all photos courtesy of Booters’ NYC photographer, M Fortugno (@snapppshots)
I grew up in New Jersey, the diner capital of the country. College was also in New Jersey, because I never went very far. Our nights out were followed by mornings at the sticky tabled diner down the road, where we would drink burnt coffee (unlimited refills) and eat greasy, perfect breakfast foods while recounting the previous night’s mayhem. Diners are an ever-present part of the New Jersey experience. They’ve held me at my worst, seen me at my best. Until Booters, I didn’t know that I could love a diner outside of New Jersey. But Booters has all the makings of a perfect diner and zero Jersey accents to be found. Plus, at Booters, hot butches will squirt whipped cream into your mouth.
Booters is a dyke diner experience that centers butches, studs, bois, mascs, and the people who love them. And yes, it is a play on the Florida-founded American institution Hooters. Two of the members of the all-trans team, Oran Keaveney and Ariane Trueblood, were “butchifying” terms (one of the examples they shared over email was ‘borgy’, a butch orgy!), which eventually led Ariane to Booters: butch Hooters! Normally, Booters events are in London, but I got to catch them during their New York pop-up earlier this year! Oran, Ariane, and the rest of the all-trans team (Paz Bombo, and their NYC co-producer Vic King Smith), put together three events, all at iconic New York queer spots with wildly different vibes.
Cubbyhole was first up for Booters, home of my early twenties mistakes and the cheapest Wednesday margarita deal I know of. Their second was at Gingers, their third at Soft Butch, a trans-owned Bed-Stuy café.
I went to their second event, a tryout party at Gingers, in part because it’s my favorite dyke bar in the city and also because they promised ample whipped cream. The party was a dykey, campy competition, preceded by beer pong in the backyard. I got to Gingers a little early, just to scope out the scene. The backyard was crowded, with more than a handful of carabiner-carrying queers playing pong. When the event started, we all piled into the back room at Gingers, sweaty dykes wall-to-wall, all hoping to catch a glimpse of the chosen Booters candidates.
Contestants were judged on their performance in three rounds: grit, charm, and service. The service round (I love a service top) was the whipped cream round, the semi-finalists squirting whipped cream into as many mouths as they could before a timer went off. I came home sticky (complimentary).
Booters draws and celebrates a diverse crowd, and the contestants they chose for their New York tryouts spanned a wide range of butchness. “The most important thing for us is showing that there’s no one way to be a ‘hot butch,'” Oran shares. “If you dig past mainstream media, butchness has this very rich, diverse, trans-feminist history, including the work of Leslie Feinberg, Amy Fox and Cheryl Dunye.”
“Butch trans women, butch trans men, studs, tomboys and sex workers of all body types make the butch identity what it is, and Booters is all about celebrating this,” Oran adds.
Booters launched less than a year ago, and in the time since, they’ve been asked to pop up at no less than 47 cities! Honestly, this list may have grown since Oran and I last spoke. The team does plan to return to the States for another pop-up at some point. If you live in London, their events happen regularly. In these events, Booters holds firm in their foundational values. Booters is importantly not a “British” pop-up, but rather an intentionally London one.
“London is a lot like New York in that it’s a big melting pot of different cultures and influences,” Oran says. “And Booters reflects this: Our event is very Americana-inspired, hosted by a first-generation Irish immigrant, and the rest of our core team have heritage from outside the UK.”
“Given the history of the British Empire and its current government’s views on issues like trans rights, immigration and Palestine,” they continue, “we aren’t representing ‘British culture’ through this event so much as how the combination of cultures in places like London makes food, fashion, and partying all the richer.”
