Out In STL, Spring 2021

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VIVACIOUS VINES | WHOSE FAULT IS IT? | DANCEFLOORS VS. SMARTPHONES | A TRANSFEMME HEART

Divine Matters Bishop Deon Johnson has big dreams for St. Louis

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: A magazine exploring and celebrating the LGBTQ community in St. Louis Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Melissa Meinzer E D I T O R I A L Director of Social Media Elizabeth Van Winkle Contributing Writers Joss Barton, Patrick Collins, Riley Mack, Joshua Phelps, Elizabeth Van Winkle, Matt Woods Editor at Large Doyle Murphy A R T

& P R O D U C T I O N Art Director Evan Sult Production Manager Haimanti Germain Contributing Photographers Steven Duong, Monica Mileur, Andy Paulissen, Matt Seidel, Theo Welling M U LT I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Advertising Director Colin Bell Senior Account Executive Cathleen Criswell Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Multimedia Account Executives Chuck Healy, Jackie Mundy Digital Sales Manager Chad Beck Director of Public Relations Brittany Forrest C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers E U C L I D M E D I A G R O U P Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner Human Resources Director Lisa Beilstein VP of Digital Services Stacy Volhein www.euclidmediagroup.com N A T I O N A L A D V E R T I S I N G VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, www.voicemediagroup.com Out In STL is published quarterly

by Euclid Media Group Verified Audit Member Out In STL 308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103 www.outinstl.com General information: 314-754-5966 Fax administrative: 314-754-5955 Fax editorial: 314-754-6416 Founded in 2017

MELISSA MEINZER

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ne year ago, I hurried out of my office on a Thursday afternoon figuring it might be a few weeks before I returned. I snagged a computer monitor to use at home with my laptop and told my plants to think like a cactus.

Those plants, I assume, are fully dead at this point, and I haven’t worn mascara or a bra in quite some time. I haven’t seen my parents, who live a plane ride away, since Thanksgiving 2019.

And, of course, I’m one of the absurdly lucky ones. Any of us with the temerity to whine about Zoom fatigue should take several seats.

Millions have died, hundreds of thousands of American lives have been lost, and families have been brought to their knees as jobs and ways of life evaporated. Marginalized communities have, unsurprisingly, been hit hardest.

To call it a rough year is almost insultingly understated.

It’s been devastating. With a full year of pandemic life behind us, our writers took stock of where we are. Elizabeth Van Winkle looks at what’s at stake when queer spaces close.

Joss Barton’s lyrical essay floats us through her year. Patrick Collins gets to know Deon Johnson, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri — and found out how the first Black, gay, married-with-kids, immigrant bishop of the diocese has tended to his flock in a time of crisis.

I had the absolute pleasure of talking to Joey Beaver about his joyful green oasis, as well as NYC-based St. Louis native Eric Williams about the gay ass revelations his podcast is bringing him.

Spring always feels freighted with hope for me, and maybe this year more than ever.

Melissa Meinzer Editor in Chief Out in STL is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased for $1.00 plus postage, payable in advance at the Out in STL office. Out in STL may be distributed only by Out in STL authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of Out in STL, take more than one copy of each Out in STL weekly issue.

The entire contents of Out in STL are copyright 2018 by Out in STL, LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the expressed written permission of the Publisher, Out in STL, 308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103. Please call the Out in STL office for back-issue information, 314-754-5966.

C OV E R P H OTO O F B I S H O P D EO N J O H N S O N C O U RT E SY O F T H E E P I S C O PA L D I O C E S E O F M I SS O U R I

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diversions

Bloom where you’re planted AUTHENTICITY, JOY AND LUSH LEAVES WITH JOEY BEAVER

BY MEL I SSA M E I NZ E R

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veryone knows that plants need the sun to flourish. For the more than 70 plants currently calling Joey Beaver’s St. Louis apartment home, an extra dose comes from their caretaker Beaver, who can fairly be called a human ray of sunshine.

Beaver’s plants and his marvelous social media posts starring himself and a few leafy friends at a time are all part of his journey of self-discovery, of creating a safe space for him and his best friends to be their most authentic selves — to bloom, one might say.

“My love for plants just came from wanting to be a little

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more selfless and staying in touch with nature,” the 24-yearold customer service specialist says. “These plants just make me happy, they just bring happiness into this space. The feeling of when I used to go to the botanical gardens, the energy — I just wanted that in my space.”

