Going Out: Queer spaces are resilient, not ‘vulnerable’
by Kamron Sheikhalmolooki
Like many students at PCC, I am working my way through college and it can be challenging to find work with the limited amount of time left over after classes and coursework. I found myself looking for a new job this semester, one that pays enough to have a meaningful impact on monthly expenses but doesn’t compromise or interfere with academic commitments. With my few years of serving and bartending experience, many of my friends had urged me to consider dropping a resume at a gay bar.
Gay bars are notoriously busy, serving not only cocktails but also as epicenters and meeting places for our community. Identifying as a gay cisgender male myself, I had built my own connection with gay bars and queer spaces over the years.
My best friend Alanna took me to my first gay bar. It was Greg’s Our Place off of 16th Street in Indianapolis, Indiana. Alanna had been exploring her own sexuality and her older brother had taken her there a time before. I wasn’t out yet, so I sold my curiosity and excitement as unwavering support for my friend’s queerness.
The moment I stepped inside I was free. I didn’t have to speak in a mumble trying to sound straight, I didn’t have to act like I didn’t love the Kylie Minogue song thumping through the speakers, I didn’t care who was watching. I didn’t have to pretend. What everyone in that room had in common wasn’t a sexual orientation, but an experience. We were all familiar with feelings of ostracism and otherness.
In a November 2022 summary of terrorism threat to the United States, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security listed LGBTQI+ institutions and gathering places as especially vulnerable targets of potential violence.
On the evening of Nov. 19, 2022, just before midnight, an armed gunman entered Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and opened fire on the crowd. Five people were killed and approximately 20 others were injured, many suffering from gunshot wounds.
The assailant faces 305 criminal charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder and bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, as the community and the nation attempt to ascertain motive, searching for answers.
What did the people inside Club Q experience that night? What brought them there? Some were looking for that safe place to enjoy a drink with friends and other queer people, some went to cruise, some went to see a lineup of drag artists perform, and some were there to work.
We often force ourselves to think these horrible acts that make headlines with increasing frequency will never happen to us. We run a crude odds assessment to convince ourselves we’re safe and there’s no need to worry. After Club Q, I couldn’t help but worry.
The attack at Club Q is one in a long history of violence, terrorism, and brutality against the queer community. The first Pride wasn’t a parade, it was a riot, and it all started at a divey gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in New York City. The police habitually raided the Stonewall Inn, exploiting discriminatory laws requiring an individual to wear a certain number of clothing items that aligned with the gender on their state issued ID, an effort to criminalize transgender women, cross-dressers and gender non-conforming individuals.
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, the crowd at the bar was larger than usual. Many had gathered to mourn the death of Judy Garland, a celebrated gay icon whose body lay in state on the Upper East Side the previous afternoon. But unlike the countless raids before, the patrons of the Stonewall Inn resisted that night. The first Gay Pride Liberation March took place one year later, celebrating the anniversary of this uprising.
The Stonewall Inn was more than a gay bar. Every gay bar is more than a gay bar. For a community defined by concepts of “coming out” and living “out,” going home isn’t always an option. Gay bars provide for their patrons the shelter, safety, and security society has historically denied them. Many queer people discover who they are in these spaces, through friendships, experimentation and experiences.
In an exclusive interview with Spotlight, drag artist Valentina describes her self discovery in Los Angeles queer nightclubs.
“I really used queer or gay bars and gay venues to really explore my sense of style, my sense of self,” she said. “In my early years, my friends and I, who were recently out, were really using a lot of the nights to Club Kid and dress to full extreme. And, we really felt that these spaces were spaces where we weren’t going to be judged, a place where we could let our freak flag fly, among other people that were extremely either flamboyant or Club Kid. It was really a place where we were finding ourselves.”
