The point of the venue is one room where its own patrons are the majority

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that a gay bar is not a bar that happens to have gay customers but a room built around a reversal. Everywhere else, its patrons are the minority and have to judge, on arriving, how safe it is to hold a partner's hand or say who they spent the weekend with. Proponents argue that the value of the venue lies in being the one place where that calculation is not necessary, and that this depends on who is in the room rather than on the sign above the door. On this account the quality is fragile in a specific way. Proponents argue that a handful of straight customers changes nothing, but that once a substantial share of the room is straight the default flips back: a patron scanning the bar can no longer assume the person they approach is likely to be interested, and the reassurance of being surrounded by people like oneself is gone. They add that the shift is not caused by anyone behaving badly, which is why appeals to good intentions miss the point. It follows from proportions alone, and no individual straight customer is doing anything wrong in being there. Proponents argue that this is the ordinary logic of a space for a group, applied consistently. Support groups, women's sessions at a pool and clubs for particular communities all work because of who is present, and nobody treats attendance by outsiders as a right that overrides the purpose. The argument concludes that because what a gay bar provides is a majority its patrons do not otherwise get, and because a large straight presence removes it without anyone intending harm, straight people should not go.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics reply that the comparison with support groups and women's sessions does not hold, because those are organised activities with defined membership while a bar is a licensed business open to the public, and the law in many places requires it to be. They add that the argument has no workable form, since there is no way to act on it: the composition of a room cannot be managed by individual decisions, and nobody proposes a door policy, so what remains is a request that particular people stay away based on who they are. Critics also note that the atmosphere described is not uniform even among gay patrons, many of whom actively want mixed rooms.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A licensed bar is a business open to the public, and in many places required by law to be, which distinguishes it from a membership activity organised around who attends. [Rejecting P2] Many patrons prefer mixed rooms and say so, so the atmosphere described is a preference among gay customers rather than a settled requirement of the venue. [Rejecting P3] Comparisons with support groups and single-sex sessions fail for the same reason, since those have defined membership and a stated purpose that a bar does not. [Rejecting C] At most it follows that some patrons value a particular composition, which gives no one an instruction that can be acted on, since no individual decision determines who fills a room.