The gay club has a new face. Gone are the days of clandestine meetings in molly houses and underground taverns, in favour of openness and flamboyance and rainbow-emblazoned décor. A few hours around Soho and you’d find it hard to conceive that less than 40 years ago, schools were banned from even suggesting that an LGBT couple could form a ‘pretended family relationship’. We’ve come a long way, and today you’re just as likely to see those of the heterosexual inclination on the dance floors of an OMG as you are in the local Spoons.
And surely, they should be allowed to. The queer community are celebrating more freedoms than ever before, and isn’t it counter-intuitive to celebrate them by closing ourselves off? Gatekeeping ‘gay-exclusive’ clubs in 2021 – is that not taking us right back to where we started?
I beg to differ.
I’m not saying that straight people should be unceremoniously banned from LGBT premises. Some queer people might have entirely heterosexual friendship groups and may not feel comfortable going alone. Some might want to bring family members. Some might just want to spend their night with their straight best friend – and that’s fine. The gay club is a space designed for them, and nobody should be able to police who they choose to share it with.
There’s a difference, though, between respectful merriment alongside your LGBT friends and treating queer spaces as a tourist attraction. Let’s be honest, hordes of uninvited straight people. You’re not going because of a deep-rooted passion for LGBT rights. You’re going because you want a quirky, out-of-the-box night out. I wholeheartedly support you in wanting respite from the PRYZM cheese floor, but just remember that there are a million and one other options that don’t involve encroaching on the very limited number of safe spaces queer people can supposedly call our own.
I’m not saying it’s done maliciously – the vast majority of heterosexual revellers are probably perfectly respectful. But in a country – even as accepting as 21st century Great Britain is supposed to be – where less than half of LGBTQ+ people feel able to be open about their sexuality or gender identity to their families, ‘probably’ isn’t good enough. You probably won’t make us feel uncomfortable. You probably won’t get offended if a queer person hits on you.
…But you might.
Tales of straight people in gay clubs offended at the suggestion that they’re anything but heterosexual continue to flood social media, which is the whole crux of the issue. It’s a whole new level of entitlement to show up to a space that was not designed for you and undermine the whole purpose of the establishment, and it’s becoming too common. Gay clubs are a space where queer people can be open about our identities, and we don’t want to spend one of our only respites from heteronormative society second guessing ourselves.
It’s a contentious issue, and I’m definitely not speaking for everyone. Some of my queer friends think that gay clubs should be a safe space for straight women too, and I can see where they’re coming from – to an extent. With the insidious dangers of rape culture and misogyny, not to mention the alarmingly increasing reports of drink spiking across the country, it’s no wonder that women feel unsafe on a typical night out usually dominated by cisgender straight men.
But the fact remains that it’s a gay club, not a cis-het-man-free-zone. These are bigger issues that need bigger solutions – a safe space for one group can’t just be created by co-opting the space of another. Queer people giving up our intended safe havens won’t suddenly stop every misogynist and criminal in their tracks, and the onus shouldn’t be on us to stop them anyway.
That’s not to say that policing entry is the way to go. Indeed, a woman last month claimed she and her girlfriend were turned away from popular London gay club Heaven because they ‘didn’t look queer’ – a dangerous and harmful precedent that we can’t allow to be set. There’s no barometer to measure queerness, and there shouldn’t be – I’m not calling for a signed and witnessed certificate of homosexuality at the door. You’re perfectly within your rights to go on an uninvited heterosexual frolic around your local gay club. But just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean you should.
The next time you’re thinking about going uninvited to an LGBT venue, just take a second to reflect. When everywhere else is a straight venue by default, do you really need the gay club too? Because your throwaway night out might just be taking up space in the one spot where someone can be completely, unapologetically themselves.
