Following in the steps of gay men who once boycotted Coors beer and Florida orange juice, local D.C. bars are now shunning Yuengling beer after owner Dick Yuengling endorsed Donald J. Trump for president.
David Perruzza, the manager of JR.’s Bar & Grill, sparked the movement by posting a video of himself literally removing Yuengling’s beer tap.
“So, Richard Yuengling and his company feel they should support Trump,” Perruzza says in the video. “Well, this is a gay bar. And I am a gay bar manager, and we do serve Yuengling, but, from this point on, because Trump has Pence, and Pence is one of the biggest idiots ever, and very anti-gay, probably one of the most anti-gay politicians ever, I am doing this.” He then unscrews the tap head.
“We’re saying ‘bye’ to Yuengling at JR.’s. Just so you know, when people support things that don’t support us, we don’t support them. So, goodbye, Yuengling, you are the weakest link.”
Other area gay bars have since followed suit on social media, including Level One, who wrote “In light of Yuengling’s support of Donald Trump & Mike Pence, whose anti-gay views are in direct contrast to the gay lifestyle, Level One will no longer sell their product,” and The Green Lantern, which notes it has “taken the Yuengling tap off the bar effective immediately.”
Number Nine posted a video to Facebook of one of their bartenders emptying out Yuengling bottles into two large orange buckets, with the caption: “Byeeeeeee.”
Floriana Restaurant’s Dito Sevilla posted the following on Facebook:
Jon Parks, general manager at Ziegfeld’s/Secrets, was torn over whether to pull the lager from his shelves, noting that Dick Yuengling did not say he was endorsing the Trump-Pence ticket because of anti-LGBT views. Still, after consulting owner Alan Carroll, Parks yanked Yuengling from the bar.
“This in some ways brings back that time when I lived in Hollywood, and I did indeed go down Hollywood Boulevard in protest of Anita Bryant’s ridiculousness,” says Parks, referring to the former Florida Citrus Commission spokesmodel who spearheaded a 1977 campaign to rescind an LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance in the state. The Yuengling boycott is the first he can remember based on a company’s support of a political candidate, rather than a company’s actions, such as support of an anti-gay ballot initiative. But he doesn’t foresee it setting off wars between liberals and conservatives over which bars they choose to support.
David Urban, a Republican strategist and CNN commentator who served as a senior advisor to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has written an op-ed accusing Democrats of fear-mongering for suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court might overturn its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
In his USA Today op-ed, Urban accuses "hyperpartisan liberals" of trying to "sow fear and discontent" by suggesting that the Supreme Court could reverse its own precedent and strike down the 2015 ruling -- a move that would immediately reinstate same-sex marriage bans still on the books in 32 states.
Justine Lindsay, the NFL's first out transgender cheerleader, recently revealed that she was fired this year, a decision she alleges was motivated by transphobia and Donald Trump's election as president.
"I was cut because I'm trans," Lindsay said in an Instagram Live with Gaye Magazine. "I don't wanna hear nobody saying, 'She didn't wanna come back.' Why the hell would I not wanna come back to an organization that I've been a part of for three years? That makes no sense to me. So I was cut. I was devastated. It stung. I was hurt."
Lindsay, who made history as the NFL's first transgender cheerleader when she tried out and made the Carolina Panthers's TopCats squad in 2022, told the magazine that her teammates "know the truth" about the decision to cut her from the squad.
U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, one of several Democrats targeted in Texas's latest gerrymander, says she will seek reelection after a federal three-judge panel blocked a Republican-backed congressional map that would have drawn her out of her Dallas-area district for 2026.
The lesbian congresswoman is one of five Texas Democrats whose districts were reshaped to give Republicans a 2026 edge, and among several Democrats who were effectively drawn out of the seats they currently represent.
In Johnson's case, the proposed map would have stretched her Dallas-based 32nd District into Republican-leaning Rockwall County and rural East Texas, while shifting her hometown of Farmers Branch into GOP Rep. Beth Van Duyne's 24th District, a seat Trump won by 16 points in 2024.
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