I was going to blog about this yesterday, but, between my parents coming to visit and several other things, I did not get around to it. I came across an article which seemed to advocate the complete segregation of gay bars in places like soho. That is to say, the writer wanted to make certain bars exclusively for gay people; his argument was that gay people need areas where they can express their love for their partners without being gawped at by women on hen nights or other straight people out for a jaunt in places like canal street. While he may have a point there, I think what he is proposing is foolish in the extreme, and would do far more harm than good. It would make the gay community seem separatist and isolationist, and would make homophobia far more common.

I suppose being a guy with cerebral palsy with a transsexual fiance and a liking for women’s clothes, I have the advantage of belonging to two subcultures. As a disabled man, I know what it’s like to be segregated, to be seen as ‘other’. I know that the moment a minority is shut off from the mainstream, prejudice towards them increases. That is why it is so important to include kids with disabilities in mainstream schools, where at all possible. Indeed, one only has to take a cursory glance at the history of relations between ethnic groups to see how damaging segregation can be. I therefore find what his guy is proposing very, very naive. It would be a retrograde step, and a recipe for conflict and hatred.

He argues that, given some pubs are virtually off limits for gay people, gay bars should be off limits for straight people. When I read this, I was struck by a thought: given that despite recent efforts to make more public places accessible, many older pubs are still no-go zones for wheelchair users, so shouldn’t the sae logic apply? Under that reasoning, shouldn’t we crips have crip-only bars? I think it’s a wonderful idea: we would be free to drool without being stared at, and drinking through straws would be compulsory. The problem is, our PAs wouldn’t be allowed to go in, so we crips would be stuck and the place would get rather messy pretty quickly. I also quite enjoy having a beer with m able-bodied friends, so on the whole I think this would be a pretty foolish idea – almost as foolish as barring straight people from gay bars.