Queer Youth, Intoxication and Queer Drinking Spaces

Abstract

Research on intoxicating substances and gender has developed considerably in the last 30 years, especially in the social sciences as feminist scholars highlighted the contradictory discourses about young women’s intoxication. Nevertheless, there still remain significant gaps if we are to fully understand the role and meaning of intoxication for all young people and not merely for heterosexual, cisgender young people. As a way of exploring the possible limitations of this legacy, we will examine the qualitative data from 52 in-depth interviews with self-identified LGBTQ young people. Our analysis explores the relationships between meanings of intoxication and sexual and gender identities, drinking spaces, and the extent to which notions of masculinity and femininity influence alcohol consumption and drinking practices among LGBTQ youth. As gender expressions among young people, especially those who identify as LGBTQ, become increasingly nuanced and fluid, understanding the role of social and cultural practices of alcohol consumption in the performance of sexual and gender identities may increase our understanding of the ways in which sexuality and gender influence alcohol consumption.

1. Introduction

Within many different cultures, men’s drinking has been described as an exhibition of masculinity; and when men drink heavily and become intoxicated, their masculinity is enhanced (Guttmann 1996; Messerschmidt 1997; Peralta 2007). A legacy of focusing on men in studies of alcohol is not surprising given the field’s history of privileging men while overlooking women. Although not entirely true that early socio-cultural theorists ignored issues of gender, as they certainly highlighted social prescriptions about masculinity and the role that intoxication played in men’s ability to access or display a masculine status (Bales 1962; Dunning et al. 1988; Peace 1992), it is nevertheless true that these early discussions generally failed to incorporate discussions of women’s intoxication or broader gendered meanings of intoxication.

We are therefore fortunate that feminist researchers in the drug and alcohol research fields began, in the 1980s and early 1990s, to highlight the contradictory discourses about young women’s drinking and intoxication and advocate for the development of research on women (Ettorre 1992, 1997; Hey 1986; Otto 1981). Researchers began to shift the lens of inquiry from young women as abusers to consumers (Ettorre 1992, 1997), from women’s use as problematic to recreational (Henderson 1993, 1996, 1999), and from abnormal or deviant to normal (Anderson 1995, 2008; Ettorre 2004, 2007; Measham 2002). This paradigm shift helped increase the visibility of women in alcohol and drugs research by investigating young women’s engagement with alcohol and drugs in contemporary settings, and specifically in public spaces. Moreover, research at this time began to emphasize women’s agency (Ettorre 1992; Henderson 1993, 1999; Maher 1997; Measham 2002; Taylor 1993), situating women’s alcohol and drug use as active (though not always explicit) symbolic acts of resistance or power (Anderson 2008; Miller and Carbone-Lopez 2015) or as markers for the construction of identities and lifestyles for young women (Ettorre 1992; Hutton 2006; Mullins 2008; see also Hunt and Antin 2017).

Consequently today, unlike alcohol survey researchers and epidemiologists who have tended to view the issue of young women and intoxication as deeply problematic, feminist researchers have sought to explain intoxication among young women by documenting their experiences to uncover the meanings of these behaviors (Griffin et al. 2013; Griffin 2014; Hutton et al. 2013; Bailey et al. 2015; Hutton et al. 2016; Montemurro 2005; Peralta 2008, 2010). They have also located intoxication behaviors within a wider analysis of the contemporary social and gendered position of young women. Nevertheless, it can be argued today that within mainstream alcohol research, innovative sociological developments in gender and queer theory have been largely ignored and contemporary research arenas continue to be dominated by a heteronormative and binary gender discourse that considers masculinity and femininity exclusively as opposites and associates them with essentially male and female sexed bodies. Given the continued focus - especially in the US - on white, college-based women and men, young adults, including gender non-conforming youth, who are not heterosexual, not cisgender, not middle class and not white remain largely invisible in research on intoxication (see Hunt et al. 2002; Hunt et al. 2017; Miller and Carbone-Lopez 2015; Emslie et al. 2017; Griffin et al. 2013; Griffin 2014; Hutton et al. 2013; Montemurro 2005; Peralta 2008; 2010 for exceptions).ⁱ This tendency is especially problematic given contemporary theoretical developments in the social sciences which present bigenderism as a social construction dictating normative standards of masculinity and femininity and marginalizing those who fail to perform appropriately (Gilbert 2009). As a result, the mainstream alcohol field, in spite of the exceptionally important research by feminist scholars, remains limited in the extent to which it investigates the boundaries of gender by exploring gender roles, performances, and culturally constructed femininities and masculinities which shape alcohol consumption and intoxication for all young people.

Although contemporary social science research on young people in general is beginning to take account of intersectional identities and increasingly challenging an emphasis on essentialist notions of gender, the fields of alcohol and drug research appear, with some important exceptions, still somewhat impervious to these developments. If we are to understand the variation in experiences with alcohol and intoxication, we must begin to re-focus our research and explore the role and meanings of drinking and intoxication for young people who are currently ignored. We should aim to accurately represent the experiences of young people who are either “actively working - to a greater or lesser degree - to force their bodies into a binary that doesn’t exist in nature” (Wade and Marx Ferree 2015:25) or who are stepping outside the confines of heteronormative and binary notions of gender (Miller and Carbonne-Lopez 2015).

