San Marcans rally in support of LGBTQ community after Stonewall closes

In the wake of Stonewall’s closing on New Year’s Day, people online and in San Marcos have rallied around the LGBTQ community to offer moral and financial support. Stonewall, San Marcos’ only gay bar, represented a safe space for the local queer community.

“It’s a huge loss, especially for the drag community,” said Heather Aidala, executive director of the Bobcat Pride Scholarship Fund. “They found a home in Stonewall.”

Miss-Malibu Imported, a drag performer from San Marcos who often performed at Stonewall, reiterated this sentiment. “Of course, Stonewall was a place where anyone and everyone was accepted. A place that brought chosen families together and kept queer culture safe in Hays County.”

The bar’s abrupt closing prompted an outpouring of online support as the general manager, Lena Jacobs, started a GoFundMe to help the Stonewall staff — most of them students at Texas State University — meet their financial needs through the transition. The GoFundMe, which earned over $5,000 within its first 24 hours, has raised nearly $9,000 as of Friday.

“The response has been overwhelming,” Jacobs said. “My main priority is making sure my employees are taken care of. It’s nice to see people rallying behind these kids, when most people don’t.”

Concerns about the safety of the LGBTQ community in San Marcos inevitably rise to the forefront of the Stonewall discussion. Not only was Stonewall a safe harbor for the queer community, but it offered free monkeypox vaccines, free HIV/STD testing and helped to find services, protection and contraceptives for young college students. Even as the staff and former patrons of the bar mourn its loss, they are already looking for answers to the question of What comes next?

“We live in a state where people are constantly attacking our community, and these kids have to do the very unsafe drive to San Antonio or Austin to be in a safe space,” Aidala said. “While ally bars can hold an event from time to time, it’s not the same as a dedicated space.”

Former owner Jamie Frailicks, who has drawn fire from the community for the way in which Stonewall closed, said that he has been in talks with people who are interested in carrying on the Stonewall legacy. “Signage and everything,” Frailicks said. “Someone will carry this. Someone will pick up the slack. When that happens, I will be the first to step up and cheer.”

Frailicks explained his reasoning for closing Stonewall in a statement he issued online at the beginning of the week. In it, he said, “Earlier this year, I made the tough decision to close a chapter of my professional career, and move on to new opportunities. After months and months of deliberating and negotiations, I ultimately made a decision that was in the best interest of my family and the future of my career and that was to sell Stonewall Warehouse.”

He went on to say that he understood what Stonewall meant for the LGBTQ community in San Marcos and dedicated eight years of his life to its cause. However, many argued it was not so much Frailicks’ dedication to Stonewall that was being called into question, but the manner in which he went about its closing.

“If he had given us a chance to accept it,” Jacobs said, “then it would have looked a lot different today. We’re angry. I’m mad. [The staff] were extremely close.”

Miss Malibu-Imported also expressed disappointment at not getting a chance for closure. “The community didn’t get to say goodbye to a place we felt was like a home, and it's the greatest loss of them all,” she said.

Frailicks later rebutted in an interview by saying, “They deserved better, more closure, a farewell, but the sad reality in this business is that it’s not always best. I operated on a daily basis as if there was always a tomorrow. I stand by my decision to protect everyone, to do it responsibly, to make sure the staff, the property, and everything are safe.”

In fact, the continuing question of safety remains the top priority going forward, especially for those most affected by the closing: the 10 or so staff members on Stonewall’s payroll.

Frailicks assured that the staff will be given two weeks’ severance pay to help them land on their feet. “Tomorrow’s the first pay day since Sunday,” he explained. “We do a weekly paycheck. I told them, ‘you will get two more paychecks, just as promised. Knowing that a lot of them are tipped employees, they get basically an average of what they got for the last two weeks. My GM was handed cash on Sunday.”

In the meantime, the community has responded by offering support in the form of donations on the GoFundMe page. Additionally, organizations like the Bobcat Pride Scholarship Fund offer emergency stabilizations grants to people in the LGBTQ community of Hays County between the ages of 18 and 25, for which many of Stonewall’s staff have already applied.

“The applicants I’ve talked to have felt such support,” said Arisela Thompson, program director for BPSF. “It’s interesting to see how we’ve come together from this.”

“The support has been overwhelming,” Jacobs said. “Literally all of it good, saying that they appreciated Stonewall, and what we did for the community. I hope that San Marcos gets another space for these kids that have nowhere to go.”

Going forward, members of the community are now reflecting on a course of action to provide that safe space for people within the LGBTQ community. “[With Stonewall] there was a local San Marcos group — a lot of them people of color — who raised this group of kids. Recognizing that this is an underrepresented community, and we want to help them succeed, maybe we should have a community roundtable to talk about this?” Aidala said. “We don’t need to come to the table with answers, but maybe just to discuss that.”

Editor's Note: Celeste Cook is a board member of Bobcat Pride Scholarship Fund.