Everybody’s Welcome, Until She Isn’t: West Hollywood’s Lesbian Bar Cancels a Lesbian

Sweetwater, West Hollywood’s new lesbian bar on bustling Santa Monica Boulevard, had agreed to host a September 9 meet-and-greet for Tanya Tsikanovsky, a lesbian running for West Hollywood City Council. The bar owner approved the flyer, and it was shared via social media. Within an hour the post was a pile-on, and the event was dead.

Tsikanovsky is a Republican, a Zionist, and a Trump supporter. She is also a former Hillary Clinton organizer who describes herself as a lifelong Democrat until she wasn’t. She wanted the first event of her campaign in a lesbian room, and she wanted it at a business owned by Berni Gambino, a butch lesbian and former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. Public safety is the issue she is running on. A bar run by an ex-cop looked, to her, like the right room sending the right message.

Unfortunately, according to the intolerance of West Hollywood, it was the wrong politics. Commenters told Sweetwater that hosting her was platforming a “violently racist Islamophobe” and a “genocide supporting REPUBLICAN.” One wrote, “A MAGA lesbian meetup? Cool. Never coming back here.” Others said they would not feel safe in the bar if it aligned with her. Gambino, who had spent two years building the only lesbian bar West Hollywood had seen in more than a decade, caved to the pressure and canceled the event. She later said the bar would host no campaign events for any political party, and that Tsikanovsky was still welcome to come in and have a drink. Tsikanovsky has said she does not blame her.

The objection was not to a lesbian in a lesbian bar. It was to a lesbian who will not recite the catechism. West Hollywood sells itself as the capital of tolerance, and then treats a dissenting lesbian as a contamination risk. Fellow candidate Kody Christiansen, who disagrees with her on plenty, called the episode disheartening and said she has “genuinely good ideas for West Hollywood.” He was nearly alone. The rest of the reaction was a loyalty test: Republican, Zionist, Trump. Fail any of the three and the welcome is revoked.

The irony is not subtle. The same political subculture that spent decades arguing that no one should be turned out of a bar for whom they love now turns women out of a lesbian bar for their vote. Inclusion, in practice, means inclusion of the approved. Gambino had said when the bar opened that everybody was welcome. The comments arrived to explain that the word “everybody” had an asterisk. A new business, owned by a lesbian, was told that letting a lesbian candidate use a room was an endorsement, and that the endorsement would be punished.

Tsikanovsky’s own line on it was simpler than the thread. If anybody is going to be welcome at a lesbian bar, it should be a lesbian. West Hollywood can decide at the ballot box whether it wants her on the council. It should not need a social-media mob to decide whether she can stand in a bar on Santa Monica Boulevard and talk to voters.