The theoretical argument for moving away from notions of an essentialist gender binary became even more cogent as a result of our research on young people’s drinking and intoxication in the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA). We realized that in designing the initial interview schedule, heteronormative notions of gender and sexuality were ‘baked in’ to the research design, overlooking, and perhaps suppressing, the potential of the research to examine and highlight the experiences of LGBTQⁱⁱ participants. Thus, we gradually modified our initial conceptual framework for understanding issues of drinking, intoxication, and gender, particularly in response to the interview material provided by LGBTQ young adults, who are the focus of this paper (Maxwell 2012; Ravitch and Riggan 2017). In the next section, we will examine briefly contemporary research on alcohol and sexual and gender minorities, and then discuss some of the initial findings from these interviews.

2. Research on Alcohol and Queer Youth: Moving Beyond Pathology

Historically, research on queer youth, drinking, and intoxication has been much less interested in exploring the extent to which drinking practices and becoming intoxicated are used as ways of performing gender and, instead, has viewed queer drinking predominantly from a pathology or problem perspective (Anderson 2008; Becker 1963; Moore 2008; Young 1971).ⁱⁱⁱ Existing research has primarily emphasized the extent to which queer young adults exhibit significantly higher risk of substance use than their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts, including increased risk of alcohol misuse and “earlier initiation and steeper drinking trajectories into young adulthood” (Newcomb et al. 2012:783). For the most part, research on queer alcohol use has treated alcohol use itself as a problem and also viewed alcohol consumption as a response to social and health problems that are common in the lives of queer people, including stigma and minority stress, and heightened rates of psychological problems, such as depression (Hatzenbuehler et al. 2008; Cochran and Mays 2000; Drabble and Trocki 2005; Hughes 2011; Conron et al. 2010 ). In spite of a nod towards the structural inequities that may situate alcohol as a creative response, existing research on alcohol use in the lives of queer youth has, by and large, been reduced to an individual-level focus and a discussion of associated problems, which together have arguably resulted in the pathologization of the drinkers themselves. When a focus on queer alcohol use is reduced to problems and pathologies, important structural and sociological issues are neglected and under-theorized, including the meanings and pleasures of alcohol consumption, the experiences of intoxication, and the relationships between alcohol use, social groups, sexuality, sociability, notions of space, and identity constructions (Goode 1989; Jayne et al. 2011).

Viewing queer alcohol use solely as a coping mechanism for dealing with social and health problems, such as discrimination and minority stress, runs the risk of overlooking the meaningful ways in which alcohol consumption intersects with identity, sociability, place, space, and community formation for queer youth. Researchers have long noted the importance of commodities, whether music, cars, clothes or drugs, in the processes through which young people construct their identities, distinguish themselves from other youth groups, and increase a sense of social solidarity (Brain et al. 2000; Deutsch and Theodorou 2009; Douglas and Isherwood 1996; Furlong and Cartmel 1997; Miles 2000). In the same way, drinking can play an important role in the construction, performance, and reproduction of social identities (Wilson 2005; Hunt et al. 2010). Alcohol use can both enhance cohesiveness and maintain group boundaries, while at the same time creating distinctions to differentiate between social groups (Douglas 1987; Wilson 2005; Hunt and Satterlee 1986). Thus, it is not only that identities (including sexual and gender identities) shape alcohol use patterns and drinking practices, but equally important is the reverse, that is the extent to which social and cultural practices of alcohol consumption play a role in the performance of sexual and gender identities.

Given the relative absence of research on these issues, the overall aim of this paper, using data from 52 in-depth interviews with LGBTQ young adults, is to explore the ways these young adults complicate, disrupt, and reproduce norms around drinking and intoxication. More specifically, participants’ accounts illustrate the ways in which notions of masculinity and femininity can become “de-coupled” from sex-gendered bodies. By focusing on these issues and shifting away from a primary focus on problems and pathologies, we foreground issues of consumption, identity, place, and social context. Existing research often implicitly presents queer people as victims and socially-isolated individuals whose alcohol use is viewed as a passive response to external pressures, a tendency common to the dominant discourse within alcohol research more generally (Hunt and Barker 2001). In contrast, we hope to begin our analysis from an understanding of queer people as active agents, whose alcohol use, and the places in which it occurs, involves potentially positive elements in aiding sociality and constructing and performing identities.

3. Methods

The San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) has one of the largest LGBTQ populations in the nation (Newport and Gates 2015). For example, the 2010 census reports that among cities of over 250,000 population, San Francisco has the highest percentage of same-sex households, and nearby Oakland has the third-highest concentration (Gates and Cooke 2010; Glantz and Raja 2011). Local queer communities reflect the characteristic sexual, racial/ethnic, and other socio-economic diversity of the metropolitan region. Even though queer communities exist throughout the SFBA, San Francisco is arguably the metropolitan center of LGBTQ activity and history in the area (Faderman 1992; D’Emilio1981), and given its thriving nightlife, this is where many of the clubs, bars, and political and social organizations are located. San Francisco contains multiple “gay villages” such as the archetypal Castro district, with additional large numbers of queer people residing in other districts such as Bernal Heights and Noe Valley, and “queer neighborhoods” growing in size across the Bay in Oakland and Berkeley (Gorman-Murray and Nash 2016; Gieseking 2016).^iv

