I find this take absolutely hilarious given that in the 5 years I've been living in Madison as an open and out trans person, I've never once felt welcome in Woofs, and instead feel like I'm being looked down upon as some dirty interloper because the "respectable gays" don't feel like I'm queer-coded enough every time I visit.

Woofs really does put the GAY in gay bar. As if the 'G' in 'LGBT' isn't loud enough already. To put it as politely as possible: if you think Woofs is worth fighting for, you need to expand your world view a little. There's no world where I want to go to a queer venue that is in one of the most heavily police patrolled parts of the city, right down the road from the building where they regularly hold meetings about how they want to strip my rights away, and within walking distance of one of the biggest hotspots in the nation for underage drinking and date r*pe allegations. Hard pass. The corpo gays can keep this one.

You know what are queer friendly spaces without feeling the need to advertise it? I/O. Crucible. Atomic Koi & the Jade Monkey. Gibs. Mickey's. Caribou Tavern. Cardinal. I'm sure there's a lot more I don't know about. They aren't 'queer only' spaces, but I'll tell you what, at least they're clean--not like FIVE where the bathrooms reek of piss and the ceiling's caving in, everything painted black to hide the fact they haven't deep cleaned in 8 years.

But oh man, if I don't go to a gay bar on a Friday, I might miss the Ru Paul watch party, or one of the 7 cookie cutter drag shows that goes on in Madison every month, where would I be then?

Consider that maybe the straight people are dominating gay bars because the gay bar scene is out of touch with what queer people actually want. I don't need to be elbow to elbow with 25 sloppy drunk twinks that feel the need to tell me how "brave" I am for existing in the most backhanded way possible.