BGSQD

Compassion Is Worth More! Online Book Launch with Edafe Okporo and Guest Eric Cervini
2020-10-16 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join us for an evening of inspiration, wisdom, and empowerment with Edafe Okporo to celebrate the release of his new book Compassion Is Worth More! Using Your Civil Power to Create Change. Edafe will be joined in conversation by Eric Cervini, author of The Deviant’s War.
Our modern-day polarized world requires civil leaders who care deeply about understanding the people they serve. If you are worried about the state of the world, you have surely wondered how we might solve today’s biggest problems, such as climate change, or the global refugee crisis. Imagine leaving your house this morning and driving to work. Your route usually takes you over a bridge, but when you get to that spot, you discover the bridge has collapsed! What would you do? Bridges are meant to connect us, to help us surmount obstacles. Great leaders use their civil power to create change by serving as bridges for others. It takes courage to do this, and I want to share with you the experiences I have had in my years of being a bridge for others to empower you to be a better civil leader.
This is a free event, but donations of any amount to support the Bureau’s work are very much appreciated! You can make a donation when you register for the event. Thank you for your support!
Registration is required. Click on the link below to register:
Click here to register

Purchase Edafe Okporo’s Compassion Is Worth More! (Xlibris, 2020, hardcover, $24.99) from the Bureau

Purchase Eric Cervini’s The Deviant’s War (FSG, 2020, hardcover, $35) from the Bureau
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from our online store!

Edafe Okporo has always been a leader in times of difficulty, migrating from Nigeria to the United States as a refugee, overcoming great obstacles, and now leading a movement of building a compassionate society. Okporo is a luminary and an advocate for the rights of marginalized people. He is passionate about building bridges and extending a hand to communities in need.

Eric Cervini is an award-winning historian of LGBTQ+ history. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar. The Deviant’s War is his first book.

Jarboe, Purnell, and Pratt Read New Work
2020-10-01 18:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Readings of new work by Julian K. Jarboe (Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel), Brontez Purnell (100 Boyfriends) and David Pratt (Two Plays: The Snow Queen, November Door).
Registration is required. Click on the link below to register:
https://tinyurl.com/y2zqq62o

This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are very much appreciated. You can make a donation when you register on Eventbrite. Thank you for your support!

Both Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel (Lethe Press, 2020, paperback, $15) and Two Plays: The Snow Queen, November Door (Hosta Press, 2020, paperback, $15) are available for purchase from the Bureau. Click on either title to purchase. (And if you’d like David to sign the book, please let us know in the order comments section when you check out. Just be sure to include the name you’d like him to use for the inscription.)
100 Boyfriends (MCD x FSG, paperback, $15) will be released February 2, 2021. To pre-order the book from the Bureau click here.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

Julian K. Jarboe is the author of the collection Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel. More of their work can be found at juliankjarboe.com and on Twitter @JulianKJarboe. They live in Salem, Massachusetts.
David Pratt is the author of four novels (including a Lammy Award winner), a book of short stories, and several theater pieces. He has performed at Dixon Place, HERE and other venues in NYC, and at The Forge in Detroit. He is currently collaborating with Michigan artist Niki Williams on a series of 16 zines collectively titled The Book of Humiliation.
Brontez Purnell is a writer, musician, dancer, filmmaker, and performance artist. He is the author of a graphic novel, a novella, a children’s book, and the novel Since I Laid My Burden Down. The recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers’ Award for Fiction, he was named one of the thirty-two Black Male Writers of Our Time by T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018. Purnell is also the frontman for the band the Younger Lovers, a cofounder of the experimental dance group the Brontez Purnell Dance Company, the creator of the renowned cult zine Fag School, and the director of several short films, music videos, and the documentary Unstoppable Feat: The Dances of Ed Mock. Born in Triana, Alabama, he’s lived in Oakland, California, for more than a decade.

Voices of LGBTQ+: Let’s Start a Positive Conversation
2020-09-26 18:00 - 19:00 | NY
Why do so many people reject those who are different?
Though the mainstream acceptance of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Queer community has made great improvements over the past few years, many groups within our society still respond to the LGBTQ+ community with an overwhelming reaction of “us” vs. “them.” Despite the progress that has been made, hatred, misunderstanding, aggression, animosity, and violence still affect this community on a deep level. A strong ally, Lynda Wolters knows firsthand: she has come to have a deep respect for the community through her son, who is gay.
Including highly personal anecdotes, Voices of LGBTQ+: A Conversation Starter for Understanding, Supporting, and Protecting Gay, Bi, Trans, and Queer People outlines some of the most critical challenges the community faces today, with insights into:
• Homelessness
• Hate crimes
• Suicide
• Economic challenges
• Discrimination and lack of equality
• Religious and biblical conflicts
Though judgment and divisiveness still run deep, Wolters highlights the first key distinction that will help eradicate bigotry: those who are different are not choosing to be, they simply are, and it’s our differences that make us stronger. Voices of LGBTQ+ helps educate, dispel fears, and start positive conversations about what knowing, loving, or simply peacefully and positively coexisting with someone in the LGBTQ+ community truly means.
This is a free event, but the authors encourage attendees to make a donation of any amount to support the Bureau’s work. You can make a donation when you register for the event. Thank you for your support!
Registration for this event is required.
Click here to register
On the day of the event, Saturday, September 26, the Bureau will send an email to all who have registered with the link to the event on Zoom.
Paintings featured in the event flyer and on the book cover by Chris Taylor.
@artistchris on Instagram

Purchase Voices of LGBTQ+ from the Bureau!
Mascot Books, 2020, Hardcover, $24.95

Participants:
Lynda was born and raised in a tiny farming community of four hundred in northern Idaho, where she worked on the family farm. After high school, she traveled to New York to be a nanny for a few months before moving to Las Vegas to further her education. She moved back home to Idaho to raise her three sons while working in the legal field, a career that spanned over thirty years.
Watching her gay son navigate the LGBTQ+ community and the world in general, Lynda recognized a need to educate through a parent’s eye, what LGBTQ+ people endure that others are immune or ignorant to simply because of gender identity or sexual orientation.
Lynda lives in Boise, Idaho, with her husband and long-haired dachshund, Tucker “Bug,” where she spends her days writing and volunteering.
Voices of LGBTQ+ is the second in the Voices Book Series, following the successful, Voices of Cancer.

Shannon grew up in a very conservative sector of Eastern Idaho where it was not encouraged or allowed to live an authentic life if that life were different than outwardly perceived.
Shannon attended the University of Idaho where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a bachelors degree in electrical engineering and has worked in the STEM field for twenty years. She is a Senior Member of Technical Staff managing a team of software developers for an international company.
As a transgender woman, Shannon proudly represents her community and strives to be a positive example for other women and girls like her.

When asked to describe himself, Hunter’s initial comment is, “I am kind.” Finishing up his bachelors in molecular biology, Hunter has worked his way through school as a server and barista, working most recently as a regional trainer for a large, national coffee chain.
When not studying or working, Hunter enjoys all things outdoors and has a newfound interest in ballet, recently being cast as Beast in a Beauty and the Beast production.
Hunter is a gay man who lives comfortably out to the world. He shares his time and space with his two fur-babies.

TELL 65: Money
2020-09-19 18:00 - 19:15 | NY
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Money is the theme of the 65th TELL, on Saturday, September 19, 2020, 6 to 7:15 PM (EST). Featuring Nina Ki, E. Leifer, and TL Thompson.
The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the Eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.
Donations for the performers and the Bureau are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register on the Eventbrite page.
https://tinyurl.com/y35upour

Photograph by Grace Chu
Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

Nina Ki is a Queerean (Queer + Korean) American playwright who uses fantasy and magical realism to give voice to the communities that she belongs to. Originally from California, she now lives with her partner and three dogs in Brooklyn. She likes her dogs better than most people.

Coming from a background in the arts, E. Leifer started their career as a painter and scenic artist, transitioning into film production and creative direction. They expanded their skill sets by learning about marketing and business, and held positions as Product Styling Manager for Net-A-Porter, Mr. Porter and Director of Creative Production at Intermix. As a non-binary member of the trans community and veteran in the fashion industry, E. utilizes the culmination of all her experiences to learn and grow with the industry, as a brand consultant, photographer and the CDO/ Co- Owner of Play Out Apparel, a gender equal, social good enterprise that promotes diversity, inclusion and body positive marketing.

