Bars & Parties
FALL ARTS 2018 MISC. EVENTS: Trixie, AC2, Joey G. on fall D.C./Baltimore event slate
Some events — galas, benefits, stand-up acts, etc. — don’t fit in our other fall arts categories. We gathered up all the miscellany here!
Trixie Mattel, Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper and Joey Graceffa are coming to the D.C./Baltimore region this fall for shows. (Photos courtesy Project Publicity, Bohlsen Group and Rams Head Live respectively)
Get your calendar out! If no URL is given, search for the event on Facebook for details.
Whitman-Walker has its 40th Anniversary Gala on Saturday, Sept 22 at 6:30 p.m. at the Marriott Marquis (901 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.). Tickets are $400 at wwhgala.org.
“Rayceen, Fix Me Up!” single women’s mixer is Thursday, Sept. 20 at Shaw Library (meeting room on lower level) at 6 p.m. Other events slated for fall include Rayceen’s Reading Room (Sept. 24), “Art All Night with Rayceen” (Sept. 29), “The Ask Rayceen Show: Meet the Candidates” (Oct. 3), “Rayceen, Fix Me Up! poly mixer” (Oct. 25), “Sexy Seventh Season Finale” (Nov. 7), “Rayceen, Fix Me Up! pre-holiday mixer” (Nov. 15). Details at tockify.com/tr.media/agenda.
The D.C. Weirdo Show presents “Weirdos for Life! a Benefit for Trans Lifeline” on Friday, Sept. 21 at 9 p.m. at the Bier Baron Tavern (1523 22nd St., N.W.). To honor National Suicide Prevention Month, this month’s Weirdo show is dedicated to the personal stories of performers who live with and manage mental illness featuring RIN (bellydancer), Coryn Rose (spoken word), Phoenix King (drag) Dr. Torcher (fire performer, Leigh Crenshaw (stand-up comedy) and more. Trans Lifeline is a peer-support hotline for trans people. Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 at the door. Details at dcweirdoshow.com.
D.C. Fellaz Entertainment presents Fall Fling Day Party for the Grown & Sexy on Saturday, Sept. 22 at 4 p.m. at Nipsey’s Restaurant & Grill (5753 Crain Highway, Upper Marlboro, Md.). Tickets are $5 before 6 p.m. or $10 after.
Richmond: This is Me! Pride Party is Saturday, Sept. 22 at Browns Island in Richmond, Va. Details at vapride.org.
Celebrate Heroes of Child Justice is Sunday, Sept. 23 at 2:30 p.m. at Georgetown University Hotel & Conference Center (3800 Reservoir Rd., N.W.) for Child Justice, Inc., a local non-profit dedicated to child welfare. Out singer Johnny Mathis will perform. Tickets are $200.
Issue Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill closes out the OUT on the Hill event and Leadership Summit of the National Black Justice Coalition on Wednesday, Sept. 26. Details at nbjc.org.
Baltimore Comic-Con 2018 is Sept. 28-30 at the Baltimore Convention Center (1 W. Pratt St., Baltimore).
The Atlantic States Leather Contest is Sept. 28-29 at Grand Central Nightclub (1001 N. Charles St., Baltimore). Tickets range from free-$59.
“Voices Up: Stories Across LGBT Generations,” a live storytelling event, is Saturday, Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts (3500 R St., N.W.). It’s free.
The fifth annual Northern Virginia Pride Festival is Saturday, Sept. 29 from 11 a.m.-8 p.m. at Bull Run Special Events Center in Centreville, Va. Details at novapride.org.
NOVA Pride (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“AC2: an Intimate Evening with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen” is Saturday, Sept. 29 at 9 p.m. at the Warner Theatre (513 13th St., N.W.). Tickets are $75-125.
Rainbow Families has its fall Maybe Baby fall classes starting on Sunday, Sept. 30 at 2 p.m. at Whitman-Walker Health (1525 14th St., N.W.). The five-class series runs through Nov. 11. Details at rainbowfamilies.org.
Dan Savage’s Very Best of HUMP! mini-tour comes to the Black Cat (1811 14th St., N.W.) Oct. 4-5 featuring favorites from previous HUMP! festivals, which feature adults films that celebrate all body types and sexualities. Details at humpfilmfest.com/best-of-hump.
IMLB 2018: International Mr. Leather Bear is Oct. 5-7 at the Lord Baltimore Hotel (20 W. Baltimore St.). Full details at baltimore.org.
