The first gay pub I dared set foot now has a rabow plaque. Here’s why that matters | Gary Nunn | The Guardian

Contents:

• TOM HOLLAND’S GAY SEX SCENE SETS SOCIAL MEDIA ALIGHT AFTER THE ACTOR SAID PLAYG THE ROLE ‘BROKE HIM’
• TOM HOLLAND’S GAY SEX SCENE 'THE CROWD ROOM' DEFEND BY FANS
• THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
• RACG TO PRERVE THE HISTORY OF MAE’S 1ST GAY RIGHTS ANIZATN
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• LONDON'S LANDMARK BUILDG DOTTED WH STRIP CLUBS, GAY VENU TO TURN TO MOSQUE
• STANLEY TUCCI IS PRETTY FE WH STRAIGHT ACTORS PLAYG GAY CHARACTERS

TOM HOLLAND’S GAY SEX SCENE SETS SOCIAL MEDIA ALIGHT AFTER THE ACTOR SAID PLAYG THE ROLE ‘BROKE HIM’

Andrew Ahn’s father once told him that there were “no gay people Korea. In a culturally nservative muny, where gog to church and buildg a fay were heavily emphasized, Ahn felt his gay inty kept him “om beg able to participate Korean culture.

” Then, he started equentg GAMeBoi, a weekly Asian Amerin gay party at Wt Hollywood’s Rage Nightclub. He learned to embrace beg both Korean and gay, so much so that he directed “Fire Island, ” a groundbreakg queer Asian Amerin rom- released last year. Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg to people of lor.

TOM HOLLAND’S GAY SEX SCENE 'THE CROWD ROOM' DEFEND BY FANS

“Fdg plac like GAMeBoi, where beg queer and Asian do -exist … It’s not like a 1, 000-year-old Korean cultural rual, but I uld create a new rual, ” said Ahn, a recent Friday, hundreds packed QT Nightlife’s monthly K-Pop Night at Micky’s, a Wt Hollywood gay club a block or so east om the old GAMeBoi posed for selfi a pk Barbie box wh dis balls hangg overhead.

” (Michael Owen Baker / For The Tim) Even historilly gay neighborhoods like Wt Hollywood or San Francis’s Castro district, Asian Amerins have long been ignored or fetishized, seen as feme and weak.

In 2019, then-Wt Hollywood Mayor John Duran argued that he did not appropriately touch a member of the Gay Men’s Chos of Los Angel bee “he’s a skny Korean kid wh pimpl on his cheek. ” Asian Amerin advocy groups cricized Duran’s remark, wh API Equaly-LA potg to the long history of discrimatn agast Asian men gay muni such as Wt Hollywood, whose clubs “ed to require three forms of photo intifitn om anyone they perceived as Asian. ” said Crisman, a 36-year-old gay Korean Amerin rearcher and artist.

THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS

On this night, he had brought some female high school iends who wanted to experience the gay clubbg scene.

‘Tom Holland gay sex ma me google The Crowd Room real quick, ’ another trigued viewer shared. ‘Oh no I got my parents to The Crowd Room and I’ve jt learned that one of my theori is rrect and we will ed be seeg Tom Holland a gay sex scene. Tom HollandFans of Brish actor Tom Holland have e to his fense after some social media ers were seemgly upset that the latt episo of his Apple TV+ seri The Crowd Room featured gay the scene, Holland’s character go to a club wh heavy black eyeler and all black.

RACG TO PRERVE THE HISTORY OF MAE’S 1ST GAY RIGHTS ANIZATN

”A lot of other ers, however, seemed very nfed over the backlash, pecially sce Spir-Man actors Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield have also played gay person wrote, “Watchg agile cishet men have breakdowns over the reason Tom Holland is trendg is sweet we to me. ”“The fact that a sgle scene on an Apple Pl show featurg Tom Holland has brought out so much homophobia om the stupist people is... Frankly, I’d have served a prison jt for him to hold my hand, like he did his off-whe Vxhall Nova on the drive there, breakg only to change, he took me for strawberry cir the Gloucter, a pub at the park’s edge, takg my tremblg hand his and reassurg me: “It’s actually a gay bar.

Gay pubs are far more than bars; they’re refug. On Sunday, the first a new seri of rabow plaqu will be stalled at the Gloucter – now the Greenwich Tavern – cementg s place gay home the workg-class Medway area of Kent, where we met when he sold me a phone cred rd at the lol petrol statn, “queers” like were wily perceived as predatory, perverted, spic or simply scum.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

”After the strawberry cir, served by a man a tight whe vt – the only other gay man I’d seen real life – the squiggly summer sunlight ma a strobe effect through the park’s tre.

The first time I saw wh him, when I was 18, I realised he had echoed the love story of the two protagonists, who also had their first kiss the twilight of Greenwich Park’s tre, and their first experience of a gay pub at the Gloucter.

The explanatn for his obssn is now clear: there was such a pcy of same-sex love stori that this was the first time many young people had seen a same-sex kiss, or peeked si an actual gay bar after dark. The project remds people “that we have always been here, good tim and bad, ” David Robson of the London LGBT+ Foms’ Network said when the plaqu were film and my own story were workg-class gay love: not dandyish and sheltered by the polse of privilege, but the btal realy of beg perceived a non-mascule boy.

LONDON'S LANDMARK BUILDG DOTTED WH STRIP CLUBS, GAY VENU TO TURN TO MOSQUE

It was a powerful and rarely told tersectn – and one that, even more rarely, ends rather happily, wh a betiful scene of fiance and acceptance played to a Mama Cass waltz on the sk I disvered that I wasn’t the only wi-eyed baby gay my boyiend had been chasg through those ancient chtnuts that summer.

For me, the plaque honours that private moment as well as the shared history of the LGBTQ+ ’s the msage I’d impart to anyone who thks such symbols are meangls, as the unique social history of the UK’s gay bars is endangered by gentrifitn, hook-up apps, the st of livg crisis and even assiatn. Like many workg-class, closeted gay boys, I’d hi unr the glovebox of my boyiend’s Nova when we drove back om the park, lt anyone saw.

STANLEY TUCCI IS PRETTY FE WH STRAIGHT ACTORS PLAYG GAY CHARACTERS

It whispered to ckney-accented gay boys like me: there are others like you.

The astal sailg legend and Mae gay rights pneer died six months earlier  the fall of 2012. Bull and Hasks helped found the groundbreakg stunt group at the Universy of Mae 1973 — then held the first Mae Gay Symposium 1974, which jump-started Mae’s LGBTQ+ rights stggle, lnchg much further ahead toward jtice than most other stat. They are also anizg a 50th anniversary Mae Gay Symposium Orono and Portland this fall.