This article is based on data from interviews with 52 self-identified LGBTQ participants from a larger qualitative study exploring gender and intoxication in the lives of 200 young adults between the ages of 18 to 25 residing in the SFBA. Participants were recruited through a multi-tiered recruitment strategy, which included online (e.g. Craigslist and Facebook) and street-level (e.g. leafleting in nightlife areas) recruitment as well as chain referrals. Interviewing, which took place at our offices in Alameda and San Francisco as well as at parks and coffee shops in nearby Bay Area cities, involved a multi-method approach in order to expand the breadth and depth of the potential interview data (Antin et al. 2015). The interview schedule included four different inter-connected methods to maximize data collection: 1) a closed-ended survey; 2) open-ended interview questions; 3) photo elicitation; and 4) vignettes. Mixing these methods enabled us to study the meaning of intoxication from different perspectives, triangulate findings across these methods, and identify and resolve dissonance within and between interviews (Antin et al. 2015; Flick et al. 2004; Maxwell 2012; Laws et al. 2018). In the process, we were able to collect rich descriptions about experiences with drinking, meanings of alcohol intoxication, drinking spaces, and the performance of gender. All interviews were audio-recorded and professionally transcribed before being reviewed for accuracy and edited for confidentiality by the research team. We used ATLAS.ti, a data management software, to apply conceptual and topical codes to the data and to facilitate pattern-level analyses (LeCompte and Schensul 1999; Friese 2013).

Before interviewing participants, our team used a background screening instrument to determine eligibility, guarantee diversity among the study’s sample, and build rapport with participants prior to meeting them face-to-face for the interview. As the project developed, we began to realize that a significant number of our participants identified as LGBTQ and that our interview schedule had not been properly designed to accommodate the experiences of these participants. In response, our research team made an effort to probe for unique emergent concerns, noting the possibility that participants’ queer identities could greatly influence their drinking behavior and perspective on alcohol intoxication and gender.

Of the 52 self-identified LGBTQ participants, women made up the majority of the sample (n=30, including two transgender women), followed by men (n=14, including five transgender men), and 8 participants reported their gender as “other.” Of those who identify their gender as “other” from the closed-ended survey, participants specified their gender identities as: genderqueer (n=3), non-binary (n=2), gender fluid (n=1), femme (n=1) and agender (n=1). When participants were asked to identify their sexuality, nine identified as “gay,” three as “lesbian,” fourteen as “bisexual,” and the rest (n=26) chose “other.” Of these, the majority preferred the term “queer” (n=16), and other terms included: fluid (n=3), pansexual (n=2), predominantly straight (n=2), questioning (n=1), and all-inclusive (n=1). Two participants did not specify their sexual identity.

The average age of participants was 22.6 years old. More than half of the sample (~58%) reported their ethnicity as non-white, with seven reporting their ethnicity as Asian, five reporting African American or Black, and four reporting Latinx. Notably, fourteen participants reported more than one ethnicity. Half of the sample was college educated, with an Associate’s Degree or higher (n=26), and a quarter of the sample (n=14) indicated that they were in school at least part time. Most participants were currently employed when interviewed (n=41), and approximately ten percent lived in government subsidized housing (n=10).

4. Queer Spaces and Drinking Contexts: Safety, Exploration and Disinhibition

i. Seeking Safety and Comfort and Avoiding Hegemonic Masculinity

Public spaces of drinking and intoxication, such as pubs, bars, and clubs, have historically been associated with displays of hegemonic masculinity (Connell 1995) and related heteronormative behaviors, including heavy competitive drinking, public intoxication, using alcohol to initiate sexual connections, excusing male aggression, and expectations that women perform femininity and display their bodies in particular ways to satisfy the “male gaze” (Leyshon 2008; Graham and Wells 2003; Tomsen 1997; Benson and Archer 2002; Campbell 2000). According to Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) hegemonic masculinity is “understood as the pattern of practice (i.e., things done, not just a set of role expectations or an identity) that allowed men’s dominance over women to continue” (2005:837).^v The dominance and performance of hegemonic masculinity within these drinking spaces means that “others” are pushed to the margins or excluded (Jayne et al. 2011). That such public drinking places belong “to certain groups who have a greater claim on the space is historically produced through struggles for legitimation, struggles that become institutionalized in the control of space. The straight male club and pub is the most extreme example” (Skeggs 1999:216).

According to Jayne and colleagues, researchers in the drug and alcohol research fields “have tended to consider space and place as a passive backdrop, rather than as an active constituent to the topic being researched” (2016:117). In opposition to this view of space as passive, they argue that a “relational” view of space is required, a point developed further by Duff, who argues that space can be characterized best “as an assemblage of relations drawing together diverse experiences of space and spatialisation; embodiment and becoming; conduct and social practices” (2007:504). Hence, space is not discovered but rather “socially constructed or produced in the play of events, flows and encounters between individuals, objects and spaces” (Duff 2007:509). Using this approach, Duff argues that drug using settings - and for the purposes of this paper we would argue, queer drinking spaces - must be viewed and examined as contexts within which individuals’ lived experiences work to make these spaces meaningful for them (Duff 2007) and, in the case of our queer participants, safe and comfortable (Skeggs 1999).