TL Thompson credits include: Broadway: Straight White Men(Person In Charge u/s),Second Stage Theater. Theater: Is This A Room?(Agent Taylor), Vineyard Theater. Waafrika 123(Aweeno), Criminal Queerness Festival. NERVOUS/SYSTEM(Pollster), BAM Next Wave. AFTER (Company)Public Theater Podcasts: Meet Cute Podcast. Adventures in New America. Welcome to Nightvale. Webseries: THESE/THEMS (TI), Dir. Jett Garrison. THE HUNTED(Nic), Dir. Crystal Arnette. Films: Flu$h (Wrex), Dir. Heather Acs. Friday Afternoon Dir. Paige Campbell. TL is also NY Neo Futurist, who performs frequently in The Infinite Wrench, an ongoing attempt to perform 30 plays in one hour. TLThompsonactor.com.

Bodies and Barriers: Editor Adrian Shanker in Conversation with Contributors
2020-09-17 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Named by NBC News as one of “10 LGBTQ Books to watch out for in 2020” and by Book Riot as one of the “six best books addressing healthcare system inequities,” Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health is the first book written by LGBT healthcare consumers to inform the healthcare system and make it work more equitably for all of us. The critically-acclaimed book is structured chronologically to take the reader on a journey through the major stages of life for LGBT people. At this special virtual event hosted by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, book editor Adrian Shanker and contributing authors Dr. Imani Woody, Atticus Ranck, Liz Margolies, and Laura Jacobs will speak about the importance of LGBTQ people sharing our healthcare experiences and advocating for health equity for the LGBTQ patient population.
Check out this article at Gay City News about Bodies and Barriers, which includes an interview with Adrian Shanker! “A Diverse, Collaborative Look at LGBTQ Health,” by Sharon Papo, posted on September 9, 2020.
This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau’s work are always welcome!
If you’d like to donate to the Bureau, you can do so when you register for the event on Eventbrite. Thank you for your support!
Registration for this event is required.
Click here to register

Participants:
Adrian Shanker is editor of Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health and executive director of Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown, PA. A specialist in LGBT health policy, he developed leading-edge health promotion campaigns to advance health equity through behavioral, clinical, and policy changes. Adrian administered data collection for the 2015, 2018, and 2020 Pennsylvania LGBT Health Needs Assessments. Adrian serves as Commissioner and health committee co-chair on the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs.

Atticus Ranck is the Health Program Education Coordinator with the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute. He previously worked as the Health Programs and Supportive Services Manager at Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania and as director of Transgender Services for SunServe, an LGBT nonprofit mental health center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Atticus has trained over one thousand individuals on various aspects LGBT cultural competency over dozens of trainings across the country. Atticus earned his MA in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Florida Atlantic University and a BA in Creative Writing from Slippery Rock University. In his free time, Atticus enjoys building and restoring furniture and is a huge Harry Potter nerd.

Dr. Imani Woody is the founding director and CEO of Mary’s House for Older Adults, Inc. She has a PhD in Human Services, specializing in nonprofit management. Her thesis is titled Lift Every Voice: A Qualitative Exploration of Ageism and Heterosexism as Experienced by Older African American Lesbian Women and Gay Males When Addressing Social Services Needs. She holds an MA in Human Services from Lincoln University and is a graduate of Georgetown University’s paralegal program. Dr. Woody has been an advocate of women, people of color, and LGBT/SGL issues for more than twenty years and is a member of the National LGBT Elder Housing Initiative and the DC Mayor’s World Health Organization Age-Friendly Cities Commission. She is also the program officer for the Older Adults Advisory Council for Metropolitan Community Churches and a board member of the LGBT Technology Partnership. She lives with her wife of seventeen years in Brookland, Washington, DC.

Laura A. Jacobs, LCSW-R, is a trans- and genderqueer-identified psychotherapist, activist, author, and public speaker in the New York City area working with transgender and gender-nonbinary, LGBT, and alternate lifestyle communities of BDSM, non-monogamy, and sex work. They serve as chair of the board of directors for the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York City, have been featured in television, radio, and print media, and have presented at countless community and healthcare conferences, professional associations, medical schools, and other organizations. Laura is the recipient of a 2018 Gay City News Impact Award, as well as the 2017 Dorothy Kartashovich Award from the Community Health Center Association of New York State. They are coauthor, with Laura Erickson-Schroth, of “You’re in the Wrong Bathroom!” and 20 Other Myths and Misconceptions about Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People. As Lawrence Jacobs, they worked as a musician, composer, photographer, and in less glamorous corporate middle management.

Liz Margolies, LCSW, founder and former executive director of the National LGBT Cancer Network, has served the LGBT community for over 40 years as a psychotherapist and political activist. Liz is a psychotherapist in private practice, specializing in trauma, loss, health disparities and sexuality. Margolies is a co-author on multiple peer-reviewed articles and chapters, several based on the Network’s original research on LGBT cancer survivors. As a result of her work for this underserved community, Margolies was chosen as one of the OUT100 in 2014.

Shani Mootoo in Conversation with John Elizabeth Stintzi
2020-09-15 19:00 - 20:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Shani Mootoo presents her latest novel Polar Vortex, in conversation with John Elizabeth Stintzi (Vanishing Monuments, Arsenal Pulp Press) in this virtual event hosted by the Bureau.
This is a free event, but the authors encourage attendees to make a donation of any amount to the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
Registration for this event is required.
Click here to register
On the day of the event, Tuesday, September 15, the Bureau will send an email to all who have registered with the link to the event on Zoom.
Purchase Polar Vortex from the Bureau!

Akashic Books, 2020, paperback, $16.95

Purchase Vanishing Monuments from the Bureau!Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020, paperback, $17.95

John Elizabeth Stintzi is a non-binary novelist and poet. They were the recipient of the 2019 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, and their work has appeared in Kenyon Review, The Malahat Review, and Ploughshares. They are the author of the novel Vanishing Monuments as well as the poetry collection Junebat.
Shani Mootoo is a novelist, poet, and visual artist. Her novels include Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and short-listed for a Lambda Literary Award; Valmiki’s Daughter, long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize; He Drown She in the Sea, long-listed for the Dublin Impac Award; and Cereus Blooms at Night, short-listed for several prizes including the Giller Prize, and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. She is also a recipient of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship, and the Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize.

TELL 64: My Queerantine
2020-08-15 18:00 - 19:15 | NY
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
My Queerantine is the theme of the 64th TELL, on Saturday, August 15, 2020, 6 to 7:15 PM (EST). Featuring Mariel Reyes, Substantia Jones, and Bianca Dagga.
The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the Eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.
Donations for the performers are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register on the Eventbrite page.
https://tinyurl.com/yyqak6op

Photograph by Grace Chu
Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

An art photographer since the ’80s, and a radio producer and host for the better part of 25 years, Substantia Jones became a photo-activist in 2007, launching the Body Politics campaign the Adipositivity Project, featuring her photos of those with non-conforming bodies (fat people, disabled folks, trans and genderqueer), always with the overwhelming focus on fat people. The website, adipositivity.com, hosts approximately 800 of her photographs of unapologetic naked fat people, and has been visited over 11 million times. She describes the project as “equal parts feminism, fuckyouism, and fat.” Her photography has been featured internationally in books, magazines, and news outlets, and has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the globe. She lectures about her Fat Liberation work in schools, universities, museums, and conferences, but storytelling kind of scares her, so please be gentle.

Mariel Reyes is an Queer Afrolatinx performance artist & producer, with works based out of some of your favorite experimental theater spaces in NYC (Dixon Place, Brooklyn Arts Exchange) She has also appeared on screen in the film “Appropriate Behaviour” which premiered at Sundance in 2014 and the award winning web series “The Feels” currently in its third season.