Valentina made her debut at Club Tempo in Hollywood before amassing a tremendous following throughout Los Angeles. She rose to international prominence appearing on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Drag Race All-Stars.” Today, she is one of the most celebrated and recognizable drag artists in the world. Although her recent projects and humanitarian work have taken her to larger venues and film and television sets, her origins will always be rooted in the queer spaces she grew up in. Gay bars everywhere, like Greg’s or Tempo or Club Q, provide a space where otherness becomes the norm.
“Later in my life and going out to queer spaces, those were places of work for me,” she says. “They were a place for me to start my art form of drag and explore that side of gender for myself.”
In a 2019 stand-up performance, comedian and writer Simon Amstell described the first time he walked into a gay club in Paris.
“I was so nervous walking into this nightclub,” Amstell said. “I’d never been to a nightclub before. And what I thought would happen, this is quite naive maybe, but I thought I was this new guy in town, and somebody, at least one person, would approach me and tell me who I am.”
The necessity of these spaces quickly makes them sacred, and attacks against them become especially devastating.
On June 12, 2016, a gunman entered Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The shooting and subsequent hostage situation lasted nearly four hours, claiming the lives of 49 people and injuring 53 others. It was, at that time, the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
“When Pulse happened, it really scared me,” Valentina recalls. “Because that was in Florida, it was drag night, and it was Latino night.”
The shooting at Club Q took place after a drag performance on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Two of the five people killed in the attack were transgender.
According to tracking by the Human Rights Campaign, 2022 saw at least 35 transgender people fatally shot or killed by other violent means. These reports emphasize “at least” as many of these incidents go unreported.
The five lives lost at Club Q belonged to Kelly Loving, Ashley Pugh, Raymond Green Vance, Derrick Rump, and Daniel Aston. Loving, 40, was a transgender woman and beloved patron who frequented Club Q. Pugh, 35, was a cisgender woman whose work with the Kids Crossing nonprofit often brought her into the LGBTQ community to find foster placements for children. Vance, 22, had joined his longtime girlfriend and her family for the drag performance that Saturday night. It was his girlfriend’s father, Richard Fierro, who tackled and disarmed the gunman. Rump, 38, and Aston, a 28-year-old trans man, were bartenders at Club Q.
The gay bars you see standing today have weathered unbelievable obstacles, from violence and discrimination in many forms to epidemics and pandemics.
Extended COVID-19 closures left dozens of Los Angeles gay bars to shutter permanently. From Rage, Flaming Saddles and Gym Bar in West Hollywood to Oil Can Harry’s in Studio City, many long-standing gay establishments had no choice but to close down.
Silverlake’s beloved Akbar only just survived, relying on the support of their community to help them through. Akbar owners Scott Craig and Peter Alexander were faced with the impossible decision to close the iconic neighborhood staple and threw up a Hail Mary in the form of a GoFundMe. Within days they exceeded their goal, eventually raising more than $185,000.
“The bars that are still up and running right now are gems,” Valentina says. “One that is no longer here anymore would’ve been Circus. It was a place where all people gathered up. Gay, trans, lesbians, straight, cowboy, hip-hop. It was a mix, but it’s just no longer here.”
Club Tempo, where Valentina got her start, is still open on the corner of Western and Santa Monica, continuing its rich tradition of live entertainment, old school drag, and dancing, all in its signature Latin cowboy decor.
“In North Hollywood there’s a club called Cobra and on Thursday nights they have a trans night,” Valentina says. “It’s one of the few places where I can go and be surrounded by the trans community and feel safe to go out, and I don’t feel like I’m being asked for anything. I’m actually invited to be there and have a good time. Spaces like that for me, personally, are where I feel comfortable.”
Many have described the LGBTQ community as “vulnerable.” I think the term “targeted” is more accurate, as “vulnerable” tends to imply weakness and nullifies the community’s resilience. Despite the violence and uncertainty that continues to surround so many queer people asymmetrically, we go out. We go out for so much more than a vodka soda. We go out for each other. We go out for ourselves. We go out in recognition of the uniquely queer connection between place and identity.