Participants sought to make queer drinking spaces meaningful, reaffirming, safe, and comfortable by creating spaces in which hegemonic masculine notions of drinking and intoxication and notions of heteronormativity were absent or reduced. As Jay, a 25-year-old gay cis man, explains:

I go to gay events. I try to look for gay target things, so I can feel safe […]. Because if I just go to a straight club or a straight bar, I have to worry about when I’m dancing, you know, how I’m dancing […]. I know that when I go to a gay club, I can comfortably dance on a boy, you know, and won’t get judged pretty much […] but then also just so I know that for my safety, that’s the main reason is mainly my safety. […A]nd for me, I carry myself very feminine, I believe. Um, so at times, I can be a target when I’m out and about, just because of my feminine behavior. And I know for me, that would be risky, going to a straight event where I know that the drinking is involved. Where someone could possibly say something mean, that’ll hurt my feelings, um, pretty much. […] Yeah, it’s mainly about safety. (169)

Similarly interested in accessing certain forms and modes of social connections or relations, while avoiding others, Samantha, a 25-year-old trans woman, also discussed the reasons behind her preference for queer venues and gay bars when she goes out:

[It’s] an old gay bar downtown in the Tenderloin and sometimes I go there to just be around people that I like, I feel safe with or feel like or are like distantly my community […] just ‘cause I look weird and I’m transgender and there is -- there is a lot of acceptance of people like that in that community and people that have had to deal with similar things. So usually they are just there having a good time and drinking and it’s not -- there is not like aggressive people there, in a certain way. (004)

Pursuing places where they felt safe, comfortable, and at home, many of our participants who wish to drink in public discussed avoiding heteronormative spaces of intoxication because they fostered norms that excused male aggression and, conversely, created expectations for women to perform a passive femininity. These notions of safety and comfort (Hubbard 2005), according to Held (2015), must be seen against “a wider experience of danger and insecurity in regard to physical violence” (2015:33), which was emphasized especially by feminine-presenting participants. These participants felt they were less likely to have to confront cisgender, heterosexual men in private spaces or queer clubs. An example of this was voiced by Karen, a 24-year-old queer trans woman, who after noting that she prefers to drink in settings like “house parties, queer clubs, or spaces created for people,” explained that her preference for private settings or queer spaces of intoxication is because:

I don’t trust a straight dude for a second. I don’t know, I just get so much crazy shit from straight dudes. Just like harassment or sexual harassment or transphobia at straight clubs. It’s just too much to even deal with […] just even walking around in an area of high levels of people drinking and stuff. On a Saturday night, like outside or something, just the things people will say is just like, too intense. Like, either people -- if I’m alone, it’s people hitting on me. If they are alone. And then if they are with anyone, it’s like people yelling shit at me. (086)

This point was also emphasized by Samantha, introduced above, who also preferred private drinking settings:

I think oftentimes when I drink in public settings, I just -- there are things that I could potentially see happen or experience that just kind of makes me sad or kind of brings down my feeling good in being drunk. So, I think I prefer drinking at home with friends, just because usually nothing stupid happens and it’s a good time. (004)

Mikah, a 22-year-old queer non-binary person who is often perceived by others to be more feminine than masculine, expressed concerns about safety, especially when it comes to intoxication and straight men. If space is relational, then drinking companions are an integral part of creating spaces of intoxication. Mikah discusses how a safer drinking setting for them is often created through the exclusion or careful selection of straight male drinking company. However, Mikah is also careful to avoid over-generalizations, by explaining that:

I guess women I would drink more with. But it just depends on how well I know the people. Like typically, I guess straight men, I wouldn’t trust. But there are some that I do trust. […] I’ve had a lot of like bad experiences with like straight guys. Um, but also I have had some good experiences with them. It just depends on the person. But yeah, I don’t know. I’ve never had a really bad experience with a woman while drinking. (155)

Issues of safety and the possibility of male aggression were not the only concerns expressed by our participants. Complaints about masculine notions of entitlement (Skeggs 1999) were also noted, particularly in the context of men approaching feminine presenting participants. These men were often described as strangers, who nevertheless felt perfectly entitled to engage women in conversation. For example, Anna, a 24-year-old queer woman, describes how, while waiting for a friend sitting at a table in a bar, she is approached by an older man who had been sitting with friends nearby. This older man sits down at her table and says:

What are you writing about? Like, it looks like you’re so deep in thought? And like, what are you writing -- And I was like, Do you -- And my response was like […] Do you ask everyone that you see […] what they’re thinking about and writing about? And I just kind of like, threw it back at him. And I just kind of like […] being somewhat confrontational. And not in like an abrasive way, but kind of in like, a playful but stern way. […] Like, do you -- Is this something that you do? Like, why do you think that that’s okay? (065)

The resentment associated with cis men’s encroachment on other’s personal space was echoed even more strongly in the following quote from Claire, 24-year-old queer-identified woman:

When it’s a cis dude, I’m irritated, and I think mostly because […] they’re trying to pick somebody up. Like, they’re not genuinely trying to be my friend or just have a conversation. Like, there’s an intention there. And even if there isn’t, I’m irritated because it’s not just like, Oh, like, I’m just trying to be friendly. It’s like, No. You feel entitled to my space and time. […] And I don’t like that. Like, even if you’re not trying to like, fuck me or my friend, like, just the fact that you have this entitlement to my space and time and would just assume that we want to talk to you, really pisses me off. (005)

