A protest by 'Radical Queers' – which included over 20 drag kings and queens – was blocked from entering Wellington's Temperance bar on Saturday night, and the group is now considering further action. All dressed up and nowhere to go: Wellington's 'radical' drag queens Three drag queens were forcibly removed from the bar earlier this month, which was seen as 'blatant homophobia'. Rachael Wright, who helped organise Saturday night's Radical Queers protest, says around 30 people showed up, most of them in drag. "We went down there a bit late – as drag queens tend to be late! There were a few of Wellington's drag kings waiting for us to support us, which was really cool," she explains. "As soon as I approached the door staff, they said 'I'm sorry, I'm going to have to refuse you entry.' I asked why, and they said 'right of refusal.' They told another one of our group that they'd had a private function on in the bar, but we knew that wasn't true – a friend of ours had gone in earlier and asked." During the protesters' conversation with the crew on the door, one Temperance staff member said they considered drag a "fancy dress costume" and that what was "appropriate on a woman was not appropriate dress on a man" Wright recalls. "They didn't quite admit that they had been told specifically not to let us in, but that was definitely the message that was coming through." There was a strong police presence there on the night, with Wright describing "two paddy wagons and cop cars all down the street. But the police were lovely to us." TV3 had shown interest in filming the protest, "but then they said they thought there's no way anyone at the bar would be stupid enough to refuse us entry – so they didn't come" claims Wright. The Radical Queers group now wants to take the issue further, and is considering options including setting up a face-to-face meeting with the bar's management. "From what the man on the door said to us, it's clearly transgender discrimination," Wright concludes. "I think their attitudes need to be challenged around this issue." Management of the Temperance bar could not be contacted for comment yesterday. Felicity Frockaccino, one of the drag queens originally ejected from Temperance earlier this month, yesterday posted on GayNZ.com's Forum to say the three are now "over it" and are happy to let the issue drop. "Can we just get past the fact that this happened? They were very rude to us and I know we won't be going back there. Water under the bridge. Who cares anymore, we can't get in, fine, we won't go," Frockaccino typed. "That's fine with us, the only thing I didn't like from them was their homophobic things they said to the other girls the first night. It wasn't directed to me, so I won't quote. But we are judged by everyone, so we have to just take all comments with a grain of salt. It's part of life. No-one likes smart, sarcy comments but everyone has to deal with them. We've dealt with them, now we get on with our lives and breathe."
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Tuesday, 26th August 2008 - 10:23am