difficult subject. (And hey, @7, suck it.)

    I work and volunteer in amateur sport at the community and national level, and have done so for over fifteen years. In that time, I could count the number of openly LGBTetc. players and coaches I have met on one hand. (I could count the number of openly gay male non-retired players and coaches on no hands.) There is still a huge problem with heterosexism and homophobia in sport.

    In that context, it isn’t hard to see why organizations like the NAGAAA and the Gay World Series exist, and why they want to preserve their status as an island of tolerance in the sporting world. The difficulty comes when their efforts to preserve their status become discriminatory.

    The big issue there is that, unlike a league restricted by age or gender, there is no documentary proof of an individual’s sexual orientation. In the end it has to come down to respecting how people self-identify.

    As to limiting the numbers, while I’d love to live in a world where sexual orientation is as irrelevant as hair colour, we aren’t there yet – and sport is a lot farther than many other spheres of human activity. Until that day arrives, I would have to err on the side of respecting the wishes of members of the minority group to create and define their own safe spaces.

  28. As someone who has played NAGAAA softball for over 15 years — here is my perspective.

    In addition to participating in their local gay league, many of the gay teams play in straight men’s/women’s/co-ed leagues and compete very well. There are several levels of competition in the gay leagues. Some teams are comprised of people who never played softball/baseball or other sports previously and are learning the game. Other teams are comprised of players who are very skilled and have played ball since childhood. Many teams are a combination of all skill levels. The purpose of the gay leagues in the beginning was to have a place to play ball/meet others in a safe and nurturing environment.

    As I recall, the two non-gay player rule was invoked for two main reasons: to permit supportive friends and families to participate and to prevent ringers. Many teams in the past at various tournaments would bring in non-gay players at the last minute simply to win a damn trophy. It was becoming quite an issue with several teams and tournaments. Many of the gay teams travel from city to city/tournament to tournament and are familiar with one another. Suddenly one would find a team suddenly loaded with a bunch of new teammates who would dominate a tournament. The more you win at a tournament, the longer you play. Lose and you’re out. Given the amount of money spent to travel, accommodations, food, car rental, time off work, etc., the ringer aspect took on new meaning. More often than not a team would bring in 5-6 big, fast, powerful guys just for a tournament and wipe out the competition. And while one can’t necessarily know another’s sexual identity, it was pretty clear that these ringers weren’t gay (bringing wives, children, girlfriend). These tournaments are a social event as well and a place to meet new friends and see other parts of the country. More often than not these “ringer” teams changed the atmosphere and the social spirit by either not participating in the social and other events or by downright surly and obnoxious behavior.

    I have seen teams protested over the two-player rule and, in my experience, have seen the protest committees always handle these protests with great care and concern and with every attempt to make a fair decision. They know that teams have put a lot of time, effort and money to travel to and play in a tournament. The teams entering the tournaments know the rules and despite that, many still try to circumvent them.

    Many, if not all, of the upper NAGAAA committee members have been involved for years and years and all are volunteers. NEVER have I seen any form of racial or any other type of discrimination. Go to a top-flight gay softball tournament. If you want to see true diversity that’s the ticket.

    In years past I have played on many teams that had self-identified “bi” players. If someone says they are bi-sexual those players never counted against the two-player limit. The SF team knew the rules BEFORE entering the tournament and clearly broke them. Recall they had played in these tournaments for years and would certainly have been exposed to this rule in the past. Why would the players not simply say they were gay or bi-sexual? Again, the basis of the league is on sexual identity. If they had simply stated so, then there would have been no problem. The issue was that other teams at the Series knew the D2 team and realized they had these ringers playing and also knew they had not been playing with D2 in the local gay league.

    That all being said, as a player I was always happy to have anyone comfortable being around my team be part of it. Many times my teams had many non-gay players who wanted to play but could not and I was very upset to not be able to play them. Sometimes I’d have to sit a player just because he wasn’t gay. On the other hand, there were also many times that we faced taunting and ridicule at straight tournaments or in city league play from those with narrow-minds. I agree that local leagues in most of the country still feel the need to ensure that their leagues are a safe haven and perhaps quotas or some similar type of other rule is necessary. One really must go watch a gay league on game day to understand. There is a wonderful free and happy spirit. There is laughter, some outrageousness, great competition and some very skilled athleticism too. There is truly a sense of community not easily found elsewhere.

    On a national and tournament level however, I would like to see the rule changed. At some point along the road we have to make a change towards inclusion. Perhaps a requirement that for teams to play in sanctioned tournament that all players state that they have played in at least 50% of a a team’s games in the past 12 months. Or if teams are new or have new players then perhaps allow them to play as unsanctioned or make them ineligible for trophy play. There should be a way to move towards more participation, not less.

  29. I played on the Gotham Knights, a NYC gay rugby team. We almost exclusively played straight teams, except during gay tournaments. We welcomed (read: recruited) straight players who actually had rugby experience. Most of us were playing this sport for the first time and didn’t know the difference between a hooker and a flanker. Restricting the straights would have been counterproductive to our chances of winning and also completely heterophobic.

    But I’ve always been a fan of gay inclusion versus self-ghettoization, so I can acknowledge I may be in the minority on this.

  30. @18: As a gay man who regularly brings straight friends to gay bars, the general feeling I’ve gotten is: While some gay guys are angry I’ve brought straight women with me, they’re far and away the minority. I think it proves that misogyny isn’t limited to the straight world.

    As for straight men, I think most gay guys realize that they’re not available on some conscious or subconscious level. Problems result when someone on either side (straight, “joking” cockstease or gay “won’t take no for an answer” douchebag) goes a little too far… but I’ve only really seen that happen a few times ever.

    Straight women who go to a gay bar for a bachelorette party though… they are reasonably and universally despised. As people said above, don’t gawk and be a tourist. It’s a bar, not a zoo.

  31. Having played in the gay softball league for 20 years. I called this a long time ago. You can no discriminate and then bitch about being discrminated against. My teammates had a discussion over ten years ago, predicting the day that Nagaaa would get sued over this and the time has come.

    Their protest committees have always been biased and unfair with vaguely written guidelines that could be interpreted anyway needed, much like the bible.

    I love my gay softball league. But the Nagaaa board has no one to blame but themselves for this mess

  32. @31 The problem of ringers is a fair one. Rather than focusing on sexuality as the way to prevent them, an alternative could be to require the later games in the tournament to be played by players who had appeared in two or three prior games (or whatever limit seems reasonable). That way new players can’t be introduced late in the tournament.

  33. I seriously can’t believe the biphobia inherent in this story, and in some of the comments. If it’s a league for gay and bisexual men, as Melani is now claiming, how come people who say they’re bisexual are being kicked off?

    I have absolutely no problem with GBT-only space. I have a problem with biphobia.

  34. What I find interesting is that some gay people attempt to defy stereotypes about gay people, only to reinforce gender stereotypes.

    For example, these “straight-acting” gay men will take up sport in order to appear “manlier” (whatever that’s supposed to be), and, in doing so, they are making an implicit statement on what men and women are supposed to be like. (Testosterone, aggression, fight-or-flight instinct, and all of that silly rubbish.)

    This is all very funny and ironic to me–and not just a little bit misogynistic.

  35. @37 or, maybe they like the competitive atmosphere and camaraderie/cooperation that comes with playing a team sport…?

    What *I* find interesting is that in your comment you not only assumed that all gay men who play sports are “straight acting” (which they aren’t- some of the queeniest guys I know play on the rugby team) you have also completely glossed over the lesbian element to softball which just by their involvement smash gender stereotypes… so then the irony train comes full circle when it becomes readily apparent that your comment smacks of the very gender stereotypes and misogyny you claim to despise.

  36. @31

    In addition to participating in their local gay league, many of the gay teams play in straight men’s/women’s/co-ed leagues…

    There are straight leagues? Do they limit the number of gay players in those?

