Guerrilla Queer Bars in their midst
Straight clubs caught off-guard
While it’s up to the participants themselves to offer the olive branch of peace and understanding (and perhaps some no-strings homo sex) to the caught-off-guard-but-still-game straight community, the San Diego website does work hard to encourage all comers to view the event as an opportunity whereby nights end, the "intermingling of the LGBTQ community with the larger non-LGBTQ community may bear mutual understanding and acceptance about our differences and our commonalities." To that end, they ask that all GBQ patrons "present positive examples of the community while attending our events." Far from an admonishment to tone it down, they encourage their queer tribe to "dress in drag, wear your stilettos and sport those ass-hugging jeans" while remembering not to "hit on straight patrons excessively."
Pride plus a modicum of restraint is why there have not yet been, so far as we know, any negative consequences which the site readily acknowledges (worded as such on the site in terms of a possible scenario in which their unexpected presence "may provoke unintended consequences leading to violence, miscommunication or misconduct").
San Diego Guerrilla Queer Bar organizer Nick Norvell spoke to Edge recently about his city’s movement, which began in January of 2009. Norvell was inspired to bring the event to San Diego after hearing about it while living in Washington, D.C. - and from being friends with old college chum and Boston organizer Daniel Heller.
For Norvell, the Guerrilla Queer Bar serves a variety of purposes - among them, just getting him and his friends out of the one-neighborhood area in which most of the city’s gay bars are located. So far, the LGBTQs have enjoyed the change of scenery and the chance to wear their politics on their sleeves (and elsewhere) while reaching out to the straight community through the liberal use of that great social lubricant known as alcohol. Although he’s heard anecdotal tales of new gay/straight alliances forged from the forced togetherness, Norvell says "I have not heard about any negative reactions or of somebody being verbally abused. There’s a lot of positive reaction. People think it’s great, cool, funny."
As for the element of the night dedicated that’s more social activism than socializing, that element has come in more like a lamb than a lion - in subtle ways designed to facilitate communication rather than force the signing of a petition or the taking of an Allies Pledge. Norvell: "We wore rainbow stickers for the first one. For the second, little white knots for marriage equality." When people would ask what they meant, they were told. Thus, hearts and mind may begin to change once straights attach a human face to an otherwise distant social justice issue."
As to the Devil’s advocate argument that the Guerrilla Queer Bar movement is just a smarmy flash crowd wearing the false luster of social progress to justify its uninvited presence, Norvell says "We’re not going in and trying to take over. We just want to be able to mingle and be ’asked what is that for’ (referring to the ribbons) and start that conversation."