His leafy apartment is his first on his own, and he’s turned it into an oasis where the plants are healthy and the potlucks are an occasion worth getting dressed to the nines for. On a Sunday afternoon Zoom, he’s in a silky red cut-to-there shirt, wriggling snake earrings and full-beat face, seated in front of a gorgeous antique mirror and rows of thriving foliage.

“For me, when I like something, I just dive into it like, I don’t want one or two, I need like a bajillion of them,” Beaver says. “Let me feel the sensation, let me get my serotonin releasing!”

Beaver, his plants and his lewks have lately become a star attraction in certain St. Louis Joey Beaver keeps plants’ plant-nerd corners of the internet. dreams coming true.

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about drooping fronds or invading insects, a signature Joey Beaver selfie with a monstera or pothos tends to generate major adoration.

“I am my best self when I’m just me,” he says.

Nurturing his green friends and creating a lovely living space has been part and parcel of Beaver’s process of coming into his own, from emerging from a repressive youth where his desire to be a cheerleader and wear red-bottom Louboutin stilettos to prom was quashed.

For a skinny gap-toothed gay kid named Beaver, there was plenty of teasing to go around in school. At about ten, he found a faith community that welcomed him at first, which was wonderful. He eventually lived most of the time with one of the families. As he grew up and into himself, though, the situation included more and more conflict and repression.

“Maybe it had a bad look for a Black queer person to be living in their household, expressing himself the way that I was,” Beaver says. “I guess I get that, from a religious standpoint.”

Beaver left the community behind and is working through the trauma from that period in his life, though spirituality remains crucial to him — and the plants are a key part of his spiritual, nature connection. He’s working to trace his African

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“For me, when I like something, I just dive into it like, I don’t want one or two, I need like a bajillion of them. Let me feel the sensation, let me get my serotonin releasing!” ancestry and spiritual practices untainted by repression.

“Spirituality is so free and so freeing,” says Beaver. “You can be who you want to be without necessarily any sort of restrictions on your overall human experience.”

Beaver says he’s thrilled that people respond to his sunny social media presence and his very specific and very genuine way of presenting himself.

“I just love queer people that are so unapologetically themselves,” Beaver says. “It took me many years to become unapologetically myself. I feel like it’s so important to see Black happiness and Black beauty and Black joy.”

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Dream Big with me BISHOP DEON JOHNSON IS THE NEW FACE OF THE EPISCOPALIAN DIOCESE OF MISSOURI

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BY PATRIC K C O LLIN S

f you find yourself in a conversation with Deon Johnson that veers toward matters of the divine, don’t expect declaring yourself “not really religious” to provide an exit route.

“You can have a profound experience standing in your backyard watching your chickens,” Johnson says.

In an era of DIY spirituality, the sentiment isn’t particularly unusual. It is a bit surprising, however, to hear it expressed by Johnson, who in June 2020 became the eleventh bishop of the Episcopalian Diocese of Missouri.

“I didn’t think they were ready “We tend to think of relifor a Black-gay-married-withgion in terms of the place kids-immigrant bishop,” says we go on a Sunday mornJohnson. PHOTO COURTESY ing,” he says. “Gathering in THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF church is walking the jourMISSOURI ney together, certainly, but enjoying the sunshine is a religious experience.”

While he strongly prefers the gathering-and-walking approach to faith — it’s his job — he’s attuned to the legions of those who have been marginalized and, in many cases, condemned by mainline Christian churches.

“On the big Sundays of the year, I apologize for the times

the church has hurt you,” he says. “We are flawed people and flawed institutions, and we can and should do better.”

Nearly a year after his arrival in St. Louis, Johnson says that doing better is his top priority. While “doing better” is often little more than a platitude when it rolls off the tongues of transitional presidents or CEOs of troubled corporations, Johnson arrives at the conversation after traveling avenues that do not typically lead to a consecration.

When he addressed, via video conference, the convention that ultimately “called” him to the position (church-ese for job interview and job offer) he shared the screen with his husband, Johovanny Osorio, with whom he is raising two children, Lilohalani and Ja’Lon. “They knew what they were getting,” Johnson says. A native of Barbados, Johnson emigrated to the U.S. when he was 14. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English and history from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, he graduated from General Theological Seminary in New York City in 2003 and was ordained a priest later in the same year.

