A central Oregon community has rallied around a team of queer journalists after a local coffee shop threatened to use their magazine as “kindling” if they didn’t remove it from the store.
Ruth Vernotico, the publisher of Sisters, Oregon’s non-profit LGBTQ+ magazine SUS, had spoken to Sisters Coffee Company about displaying upcoming issues – a request they believed was initially approved.
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Several months later, Vernotico returned to the shop and gave the magazines to the manager to display. But everything changed when the owner saw the cover – which Advocate described as a “steamy, but PG” picture of two men kissing.
Vernotico then watched a tense conversation unfold between the owner and manager as they waited to order coffee. They told Advocatethe manager then approached them and “said that he thought it would be best if I took them with me so that they weren’t used for kindling in their fireplace.”
“I immediately felt this wash of shame kind of go over me,” Vernotico said. “I just grabbed them and walked out and I sat in my car… and I cried. Then I cried some more when I realized that I haven’t been embarrassed like that in a really long time. I haven’t been confronted with my gender and sexuality and all of that in a very long time.”
Vernotico recounted the story in a video on the magazine’s Instagram account, saying they decided to share the story so followers could “make informed decisions” about where to spend their money.
“When people ask us why it’s important to have our own spaces… This exact scenario is the reason why,” they added.
The video led to a flood of supportive messages from outraged LGBTQ+ people and allies, including other businesses who said the publication was welcome to display their magazines at their shops.
In a video the following day, Vernotico said at least fourteen current and past Sisters Coffee employees have reached out to them to recount the micro and macro aggressions they experience due to their LGBTQ+ identities while working there.
Maya Zavala, a queer former Sisters Coffee employee who has quit amidst the SUS drama, told Advocate the coffee shop had a culture “laced with micro to macro aggressions.”
“I was consistently misgendered all the time, even by my manager or other shift leads that know that I use they/them pronouns. I talked with my manager about that… but I just kind of gave up on feeling comfortable in that space.”
Vernotico also expressed disappointment in Sisters Coffee’s response. In a since-deleted Instagram post, the company accused Vernotico of misrepresenting the facts and said it had nothing against LGBTQ+ people.
The publisher later posted another video saying that they received a direct message from Julie Brendle, the wife of Sister’s Coffee Retail General Manager Derek Brendle, in which she called them a “pathetic excuse for a human being” and “implicated her husband in these feelings.”
In addition to a slew of supportive messages on Instagram, queer Sisters resident Bevyn Dyer and her mother both wrote letters directly to the owners.
Dyer blasted the shop for its “blatant dismissal” of Vernotico’s pain in its apology post. “As a queer person growing up in Sisters, I have witnessed firsthand the hate and attempts to cover that hate with pretty words. I understand that you are trying to communicate your appreciation for the queer community. The current apology, however, did not achieve what you were hoping.”
She told Advocate that her request to display the magazine was rejected. She was told it was against company policy to display more than two local papers in their store so that employees don’t have too many materials to deal with.
A statement from the company explained that “any potential verbal permission that might have been given to SUS to display their magazine would have been provided by an employee who did not have the authority to do so, and without our knowledge.”
Vernotico doesn’t believe the policy is to blame for the incident, maintaining that the owner only demanded they remove the magazines once he saw the cover.
The company also said that they are “evaluating our internal processes and communications to ensure all of our staff feel safe and supported. We are also considering what actions we can take to authentically show our support for the LGBTQ+ community here in Central Oregon as we learn and grow from this experience.”
Vernotico also emphasized he does not want “to cancel” Sisters Coffee but rather encourage customers to “vote with your dollar.” They also hoped Sisters Coffee would use this incident to reflect on how to do better for LGBTQ+ people, though they do not believe that has happened.