Bianca Dagga is a fierce, queer multi-cultural burlesque performer based in NYC. Since stepping into the spotlight in 2009, Bianca has toured the country gracing stages all over the U.S. map. In February 2016 she made her international debut in Macau, China with Brown Girls Burlesque. In September 2019 Bianca was featured in the Taormina Burlesque Festival, in Taormina, Italy. In 2014 she was crowned Princess Of Latin Burlesque at the inaugural Latin Burlesque Festival in Dallas, TX. She was awarded “sexiest burlesque performer”at GO! magazine’s lesbian nightlife awards in 2010.
All of Bianca’s acts speak true to who she is at her core. The Nuyorican Warrior Woman comes out in every hip roll, thrust, and twirl! When she is not on the burlesque stage, she is also a gogo and pole dancer. Aside from dance, Bianca is a professional art model, and a fine jeweler. Bianca stripteases for the sake of humanity, because at the end of the day when we take off our clothes, what is left is our minds, hearts, and souls.

Genevieve Hudson & Alden Jones: A Virtual Reading with the Bureau
2020-07-25 18:00 - 19:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join the Bureau online for a reading with Genevieve Hudson (Boys of Alabama) and Alden Jones (The Wanting Was a Wilderness: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and the Art of Memoir) on Saturday, July 25th, 6 to 7 PM EST.
Registration on Eventbrite is required. Register below:
https://tinyurl.com/y9k2ty4f
Genevieve Hudson will read from her new novel, Boys of Alabama. Melissa Febos says of Boys of Alabama: “This novel is a love song to outsiders of all kinds, a queer love story about the ways we find to heal ourselves and each other, and proof that there can be magic amid the burdens of masculinity. Hudson’s prose is perfect and I will remember her Boys of Alabama for a long, long time.”

Genevieve Hudson’s previous books are the critical memoir A Little in Love with Everyone, and Pretend We Live Here: Stories, which was a 2019 Lambda Literary Award finalist. She has received fellowships from the Fulbright Program, The MacDowell Colony, Caldera Arts, and The Vermont Studio Center. She lives in Portland, OR. genevievehudsonwriter.com
Alden Jones will read from her new bibliomemoir, The Wanting Was a Wilderness: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and the Art of Memoir. Alex Marzano-Lesnevich says of The Wanting Was a Wilderness: “Alden Jones intended to write a reckoning with a contemporary literary classic — but she has written far more than that. To carefully dissect Wild, she finds she must consider her own quests: her own time in the wild; her self-discoveries as a queer woman; and how she can both live and tell an authentic story. This is a beautiful, lyric, unexpected book about the power of memoir and how desire both leads us into the wilderness and makes for us a map. The Wanting Was a Wilderness is a book for readers, true readers, to treasure.”

Alden Jones’s previous books are The Blind Masseuse, a finalist for the PEN Diamonstein-Spielvogal Award, and Unaccompanied Minors, winner of the New American Fiction Prize and a finalist for a Lambda and a Publishing Triangle Award. She teaches at Emerson College and is core faculty in the Newport MFA. aldenjones.com

This event is free, but the authors and the Bureau ask attendees to make a donation of $10 or more to NYC’s LGBT Community Center if you have the means to do so.
RSVP on Eventbrite in order to receive the link to the Zoom meeting (required).
Order Hudson’s Boys of Alabama (Liveright Publishing, May 19, 2020, hardcover, $26.95) from the Bureau. Send us an email with “Order Hudson’s Boys of Alabama” in the subject line at contact@bgsqd.com. Please include:
Name:
Ship-to address:
Phone number:
Venmo or PayPal handle:
(or we can take your credit card info over the phone)

Order Jones’s The Wanting Was a Wilderness (Fiction Advocate, May 12, 2020, paperback, $19.95) directly from the publisher:
https://fictionadvocate.com/afterwords/the-wanting-was-a-wilderness/

Author Matthew Burgess Discusses Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring
2020-07-24 18:00 - 19:00 | NY
Join the Bureau online for a conversation about Keith Haring’s life, art, and lasting cultural influence with author of Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring, Matthew Burgess, and special guest, author Tom Eubanks (Ghosts of St. Vincent’s).
This event is free, but registration on Eventbrite is required. We will send out the link to the event on the day of the event.
Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/yc5zcdxk

About the book:
Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring
Matthew Burgess, Author
Josh Cochran, Illustrator
Enchanted Lion Books, May 19, 2020, Hardcover, $18.95
Target Age Group: 5 to 13
Purchase Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring from Enchanted Lion Books

From the publisher:
“Truly devoted to the idea of public art, Haring created murals wherever he went.
“From Matthew Burgess, the much-acclaimed author of Enormous Smallness, comes Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring. Often seen drawing in white chalk on the matte black paper of unused advertising space in the subway, Haring’s iconic pop art and graffiti-like style transformed the New York City underground in the 1980s. A member of the LGBTQ community, Haring died tragically at the age of thirty-one from AIDS-related complications. Illustrated in paint by Josh Cochran, himself a specialist in bright, dense, conceptual drawings, this honest, celebratory book honors Haring’s life and art, along with his very special connection with kids.”

“Thirty years after Keith Haring’s death of AIDS-related complications, this vibrant picture book brings the iconic pop artist’s work and story to the hearts of a new generation. Often featuring a bold black line, Cochran’s painterly illustrations drive the narrative–bursting with movement and color–utilizing a wide variety of perspectives and both spot and full-bleed illustrations to dance around the text in a suitably neo-expressionist tribute to the subject. Stylized and simplified figures fill the pages with smiling faces in a broad spectrum of skin tones and body types, opening the door on Haring’s passionately held belief that ‘Art is for everybody.’ Without erasing or dwelling on any particular aspect of Haring’s personal life, author Burgess outlines Haring’s relationships with art, with children, and with his partner, Juan DuBose, in straightforward, accessible language–from his childhood in Pennsylvania to his ‘final mark’ in Pisa, Italy (five months before his death)–with the same bold honesty and vibrance visible in his subject’s art career. Biographical, author’s, and illustrator’s notes back up the book, supplementing the broad strokes of the text with finer detail and more individual perspectives on Haring’s personal, political, and artistic legacies. An inspired, and inspiring, continuation of Haring’s intention.” –Kirkus

Matthew Burgess is an Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College. He is the author of a poetry collection, Slippers for Elsewhere (UpSet Press, 2014), and three children’s books: Enormous Smallness: A Story of E. E. Cummings (Enchanted Lion Books, 2015), The Unbudgeable Curmudgeon (Knopf, 2019), and the newly released Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring (ELB, 2020). He has edited an anthology of visual art and writing titled Dream Closet: Meditations on Childhood Space (Secretary Press, 2016), as well as a recent collection titled Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry (Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 2019). More books are forthcoming, including The Bear and The Moon (Chronicle, 2020), Make Meatballs Sing: The Life & Art of Corita Kent (ELB, 2021), and Bird Boy (Knopf, 2021). A poet-in-residence in New York City public schools since 2001, Matthew also serves as a contributing editor of Teachers & Writers Magazine.

TELL 63: My Body
2020-07-18 18:00 - 19:15 | NY
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
My Body is the theme of the 63rd TELL, on Saturday, July 18, 2020, 6 to 7:15 PM (EST). Featuring Carla Gaskins-Nathan, Vie Paula, and Brian Belovitch.
The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the Eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.
Donations for the performers are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register on the Eventbrite page.
https://tinyurl.com/yadq4fm6
Photograph by Grace Chu

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

Carla Gaskins-Nathan (pronouns she/they) is the Brooklyn and now resides in Harlem. Carla is the founder and CEO of Zelah LLC, which includes their private massage practice, Rooted Bodywork. Carla is a consultant, educator and healing artist that believes true holistic wellness must be rooted in healing, social and racial justice.
Carla preformed and curated while living in Minneapolis in the 90s and 2000s. Their performance work includes spoken word, drag, DJ, VJ and performance art. Carla has preformed at Twin Cities Black Pride, the main stage of Twin Cities Pride, Intermedia Arts, Patrick’s Cabaret and other LGBTQIA events.
Carla’s work is open to all that see the importance of holistic wellness with a focus on loving Blackness and working with LGBTQIA+ communities of color.

South Bronx bred, performance fed, Vie Paula is a Caretaker, Thing Maker, Singer/Songwriter, and Licensed Massage Therapist striving to learn how to tell the whole truth and spend as much time as possible with their roommate’s cat. With night life entertainment in the far away past and a recent foray into all things extra, Vie wants to see you and be seen by you. They are currently working on staying connected and engaged, figuring out what fun is, and creating a life worth staying awake for.

