Maybe your frustrations have nothing to do with your sense of self and everything to do with a gay world still steeped in all the things the straight world has - including heteronormativity. Of course, being settled in ourselves doesn’t mean that we don’t still want community. “Sorry to bother you, but I’m new to this city. She’s alone and I’m tipsy so I go up to her.
I wander around, feeling totally alone, until I spot a woman with an undercut. An older man hits on me, mistaking me for a twink. I get there and feel engulfed with cis male gayness and heterosexual tourists. Los Angeles doesn’t have any lesbian bars so I settle for the place I know - I settle for The Abbey. I’ve been single for a month, I’m in a new city, and I’m ready to enter this space without the training wheels of my ex. But for the first time, I’m at one alone. I’ve been out of the closet for two years and danced at a few gay clubs. The space is queer, because you are queer. The straight people and Gay Men™ won’t matter. The more comfortable you feel with your own identity, the less importance those around you will hold. Maybe your frustration with the space is because you’re not yet settled in yourself. For others, like me, the assumption that I was a gay man filled me with a different kind of invalidation. If attendance at the gay club doesn’t confirm our gayness then how can we prove that we belong? For some, straight women at the club might make them fear that they’re being grouped in with the straights. And when we’re new, we feel the need to prove ourselves. But maybe you’re newer like we’ve all been new. Maybe you would’ve been at gay clubs a decade ago if it was allowed. I don’t know how you identify or how you present or how long you’ve been out. We danced together in the comfort and discomfort of the queer people around us. Not everyone that night saw me, but my girlfriend did, these new friends did. All I want is to be in places like this, but what if I seem out of place? What if these new friends notice I don’t belong? I get misgendered at the door and the night seems doomed. They take us to a queer dance party and suddenly I have something new to be nervous about. Those almost friends invite us out and we say yes with the platonic version of first date jitters. I’m almost a year into my transition and my girlfriend and I have successfully changed our relationship from heterosexual to super gay. The realization that they’re just a place like any place can be disappointing. They’re supposed to be the answer to a life of otherness. They are essential to our history, centered in our media, a staple of our culture. When we find that personal language, gay clubs are presented to us as one such place. Before we even know the words to describe ourselves, a lot of queer people are searching for a place where we belong. Sure, the pandemic and age restrictions, but you’ve probably been waiting even longer.
After all, you’d been waiting for this experience for so long. Maybe you had a vision of what that night would be like and were disappointed by the reality. I’m not sure why you had your reaction to the gay club - but I have some ideas. I go home, questioning my disappointment, wondering why I feel so swirly inside. I want to go with the group to the gay club but I feel it’s not my place - even though some of my straight friends are tagging along. We walk by a gay club and the group splits. It’s late and the night is either coming to a close or just beginning. I’m with some of these friends and some gay friends of friends. I’m about to start my junior year of college and as far as I know I’m straight and all my friends are straight. I don’t know, am I crazy? Overreacting? How can I actually enjoy myself in a gay club? Do I even have to like gay clubs? A: Even my queer friends don’t get why it bothers me so much to see straight women there. It felt a bit like everyone there was a gay man or a straight woman, and I feel crazy for finding that really frustrating. Ok, so this past week I went to a gay club in downtown Toronto for the first time (I turned 19 during the pandemic, so I haven’t been able to go out until now) and I was expecting to have a grand old time where I felt super at ease and like I was surrounded by other queer people, and instead I felt super worried that I was somehow doing it wrong or that all the women/femmes who were there weren’t queer to begin with.