He served congregations in Ohio and Michigan, and on Nov. 23, 2019, he was elected bishop of the diocese here. At 43, he is the youngest bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States.

Johnson says he didn’t expect to get elected. The Episcopalian Diocese of Missouri, after all, is a Christian organization in the eastern half of what has become one of the country’s most reliably and aggressively conservative states.

“I didn’t think they were ready for a Black-gay-marriedwith-kids-immigrant bishop,” Johnson says. “I didn’t think I

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was going to be elected, but the holy spirit has a great sense of humor, and I was elected on the first ballot.”

His election, put simply, was decisive.

For decades, the Episcopal Church has prided itself on its decidedly liberal stance on issues ranging from the death penalty to the ordination of women to wholehearted support for full legal equality for queer people. But even in 2020, Johnson’s election represents a couple of significant milestones: He’s the first Black bishop of the Missouri diocese, which was founded in 1840, and the organization’s first openly gay leader.

“We’ve had gay and lesbian clergy forever,” he says. “They just weren’t out.”

Not too far west of Christ Church Cathedral in downtown St. Louis, which serves as headquarters for the Episcopal diocese, the area’s Catholics also welcomed a new leader in 2020. In sharp contrast to Johnson, his Catholic counterpart, appointed by Rome, had objected strenuously to a gay men’s chorus performing in his previous diocese, was named in February in a lawsuit for his improper handling of abuse allegations and, in early March, garnered considerable media coverage by advising members of his denomination to avoid the COVID-19 vaccination offered by Johnson & Johnson.

Its use of a cell line derived from an aborted fetus renders it, in his words, “morally compromised.”

the diocese has 41 parishes along with the Deaconess Anne House, an intentional community that’s part of the Episcopal Service Corps, and a campus ministry.

Johnson doesn’t dispute the significance of the differences between people who live in cities, suburbs, smaller towns and rural areas, but unlike many of his counterparts in the world of politics, he doesn’t see those differences as insurmountable.

“I think some concerns go beyond partisanship,” he says.

“I’ve found that the needs of the rural congregations are the same as the needs of the urban congregations. At the individual level, I think the farmer in Louisiana, Missouri, and the teacher in downtown St. Louis have a lot in common.

Regardless of where they live, people are concerned about their communities. They want to be healthy and safe.”

Shortly before the presidential election last November, Johnson couldn’t help but notice the barrage of political signs on his drive to Kirksville, most of them for the candidate who ultimately lost.

“But once I got there, regardless of my views, I was just the bishop there to hear their concerns,” he says. At the same time, there are also congregations in the St. Louis area that he suspects are not enthusiastic about gay rights issues.

“But I’ve reached out and done town halls regardless,” he says. “I am the bishop of the diocese, not just of the churches that agree with me. I think that’s built a bridge and allowed us to build trust.”

Johnson believes that not forging those connections is detrimental. “I want us to see that we have so much more in common when we work together than when we try to do our own little thing in our own sandbox,” he says. “God’s vision for us is far bigger than we tend to imagine. We dream too small. If we look to scripture, God doesn’t call us to do small things.”

“I’ve found the church to be a place where I’ve been affirmed.

And I’ve tried to create spaces where people can see that there are no outcasts.”

Dividing Lines Politically, Missouri is deeply, perhaps irreparably divided.

While many defend the conduct of a senator who is the very face of January’s insurrection at the United States Capitol, many others are proud to be represented in Congress by a Black Lives Matter activist. Both of these, Josh Hawley and Cori Bush, won their races handily, and both are lauded and attacked with the same fervor.

While the Episcopalian denomination is widely and accurately credited for its liberal leanings, it’s not exempt from Missouri’s ideological schism. For instance, in spite of being an ordained Episcopalian priest, Jack Danforth, heir to the Ralston Purina fortune who represented Missouri in the U.S. Senate from 1976 to 1995, played a pivotal role in ushering both Josh Hawley and Clarence Thomas onto the national stage.

While Johnson’s role isn’t a political one, at least not overtly, his duties do give him a uniquely front-row view of the state’s ideological diversity. The Missouri diocese is actually the diocese of eastern Missouri (the Diocese of West Missouri is based in Kansas City), where divergent views thrive. In locations ranging from Kirksville to Poplar Bluff to St. Louis,

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If It’s Not About Love Even though it was overshadowed by COVID, Johnson’s ascension to the role of bishop of a Midwestern diocese generated its fair share of buzz for all the obvious reasons.

