It’s a Wednesday night in the East Portland Grand Avenue Historic District. We’re in a 130-year-old building that currently houses the cocktail bar Swan Dive. Up the creaky, wooden stairs on the second floor, a sold-out crowd anxiously awaits tonight’s spectacle.

“House of Danger” calls itself “Portland’s preeminent queer, wrestling variety show.” It happens once a month at Swan Dive bar and was born out of a love for wrestling and a need for people to practice with.

“I have been a performer in Portland for almost 10 years. I started getting into wrestling a couple years ago,” said Clancy Kramer, one of the founders of House of Danger. “But I found that I didn’t really have enough people to practice basics with.“

“Me and Clancy used to practice wrestling moves at Peninsula Park. We would lay a little tarp down on the grass and practice every single Tuesday Evening,” said Vi Le, Kramer’s partner in House of Danger.

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Le, who is an accountant in their day job, wrestles under the name The CPA.

“Every single wrestler is queer or trans. I’ve performed in every single one of the matches and it’s just really fun to come up with your persona — really like, nail down a performance and get to know so many people through this community,” said Le.

Queer comedy and drag are pretty common, but you don’t often hear about queer wrestling. Kramer points out a direct line between the two:

“I think a lot of people have made the point that wrestling is drag. Like, factually. Drag as an idea is the overt performance of a gender.”

And while there are similarities, House of Danger is different from other wrestling events.

“Regular pro wrestling, if they’re going to do queer story lines it’s usually a joke,” said Kramer.

The wrestlers at House of Danger take their personas and storylines seriously. For example, there’s a love triangle between the trust fund baby, Ca$h Coyote, The CPA, and Kylie Karma. Karma, the champion who is determined to hold onto her belt, sports a pink sparkly outfit similar to a figure skater. Another contestant, Ursa Rager is just getting his footing in the real world after being raised by bears. And don’t discount Vigo Volante. You may think you can take him, but he didn’t get the name The Italian Stallion by losing.

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As the wrestlers prepare for battle, the ring assistants set up thick, black wrestling mats in front of the stage on the floor. They are just a few feet from the audience. There’s no ring, no ropes, just a brick wall and a padded post that, if they’re lucky, they’ll avoid being thrown into. Half of the wrestling takes place down on the floor, grappling style. Kicks and throws are stylized — nobody is getting hurt here, but they are working hard.

On this particular night, Kylie Karma keeps her belt and, as she basks in her win, gets one last surprise. She whirls around to find The CPA down on one knee proposing marriage. The crowd was cheering too much to hear the proposal, but it was clear from the reaction she said yes.

At a time when it feels like many queer spaces have closed their doors, Kramer and Le have made space for something new.

“There was an audience of people who did want to come out and see this and experience this, but didn’t necessarily want to enter the spaces of pro wrestling,” said Kramer. “I think having queer in the title makes people feel more like ‘oh yeah, I can go to that. That’s safe.’”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/05/23/southeast-portland-queer-wrestlers-performers/