“So, here’s my bit of history about this bar,” said “Dana” as we approached The Flying Pig Bistro & Pub on South Van Ness Avenue, off 16th Street. “Around 20 years ago I worked just over there …” she gestures back past Mission, “and The Flying Pig was one of the only places in the city that offered free WiFi. This was back before you could just tether off your phone, so I was here constantly with my primitive, clunky laptop, all the time, drinking beer, eating pub food, and working as remotely as you could back then.”
We stepped inside, and claimed a table. “It … hasn’t changed,” she said. “At all. I mean, maybe the TVs are bigger, that makes sense, and I guess the art on the walls is different, but … it is still the same place. I bet the wifi password hasn’t even changed.”
The Flying Pig is spacious by San Francisco bar standards, a single corridor with a long bar on one side and tables on the other, eventually opening up to standing space with a pool table and videogame that really could have come from over 20 years ago. The ceilings are high, the fans weren’t turned on (“they don’t help when it’s hot,” Dana said), the space is neither well lit nor dark, and at the moment we came in it was virtually empty: one guy behind the bar tending to exactly one customer.
“That’s always how it was staffed,” Dana said. “A guy behind the bar who takes forever to get to you, and a guy in the kitchen.”
By pub-food standards, The Flying Pig’s offerings are extensive, if not spectacular: You can get a lot of different kinds of sandwiches, all of which are pretty good, but none of which (that I’ve found yet) are worth telling people about. I ordered a turkey club, Dana ordered a French dip. There’s also a decent list of different styles of hot dogs, salads, and bagels. The drink selection, on the other hand, can best be described as “serviceable” — a small selection of beer and wine that is drinkable, but forgettable. I ordered a Duvel, Dana ordered a Blaster West Coast IPA, and we returned to our table, all but alone.
“Have I told you about my going down the J.K. Rowling rabbit hole?” Dana asked as we started to drink.
“Not really. Maybe you mentioned it?”
“I heard about this podcast that the woman who’s famous for leaving the Westboro Baptist Church is doing, defending Rowling, and I decided, screw it, I’m trying to make a point to hear the perspectives of people who I disagree with, and I don’t really know what Rowling’s actually said, so I’ll listen to it. And … ” she shook her head, grimacing in frustration. “Rowling is a remarkable woman, with an incredible story, and of course you want to root for her, but … when it comes to this issue … ”
“About trans people?”
She nodded. “About trans people, and whether they should have access to women’s spaces, she does this very frustrating and frankly kind of dishonest thing where she keeps saying ‘I just want to have the conversation! Why can’t we have this conversation? Why am I not allowed to have this conversation?’ And … you know, she’s world famous and a billionaire, and for all that, she’s saying ‘why won’t somebody have this conversation with me?’ she’s never actually talking to people who could really have this conversation with her, you know? People who actually have experience with this, instead of idealogues with an ax to grind. People who actually have real world experience with this, we’re not hard to find, you know?”
“Oh, that’s right!” I said. “You ran a women’s-only homeless shelter, didn’t you?”
“For years! Lots of people have, and we’re happy to have a conversation about it. But instead she’s talking to people like Sam Harris.”
The Flying Pig bartender brought our food out. Looking around, I saw the place had quietly filled up; most of the other tables were occupied now, as were several spots at the bar. I worried for a moment that we might be loudly having a controversial conversation, but no one was paying any attention to anyone else here. We were all in the same physical space, but occupying sealed and isolated social spaces. I puzzled on that for a moment, while Dana ordered another beer.
“I ran those spaces for years, and it’s not completely untrue that sometimes a trans woman wants to come in who creates a problem,” Dana said. “But I’ve had a lot more problems with women who were assigned female at birth in a women’s only shelter than I have with trans women. Whether someone who wants to come into the space was assigned a female gender at birth or not is not the relevant distinction for whether they would work in the space. The issue was whether they could behave according to the norms of that space. I’ve seen so many trans women who were respectful and considerate and fit in perfectly … and I’ve seen a few trans women who came into the space and behaved like very inconsiderate men. And you know what? They were immediately rejected by the community, not because they were trans, but because they obviously couldn’t behave. It was never a big deal.”
The bartender brought our second round. At a table behind us, a child reported to his father that his younger brother wasn’t letting him play the videogame on the other side of the room. “Well, it’s his turn,” the father said. “Wait until he’s done and then I’ll give you some quarters, okay?” The child agreed.
“You know what is a big deal?” Dana asked. “It’s not that somehow trans women make women’s shelters unsafe, because they don’t. That’s just not an issue. The big deal is that men’s shelters aren’t safe. They’re not safe for trans men. They’re not safe for gay men. They’re not safe for cis, het men. That’s a real conversation that we need to be having, and it has nothing to do with Rowling and her so, SO, disappointing, ‘oh, nobody’s willing to have this conversation with me’ self-serving bullshit. Outside of her bubble, there’s lots of us willing to have the conversation with her. She’s just not listening, because it’s inconvenient. And because it’s horrible — it is horrible — that people have doxxed her and threatened her family and said terribly threatening things to her on Twitter. That’s not okay. Of course it’s not. It’s horrible. But the idea that no one can talk about these issues is just not true. We don’t just talk about them, we live them, and we’re very much available for the conversation. Rowling is the one who’s not really having the conversation, and all I can think is that it’s to protect her prejudices.”
The Flying Pig was almost full now, with a number of people having come and gone grabbing pick-up orders. And yet there’s no sense of camaraderie here, no sense of connection of community. If anybody here’s a regular, I can’t tell.
“It was always like that,” Dana told me again. “It made sense when everyone was here for the internet, but now? I don’t know how to describe the atmosphere … ”
“Chill, but distant,” I suggested.
“Yes!” she nodded. “Chill, but distant. That’s it. And that’s what I wanted back then. It’s an almost perfect place for that.”
That’s not generally what I go to pubs for, but I can see it: A great place to go and be by yourself. Sometimes you need that.
I hate read this column with such a passionate intensity.
“‘About trans people?'”
What does any of this have to do with the bar? What does any of this have to do with life? At least I couldn’t control+f “pandemic” in this story.
Keep cooking, king. Legit dunno but I’m a pain piggie and absolutely love my slop.
(P.S. Please distill Molotov’s)
The Pig has a good crowd of regulars, but definitely tends to be during service industry friendly hours! Also the pool table is a COVID-era addition.