While he’s quick to emphasize commonalities rather than differences, it seems disingenuous to ignore the fact that his personal connection to queer people, communities of color and immigrants is far more than fodder for talking points and mission statements: It’s his lived experience. It’s deeply personal.

After spending the first fourteen years of his life in a culture where almost everyone looked like him — including

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those in leadership roles — he arrived in New York, where images of Black men are often not positive. Today, Johnson thinks it’s critical for him to serve as a tangible model of intersectionality — in his case, the blending of race, faith and sexuality.

Being authentically himself, he says, is an important part of healing the wounds that divide queer communities and mainline churches.

“I’ve found the church to be a place where I’ve been affirmed,” he says. “And I’ve tried to create spaces where people can see that there are no outcasts. I want to create a church where everyone is a beloved child of God.” Reaching those who have been traumatized by predatory religion with that message is challenging. “It can be hard for people to hear they’re good just as they are when they’ve been programmed to think they’re an abomination. But if it’s not about love, it’s not about God, and claiming catastrophic hurricanes are God’s response to gay people is not about love.”

Johnson is proud that his denomination has been grappling with queer inclusion since the 1940s. “Thanks to groundbreaking and pioneering folks stepping out to say, ‘This is who I am,’ we’ve been wrestling with it for a long time,” he says.

At the same time, he’s utterly direct about the fact that the church has hurt people. Open acknowledgement is his approach to healing those wounds.

“I’ve been calling churches on naming,” he says. “We need to name where we’ve failed to acknowledge things. We need to name the Black and brown folks who have contributed.

We need to name the places where we’ve fallen short and then make better choices moving forward.”

At the center of those better choices, he says, is the creation of a space that welcomes everyone and supports connection.

“When you boil it down, social media is all about wanting connection,” he says. “In a very real way, Christianity has been connecting people to the divine and to each other for centuries. Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we mess up horribly. We’re the original Facebook. Some people have unfriended the church, and understandably. What I’m saying is: Give us a chance to change.”

Constance “My grandmother raised me to know that I was a beloved child of God,” Johnson says. He credits his grandmother, Constance, for his understanding of the world, his life as a Christian and what awaits. She died in 2001. “She also taught me that because I am a beloved child of God, I have to treat everyone else as one, because they are.”

His grandmother believed in getting up, dressing up and showing up. “Sometimes just your presence is enough to make the church wrestle with itself,” Johnson says. “She attended school only until age 14, but she read her Bible every day, and she knew how to sing.”

One of the most important lessons Johnson learned from his grandmother was the importance of forgiveness and redemption. “One of my grandmother’s rules was that you can throw away things and stuff, but you can never throw away people,” he says. “Even the person who has done you the most wrong.”

That’s because forgiveness, in the most pared-down sense of the word, is a selfish act: It’s about the self. Forgiveness, says Johnson, is letting go of the hope you can change the past. “If someone does something terrible, I can continue to live in that moment and let them have that hold over me, or I can let go of the hope that we can redo the past.”

Redemption is in the same vein, he says. And it’s because we have no way of knowing when we might be redeemed that his grandmother forbade the discarding of others. Or, put another, more contemporary way: “Redemption is when you’re driving somewhere, following directions from Siri or Google, and you go off course, and Siri says, ‘Make the first U-turn you’re able to make safely and legally.’ Redemption is course correction. And in order to forgive yourself, you have to first forgive yourself.”

An Open Invitation to Dream Big Obviously, not everyone had a grandmother like Johnson’s.

Throughout history, many churches have failed outright to see queer people as blessed children of God. While dramatic improvements have been made, Johnson admits there’s plenty of work to be done, and that’s where he invites those who have been ostracized to play a role in the healing.

“The best way to call the church to be better is to be part of that calling,” he says. “It’s hard to tell an institution to change when you’re not a part of it. The way the Episcopal church has changed over time is by faithful LGBQT folks standing up, saying they love it and demanding we be authentic.”

Johnson’s first year in St. Louis has been focused largely on the pandemic. “There have been zero super-spreader events, and I want to keep it that way,” he says.

In spite of his tenure in Missouri starting during a year that was severely challenging for organizations that rely on being able to gather large numbers of people in confined spaces, Johnson is optimistic about the future. That optimism is based in part on his election as a gay man who is Black and from another country. “If Missouri can do this, think of all the things we can do as a nation,” he says. “But I am convinced God does extraordinary things with ordinary people.”

