ummmmm you aren't in the wrong Maz....
I can see from both sides of the fence now..
I know that as a lesbian I resented for many years the straight girls that would come in the gay clubs and rub up against their mates for blokes entertainment. It made us feel like "we" and "our" sexuality were trivialised and for others titilation. I have seen hen nights use the gay scene as a safe place for women to spend the evening.... and if you make the mistake of chatting a woman up (hey she is in a gay place right) she acts and treats you like you have her. It is a horrible feeling to goto a place where you feel safe (a gay club) and get treated like a pariah by straight women who look at you like you are filth.
I am not suggesting that is what you were doing. But if you look straight and you act straight then you won't get into the non-commercial gay places.
Just for info it is still legal for gay people to be refused entry to straight places and asked to leave hotels pubs bars young people who are gay to be expelled from christian schools.
When you have been told infront of your son that you are filthy for wanting to spend the night with your partner in the same bed in a hotel. You have been spat at for being gay etc etc etc... it gets a little wearing when straight or bi women can dip in and out of the the lifestyle when it suits them. (that is a perception and not always the case- I am not wishing to offend although I know this sounds harsh)
fecking hell I went on a bit there... sorry
x x x
I know what you're saying, but that clearly hasn't been our intentions when going to gay/lesbian nights.
Surely if these girls have had to put up with discrimination in the past, then they're just a bad for doing it themselves.
I don't think the fact that someone has had to put up with discrimination makes it all the more acceptable for them to then discriminate against others!
just my own thoughts....
but any grouping of people, no matter their reason, who have been decriminated against, and feel the need, either historically or for current social reasons, to group together, will and do find it intrusive if *others* try to break into that arena.
Its quite natural really... though we may not always like to admit it... a certain amount of *exclusivity* in our lives... a private, select element to our personalities, where we can express/relax as ourselves in a friendly and accepting place, is very welcome.... and if we feel it intruded upon... well.... it can piss us off a bit....
and Im talking shyte, Im sure of it..but hey, I tried
there was a *point* in there somewhere...if anyone should find it, please return it safe and sound... I promise not to let it out all n its own again.... so vulnerable and ill-informed.
I thankyou
lp
you had im straight on your t shirts? is that how you didnt look lesbian enough, wtf, id be more upset with the doorman for stereo typing than any other kind of discrimination
i look gay apparently....never understood how or why but i get told i do all the time, by gays bi's and straight folk,
staggy
Hi Maz
what you have to remember is that in every catagory in life there is yet another spectrum with vanilla one side and extreem on the other. I agree that its so silly that a persecuted group will also persecute, just as the jews were in the hollocaust so they do it to the palestinians
I dont know where you went but in birmingham gay clubs have been hijacked by straights in the past 2 years because they are so tollerant of everyone and a safe place to go for a good night out, but no one picks on anyone else.
nothing like what you have been through, but i got turned away from a gay club for commititing the crime of being a 5' 10" 15st skinhead, therefore im automatically a gay basher, it seems there is a certain amount of prejudice among a community that suffersfrom prejudice
thanks to the efforts of the crowd i was queueing with, i managed to get in, needless to say i wont go back there
Why do i so hate the phrase "The Lifestyle"
your not alone it has happened to me aswell.....i once went to a Star Wars convention in my favourite Star Trek tee shirt......me thinking hey its all good sci fi that counts....boy was i wrong.....i had never received so many dirty looks in my liife....more than at a Babylon 5 get together i went to once......but i thought hey fuck you lot.....Trek's been going for nearly 40 years.....and all Lucas seems to do these days is re-release his films over and over again....but unfortunatey i was kicked out by a couple of guys in Stormtrooper outfits.....saying "we don't serve your kind here".
Bouncers and club staff tend to be fairly practical people, especially when making sure they avoid dissapointing the majority of their customers. They also warn all the other clubs in the area of potential problems. So its not surprsing you were turned away at the next club. They discriminate on the basis of majority over minority.
Some clubs can be very hard core and unforgiving. I think it may be that the club members accepted you as a performer on your first 'visit' and were hospitable and friendly. All well and good, they had no right to expect you to be gay. However they assumed on your return they would see something more tangible as to your true identity. And usually its incumbent on newbies to offer substantial proof fairly soon.
They weren't convinced and took an attitude against you. Probably a hard core ruling in the group, or possibly dictated by some hardliners. After all swingers don't like to be observed by regular tourists and spectators. Just an unfortunate experience.
Its getting more and more common now for people of all types to get refused entry at all to gay bars, something I have noticed a hell of a lot in Manchester in the last 2-3 years. The nicer bars all have door pickers as opposed to bouncers. If you are a hen party or 40's hetero couple then you have a very limited number of bars that will welcome your custom.
Kiss sums it up - its a reciprocal thing. As soon as me and the missus can kiss and be affectionate in predominantly straight spaces then we will welcome everyone into the few and far between spaces where we can go and actually be ourselves and not worry about funny looks or comments. Again, it's not right but it's the way it is and seems to be a long way from changing.
The thing that strikes me about the bar in the OP is that it sounds like a hetero club that is hosting a gay night, correct me if I'm wrong. There is sometimes a big difference between the real gay scene and the "cash in" scene. We have it here in Barnsley. Gay night is Tuesday nights and thats it, there is nothing else at any other time. The people here are fiercely protective of it and if the drag queen that hosts is sniffs a straight couple then they are basically tormented about it and most leave, Its not right but it happens. The full time gay bars are a much nicer place to be and are more accepting,
Lesbians are always the worst for the segregation/discrimination thing. One minute they will be all for equality etc and then down at a major lesbian London bar tucking notes in the thong of a stripper -makes no sense really. The common perception that I have come across is that most gay folks are inherently distrustful of bisexuals anyway and that whilst the majority of straight men in a gay club are not there just hanging out with a friend, the straight woman (perhaps even the bi woman) is a hell of a lot less welcome as she is either hanging off the arm of some gay bloke, in denial or not a proper lesbian and therefore off limits anyway - not my opinion btw, just the way it always plays out!!
Hope this makes some sense and doesn't come across as a rant as its not intended that way. Its late and I am probably making a balls of this but never mind eh!!
As an 'out' bisexual woman who is fairly prominant on the gay scene, I am reading this thread with interest. Even now I get comments like "you can't make up my mind" and "your'e just playing at it, till the right man comes along". It all makes me so cross, but the worst of it, I have to say (and I am so ashamed of my sisters for this), comes from the so called 'Lesbian' community, which is why I spend more time on the wider 'gay' scene.
Sassy you might well know what its like in the Vanilla bar being in Manchester. I think that is the worst side of lesbian life that anyone newly out, doubting their sexuality or bisexual could possibly encounter. The mens/mixed bars are always the better ones. Less attitudes to contend with for starters. The one reason lesbian/women's bars and nights on the whole tend to fail is that there are more people who's faces/haircuts/sexualities don't fit the criteria than those that do! There seems to be very little room in lesbian scene life for fluidity and individuality.
What I find amazing is that they are discriminating against you, and yet if it happened to them they would scream blue murder!!.
)
...and another time arriving at a gay club in Bristol being grabbed before I even walked in by a 6' Grace Jones look-a-like hot, and I mean bloody hot, lesbian and told 'I'm having you'...and my did she?!! 
place.
:x