By now, you may have already seen the think pieces, memes, and reaction videos centered on the Covid-concious lesbian bar easing their strict masking mandate. If you haven’t encountered it yet, here’s a quick and dirty breakdown: Last Ditch, a lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts faced online outrage after they adjusted their masking mandate. Up until August 31, 2026, the bar required that all patrons wear a KN95 mask “or better” at all times. Last Ditch thoughtfully provided patrons who forgot theirs a new one at the door. Now, the bar is financially underwater, so — in hopes of increasing business — the owner announced that masks would be optional on Saturday nights. All other days would still require everyone in the bar to wear a mask. The announcement to relax restrictions for one night a week was met with anger and outrage. Just three days later, on September 2, the bar issued an apology. This, too, was met with anger.
The situation broke containment on September 22, 2026, when The Boston Globe broke the story and almost immediately went viral internationally. The article circulated Threads, X, TikTok, and Instagram, eventually becoming much larger than a conversation on public health and masking.
The History of Last Ditch
Before we can get into what made this situation so fertile for internet commentary, it’s important to look back at how we got here. According to their Instagram bio, Last Ditch is a “lesbian bar, rental venue, community center.”
The idea to open the bar arose as three housemates — Sage Territo, Jackie Matellian and Asa Rosario — watched two local queer bars close. Hoping to fill that void, Last Ditch opened in April 2025.
Intentionality of care was core to their vision for the space. “Anyone can come and drink water, use the bathroom, use our resources, regardless of access to funds, and it’s because we want to care for people as they have cared for us.” Territo said in an interview last year. To this day, no patron is turned away for being unable to pay the cover charge, law enforcement is banned, and community care reigns supreme. The venue even contains a “free store” offering no-cost clothing, safe-sex tools, tea, harm reduction information, and COVID-prevention supplies.
House rules explicitly forbid “racism, misogynoir, transmisogyny, ableism, transphobia, homophobia, lesbophobia, and any other form of discrimination.”
While opening went well, it wasn’t long before Last Ditch hit a litany of obstacles. Foot traffic slowed and, eventually, founders Territo and Rosario decided to step away from the business due to various pressures and health issues. Matellian was left to run the bar and has struggled to do so alone. In The Boston Globe article, she explains that she’s responsible for paying off the $50,000 loan the founders used to open the business. She’s poured so much financially into Last Ditch that she’s ruined her credit score and has lived out of her truck for the last six months. The bar is thousands of dollars behind in rent and most of the staff work for tips, as Last Ditch doesn’t make enough to pay them.
Cannibalizing Our Own
Considering the bar’s present plight, it’s not surprising that Matellin decided to try something new to increase attendance at Last Ditch. What is surprising is the online reaction.
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Last Ditch is open four nights a week: They are closed Sunday to Tuesday, and open Wednesday through Saturday. For three of those four nights, masks are required. On Saturday, they are optional. For many of those reading, the required use of masks in a LGBTQ+ bar comes across as unusual as most places stopped requiring patrons wear masks years ago. This isn’t unique to queer spaces: I spent five days in the hospital for major surgery in February of this year and outside of the O.R., no one — staff, patients, visitors, vendors — wore a mask in the hospital.
The social expectation to mask has dissipated since Americans began wearing them en masse is 2020. To find a place that requires masking in 2026 is no easy task. So it’s not surprising that sapphic folks with weakened immune systems must have found quite a refuge in Last Ditch, and might feel disheartened by the venue’s change in policy. However, instead of discussing the issue with nuance and vulnerability, people online attacked Matellian and Last Ditch’s leadership.
“I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists [sic],” one commenter wrote on a Zoom chat the bar hosted for community discussion.
“people like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience [sic],” another commenter said.
The comments also included commentary on race, with one reading, “Classic white and white aligned people and their ‘nice’ culture it’s so backhanded!!! [sic]” Another read, “YOU’VE just decided that disabled people’s lives are debatable. And that’s find, it’s pretty typical of white leftists.”
As a Black lesbian with my own health issues and an immunocompromised partner, I read all of this, and wondered, “Is this a joke?” Yes, the world would be safer if we all wore masks. Yes, if you need require everyone around you to wear a mask, your options for social engagement are severely limited. And yes, BIPOC folks tend to experience more negative health outcomes. But the onus isn’t on one specific lesbian bar in Massachusetts to fix those issues.
In fact, Last Ditch still provides a safer environment than most: even with the relaxation on masking on Saturdays, the venue continues to require masking 75% of the time they’re open. The decision to make masks optional on Saturdays isn’t a glib action designed to attack or harm disabled or immunocompromised attendees, but a choice steeped in necessity: The bar is imminently facing closure. Without more business, there will be no lesbian bar in town requiring masks — a net loss for those in need of safer public options.
