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I didn’t need to signal a pair of Dickies and carbine keys to greet me. Obviously, I was not on the street that first night – for myself, let alone anyone else. I could navigate the space with new confidence, embodying a version of myself that I found too risky to live in my daily life.
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The bar has become my oasis – an island away from reality, where anything is possible and nothing is necessarily “real”. Only in strange places – for example, in a dive bar or a weekly party “Tuezgaz” in a gay club in the city center – I felt comfortable enough to loosen my guard. Senior year, I drank all six seasons The words L for one semester and rented out Blue is the warmest color from the Vulcan Video, which I secretly watched on my laptop while my roommates on Wednesday night conducted a Bible study in the living room.Īt the time, it was easier to act in denial than to face the truth. In college, I fantasized about flirting with women, but only met men in public. I didn’t really “go out” until my mid-twenties, and it was a painful experience that broke away from the expectations that friends and the church – and, you know, society – had set for me about what my femininity should look like. In strange circles I am what some would call late flowering. It was as if Austin didn’t want me to go – and suddenly I had a reason to stay. There is an inevitable irony that pops up when you find what you are looking for, just when you are about to leave. But when I looked back at the mixed faces - covered in glitter, dressed in Doc Martens, Birkenstocks and hairpins, and sports mullets, shaved heads, and pink wigs - I had to smile.
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I was 21, a few months before graduating from university and I worked hard to conceive of my escape from Texas. The interior was cozy and restrained – you know, the perfect dive bar – but I was really fascinated by the outdoors, with the pink ceiling of the parachute tent and the rocky wall that hung over the space like a fortress. The first time I walked into my first queer bar, I felt like I was coming home. To celebrate the honor, we teamed up with Absolute – a proud 40+ -year-old ally and year-round supporter of the LGBTQ community – to shed light on the history of self-knowledge, acceptance and joy.