Notes From Inside My Fave Little Lesbian Dance Club

Notes From Inside My Fave Little Lesbian Dance Club

A Trans woman experiences a night of contrasts

Out and about © Sarah Scorze, 2026

It’s Friday night, and the room is a little quiet, but that’s OK; it’s still early and I’m happy just being back in this space. The lights are low and the music seems a little soft, but I’m comfy on a banquette, happy to be out of the cold as I watch a group of gals laugh and play pool.

They’re highly inexpert, and their balls keep spinning from the table and hitting the floor with an alarmingly loud bang. They keep apologizing for almost hitting me with their pool cues, but everyone’s laughing. That’s what it’s like here.

I’m at Hot Box in Sydney, an intimate lesbian dance party held on Friday nights. The music is great, and I’m always made to feel welcome. These days getting an entry stamp on my wrist makes me feel cool and knocks twenty years off these bones.

Of course, a little alcohol helps too.

I’ve just drunk something from a can which tastes like it will remove the remaining enamel from my teeth. I think it contains tequila. The barman warned me it was strong. ‘Lots of bang for your buck,’ he admonished, so I’ll probably end up hitting the dance floor in a minute.

As long as I don’t actually hit the floor.

I didn’t bring my laptop, I’m just talking into my phone. I wonder, can this even be called writing? It’s funny when you dictate instead of write, how the words to seem to come with an odd kind of jittery flow. It makes me think if Jack Kerouac had had an iPhone back in 1951, On The Road might have been a completely different book. Either that, or maybe 1000 pages longer. I notice how my brain runs off at the mouth when I can’t think of anything to say. Streaming in and out of consciousness.

So I’m here again, but tonight did not begin in this place. Oh contraire, it began almost four hours ago, when I dressed carefully in black to attend a fancy symphony concert at our storied Sydney Opera House.

Seeing the iconic building by the Sydney harbour, its illuminated shells glinting in the night sky still gives me a thrill. I was anticipating some lovely, joyful music to be performed by our redoubtable city orchestra and an incredibly talented young American violinist.

But my god, once inside the vibe changed. The crowd felt stiff, glum and ill tempered. Is it the inclement weather of the past weeks? All those stairs? Too long a line at the coat check? Surely they couldn’t all have hemorrhoids?

Happily I focus on a little girl and her mother who’s cheerfully pointing out the various instruments as the orchestra tunes up.

The conductor and soloist appear and the concerto starts. The violin leaps straight in, its soaring tones fill the concert hall.

I look down upon a sea of grey hair, people who seem largely unmoved by the gorgeous music. How could they be so unimpressed by the young virtuoso, who so effortlessly romps through the complexities of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto as though he were out for a Sunday stroll.

However, it would appear age is no barrier to stupidity. Despite entreaties at the outset to please put all phones away, some fuckwit still managed to drop theirs in the middle of a tender, piano section, and then instead of shamefacedly putting it somewhere safe, I noticed them checking their screen.

Maybe it put me in an ill mood, or it was just paranoia, but after some time I gained the feeling I was seated amongst those who disapprove of folks like me.

Instead of enjoying the music, my immediate neighbours looked as though they were trying to pass something unpleasant like a kidney stone or a pocket of unwanted gas, like they would rather be seated anywhere but near a trans woman. On the other side sat a gent who simply looked straight through me.

Fuck ’em. But it appeared something had infected the area. Even the young coat-check people, who are normally wonderfully cheery, seemed a little out of sorts as they returned my winter coat.

So despite enjoying the beautiful performance, it was kind of a relief to be out of there, wrap myself in my scarf, hop on my bike and ride through the evening chill.

I hustle in an out of the traffic on two wheels, and with the rising speed regather my sense of joy and excitement. Ten minutes later I arrive in front of the distinctive art deco facade of The Burdekin Hotel. It’s at the bottom of Oxford Street, and these walls have seen a lot of action over the past ninety years. There’s something both welcoming and comforting about the worn stair treads, the old band posters, peeling paint, and the reek of alcohol.

‘It’s on the second floor,’ says the security guard after checking my ID. I know, this is my third visit. I’ve gotten to know the event organiser a little, but she has someone else doing the door tonight.

While I’ve been making these notes, I look up and notice it’s passed ten thirty. The club is starting to fill up, which is nice. I’m still too self conscious to be dancing on an empty floor, I find my inhibitions shrink when the space is full of gyrating bodies and I can lose myself in the music.

A couple of cuties give me a smile as they enter. I don’t think I come here expecting to meet anyone, to feel accepted by other women is more than enough.

Suddenly the club is alive, the dance music has jumped up a notch in volume and I’m on the floor amidst a smiling queer throng. Lesbian couples, a few trans folk and groups of women dancing together. I feel my shoulders relax and let my feet do their thing. This is what I wanted to find tonight. Release and physical freedom in a welcoming space. My watch once again warns me I’m in a noisy environment, but I don’t care. There’s something almost Pavlovian about wanting to put one’s arms in the air when the sub woofers kick in during the chorus.

It’s odd to think I travelled only ten minutes away from that unfriendly crowd, to be here in this uninhibited, parallel universe. Music is still the main focus, but the experience so very different.

I’m in the same city, but feels like an alternate world.

A couple of hours later I stumble out, the lovely gal still on the door takes my hand and asks if I had a good time.

Always.