CAN QUEER SPACES SURVIVE THE CORONAVIRUS? AN INDUSTRY, DISMANTLED

Words and photos by Veronica L. Holyfield

CAN QUEER SPACES SURVIVE THE CORONAVIRUS?

An Industry, Dismantled

Words and photo by Veronica L. Holyfield

With the sudden break from the cold in early March, Denver queer spaces were alive and thriving. Typically, that time of year can be a slower time for bars and restaurants, as folks are still hunkered down for the winter, saving up that cashflow for the upcoming, long summer nights. The spring-forward time change that occurred March 8 with the nearly-70-degree afternoons had people pouring out of their front doors with sandals and tank tops, gathering by the hundreds in the gayborhoods Cheesman and Washington Parks, as well as the new, hipster haven Sloan’s Lake. Patios were full of people and pets for brunch; bookstores and antique shops were busy with perusers and window shoppers, and it felt as though the city of Denver was coming alive, emerging from hibernation. That is, until March 17 when everything changed. Words like social distancing and self-quarantine are now in the normal lexicon of our society due to the spread of COVID-19, or coronavirus. We sat back and watched the rest of the world isolate, and then it was no longer a suggestion in Denver; it was required. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, under the guidance of Colorado Governor Jared Polis, mandated that gatherings of 10 or more people be restricted, and bars and restaurants would be required to close for eight weeks. An entire industry which employed thousands of Denver residents was shut down in the blink of an eye. “It's a shock to everybody,” says Jody Bouffard, co-owner and founder of the lesbian bar Blush & Blu. “I've been in the industry for 24 years; I have never seen anything like this. And having been a business owner for the last almost 15, this is a huge, huge hit for the bar, my staff, myself.” Eight weeks is a long time for any business to survive without a steady stream of income, much less queer spaces, which are becoming fewer and further between in the gentrified city. The

pandemic of coronavirus, however, is unlike the slow and steady wave of change which the Mile High City has grown accustomed to; the announcement forced immediate closure in less than 24 hours. This meant any means of income to support the business costs and the staff wages was cut off. “Well the landlord, because I've been there for 14-plus years, is completely understanding of the situation and is going to work with us, so I'm grateful for that,” Bouffard explains. “I'm not in jeopardy of losing my lease or the space. It’s gonna be a matter of when this is all over, the community coming back out and helping keep the space open at that point.” Queer bars have struggled for a while now, and many spots have come and gone in Denver alone in the last few years. However, the need for them is as dire as ever, seeing as they are designated safe zones for LGBTQ folks to gather in community, and the service industry has long been a workforce that keeps queer folks employed. Families form inside the walls of these bars, as much behind the counter as they do at open-mic poetry nights and on the dance floors; they have been the only place where we could safely be ourselves.

Yet, with the bar and nightclub closures and the mandated, shelterin-place orders, the families were separated, and we are all simply waiting to see what happens. Bouffard describs her feelings as sad and scared, seeing as this unprecedented, societal shift is unlike any other time in history, and countless service industry folks are now without jobs indefinitely. “I can't even try to predict what's going to happen with people being out of work for eight weeks,” Bouffard says. “I have staff I’ve worked with there for 10 years; Hannah’s been with me for 10 years; Jess has been with me for five; Jordan’s been with me for seven or eight years. These aren't short-term staff; they're like family; they become family.” Seeing the writing on the wall at least a week prior, Bouffard said that sales had already declined as the community was urged to remain in spaces with less than 50 people. Groups who had booked space in the event room of Blush & Blu were cancelling left and right, and it felt that the time to temporarily lock the doors was upon them. Trying to remain optimistic, Bouffard encourages folks to look back through our history and rest assured we have been through things like this and worse, and we will come out stronger than ever. “At the end of the day, we've gotten through worse; in the AIDS epidemic in the 80s, the village came together. People supported and helped one another even if it was under such a pandemic, and in a sense, we're going through another pandemic right now in 2020. We just all need to be supportive of each other in any way that we can,” Bouffard emphasizes. As a way to try as best she can to still support her Blush & Blu family, the bar has set up a GoFundMe page where family, friends, and bar regulars can donate to helping their favorite cocktail slingers maintain stable housing and food acquisition during this unprecedented time. Alex Johnson, a rather new bartender at Blush & Blu, was only able to work a handful of shifts before the space was forced to close. A skilled bartender by trade, Johnson explains that it is more than simply being out of work for an extended period of time, as the bar is the environment in which she thrives.

