Twenty-five years ago, a rpt sheriff cracked down on South Florida's gay muny — and ma a media spectacle out of . Not only were adult patrons disgraced, unrage queer youth were arrted, trmatized, and mobilized.
Contents:
- JUNE 28 MARKS 14 YEARS SCE THE POLICE RAID OF A FORT WORTH GAY BAR
- THE LEGACY OF FLORIDA'S MOST NOTOR GAY BAR RAIDS
- GAY RAID: POLICE EVICT MEN OM ABANDONED ST ANDREW HOME
JUNE 28 MARKS 14 YEARS SCE THE POLICE RAID OF A FORT WORTH GAY BAR
* gay raid *
In a sea of nned cktails, Gay Water wants to stand out. In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that. “The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them, ” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer.
Gay Water, however, is out and proud. The nned cktail is named after a lloquialism given to the popular mixed drk (vodka and soda) orred at bars by the gay muny. “Puttg a product wh the word gay the tle is reprentatn self, ” which he hop reclaims the word om the negativy ’s sometim associated wh.
He thought of creatg Gay Water about a year ago while on a vatn wh his iend that had got a job wh the beverage dtry. The two chatted about the limed amount of gay people wh , and wh Hodson burnt out om his tradnal day job tech, started the nned cktail. Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water.
THE LEGACY OF FLORIDA'S MOST NOTOR GAY BAR RAIDS
“Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg.
For now, Gay Water is sold largely onle (wh a few retailers) and four sugar-ee flavors — watermelon, lime, peach and grapeu — at lnch. Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails, ” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN.
“There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns, ” Roth said. Of urse, other drks e the word “gay, ” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space. Raids on gay bars and bathho served to spire the historic Stonewall rts that lnched the morn LGBTQ+ rights movement the U.
GAY RAID: POLICE EVICT MEN OM ABANDONED ST ANDREW HOME
Fifty years after the Black Cat protts Los Angel, which directly led to the lnch of The Advote, we take a look at some of the most nsequential strik on gay bars and bathho datg back more than a century. The rmatn gathered actually led to a wir vtigatn of homosexualy nearby ci, which rulted 20 arrts, cludg two ps on the Baker Street beat, acrdg to Allan Bebe’s A History of Bathho.
Moral reformers New York Cy raised polil prsure on police the 1920s to shut down the Lafayette Brothers’ Turkish Baths, a popular spot for gay men livg and visg the cy.