Brian Belovitch, author, activist and longtime resident of NYC also has a storied career as a writer and gender outlier. He’s appeared on New York stages for more than three decades. Recently he was featured on The Moth Storytelling hour on NPR relating a story from his recently published memoir, Trans Figured: My Journey from Boy to Girl to Woman to Man. In 2019, Brian was a recipient of the Acker award for writing that is given annually to East Village, NY avant-garde artists. As a playwright, his Off-Broadway play, Boys Don’t Wear Lipstick, was honored with a 2000 GLAAD nomination. This June, Brian was named one of the 50 most influential LGBTQ authors of all time by Barnes and Noble and invited to participate in the 50th anniversary of Stonewall Gay Pride Parade in New York City. In November 2019, Brian was the subject of a documentary film debuting its world premiere at DOC NYC titled I’m Gonna Make You Love Me directed by Karen Bernstein. As a long- term survivor of HIV Brian lives proudly as a beloved gay man, advocating on behalf of the LGBTQ community in all its wondrous expressions.

Join the Bureau at the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality
2020-06-28 13:00 - 17:00 | NY
Please join the Bureau at this important march on Pride Sunday!
From Reclaim Pride Coalition‘s website:
On Sunday, June 28th, at 1pm, the Reclaim Pride Coalition will be in the streets of Manhattan for its second annual Queer Liberation March — the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality. Marchers will gather at 12:45pm at Foley Square on Centre St and step off at 1pm sharp.
Marchers are asked to wear face masks to protect against COVID-19 and to maintain safe distancing. Reclaim Pride can provide a limited number of masks, hand sanitizer and water to those who need them. And Reclaim Pride will livestream the March online at @queermarch on FB and Twitter/Periscope and via Youtube live on reclaimpridenyc.org for those who can’t attend in person. This March, like all current protest Marches, does not have a City/NYPD permit.
“We’re horrified by the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Layleen Polanco, Rayshard Brooks and untold numbers of others,” said Reclaim Pride’s Francesca Barjon, “and we’re mourning the endless violent deaths of Black trans women and men like Dominique ‘Rem’mie’ Fells and Riah Milton. So, inspired by the historic, Black-led protest movement that has taken to the streets here in NYC and across the world, Reclaim Pride supports demands for immediate defunding, disarming, dismantling, and reimagining of police forces.”
Reclaim Pride joins with abolitionists such as Mariambe Kaba and others in several cities in demanding a fifty percent reduction in the NYPD budget with a fifty percent reduction in the police force. Those funds must be dedicated to support and services including housing, healthcare, education and reparative and transformative justice for Black communities. New York City must prioritize reparations for those who’ve been oppressed and murdered for hundreds of years.
While all Black people are at constant risk of police brutality and murder, Reclaim Pride, as queer and trans activists , recognizes that Black Trans, Gender Non-Conforming, and Non Binary people, especially Black Trans Women, are faced with the intersection of vicious state and societal racism, transphobia, misogyny, and classism. This must stop now.
For the complete statement of purpose, see below or download the PDF
The March will be wheelchair accessible. For other questions about accessibility, contact access@reclaimpridenyc.org.
Website: www.reclaimpridenyc.org
Facebook: @QueerMarch
Twitter: @QueerMarch
Instagram: @QueerMarch
Reclaim Pride Coalition (RPC) is a New York City-based group comprised of LGBTQ+ activists in alliance with dozens of grassroots community groups, nationally and internationally. In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, RPC mobilized more than 45,000 people to recreate the original 1970 Gay Pride march route uptown from Stonewall to Central Park. This March, the Queer Liberation March, was a people’s protest march without corporate funding, corporate floats, or a police contingent.

TELL 62: Queer Black Lives Matter
2020-06-27 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
Queer Black Lives Matter is the theme of the 62nd TELL, on Saturday, June 27, 2020, 6 to 8 PM (EST). Co-hosted by Drae Campbell & Shannon Matesky. Featuring stories by ehag the seahag, Sebastian J. Flowers, Heather Lynn Johnson, and Ronnie Mae Painter.
The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.
Donations for the performers are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register for the event on eventbrite.
https://tinyurl.com/ydbrvagk

Photograph by Grace Chu

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

ehag the sea hag is a media maker and professor and underwater creature who thinks a lot about race and freedom.

Sebastian J. Flowers aka Alkaline Sunboi is a 1st generation immigrant and Brooklyn native, model, actor, and vegan in NYC. With indigenous roots in Belize and Honduras, Central America, practicing a life of peace, love, physical health and spiritual wellness has been a natural catalyst for his 15 years of activism in the LGBTQ and POC communities across the country. Despite incestuous sexual abuse as young as 7 years old, poverty, nearly dying twice due to gender affirming surgery, this female to male transgender has no sight of slowing down. Sebastian, 31 years old, has a large following on social media for his dance moves and positive messages and aspires to use it as a platform for his acting and modeling career. Sebastian dreams of being an international actor, successful philanthropist and investor. His most recent acting roles are on several episodes of POSE on FX (season 2), Law & Order: SVU on NBC, Blue Bloods on CBS, and independent short film Chasing Love. Feel free to check out Sebastian’s reality documentary series on YouTube, “LEGENDARY,” highlighting his life as an Afro Latino female to male transgender, dating, discussing mental health & wellness, cooking vegan on a low income, student financial advice, Vogue & Mua tips, traveling while Queer, and interviewing prominent Queer youth & Queer people of color in NYC and the world.
Instagram: @BelizeanVegan
Facebook: Facebook.com/BelizeanVegan
YouTube: Belizean Vegan

Heather Lynn Johnson is a poet, artist and a performer living in Brooklyn. She is currently a fellow at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, author of The Survival Guide For Queer Black Youth (Inpatient Press, 2017), and the 2017 literary fellow for the Queer|Art|Mentorship program. Johnson’s work is characterized by its lyricism and cultural critique. Her formal approach to the narrative, whether visual or poetic, is distinguished by her willingness to lay bare her own existence. She is working on her next book of poetry I Owe You Nothing: How to be Black and Free. Johnson received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Shannon Matesky is an actress, writer, director, producer and an organizer from Berkeley, California. She is creator and curator of Queer Abstract, a monthly performance series in Brooklyn. As an actress Shannon has performed with a range of theater companies including The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theater, and The Inconvenience. She has been featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, Nuyorican Poets Cafe and elsewhere. Shannon has produced campaigns and festivals across the United States, including the Brave New Voices International Teen Poetry Festival, Life is Living, and The Fly Honey Show. Shannon currently works with Urban Word NYC. For more information visit www.shannonmatesky.com

A native New Yorker born and raised in Astoria, Queens, Ronnie Mae Painter is a Brooklyn-based artist who’s primary media are painting on canvas and works on paper. She is also a published author and poet. Her literary works can be found in the anthology “Are Italians White”, edited by Jennifer Guglielmo and Salvatore Salerno. Painter’s experiences growing up as a woman of African-American and Italian-American biracial descent during the 1970s are transcended through both her visual and literary works in energetic movements and a shouting tone.

United Queerdom: Virtual Book Launch with Dan Glass & Panel of Activists
2020-06-25 18:00 - 20:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and The LGBT Community Center host a virtual book launch for United Queerdom: From the Legends of the Gay Liberation Front to the Queers of Tomorrow on Thursday, June 25th, at 6 PM NYC time. Join us for a special event celebrating the radical roots of Pride and our ongoing journey for ‘Absolute Freedom for All’ an evening of discussion, readings, agitations, and celebrations on the current and future movements for queer liberation.
Dan Glass will be joined by Stuart Feather, Sunitha Dwarakanath, Sarah Schulman, and Jason Lamar Walker.
This event is free, but we encourage attendees to make donations that we will collect on behalf of Black Lives Matter.