    (Yes, I get it: openly gay players may face a lot of discrimination in non-gay leagues that drives them to not participate, but I doubt that the rules of the leagues themselves limit gay players. It’s a “de facto” versus “de jure” distinction. In a majority hetero league, you wouldn’t be able to disqualify ringers by convincing a board that that they’re gay, because there’s no rule against being gay.)

  37. Seems like what they really need to put in the rules is something to avoid ringers, like a rule that mandates that players in the championships have to have participated in a certain number of local games.

  39. @Mister G (#13 &14) You make me want to cry, really, really hard. Seriously. Your words pierce me every time I read them. I can’t help but re-read them. They hurt and I guess that’s your purpose. You achieved it. So, good job. Your slings of arrows reached their mark well.

    I am a straight female adult who was raised by my gay fathers. They have both passed now. I have a family of my own now. I guess you would talk about me behind my back, call me one of those useless breeders, with my SUV. I guess I’m one of those “cool straights” ruining your “vibe”. All those years they brought me with them everywhere, maybe they were ruining your “vibe” too.

    I watched them get called all manner of foul names and stood with them at rallies and marched with them, and walked with them and still had to retain my ridiculous privileges because I was born this way: straight. I just was. I’m not even bisexual. And don’t think I didn’t try. I remember crying on our couch when I was 14 with them both holding me because I didn’t want to “fit in” if they were going to just get discriminated against.

    I remember they were so much wiser than you. They were so much braver. You are such a coward. They were willing to fight and you’ve already decided you know every battle. I feel so sorry for you. One day we could pass in the street and you’ll judge me and think you know me because of what I look like with my kids in tow, or because I’m conservatively dressed and holding hands with my husband; but you’ll never know what allies we’ve been, picket lines we’ve stood on in the rain, the petitions both our names are on, the representatives that have letters from both of us, how hard we’ve fought together, maybe even the drinks we could have shared at a bar after a long day of fighting that good fight and if you would have given it the chance, what great friends we could have been.

  40. It’s not even an issue of ringers, by these rules a team made up of PFLAG members can play regular season games – but should they make it to the series they are imedietly disqualified….that makes no sense.

    Yes were strait, but were a pro-gay orinization that wants nothing more than to say I love & stand behind my gay family member(s) or friend(s) & so far were allowed to do so in any/every medium possible……….

    Except this one. And that, just isn’t fair.

  41. @13 & @14

    I don’t know what strait friend/loved one hurt you they way they did, but I’m so sorry to see that it’s effected you in such a negative way. You really need to sit down and rethink the ignorant statement you typed out in two parts. And if you can’t see how hurtful that was than my friend I silently cry for the heart made of stone that you carry in your chest.

  42. @AlethiaGrey, there are a whole lot of gay guys who really don’t appreciate straight people hanging out in our bars. This is especially true of the gay bars that are pickup joints. Which, I suspect your two gay dads never took you to.

    Something else. Who the fuck are you to call me a coward? You have absolutely no idea of the prices I’ve paid for being gay. They go well beyond you crying some crocodile tears of sympathy, so dry your eyes.

    @timtech, no one crushed my soul. But I’ve seen bars that were once gay bars convert to straight by the process I’ve described. Here’s something else: If, say, a quarter of the men in what was once my favorite “gay” bar are now straight, they can be (or think they are) as cool as they want to be, but they’ve just injected a big element of additional uncertainty.

    In addition to the uncertainty that comes with trying to break the ice in general will now come the uncertainty of wondering whether that guy even plays for my team. Jesus Christ, straight people, don’t ya have enough meet markets of your own without screwing up the handful that we’ve got? Come on, is that really so much to ask?

    @#25, how clueless could you be? In the real world, how many straight meet markets could a couple of openly and obviously gay guys survive in for very long without being made to feel very unwelcome, or worse? Please tell me that you were lying, because the alternative makes you look so much worse.

    @scary tyler moore, because I wanna cruise with my own kind in, what, maybe 10 bars within a city with hundreds for opposite-sex couples to hunt in, you’re going to take your precious money and stay home. Gee, I sure lost quite an ally.

    TO ALL:

    The appeals to tolerance are fine and dandy, but I want you to think about the following. Why do you imagine that no gay players have come out in professional baseball, football, or basketball? Want to really know? See, I know a few of these people, and here’s the answer: They think they’ll be murdered.

    I’m not kidding. They think they will be murdered if they come out while they are playing. Every single gay pro athlete I’ve ever talked to, and there have been a few whose names you’d immediately recognize, has told me that, aside from the insults and loss of income, they’d be afraid for their lives.

    You really don’t think gay people need their own spaces, including athletic leagues? You’d better think again.

  43. #33, how do you know how the majority feels? Trust me, every time you bring your girlfriends to the Cuff so they can help suck the life out of the place, there are a whole bunch of guys who are really pissed but who don’t say anything. Who are they going to complain to? You? Your girlfriends? The management? What good will it do?

    By the way, it’s not about “misogyny.” I’m more than fine with dykes in the bars. I love seein’ ’em there. What I don’t appreciate is having straight people around. Take your girlfriends somewhere else, fer chrissakes.

  44. @Canuck, I realize that it sounds like I hate women and/or straight people. But it’s not true. I just want a place or five that’s ours. That’s all.

  47. It definitely sounds like there was some racism going on when they were deciding which players were gay or not, and I hate the idea that if someone identifies as some form of queer, a committee gets to nitpick if it’s queer “enough”.

    But really, sometimes the best way for straight people to support gay people is to let the gay people have the spotlight sometimes. The league was created for gay people, not for “everyone who’s okay with gay people”. I’m glad straight allies exist, don’t get me wrong. I just think some things aren’t supposed to be about them.

    Yeah, it would be nice if orientation didn’t matter, and gay, straight, bi, whatever athletes could play sports together and be open about who they are and it was all totally okay. But that’s not the reality in the “regular” leagues either, and opening up gay leagues to straights while “straight” leagues aren’t opening up to gays is just limiting the opportunities for gay athletes with nothing in return. There’s always a shortage of opportunities in athletics, because a lot more people want to get on a team than there are openings to do so, but straightness is not holding anybody back. There don’t need to be more athletic opportunities for straight people.

    So… not really okay with what this league did, because of the racism and identity-policing. But definitely okay with gay sports leagues limiting straight participants or just not allowing them at all, even.

  48. @ Mr. G. : “I realize that it sounds like I hate women and/or straight people. But it’s not true. I just want a place or five that’s ours. That’s all.”

    I completely get it. Gay bars exist due to a desire to escape an environment (most bars – filled with horny hetero men) that is uninclusive and even dangerous.

    What doesn’t occur to you is that many women (gay and straight) desire that too. We want to go out and dance somewhere that doesn’t involve the prospect of being harassed or roofied. But, for reasons that I’m sure you can imagine, women don’t have the luxury of having a space that is really “ours”.

    And, as you’ve noticed from the (presumably) straight women in your favorite pick up joints, gay men don’t actually have that luxury either. So, you can complain to women about not getting to have your “own” gay male space as much as you want, but don’t expect too much sympathy ’cause we don’t have our “own” spaces either. Life ain’t fair.

  49. First off, I’m one of those gay softball players with a straight son (and not biological btw) who plays on my team. Wow, who is this guy Melani and what paranoid planet did he land from? I have never experienced anti-gay slurs at our games. And if they occurred, the instigators would likely get their asses kicked out lickity split; with the lesbians leading the charge, followed by the gays, with the straights on our teams bringing up the rear (so to speak).
    And WTF is it with the logic “we need these caps because of Oklahoma and Mississippi”? They don’t have straight guys on the gay teams there, my dear. Get over it gay-racists and misogynists. Your day was needed when I was a kid and I thank you for being there, but your discrimination is needed no more.

  50. @Coco, why not go out dancing with your gay male buddy at a straight bar?

    @jmnasoc, what, the gay teams are white-only? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Please provide some evidence, or retract your outrageous “racism” allegation. Same with the “misogynist” allegation. There’s no issue with having dykes on the gay team.

