This week, Metro Weekly reported on three local gay social activists who have been organizing a monthly "Guerilla Queer Bar" in D.C. for the past five years. The concept is simple: Get a bunch of gay people together, descend upon a traditionally straight bar, and declare "We're here, we're queer, we want a beer." Then, like, drink the beer.

After five years of monthly gay-on-straight beer runs, Karl Jones, Amy Mulry, and Christopher Trott are recusing themselves from organizing duties—partly because the gay nightlife scene in D.C. has really diversified over the past five years, and partly because they're getting older and they're kind of sick of partying all the time. I think they should start a new monthly night for older queer scenesters, where they descend upon a traditionally straight sit-down restaurants and politely inform their servers: "We're here, we're queer, meh, we'll just have a water."

The last D.C. Guerilla Queer Bar under the trio will be held on Friday, April 3 at an undisclosed location. Find out where by signing up for the Guerilla Queer Bar group here.

Photo by Tambako the Jaguar

The Washington City Paper's second Best Of D.C. issue since 1987 hits newsstands today. Since this is our staff's second Best Of, we're honoring the District's second-bests in 2009. My picks—including "Second-Best Strip Club Excuse," "Second-Best Item of Clothing to Remove at a Gay Bar," and "Second-Best George Mason Personality" (pictured)—are after the jump.

Second-Best Dog

Second-Best Item of Clothing to Remove at a Gay Bar

Second-Best Place to Prepare for the Upcoming Apocalypse

Second-Best Use of the Postcard

Second-Best Strip Club Excuse

Second-Best Way to Pick Someone Up

Second-Best DURKL Brother

Second-Best Reason to Claim a Pew

Second-Best George Mason Personality

Second-Best Celebrity-Watching with Side of Half-Smoke

Second-Best Dude Blogger

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

When Mitch Graffeo entered Dupont’s Fab Lounge shortly before closing on Feb. 28, he hadn’t been to a lesbian club in more than a decade. Graffeo, 40, was only stopping in to pick up a friend, 29-year-old Jamie, at the conclusion of the gay bar’s weekly lesbian night. Graffeo and Jamie, both transgender men, were two of only a handful of men in a club full of women. As the lights went up, a group of women took a sudden interest in Jamie. Slim and boyish, Jamie had only recently begun to transition from female to male, and they wanted to know what he was.

Graffeo watched the women surround Jamie. “They were grabbing him, saying, ‘What are you, a boy or a girl?’” Graffeo says. “They were very interested and excited, grabbing his crotch and his chest,” says Graffeo. When Jamie asked the women to leave him alone, they closed in tight around him. Jamie “wiggled his way out,” and the two men funneled toward the door with the rest of the last-call crowd.

Once outside, one of the women refused to let her curiosity subside. “She jumped on his back a bit and put him in a headlock,” says Graffeo. Then, she reopened the line of questioning. “She was saying, ‘What are you, come on, tell me, what the fuck,’” Graffeo says. Jamie wiggled out again. The woman persisted.

When Graffeo stepped between them, the woman “tried to punch around” him. Graffeo pulled out his cell phone and announced he was calling the police. The woman grabbed the phone from his hand and used it to pound Graffeo in the head and neck. “She said, ‘You’re not calling anybody,’” Graffeo says. Meanwhile, “a second gal was just pummeling Jamie, hitting him on his head, his neck, his arms.” Soon, a car pulled up, and the women jumped inside. Jamie was left with bruises and a concussion. A week later, “he’s still purple,” says Graffeo. “He’s not black and blue, he’s purple all over.”

Graffeo had good reason to skip out on lesbian bars over the past decade—he hasn’t identified as a lesbian since he underwent his physical transition to male almost seven years ago. Jamie, on the other hand, only recently began the shift between outward identities—and social groups. To the group of women who attacked the pair, Jamie was a lesbian on his way to becoming a heterosexual man, and a prime target for ridicule. Graffeo, who is readily recognizable as male, was just a heterosexual man who got in the way.

The many transgender men who identified with the lesbian community before living as heterosexual men are introduced to a range of societal prejudices. As women, they are discriminated against for their masculinity. As transitioning men, they are harassed for their androgyny. But when society finally accepts them as men, they can be afforded social privilege. Last year, the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy published a study that found that post-transition, transgender men ended up earning more in the workplace, while transgender women saw their earnings fall by almost a third.

“From my experience—and I know a lot of trans guys who say this—it is pretty easy for us to slip into society, as easy as that type of thing can be,” says Graffeo. “And we hear that criticism a lot. But never has anybody ever said they transitioned in order to improve their status in life. That’s just how it happens sometimes.”

