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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11048 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026

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https://archive.ph/IWYc8

A Western Mass. lesbian bar required KN-95 masks. When it changed the rules, all hell broke loose.

There's some real gems in here, and I feel bad for the one remaining owner and wish they/them the best, now that they've seen how positive, supportive, and inclusive their chosen subculture isn't.

This is also an example of the Internet showing me exactly what I want. Even when I'm browsing substack not logged in, it can somehow target me and my hobby horses.

A "Lesbian" Bar (which seems to really be a Queer Leftist establishment ridden with trannies) was until recently a Masks Required establishment; they planned to allow some days each week in which masks were optional rather than mandatory. Histrionics ensued. You'd think the article was a hit-piece from a right-wing rag, but the Boston Globe is only conservative if you're standing near the Left Pole.

I post it here at the risk of it being Boo-Outgroup, but I'm actually slightly gladdened. The neighborhood where I do most of my socializing is ridden with queer leftists who still mask, but "enforcement" is limited to the occasional DIY show or rave that's specifically targeted at maskies. However bad it is here, it's not as bad as a small town in Massachusetts.

Most of this is not that crazy if you accept some basic tenets of progressivism (though sounds crazy to a non-believer - "the entire world is made out of these tiny things called atoms and there are bunch of different types like in this periodic table. No they are really small, you can't even see them with this light microscope. The atoms for table salt are the for a poisonous gas and an explosive metal but they bind strongly together so it's safe")

Nonetheless, some of it reads like a conservative parody of progressivism to the point I really do wonder... ("he/him gender-expansive lesbian")

[in response to making masks optional] “people like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience,” posted another.

“I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists"

Last Ditch, which opened last year as a bar for “dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers, and their friends,” is struggling.

One of the trio, Asa Rosario, a drag performer who uses it/its pronouns, envisioned a venue where it and its friends could perform.

No one would be turned away from the space for lack of funds. “Poor and unhoused people are welcome in the space.” The police were not.

“A lot of people are calling for an acknowledgment of harm and I’m hearing a WHITE therapist ... center[ing] the feelings of a majority white and white adjacent staff,” writes Noire, who is Black.

“There’s a lot of emotional and physical labor that goes into this [a community meeting], so for you as a white person that asks for me to stay for another meeting for free,” he says, is “incredibly disingenuous and racist. I’m not doing that.”

Matellian (who uses she/they pronouns) had been shedding “WHITE THEY THEM TEARS,” he [Noire] writes

Noire, who identifies as a gender-expansive lesbian and uses he/him pronouns

I've never personally interacted with a space at this level of wokeness, but I have come across public spaces with this kind of vibe before: inclusive yet pleasant to be in (gender-expansive Black lesbians and neopronoun users vs. thuggish black/brown youths and homeless people)

How come these spaces don't just get overrun with undesirables who are too low-functioning to participate in a "community meeting"? To re-quote:

No one would be turned away from the space for lack of funds. “Poor and unhoused people are welcome in the space.” The police were not.

They are explicitly advertising this place as a shelter for homeless people (amongst other things), does word not get around and then the homeless people... go there for shelter?

I suspect that rural western Mass doesn’t have tons of homeless people to begin with.

Most of this is not that crazy if you accept some basic tenets of progressivism physics

What exactly would be crazy according to you?

but I have come across public spaces with this kind of vibe before: inclusive yet pleasant to be in

Pleasant to be in??!

If you're a passing observer and don't do anything to enrage the hivemind they're probably perfectly fine

How come these spaces don't just get overrun with undesirables who are too low-functioning to participate in a "community meeting"?

Gangstas are culturally homophobic, like the vast majority of criminal subcultures that thrive on machismo and personal honor. No thuggish, unsophisticated black man is going to risk being seen in a gay bar, never mind a gay women's bar - nothing this place can offer him is worth the risk to his reputation among his peers.

I would imagine the N95 mask requirement functioned as a hidden mandatory fee. What homeless person has that?

More and more visitors said they didn’t have the cover fee; the bar let them in anyway.

Seems like word got out that you could get in for free if you pretended to be homeless, which is what caused the income of the bar to fall.

I imagine the masks serve in two ways, ingroup signaling for exactly "Those people" that wore a mask alone in their own car and the trans thing.

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