It’s familiar territory now, but it doesn’t make it any less controversial: gay bars with door staff deciding if you look gay enough to come in…
UPDATE: We have now published a follow-up to this story one year on. Read about it here.
If you have been affected by the issues raised here, have worked at Manchester venues with door policies like this or agree with door policies described please get in touch. To share your own experiences please email us on newsdesk (at) mancunianmatters (dot) co (dot) uk
Welcome to Manchester’s latest bar… S.T.R.A.I.G.H.T.
Picture the scene.
You’re out for a few drinks with friends. One of them fancies a dance. You head to a nightclub that you know will play the kind of thing she likes. You get rejected from the club because ‘you’re not a member’ – yet there’s no way of becoming a member. In fact, no one there has a membership card.
You realise you’re not getting in because of your sexuality.
The club is called S.T.R.A.I.G.H.T.
You realise you don’t look straight enough, so there’s no way you’re getting in.
Clearly this would never happen. The notion of a UK club being so openly homophobic in 2013 is preposterous – it wouldn’t be legal and even if it was it would probably be boycotted by most of Manchester.
Yet exactly the same scenario is occurring every night in Manchester’s gay village, only with the sexualities described in reverse.
You’re not gay enough for G.A.Y.
While out with a friend of mine recently, he recounted a tale about Canal Street’s now notoriously strict club – G.A.Y. Let’s call him Robert.
He was out with a transsexual friend of his when they decided to head to G.A.Y. It’s not his usual haunt, but they were in the mood for a dance.
Just as they were about to pass the threshold, a bouncer stuck his arm in front of them to bar their way.
“Members only tonight I’m afraid.”
My friend tried to protest, but to no avail; the answer remained no as the bouncer explained he hadn’t seen him drinking round there before. Clearly frustrated, my friend read between the lines and decided to cut to the chase.
“This is ridiculous. I love cock and my friend used to have one, but we’re not gay enough for G.A.Y?” he said, before storming off.
Meet the infallible door staff – they know your sexuality with just one look
Given only hearing this story a week or two ago, you can imagine my apprehension when I was out for a drink with a group of friends recently and one of them wanted to go to G.A.Y. I explained we probably wouldn’t get in. We were a group of two males and two females – and since the guys weren’t wearing chaps with the arse cheeks cut out and the girls were distinguishable as girls, I didn’t think we had a fair chance.
Highly offensive and disgusting rhetoric, right? Well it’s probably along the lines of some clubs’ entrance policy guidelines that they brief door staff with so take it up with them.
We decided to give it a try anyway. After all, we were dressed fine (I won’t say well, but I’m sure it was well) and we weren’t drunk.
Sure enough, as we reached the entrance, the door staff stopped us in our tracks.
Here’s a rough transcript:
Door staff: “Hold it there for me guys. Where do you usually drink around here?”
Girl #1: “Taurus and the Molly House. Why?”
Door staff: “Because I’ve not seen you around here before. It’s members only tonight.”
Girl #1: “Well can we buy membership?”
Door staff: “No. We don’t sell membership on the door.”
Girl #1: “If we can’t become members, then how are we to ever get in?”
Door staff: “I don’t recognise you, so you aren’t coming in.”
Guy #1: “We don’t usually drink in here, but as she said before we do usually drink in Taurus and the Molly House and wanted to come somewhere to dance for a change.”
Door staff: “I’ve made my mind up – boasting about where you work isn’t going to get you in.”
Guy #1: “I haven’t told you where I work.”
Door staff: “You were just going on about working behind the bar in the Molly House. If you work behind the bar there, why don’t you go there.”
Guy #1: “No, it was you who asked us where we usually drink – that’s why we brought up the Molly House. We don’t work there.”
Door staff: “Well I don’t recognise you so you aren’t coming in.”
Guy #1: “If we can’t become members and we can’t come in now, how are we going to ever be recognised by you?”
Door staff: “You need to come in a group of people where I recognise most of them.”
Guy #1: “Given that I don’t know anyone who can actually get in here, it means I can never come in this bar.”
Door staff: “No.”
But how infallible are they?