Interruptions by cisgender men who believe that they have the right to invade another’s space, and in this case a woman’s space, illustrate the “spatial freedom” (Rose 1999) that cis men possess, and as many feminist researchers have noted, this freedom does not only apply to public drinking places but operates in public spaces more generally. Consequently, participants in our study discussed avoiding certain straight and/or male-dominated drinking spaces and, instead, expressed a wish to take advantage of alternative queer drinking spaces, which have expanded in recent decades and continue to play a central role in the lives of many queer young adults (Buckland 2002; Rief 2011; Trocki et al. 2005).

ii. Drinking in Queer Spaces

Since the early 1990s, researchers have examined the development and expansion of the nighttime economy (Anderson 2009; Chatterton and Hollands 2003; Hadfield 2006; Measham and Moore 2009; Moloney et al. 2009; Rief 2009; Thurnell-Read 2011). While the social options for queer people have expanded within this nighttime economy and nightlife scenes (bars and clubs) continue to play a central role (Buckland 2002; McCall 2001; Rief 2011; Trocki et al. 2005), researchers today have suggested that venues catering to the queer communities may be in decline (Brown 2014; Ghaziani 2014; Kelly et al. 2014; Podmore 2013).

Nevertheless, researchers have documented the importance of bars and clubs in the social lives of queer people since the 1920s (Boyd 2003; Faderman 1992; Kennedy and Davis 1993; Thorpe 1996). Such settings often provided a key non-heterosexual social outlet (Futcher 1995; Parks 1999; Thorpe 1997; Wolfe 1997) and were critically important as “safe” social spaces within which queer people could meet, socialize, and explore their identities without confronting societal stigmas (Browne and Bakshi 2011; Elwood 2000; Hall 1993; Nestle 1987; Podmore 2006; Valentine and Skelton 2003). For many, public spaces provided the only possibility for meeting with other queer people (Wolfe 1997), and bars and clubs fulfilled this purpose by being private enough to help prevent exposure while also serving as “a principal stage where they could act out the roles and relationships that elsewhere they had to pretend did not exist. The bars were their ‘home turf’” (Faderman 1992:162).

Queer bars and clubs provide a space for queer people “to step out of the hetero-normative world where they often feel marginalized […] where [they…] can lose themselves and their troubles in music, dance and sex […] and enjoy themselves together in ways that can be empowering” (Valentine and Skelton 2003:855). Such spaces, which can provide a sense of commensality within a safe social space, are critically important for queer youth and adults to meet and socialize without confronting societal stigmas - spaces “away from the surveillant gaze of heterosexual men” (Valentine and Skelton 2003:855; see also Browne and Bakshi 2011; Buckland 2002; Elwood 2000; Nestle 1987; and Podmore 2006). The initial quotations from Jay and Samantha above demonstrate these points well. While Jay explains that he prefers gay venues and events because he doesn’t have to worry about approaching or dancing with boys, being feminine, getting judged, or ending up with a partner who is violently homophobic, Samantha notes that she is more comfortable in a historically queer and trans bars because she is more accepted and feels a sense of community and social connection not experienced in straight spaces. L, a 24-year-old non-binary boy, shared many of these sentiments and experiences but also brought up the history of bars in queer community formation:

I think, within queer contexts, [… a] lot of people I know drink, or started drinking, out of […] sort of a similar social context, in that a lot of times, unless you’re in a city of a big enough gay community, the only real gay spaces are going to be bars. […] Like, I know a lot of people, especially like older, gay people who had even less options, where their sort of first things they did in the community was, they got fake IDs so they could go to the bars. […] I think it’s just because of the lack of spaces that are not either centered around drinking or where drinking proliferates. (066)

However, while some participants - particularly those who viewed alcohol use as primarily a problem - lamented the predominance of alcohol-focused queer spaces and called for a wider variety of more accessible social spaces, many of the other participants highlighted the role of alcohol itself in forming and enhancing specifically queer spaces.

iii. Alcohol, Exploration and Disinhibition

Besides providing an alternative space, queer drinking spaces were important also in part because of the presence of alcohol, a point emphasized by our participants, who noted the central role of alcohol in enhancing a sense of communality and sociability within queer drinking spaces. Yet alcohol was also viewed as important for its ability to lower inhibitions, allowing participants to feel freer to explore their desires, genders, and sexualities. Put simply, as an 18-year-old bisexual woman Angelica explained: “I like how you’re able to let go of yourself more and be free. And show who you are” (060). Angelica’s perception that alcohol allows a “letting go” of the self while at the same time facilitating a ‘freer’ performance of “who you are” illustrates the usefulness of intoxicated disinhibition for performing identities that may be unacceptable in other (sober) contexts. Many researchers have written about the “time out” (MacAndrew and Edgerton 1969) that alcohol affords, wherein alcohol’s disinhibitory qualities facilitate a relaxing of the self-control required to perform in accordance with social expectations or norms. An expectation of this potentially decreased agency during intoxication positions alcohol as a discursive excuse for such norm violations, thereby reinforcing the spaces of intoxication as uninhibited, liberating, and potentially transgressive (Demant 2007; Caceres & Cortinas 1996; Peralta 2008; Thurnell-Read 2013). In these spaces, disinhibited bodies may explore desires and identities normally restricted. As L explained:

A lot of gay people I know, including myself, sort of began being sexual through drinking, because it was sort of more acceptable to explore that when you’re drunk. […] Or because a lot of discomfort around your body or with exploring this new sexuality is easier to cope with if you’re drunk. (066)

The embodiment of pleasurable sexuality takes practice, and as L implies above, this practice can be particularly uncomfortable or difficult if the desires or associated identities being performed or explored are socially taboo. Alcohol can help ease this internal discomfort as well as the external situational difficulties that normally accompany norm violations.