The social shift can breed resentment in the circles trans men leave behind. Rebecca Trinite, 27, a graduate student who raised the incident for discussion on local blog the New Gay, says the sentiment is a familiar one. “I think there is a general discomfort with gender ambiguity in any sense—especially with transitioning,” she says. “There are some women who think that trans men are trying to gain some type of privilege by becoming men, and there’s a big misunderstanding and ignorance there.” Trinite says she posted Graffeo’s and Jamie’s story in order to “let community members know that this sort of behavior was unacceptable.” A Washington Blade story on the attack was met with less constructive criticism. Wrote one commenter: “If you are so ashamed of being gay that you have to change your gender so that you can be ‘straight’ then why not go to ‘straight’ clubs? If you no longer identify as gay then why continue going to gay clubs? Lesbians are attracted to other women, not men who used to be women.”

Before transgender men can enjoy resentment over their male privilege, they sometimes endure more classic anti-gay harassment. Jamie, a man who looked too much like a woman for his assailant’s taste, fits the typical victim profile of violence against the GLBT community; Graffeo now passes as masculine enough to escape a hate-motivated beating. According to Chris Farris, co-founder of Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence, “the attack on Jamie was a hate crime. From my communications with Mitch, the case on him was probably not,” he says. “A hate crime is based on whether the motivation behind the attack is based on a victim’s actual or perceived inclusion in a protected group. The attackers probably assumed that [Graffeo] was not trans, so his assault was probably not motivated by any antipathy against the trans community. That doesn’t mean they weren’t attacking him for being a man, or because they perceived him as heterosexual, but that’s too soon to say.”

The scenario is unlikely. In 2007, the FBI recorded 690 bias-motivated assaults based on sexual orientation nationwide. Of that number, 422 were committed against gay men, 85 were against lesbians, and only eight were against heterosexuals. Though the FBI does not collect data on assaults based on gender expression, Farris says that in D.C., violence against gay women and transgender individuals is more likely to slip under the media and activist radar. “Most of the victims that have come to our attention and reached out to GLOV have been gay men,” he says. “GLOV has no way of knowing who a victim is unless we see a name in print or unless someone contacts us directly.”

But the skewed data do not mean that GLBT women are less likely than their male counterparts to be the victims of violence. Less sensational forms of violence within the community—domestic violence, verbal abuse, prostitution, and institutionalized discrimination—are more likely to affect gay or transgender women, and less likely to be reported in the newspaper.

Nobody knows the double standard better than Graffeo. Before transitioning, Graffeo says he endured 33 years of gender discrimination—as a woman. “I had a lot of experience with people being prejudiced against me because I was female,” says Graffeo. “I was told I wouldn’t be hired because they thought I was going to run off and get pregnant. I was denied loan applications for a house because I was female,” he says.

The discrimination began in childhood—“nobody likes a little girl who doesn’t act like a little girl”—and lasted up until seven years ago, when he transitioned with the full support of his co-workers and social circle. At that point, Graffeo re-applied for the home loan “with a male name and worse credit,” and was accepted. “Women are just given the raw end of the deal,” he says.

The Fab Lounge incident marks the first time that activists and media outlets have shown an interest in harassment he’s faced. “When I transitioned, I really didn’t change, but the world changed toward me,” says Graffeo. “I’m not particularly privileged now. Nobody’s throwing money at me. But the world does not dislike me anymore,” he says. “Now, I’m not expected to be a female, so people are satisfied with my behavior. It’s a bit boring and anticlimactic, when it’s all over.”

Photo by Charles Steck

On a cold February night last year, Sara, a 24-year-old straight woman, slipped on the perfect shoes for winter bar-hopping: suede boots with a chunky 2-inch heel. She and her friends—another straight woman and a few gay men—were heading out for a night of dancing at Cobalt, a gay club on the 17th Street strip. When they reached the door, a bouncer stopped Sara and refused to let her in, citing the bar's longstanding no-high-heel policy. "There could be men at the club wearing flip-flops," the bouncer told Sara—and her big, bad boots could endanger an exposed little piggy.

Sara was sure the bouncer was joking. He wasn't. So Sara and her friends trudged home, where she swapped out her boots for ballet flats, and they returned to the club. Still, the policy didn't sit well with Sara, who says she heard Cobalt's message loud and clear: You're not welcome here, especially if you're calling attention to yourself with a couple extra inches of femininity strapped to your feet. "No self-respecting gay man would wear flip-flops to a club in February," her friend confirmed.