While he isn’t divulging specific plans or goals for the year ahead, he draws on the foundation of Christianity for guidance: If God didn’t believe in going big, says Johnson, Good Friday would have been the end of it. “Where dreams will take us, I have no idea,” he says. “But I want to invite the people of Missouri. I invite you to dream with me. We can tackle poverty, racism, the urban-rural divide. I believe the possibilities are endless.”

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media

POD HELP US ALL ERIC WILLIAMS FINDS THE UNIVERSAL TRUTHS IN HIS VERY SPECIFIC LIFE

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BY MEL I SSA M E I N Z E R

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he best podcasts feel like being at a party with your cleverest friends, and Eric Williams’ That’s a Gay Ass Podcast hits the sweet spot. The podcast goes deep with comedians and celebrities, posting the provocative and fully tongue-in-cheek question: “Whose fault is it you’re gay?”

Muny Kids alum Williams is NYC-based these days but grew up in St. Louis. Early in 2020, he brought his two-person one-man-show (it’s complicated) Ester & Eric home to the New Jewish Theatre.

The podcast arose, like so many recent creative endeavors, from trying to figure out what the hell to do during quarantine.

“As the pandemic went on, all of my performance outlets had dried up,” says Williams.

He pivoted to social media, finding the thrilling in the banal. With At Home News, he broadcast insightful and nuanced commentary on all the dramatic things happening in his one-bedroom apartment with his husband.

As the months wore on, they turned to watching classic movies. Watching Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn quest for eternal youth in Death Becomes Her for the first time Eric Williams’ new podcast as an adult gay man was a came directly from dealing with revelation, he says, with the pandemic. RYAN JOHNSEN previously unnoticed queer themes leaping out at him.

Williams’ witty asides soon became Instagram fodder, ultimately inviting followers along for live watch parties. “[The podcast] was an organic journey from videos I was making on Instagram: That’s a Gay Ass Movie, where I break down where iconic movies are gay as hell. I realized a podcast would be an amazing way to grow this idea,” he says.

So far on the podcast he’s featured comics and celebs like Heidi N Closet from RuPaul’s Drag Race, as well as fellow St. Louisan Zach Noe Towers, who you’ve seen on Netflix and E! Williams’ conversational style is far ranging and invites his guests to reveal intimate details without ever edging into selfhelp treacle. Listeners and guests come away laughing but feeling like they’ve touched on important themes.

“I think that you don’t have to take something so seriously or with so much schmaltz to feel like you’re being seen,” he says. “What cultural touchstones do we have that shaped our passions and our worldview? It’s been an amazing experience to hear our shared experience of what specific memories we have.”

Recent guest Emma Willmann (you’ve seen her on Netflix and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) talked about going into the forest with a friend as a kid to hug and make out with trees — and her imagination filling in lady parts on the trees.

“I definitely have seen themes emerge,” Williams says of the interviews he’s done. “I think what every single person that identifies as LGBT has revealed is growing up confident in our perspectives and our passions, and then being told in our teenage years that is not the expectation of the world around you.”

Williams has mined his own experiences on the podcast, including some less than pleasant ones from his own childhood.

“I talk about the bullying I experienced in high school, not just from classmates, from my own brothers,” he says. He talked it over with them before doing so, and they’ve all come a long way from their teenage selves. “It allows people to see there is an opportunity for growing up. There is no shame in discussing what has been difficult for you, and growth.”

Williams’ work, from the podcast to Instagram to Ester & Eric to his planned gay ass media empire, are all uniquely and deeply personal. And in a world with almost infinite entertainment options, that’s crucial.

“It’s been a lesson: If I embrace what is truly unique to me, that uniqueness will communicate a universal message,” he says. “Early on I’ve been shown it really is worth taking a risk when you’re leading with your truth and your vulnerability, and also being silly as hell.”

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Culture

What’s a Gay B

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Bar, Anyway?

WHO LOSES WHEN QUEER SPACES SHUTTER

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BY EL IZ ABE T H VAN WIN K L E

year into a pandemic that’s vastly reconfigured LGBTQIA culture is a good time to reflect on the radical legacy of the gay bar and what’s next for queer spaces — in St. Louis and around the world.

Google “gay bars near me” in St. Louis, and the pickings are slim and getting slimmer. (See sidebar: St. Louis COVID Closures.)