Please register for this event here (required)

Pre-order United Queerdom (Zed Books, July 15, 2020, paperback, $22.95) from the Bureau! Write to us at contact@bgsqd.comwith your
Name:
Ship-to address:
Phone number:
Venmo or PayPal handle:
(or we can take your credit card info over the phone)

Dan Glass is a sex-positive, queer, healthcare and human rights award-winning activist, performer, presenter and writer. Reforming ‘Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) London chapter in 2013 has catalysed healthcare and sex-positive programmes including campaigning for PREP, protecting the National Health Service through presenting “Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Great NHS Sell-Off” which won “Award of Excellence” at the DOCS Without Borders Film Festival, producing ‘HIV / HEP Blind Date’ a theatre dating- show for people living with HIV / HEP to share the realities of life, love and struggle as well as enabling ‘HIV anti-stigma classes as part of the anti-fascist ‘Beyond UKIP Cabaret’ in Nigel Farage’s boozer. Dan has won Attitude Magazine’s campaigning role models for LGBTQI youth + a Guardian ‘UK youth climate leader’, 2017 ‘Activist of the Year’ with the ‘Sexual Freedom Awards’ and was announced a ‘BBC Greater Londoner’ in 2019 for founding ‘Queer Tours of London – A Mince Through Time’ and is part of the global In Place of War artist movement. An agitator from the Training for Transformation educational programme born out of the Anti-Apartheid movement, the core of dan’s work is the development of critical consciousness and creativity to spur people ‘to read their reality and write their own history’. Dans recent programmes involve catalysing ‘Queer Night Pride’ and ‘Bender Defenders’ to confront rising LGBT+ hate crime, facilitating the Gay Liberation Front 50th anniversary Pride celebrations and presenting ‘Never Again – Fighting the Polish far-right’ and ‘Weaponising Anti-semitism’. During the COVID-19 epidemic dan was part of the Coronavirus cabaret: the online show combating social isolation’. Contact dan at www.theglassishalffull.co.uk and at alright@theglassishalffull.co.uk – Twitter #danglassisfull

Stuart Feather is a GLF activist and took part in the first public demonstration of homosexuals in the UK in 1970. His political autobiography Blowing the Lid: Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution and Radical Queens was published in 2016. Feather was also a member 1977 – 1993 of the gay theatre group Bloolips, winners of a New York OBIE award in 1981. See Stuarts TED Talks here:
TEDxHultLondon – The LGBTQ+ and the Gay Liberation Front
Neil Bartlett: “Blowing the Lid: Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution and Radical Queens is invaluable as well as entertaining first hand radical testimony from the period, essential for anyone who wants to understand how this country has changed and who wants to think about how it could be changed more.”

Sunitha Dwarakanath is a Queer South Asian from London, UK. Sunitha organises with the QTIPOC and LGBTQIA+ black and people of colour bloc with ‘Queer Night Pride’ – a movement challenging the recent rise in LGBT+ hate crime. Sunitha grew up around her mum’s family where politics about Sri Lanka were constantly being discussed and was recently prompted to campaign for Labour in the last election because of her difficult experiences as an Asian person in queer spaces and wider society. Sunitha is also part of the ‘Riposte’ nightclub collective – one of London’s leading queer techno art movements.

Sarah Schulman’s work as a novelist, nonfiction writer, playwright, screenwriter and AIDS historian is devoted to social change and to the making of more liveable-socially, economically, politically-lives. Her most famous works include ‘The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination’ and ‘Israel/Palestine and the Queer International’, both of which foreground the relevance of gender/sexual politics in understanding- and challenging- violent socio-political systems; the former through a history of AIDS and gentrification in New York, the latter through an exploration of the role of ‘pinkwashing’ and ‘homonationalism’ in the continued occupation of Palestinian Territories.
Schulman is and has always been a passionate activist and campaigner. Member of the international direct action group ACT-UP, founder of the ACT UP Oral History Project, and co-founder of the Lesbian Avengers, she blends her intellectual and political endeavours in a way which provides as much space for an interrogation of multiple systems of oppression as it does for their ultimate destitution.

Jason Lamar Walker is a nationally recognized activist, organizing within the center of Black Queer Liberation. Formerly from VOCAL New York, Jason gained his notoriety by bringing together thousands of New Yorkers living with HIV to pass city and state laws and to influence federal policies. In 2015, he helped win an eight-year battle ensuring that formerly homeless New Yorkers living with HIV could maintain their housing by passage of the 30% Rent Cap. Thanks to this work, more than 11,000 members of his community have been able to remain in their homes. In 2016, Jason helped to score a second major victory that expanded those policies and lifesaving benefits to all New York City residents living with HIV in a campaign that is commonly referred to as “HASA for All”.
Jason’s devotion to social justice work extends prior to joining VOCAL’s team. He began organizing as a student at the University of Louisville serving as President of the NAACP, Co-Chair of the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Co-founder of BlkOut – the first LGBTQ recognized student organization for People of Color in the state of Kentucky. In 2012, following the murder of Trayvon Martin, Jason was leading organizer in a citywide solidarity rally, which lead to the creation of #Louisville4Trayvon, now the Louisville Chapter of Black Lives Matter.
Having his roots in organizing as a youth, Jason supported the growth and development of Queerocracy, a youth organizing and leadership development program. Queerocracy works with homeless and street involved queer youth to develop and execute policy advocacy strategies and direct actions to ensure Black and Brown LGBTQ youth have access to equality and equity.
Jason has served on New York State’s Ending the Epidemic advisory groups for Black Men who have Sex with Men and Young Adults to assist in the development of specific implementation strategies to optimize the Blueprint to End the HIV/AIDS Epidemic’s impact on Black men and young adults.
He has been recognized by POZ Magazine’s 2014 Top 100 List, the National Black Justice Coalition as a Black LGBTQ/SGL Emerging Leaders to Watch, is 2016 recipient of the People for the American Way Foundation’s Norman Lear Award and the NYC Black Gay Pride’s Joseph Jefferson Award, and was acknowledged by City & State New York in 2018 as one of the 10 LGBT Leaders on the Rise list. Most recently, Jason became the 2019 recipient of the Ali Forney Centers Luminary Award and Jason has been featured on Capital Tonight, MSNBC’s All in with Chris Hayes, and NY1’s Inside City Hall.

Reclaiming Queer Childhoods: Dual Book Release - Online Event
2020-06-18 19:00 - 20:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Hosted and moderated by Chicago’s own Leanna Burton! Join Marina Labarthe del Solar and Lexie Bean to celebrate their new works celebrating adult queer and trans reclamation of childhood mediums. Marina, co-founder of Enby Spoken Histories, with The Trans Coloring Book! And Lexie Bean, curator of Lambda Finalist Written on the Body, with their debut middle grade novel The Ship We Built.
They will share from their books and be in dialogue with the one and only Peppermint! The three will share on questions of who gets to have full and representational childhoods, ways art serves as reclamation, and how reforming “child-like” mediums can create new futures and new understandings of love.
There will also be a special performance by queer pop artist, Be Steadwell! Who may also be a part of the panel discussion 🙂
Purchase a copy of The Ship We Built (Dial Books, 2020, hardcover, $16.99) from the Bureau. Write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with the subject line “Order The Ship We Built” and the following included in the body of the email:
Name:
Ship-to address:
Phone number:
Venmo or PayPal handle:
(or we can take your credit card info over the phone)
Marina’s Trans Coloring Book (paperback, $10) can be purchased on their site:
https://okdood.bigcartel.com/
REGISTER ON EVENTBRITE IN ORDER TO RECEIVE THE LINK TO THE ZOOM MEETING (REQUIRED)
This event is free, but the authors encourage donations to support Emergency Relief Fund* and to make their books as accessible as possible. 75% of all donations will go towards Emergency Relief Fund and the remaining 25% towards sending free copies of their books to low-income members of our communities. Suggested donation of $5 to $10, but whatever you are able to give is much appreciated!
*The mission of the Emergency Release Fund is to ensure that no trans person at risk in New York City jails remains in detention before trial. If cash bail is set for a trans person in New York City and no bars to release are in place, bail will be paid by the Emergency Release Fund.
Trans people experience constant injustice. Behind bars it can be fatal. It’s on us to make sure no one – not one person – falls through the cracks. We can and we will.