Like many students at PCC, I am working my way through college and it can be challenging to find work with the limited amount of time left over after classes and coursework. I found myself looking for a new job this semester, one that pays enough to have a meaningful impact on monthly expenses but doesn’t compromise or interfere with academic commitments. With my few years of serving and bartending experience, many of my friends had urged me to consider dropping a resume at a gay bar.
Gay bars are notoriously busy, serving not only cocktails but also as epicenters and meeting places for our community. Identifying as a gay cisgender male myself, I had built my own connection with gay bars and queer spaces over the years.
My best friend Alanna took me to my first gay bar. It was Greg’s Our Place off of 16th Street in Indianapolis, Indiana. Alanna had been exploring her own sexuality and her older brother had taken her there a time before. I wasn’t out yet, so I sold my curiosity and excitement as unwavering support for my friend’s queerness.
The moment I stepped inside I was free. I didn’t have to speak in a mumble trying to sound straight, I didn’t have to act like I didn’t love the Kylie Minogue song thumping through the speakers, I didn’t care who was watching. I didn’t have to pretend. What everyone in that room had in common wasn’t a sexual orientation, but an experience. We were all familiar with feelings of ostracism and otherness.
In a November 2022 summary of terrorism threat to the United States, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security listed LGBTQI+ institutions and gathering places as especially vulnerable targets of potential violence.
On the evening of Nov. 19, 2022, just before midnight, an armed gunman entered Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and opened fire on the crowd. Five people were killed and approximately 20 others were injured, many suffering from gunshot wounds.
The assailant faces 305 criminal charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder and bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, as the community and the nation attempt to ascertain motive, searching for answers.
What did the people inside Club Q experience that night? What brought them there? Some were looking for that safe place to enjoy a drink with friends and other queer people, some went to cruise, some went to see a lineup of drag artists perform, and some were there to work.
We often force ourselves to think these horrible acts that make headlines with increasing frequency will never happen to us. We run a crude odds assessment to convince ourselves we’re safe and there’s no need to worry. After Club Q, I couldn’t help but worry.
The attack at Club Q is one in a long history of violence, terrorism, and brutality against the queer community. The first Pride wasn’t a parade, it was a riot, and it all started at a divey gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in New York City. The police habitually raided the Stonewall Inn, exploiting discriminatory laws requiring an individual to wear a certain number of clothing items that aligned with the gender on their state issued ID, an effort to criminalize transgender women, cross-dressers and gender non-conforming individuals.
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, the crowd at the bar was larger than usual. Many had gathered to mourn the death of Judy Garland, a celebrated gay icon whose body lay in state on the Upper East Side the previous afternoon. But unlike the countless raids before, the patrons of the Stonewall Inn resisted that night. The first Gay Pride Liberation March took place one year later, celebrating the anniversary of this uprising.
The Stonewall Inn was more than a gay bar. Every gay bar is more than a gay bar. For a community defined by concepts of “coming out” and living “out,” going home isn’t always an option. Gay bars provide for their patrons the shelter, safety, and security society has historically denied them. Many queer people discover who they are in these spaces, through friendships, experimentation and experiences.
In an exclusive interview with Spotlight, drag artist Valentina describes her self discovery in Los Angeles queer nightclubs.
“I really used queer or gay bars and gay venues to really explore my sense of style, my sense of self,” she said. “In my early years, my friends and I, who were recently out, were really using a lot of the nights to Club Kid and dress to full extreme. And, we really felt that these spaces were spaces where we weren’t going to be judged, a place where we could let our freak flag fly, among other people that were extremely either flamboyant or Club Kid. It was really a place where we were finding ourselves.”