  51. @Coco, why not go out dancing with your gay male buddy at a straight bar?

    @jmnasoc, what, the gay teams are white-only? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Please provide some evidence, or retract your outrageous “racism” allegation. Same with the “misogynist” allegation. There’s no issue with having dykes on the gay team.

  52. @Mister G, you’ve certainly given me something to think about. I understand what you’re saying about wanting your own place, where you don’t have to wonder about the guys there, and having straight women there changes the atmosphere. When I’ve gone, it’s only been with two female friends, and we just danced together, although guys would frequently come up and want to dance with one of us. There was one man who, after we danced, introduced me to his boyfriend, and said he really liked the fact that we wanted to be there, like it was affirming that things were changing to the point that we were all just hanging out together, without the segregation of gay and straight. But, that was just the handful of people who danced with us, others may have felt more along the lines of what you do.

    I think in a larger sense, forgive me if I digress, what you are saying makes me question how welcome our (straight) input is in other areas. I do volunteer work here with an LGBT youth group, and when you start that, all of these other avenues (for getting involved) open up…for instance, we have a queer film festival coming up, and given the close relationship all these groups have, I was going to volunteer at it, but there is a part of me that wonders if I would really be welcome. I get that straight people have so many avenues open that it’s ridiculous to whine about not being included, but I also think that things won’t change to the point that sexuality isn’t such an issue unless people start working together more. I don’t know. I want to be involved, but to do so in a way that isn’t unwanted. It’s a tough question, hard to figure out.

  53. @46: Eww. The Cuff. I know there are people that love that place but the scent of grease wafting over unwashed bodies and a smoke machine isn’t really something I would want my gay or straight friends exposed to. So it sounds like my “girlfriends” won’t be invading your safe spaces anytime soon.

    Everyone else: He does not speak for all gay men. Don’t read these comments and get the idea the rest of us have a chip on our shoulder or want to be ghettoized.

  54. @Canuck, gay people don’t hate ya. My complaint is narrowly focused. There is a reason for that. It’s only about a couple of things. There’s no chip on my shoulder like #56 thinks, or a desire to be “ghettoized.” But I think gay bars and athletic teams ought to be our turf.

    I realize that it’s gay people who’ve invited straights into those places. My complaint is probably more with them than with the straights who’ve accepted the invitation. I’ve wanted to go up to people like that and ask ’em what the fuck they’re thinking, but then I think hey, I didn’t come out to get into an argument.

    So I just mutter to myself and other gay people, and now post in this thread. All I can tell ya is that my sentiments are very far from alone. BTW, #56, if you don’t like the Cuff or the Eagle then stay out, and above all take your girlfriends somewhere else.

  56. “Bisexuality, in this recounting of events, was not sufficient evidence to convince the members of the tribunal that a person was not heterosexual.”

    This perspective reflects my 90 year old grandmother, who tried to convince my girlfriend that I was “secretly a faggot”, for having a boy lover on the side as well. *sigh*

    While I am otherwise fine with Gay Softball having their own rules for player’s sexualities, these “tribunals” illustrate Gay Inc. exercising its own prejudices. Being discriminated against as a sexual minority is not justification to discriminate upon other (even smaller sexual minorities) freely.

  57. “Bisexuality, in this recounting of events, was not sufficient evidence to convince the members of the tribunal that a person was not heterosexual.”

    This perspective reflects my 90 year old grandmother, who tried to convince my girlfriend that I was “secretly a faggot”, for having a boy lover on the side. *sigh*

    While I am otherwise fine with Gay Softball having their own rules for player’s sexualities, these “tribunals” illustrate Gay Inc. exercising its own prejudices. Being discriminated against as a sexual minority is not justification to discriminate upon other (even smaller sexual minorities) freely.

  58. @57: Yo, asshole, I don’t like either of those place and don’t go there, ergo my evil heterosexual posse does not invade your dank sacred man caves. But you really should tell people how you feel sometime and see how they react! It sounds super productive and will definitely enhance other people’s nightlife experience and gay/straight relations.

    I’m sorry your joy is so easily disrupted. Life is tough. Keep fighting the good fight on the internet. I’ve realized that this conversation is not productive — I just didn’t want the straight community to think you spoke for all of us.

  59. Glad to know Mister G’s feeling isn’t universal, judgmentalist, at least I won’t let it affect the non-bar stuff that I do…thanks.

  60. I don’t like either of those place and don’t go there, ergo my evil heterosexual posse does not invade your dank sacred man caves.

    Excellent! Thanks!

    But you really should tell people how you feel sometime and see how they react! It sounds super productive and will definitely enhance other people’s nightlife experience and gay/straight relations.

    Well there you have it. What would it accomplish, except to give some people further reason to pronounce themselves cool?

    Glad to know Mister G’s feeling isn’t universal, judgmentalist, at least I won’t let it affect the non-bar stuff that I do…thanks.

    You are taking it way, way too personally. I am not ghettoized or heterophobic. What I’m doing here, without the usual Seattle-polite veneer, is making a very limited point, which is that us homos need a few places where it’s really just us.

    The same goes for other minorities, depending very much on the specifics. There’s a certain invisible privelege that seems to attach to the majority. It emerges in various ways, and in this case it seems to take the form of “I’m cool about gay people so I don’t have to even think about any boundaries.”

    Well, look: There really aren’t very many gay spaces. There never were very many, except for maybe about 25 years starting in the early 1970s. I look around, and I see them vanishing. Mostly it’s okay, but not always.

    I know, I know. I am supposed to say, “Kumbaya, come on in.” I usually do that, but not all the time. And it ain’t because I’m afraid of girls or afraid of straight guys either. It’s because, here and there, you just get in the way. It’s not hatred or fear. It’s a desire to be with my own peeps every so often. Sheesh.

  61. Yeah, Mister G, that’s why I said “non bar stuff,” meaning, you’ve made me self-conscious enough that I doubt I’ll suggest to my friends that we go to a gay bar again, but that I’ll keep doing the other stuff I’ve been doing. Don’t you get it, though? When we’re in the minority, like working/volunteering in your community, we do worry that we’re stepping on toes, not really wanted, etc., and reading what you said, at least for me, just makes me question that stuff all over again. I’m genuinely trying to figure out what I can do that is actually wanted or needed. The other places I volunteer are “exclusively gay” spaces as well, so it’s an honest question. Judgementalist’s take on it suggests to me that not everyone feels the way you do, and that maybe in those other non-bar areas, I can contribute.

  62. @64: Seriously: You don’t need to feel this way. The only reason I’m carrying on with this discussion is for fear that people will walk away with this message! Don’t let one negative person spoil your experience!

    I’m upset when bars aren’t inclusive/diverse — will you keep going to gay bars so you don’t hurt my feelings? I can’t remember if you live here, Canuck (I think you don’t?) but the two bars Mister G referenced are generally more daddy/bear sort of environments and women don’t generally go to either place to begin with (although the Eagle was hosting some hipster parties for awhile — not sure if that’s still going on). If you were to walk into any of the other gay/queer bars, I think you’d find a lot of welcoming faces.

    Having gone to straight dance clubs, I can understand why women would want to go to gay clubs: The music is better, the men aren’t sleazy pickup artists (at least towards women), and the crowd has much less Express-wearing/bridge and tunnel trash.

    Seriously. Don’t let one bad apple spoil the bunch and don’t let this stop you from working for our community. I appreciate it and so do many other people. Let’s be allies not strangers!

  63. Canuck (I think you don’t?) but the two bars Mister G referenced are generally more daddy/bear sort of environments and women don’t generally go to either place to begin with

    Don’t see many straights at the Eagle, it’s true. But at the Cuff? Different story. Again, I blame the homos for this more than I blame the (mostly) straight women who come with them.

    By the way, it is not a matter of having a problem with women, as much as “judgmentalist” and others want to make it seem. I fuckin’ LOVE it when the dykes come out, the nastier the better.