Screening of Confederitis, A Film by Rbt. Sps. & Jillian McManemin
2020-05-30 19:00 - 20:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join us on Saturday, May 30, 7 PM EST for an online screening of Confederitis, a collaborative film by Rbt. Sps. & Jillian McManemin, followed by a brief Q&A with both artists,
Confederitis is a collaborative experimental film by Robert Spees and Jillian McManemin that melds documentary footage of rural Kentucky and Tennessee with narrative, karaoke, poetry and slapstick puppetry. The film follows Phocian and Faith (played by the filmmakers), as they form a queer love cult and distort Confederate symbology. Confederitis was shot on multiple formats and film stocks including Super 8mm, 16mm, Hi-8, Betamax, VHS, & HD. Confederitis is a diaristic dream state that meditates on the impotence of escapism in our current political climate.
Confederitis has been presented by Anthology Film Archives, The Istanbul Experimental Film Festival, The Slipper Room, Spalding University (Louisville, Kentucky), Centro Provincial de Artes Plásticas y Diseño (Santiago, Cuba), and received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award to be screened at Circe Theater (Tbilisi, Georgia) in January 2019. “A Prelude to a Film”, a performance that incorporated early Confederitis footage, was presented by Rbt. & Jillian at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division in 2015.
Run time: 70 minutes
This event is free, but the artists and the Bureau ask attendees to make a donation of $10 or more to NYC’s LGBT Community Center if you have the means to do so.
RSVP ON EVENTBRITE IN ORDER TO RECEIVE THE LINK TO THE ZOOM MEETING (REQUIRED).

TELL 61: 2020 / A Virtual Event
2020-05-09 18:00 - 20:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
2020 is the theme of the 61st TELL, on Saturday, May 9, 2020, 6 to 8 PM (EST). Featuring stories by Christy DeGallerie, David Reyes, Buzz Slutzky, and Renair Amin.

The event will take place on Zoom.
This is a free event, but you must register on the eventbrite page in advance of the event in order to receive the Zoom meeting link.

Donations for the performers are much appreciated!
Make a donation when you register for the event on eventbrite.

Photograph by Grace Chu

Drae Campbell is a writer, actor, director, story teller, dancer, and nightlife emcee. Drae has been featured on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and on stages all over NYC. Drae’s directing work has appeared in Iceland, NYC, Budapest and in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The short film Drae wrote and starred in with Rebecca Drysdale, YOU MOVE ME won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short at OUTFEST 2010 and has been shown in festivals globally. Drae won the grand prize at the first annual San Miguel De Allende Storytelling Festival in Mexico. She once reigned as Miss LEZ and also got dubbed “the next lezzie comedian on the block” by AfterEllen.com for her comedic stylings on the interwebs. Campbell hosts and curates a monthly queer storytelling show called TELL at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

Becoming a vessel of healing wasn’t an easy process for the Pink Love Specialist, Renair Amin. The person she is today has survived addiction, family tragedy, sexual assault, depression, grief, divorce, religious trauma and domestic violence. From those experiences, Renair penned four books – Mental Silhouette, Domestically Cursed, Pit Crew: How to Survive a Spiritual Pit Stop and Come with Me, Love: A 21-Day Journey into the Song of Solomon for couples. A life and relationship coach, she has also had the privilege of speaking across the nation helping others find Pink Love in their lives. In 2018, she was given the esteem honor of being named “Miss Full-Figured USA Miss Congeniality.” Renair completed her Doctor of Ministry degree from New York Theological Seminary in 2019.

Christy DeGallerie is a writer, actor, producer, and host of the podcast It’s Not Me It’s You.

David Reyes is a Latinx American comedian from New Jersey. By day, he helps people regain control of their sexual health as a lead on Roman’s Care Team, a health start up that helps people suffering from erectile dysfunction. By night, he’s telling jokes and performing improv wherever they’ll let him. He enjoys long walks on the beach and watching people trip.

Buzz Slutzky is a non-binary transgender artist, writer, and performer whose practice incorporates drawing, painting, sculpture, and video. Their visual art and writing often play between autobiographical and historical content. Lately, they’ve been drawing mashups between instructional manuals. As a performer, Buzz has mixed stand-up comedy and musical comedy under the persona Stoni Butchell, among others. They currently teach film and art to 18 year olds at CUNY College of Staten Island and SUNY Purchase College.

Postponed: Anatomies of Want: The Queer Desires of Daniel W.K. Lee, Travis Montez, and Stephen S. Mills
2020-04-25 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Bureau is closed until further notice. We hope to reschedule our late March and April events once we are able to reopen. Stay tuned!

Poets Daniel W.K. Lee, Travis Montez, and Stephen S. Mills guide us through the terrain of wanting—from carnal to familial, satiation to longing—reading from their oeuvres including works from their most recently published books Anatomy of Want (Lee), Objects In This Rearview Vol 02: The Roads in Me (Montez), and Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution (Mills).
Copies of these three titles will be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy/copies please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Born in Kuching, Malaysia, Daniel W.K. Lee is a third-generation refugee going back to China via Vietnam and Malaysia before settling in the United States. Raised in Chicagoland, Daniel moved to New York City in 1996 where he earned a BA at NYU and an MFA in Creative Writing – Poetry at The New School. Daniel relocated to Seattle in 2014 and after a little over five years in the Pacific Northwest, he and his whippet Camden moved to New Orleans in December of last year soon after the publication of his debut collection of poetry Anatomy of Want by Rebel Satori Press/Queer Mojo. Find out more about him at www.danielwklee.com

Travis Montez is a writer, poet, professor and juvenile rights attorney, representing children in the Family Court system of New York City. Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, Montez came to NYC in the late 90s to attend NYU where he pursued degrees in Journalism and Africana Studies. It was there that he was first introduced to spoken word poetry. Since then, Travis Montez has performed in venues all over the world, released seven collections of poetry and a spoken word album. His latest release, Objects In This Rearview Vol 03: Home/Again is set to be released this summer!

Stephen S. Mills is the author of the Lambda Award-winning book He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices (2012) as well as A History of the Unmarried (2014) and Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution (2018) all from Sibling Rivalry Press. He earned his MFA from Florida State University. His work has appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, The Antioch Review, PANK, The New York Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, The Rumpus, and others. He is also the winner of the 2008 Gival Press Oscar Wilde Poetry Award and the 2014 Christopher Hewitt Award for Fiction. Two of his books have been placed on the Over the Rainbow List compiled yearly by the American Library Association. He lives in New York City with his partner and two schnauzers. Visit his website at: www.stephensmills.com

Shh! I'm Listening...
2020-04-17 18:30 - 20:00 | NY
Shh! I’m listening…
Friday, April 17, 2020
6:30 p.m.

RSVP required. A link to the meeting will be sent prior to the event.

New York Queer Zine Fair, Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, and The LGBT Community Center are happy to present Shh! I’m listening…

This virtual event brings together four queer zine makers to share their work. Expect fun visuals and text that is informative, inspiring and maybe even a little titillating.

Presenters include:

Elvis B.
Creator of the long-running “Homos in Herstory” comics zine, which includes flashes of queer history over the century. They are also the co-founder of the NYC Feminist Zinefest, and deeply excited about the potential for queer, feminist creativity in these unusual times.

Luis Martin / The Art Engineer
Artist, podcaster and New Age capitalist

Kel R. Karpinski of Queer Sailors zines
Queer zinester and librarian, researching and making zines about queer sailors, Times Square and film. Kel also co-organizes the NY Queer Zine Fair.

Paul Moreno
Queer artist, zine maker, designer and other co-organizer of NY Queer Zine Fair. He also awaits the postponed opening of his exhibition “Problem Areas” at the Bureau.

Side note: We promise to try to not discuss COVID-19; we all need a break.

Postponed: NYC Queer Comic Fair 2020
2020-04-12 13:00 - 19:00, 2020-04-11 13:00 - 19:00 | NY
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Bureau is closed until further notice. We hope to reschedule our late March and April events once we are able to reopen. Stay tuned!

The NYC Queer Comic Fair enters its 4th year with a Kickstarter funded in one hour! The event is a no admission showcase of queer-identified artists working in illustration, comics, and visual storytelling. The goal of the fair is to extend the reach and audience of the artists, and to provide a place where queer people can go to find and distribute art that represents them.