The community has been pondering the future of our spaces for decades — they’re threatened both by technology and assimilation, and the present day brings new obstacles.

While apps like Grindr and Her have changed the makeup of queer Attitudes Nightclub, spaces, they can’t entirely replace St. Louis’ oldest gay the magic of dark rooms and dance bar, closed last year floors — it’s hard to imagine due to COVID-19.

Marsha P. Johnson throwing that DOYLE MURPHY movement-igniting brick through a smartphone screen. Despite the ease of it, it’s an ironic retreat back into the closet when queer people initiate rendezvous from behind a screen rather than on a dance floor. And queer spaces are completely depoliticized when a

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Seemingly overnight, busloads of bachelorette parties on their worst behavior unloaded into our spaces at a time when we couldn’t even legally get married.

once dynamic culture is controlled by a private tech company and confined to the surface of a smartphone.

Those of us old enough to remember the early 2000s saw “The Will and Grace Effect” take hold. Remember how quickly our bars started to change? At first it seemed amazing that our straight friends came into our spaces and saw our culture as worthy rather than being repulsed by it.

But, seemingly overnight, busloads of bachelorette parties on their worst behavior unloaded into our spaces at a time when we couldn’t even legally get married. With them came and poor queer folks are far more likely to be pushed out of touristy gawking, aggressive homophobic straight men, bar their neighborhoods or forced to close entirely by gentrificafights and Katy Perry’s lesbian-groan-inducing “I Kissed a tion than bars that serve middle- and upper-class white gay Girl.” Our bars didn’t feel like they could turn away the men. It is undeniable that the bars that have been closing money The Straights™ brought in, and our spaces were no fastest have been the ones owned, operated and geared longer physically safe for us. towards the most marginalized in our community.

Some might argue that since same-sex marriage became What does it mean to be a gay bar in the age of sexual and the law of the land in 2015, we no longer need bars specifigender fluidity? With a wider variety of people identifying with cally catering toward queer clientele. But this line of “queer” identities, who rightfully owns a space once simply thinking fails much of the expansive queer community. The called “gay”? In an era where poverty levels amongst our most reality is that while a young, white, cisgender, able-bodied marginalized are at the highest they’ve ever been and gentrificagay man may have the privilege to grab a drink anywhere he tion is out of control, what’s the future for our queer spaces? pleases, there are a number of more marginalized queer So, a critical question for surviving gay bars: Do you folks for whom explicitly queer spaces still provide a crucial actually center LGBTQIA people? How so? Do you give us safe space and support network. jobs in your establishment? Do you protect us — particularMeanwhile, younger generations have no idea what it’s like ly women, trans and POC customers — from predators? to be in an entirely queer space. The magic of looking around Perhaps thinking of the gay bar as a utopia is a dangerous and knowing every single person there is like you in some act of historical romanticization — no space has ever been way. The ability to let your guard down and make lifelong entirely immune to the structurally rooted social inequities friends and be in a safe space for exploration. The lack of a of our world. shared physical space has a tangible — and ugly — effect.

Nevertheless, one thing is certain: Queer spaces can be And now, two new obstacles affecting the entire country considered in direct contrast to the heavily controlled have a magnified impact on the LGBTQIA community — the microcosm of the neoliberal city. We must fight for the more marginalized, the worse they have it. The COVID-19 survival of the radical potential of queer space, whichever pandemic is closing down the mom-and-mom, pop-and-pop form this takes. If its next iteration is the smooth surface of establishments at a staggering rate, and younger generations the screen, we cannot let this belittle what once made the gay are living with crushing poverty and disenfranchisement. bar so special.

It’s impossible to know exactly how many queer spaces Is every bar worth saving just because it’s LGBTQIA? I’d have shut down during the pandemic, but according to an say no. You can’t just put a rainbow April 14, 2020 article in The Bud Light sign in your window and Conversation by Greggor Mattson, call it a gay bar anymore. At the end a sociology professor at Oberlin of the day, we CAN meet on the College, they’ve been in trouble With bar business severely curtailed by the apps and throw small queer gathersince 2002, and as many as 37 pandemic, plenty of area LGBTQIA spaces ings on our own. When you ask percent of U.S. gay bars had already shuttered for good this year. queer people to walk into a building shuttered between 2007 and 2019.

