“I think the best thing for everyone directly involved is for the media interest to die down. To that end, I’m not willing to speak on it.”

That’s how one potential source for this article politely told me to kick rocks.

Opening in April 2025, the Last Ditch Bar in Greenfield, Mass., has been seen as a safe place for its Immunocompromised lesbian and queer clientele. But a backlash erupted in September after the bar loosened its mask mandate to lure more customers. Since then, the conversation has splintered. At first, the argument was whether the bar made the right call. Then it shifted to the media frenzy and whether this “intracommunal spat” should ever have been fodder for public scrutiny. But reducing this controversy to a referendum on masking ignores a third, more complicated discussion: What is the physical, psychological and existential toll on Immunocompromised people who want to co-exist safely, without condemnation and skepticism, in a mask-free world that seems indifferent to their condition?

“Masks are a medical device that allow many of us to do more,” says Jodi Taub , LCSW, a psychotherapist, author, and national speaker specializing in chronic illness, rare disease, and medical trauma, and author of More Than a Patient . “Please be kind and recognize that many people wearing masks live with a chronic health care condition or are supporting someone who does. Wearing a mask is not a political statement. It’s a health care accommodation.”

Even Last Ditch’s own policy shows how impractical a zero-exception rule would be. As an establishment that generates most of its earnings from beverage sales, the bar has always allowed patrons to lower their masks to sip a drink briefly. But skeptics criticize this “inconsistency,” arguing that it undercuts the purpose of high-filtration masks. It’s a small but telling example of how even strict precautions often have to bend to be practical.

6.6% of U.S. adults are immunosuppressed, according to a 2024 study using 2021 data, more than double the 2.7% estimate that had been the standard figure since 2013. ( University of Washington )

88% → 80% of Americans: in 2021, 88% said they wore a mask in stores all or most of the time; by 2024, 80% said they rarely or never do. ( Pew Research Center )

17.9% of U.S. adults have ever had Long COVID; 5.3% currently have it. ( CDC )

94% of patients in a HealthCentral survey said a doctor had ignored or dismissed their symptoms at some point; 40%+ of women avoided care altogether afterward. ( HealthCentral / AHCJ )

23 states and D.C. currently have laws limiting face coverings in public. ( ICNL )

For Taub’s clients, that bending takes the form of relentless mental exercises. “It is a constant calculation about how our behaviors may affect our health,” she says. “If I choose to go to a particular event, what do I need to do to attend safely? Is it indoors or outdoors? Will I need to remove my mask? Is this risk worth taking?”

Taub says there’s often judgment on top of that. “Some people eventually stop asking because they’ve experienced resistance or resentment from friends or family. There are places they simply cannot go anymore.”

Katie Drackert is all too familiar with that calculation. But Drackert, a disabled organizer in Austin who founded Clear the Air ATX after her own Long COVID symptoms worsened, doesn’t see daily risk calculation as the hardest part of her day. “The psychological toll of living with a complex condition such as Long Covid is far more exhausting than calculating airborne risk,” she says. “Calculating airborne risk assumes someone is well enough to leave their house or bed, which isn’t always the case. The fatigue from Long Covid or ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) can be so debilitating that choosing which task to prioritize will require compromising basic needs.”

Both women describe this experience as something akin to grief. Taub calls it losing “a restaurant, a bar, a community space” that previously felt safe, a loss that’s “not only about the physical location” but about belonging. Drackert, who used to go out several times a week, now manages maybe one night out every three or four months. “I still consider myself lucky,” she says. “There have been times I’ve been bedbound and my social life was completely reliant on the chronically ill and disabled communities I could access virtually.”

When the System Stops Believing You

Both women point to medical invalidation — when a doctor downplays, ignores, or denies a patient’s reported symptoms — as its own kind of injury, often with lasting consequences. Survey data show patients who experience this kind of invalidation are less likely to seek care in the future. Taub adds, “Not being believed comes up frequently in chronic illness care, but I’d distinguish that from questioning one’s perception of bodily risk. In my experience, difficulty trusting the body is more directly connected to the illness itself.”

Drackert, who is white, points to a racialized instance of medical invalidation that she observed. She describes watching a close friend, who is Black, go through the same medical system at the same time with the same illness, using the same strategies to get doctors to listen. “I would be the only one believed,” she says. “Their primary symptoms were far more severe than my own, and yet they were denied access over and over again, completely abandoned by the medical system.” She’s blunt about the conclusion: “I do not trust the medical system to serve people equally.”

A Fight That’s Moved Into Statehouses

Drackert has also testified before the Texas Legislature against a 2025 bill she says was built on stigma. “There is an attempt by the Texas legislature to sow distrust amongst strangers by framing people who mask as ‘bad’ with ‘ill intent,’” she says, noting the bill surfaced soon after Free Palestine protests gained momentum on University of Texas campuses. Even bills with medical exemptions, she argues, “force people to disclose their health status” and “give power to the police to decide if someone is wearing a mask for health reasons or not.”

Taub, speaking based on her clinical experience rather than the legislative fight Drackert describes, has seen a version of that stigma play out in her patients’ lives. “Masking adds another layer because it has become so politicized,” she says. “A person may be making a health care decision based on their medical condition and still find that other people assign political or social meaning to that decision.”

Both women agree that what the public reads contributes to the stigma. Taub says terms like “COVID masks” imply that masking belongs in the past. “For many of us, it does not,” she says. “I will be masking for a lifetime.” Drackert wants news coverage that resists turning illness into Last Ditch-style spectacles. Instead, she’d like to see stories of post-viral illness that offer real, preventive solutions such as improving indoor air quality.

Taub’s final request was for a little more introspection: “When I am wearing a mask, I am visibly communicating that I have a health care need. Instead of judging someone for wearing one, consider what it might mean to offer to put one on yourself.”

The Well Beings Blog supports the critical health and wellbeing of all individuals, to raise awareness, reduce stigma and discrimination, and change the public discourse. The Well Beings campaign was launched in 2020 by WETA, the flagship PBS station in Washington, D.C., beginning with the Youth Mental Health Project, followed by the 2022 documentary series Ken Burns Presents Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness, a film by Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers (Now streaming on the PBS App). WETA has continued its award-winning Well Beings campaign with the new documentary film Caregiving , executive produced by Bradley Cooper and Lea Pictures, that premiered June 24, 2025, streaming now on PBS.org.