I am a queer business owner, and I’ve seen fellow LGBTQ+ businesses struggle horrendously over the last year as anti-DEI laws extend across the country. Each intersection makes those laws hit harder: I am Black. I am a woman. I am a lesbian. I don’t make any money from running Tagg Magazine, and I’m not the only queer business owner I know who’s business is no longer profitable. From magazines, to clothing companies, to travel companies, LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs are keeping their businesses alive because we have a deep-seated desire to support our communities as much as we can. Matellain has taken this to the extreme by living in her truck so she can invest more of her funds to Last Ditch. Yet despite her personal sacrifice, the bar’s free store, retaining three mask-required days at the bar, and being the only founder to stay, Matellain’s dedication to her community, and its wellbeing, is still questioned.
Social Justice as a Weapon
The comments on Last Ditch’s original Instagram post (and their follow up apology post) have been disabled, but screenshots appear in The Boston Globe profile and can be found across the internet. The comments referred to the announcement as “a mass disabling event,” compared Last Ditch’s leadership to fascists, and even suggested that making masks optional flirted with eugenics. It’s… a lot.
Being aware and mindful of one another’s needs is a part of building community. It’s vital to our relationships that we care for one another to the best of our abilities. But what happens when those abilities change? Last Ditch had funds when they opened and were experiencing higher patronage, but that’s no longer the case. Now what they can offer the community has changed.
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Rather than work with the bar to reach a solution within the new confines of Last Ditch’s predicament, commenters on Instagram resorted to using social justice terminology as a means of tearing them down. When Last Ditch as an institution needed community support, they instead received loud, zealous vitriol. Online detractors against the relaxation of the masking policy were much louder than their counterparts, who Last Ditch tried to explain, actually do exist. “Vast feedback over almost 2 years pushed for varied accessibility, not one size fits all,” they wrote in the apology.
With the comments deleted it’s hard to know how many of those revolting online actually live near Last Ditch. How many of them have attended an event there? How many have given to their fundraising efforts? The internet makes it too easy to pile on and attack without any real connection to any given situation. We see this all the time when folks spam Google and Yelp with negative reviews after a video of the manager behaving badly goes viral.
One of the most vocal commenters, an artist named Soe Noir who has performed at Last Ditch in the past, made an Instagram post accusing the bar of selling out on their “antiprofit” stance. But profit and operating costs are not the same thing, and whether they endeavor to make a profit or not, the bar still requires cash flow to run. Last Ditch’s employees aren’t being paid, rent is behind, and debts are collecting, so profit isn’t where any of the money from increased attendance would be going. The funds they are seeking are a means of survival.
The Larger Picture
There are so many things in our reality worthy of our anger and one night a week of relaxed mask restrictions at a rural lesbian bar feels relatively low on that list. We have a government who is literally erasing trans folks in the U.S. while simultaneously financing a genocide in Palestine. Billionaires are building water-sucking data centers and letting go of skilled employees in the name of artificial intelligence. Climate change is killing millions around the globe, threatening entire species, and making safe, clean water harder to access. There is a lot to be up in arms about.
And it’s from the midst of this precarious reality that those outside of our community hop online and learn of the Last Ditch bar drama. Straight news organizations, content creators, and celebrities are laughing at us — the lesbian community as a whole — for being too “woke” and out of touch. I’m not fully convinced The Boston Globe’s original profile wasn’t intended to go viral at our expense. The article mentioned that one of the founders who left Last Ditch has enrolled in clown school since their departure, despite that having nothing to do with the crux of the story. It’s just one additional fact for readers to roll their eyes at as they think, “Look at those crazy lesbians.”
Even in our own community, the saga has become hard to follow. Rumors abound about the relationship between the founders of the bar. LGBTQ+ writers are questioning the backlash and what all this visibility means for the larger sapphic community. You’re reading one such article right now.
Something we’re not talking about enough? There are now racist, transphobic, homophobic, lesbophobic, and ableist comments across platforms where this story lives. The very energy the bar was built to shield folks from is now plastered across the internet where anyone researching the situation is likely to encounter it. Noir, who identifies as a gender expansive he/him lesbian, was targeted so intensely by internet trolls that Last Ditch had to put out a statement asking for people to leave him alone.
What Happens Now?
Ultimately, Last Ditch’s post calling for Noir’s safety says something about our community and the bonds we build. Noir seems to have loved the safety he found at Last Ditch to the point that the change in policy feels like a betrayal. At the same time, the team at Last Ditch seems to care for Noir as a member of their community, regardless of his anger. So much so that they stood up to the world to protect him. It doesn’t matter the world is watching this very local lesbian community’s infighting — these two entities still clearly mean something to one another.
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Last Ditch posted an Instagram post saying that the community should keep an eye out for more details in the future. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that all of the publicity helped Last Ditch raise the funds they need to survive a little longer. How much longer depends on if they can get people back into the bar and spending money. Saturday, September 26 marked the first mask-optional Saturday at Last Ditch since their story broke the internet. Though over a hundred people turned up to dance, there was confusion over who could enter and when. Notably, only a dozen or so of those in attendance wore a mask.
Whether the Saturday-night popularity will continue remains to be seen, but with people all over the world now aware of and supporting Last Ditch, their last ditch effort to bring in more funds and patrons may have succeeded after all.