    This is about straight people, who in gay bars happen to be mostly women but definitely not all of the straights. On gay athletic teams it’s the other way around, usually because the gay team wants the trophy so bad they’ll pack their team with straight guys for a while, because in the real world the way we actually live as opposed to someone’s imagination, not a whole lot of gay people (especially males) were on the baseball team, or the rugby team, etc.

    Back to bars. I can’t say I care all that much if straight women go to the dance bars with their gayboy friends. For all kinds of reasons, I never liked those places. Yup, the Cuff is a mixed bag because it’s got the meth-dance crowd too, so it’s tough to draw a real bright line.

    Plus, you’ve got the general death of the gay bar scene in the Internet-driven hookup world. Regardless of what I might think, the larger forces are killing the gay bars and other formerly gay institutions anyway. The leather scene is just as likely to be “pansexual” now, which is about as interesting as watching paint dry.

    So maybe there’s something to be said for giving up and letting it all go. Hate to see it happen, but last time I looked I didn’t run the show. “Judgmentalist,” bring your fag hag friends wherever and whenever. But do you ever get laid? Trust me, I do.

  64. That was just what I needed to hear, judgmentalist. Seriously, lack of Easter chocolate today plus this thread was making me pretty sad…and no, I don’t live here, I live in Calgary, and the bar I liked the best was in Vancouver, it’s called the Junction, and was just great, a big mix of ages, people enjoying the dancing and music. And really, I’d rather be there than a straight bar any day, the guys were so friendly for the sake of being friendly, obviously, not because they were looking for something else (I’m married, so the getting hit on is no fun at straight clubs.)
    The other work I do, wow, that’s my real love (not my paying job), hanging out with kids, getting to know them and how things are for them, it’s really meaningful to me, and yet, you know, I sometimes feel like a bit of a dope, but I guess any middle aged person who spends time with 30 high school and college kids would feel that way… 🙂
    Thanks for taking the time to comment again, I’m really glad you did.

  65. Canuck, I’ve seen your posts all over, and I just wanted to say that you seem like a really lovely person. Maybe I don’t count, as I’m a pansexual (I noted Mister G’s disdain; I wonder whether a Kinsey 5 is still too straight for a gay bar?) but I know I’d be happy to meet people like you at a bar or club. Just for the record. Mister G doesn’t speak for all of us.

  66. Oh namae nante iranai!, that’s so sweet, thanks! Kinsey numbers aside (no idea what mine is–is there a chocolate option??), sounds like we’d have a good time together!

  67. I bet that we would! (I’m mostly a lurker around here; I read most everything, but don’t generally post. I’ve accidentally started a few arguments before, you see… Once bitten and all that.)

  68. Oh gosh, I’ve never done that, you know, typed before thinking things out, starting a US/Canada debate…no, never…heh 😉

  69. @mister G, I’m with you – we need space that’s ours. the debate’s always been about who ‘we’ are – do we need men’s bars (in which case they’re open to bi & trans men, right?) and women’s bars (similarly open to bi & trans women), or do we need queer bars (because sexual and gender identities aren’t fixed or easily definable for many)? do we need gay and lesbian bars?

    it’s a judgement call I’m often forced to make, cos though I’m bi, queer-identified, and a regular on the LGBT commercial scene & in local LGBT activism, my partner right now is a straight man. & though I’m fine (and he’s fine) with the fact that not all spaces are gonna be OK for him to be in – that’s part of his being a fantastic fucking ally to me and my community – I do sometimes push, when I feel that what’s behind the stares and discomfort isn’t the need for non-straight space, but biphobia. interested to hear what you might have to say about this.

  70. @68 I doubt a Kinsey 5 is too straight for a gay bar. I’m bi and have met plenty of other bi women at lesbian bars, because the majority of people don’t mind if you’re not a gold star. They’re not going to question you. Yeah, there are some judgmental types out there, but most people just want to live their lives and don’t sit around worrying about everybody else. And if straight people aren’t causing problems, nobody except those judgmental types particularly cares. Now, causing problems would include suddenly having to deal with a huge influx of straight mating behavior spread out over every surface of the bar. A couple of people with friends? Not typically a problem.

    As for straight women looking for a night out dancing without being hit on and objectified every time they turn around, there are groups that get together where women rent a space and dance. No men, no flirting. Just dancing. It’s a lot of fun and it’s your own space, instead of trying to carve out a niche in someone else’s: http://dancedancepartyparty.com/home.htm… It looks like the Seattle chapter fizzled out, but starting one up again is easy enough. I’d be all about going to one and would promise not to ogle any of the other ladies. It seems a better solution than going into gay bars to get away from being hit on. Make your own space!

  71. I’m pretty uncomfortable for all the obvious reasons with the idea of excluding people from a gay sports league of whatever sort because of their sexual orientation, and I’ve never been a big enthusiast of gay-only social activities. But I do get why they’re there. I’ve participated in a few gay sports leagues and I did it for one reason: to meet more gay people. I wouldn’t have resented the presence of straight people there, yet if their numbers were significant, it would have defeated my purpose.

    It seems to me like a completely reasonable thing that a minority group whose minority status is about social affiliation should want some way of finding, meeting, and socializing with one another. My question for those who balk at keeping straight people out of gay sports, gay bars, etc. is: what are the good and fair ways of satisfying this reasonable affiliative function?

    Everybody has some experience with this; people choose to affiliate around interests or hobbies all the time. Whether they’re straight or gay, trying to get laid or just looking for company, people who like cooking can go to cooking classes; people who like dogs can go to the dog park; people who like dressing like dorks and juggling can go to ren fairs, etc. Keeping the wrong people out isn’t such a problem here; self-screening is built right in.

    The mistake is to think that gay softball is about a shared interest in softball. It isn’t; it’s about finding something that a diverse bunch of gay people can do together for the sake of being around other gay people.

    Imagine if a big group of gay men showed up at a singles’ mixer that was presumed to be straight, but not specified as such. There would probably be a bunch of justifiably annoyed straight women, and not because they don’t like gay guys. Gay sports isn’t (necessarily) about dating, but the expectation of shared sexual orientation is just as legitimate. People with kids no doubt love their childless friends, but they may legitimately want parenting-specific social outlets because socializing is about shared experience, and parenting is a biggie. So is sexual orientation. Being uncomfortable with people don’t share your experience isn’t about discriminating against them, it’s about not breaking the group’s ability to serve its function.

    So, again, what is the best and fairest way for gay people to find and socialize with gay people without discriminating against straight people?

  72. @Mister G, if you want a space for picking up guys where women and straights aren’t allowed, then hit the bathhouse. When I go out, I like to dance and drink and I steer clear of guys like you who are rushing to find a boyfriend for the night. I would easily pick a club full of straight girls and guys over a club full of, well, insecure guys who are desperately forcing hookups and annoyed with anyone who gets in their way.

    In fact, sometimes I bring a girl with me to dance because it’s a ready excuse when some over eager guy who’s had 3 long island ice teas takes one polite smile the wrong way and decides I’m his target for the night. “Sorry, with my friend tonight!”

  73. I think we need to be bigger than petty resentments. That our enemies, we should remember, are of a mean spirit that requires pettiness and smallness of mind that we should not emulate but reject. We are, after all, the winning side. The side to lead the future to a better day for everyone.

  74. @66:

    I fuckin’ LOVE it when the dykes come out, the nastier the better.

    … so are pierced, tattooed, masculine lesbians ok, but not more traditionally feminine, “lipstick types?” Or is it only ok for women to be present if they’re dancing dirty with each other? How are you deciding whose presence is desirable or acceptable?

    An aside: I can easily “get laid” when I want to. It’s just not a compulsive behavior for me, so going out to a bar is much more about having a good time than it is about scoring a “date.”

