WhereIs.Gay visitor
12 Nov 2023
I came here with a couple of friends, at the door a member of staff stopped us informing us that they were the “vibe checker”. They were immediately condescending in tone whilst asking questions such as “had we been there before” etc. They then asked if we knew what the night was that night, which we didn’t, and they said “well it’s a Latinx event and you would know that if you’d bothered to research”. We were a little shocked by the rudeness of the remark and the expectation that you would have to research before simply going to enjoy yourself on a queer night out (an expectation that would never be assumed of cis-het people in cis-het spaces). They then asked for a bit more information about us, so I said “well we are all queer if that’s what you’re asking” to which they replied “fine I’ll take a leap of faith and let you in”. Queer spaces are far and few between and sacred, there are not many places in this world that we can express ourselves freely so to have what we anticipated to be an open and welcoming evening be transformed by this queer gatekeeping was saddening to say the least. We walked into this space feeling anything but welcomed and deeply uncomfortable. We also noticed there were virtually no Latinx people and nothing about this event that went out of its way to celebrate any part of Latinx culture, so this all felt entirely performative. If you want to create a space for Latinx queer folk to be able to commune together, then you need to actually reach out to the Latinx community etc. In all we found this space to fetishise a preconceived notion of ‘queer aesthetic’ rather than being a supportive and inclusive space for real, human queer folk.
WhereIs.Gay review
