London nightclub Heaven has been accused of hypocrisy after making patrons queue up in male and female lines to see Billy Porter talk about gender identity.
On Saturday October 9, Porter and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season 3 queen Scarlet Harlett took to the stage but unbeknownst to them, a non-binary clubber had already found themselves ‘invalidated’ before they’d even got inside the building.
Jordan Bennett was that clubber and they wrote this week about their experience, saying: “I am non-binary so of course I’m gonna queue in the women’s line in sheer protest of where I know they would expect me to queue based on my appearance. I wait to be checked nervously and then one of the security staff rudely gestures me to the other line for men.”
After informing security that they were non-binary, they refused to let Bennett in saying that particular queue was for ‘women only’ continuing: “I shamefully walk to the other side… I felt invalidated and embarrassed. As a place that hangs the Pride flag on every wall, invites non-binary performers every week to perform, calls themselves a queer venue. This is anything but a queer venue.”
Jordan went on to call out the owner of Heaven by name, saying: “Jeremy Joseph, this type of treatment at your establishment needs to change. And until this backwards, dangerous rhetoric is reversed, Heaven is not and never will be a queer venue. I’m appalled.”