    @72: Your comment is really interesting/confusing to me. When you say “@mister G, I’m with you – we need space that’s ours,” it makes me wonder how he would feel if he saw you out in a queer space with your current (opposite sex) partner. Would he think your presence was inappropriate? Would you appear to him or others to be a normative heterosexual couple? I’m not trying to put words in anyone’s mouths, but for me this is the difficulty of trying to maintain a socially-hegemonic space. There isn’t an uncomplicated “we” in this age of queering gender and sexuality.

  75. God I hate all the douchey straight guys at the gym- does this mean I can join a women-only gym to get away from them? Surely Canuck, judgementalist, et al. are rallying against such institutions as well..?

  76. Mister G –

    You are a class A piece of shit.

    This is why I’m glad that younger generations of gays are taking over the Capitol Hill scene. For us to discriminate, especially in a city as gay-friendly as this, is fucking stupid.

    Where you get your statistics that “most” gay men don’t want straight men or women around in gay bars is beyond me. Maybe that’s true amongst the folks you hang out with, but quite the opposite with the groups that I associate with.

    And that’s true for straights coming into any of the bars, as well as the clubs. Hell, look at Barbie – a straight woman that owns Purr and sponsors a shit-load of gay teams – from Softball (8 this year, I think) to soccer to volleyball – she is a part of our community.

    Your idea of self-segregation is preposterous, and I’m glad that that idea will die off with older generations.

  77. @79 woot! Honestly, that was such nonsense. There have always been a few men and women who like to toy with that notion. Most drop it after realizing it makes no fucking sense. The few who persist in clinging to it (unto death, as you intimate) are easily spotted because they ALWAYS let you know they feel that way immediately and repeatedly thereafter until you back away in horror.

    Canuck, don’t you dare change a thing. You’re very kind to have engaged that fellow sincerely, but to him it’s just a game to reinforce how right he’s sure he is. I’d recommend to you that wisdom found in 80s movie cheese, in this case “Wargames”, in which a spring-fresh Ally Sheedy featured alongside Mr. Sarah Jessica Parker: the only way to win is not to play.

  78. @78: I philosophically disagree with Curves as well, but I think it’s a lesser evil compared to the health benefits of getting people into the gym who wouldn’t normally go.

    If I thought you were sincere, i would suggest some great nerd/gay friendly fitness centers in the area. Arguing on Slog gets your heart rate up but doesn’t provide any other cardiovascular benefits.

  79. My complaint is less with straight people going to gay bars and more with the obnoxious suburbanite airheads who think going to the Cuff is something like going on an urban gay safari (the bachelorette crowd being a primary offender). They start off quiet, giggly and gawking and then go downhill as the alcohol consumption ramps up. And while I know I can’t really complain about obnoxious drunken twits at a bar, there’s something about the bachelorette crowd that’s doubly insulting. Their presence just kinda feels… patronizing.

    So I guess the point is this – it’s not so much the fact that they’re straight that bugs me. It’s the attitude of a particular straight crowd. Fix this and I think we’ll be OK.

  80. Your local watering hole is not a Democracy, it’s Capitalism. I’m not saying straight people should or shouldn’t go here or there, I’m just saying it is a moot point. If tomorrow the owner wanted to change it into a pet store, they can.

    Also, people who are not lesbians are still using the word “dyke”?

  81. Canuck? Since (I assume) you’re a woman, what say you about women-only institutions like Curves? Can you honestly say they should be abandoned for the sake of your gay male friends, or should your gay friends maybe respect that some women want to work out in peace without men around, and find a different gym?

    And judgementalist, thanks for the offer, but I was merely trying to make a point- I may hate the straight douche bags at my gym, but that’s not going to keep me from working out there.

  82. Hey, morning, gus! You know, this has been really interesting for me, reading all of these, because yeah, I’ll admit it, I definitely feel like a bit of an interloper at times (which is probably a very healthy thing to experience), and it’s funny how quickly a comment like that will just dredge up all the insecurity I have about the kind of volunteering I do…I find myself apologizing whenever I’m asked to participate in something (“Uh, you know I’m straight, right?” which I say with the same trepidation that I have when I admit I’m from the States…the response is always, “Oh, that’s okay!”) Pretty funny. I guess insecurity knows no orientation…thanks for your kind words, though 🙂

  83. Unpaid @84 If you think gay men would want to come to Curves, given the preponderance of chubby middle-aged women and appalling 80s “soft rock” that dominates (yes, I’ve gone before), then I guess you know different people than I do…but seriously, if you’re asking me personally? I would have zero problem working out with men in general, or gay men in particular, but I’m sure there are some women who do like working out in an all female environment.

    And I’m also sure there is a huge variation in types of gay bars, just as there’s a huge variation in straight bars. I wouldn’t go to a straight bar that was a known pick-up joint, and I wouldn’t go to a gay bar that was the same. I’d like to think that there are a lot of gay bars that don’t fall into that category. Unless the guys who danced with me did so out of pity (well, maybe there was a little pity involved :), they seemed to genuinely be enjoying themselves, they were the ones who initiated, so I guess it just depends where you go. But, as someone else noted, going on a “sight-seeing” trip would be beyond obnoxious. I’m sure the men who go to those bars can tell the difference between the gawkers and the people like me who can’t wipe the smile off her face that a cute 25 year old just asked her to dance and really just wants to dance…

  84. And all those people wringing their hands over Mr G’s statements need to calm the fuck down. He does kinda have a point. Many straight women, even the non bachelorettes, do not understand that 90% of the reason gay bars exist is to facilitate good, old-fashioned buttsex. Whether it’s a one night stand or something more ‘significant’, it ultimately involves two guys getting it on.

    So in comes the average straight woman, who maybe doesn’t understand this concept, and yeah – the vibe is thrown off. Some people would argue that not all gay bars are like this, and this is a valid point. If you go to the Lobby with your gay besties after Sunday brunch – yeah, you probably aren’t going to be interrupting anything important. Go on and be your straight-womany self. But if you’re at Purr/Cuff/Pony on a Saturday night, please be very aware of what’s going with a majority of the clientele. If you detect any weirdness or tenseness amongst your gay friends, perhaps you should move on to another bar. Just as anybody would whenever they feel out of place somewhere.

    Bottom line – this is a two way street. People like Mr. G need to learn to be less threatened/bummed out when they see a woman. Perhaps that particular woman understands what’s going on and is cool about it. You said yourself you don’t mind dykes around, so obviously it isn’t the mere fact they’re a woman that’s a problem. If it helps you, pretend they’re lesbians. And women – just know what you’re dealing with. And know that most gay men take hooking up very, very seriously.

  85. @86 – Sounds like Curves is a great place to find a hag if ever one is in need!!!

    In all seriousness, if memory serves, Curves is owned (or founded by?) a right-wing nutjob. That alone is reason not to want to go.

  86. I’d just like to know how easy it is to spot straight women and why gay men have this ability. If they’re not all gawky tourist about it, how the hell do you tell? Even a butch isn’t necessarily a lesbian and I’ve misjudged women from a glance many times, despite having dated them since I was eighteen. Depending on how I’m presenting myself, I might be read as a straight woman, dykey as hell, or even a boy. You don’t know what I do in the bedroom unless I tell you.

    If lesbians are cool, occasionally a giggly, girly, femmey one is going to come in with her pals. Does she have to leave unless she shoves her face in somebody’s muff to prove her bonafides?

  87. “But I don’t think the bunch of nice gay guys I play with every week have a nefarious purpose in mind when they take the pitch. And, frankly, the few straights who show up to play with us are always welcomed as allies…and objects of extreme curiosity. What, one wonders, is the REAL reason these straight guys are here? The mind wanders…”

    As a straight dude that would probably consider doing something like this, I’m just looking for a niche, never really been great at sports but looking to have fun. It’s probably easier to get fun and energy from a group like this.

  88. @88 Okay, now I’ll never go back (for the same reason Walmart and Coors beer are off the list…it’s an easy list to follow, frankly), if the suckage of the music wasn’t enough.

    Re: Finding your hag…isn’t there an app for that??

