Freak Show

Conservative vlogger, Vince Dao, recently published this video about the Woke Lesbian Bar in Massachusetts.  Asmongold has an even more hilarious take.

I sincerely did not understand the connection between Woke (or gay) and insisting that people wear masks … in 2026, so I asked an AI to explain. Here’s what it said:

The story involves **Last Ditch**, a lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, which opened requiring KN95 masks and faced fierce backlash from its own patrons when it attempted to make Saturday nights mask-optional to prevent going out of business.

The connection between progressive (“woke”) queer spaces and strict COVID-era precautions like masking comes down to a few specific ideological frameworks:

• Intersectionality and “Disability Justice”: In modern progressive activist circles, public health is framed through disability justice. The core premise is that unmasked spaces exclude immunocompromised, disabled, or high-risk people. Under this view, going unmasked is seen as “ableist” because it forces vulnerable individuals to choose between isolation or health risks. Because intersectionality holds that all marginalized identities (queer, disabled, working-class, racial minorities) must be protected simultaneously, safe spaces aim to cater to the most vulnerable member of that coalition.
• Historical Echoes of the HIV/AIDS Crisis: Within LGBTQ+ history, community-led health activism (like ACT UP in the 1980s and 1990s) holds a sacred place. There is a deep cultural precedent of queer communities organizing their own harm-reduction measures when they felt institutional public health had failed or abandoned them. For many queer activists, maintaining strict COVID protocols carries a direct moral connection to that legacy of communal care.
• Collective Care vs. Individualism: Progressive and leftist ideology generally prioritizes collective responsibility over individual convenience. Masking is viewed not simply as a personal health choice, but as an ethic of care where an individual accepts a mild inconvenience to protect someone else.
• Identity and Subcultural Signaling: Over time, masking transitioned from a temporary epidemiological tool to a cultural and political symbol. In heavily progressive enclaves, continuing to wear high-filtration masks serves as an outward signal of conscientiousness, solidarity, and rejection of mainstream, post-pandemic normalization.

When these principles collide with commercial reality—such as running a hospitality business where people fundamentally gather to drink and socialize—the tension becomes acute. For the bar’s owners, dropping the mandate was an economic survival tactic; for the community members protesting the change, it was treated as an abandonment of solidarity and inclusion.