Such a view, echoed by many of our participants, can be seen in the following account from Jane, a queer 23-year-old participant who identified her gender as femme, when she described how alcohol had been central to the development of her identity.

I think specifically, like, coming into queer identity, alcohol was pretty essential in that. For myself, overcoming a lot of internalized homophobia and like, hearing the very religious overtones of my own parents. […H]aving a level of intoxication very much aided my ability to do the things that like, I had wanted to do for a while, but couldn’t -- like, couldn’t allow myself […] like, the first time I ever had sex with a woman, like, I was drunk, and it definitely facilitated that experience for me, in terms of […] the nerves that I would have had would have -- were definitely like, ameliorated, I think, because I had just, a lower -- What do they say? You’re lowering your inhibitions. […] That is true. (061)

Exploring sexuality - much like experimenting with alcohol - is often treated as a rite of passage to adulthood for young people who are viewed as being in the process of transitioning from identities of “child” or “teen” to “adult” (Bucholtz 2002; Claxson and Dulmen 2013). In investigating the role of alcohol in sexual exploration and identity formation among young people more generally, some researchers have focused on the heterosexualized high school or college party space (Demant 2007; Demant and Jarvinen 2006; Hamilton 2007). For example, Demant (2007) has considered the ways that “maturity” is performed through a combined willingness to drink and to engage sexually with the ‘opposite sex’ in such settings, reinforcing the heterosexist binary in terms of both gendered and sexual behavior. The social value of such ‘mature’ performances for young people’s identities beyond the space of the party (e.g. in school and daily social life) normalizes heterosexual exploration within these more ubiquitous spaces of young people’s intoxication. Queer exploration - whether concerning one’s desires or one’s sense of self, regardless of age - is generally not accepted within such heterosexualized spaces.

As Valentine and Skelton noted in their study of queer spaces in the nighttime economy, these spaces - in contrast to the heterosexualized space of the school party or straight bar, for example - offer “young people a space for sexual exploration and self-expression. Many […] described their first experiences of the scene as liberating and exciting, offering as it does a challenge to traditional orthodox heterosexual morality” (2003:856). Such explorations cannot as easily take place in other spaces. Mikah expressed how alcohol’s ability to lower inhibitions, especially within queer spaces where gender roles and boundaries may already be less rigid or more fluid, could help facilitate comfort with non-conforming gender expressions, performances, or identifications:

I usually just drink around a lot of queer people, and there aren’t -- like the gender lines are more like, uh, blurred or something.[…] There’s like really femme boys and really like, um, masculine girls. And then people who are trans […]. I feel like in queer spaces, people are way more uh, likely to be different with it. It’s like a little bit of everything. I think it [alcohol] just lets people kind of let loose, or whatever. So if they’re not as comfortable being feminine, or whatever, they might become more comfortable because they’re drunk. (155)

The disinhibitory nature of alcohol is acknowledged in the above quotations as facilitating explorations of one’s gender and/or sexuality, but for some participants, disinhibition was more ambiguous and fraught. On one hand, alcohol consumption creates space for many participants to step outside of heteronormative gender expectations and explore their identities. On the other hand, the disinhibitory nature of alcohol is still associated with notions of hegemonic masculinity in the forms of sexual aggression, violence, and masculine entitlement. For instance, Maria, a 24-year-old queer woman, discussed how her intoxicated guy friends often become “bro-y, no matter how [much] they don’t identify as such.” Maria described this “bro-y” behavior as “more competitive in ways like – even subtle ways where it’s just like – oh, I can take this shot really fast. I don’t know. But more competitive, more misogynistic, for sure. Loud and obnoxious” (011). In contrast, when these friends are sober, “They’re more conscious of things that they say and the things that they do and – yeah. And it’s easier to like talk to them and have those conversations with them when they’re not drunk, and they get really – oh, yeah, that was a really shitty thing for me to say!” Maria feels more able to address problematic masculine behaviors with her guy friends when they are not intoxicated, as it seems that these behaviors are simultaneously exacerbated by and under-acknowledged during intoxication. Maria sees these friends as feeling more entitled (for example, being loud, taking up space, saying careless things) when intoxicated, and they appear to care less about their behavior and its consequences.

Beyond being annoyed or offended, Maria connected these gendered intoxication behaviors to more pressing concerns around safety and sexual violence:

I feel like I have to be more on guard and stuff when I drink with men, even if they’re friends. But I don’t have very many guy friends. And I feel like there’s more expectations from it […] like sexual expectations […]. I think in general as a woman I have to like -- be aware of what’s going on around me, so I’m not hurt. [When drinking with mostly women] I don’t have to worry about anything. Well, I mean, I do. Other men are around but -- I don’t know. I just feel more relaxed, at ease. I can enjoy myself because I’m not -- even as a queer woman, I’m not expecting someone to be like, hey, you wanna have sex with me! It’s a lot different. (011)

In other words, although alcohol can contribute to and facilitate spaces in which participants felt safe exploring their sexual identities, a sense of unease about intoxication still lingered for others. Intoxication was still implicated as a tool for fostering and excusing unwanted male sexual aggression.