Rainbow Families Family Camp is Oct. 5-7 at Camp Tockwogh in Worton, Md. Details at rainbowfamilies.org.
Baltimore Black Pride 2018 is Oct. 5-7.
Out actor/singer/YouTuber Joey Graceffa brings his “Eden Tour” to Rams Head Live Baltimore (20 Market Pl.) on Saturday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. Tickets start at $38.50 at axs.com.
Joey Graceffa (Photo courtesy of Rams Head Live)
Capital Pride’s Music in the Night is Monday, Oct. 8 at the Hamilton (600 14th St., N.W.). Tickets range from $19.75-39.75.
The seventh annual Chefs for Equality event (an HRC benefit) is Tuesday, Oct. 9 at Washington National Cathedral at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $200. Details at chefsforequality.org.
Chefs for Equality (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The Wanda Alston House has its 10th anniversary celebration on Wednesday, Oct. 10 at 6:30 p.m. at AJAX DC (1011 4th St., N.W.). Tickets are $200. Details at wandaalstonfoundation.org.
LGBTQ Domestic Violence Town Hall is Thursday, Oct. 11 at 6 p.m. to be moderated by Rayceen Pendarvis at the Reeves Center (2000 14th St., N.W.).
The Highwaymen Hot Jock Night is Thursday, Oct. 11 at 9 p.m. at the D.C. Eagle (3701 Benning Rd., N.E.) at 9 p.m.
SMYAL has a National Coming Out Day Dance for ages 13-24 on Friday, Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. at Eastern Market North Hall (225 7th St., S.E.). Details at smyal.org.
VIDA Fitness has its Thrive 5k 2018 on Saturday, Oct. 13 at 8 a.m. at Hains Point. Details at vidathrive5k.com.
Team D.C.’s Fall Casino Night is Saturday, Oct. 13 at Buffalo Billiards (1330 19th St., N.W.). Details at teamdc.org.
The SMYAL Fall Brunch is Sunday, Oct. 14 at 10:30 a.m. at the Marriott Marquis (901 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.) Tickets are $250 at one.bidpal.net/smyal.
Trixie Mattel, winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars,” brings her “Now With Moving Parts Tour” to Rams Head Live (20 Market Pl., Baltimore) on Monday, Oct. 15 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $38.50 at axs.com.
Out actress/comedian Lily Tomlin plays the Kennedy Center (2700 F St., N.W.) on Wednesday, Oct. 17. Tickets are $39-129. She got the Honors there in 2014.
The Washington Blade has its 17th annual Best of Gay D.C. readers’ poll awards presented by Absolut on Thursday, Oct. 18 at Pitchers D.C. (2317 18th St., N.W.).
Drag Queen Bingo for the BARCS Animal Shelter is Thursday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. at the Points South Latin Kitchen in Baltimore (1640 Thames St.).
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington has “Ropeburn 2: Guardians of Equality” on Thursday, Oct. 18 at at SAX (734 11th St., N.W.). “Drag Race” season eight vet Dax ExclamationPoint will hostess and perform. A cosplay show and contest will be held. Tickets are $80.
CTRL presents “Blackout: a Britney Album Celebration” on Saturday, Oct. 20 at 10 p.m. at U Street Music Hall (1115 U St., N.W.). Tickets are $10.
The Dupont Circle Citizens Association has its 51st annual house tour on Sunday, Oct. 21 from noon-5 p.m. Details at dupontcirclehousetour.org.
“RuPaul’s Drag Race: Werq the World” tour comes to the Lincoln Theatre (1215 U St., N.W.) on Tuesday, Oct. 23 with Aquaria, Asia O’Hara, Eureka, Kameron Michaels, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi and Violet Chachki. Michelle Visage hosts. Tickets are $49-160 at ticketfly.com.
The Walk & 5K to End HIV 2018 is Saturday, Oct. 27 at 7 a.m. (check-in) kicking off and ending at Fredom Plaza (Pennsylvania Ave. and 13th streets, N.W.). The 5k begins at 9:15. The walk begins at 9:20. Post-race activities start at 10. Details at walktoendhiv.org.
Walk and 5K to End HIV (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
“Miss Adams Morgan 31: SHEroes & Villains a Marvelous D.C. Affair” is Saturday, Oct. 27 at 6 p.m. at the Washington Hilton (1919 Connecticut Ave., N.W.).
“The Bentzen Ball Comedy Fest: Getting Curious Live with Jonathan Van Ness” (“Queer Eye”), a podcast taping, is Saturday, Oct. 27 at the Lincoln Theatre (1215 U St., N.W.) at 6 p.m. Tickets are $32 at ticketfly.com.
