HoB: The London Queer Social Centre Opening Day

BRAG IS BACK!

We found another beautiful, empty and lonely-looking building. Ze told us to bring all our queer friends and come party with hir forever. We said we’d do 2 weeks, and ze said fine I guess that’ll do.

We’ll tell you where ze is nearer the time obvs.

We’re running from June 22nd to July 6th as an alternative to Pride London, an event that has become increasingly alienating and depoliticised as it has become larger, feeding on funds from ugly banks and corporations.

We run everything for free, spend as little money as possible and make things back from donations.

There’s going to be a full schedule of events coming up over the next couple of weeks, including more instalments of the intersectionality series, queer cinema, street parties, queering anarchism, queers in squatting, Bash Back! street patrols, poetry and a queer literary salon. More things to be confirmed and full programme coming soon.

www.houseofbrag.wordpress.com
Twitter: @HouseOfBrag
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Bash Back! South London

From London Queer Social Centre:

Last week some friends were out partying when they were transphobically/homophobically assaulted. No-one was badly hurt, and we managed to get together a team of people to chuck the aggy bigots out and then arrange an escort home for our friends. Appropriately enough this was after the Bash Back! themed Queer Dance Party, when we took to the streets with a mobile sound system and blockaded a police van for 15 minutes with shouts of “Transphobic coppers off our streets!”, in response to the cops’ violent mistreatment of a trans woman in soho (trigger warning: police violence, transphobia).

These acts, by civilians and cops alike, are attempts to police the boundaries of what is socially acceptable. They are attempts, by the use of violence and fear, to control how we present our genders. When we blockaded the police van it didn’t educate any of the cops on gender and sexuality, but coming together with our comrades, having fun and kicking off helped us take back control of ourselves.

London: Bash Back! themed Queer Dance Party Tonight!

Militant queers to the streets!

Bash Back! themed Queer Dance Party tonight @ Eileen House

Discussion from 7pm on LGBTQ+ issues and queer identity (see below)

“Some will read “queer” as synonymous with “gay and lesbian” or “LGBT”. This reading falls short. While those who would fit within the constructions of “L”, “G”, “B” or “T” could fall within the discursive limits of queer, queer is not a table area to inhabit. Queer is not merely another identity that can be tacked onto a list of neat social categories, nor the quantitative sum of our identities. Rather, it is the qualitative position of opposition to presentations of stability of an identity that problematizes the manageable limits of identity. Queer is a territory of tension, defined against the dominant narrative of white-hetero-monogamous-patriarchy, but also by an affinity with all who are marginalized, otherized and oppressed. Queer is the abnormal, the strange, the dangerous. Queer involves our sexuality and our gender, but so much more. It is our desire and fantasies and more still. Queer is the cohesion of everything in conflict with the heterosexual capitalist world. Queer is a total rejection of the regime of the Normal.” – The Queerest Insurrection

London: Upcoming Events

Friday 22nd February
7pm: Talk on Combe Haven anti-road resistance
8pm: Acoustic Open Mic Night

Wednesday 27th February
8pm: End:Civ Film Screening
+ Civilisation & Gentrification Discussion

Friday 1st March
4-6pm: Squat Cracking Workshop
Dinner to follow

Saturday 2nd March
7pm: Discussion on LGBTQ+* terminology and queer identity
8pm: Queer Dance Party!

*LGBTQ+ = Lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, trans*, queer + more