  89. (and yes, I know this original article had something to do with gay softball. The gay bar issue and the gay softball issue are actually closely related. just sayin.)

  90. okay, so i don’t go to gay bars. BUT, would LGBT folks rather us straight people not give money to their causes, or volunteer at their non-profits? ’cause i volunteered for a local non-prof for over ten years, and i definitely felt a ‘we don’t want your kind around’ vibe the last year or two. good ol’ seattle passive-aggressiveness, eh?

    so, would you like us straight folks to stay away so you don’t catch het cooties from us? hmm?

  91. People like Mr. G need to learn to be less threatened/bummed out when they see a woman.

    It’s pretty interesting that, no matter how many times I might say that it’s not women in gay bars who piss me off but straight people in general, I see these comments about how women threaten me or bum me out.

    You don’t see a lot of straight guys in gay bars; when you do, their body language usually says, “I’m here because my girlfriend over here wants me to be here, which means I’d better be here or I won’t get laid.”

    The straights-in-gay bars phenomenon, therefore, it mostly fag hags with their gay friend, and occasionally straight girls just by themselves. My objection (for what, the fifth time here?) has nothing to do with them being girls.

    Frankly, if I have to live with straights in gay bars I’d rather they be females, because at least I will then know right from the get-go who’s not on my radar. Straight guys in gay bars, that’s a much bigger problem, but fortunately a rarer one too.

    Where you get your statistics that “most” gay men don’t want straight men or women around in gay bars is beyond me. Maybe that’s true amongst the folks you hang out with, but quite the opposite with the groups that I associate with.

    Sounds to me like the whole idea of a gay bar bothers you. So tell me, who’s the self-hater here?

    so are pierced, tattooed, masculine lesbians ok, but not more traditionally feminine, “lipstick types?” Or is it only ok for women to be present if they’re dancing dirty with each other? How are you deciding whose presence is desirable or acceptable?

    I really like the rad dykes. So shoot me.

    I’m bi, queer-identified, and a regular on the LGBT commercial scene & in local LGBT activism, my partner right now is a straight man. & though I’m fine (and he’s fine) with the fact that not all spaces are gonna be OK for him to be in – that’s part of his being a fantastic fucking ally to me and my community – I do sometimes push, when I feel that what’s behind the stares and discomfort isn’t the need for non-straight space, but biphobia.

    Remember, my gripe is narrowly focused. I’m not here to pontificate about your sexual orientation. Your boyfriend gets it that “not all spaces are gonna be OK for him to be in,” and that’s great.

  92. okay, so i don’t go to gay bars. BUT, would LGBT folks rather us straight people not give money to their causes, or volunteer at their non-profits?

    You should do what you want to do. Hell, I can’t keep you out of the gay bars either. So go there, too, if it’s really that important to you. Sheesh.

  93. Canuck, I’m not asking if you *personally* would be ok with working out with gay men- I’m asking if you can understand that some women might want a lech free environment for themselves… and even if a women-only gym were to allow gay men, how do you ensure that a few straight guys won’t lie in order to worm their way in? Tribunals..?

    What I’m trying to do is create a scenario to help you better empathize with your gay friends who want queer space… you shouldn’t take it personally, it’s not you- it’s just that sometimes certain groups need a place to feel safe. For women it might be a gym where they don’t feel self-conscious; for gays, it might be a bar where they can feel safe hitting on other patrons without the fear of getting gay bashed.

  94. Unpaid Commenter@96, pardon? I can see getting uncomfortable or worried if straight people of the opposite sex are ogling you. But scared of gay bashing? In a gay bar? I’m having a really hard time picturing that, seeing as how any straight guy stupid enough to go into a gay bar and then freak out about a guy hitting on him would not get much bashing in before he was thrown out or worse.

    I’m all for people making small groups where they feel safe (like clubs for people with specific kinks, or the DDPP groups I mentioned upthread) but in something more public like a bar or a sports team, you’re not in some inclusive, isolated little “safe place” any longer. You’re in public. Sometimes outside people are going to interact with you. You can keep it safe for everyone involved, but I think trying to enforce some sort of segregation (an entirely separate issue from safety!) is stupid.

  97. scary tyler moore@98, there are plenty of LGBT folk besides Mister G here. I’m a bisexual woman and I’ve been discussing this thread with my best friend, a lesbian, as well as my partner, a transsexual. The grand majority of us don’t mind straight allies any old place. One of my straight friends goes to just about every event there is and she is warmly embraced.

    But, again, the super power to just look at her and know she’s straight seems to be lacking…

  98. Unpaid @96, I understand what you’re saying about the bars, I do. I was just playing out the idea to other things, which, as I mentioned, and as Scary TM said, makes me wonder about other predominantly gay spaces. It sounds like different people use bars for different things, some are going exclusively to look for sex, others are going to socialize, which is pretty similar to straight bars as well. I’m not lobbying for my right to go to gay bars, I understand how selfish that would be (and we’re talking hardly ever anyway, to be clear), I was just curious about how many people felt the way you and Mister G do…is it 3% or 30%? I still don’t know.

  99. i’m a gay male, who played competitive sports in high school and college (ncaa). as a 33-year-old adult in nyc, i’ve checked out some of the gay leagues, and they’re pretty much a train wreck. maybe a should be embarrassed to say this, and no doubt it’ll strike others as a form of internalized homophobia, but there were a few times over the years where i myself was tempted to gay bash. i’d love to see the queers to a little less whining and a lot more playing. and if i never heard “gurl” again, it would be too soon. god, that’s fucking annoying.

  100. Zuulabelle, there’s a reason bars like R-Place have to have huge signs out front that state explicitly “THIS IS A GAY BAR. IF YOU ARE HOMOPHOBIC, DO NOT ENTER HERE”. Because yes, people do get beat up, and those attacks do happen more frequently at bars that have a higher straight clientele. Homophobic straight guys will go where ever they need to to find girls.

  101. @Stranger staff: how about a “super scientific” online poll asking us gays how we feel about “outsiders invading our sacred institutions” and safe spaces?

  102. Scary, honey, I’m here!

    But, back to Mr. G:

    How the hell do you reach that conclusion? I hang out with inclusive fags, myself included, and we go to gay bars with our straight friends.

    And guess what – I also go to straight bars.

    I play gay softball, I’ve played in the Underdog league.

    I am part of a generation that is quickly moving beyond segregation of gays and straights, and we are the better for it. We are the ones who are showing the straight community that we don’t bite. We are the ones showing that we are more than assless chaps and drag queens. When you hear people change their opinion of the fags because they finally actually interacted with one – that’s my generation. That’s the inclusive generation. Not your exclusionary, anti-straight (I’m curious how often you call straight folks “breeder”) type.

    And that doesn’t make me a self-hater at all. In fact, as anyone who knows me can attest, it is quite the opposite, kiddo. I have no problems with who I am, and am not about to hide behind the doors of a gay establishment.

  103. @michaelp, I get it. You don’t like having a gay community. Maybe it’s the way of the world. I think it’s sad to see it go. I also think it’s sad to see assless chaps, and the leather scene in general, disappear. You and your friends who crave the approval of straights, you’ll never know what ya missed. Oh well!

  104. I apologize for not choosing my words more carefully, Mr. G, but you were the one making the aside about lesbians so I mistakenly assumed women annoyed you more.

    Regardless, my original point stands. Whether we’re talking about straight men or women, you’re seeing an ‘outsider’ and automatically making some assumptions about it killing the mood. I understand what you’re talking about and I’ve seen it plenty of times. But why is it killing the mood? Just ask yourself that. I’m not sure myself – perhaps it’s internalized homophobia, maybe it’s past experience, maybe it’s friggin pheromones. I dunno. The bottom line is it’s bullshit and we need grow right alongside the straights. And as anybody who’s been to a gay bar in Seattle can attest, us homos can kill the mood just fine on our own. If you’re that desperate for an all-homo environment, just throw your own PRIVATE party.

