Should straight men be allowed at lesbian bars? This question lingers over a minor, now viral altercation that took place at the NYC lesbian bar, Cubbyhole, in the West Village.
It all started when NYC-based influencer, Lexi Stout, shared a video on TikTok about an encounter she had while at Cubbyhole on a night in January. In the video titled “My First Lesbian Bar,” Stout starts by saying that she was invited to Cubbyhole by her friend, who’s a lesbian.
Stout explains that after arriving at the bar, she was immediately having a great time and “everyone was so nice.” Then, Stout says that one of her and friends’ (straight) guy friends wanted to meet up with them, and came to the bar. She was adamant that he “just wanted to say ‘Hello’ and leave.”
According to Stout, a woman approached her male friend almost immediately after he arrived and said, “What are you doing here?” Stout then adds some personal context to the interaction and shares that, as a straight woman who’s been to “male gay bars,” she’s never been approached or had her presence questioned like that. Stout continues to explain that the woman who approached her friend essentially conveyed that he “didn’t belong there.”
“Now I get it, it’s a gay bar for women,” Stout says in the video. “But the amount of very obviously, flamboyantly gay men that were not being approached and yelled at was wild.”
She continues to say that the woman “did not want him in the bar at all.” Of the perceived sentiment, Stout says, “I get it, but like, there’s no rules against that. Unless there are and I didn’t see them.” She ends the video asking, “Are straight males not allowed to go to lesbian bars?”
The video has been flooded with comments like, “Don’t need straights in our spaces,” and “Men sexualize lesbians, they don’t want that in the lesbian bar!” But perhaps the best response was from the actual woman who approached Stout’s male friend in the first place.
Under the TikTok handle @im.that.lesbian, Katie Pypes made a video in response to Stout’s giving her side of the story. Pypes explains that Stout’s male friend was blocking the way to the bathroom, so she tapped him on the shoulder to ask him to move out of the way. “He turns around, he seemed a little bit grumpy, so I was like ‘Okay dude, are you even here with anyone?’ Like, ‘What are you doing in this bar?’”
Pypes says that he pointed to his female friend who “seemed pretty queer” to Pypes, who confirmed that the guy was her friend. Pypes thought that would be the end of the interaction, but as she continued to wait in line for the bathroom, the guy approached her asking, “Well if I wasn’t here with someone, would that be a problem?” To which Pypes responds, “Absolutely!”
Pypes says at that point the entire friend group started confronting her, so she explained to them, “I have seen a lot of cis straight guys come into this bar and cause problems.” She continues, “It’s a known thing. It happens at Cubbyhole, it happens at Henrietta’s, it happens at Stonewall. There are straight dudes that come into these bars specifically because they’re trying to pick up girls.” To that end, Pypes defends herself by saying she questioned Stout’s straight male friend as a safety check.
Commenters applauded Pypes’ response saying, “You’re completely valid. I’m sorry that happened to you. They have EVERY OTHER BAR ON THE PLANET. We have like 7.”
Another person wrote, “I KNEW they were being out of pocket! The way she pretended like you just randomly went up to him and confronted him. Thank you for posting this.”
Pypes ends her video saying, “I do think that if you’re going into a queer space, you should be respectful of that and you should keep in mind that there are very limited spaces—especially for lesbians and queer women—where we can feel safe [and] where we can go.” Hear, hear!