“It's hard; my life has been bartending. That's how I meet my friends; that's how I meet my family; that's how I have my confidence,” she explains. “I love my job, and I completely immerse myself into it. I mean, I wake up every day thinking, ‘I have to get ready for work,’ and then I realize, I have nowhere to go to.” She had to become savvy to continue paying her bills, so Johnson developed a virtual bartending show through Facebook live stream, where folks can follow her making beverages, interact with questions, and pay tips through Venmo, just as they would tip when buying a drink from her at the bar. This has given her a project to focus on now that there is an abundance of isolated, free time.

Many folks like Johnson have developed creative ways to interact with their community while trying to source a stream of income. Evelyn Evermoore, a full-time, Denver-based drag performer and costume designer, found a similar way to continue to strengthen community while making some money during this time. Evermoore has created several Facebook live shows, including Quiplash, a free, weekly, online game show, and Bedroom Drag, which will feature not only themselves but also more drag performers and other industry folks, like bartenders. “I think it's important to recognize that as entertainers, we're privileged enough to have something that we can sell online and transition our businesses that direction,” they say. “Bartenders, servers, and other people who work in the career service industry are just kind of out of luck.” As one of the lucky few who have been able to make a living wage doing drag full-time up to this point, Evermoore immediately felt the weight of the blow from the closed spaces, but chooses to focus on creating opportunities for others while delivering entertainment to their community. Yet, with so much uncertainty in these early stages of the pandemic, nothing feels safe. “I'm just trying to take it day-by-day. This whole situation is so fluid; we don't know what's going to happen in the next hour, let alone the next week, so I'm trying to focus my attention on the hour-by-hour situation. If I think too much about what's going to happen to the drag scene once this quarantine is over, it's just a panic attack,” Evermoore says. As of March 25, there were 1,086 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Colorado, with 147 being hospitalized and 20 deaths as a result. The mayor of Denver announced a mandated, shelterin-place ordinance, meaning no one may leave their homes for anything other than necessary item retrieval, and all non-essential businesses must close.

In an effort to “flatten the curve,” keeping people quarantined is a Hail Mary practice to try and lessen the rapid-fire spread of the virus and an avoidance tactic to not overwhelm healthcare facilities. Yet, when all is said and done, many wonder if these queer

spaces will be able to open back up again and what the long-term impact on the LGBTQ community will actually be. Social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, the apps which were once considered toxic to human socialization, are now the only things that are keeping people safe and connected. “It's so strange to feel so isolated and so connected at the same time,” Evermoore explains. “We're in this state of crisis, but the crisis is just staying at home, so it feels both over-reactive and underwhelming at the same time, which is a very conflicting set of emotions to have going on.” Knowing that LGBTQ folks are at a disproportionately higher risk of mental health issues and substance abuse disorders, the long periods of isolation during the shelter-in-place quarantine mandated by the city of Denver put a lot of our community at risk. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults are more than twice as likely as our heterosexual counterparts to experience a mental health condition, and 48 percent of transgender adults report they have considered suicide in the past 12 months. “I have a day job, so drag performing is not my full-time gig, but I immediately was thinking about everyone in the service industry where that's their main means for income,” explains drag performer Zarah, who regularly performed at Mile High Hamburger Mary’s. “That was my biggest worry. What are we going to do to keep them afloat? They still are going to have expenses, even if it's not like paying rent.” In response to the full-time drag queens and bartenders whose income has been halted, Denver drag performers Simon Paul and Onyx Steele assembled and circulated an Excel spreadsheet of Venmo handles for folks to donate to, if able. Through things like individual contributions via Venmo, to businesses starting GoFundMe pages, all the way through bars promoting the purchasing of gift cards to be redeemed once the doors re-open, many are hoping that things can return back to normal. Zarah is one of the lucky ones whose day job has yet to be impacted by the closures; however, for folks like veteran drag queen Felony Misdemeanor, times are extra hard right now. Not only are the queer spaces that Misdemeanor is used to performing in closed, it is with very unfortunate timing that her day job at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains HIV testing facility and community center The Drop closed its doors on March 13 due to a major cut in funding. She hoped to turn to drag full time, but now that isn't an option. “I was looking forward to drag full time in April; I had quite a few bookings already in place,” Misdemeanor explains. “Those were immediately canceled. I'm not going to have any form of income coming in at all for the next eight weeks, at least.” Misdemeanor, who has built a name for herself in the drag community after hustling and grinding for years, is now taking a similar approach to fundraising for survival through the online drag show Cellblock: Solitary Confinement. If that isn’t enough, she’ll be faced with the tough reality that filing and collecting unemployment may be her only option right now. “I'm just here at home trying to get my head together. I really have no clue what to do,” she says. As a frequent performer at the LGBTQ-focused nightclub X Bar, many of her fellow entertainers, drag family members, and bar employees are in a similar situation, not quite sure what to do and how long they can wait for a paycheck. “I'm thinking it's like a bad dream, and I’m waiting on someone to actually pinch me so I can jump up. I just don't want to face reality, but I know the times we are living in,” says Destiny X Bar, a door host and security guard at X Bar. “It’s definitely traumatizing at this moment.”