    That being said – I think that straights should bear all this in mind when going out with their gay friends. If you think you’re getting in the way of a potential hookup… if you think you’re killing the mood, you should probably leave. And if you find you’re always ‘killing the mood’ with the particular gays you’re hanging with, maybe it’s time to find some new ones. Ones who are a little more open minded.

    Oh, and to Scary Tyler Moore… please leave the melodramatic whining to teh geyz. You’re doing it all wrong.

  105. @Canuck, I don’t think you’ll get a fair sampling here. Think about it a second. To say what I’m saying requires someone to voice “intolerance.” And it conveys dissatisfaction. It’s not “cool,” which means people just aren’t going to say it.

    Here’s how it really works: As the straight population in what were once gay bars rises, the gay people stop coming. It doesn’t happen all at once, but little by little. Pretty soon, what you thought was a gay bar is just another straight dance club.

    Along the way, very few people actually SAY anything. They find alternatives.

  106. This problem reads narrower than it really is. The question extends beyond the present moment and the gay community to a perrinial problem in American life: the competing interests of pluralism and integration. I don’t think anyone can argue against the necessity of having safe spaces in hostile cities and counties; there is a powerful interest in creating well-defined, and well defended, spaces for gay people in those places. I imagine that, for many gay people in the South, gay sporting organizations are one of the few places they can assert their identities and have their relationships be affirmed in public space. The issue is muddier in cities like Seattle, where the dignity of gay people is accepted as the rule rather than the exception (though obviously there are still homophobes, and being young and gay still involves no small amount of tribulation). As the country becomes increasingly accepting of gay people, as gay culture is increasingly bound into the larger fabric of American life, will there still be a role for gay sporting association, and what will that role be? Will gay softball go the way of negro baseball? More pointedly, do we want it do? No one wants a gay ghetto, as it were, but is there something to be said for having a gay neighborhood?

    Right now, gay sports serve to empower an embattled communiy. The benefits of having visible gay athletes outweigh the hazards of potentially discriminating against heterosexuals. I agree with previous commentators who have suggested that sometimes being a good ally means staying off the field and cheering for the home team, at least for now. Ringers are nothing new in sports. The solution to that question seems easier solved through administrative oversight than through a reckoning with gay sports’ situation in the broader context of heteronromative culture and the struggle for civic equality.

    I think that, in the long run, gay sports will reflect the paradigm of charitable sporting events, with participation reflecting a desire to address issues thbat are particular or particularly relevant to the gay community. Straight people will be involved to a much greater degree than they are currently.

  107. assless chaps is a tautology.

    heed the words of Bob Dylan, Mr. G.:

    “Your sons and your daughters
    Are beyond your command
    Your old road is rapidly agin’
    Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
    For the times they are a-changin’”

    which would sound pretty good with a disco beat and RuPaul singing it.

  108. @dak7e, as far as the “private parties” go, that in fact is what has happened with most of Seattle’s gay leather scene. I think that’s really bad news, because it becomes split up, and less accessible for newcomers.

    Why do straight people kill the vibe? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m not a fuckin’ college professor. All I know is that it does kill the vibe, and that’s all I need to know. The gay bar scene in this town, and a lot of other ones, is pretty much on its deathbed anyway.

    I think the Internet is a much bigger factor. This 100-post thread notwithstanding, I think the phenomenon of straights in gay bars, while an irritant, is pretty much a sideshow to something bigger. What was once “the gay community” is being assimilated out of existence. It’s not all bad by any stretch, but it’s not all good either. We’re losing something, and it’s sad to see it go.

  110. And, yeah, I’m sure there was this wonderful sense of belonging in ye old gay clubs of yore. But that kinda had to do with what was going on outside of those clubs. The disowned children, the witch-hunts, the police beatings, etc. Gay clubs provided a balance, which I’m sure you remember very fondly.

    Now we have the recognition and protection we deserve (well, almost). So of course these ‘safe spaces’ will need to evolve if they expect to stay relevant. Hopefully not disappear, but they will change.

    (On a personal note – given a choice between skanky (yet still thoroughly soul-warming, I’m sure) hookup joints and the legal/social recognition we’re getting now… well, let’s just say I’m happy with the way things have worked out.)

    Just don’t be a douche-crouton about it and it should work out just fine.

  111. Just thought I’d say a couple thins by way of softening this

    1. As long as there have been gay dance clubs, gay guys have been bringin’ their hags. This isn’t new and I shouldn’t have implied that it is.

    2. The good ol’ days had plenty of their own issues.

    3. Yeah, things change. It’s the way of the world, and I know that.

    Straights, I don’t hate ya. If it seems like I do, I want to apologize for my tone. I meant it as a lament of sorts, not the attack it turned into. Mea culpa.

  112. @111: I agree with you here. It’s not Canuck or my hot, charming straight friends (who are mostly more sex positive than I’ll ever be) that are causing gay bars to close. It’s Manhunt. It’s Grindr, It’s lazy assholes (pun accidental but happily serendipitous) who don’t care about maintaining a community that are killing gay bars. They’d rather get off in the most efficient way possible so they can hit multiple scenes in one night or scratch the itch and still make it home in time to watch some Netflix. More than any of that it’s gentrification’s effect on nightlife. Good gay bars, the ones that satisfy a social need or cater to a more diverse crowd including straights will stay strong and stay open, perhaps becoming less exclusively gay in the process.

    As Michael P said above: Integrating into the mass culture is the best way to reach equality with straights, which I realize is not everyone’s goal. And I understand that we lose some of the things that make the queer community vibrant in the process. Change is inevitable and it hurts, but it’s better to adapt and try to guide it rather than fighting an unwinnable battle against the future.

    At the risk of sounding sanctimonious, community is inside of us. It’s in a bar, it’s on the internet, it’s walking by a minivan with a pride sticker, it’s sharing a knowing nod with a gay or lesbian couple going for a walk with their child or winking at a queer revolutionary in assless chaps on the way home from a night at the bars. G-d is not in the church and community isn’t curled up in the wreckage of CC’s. It’s here in this argument and on the field in a gay softball team whether there’s 2 straight players or 12*.

    Maybe I live in a fantasy world, but I see things getting better every day and I think the moment when we start forming gay teams as a way of bonding and not because we need them to feel safe is something to look forward to, not something to fear.

  114. @dak7e, I’ve gotta tell ya, on a personal note, that I always had the most fun in the skanky bars where you didn’t know where the smell of stale beer left off and the smell of piss began. Remember Johnny’s Handlebar? They didn’t make ’em much better than that joint.

    Those were the days, my friend
    We thought they’d never end …

  116. one more TIME: chaps ARE assless. they were designed to keep the inseam of your jeans from wearing away while riding horses and to prevent skin chafing. come on guys, work with me!

  117. Good gay bars, the ones that satisfy a social need or cater to a more diverse crowd including straights will stay strong and stay open, perhaps becoming less exclusively gay in the process.

    God save me from a “good” gay bar.

  118. UNPAID COMMENTER@103, seriously? Jesus. I can understand some concern about straights infiltrating then. I’ve never had any real concerns with homophobic ladies wandering around a lesbian bar. It would definitely change the atmosphere if that was a possibility.

  120. @120: To be more clear, by “satisfy a social need “I meant something more like the Eagle that served a narrow clientele (i.e. leather, fetish, etc.) with a strong desire for a community experience. By “cater to a more diverse crowd” I meant someplace like the Bus Stop.

    Anyway…

  121. @13 It’s ironic for a member of a community that is petitioning for acceptance to offer so little. Is there really some kind of epidemic happening where gay bars are being overrun by str8’s ?

  123. @ 13/14: Mr. G says, “Straights, for every gay person who welcomes you in our spaces, there are several who your presence make them feel uncomfortable. We are not all one big happy family in all places, at all times.”

    A little presumptuous to speak for us all, don’t you think? Unless you’ve taken a poll, do NOT assume you’re in the majority. I have no problem with straight people who are comfortable enough with their own sexuality that they sometimes join their gay friends for a drink at a gay bar. Get over it.