Four Strings — Soulard that’s flying a Blue Lives Matter flag And not all queer spaces have Bottle & Barrel — Alton, Illinois — a flag associated with white faced equal risks of closure. Bars Hamburger Mary’s — Downtown supremacy and police brutality — in centering women and people of The Monocle — The Grove. Not strictly speaking an LGBTQIA space but hosted many the year 2021, you’re clearly stating color, along with those that cater to queer events. you’re not interested in listening to leather and BDSM culture faced Attitudes Nightclub — The Grove your clientele, most of whom stand closure rates of more than 50 Yin Yang Night Club — Columbia, Missouri by the notion that no one is free percent. At the same time, Mattson Club Station House — Springfield, Illinois until we are all free. found, bars serving working-class

COVID CLOSURES

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dispatch

Isolation song JOSS BARTON REFLECTS ON A YEAR IN QUARANTINE

BY J OSS BA RTO N

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y quarantine began on the afternoon of January 4, 2020, when my boyfriend told me we needed to separate, that things weren’t working, and that his feelings for me, for us, weren’t what they were when his eyes used to soak into mine and the world became something bright and blue and beautiful.

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A Facebook post asking for therapy referrals yields eleven months of exploring somatic and talk tele-therapy for the first time in my life. My therapist and I log on to our computers each week, and I begin to talk about my life. I recount to them stories of my ex, stories of my family, stories of my transition and stories of my drug use. We explore how pain is settled in our bodies and how we develop coping mechanisms to survive trauma. I begin to understand that no one gets off this planet without hurting someA transfemme one they love even when we’re doing the heart finds a home best we can with the information and the in south St. Louis. resources we’re given. I begin to learn that PSA-STL.ORG. I don’t need to numb and dissociate from my pain in order to understand it.

And I begin to sort through the tough and uncomfortable inventory of how I’ve learned to survive this journey of life in the face of oppression and silence and self-erasure.

Summer begins and I begin to create again. My acid breakup poem becomes a zine. My journey of self-reflection and reconciliation becomes a public art text mural on the south side of St. Louis. My soul soundtrack of healing becomes a playlist of dancing and restoration and a short film praising the name of disco glory revival. I begin to reconnect to my work as a writer and poet through Zoom readings and livestream performances.

I witness communities come together to provide mutual aid to Black and brown trans women, to feed each other and offer tips and support for applying for food stamps and unemployment benefits, to demand an end to racist policing and institutions of white supremacy, and to vote a fascist out of office.

I also witness the same pain and despair inside my own heart reflected in the lives of so many people struggling to survive the horrors of America. The systems of the world are not built to hold our expansive and kaleidoscopic souls.

These systems of racism and poverty and misogyny and My isolation began soon after. My body rotating solo betrauma and capitalism and homophobia and transphobia and tween couch or bedroom or work or in cars crying, screaming at the sky, or at his feet begging him not to leave me. Sob- ableism and cruelty and profit—they all work together to ensure we never have all the tools in front of us to heal the milbing into pillows or melting into puddles of anger and grief lions of tiny cuts life inflicts on us. in the arms of friends or numbing myself with white lines I don’t know if I truly have any deep reflections or insights and bitter bottles.

I drop acid and write a poem. I tell him how I cheated, and to offer on our pandemic reality because the pandemics of pain and injustice and oppression have been here all along. he tells me how his chronic sadness wasn’t getting better.

I do know that going forward I will hold my chosen family Two months later, a plague begins and the world around closer, I won’t shy away from my pains no matter how ugly or us freezes like a rusted clock. The streets are hollow and the honest they may be, and I won’t pretend as if the world has fascists tell us they will kill us to make us stronger. yet to replace the ultimate vaccine of human empathy and I snort pills until the sun rises and tell a friend that there connection and resilience in the face of fear and loathing. are days I want to kill myself.

But the most important moment the past year has given I move into a new apartment and listen to the birds birthme came from reconnecting with the little trans girl inside ing outside my windows as sirens trumpet an ominous chome locked away and protected from the world by my web of rus line of ambulances down Kingshighway from sunup to emotional scar tissue. She finally heard me say the words sundown and the news tickers count the rising dead and the “I’m so so sorry” to her and she wept and she forgave me. rising rents don’t stop and I keep rising out of bed, walking And whatever happens next, I know she’ll be here, holding from room to room, staring at bare walls and posing naked my hand. and reflected in silver smudged mirrors.

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2 2 OUTINSTL | SPRING 2021

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SPRING 2021

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