Why Is Iced Coffee So Gay? | GQ

Contents:

• "FOR THE MORNG GAYS": THE IMPORTANCE OF LGBTQ-OWNED F AS SOBER, QUEER SPAC
• WHY IS ICED COFFEE SO GAY?
• BT OF CHIGO 2009: BT GAY COFFEE SHOP
• WHY IS ICED COFFEE SO GAY?

"FOR THE MORNG GAYS": THE IMPORTANCE OF LGBTQ-OWNED F AS SOBER, QUEER SPAC

We're jt for the morng gays.

"When people thk of gay spac or queer spac, they immediately thk of a nightclub or bar — maybe a ltle hole the wall, " he said. Gay bars hold a eply important place the history of LGBTQ rights and visibily the Uned Stat.

For s and s, jt visg a gay bar was a high-risk activy. For young members of the LGBTQ muny, gog out to a gay or lbian bar was almost like a re of passage.

WHY IS ICED COFFEE SO GAY?

Growg up as a queer, Black women Louisville, Kentucky, Arielle Clark said that she felt like there were certa "ton" she wanted to meet to feel at home the muny: She wanted to attend Kentucky Pri and meet other LGBTQ people, and then she wanted to get to some kd of gay bar or nightclub bee that's where everyone spent time on the weekends. It’s a move forward, but also backward: Coffee has a long history of fuelg unofficial queer spac, om mid-century ffee shops and ders that hosted gay, lbian, and trans muni to funky, lived- ’90s f.

BT OF CHIGO 2009: BT GAY COFFEE SHOP

Very few bs, outsi of the thng ranks of gay bars and downright endangered LGBT bookstor, label themselv as queer-centric. There are ffee shops wh gay or queer owners, and often they tend to draw a siar clientele — there have been a handful of tim I’ve walked to a random ffee shop and disvered, to my light, that was full of queer people like me.

There were too many people for to feel like a hoe party, but was also a far cry om the scene at many gay bars, where patrons tend to arrive — and clter — wh iends they already know, or foc on pursug romantic partners. It’s obv, people rpond: He’s gay. But none of that matters, after all; what was clear to the rner of the Inter known as Gay Twter, and to the se Gay Star News, was that this man was jt exercisg his rights—nay, his duty—as a gay man to drk iced ffee.

Iced ffee, you see, is gay culture [ed. Note: n nfirm] a piece published last October on the LGBTQ webse New Now Next, was noted that for the past two years on social media there’s been a steady flow of jok and mem about the gay muny’s affy for iced ffee. Acrdg to NNN, iced ffee is gay bee: portabily (cute cups), easy nsumptn (’s ld) and ctomizatn (you n pump full of sugar, or sugar-ee syp that is fely not givg you diabet).

WHY IS ICED COFFEE SO GAY?

The se pared to the stereotype of suburban moms and their nsumptn of pot grig; iced ffee is a gay ctch. While ’s hard the days to tly unrstand why anythg be a meme (this is wavg at the Babadook), there are a lot of portable, easily ctomizable thgs that e cute packagg that aren’t so closely aligned wh the gay muny.

(Although lookg back, actually, that was pretty gay. )One of the earlit exampl of the gay muny’s ep relatnship wh iced ffee om a 2001 episo of Will & Grace. Hijks, while havg a csh has certaly lead to gay people dog ridiculo thgs the past, the episo don’t que properly draw the le between iced ffee and gay culture at large.

But there uld be somethg the way that Jack signaled himself out as a gay man to his csh by his repeated orrs of Frappuccos. Ined, acrdg to former BuzzFeed wrer Sam Stryker, who once wrote a post for the se tled “This Post Will Only Make Sense If You're Gay And Love Iced Coffee, ” there’s a untercultural element to iced ffee’s populary wh the gays.