GUEST POST: Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Transphobia Has Got To Go!!!

Photo Credit: M.J.

This past weekend a protest was mounted at Hunters Night Club in Elk Grove Village against their unfair use of a supposed "Two Faces, Two ID's" door policy which targets the Trans community by forcing them the provide an ID that matches their gender presentation. As I was out of town this weekend I was not able to go to the protest, but my friend M.J. (who was one of the survivors of Bus 1 to DC) was there and he wrote this on his personal blog. I asked him if I could repost and he graciously agreed.

As many of you already know, this past Friday night I went to support a protest of Hunters Nightclub. A lot of people were asking me what brought on this protest. I very quickly explain to them about the discrimination of my fellow Transgender brothers and sisters. Well I wanted to take the opportunity now to explain the whole situation, starting from the beginning.

Hunters Nightclub, a gay bar located in Elk Grove Village, implemented a new door policy back in August. This new policy known as the "Two Faces, Two IDs" policy bans people whose ID pictures do not match their gender presentation. When this policy was introduced it received international media attention. One of the managers of the bar came out at that time and said that there were state and county laws that supported their decision to enact this new policy. Many people decided to research these alleged laws, but were unable to come up with any of them. Yet, even after this was brought up, nothing happened and the policy want unchallenged by anyone for nearly two months.

Come on people, we all fucking know that Hunters created this "policy" so it can keep the transgender people out. I am not going to tiptoe around the issue that there is a problem with hookers around that bar, but come on not every transgender person is a hooker. In fact hookers come in every sexual orientation or gender. So if the issue becomes male hookers, is the bar going to make a policy to try to ban the whole male population? That is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. This whole issue is a wonderful example of "profiling" and needs to stop immediately.

Okay, sorry about my rant. Back to the reason of this post.

At the beginning of October, a few members of many different ages and backgrounds of the transgender community got feed up of the lack of action being taken against Hunters and decided to take action. They met to discuss how to respond to Hunters "Two Faces, Two IDs" door policy. They reached out to other GLBTI groups in the community and asked everyone them to spread the word of a protest at Hunters on October 23rd. The protest main goal was to challenge Hunters new policy and have them over turn it. The organizers asked everyone who was coming for the protest to dress up in drag.

Well the night turned out like this: There were over forty people out on Friday night standing in the freezing cold parking lot waiting to challenge the new policy at Hunters. As we all made our way into the bar, two of us were turned away. The remaining people who were able to make it into the bar, were asked to leave the bar about an hour later. To clarify on this part a little; we were asking the manager about the policy and why they allowed some of us in and not others and next thing I know we were being asked to leave. I can not comment on what was being said between our organizers and the management at Hunters for I was not there for the whole conversation. I just know that after we were asked to leave, most of us braved the cold temperatures outside because Patrick Volkert, a manager at Hunters, agreed to talk to us. We all waited for him to come out and talk to us. When he finally did come out, he would only talk to the group organizer. So the rest of us waited in the parking lot, talking and sharing stories until the meeting was done.

When the meeting was over we were told that our demand that Hunters repeal the policy was denied and so we decided to boycott Hunters.

So I am asking all my friends, no matter of sexual orientation or gender to boycott Hunters Nightclub effective immediately. And please do not stop boycotting until Hunters publicly repeals their "Two faces, Two IDs," door policy.

And remember, "Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Transphobia has got to go!"

PS. . . About the picture above. That is my attempt at drag. I went as a Glam Rocker version of a prudish woman like Barbra Bush. Okay really I couldn't get my wig to work out the way I wanted and I did not want to let anyone down so I dressed up with the thought that why fit in, when we are meant to stand out from the crowd.

You can visit M.J. on his personal blog One Voice Whispering In The Wind