The 4th annual NYC Queer Comic Fair (NYCQCF) happens Saturday, April 11th, and Sunday, April 12th, from 1-7pm on each day. The NYCQCF is hosted by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division inside the New York City Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center.

Starting as a single-day fair inspired by the New York Queer Zine Fair, event creators, Bubba of WabiSabiZinez and Pat Reilly of Comics by Patrick, sought to fill a gap in the queer arts community – comic books. While the first fair focused solely on comics and graphic novel, each year they have expanded the scope of what is included: photo essays, illustration, illustrated poetry, children’s books, and coloring books are among the types of work now included. Bubba said, “we want to showcase the diversity of the medium, that is, of creating a conversation or narrative between words and images.”

The fair has now expanded to a two-day event. Bubba said, “while the we have extended the number of days, we have chosen to stay in a small venue.” He says that the NYCQCF wants to stay in queer spaces, specifically those dedicated to supporting the arts. He adds, “the Center is historic, and the Bureau is a great host! Why leave when they have everything we need: a coffee shop, gender neutral bathrooms, and a fantastic Keith Haring mural for attendants to see!”

The NYCQCF has been covered by Hornet.com and The Comic Book Bears Podcast, with promotional events and signings happening at Carmine Street Comic inside Unoppressive Non-imperialist Bargain Books in the Village and for the New York City Anarchist Book Fair. Bubba says, “as a member of the queer community, I think it is important to collaborate and crosspollinate. We need to support each other’s events, meet new people, create a web of connections. That’s what we are doing here; yes, it is one event, but we talk to people at other fairs, other bookstores, anywhere we can.” Bubba adds that the NYCQCF relies on participants and attendants to bring in the kinds of creators they want to see; he asks that artist suggestions be sent via Instagram, and that if anyone wants to stay current with signup announcements, they follow WabiSabiZinez on Kickstarter.

The event is free and open to the public.

Find the NYC Queer Comic Fair on Instagram and Facebook.

Contact: Bubba – wabisabizinez@gmail.com

Postponed: 3 (Trans) Lives
2020-03-14 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
This event has been postponed due to the coronavirus epidemic. We will reschedule the event, so please check back for updates.

How can the writing of trans lives move beyond the confessional memoir? Three different writers with three different trans lives and three different styles read selections from current or forthcoming works that push the boundaries of what trans writing can become. Featuring Jamie Hood, Jeanne Thornton, and McKenzie Wark.

Copies of McKenzie Wark‘s recently published Reverse Cowgirl (Semiotext(e)) will be available for purchase. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

• Jamie Hood (@veryhotmomm) is a poet, bartender, chronic over-sharer, and dog mom in Brooklyn. Her most recent work has been published by Peach Mag, Rumpus and New Inquiry. She’s finishing a book of poems, lyric memoir, and other miscellany on sexual assault and rape culture, called RAPE GIRL.

• Jeanne Thornton (@manwhohatesfun) is the author of The Black Emerald (Instar 2017), The Dream of Doctor Bantam (O/R Books 2012) and co-editor of We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology (Stacked Deck, 2018), all Lambda Literary Award finalists. She is the co-publisher of Instar Books. Her next novel, Summer Fun, is forthcoming from Soho Press.

• McKenzie Wark (@mckenziewark) is the author of some books, including Capital is Dead (Verso 2019) and most recently, Reverse Cowgirl (Semiotexte 2020). She teaches at Eugene Lang College, The New School for Social Research.

Postponed: Legible: A Queer Per-Zine Workshop
2020-03-14 11:00 - 13:00 | NY
Due to The Center’s cancellation of all groups, meetings, and events from March 16 through March 31 (full statement here), we will reschedule this workshop. Please check back for updates.

In this 4-session workshop we will read and analyze zines by queer and trans and queer writers to learn ways in which these authors explore their bodies, gender, and self-image through the creation of personal zines. These zines will help give us inspiration and directions for thinking about our own writing in the zine format. This workshop is an opportunity to build community with trans and queer writers and poets while also building a better understanding of one’s self through the creation of your own per-zine.
Over our four sessions we will create our own per-zines and share these zines with a reading at the end of our last session. The workshop will meet at the Bureau on:
Saturday, March 14, 11 AM to 1 PM
Saturday, March 21, 11 AM to 1 PM
Saturday, March 28, 11 AM to 1 PM
Saturday, April 4, 11 AM to 1 PM
This workshop is entirely free. You’re welcome to bring your own materials but materials will be provided as well as copies of zines for that will be used in our discussions.
To sign-up email the organizer Robin Gow at robinfgow@gmail.com
(This workshop is on a first-come first-serve basis)
About the organizer:
Robin Gow grew up in rural Pennsylvania and now lives in New York where they are an adjunct professor and MFA candidate at Adelphi University. They also run the trans & queer reading series Gender Reveal Party.
Robin Gow is the author of the chapbook HONEYSUCKLE by Finishing Line Press and their first full-length poetry collection (OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL DEGENERACY) is forthcoming with Tolsun Books.
Currently, they are a managing editor The Nasiona and Editor at Large of Village of Crickets. They served for four years as the production editor of the Lantern literary magazine and are Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages. They has also worked to help produce several zines.
They are an out and proud bisexual genderqueer man passionate about LGBTQIA+ issues. They are also a proud neurodiverse person.

Postponed: Opening Reception for Paul Moreno / Problem Areas
2020-03-13 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, The Center will be closed indefinitely beginning Friday, March 13th, at 6 pm. The Bureau will reschedule an opening reception as soon as we can. But for now the Bureau will be closed starting Friday, March 13th, and will remain closed until further notice.
We will post updates as we receive them.

The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is proud to present Paul Moreno / Problem Areas. This will be Paul’s first solo exhibition and will include a selection of paintings and drawings from 2016 through 2020.
Paul is a self-taught artist who grew up in Sparks, Nevada. Paul studied Literature and Critical Thought at University of San Francisco and NYU.
About the title, Problem Areas, Paul states “I took the title from the old adage that art-making is largely a process of problem solving. However, the title is also meaningful in that when I choose subjects for my work, I try to look at something that I have complex or unresolved feelings about. By spending time with the subject, against the background of parsing it into formal elements that serve
the picture, I find spiritual resolution can also present itself. In this way, the problem, as it were, is not a negative, but an opportunity to expose the beauty in the subject to myself and hopefully the viewer.”

Paul Moreno / Problem Areas will be on view from March 13 – May 3, 2020.
Opening reception will be Friday, March 13, 2020, from 6-8 PM
Please join us for a conversation with Paul Moreno and contemporary art advisor, curator and critic, Bill Arning on Saturday, May 2, 2020, 2 PM
Download a pdf of the press release for Paul Moreno / Problem Areas.
Image: Paul Moreno. Ignatius (for a friend). 2020. 18″ x 23”. Mixed media on wood.

Bureau closed indefinitely beginning on Friday, March 13th
2020-03-13 - 2020-03-31 | NY
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, The LGBT Community Center will close at 6 pm on Friday, March 13th, and remain closed indefinitely (full statement here). As a result, the Bureau will be closed beginning on Friday, March 13th, and all events scheduled for the remainder of March will either be rescheduled or canceled.
We will post updates as we receive them from The Center.

Judith Butler's Gender Trouble: Theory, Sexuality, and Subversion
2020-03-10 18:30 - 21:30, 2020-03-03 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
The Bureau is excited to partner again with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research to bring you:

Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Theory, Sexuality, and Subversion

Instructor: Paige Sweet

1990 saw the publication of Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, a text that has become required reading for anyone interested in feminist theory, critical appraisals of gender, and the burgeoning field of queer theory. Central to Butler’s theory is the concept of performativity as a way to describe how we become gendered subjects, that is, how we come to enact gender in recognizable ways. The text is also well known for its account of how certain kinds of performative (gendered) practices—like drag—might become subversive; or how, as Butler says, it might be possible “to open up the field of possibility for gender.” Gender Trouble has proved surprisingly controversial, notably for its difficult prose, but also for its treatment of the body as discursively produced, as well as for its ambiguous “subversive” politics. How, 30 years after publication, does Gender Trouble complicate, or help us make sense of, contemporary problems of feminism, identity, queerness, and politics?