5. Queer Drinking Spaces: Contested Gender Performance and Masculine Practices

So far we have examined the concerns and dangers expressed by our participants regarding the associations between hegemonic heteronormative masculinity, drinking, drinking spaces, and intoxication and the importance of alternative drinking spaces for community, sociability, and sexual exploration. Within these alternative spaces, instead of emphasizing the potential dangers of masculinity and intoxication, participants’ accounts illustrated how heteronormative masculine performances and drinking, though nevertheless present in queer drinking spaces, had become disrupted. Performing masculine drinking practices for their own purposes, participants specifically noted how alcohol and drinking within queer spaces could be utilized to access a different form of masculinity. For example, Jessica, a 25-year-old queer woman described drinking in queer spaces as “empowering for young, queer women to be able to like, tap into, and express a more masculine side of themselves and to kind of step into that role of like, confidence…” (006). In such spaces, masculine performances associated with drinking become appropriated but modified, which suggests that masculine performances around drinking still have currency within queer spaces.

Furthermore, in contrast to heteronormative drinking spaces, participants described how in queer drinking spaces women were not necessarily stigmatized when exhibiting drinking practices associated more typically with performing masculinity. Such practices included both drink preferences (choosing to drink straight whiskey as opposed to mixed drinks, for example) and public intoxication. While in heteronormative spaces such displays of masculine drinking performances by women might be regarded as gender norm violations (see Peralta 2008), in queer drinking spaces or femme-centered spaces displays of intoxication can be celebratory, liberating, and highly enjoyable rather than policed and stigmatized. As Karen, a 24-year-old trans woman noted, “I feel like the majority of […] my femme friends, like, I drink to have fun and get weird and get nasty and get wild” (086). This point was further elaborated upon by L:

I usually have a lot more fun drinking with femmes or like, women, because of the fact that it tends to be […] Let’s get drunk and then just like […] have a really good time, have really good conversations. If we do get sort of like, Oh, let’s be crazy it tends to be more like, Let’s just kind of go out and be like -- Sassy […] If it’s them and there’s mostly straight men, they tend to act differently, just because there’s the introduction of a different element to it […]. Basically, it’s like, they can’t be as crude […]. Or it’s just, a lot of like, gross sex talk, a lot of gross jokes, a lot of just like, general -- like, We’re drunk. We’re going to be like, ridiculous and boisterous. Whereas, when they’re hanging out with like men, there’s sort of like -- I feel like there’s that -- even an unconscious sort of pressure that they have to act differently […] if they get out of control, it’s less acceptable, and it’s more like, Oh, like, she’s a mess. She needs to get herself under control […]. She gets too slutty when she’s drunk. (066)

Though queer spaces played a central role in creating femme and gender transgressive drinking contexts and were often described as safe and comfortable places in contrast with more heteronormative drinking spaces, participants’ accounts also revealed contested issues around gender performance and interpretations of displays of masculine practices. While some participants viewed the performance of masculine drinking practices as liberating and a possible way of gaining social capital, others saw it as conforming to traditional binary notions of gender. For example, Max, a 21-year-old trans man described how performances of masculinity and femininity manifested themselves in a group of queer friends, specifically in drink preferences and the ways in which they were supposed to drink:

Like, the whole concept of knocking down hard liquor just seems to have this incredibly macho component to it. And we would be like, drinking rum straight out of the bottle and then chasing it with juice or something. And it’s like, but why can’t we just make like a nice little mixed drink? And I asked that once and the response I got was, “Don’t be a pussy, [Max].” So now I feel like drinking is this bizarrely gendered thing and there is this huge macho component. Like, to not watering down or hiding your alcohol, I guess. It’s like, if I’m drinking to get drunk, I don’t want to taste the alcohol, it tastes horrible. And that’s very much treated as a -- well, you are a pansy. (117)

This quotation highlights not only the potential of heteronormative sexism within queer spaces but also the possibility that participants who question these traditional masculine drinking characteristics may be labeled with “derogatory” feminine attributes of “pussy” and “pansy.” This quote neatly illustrates not only the ways in which specific drinking behaviors and practices of intoxication could represent different meanings for masculine presenting versus feminine presenting people but also the fact that displays of traditional masculine drinking practices could still be contested and viewed as being inappropriate.^vi Furthermore, the extent to which these performances were excused or not depended upon who adopted such practices. For example, Dylan, a 25-year-old, genderqueer trans man, noted that within queer drinking spaces he felt that people were more quick to call out masculine drinking behaviors when exhibited by trans men but less likely to call out the same behaviors when exhibited by masculine women. The example he gave was the way in which people excused masculine women for behaving aggressively when intoxicated. Recounting a recent experience at a local queer-friendly bar and music venue, Dylan described a “really masculine woman” who:

[… G]ets drunk […] tries to dance with a bunch of other people, and will just get up in that person’s personal space, and like put their hands on them. And you know, that person will like try to push them away or just be like […] don’t get so close to me, or whatever. And they’re drunk, and they don’t respect those boundaries at all. And other people would be like oh, I’m so sorry. My friend’s drunk. Like, she’s just being crazy. Like, I’ll take care of it. Or go, just whisper like, I’m sorry about that. And let that other person take care of it, or make excuses for that person. (149)

