Everyone remembers their first time. For me, it was brighter than I expected and a lot quieter, two surprises since my first introduction to the entire experience was Showtime’s “Queer as Folk.”
Everything was more intense on the network’s late night lineup, making the U.K.-adapted series a perfect fit. Its five-season run became the first American drama to depict the LGBTQ experience on Dec. 3, 2000, my 16th birthday.
It was quite the gift; an awakening for a young high schooler who’d only just begun his coming out process. I’d never seen anything like it and I was completely enthralled.
I was also crafty, which I had to be to watch it. If you’re not familiar with the series, which turned 20 this year to remind me that I’m aging rapidly, it wasn’t exactly a topic of discussion for family dinner. I love my mother, but Debbie Novotny she was not.
I wasn’t quite ready to have those conversations with her, and so I had to intricately plan my viewing experiences. This was pre-DVR and prior to the death of its grandfather the VCR, truly the darkest of days, and so I would sneak out of bed to record the series on VHS tape, its late grandmother.
Thankfully you could do so undercover with just the cable box and VCR. I would tune into Showtime ahead of each episode, turn the television off, press record and hope for the best. As long as my parents didn’t notice the VCR’s glaring “REC,” a threat which I obscured with our remote, I could return once it finished airing for a late-night viewing party from the safety of my figurative closet.
Nestled between whatever had aired immediately before and after each episode, those recordings meant the world to me. They captured a part of myself I’d never before seen represented on screen.
After two years of watching and waiting, “Queer as Folk” unapologetically readied me for that first time I mentioned. I was thrilled to enter my first gay bar at 18.
If you thought I was talking about something else, you were probably a fan of the show. But while it did introduce me to a lot of the intricacies involved with same-sex relations, albeit overdramatized, what stuck with me was the concept of LGBTQ safe spaces.
The concept was completely foreign to me and yet there they were: LGBTQ folks living authentically while congregating together in bars, nightclubs and even comic book shops.
I was so hungry for experiences like those, long before I understood they were possible, so just weeks after I became legal my best friend and I drove downtown to the only LGBTQ bar that would have us at our ages: Cincinnati, Ohio’s slightly seedy and now defunct Pipeline. I knew it was there that we’d have the best New Year’s Eve of our lives.
I quickly learned that the show’s club Babylon was far from the norm and that gay time was a thing. We’d arrived at 9 p.m. to discover a well-lit, quiet dance floor with only a bartender to babysit us. Almost no one showed up until after our curfew, but the Sprite was great.
It wasn’t what I’d dreamed of, but it was still a dream come true. We were in a space that didn’t simply welcome the LGBTQ community, it celebrated us. Sitting there with my closest confidant changed my life.
That’s what LGBTQ spaces like bars can do for our community. It’s what they’ve always done, pre- and post-Stonewall. They’re sacred ground. I’m thrilled that so many LGBTQ-friendly establishments exist now, we need them, but there’s still a difference between being invited and being celebrated.
Sometimes that manifests itself in choosing to hold hands with the person you love, or explicitly knowing you shouldn’t. Other times it’s in what music you openly play or how comfortable you feel dancing to it. In today’s polarizing world, I firmly believe the LGBTQ bar is more important than ever.
Those spaces are one of the many industries greatly impacted by COVID-19. That’s why in this issue we check in with Tampa Bay and Central Florida LGBTQ bars to see how they’re navigating this pandemic.
In Tampa Bay news, Empath Health receives its first-ever SAGECare credential for its work with LGBTQ elders and in Central Florida, the One Orlando Alliance announces forthcoming changes in leadership. In Arts and Entertainment, community advocates paint a permanent Pride mural in Tampa.
Watermark strives to bring you a variety of stories, your stories. Please stay safe, stay informed and enjoy this latest issue.
