Activists protested against Pegasus nightclub and its gay Republican owner during San Antonio Pride. (Photo courtesy Jennifer Falcon)
What the employees of Pegasus Nightclub can teach us about power
If there is one thing we are seeing more of — besides hate and racism — under the Trump regime, it’s the call for boycotts of companies and people that support him and his ideology: The NFL. Chick-fil-A. Equinox.
But those companies may play only small, insignificant roles in our lives. How does the dynamic change when the boycott being called for lands close to home?
When it is, in fact, our home?
Such is the case for the San Antonio gay bar Pegasus.
When word got out that Mauro E. Garza, a gay Latino man who is owner of the Pegasus, was running for Congress as a Republican, a San Antonio activist group activist group called Protest the Peg launched a call for a boycott. On Aug. 11, the group shared a press release via Twitter and a bulk email sent to more 40 LGBTQ media and freelance writers, calling for a nationwide boycott of the bar “in an effort to defund [Garza’s] contributions to LGBTQIA+ politicians/platforms.” The press release specifically called out Miss Gay USofA and RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Kennedy Davenport for performing at the San Antonio nightclub.
After reading Davenport’s Facebook updates and the stories being written about something that was happening in my own backyard, I decided to do a bit of research of my own.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
This is not the first time that Garza has run for office. In fact, the first time he dipped a toe into politics pool was in 2010 when he ran as a Democrat for justice of the peace in Bexar County’s Precinct 3. He lost by 122 votes to William Peche in the primaries. A year before that, the local chapter of HRC awarded Garza their Community Service Award after he donated more than $100,000 to local charities. (The Pegasus website still boasts charitable contributions to eight different local LGBTQ nonprofits).
Garza didn’t become a Republican until 2015 when he made the decision to change parties due “to the fact that I was becoming a father …[and] the trajectory of our nation was not one that I wanted for my son,” he said to me via text.
Three years later Garza threw his hat back into the political ring, running for Congress as a Republican.
Now flash forward to August 2019: Garza has decided to run for Congress again, only this time he is met with a whirlwind of anger and protests. But before he announced his intent to run, he made a public Facebook post on June 10, 2019, saying that he had “transferred all responsibilities and financials of The Pegasus Nightclub to Mike Rodriguez and Gabriel M. Dominguez.”
I spoke with Mike Rodriguez, who reiterated that Garza has little or nothing to do with the club anymore and is more a “silent” figure in its ownership.
Rodriguez did say that Garza never once asked for or expected the club to hang up his campaign posters or wear t-shirts in support of his Congressional run, telling Rodriguez, “Alcohol and politics don’t mix.”
But I left that conversation with more questions than answers.
I get that in the grander scheme of things Garza’s “side” or his “why” doesn’t really matter to the majority of the community, because the fact remains he is running on a platform that has real and dire consequences for LGBTQ and other marginalized folk. As a society, we have responded to the overt bigotry and rise in hate crimes and rhetoric by becoming more woke to systems, people and structures that are funding and furthering Trump’s regime.
And that means we are paying more attention to the things we have control over, like where we spend our money. This a powerful and radical act.
But on the downside, it also means that some of us have begun to police others in the community, demanding that they align their pocket book priorities with our own. And when they don’t bend and boycott the targets we think they should, we call them out as being unsupportive of, ambivalent toward and uneducated about our struggle.
When the flyer came out promoting Kennedy Davenport’s July 24 appearance at the Pegasus, all hell broke loose on the internet. People slipped into her DMs, took screenshots of conversations with her and posted all of that all over social media — without her consent. Even Protest the Peg jumped on the bandwagon, singularly calling her out in their press release for “her defiant refusal to support the boycott,” adding that while they understood the need for full-time performers to make money, there are “different platforms that reach large audiences.”
But the one thing none of the above did was actually talk to Davenport and listen to her side of the story. She reiterated that fact when I spoke to her.
“Nobody reached out to me to ask me about it,” Davenport told me. “I had no idea there was a protest even happening when I accepted the booking. Had
I known about it before they released the flyer, I might have opted out of the booking. But the flyer was released, and it no longer was about me. It became about my fans.”
As a matter of fact, none of these outlets have asked to hear from the people who work at the Pegasus to find out their side of the story. They are part of our community, too — part of the very thing Protest the Peg is boycotting to protect.
Layla LaRue, who is also a cast member of Dallas’ Rose Room, has worked at the Pegasus for the past seven years. She said that her coworkers, the managers and the regulars there are “like family to me. Having the opportunity to see them every week has built friendships and family-type bonds that no political views can change.”
The simple truth is that at some point in all our calls for boycotts, we have to ask for, listen to, truly hear and then bring into our movement the people and their voices who work at Pegasus. We also need to acknowledge the fact that the establishments people work at don’t necessarily represent who they are.
