HRC partners with D.C. bar for Pride
Washingtonians until mid-July can visit As You Are bar in Southeast D.C. to record messages of hope and inspiration in a phone booth the Human Rights Campaign has sponsored.
The phone booth is one part of HRC’s Queer to Stay campaign to support local LGBTQ businesses in D.C. As You Are received an HRC grant last year, which allowed for the installation of a phone booth inside the bar for patrons to record different inspirational messages related to their LGBTQ identities and younger selves. “There’s a need for us to have that positive messaging for folks and it’s also a very self-fulfilling thing to be able to communicate with your former self whether you were living in an unwelcoming environment, your closet, wherever that may be,” said HRC Deputy Director of Creator and Partnership Strategy Brandon Hooks. “So we looked at different businesses in the D.C.
area that were LGBTQ+ owned and operated. We landed on As You Are because we had an existing relationship and we also just really appreciate their mission of really making an inclusive space for all.” Partners Jo McDaniel and Rach Pike opened As You Are at 500 8th St., S.E., in 2021.
The bar functions as a daytime cafe and a nighttime lounge on the first floor and an upstairs 18+ dance boutique. “Being a block off the Eastern Market Metro stop makes us accessible to people who don’t drive or don’t have money to Uber,” McDaniel told Washington City Paper in 2021. “We wanted to stay out of the west side of town.