Cobalt bouncers will no longer have to force straight faces as they articulate the "flip-flop" excuse. Or the "new wood floor" excuse. Or the "precarious stairway" excuse. Mark Rutstein, who assumed general manager duties at Cobalt in October of last year, says the days of the club's shoe fetish are over. "I released the policy as soon as I got to Cobalt," says Rutstein. "Discouraging people from dressing the way that they want to is not what we want to go for. We want to take the negativity of any kind of stigma as far away from the bar as we can."

Though Rutstein says he's removed the "NO HIGH HEELS" sign inside the club, the now-defunct policy is still published on the establishment's Web site: "Spiked high heels are NOT permitted," it reads, before offering a couple of exceptions: Acceptable stacked shoes have to be "the 'wedge' or wide style heels, not spikes." Concessions aside, the site is far from conciliatory, adding, "Please, just leave the heels at home."

Perhaps it should read: "Please, just leave the heels at home, ladies." When the rule reigned, it almost exclusively impacted Cobalt's female population. Cobalt's men have long been known to slip on a pair of pumps for a night on the club's dance floor, either as regular drag performers or participants in the Dupont High Heel Race. Situated at the race's traditional end-point, Cobalt has annually ushered hundreds of well-heeled men through its doors—and up its precarious staircase—on the Tuesday before Halloween, even as it cried "safety precaution" for women every other day of the year.

Georgetown medical student David Solomon recalls a particularly memorable set of heels he encountered in the post-race Cobalt rush. After running in the 2006 race—he dressed as a Catholic schoolgirl, his friend, a priest—Solomon hit Cobalt for some post-race boozing. He had removed his own heeled booties before entering Cobalt; the race's winner, a Dorothy-themed drag queen who paraded her trophy around the club, hadn't. When Dorothy stopped for a refill, Solomon indulged in a celebratory shot with the champion. He can't recall the type of liquor, who paid, or Dorothy's real name—all Solomon remembers is that she tottered across Cobalt's dance floor in a pair of sparkling ruby heels.

Rutstein's lifting of the high-heel ban came just in time to avoid committing that hypocritical snafu—a bar full of heel-strapped drag queens mounting the bar's precarious staircase—again. "We definitely have no discrimination over whether you're straight or gay, and my staff is well aware of that," says Rutstein. "The fact of the matter is, Dupont Circle, at some point, may have been mostly gay. Now, there's more diversity in the area, and my job is to welcome the whole neighborhood." In keeping with the new, nondiscriminatory policy, Rutstein has also suspended the bar's official ban on bachelorettes, which cited complaints about "loud and disorderly behavior" in keeping out women seeking some pre-wedding bliss.

Now that the footwear excuse has been officially jettisoned from the bouncer's repertoire, some Cobalt patrons fear the bar's scrutiny of straight women has simply extended above the ankles. Brittany Dillman, a 23-year-old straight woman, initially felt welcome at Cobalt when she visited the club for the first time last month with a mixed group of friends—some male, some female, some gay, some straight. Dillman and Co.—all of them flat-footed—paid the $5 cover, opened tabs, and checked their coats at the upstairs club.

But when the straight guys left the bar to smoke a cigarette, bar brass refused to let them back in—and this time, no excuse was required. When Dillman came down the stairs to see what was up, the bouncer boxed her out, too. "I have no doubt that they wanted us out because they were straight and I was female," says Dillman, who pressed the bouncer and a manager for their reasoning, but received none. Dillman and her straight friends hung outside of Cobalt for half an hour, waiting for an employee to retrieve their coats and credit cards, before returning home for the night. "They just want it to be a gay bar, for gay men," says Dillman.

Rutstein says it isn't so. "That just wouldn't happen," he says. "Last Sunday, we had heterosexual guys and heterosexual girls making out. It's great to see the gay community and straight community partying together—the whole idea of keeping the scenes separate is so dated. It's just not today." Along with the "NO HIGH HEELS" sign, Rutstein has shown his commitment to Cobalt's new era by retiring another questionable piece of its décor: a sign that read, "THIS IS A GAY ESTABLISHMENT FOR GAY PEOPLE."

BONUS: An ex-Cobalt employee testifies to the behind-the-scenes ban.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

“The victims, who state they were walking through a group of 6 black males, were punched and called homophobic names,” [Special Liason Unit Commander Brett] Parson said in an e-mail alert.

“No robbery was announced and there was no altercation prior to the attack. Neither victim suffered visible injuries,” he said.

He said the attackers fled north on 7th Street. No arrests have been made in the incident and police have no suspects, Parson said.

Unlike the Tony Hunter case, which also concerned an assault near a D.C. gay bar, this incident is being classified by MPD as a hate crime.