The BYT Bentzen Ball Comedy Festival with Tig Notaro and Friends is Sunday, Oct. 28 at the Lincoln Theatre (1215 U St., N.W.). Tickets are $25 at ticketfly.com.
The 32nd annual High Heel Race is Tuesday, Oct. 30 on 17th Street, N.W.
High Heel Race (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The D.C. Center has its 13th annual Fall Reception on Thursday, Nov. 1 at 6 p.m. at GALA Hispanic Theatre (3333 14th St., N.W.). The event will celebrate 25 years of Reel Affirmations, a local LGBT film festival. Tickets are $75 ($50 for seniors and students).
HIPS has its 25th anniversary reception on Friday, Nov. 2 at 6:30 p.m. at the Whittemore House (1526 New Hampshire Ave., N.W.). Tickets are $75. Details at hips25th.com.
Out comedian Wanda Sykes plays the Strathmore on Saturday, Nov. 3 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $35-115.
Casa Ruby presents Solutions Conference 2018 on Friday, Nov. 9 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at 7530 Georgia Ave., N.W. The Honorees Dinner will be held at 8 p.m. Details at casaruby.org.
D.C. Metro Circle of Friends has “A Masquerade Ball,” a benefit for the Wanda Alston Foundation, on Saturday, Nov. 10 at 8 p.m. at Martin’s Crosswinds Ballroom (7400 Greenway Center Dr., Greenbelt, Md.). Tickets are $75. Call 915-224-5844 for information.
Out comedian Emma Willmann plays the Drafthouse Comedy Theater (1100 13th St., N.W.) on Saturday, Nov. 10 at 7 and 9 p.m. Tickets are $20 at drafthousecomedy.com.
The annual Wreath Laying for LGBT Veterans is Sunday, Nov. 11 at noon at Congressional Cemetery (1801 E St., S.E.), sponsored by Flowers on 14th and Mr. Henrys. The ceremony is held at the grave of Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich in the LGBT section of the cemetery.
(Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
“Bad & Beaujolais: a Beaujolais Nouveau Day Celebration,” the D.C. Center’s Women’s Party is Thursday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. at the HRC Equality Center (1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W.).
Annapolis Pride presents a drag brunch at Rams Head on Stage (33 West St., Annapolis, Md.) on Saturday, Nov. 17 at 11:30 a.m.
The 18th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance is Tuesday, Nov. 20 at Metropolitan Community Church of Washington (474 Ridge St., N.W.). at 5:30 p.m.
Bars & Parties
Lesbian Bar Project co-founder: purity politics could destroy our remaining spaces
Last Ditch’s decision to lift its mask requirement for one night a week has sparked intra-queer controversy
Uncloseted Media published this story on Sept. 29
By ERICA ROSE and THE LESBIAN BAR PROJECT | As a professional lesbian and Massachusetts native, I’ve recently been asked by a lot of folks what I think about the saga unfolding at Last Ditch. The now-viral story, first reported by the Boston Globe, centers on a Western Massachusetts lesbian bar that lifted its mask requirement for one night a week to help drum up business.
The decision ignited an intra-queer controversy that has been feasted on by media outlets across the political spectrum — from the New York Post to LGBTQ Nation — and is even reportedly being eyed for a Hollywood adaptation. Apparently nothing is more entertaining than a bunch of lesbians and queers fighting with each other over KN-95s.
What has been lost in all of the chatter and media coverage is the very real possibility that Last Ditch, which just opened in April 2025, will have to close its doors. The venue’s one remaining founder, Jackie Matellian, revealed in a community Zoom meeting that she’s working four jobs, is now solely responsible for the bar’s $50,000 business loan and is struggling to keep up with the bills. So as we laugh about the controversy’s similarity to a “Portlandia” skit and how one of the bar’s founders left to enroll in clown school, we forget that yet another lesbian bar is facing an existential crisis — and this time the call is coming from inside the house.
In 2020, my friend Elina Street and I created The Lesbian Bar Project, an Emmy-, Webby- and GLAAD Media Award-winning docuseries and initiative that tells the stories of lesbian queer bars around the world. We were moved to act because at the time there were only an estimated 16 lesbian bars in the United States, and the pandemic threatened to bring that number down even further.
There are now more sapphic bars than there were just before the pandemic — about 36 of them in total — but this is down from approximately 200 in 1980. Maybe that doesn’t mean much to you, but for the millions of sapphics living in the U.S., this number is calamitous.