Whether one is a devotee of Gender Trouble or to some degree a skeptic, it remains a text to be reckoned with. This course will take Gender Trouble as the primary text and keep both approaches in mind—one appraising, one critical—as we pair it with select supplemental readings. We will consider its historical context and theoretical frameworks. In addition, we’ll grapple with the insights and limitations of its core arguments about gender and sexuality. Finally, we’ll consider how its politics resonate (or don’t) today. We will ask: Why was it written when it was? With what other texts and ideas was it in conversation? How does it understand the relation between language and categories of sex and sexuality? What polyvalent meanings of performativity, whether reverential or revisionary, did Gender Trouble originate and inspire? What is the legacy of Butler’s argument for shifting the subject of feminism away from “women” to “gender”—especially in view of Robin Weigman’s critique, or in view of more recent studies of trans subjectivity? How might we evaluate the political potentials or failures of parody today? Although some might come to the course curious about enduring relevance of this seminal text, the course also welcomes first-time readers of Butler’s work.

The Bureau sells copies of Judith Butler‘s Gender Trouble, among other titles by Butler. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us! Thank you!

Course Schedule
March 3, 10, 17, and 24, 2020
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm
4 sessions

$315.00*
Registration is required. Please click here.

*Three scholarship spaces are reserved in each course because we realize that not everyone can afford to pay the full fee for our courses. Students who cannot pay the full fee should email us at info@thebrooklyninstitute.com to learn about our scholarship options. We will not ask questions about your financial situation but we do ask that you use the system in good faith and consider the needs of other students and faculty members.

The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is an independent, all-volunteer queer cultural center, bookstore, and event space hosted by The LGBT Community Center in Manhattan.

The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is an organization of young scholars in New York City, founded in November 2011 by a few then-graduate students at Columbia University with a shared interest in pedagogy and genuinely interdisciplinary conversation. We teach classes all over the city, record a regular podcast, run a digital humanities initiative to preserve rare and out-of-print academic texts, and in general work frantically at any given time on a broad range of other academic and para-academic projects. We are a nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization.

Image: photograph by Elizabeth Ohlson Wallin

The New Feminine: Poetry Reading & Open Mic
2020-03-06 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
A reading and discussion featuring Chocolate Waters, Tantra-Zawadi, Patricia Carragon, and Iris N. Schwartz. Open mic for anyone who identifies as feminine or non-binary.

Chocolate Waters has been writing and publishing poetry for over five decades. During the second wave of feminism, she was one of the first openly lesbian poets to publish. Her latest collection, Muddying the Holy Waters, will be released by Eggplant Press in 2020. The Greatest Hits of Chocolate Waters, a “Sapphic Classic” chosen by Sinister Wisdom will appear sometime in 2022. Poets Wear Prada published her poetry chapbook The Woman Who Wouldn’t Shake Hands in 2011. Like and follow her at https://www.facebook.com/ChocolateWatersPoet/

Tantra-Zawadi, recording artist, performance poet, actress, educator, and mentor, is author of 3 collections of poetry including her latest Bubbles: One Conscious Breath (Poets Wear Prada, 2013).

Patricia Carragon’s recent publications include Bear Creek Haiku, First Literary-East , Jerry Jazz Musician, Narrative Northeast Review, and Stardust Haiku. Her latest books Meowku (2019) and The Cupcake Chronicles (2017) were both published by Poets Wear Prada. Her debut novel, Angel Fire, is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press. Patricia hosts Brownstone Poets monthly reading series and is the editor-in-chief of its annual anthology.

Iris N. Schwartz is the author of more than sixty works of fiction. Her flash appears in dozens of publications, including Blink-Ink, Crack the Spine, Fictive Dream, Gravel, Jellyfish Review, and Literary Orphans. Her second short short story collection, Shame (Poets Wear Prada, 2019), contains Best Microfiction 2018 nominee “Dogs” and was shortlisted by North of Oxford for recommended summer 2019 reading. Ms. Schwartz has also written erotica, most notably the story “Hedonics,” anthologized in Stirring Up a Storm: Tales of the Sensual, the Sexual, and the Erotic (Running Dog Press).

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Habana Eva
2020-03-04 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Open Love NY presents Poly Movie Night, a FREE series of feature films that focus on the portrayal of consensual / ethical non-monogamy in cinema. Our regular venue is the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

On March 4th please join us for a viewing of Habana Eva (2010), directed by Fina Torres and starring Prakriti Maduro, Yuliet Cruz, and Juan Carlos García.

We’ll meet at 6:30 pm at the Bureau (in room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center at 208 West 13th Street) for pre-screening socializing and start the movie at 7 pm. The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.

Synopsis: Eva, a factory seamstress living with her parents in Havana, dreams of designing clothes and is frustrated by the rut her relationship with her boyfriend has fallen into, when she meets a wealthy visitor from Venezuela. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.

Romans/Snowmare Book Launch
2020-02-28 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Come celebrate the launch of Cam Scott‘s Romans/Snowmare—a daybook of anti-capitalist ideation, a homoerotic reinvention of the prairie long poem, a ludic experiment with language and duration.

Copies of Romans/Snowmare will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

CAM SCOTT is a poet, critic, and non-musician from Winnipeg, Canada, Treaty 1 territory. He is the author of WRESTLERS, a visual suite published by Greying Ghost in 2017, and ROMANS/SNOWMARE, published by ARP Books in 2019. In addition to his own writing and musical practice, he is artistic director of send + receive, a festival of sound art and experimental music based out of Winnipeg.

MIA KANG writes poems and other perversions. She is the author of City Poems (2020), a poetry pamphlet from ignitionpress. Mia was named the 2017 winner of Boston Review’s Annual Poetry Contest by Mónica de la Torre, and her writing has appeared in journals including POETRY, Washington Square Review, Narrative Magazine, and PEN America. She is a Brooklyn Poets Fellow, runner-up for the 2019 and 2017 Discovery Poetry Contests, and finalist for the 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. She has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Mia is a PhD student in the history of art at Yale University, where she studies the contested rise of U.S. multiculturalism and its failures. www.miaadrikang.com

IAN DREIBLATT is a writer and translator interested in paganism, the ends of worlds, writing, and socialist mass culture. Recentish chapbooks include barishonah (DoubleCross Press) and how to hide by showing in the age of being alone with the universe (above/ground press); recentish translations include the prison letters of Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Comradely Greetings, Verso Books) and the poems of Pavel Arseniev (Reported Speech, Cicada Press). Forthcoming books include a translation of Dmitrii Furman’s Spiral (Verso Books) and a full-length poetry collection (forget thee, Ugly Duckling Presse). He is TV Commercials Correspondent at the Believer and edits Counter. If you but express mild interest, he will surely cook you soup.

Book Launch with Jasmine Reid and Catherine Chen
2020-02-23 17:00 - 19:00 | NY
Catherine Chen & Jasmine Reid read from their debut poetry collections Manifesto, Or: Hysteria (Big Lucks) and Deus Ex Nigrum (Honeysuckle Press), the 2018 Winner of the Honeysuckle Chapbook Contest, selected by Danez Smith, at this stop along their Dykes of the Universe co-book tour. Catherine will reach into your soul & hold you in the mirrored reality of their poesis. Jasmine will invite you to find posterity & futurity in the blooming surround of human being. Together, in sky, these sibling comets arrive.

Copies of Manifesto, Or: Hysteria and Deus Ex Nigrum will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy/copies please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Catherine Chen is a poet, performer, and author of the chapbook Manifesto, or: Hysteria (Big Lucks). Their writing has appeared in Slate, The Rumpus, Apogee, Anomaly, and Nat. Brut, among others. A recipient of fellowships from Poets House, Lambda Literary, and Sundress Academy for the Arts, they’re currently working on a libretto.

Jasmine Reid is a twice trans poet of flowers. She is the author of Deus Ex Nigrum, winner of the 2018 Honeysuckle Press Chapbook Contest, selected by Danez Smith. An MFA candidate at Cornell University and recipient of fellowships from Poets House and Jack Jones Literary Arts, her work has been published or is forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, Apogee, the Shade Journal, and Pinwheel, among others. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poet, Jasmine was born and raised in Baltimore, MD, and is currently based in Ithaca, NY. Find her at reidjasmine.com