Dylan described feeling very uncomfortable with this woman’s behavior because of the imposition into others’ space and also because he felt unable to intervene for fear of being criticized because of his masculine appearance and the privileges it affords him. Clearly his position as a trans man complicated the issue of problematic masculine drinking and intoxication practice, of which he is aware, as can be seen in the following quotation:

If any trans man ever behaves that way, you are automatically -- like you’re acting like a sexist person. And you know, you look this way. You need to be aware of your privilege, and that’s inappropriate. (149)

Such contestations and conflicting interpretations of drinking-related behaviors reflect the extent to which disputes about “correct” or acceptable behaviors still operate within queer drinking spaces and may be symptomatic of hegemonic structural conditions which infuse bigenderism into the fabric of everyday lives. However, in this case, these conflicting interpretations may have less to do with issues specifically about drinking practices per se and more to do with a reflection of what Halberstam has referred to as “butch/FTM border wars” (1998:141–174). In fact, Dylan’s quotation is located within a section of the interview where he talks at length about the “tenuous relationship” between “trans men and really dykey women,” and argues that a double standard operates for trans men, a double standard that is then reflected in acceptable or unacceptable drinking practices. This participant goes on to discuss how, because of this tension around displays of masculine privilege, trans men sometimes have to handle this potential conflict in drinking spaces. Given this situation, Dylan closely regulates where and with whom he drinks.

6. Conclusion

Just as workplaces have been argued to be “crucial site(s) for the reproduction of gender inequality” (Connell et al. 2010), so too are many public drinking settings, due, in part, to the fact that alcohol and intoxication have historically been associated with the ways in which men access masculinity. Hegemonic gender norms predominate in most drinking settings, dictating the rules of engagement and policing those who fail to perform “appropriately.” Analysis of the interviews with queer participants in our study illustrates a rejection of heteronormative drinking spaces, in part on the grounds that these drinking spaces are structured in ways that perpetuate sexism and reward displays of hegemonic masculinity - a structure with which our participants are arguably subjected to comply. While alcohol researchers have examined the role of the bars in perpetuating men’s aggression towards each other and towards women (Graham et al. 2002; Graham et al. 2014; Peralta 2010), much less research has considered the extent to which queer bar goers are similarly denigrated within public drinking settings, requiring a need to challenge the gender binary that continues to operate within our field and the broader society.

To liberate themselves from the “male gaze” and homophobic masculinity, participants in our study described seeking out meaningful queer drinking spaces, where they could be safe to freely socialize and become intoxicated. The importance of the creation of safe spaces in general for queer young adults has received widespread attention in the literature, with drinking settings being especially prominent (Held 2015; Skeggs 1999; Valentine and Skelton 2003). In these spaces, participants’ accounts illustrated how traditionally-defined masculine drinking norms, such as heavy drinking and intoxication, were more broadly accessible and could operate to enhance both one’s pleasure and social capital.

Notably, however, in re-appropriating hegemonic discourses which define who has access to specific drinking styles, some participants found their behaviors nevertheless contested within queer drinking spaces. This is evident, for example, in trans men’s accounts about regulating their alcohol consumption in certain queer spaces to avoid transgressing alternative norms of acceptability. This also suggests that notions of comfort and safety within queer spaces are also shaped by intersections of gender and sexuality. Studies of sexual geographies have highlighted how inclusive spaces can nevertheless “produce normativities and a certain form of homonormativity” (Held 2015:35). As Brown (2014) asserts, studies of space and sexuality illustrate “a zero-sum game of identity and territoriality” where the “gains of some marginalized identities come at the exclusion, domination, or oppression of some other” (2014:460). Though some participants’ interviews illustrated how certain heavy drinking styles could be challenged, it was nevertheless apparent across participants that their drinking behaviors in queer spaces were attempting to disentangle masculinity from sex-gendered men and from notions of heteronormativity.

By re-positioning the literature on queer drinking away from an analysis that views alcohol use among sexual and gender minorities as primarily a coping mechanism for dealing with discrimination and minority stress, we have attempted to focus on some of the wider and more neglected sociological issues that can be identified when considering queer young adults and their drinking practices. In adopting this focus, we do not wish to give the impression that we ignore or seek to downplay the many public health issues and problems that alcohol use can introduce. As is clear from many of the interviews, minority stress, structural inequities, and mental health are important issues in the lives of queer young adults. However, while not ignoring these issues, we would suggest that to focus solely on alcohol consumption as a coping mechanism is to provide a one-sided approach to an important component of young people’s social lives. Additionally, in exploring the meanings of drinking and intoxication in queer drinking spaces, we have sought to examine these spaces not from a static or passive perspective but more from a relational or dynamic perspective in which individuals constantly engage in different social practices to create meaningful spaces. In conclusion, while our analysis of participants’ interview material clearly illustrates the ways that binary notions of masculinity and femininity and “essentialist truths and dualism […] as fixed, stable and coherent” (Renold 2009:225) can become disrupted, it is nevertheless the case that styles and practices of drinking and intoxication among these queer youth and their associations with gender performances are still somewhat messy and contested.