  124. #124, actually, yes. Gay bars are droppin’ like flies, killed off much more by the Internet than anything else. It’s very much a mixed bag.

    #126, I call ’em like I see ’em. But I think, over time, this all becomes a matter of self-selection. Way back when, they’d call some places “mixed.” They were allegedly gay-friendly, but they were boring and, in a cruising sense, unproductive.

    But maybe it doesn’t matter, now that so much of the cruising has gone online. Things change. I get that. I was just lamenting the decline of the gay cruise bar. In doing so, I argued too hard. Gay guys are still cruising, but not so much in the bars these days, which means that what to me was the essential gay bar is, if not dead, then on life support.

  125. 1, T/F: Randomly pick a gay and a straight to race 100 yards, and the straight will probably win.

    2, T/F: Assemble the best possible gay team and the best possible straight team to compete in a sport, and all other things being equal, the straight team will probably win.

    Some people answer “true” to both questions. That’s tragic. I hope their perspectives evolve or fade away.

    Some people answer “false” to both questions. This is an overcorrection to the first group, transitional and hopefully not where finish societally. Sure, the first is prejudice, but the second is a statistical likelihood*.

    I am saddened anyone hesitates with the second, when I hope most people (eventually, regardless of orientation) will answer with “probably” followed by “but who cares?” Readers of The Stranger likely agree that the “True/True” crowd represents a dangerous prejudice. Moreover, the “False/False” position is a distraction and potentially compromises the progressives’ credibility with those still making up their minds.

    Nice article. If my grandkids read this article in 2061, I hope they find it interesting but historical, the straight/gay/softball-quota debates as contemporaneous to their everyday lives as segregated water fountains are to ours.
    ——-
    (*Why? Structure any competition in which one team draws from 10-20% of the population and the other team from 80-90%, the advantage is substantial. Consider this: At activity X, would you predict the win would likely go to the team made up of the best athletes from CA, OR and WA, or would you bet on the team that draws from the other 47 states? I pick these three as their populations total approx 15%.
    Devil’s Advocate One: But activity X favors Pacific residents–surfing, snorkeling, open-sea sailing!
    Devil’s Advocate Two: But what if the 10-20% isn’t truly *randomly* selected?
    To DAO: And where’s the metaphor, that one orientation is better at sports? No way.
    DAT: You bringing up nature/nurture/randomness with orientation? Really?)

  126. So a couple summers ago I joined a Queer flag (yes, I said FLAG) football team. The recruitment promo read “to build community” and “strengthen or learn flag football skills”. It wasn’t long after we started the first practice that I realized there were a lot of straight guys playing too… The straight guys only communicated game plays with each other- ignoring or avoiding gay players. The straight men would choose each other first for teams and basically took over the games and marginalized the gay players. Not only were the gay participants prevented from creating “community”, they were prevented from learning or improving their game playing skills because of the marginalizing (and I would go so far as to say condescending) behavior of the straight men. Needless to say I stopped going after a few more practices because things didn’t change and what was supposed to be a queer team was turning into a mixed team controlled by a bunch of prejudiced straight guys. Not fun. Not creating community. And all around an unpleasant experience.
    Perhaps some (or all) of negative elements I experienced are similar to the ones experienced by the Gheys at the GSWS.?

  127. @129: Was it a “queer” team in a straight league or a queer league or… the picking teams thing doesn’t make sense to me. Was it scrimmages? I feel confused by the logistics of this.

  128. It was a queer team that planned on scrimmaging with straight and gay teams. Practice scrimmage always involved picking teams.

  129. @131: I’m imagining it fell apart before it went anywhere? My experience of structured gay leagues has been a lot different. Sounds like it sucked, regardless. My understanding of the GSWS issue though is that it really is mostly about ringers.

    It seems sad that something that started about community got so focused on winning and losing, both on the parts of the teams that felt the need to “cheat” and the teams that needed to attack alleged cheaters.

  130. @132 Judgementalist, maybe in the span of 100 comments you’ve changed your mind, but how can you say this at #132:

    It seems sad that something that started about community got so focused on winning and losing, both on the parts of the teams that felt the need to “cheat” [ie add straight players as ringers] and the teams that needed to attack alleged cheaters.

    When you also said the following way back in #32:

    We welcomed (read: recruited) straight players who actually had rugby experience… Restricting the straights would have been counterproductive to our chances of winning

    How do you not see your own hypocrisy on this issue? Either you believe adding “straight ringers” is wrong and against the mission in gay sports, or you don’t. You can’t have it both ways.

  131. @133: No. I think caring about winning or losing is stupid. Honestly, I just played for the drink ups.

    But you’re completely right — I thought about this contradiction when I was posting and I could have said that in a much more nuanced way. My bigger point being: I think there’s a tension between “playing a sport for a sense of fun and community” and “playing a sport to dominate the other teams to prove you’re not some sissy fagg*t” or whatever reason people do hire ringers. For us it was a survival tactic since we were a gay team in a straight league and the straights that played with us were awesome people. I agree that this all becomes more complicated in an all gay / all amateur league.

    It might be unfair to say this, but rugby also feels sort of like a special case as most Americans don’t grow up playing it, and we were mainly competing teams who’d played in college. Perhaps it would have been more “fair” to hire the straights exclusively as coaches when we were in gay tournaments? Although this does bring back the question of “is it a form of internalized homophobia to assume straight people are better athletes?”

  132. Mister G may come off as a bit of an asshole, but he’s right. And I say this as a straight.

    Those of us that come from privilege have a hard time accepting being told “no” about anything, but sometimes we should just shut the fuck up and accept that sometimes, feeling put out because people don’t want to have to deal with us. So many people here are whining about not having the right, not to go to a gay bar (because we can’t legally be kept out, AFAIK), but that the gay people are not happy that we’re there. I’m looking especially at you, Scary; you pretty much exemplify the idea that if people don’t make way for your happy privilege you’ll take your ball and go home. (Threatening to withdraw support for the community because you won’t be welcomed with open arms in a specific circumstance? Really? Grow up!)

    Get this; we don’t have the right to waltz into places and expect everything to be happy and all about us. No one, not even Mister G, is saying that straights are assholes that they don’t want to ever associate with. All that is being asked is that straights just accept that it would be nice if we we friends, allies, and common human beings most of the time, and some of the time we just let gays have some space to call their own.

    Privilege is so often blind to its own sense of entitlement; please just take a minute and realize that other people’s spaces aren’t always mean to be yours.

  133. If you don’t want to follow the rules don’t play in these leagues that only exist because of their rules! Would the National Center for Lesbian Rights be representing such lawsuit if the ladies were still a part of NAGAAA? Plus at our level of athletics we know what it means to play the “bisexual card” and come on your team is from San Francisco! The gay athletes are out there, Phoenix has 2 “A” teams!

  134. In sports – gay or straight – the primary issue is about winning and losing. If a team of mostly straight players lost early – no one would have cared about how many straight players were on the team.

  135. In sports, gay or straight, it is often about winning or losing. In the case of the world series, the primary issue was that the team won, not that their were a few too many straight guys on the roster. If a team had mostly straight guys but finished in the middle, no one would have cared. I heard that many teams were protested out at the series in Seattle – some for running to quick or hitting to hard for their division. The motivation for all of the protests were not about protecting the goals of gay softball, but because the losing teams wanted to place higher. If gay softball was really about the community – there would not be so many protests and drama. These days It is more about softball than anything else – which is not a bad thing.

  136. Eli,
    It is the end of November, 2011 and this news item just surfaced on a News TV in Toronto. It is a pity that all this talk and these well thought out perspectives were not discussed BEFORE calling in the lawyers. Also, it is a pity no one will read my post as I would suggest giving each non-gay player a punch card and having him/ her/it submit it as proof of identifiable gay sexual activity during the softball season to be eligible to play during the World Games. Case closed!

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