In fact, traumatizing is a perfect way to describe the current situation, not only in Denver, but around the world. While the idea of closing down bars, restaurants, clubs, and spaces that host large gatherings of people is well-intended as a measure to help lessen the spread of coronavirus, the impact on income and morale hit hard.

“When you’re used to doing something, for it to be taken away from you within a blink of an eye, it definitely hits home,” Destiny explains. “X Bar was not only a place that I worked at, but I also enjoyed communicating and talking with the patrons that entered our establishment that were looking for us to have a good time. So, I miss all of that.” Many have been finding it difficult to keep entertained without being able to go out to places like X Bar and Blush & Blu. This is why the virtual offerings like Johnson’s live streaming for bartending tips and Evermoore’s Bedroom Drag are so important; they not only act as income avenues, they also provide the community with the much needed camaraderie.

Drag king and fitness instructor Trey Suits knows how to serve the community while staying positive during these times of fear and uncertainty. He has started a YouTube fitness channel focusing on movement and self-care so people can have an outlet to stay healthy when cooped up indoors. Typically teaching a dance class titled Dance Jam, the community that gathers to move their bodies ranges anywhere between 60 and 90 people. With a motto of “There’s no right or wrong; there’s no judgment; just do the best you can with the body that brought you in here,” Suits knew that in the age of social distancing, folks were going to need a way to move together now more than ever. “Yeah, this sucks, but there's an ‘and.’ There's everything in between all of this. We can hoard food and make it awful for ourselves, and I'm not discounting those anxieties are real, but how do we alleviate some of the challenges, and I think exercise is one of [the ways we can] for sure,” Suits says. The hour-long class that Suits teaches through YouTube is a way for people to get out of their heads, out of fear and into their bodies. In addition to dance, he recommends everyone incorporate other forms of exercise like strength training and low-impact bodyweight training. “We have to find a light in the dark,” Suits says. “Otherwise, it can be overwhelming. This is going to inevitably change the way all of us live, forever.”

For Chris Newell, owner of queer bars Trade and Gladys: The Nosey Neighbor, the dark times are upon us, and change is not on the horizon but has been thrust upon us and with very little direction or support, until it may have been too late. “I've been really kind of upset that the response isn’t more coordinated,” Newell says. From federal to state to city level, the information has rapidly changed. From a variety of time frames spanning two to eight weeks, each level has mandated a different length of the social distancing and self-quarantining window. Newell’s business could survive a two-week closure with little long-term impact; however, eight weeks will cause a significant strain. “I don't fully understand where that number is coming from, and personally, I feel like that was a political move so that the mayor could seem like he's doing something,” Newell says. He went on, “We want to help keep the community at large stay healthy and safe, but I guess I just personally feel like the Denver mayor didn't really take a lot into account, at least that I'm aware of.”

Without time to create an infrastructural buffer, the amount of unemployment claims being submitted crashed the Colorado unemployment website, and there are not nearly enough people working in those departments to process the claims. While this has created a need in the workforce, and community members are applying for those positions left and right, there will be an inevitable lag in processing and payment. While assistance programs continue to spring up every day, and the governor and mayor are urging landlords and property management companies to defer eviction, the foundation on which the entire plan unfolded was less than shakey, at best. Local government websites have created master lists of the available resources, and Facebook groups like The OUTsiders are attempting to fulfill the needs of the community, but it is still too soon to tell what people are going to need and how quickly they will need it. Newell, like Bouffard, likens this pandemic to that of the HIV/ AIDS crisis, and while the impact is on more than the queer community, it is those within the queer community who consistently show up and support one another, no matter what.

“It is reassuring to see the community come together, and I think the biggest echo is that we are used to the idea that, as a community, we have to take care of each other because maybe society at large isn't going to do that for us,” Newell says. While grocery stores may be depleted, and finding a roll of toilet paper listed for sale on the internet for $90 is no longer considered absurd, it is the strength and ingenuity of the LGBTQ community that will perservere, endure, and remain intact through this all. Can queer spaces, the folks who work in them, and the LGBTQ community at large, survive coronavirus? Only time will tell. One thing is certain, though; things will never be the same.