As the world laughs at lesbians and sapphics, I want to take a second and tell you what I feel when I walk into one of these bars, which are all unique and irreplaceable in their own way: I feel seen.
Sometimes I think Cubbyhole in New York City’s West Village neighborhood knew I was gay before I did. When I walked in there for the first time, before I was even out, I was transfixed by the colorful array of tchotchkes hanging from the ceiling and how the women standing next to me were completely unafraid to express their desire for one another. I knew the minute I was ready to come out, I had a home. I also felt the joy of a new couple falling in love at Seattle’s Wildrose, the quiet confidence of a short king lining up her shot at the pool table at Ginger’s in Brooklyn and the kick of cayenne pepper in Julie Mabry’s crawfish at Houston’s Pearl Bar.
Lesbian bars don’t just serve lesbians; they serve queer folks across the spectrum, including bisexual, pansexual and trans people. As Elina and I traveled across the U.S. and Europe and to parts of Latin America to document the bar owners, staff and patrons that make up the ecosystems of these spaces, we also became uniquely acquainted with the factors that threaten their existence: gentrification, wage gaps, sexism, environmental disasters, gun violence, rising insurance premiums and political administrations working to annihilate queer people and their families.
Lesbian bar owners, like all leaders and entrepreneurs, are imperfect. There have been significant issues over the years at lesbian bars: employee harassment, racism, lack of accessibility, sexual assault and transphobia. All bar owners should be held accountable and should listen to their communities to evolve into safer and more equitable spaces. I also acknowledge my privilege: I am able-bodied, white, cis and from a family system that loves me for who I am. Not everyone has that.
Queer people, especially trans and bisexual people, are suffering from disproportionately high levels of depression, and our mental health system isn’t equipped to support them. Immunocompromised people and long COVID are real, and many of my friends are suffering to this day. The people with the least safety net are often the ones for whom a bar closing costs the most. And yet, as we’re seeing with Last Ditch, the queer community often lashes out at each other. It’s also the mainstream media taking the internal conflict and making a mockery out of it, distracting from the real possibility that this bar could close due to financial pressures. A bar that many people loved and needed is facing extinction. Perhaps it’s safer to dissent with one another than with the larger forces trying to eradicate us, but in doing so, we risk destroying the few spaces we have left.
Due to the constraints of purity politics — some in good faith, some not so much — lesbian bar owners, almost all of whom are queer women themselves, are forced to be everything for everyone, similarly to how women are forced to be everything for everyone. By asking these bars to uphold impossible standards — standards very few other third spaces are asked to consider — we all end up losing.
I want to move as a community toward dialogue, compassionate dissent and collaboration to make our spaces better with the goal of keeping them OPEN and thriving, rather than destroying them from the inside with expectations that are arguably unattainable.
While I have your attention — for this fleeting second of the news cycle — may I urge us to spearhead a way to keep these small businesses afloat without attacking our own community along the way? Bar owners are left with an impasse: They want to be community-centered, but they also have to make money to keep their doors open. Sometimes they might make business decisions that don’t work for everyone — and that’s partly because different patrons have different priorities and want different things — but these owners deserve the opportunity for productive dialogue. We have to work with them and with each other to keep our spaces open, to keep them growing.
Lesbian bars raised me into the queer woman I am today. One thing I think about as I reflect on the six years of work we’ve done to document these spaces is that shared, unspoken language I have with a stranger the moment we both walk into one of these bars: the nod, the ease, the not having to explain ourselves. I don’t want to lose that, and neither should you.
Celebrate the start of Pride month at the Queer Magic Dance Party at the Black Cat on Saturday, June 6. Doors open at 9 p.m.
There will be pole performances and demonstrations, a free photo booth with glitter bar, a queer vendor market, tarot readings by Skye Marinda Tarot, a drag performance by Sapphica, and dancing to a blend of smooth R&B, Afrobeats, hip-hop and pop by Slammer & Saba. Tickets are $20 at the door or $15 (plus fees) in advance, purchased here.
Bars & Parties
Here’s where to watch ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ with fellow fans
Entertainers TrevHER and Grey host event with live performance
Spark Social Events will host “Ru Paul’s Drag Race S18 Watch Party Hosted by Local Drag Queens” on Friday, Jan. 23 at 8 p.m.
Drag entertainers TrevHER and Grey will provide commentary and make live predictions on who’s staying and who’s going home. Stick around after the show for a live drag performance. The watch party will take place on a heated outdoor patio and cozy indoor space.
This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
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