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. 
@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.
@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.
@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.
@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.
@Mister G: Okay, thanks. I appreciate the honesty.
“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.
“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.
@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.
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.
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.
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.
@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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.)
Oh gosh, I’ve never done that, you know, typed before thinking things out, starting a US/Canada debate…no, never…heh 😉
@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.
@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!
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?
@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!”
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.
@66:
… 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.
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..?
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.
@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: 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.
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.
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”?
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.
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 🙂
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…
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.
@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.
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?
“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 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??
(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.)
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
May i hear from some other LGBT folk besides Mr. G?, please?
*exclusive, not inclusive.
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…
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.
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.
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.