“Is that a girl?” the bouncer asked each of the boys standing near me before he grabbed my shoulder to escort me out of the club. We were at Gay ’90s on a Sunday, and the club was packed from the 18+ crowd and drag show spectators. Treading through the downstairs bars and dance floors, we made our way toward the back rooms of the club. As we grew increasingly frustrated with the scene, my friends decided to head toward a back bar through the men’s bathroom. A large sign warning “Men Only! No Exceptions” hung on the bathroom door, but an acquaintance told me it wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t think too much of it. I’ve used male bathrooms in clubs, and it usually draws little notice. Beyond the bathroom was a large room with a bar, two video screens showing porn and bunches of boys standing around. I found my friends and hung out for about 45 minutes.

Now, I’m not exactly the butchest dyke around and wasn’t making any effort to pass in that room. Maybe my button-down and spiky hair made me look twinkish, but I’m pretty sure everyone who talked with me knew I didn’t identify as a gay male and didn’t really care. Yet, despite their tolerance, the bouncer couldn’t deal with my presence. After my friends brushed off his questions, he grabbed me and announced that I didn’t belong. He told me I broke the law by entering the men’s bathroom and pushed me out of the room, through the club and to the snowy curb.

I was pissed by the bouncer’s hostility, and especially the club’s strict, gendered policy. While my experience wasn’t traumatic, I can just imagine how someone of color or transgender or simply not surrounded by angry friends might have been treated by that bouncer.

Also, the fact that the only unlocked door to the back room was through the men’s room seemed to serve no purpose. Back rooms accessed through bathrooms are not unusual in gay bars. They often provide a space for sex, more obvious cruising or “deviant” themes. These practices, of course, would not excuse strict gender-exclusionary policy, but they do provide explanations for hidden rooms. The back bar at Gay ’90s, however, was pretty vanilla, other than the presence of two video screens playing porn. Men cruised, drank, flirted. So why the inaccessibility?

One reason for keeping an exclusively male room at Gay ’90s may be that it’s an effort to maintain a truly safe space in a club that many people feel is no longer (if it ever was) queer. In recent years Gay ’90s has gained a reputation as a circus for straight spectators, where bachelorette parties and bored heteros can gawk at drag queens and see the “gays” in their natural habitat.

In 1997, a Minnesota Public Radio report tracked the overwhelming and often hostile presence of straight-identified patrons through a series of interviews with people at the club. Responses seemed to imply a rift between queers and non-queers. Gay activist Ken Darling stated, “The new patrons, the predominantly straight new patrons at the ’90s, see it as a freak show. It’s a place to go on Saturday night to slum with the fags and then brag about it over the water cooler on Monday at their mid-level suburban jobs hanging out with Joe and Jenny.”

Another patron identified as Steve said, “I think they’re a little too flamboyant in the way they conduct themselves, and, uh, I guess that’s why I’m here: just to see a circus. It’s unfortunate, but, you know, they’re entitled to their way of life, and I guess I feel they don’t need to be so flamboyant in the way they express themselves… It is a circus; the Ringling brothers are here 52 weeks out of the year.”

Rather than “queering” or opening the minds of straight-identified folk, the mainstreaming of Gay ’90s has instead fostered dual cultures in the club: commodified gay bodies and people who pay to watch them.

In this context, a room accessed only through the men’s bathroom begins to sound almost reasonable. Since women can’t come in and watch, straight men probably won’t feel comfortable entering either. Gay men who don’t want to feel like tourist attractions can enter and act as they please. The homogeneity of the room offers additional security … everyone understands they are expected to have the same body parts, the same sexuality and similar boundaries and expectations. People feel they are with “their own kind” and thus feel safer and more comfortable.

Yet the presence of such a strictly regulated space brings up a host of other problems, namely, where the hell can the rest of us find safe space? While drag queens are prominently displayed onstage in the main club, no one with “female” dress or performance was in the back room. And of course, I was the only semi-obvious woman in the room and—as far as I could tell—any other women knew they had to “pass” as men to avoid getting kicked out. Gay ’90s makes it clear that non-male genders have no place in a “regular” gay scene and belong only in the rest of the club as spectacles or spectators.

In addition, the use of the back bar as Gay ’90s’ “real” gay scene sends a message of approval to those who come to watch and fetishize other club-goers. Aware of being watched by outsiders, queers tend to play up their act and avoid behavior that might cause harassment. All actions that might be gross or offensive to “straight” clientele—especially those between men—end up pushed into the back room. Thus the club remains a straight fantasy and perpetuates a separation between queer and normal people and their respective lifestyles.

So the bottom line is, beware; Gay ’90s can be sick fun like Disneyworld, but realize what you’re getting into: a male-centric, gendered gay show for straight folk.