By Chelsea Bock
“Do you want to come out for my birthday?” I asked my best friend’s then-boyfriend.
“Honey, I would but I wish you weren’t having it there,” he answered. “I hate going to straight bars.”
Weird. It had never occurred to me that the local Irish bar was a “straight bar.” There were gay bars like the nightclub we all frequented and then there were just…bars, right? What was the big deal?
More than a decade after that interaction, I finally understand what he was talking about. Similarly to how public spaces are designed for men (“Women shouldn’t walk alone at night!”) and able-bodied people (“Sorry, this area isn’t wheelchair accessible!”), most bars are presumed to be “for” heterosexuals unless otherwise indicated. Even though queer people frequented the pub, the vibe was unmistakably straight. Beer flowing, sports on every television, opposite-sex hookups in the corners, and rough-and-ready men a lot of us would never have felt comfortable displaying signs of queerness in front of.
As a femme bisexual woman who has had more male partners than female partners and is now married to a man, I’ve passed as straight—for better or worse—in most areas of my life. The “straight bar” didn’t faze me because its culture was familiar. In contrast, the town gay club gave me the opportunity to explore my queerness away from prying eyes and judgment. It wasn’t a perfect oasis, of course, especially for cis and trans women, non-binary people, and trans men who have historically been maligned for appearing in cisgender male-dominated gay bars. But when I remember dancing with other women there without dirty looks or confrontation, I’m grateful there was a local space for me.
Life moves on, and I eventually relocated away from both the Irish pub and the gay bar. The Irish pub has since closed: one night while visiting, I meandered through the aisles of what is now a liquor store, reminiscing about the times I stood in those same spots munching on meat and cheese platters or dominating the jukebox. The gay bar is still open and remains a top spot for area drag shows, but I’m lucky if I make it out once or twice a year for special events.
Eager to find a new watering hole after moving closer to the city, I came across an old punk rock bar in Baltimore from my college days advertising a new wave dance night. I had never been to a club that played my favorite genre of music before, and even though I had also never gone dancing by myself, I decided to be brave and explore.
It didn’t take me long to fall in love with the venue. Signs were posted on the walls encouraging patrons to tell a staff member if someone was bothering them. “They’ll even walk you to your car at the end of the night,” a bartender helpfully noted. As I danced across the checkered floor to Depeche Mode, New Order, and The Smiths, I noticed something else too: how queer everything was. Affirming stickers with Pride flags and sayings like “Protect Trans Kids” were stuck to the bulkheads. The dress code encompassed everything from PVC and leather bodysuits to ballgowns. Patrons of all walks of life danced together, some having met for the first time that night. At one point, I was absorbed into a Marie Antoinette-themed bachelorette party where all the women wore elaborate wigs and bustles. “She was pregnant when she got married ten years ago,” one explained, pointing at the bride, “so she never got to cut loose!” By last call, I was wearing one of their tulle skirts.
On another night, I met two women on a first date with each other. “Oh my God,” I said after 20 minutes of talking, “I need to let you two get back to your date!”
“No!” they both insisted. “We want you to keep hanging out and dance with us!”
I remembered the keychain sticking out of my pocket, a bisexual flag lanyard. “Oh,” I realized, pulling it out to show them. “I guess you saw this.”
The taller one laughed. “We actually didn’t!” she said. “But we had clocked you as queer from the minute you walked in.”
I spent the next few hours dancing with two newly-smitten lesbians, talking with them about our lives, sharing what my own partner was like, and marveling at how cute they were together. We exchanged numbers to go out dancing again and I wished them the best for their new relationship. On the drive home, I rode the high of having been read as queer in a predominantly queer space, thrilled that others could identify me correctly without my need to self-disclose.
The separation of spaces “for” either heterosexual or queer people can leave bisexuals feeling caught between worlds. There are many times when I find myself code-switching depending on whether the patrons are predominantly straight, if the straight people present are confirmed to be LGBTQ+ allies, or whether there is a significant queer population attending the event. While I was recently telling a new friend at the roller rink a funny story about a previous dating experience, he asked if I “saw him again after that.” The person in the story was a she, but I didn’t know yet if I could correct him without a barrage of questions or a negative response. When my new friend shared with me a few weeks later that he has a trans child, however, I knew it was safe.
There are many things I’ve grown to love about this Baltimore punk rock bar and dance club. I’ve learned more about different genres of music and the cultures that come with them. I’m constantly walking into new and unexpected theme nights, whether it’s a goth and industrial night run entirely by people of color or a drag show where everyone in the audience is dressed like a clown. But the best part about this club has been the affirmation that I belong here. There is no social hierarchy or catering to cisgender men while the rest of us sit on the sidelines. It is a space where people of all genders and sexual orientations dress how they want and express themselves without feeling too queer or not queer enough. And really, that’s more of what we need not just for bisexuals, but for everyone.
Chelsea Bock is a community college educator currently working on her Ed.D. at Rockhurst University. She lives with her husband and their cat, Lucy, in Annapolis, Maryland, in the U.S.