Queer community alleges Budweiser Gardens’ security gender policed washrooms during RuPaul’s Drag Race event

Budweiser Gardens is beneath fireplace after attendees claimed the venue’s contracted safety gender policed the loos throughout a RuPaul’s Drag Race present in London, Ont.

“Their presence at queer events should be doing only and solely protection for and of those queer people, not policing them,” mentioned Courtney Conquers, a drag artist who attended the ‘Werq the World 2023’ present on Aug. 19.

Members of the queer group mentioned those that offered as cis-gendered males have been stationed outdoors each binary female and male washrooms.

“Went to this event last night, literally had security guards outside the men’s bathroom yelling, ‘No females in the male washroom,’ it was so disgusting,” wrote @Strawbracha on the social media platform X, previously often known as Twitter.

The publish added, “The lineup for the women’s ended up going into the concession area, the men’s stood empty. People ended up missing parts of the show despite empty washrooms because they were being guarded.”

Conquers mentioned safety allegedly was going to kick out anybody who they deemed didn’t current as appropriate or didn’t current as their assigned gender at start, in addition to those that challenged the coverage.

“The security force went from zero to 100 saying ‘If you question our policies you are out,’ and they tried to remove them from the venue of a show that they had paid to be at, even though their approach was not combative, and they were frankly completely in the right,” mentioned Conquers.

Budweiser Gardens General Manager Brian Ohl took to social media Monday morning, to personally apologize to anybody who had a “tarnished experience.”

He acknowledged by an investigation that the occasions did happen and spoke to CTV News London concerning the venue’s subsequent steps.

A promotional posted promoting for the RuPaul’s drag Race ‘Werq the World 2023’ tour at Budweiser Gardens in London, Ont. (Source: Budweiser Gardens/X) “Education is probably the biggest thing,” mentioned Ohl. “We will be sitting down with them [the vendor] tomorrow and getting from them exactly their perspective what transpired, and how that how they missed our directives. Going forward we already do training for our staff, and we’re going to include all of our third party vendors.”

With a big social media presence, and a background in advocacy for gender fairness in drag contexts, Conquers has been reaching out to the venue on behalf of these concerned.

“It’s blatant transphobia,” mentioned Conquers.

Conquers added, “A drag event, even in a place like London, Ontario is primarily marketed toward queer people and queer inclusivity and there are going to be trans people there and they’re going to be people that don’t fit into the gender binary. They were just trying to have a good night and mind their business, so people were upset.”