Valentina made her debut at Club Tempo in Hollywood before amassing a tremendous following throughout Los Angeles. She rose to international prominence appearing on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Drag Race All-Stars.” Today, she is one of the most celebrated and recognizable drag artists in the world. Although her recent projects and humanitarian work have taken her to larger venues and film and television sets, her origins will always be rooted in the queer spaces she grew up in. Gay bars everywhere, like Greg’s or Tempo or Club Q, provide a space where otherness becomes the norm.
“Later in my life and going out to queer spaces, those were places of work for me,” she says. “They were a place for me to start my art form of drag and explore that side of gender for myself.”
In a 2019 stand-up performance, comedian and writer Simon Amstell described the first time he walked into a gay club in Paris.
“I was so nervous walking into this nightclub,” Amstell said. “I’d never been to a nightclub before. And what I thought would happen, this is quite naive maybe, but I thought I was this new guy in town, and somebody, at least one person, would approach me and tell me who I am.”
The necessity of these spaces quickly makes them sacred, and attacks against them become especially devastating.
On June 12, 2016, a gunman entered Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The shooting and subsequent hostage situation lasted nearly four hours, claiming the lives of 49 people and injuring 53 others. It was, at that time, the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
“When Pulse happened, it really scared me,” Valentina recalls. “Because that was in Florida, it was drag night, and it was Latino night.”
The shooting at Club Q took place after a drag performance on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Two of the five people killed in the attack were transgender.
According to tracking by the Human Rights Campaign, 2022 saw at least 35 transgender people fatally shot or killed by other violent means. These reports emphasize “at least” as many of these incidents go unreported.
The five lives lost at Club Q belonged to Kelly Loving, Ashley Pugh, Raymond Green Vance, Derrick Rump, and Daniel Aston. Loving, 40, was a transgender woman and beloved patron who frequented Club Q. Pugh, 35, was a cisgender woman whose work with the Kids Crossing nonprofit often brought her into the LGBTQ community to find foster placements for children. Vance, 22, had joined his longtime girlfriend and her family for the drag performance that Saturday night. It was his girlfriend’s father, Richard Fierro, who tackled and disarmed the gunman. Rump, 38, and Aston, a 28-year-old trans man, were bartenders at Club Q.
The gay bars you see standing today have weathered unbelievable obstacles, from violence and discrimination in many forms to epidemics and pandemics.
Extended COVID-19 closures left dozens of Los Angeles gay bars to shutter permanently. From Rage, Flaming Saddles and Gym Bar in West Hollywood to Oil Can Harry’s in Studio City, many long-standing gay establishments had no choice but to close down.
Silverlake’s beloved Akbar only just survived, relying on the support of their community to help them through. Akbar owners Scott Craig and Peter Alexander were faced with the impossible decision to close the iconic neighborhood staple and threw up a Hail Mary in the form of a GoFundMe. Within days they exceeded their goal, eventually raising more than $185,000.
“The bars that are still up and running right now are gems,” Valentina says. “One that is no longer here anymore would’ve been Circus. It was a place where all people gathered up. Gay, trans, lesbians, straight, cowboy, hip-hop. It was a mix, but it’s just no longer here.”
Club Tempo, where Valentina got her start, is still open on the corner of Western and Santa Monica, continuing its rich tradition of live entertainment, old school drag, and dancing, all in its signature Latin cowboy decor.
“In North Hollywood there’s a club called Cobra and on Thursday nights they have a trans night,” Valentina says. “It’s one of the few places where I can go and be surrounded by the trans community and feel safe to go out, and I don’t feel like I’m being asked for anything. I’m actually invited to be there and have a good time. Spaces like that for me, personally, are where I feel comfortable.”
Many have described the LGBTQ community as “vulnerable.” I think the term “targeted” is more accurate, as “vulnerable” tends to imply weakness and nullifies the community’s resilience. Despite the violence and uncertainty that continues to surround so many queer people asymmetrically, we go out. We go out for so much more than a vodka soda. We go out for each other. We go out for ourselves. We go out in recognition of the uniquely queer connection between place and identity.