How many of us are actually working at a place that we can honestly say mirrors our values and beliefs 100 percent? I’m venturing to guess less than 10 — maybe even less than 5 — percent of us can say that.
And even if we are among that privileged few, our jobs are never really fully representational of who we are. There will always be at least a 1 percent difference.
And that’s exactly what Mauro Garza is to me, LaRue and other members of San Antonio’s LGBTQ community — that 1 percent of the job that doesn’t reflect our values and who we are as a community.
LaRue reiterated, “I want people to know that the employees and managers are not Trump supporters. While we are disappointed that the property owner is running for office as a Republican … everyone should understand that his political views have nothing to do with the views of those who are employed there.”
The truth is that by calling for a blanket boycott of the Pegasus, we are also calling for a boycott our own people.
BUT …
I also understand that by going to the Pegasus and ordering a drink (or five), it is quite possible, likely even, that the money we spend there will go to the campaign of bigot who is consciously benefiting from the flamboyant-ness that he wants to “reform” — even if he did shift “responsibilities” to others.
So, I see and understand both sides.
But I also know that there are multiple ways to fight the system, to fight the power, all of which are valid, while only a few — or even only one — are right for each of us individually.
Davenport mentioned making change from within, which is exactly what she did when she chose to honor her commitment and her fans by keeping her booking at the Pegasus. In doing so, she met Zachary Leard, whose mother recently had a stroke and lost the majority of her memory.
Leard is a huge fan of Davenports, and he asked if she would make a video for his mom. She did.
“When I showed it to her this morning she CRIED! She was so happy!” Leard said in a Facebook post. “The little things like this warms my heart!”
That is activism.
An all-out-call-to-arms boycott by Protest the Peg is activism, too.
But at the end of the day if the boycott and protest of the Pegasus is really about our community, then we have to find a way that is inclusive of the voices of those in our community who work at that establishment and those who wish to dismantle it.
And while all the liquor sales of club Pegasus may go to support Garza and his Republican bid for Congress, you know what doesn’t? Your tips. Your tips go to the bartenders, the DJs and the drag queens working at the Pegasus. That money goes directly into their pockets and the pockets of our community.
So, instead of a blanket boycott, why not flood the club with our gay dollars, but give them all to the employees? Why not come together as a community for one night, pack the club to full capacity, but not spend a dime on liquor and instead give our hard-earned money to the people in our community who are working hard for it, for you.
For us.
That is a radical act of protest and defiance that is both non-participatory in Mauro Garza’s campaign of hate but still supportive of our people in our community — the same community that, in the end, all our activism — regardless of the form it takes — is fighting to protect, honor and serve.
People of conscience often have to find new jobs when their employers make bad decisions. Should we pity ICE agents? They are people too and just doing their jobs which didn’t include working for Trump when they took them.
Tom, i agree. But not all of us have the privilege to move through and navigate the job space in that way. Demanding all for one and for all is not the way to create change because it doesn’t take into account the complex personhood and variables of humanity. In times like these those who find themselves in positions of privilege (such as myself and i’m assuming you as well since you are making privileged blanket statements about other people’s lives), should be coming up with new ways to innovate protest so that it CAN embrace all sides. People shouldn’t have to switch jobs just because their employer, boss, founder is an ass. That’s not the way “democracy” or “consumerism” is supposed to work. The people outnumber the machine. We can demand change by coming and moving together. ICE agents outnumber Trump and his regime; so what if they all just refused to show up? He can’t fire all of them. We need THIS kind of innovation as opposed to sitting in the safety of an article’s comments asking the same old tired questions that lead to nothing but the same damn thing.
Wishing you progressive foresight and solution-making. xo-b
Bottom line, the owner is still the owner. Dig a little. Legally, he’s still profiting. It’s all there in the property tax records and online city paperwork.
The employees of this bar are well-aware of who they’re working for and have had ample time to make choices. They can choose to work for another bar, another job, another owner who supports their own. CHOICE. These people aren’t indebted to this job.
As for your comment on the government not being able to ‘fire everyone,’ you’re dead wrong. Perhaps you’re not old enough to know about Regan and the ATC situation, but it happened. They all walked. They all got fired. Trump would do the same thing.
Pegasus was and is a dive anyway. There are much better options in SA for people to spend gay money. I’d be fine seeing this place shut down and have folks go to the Bonham Exchange or HEAT.
Activism is growing a pair of balls, getting educated and doing what’s right. ACTUP and Larry Kramer knew this. The Pegasus’s employees who stay are complacent in what’s happening and frankly, don’t deserve pity. They freely made their choice. I’d say the same for drag performers who continue to perform there. They have other options in that city. They choose to stay.
Standing up for what’s right isn’t always easy.