So his argument progressed through three different realms of farce, as he seemingly made it up on the spot:
1) Do we drink in the area
2) No membership (you dropped your gay card)
3) Didn’t recognise us
The moment we were able to name drinks establishments other than the obvious Baa Bar or whatever, he gave up on this line of defence. Bizarrely, he seemed to forget that he asked us this question and thought we were bragging about where we worked. Odd.
The argument of membership falls down when a) there are no membership cards for sale at the venue b) you can’t buy them anywhere online c) no one else going in had any membership cards. Clearly they don’t really exist.
His third and final argument was that he didn’t recognise us. Most tellingly on this front, a group of four girls were in the queue after us. To paint you a quick picture, they all had short hair and wore no make-up. What does this mean? Well, you wouldn’t like to think this meant anything necessarily – but for the bouncer this was clearly enough for him to make his snap judgment.
He let them in – but not before asking them for ID. Now would you ask for ID from someone you ‘recognised’? Surely that means he’s let them in before? He clearly hadn’t seen these four girls in his life, but they were able to match the criteria that made up what it means to be ‘gay’ in his mind.
Don’t be too harsh on this bouncer though. He must have to work a LOT of hours – seven days a week from 12 midday until 4am in the morning. After all, if the policy is that he must recognise you, he must be there at all waking hours to ensure he is learning the faces of everyone going in… right?
Conclusions
OK, rant over. Let’s get down to what’s actually going on here.
I fully appreciate why establishments in the village reject those they don’t think are suitable.
Bars become popular, become trendy, straight people start going. Before you know it, the bar is full of hen parties and groups of straight ‘lads’ out on the piss trying to pick up the women on the hen parties and there’s not a gay person in sight.
Protecting an area that was created to be a safe haven for gay people to go out and feel comfortable and be themselves is of utmost importance.
So giving the door staff the instructions to not let in big groups of pissed up men leering at women or gaggles of girls out for a hen do, complete with learner plates and blow up willies… sure, most people will understand why you’re not letting them in.
But are we happy giving your door staff the power to pick and choose who you’re not getting in based on a snap judgment of whether or not they think you’re gay?
Who is this fantasy infallible bouncer? Do they have a faultless ‘gay-dar’ that’s never wrong? Or is just that being gay is easy to spot a mile off? You know the guys: they wear pink, have earrings, perhaps even eye-liner, tight t-shirts and mince about everywhere.
Of course not. To think this is offensive in itself. Sexuality is inside and doesn’t display itself in everyone through the choice of clothes they wear or how much make-up they put on.
These door staff regularly get it wrong, as this story illustrates. So you end up with gay people being rejected from clubs for not looking gay enough.
But even if they always got it right, are we completely comfortable with that? Are we happy to be rejecting people purely due to their sexuality?
There’s a hell of a lot of controversy around such things as ‘affirmative action’ or ‘positive discrimination’. We must protect the minority. We all know things aren’t equal so we seek to make it equal quicker and if that means some members of the majority experience discrimination, then so be it – things will be equal by doing this.
A number of years ago, Philip Hensher published an article in The Independent in which he demanded that straight people should not to go into gay clubs. One of his arguments was that he ‘wouldn’t expect to get much of a welcome if [he] turned up to a black hip-hop club in Brixton with seven gawping white friends, after all’.
True, he might feel uncomfortable. People may even look at him or treat him poorly.
But you can bet your bottom dollar that they wouldn’t turn around on the door and say ‘Sorry, you’re white, you ain’t coming in. This bar is for black people only’.
If gay bars and clubs are following this policy, should they come out (sorry) and admit it? ‘You aren’t coming in because you’re not gay.’
And how do we decide this – make everyone who’s gay sit a test so they can be validated for their ‘gay card’?
Before we know it there will be bars popping up called S.T.R.A.I.G.H.T. and they’ll be asking to see your straight card.
Rejecting people based on a snap judgment of their supposed sexuality is dangerous territory to be in.
UPDATE: We have now published a follow-up story on this issue. Read it here.
If you have been affected by the issues raised here, have worked at Manchester venues with door policies like this or agree with door policies described please get in touch. To share your own experiences please email us on newsdesk (at) mancunianmatters (dot) co (dot) uk
Picture courtesy of Gene Hunt, with thanks.
