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Contents:

• ‘RIGHTEO ANGER WAS A PART OF ’: THE SHOCKG STORY OF NEW YORK’S GAY BAR KILLER
• JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU

‘RIGHTEO ANGER WAS A PART OF ’: THE SHOCKG STORY OF NEW YORK’S GAY BAR KILLER

As an exhsted and emotnal gay man says archival footage: “Do you know what is to be asslted for beg alive? ”It’s a grim picture by self but that era also saw another threat enter the ame, quietly and gomely pickg off gay men already livg on a knife’s Last Call killer, as the media me to ll him, mostly found his victims the one place his victims ed as safe refuge: gay bars. “Righteo anger was a part of , ” says Gertler, of makg the project as a gay man.

“The gay thg wasn’t really relevant to the vtigatn, apart om who might have killed him and where he hung out, ” one says, straight-faced. At another pot, a tective turns the qutns back to ask: “Why is the emphasis on the gay part?

” Photograph: HBOWhile the thori dragged their feet, missg important leads and claimg ignorance over how to handle the se (“I don’t know about where all the gay bars are New York Cy, ” one says, a sense of rigid mascule pri unrlyg) and the media chose to eher ignore or salacly explo, was left up to the same activists who had helped the muny through the early stag of the HIV epimic and ntued to protect them om other forc to do the work. “We’re hearg the same thgs over and over aga by Ron DeSantis, ” Caronna says, parg the rhetoric of now to that of before, phed by the hateful sger turned vol homophobe Ana Bryant, clud the seri. “It’s this legacy of homophobia that’s still very prent and then we get people like Tmp who stoke the flam of homophobia bee they know ’s a wedge issue, bee they know that their fanbase will love if they e after trans people or they e after gay people.

JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU

It’s all about power, ’s all jt people knowg how to stoke the flam of homophobia for power. ”Last year also saw a story that chillgly mirrored elements of the Last Call killer’s se, wh a spate of men targeted at New York gay bars before beg murred. ”But what Last Call also do is show the undyg importance of the gay bar, even to those who might not unrstand s need (straight lleagu and iends have asked me why gay bars still exist when “Every bar is a gay bar now” and siarly, madngly, “Is g out even a thg anymore?

To both Caronna and Gertler, pecially at a time of tensified homophobia, the gay bar is as val as ever. “I thk we all have our own lived experienc and my lived experience happens to be the clost wh the gay people that I’m around, ” Caronna says.