Trophy Boy NYC screening and cast Q & A
2018-11-03 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | NY
A special screening of the award wining short film Trophy Boy (run time 13 minutes). Followed with a Q & A with some of the cast

Devon born British actor Emrhys Cooper has done incredibly well for himself – not only did he bag himself the lead role in the Emmy nominated drama series Vanity starring alongside Denise Richards & Karrucehe Tran. As well as achieving a career in film & television appearing in many top US shows including Desperate Housewives, CSI:NY, Blackish and Person of Interest, Emrhys has also featured in several West End musicals and worked as a dancer for a variety of musical superstars including Madonna, Christina Aguilera and the Pussycat Dolls. He was also the first Western actor to star in a Bhutanese film and achieved an award for outstanding performance from a leading actor at the IndieFest film festival for his role in Kushuthara. But it’s his directional debut Trophy Boy which is really setting him apart from the crowd. Using his own social media experiences and witnessing how detrimental it can be to ones self awareness, promoted him to not only; write, produce, direct and star in the film that recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. On the success of the short film, Cooper is now developing Trophy Boy into a TV series through his own production company EmCo Entertainment.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: (A)sexual and The Open Photo Project
2018-11-07 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. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.
On November 7th, please join us for (A)sexual (2011), a documentary directed by Angela Tucker, and a pre-movie multi-media screening of The Open Photo Project.
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.

THE OPEN PHOTO PROJECT
Erika Kapin presents a screening of her ongoing work, The Open Photo Project. This multi-media screening features a slideshow of photographs from a diversity of people in consensually non-monogamous relationships along with audio excerpts of them speaking about their relationships. Running time: approximately 45 minutes.

(A)sexual Synopsis: People who experience little or no sexual attraction seek to define their identity and build new relationship models. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes.

Trans Figured Reading and Signing with Brian Belovitch
2018-11-10 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Brian Belovitch shares his true story of life as a gender outlier and his dramatic journey through the jungle of gender identity in Trans Figured: My Journey from Boy to Girl to Woman to Man. Brian has the rare distinction of coming out three times: first as a queer teenager; second as a glamorous transgender woman named Tish, and later, Natalia Gervais; and finally as an HIV-positive gay man surviving the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. His book is a no-holds-barred memoir of a chaotic era and his candid journey through identity. He will be reading selected passages from the book as well as signing copies.

Copies of Trans Figured are 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!

Brian Belovitch is a former editor at People magazine. A 2000 GLAAD award nominee for his play Boys Don’t Wear Lipstick, Belovitch is a founder of Queer Stages, an LGBT-themed dramatic series, and a guest storyteller with the Generations Project. Belovitch is currently in a master’s program for mental health counseling at Hunter College. Today he works as an addiction professional and lives in Brooklyn with his husband of fifteen years.

Book launch and reading: The Pr0n Series
2018-11-11 15:00 - 16:30 | NY
Gay comedy fetish writer Mark Boyd will read from one of his latest stories, The Collared Master, and share a free book sampler with several of the stories in his forthcoming Pr0n Series collection. Comedian James Angelo will MC and share his humorous take on navigating the gay fetish scene.

Mark Boyd is a writer who regularly publishes in European fetish magazine Alphatribe. His comedy fetish fiction has been shared at events like Folsom Europe in Berlin and he has performed his work around the globe in cities like Barcelona.

Office Hours Poetry Workshop Craft Class with Yanyi
2018-11-17 11:00 - 14:30 | NY
Office Hours Poetry Workshop presents: “The Seat of Sensation: Concession as Pleasure and Memory”— a FREE craft class and reading with author Yanyi.
The craft class takes place from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM. A public reading with Yanyi and members of the Office Hours Workshop will follow from 1:30 PM-2:30 PM.
Spaces for the craft class are limited to 15 persons so please RSVP in advance to sarahmariesala@gmail.com and include your full name, relationship to writing, and a brief bio.

The Seat of Sensation: Confession as Pleasure and Memory
In this workshop, you will be asked to write for your life, your life being time, your body, and the practice of noticing pleasure, a communication with the self. Through generative exercises, we will write through the senses and then practice writing with and toward desire through memory. You will need something to write with and on.

Yanyi is a poet and critic. In 2018, he won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, awarded by Carl Phillips, for his first book, The Year of Blue Water (Yale University Press 2019). Currently, he is an associate editor at Foundry and an MFA candidate at New York University. He formerly served as Director of Technology and Design at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, senior editor at Nat. Brut, and curatorial assistant at The Poetry Project. He is the recipient of fellowships from Asian American Writers Workshop and Poets House. His work was most recently published in LA Review of Books and The Margins. Find him at yanyiii.com.

Office Hours Poetry Workshop provides post-MFA poets access to continued support for manuscript-development and everyday writing. The workshop culminates in a public reading each fall and spring to showcase sizzling new work. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are woman-identified. Our name derives from our side hustle. Many of us are freelance, adjunct instructors, who continue to thrive in the margins of academia.

TELL 48: EXTRA
2018-11-17 19:00 - 21:30 | 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.
EXTRA is the theme for the 48th installment of TELL, guest-hosted by Melissa Rocah. Featuring Glo Butler, Maya Eilam, Ryan Houlihan, Sammie James, and Rachel Kaly.

$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Melissa Rocha is a Brooklyn based comic with a performance art background. She’s been on the scene for about three years producing her own shows and entertaining at venues such as: Club Cumming, Union Hall, Gotham Comedy Club, & Littlefield. Most recently, she’s come on as a producer & comic for Savage Comedy— a weekly show that’s been successfully running for four years. She’s currently working on her first film: How’s My Lipstick?— featuring an all women & queer people of color crew. She’s cried on stage three times this year. 🙂 t: @melisshious ig: @melsideponytail

Glo Butler says: originally from Charleston, South Carolina. Started comedy in DC then moved to Brooklyn, NY where I reside currently. I’ve been featured on on Wendy Williams, timeout Magazines “LGBTQ POC We’re obsessed with right now.”
I currently host/ Produce 2 shows in Brooklyn, and I also have a webseries “Glo in the City”(featured on IMDb, funny or Die, and YouTube). I have performed all over the country.

Maya Eilam is ready when you are. She is a karaoke regular, facilitates freeform vocalization, and believes no sounds are out of bounds.

Ryan Houlihan is a comedian, writer, and fake ginger from New York. He’s worked on the shows Billy on the Street, Difficult People, and at Teen Vogue. You can stream his podcast “Tomorrow” if you want another loud gay person in your life.

Sammie James is a comedian and story teller from New Jersey. She is host and producer of the LGBT showcase Queerly Comedic and The Uncomfortable comedy show. Sammie performs all over the tri state area and is soon to be your favorite disabled, nerdy, butch trans woman in comedy.

Rachel Kaly (she/they) is a queer NYC-based comedian, and writer. She is a contributing writer for ClickHole and has studied at the Annoyance Theater, Second City, and at UCB as a diversity scholar. She’s performed at all those venues, plus Joe’s Pub, iO, and Union Hall and whatever da fuk else will convince you she’s legit. She performs regularly with Ladies Who Ranch and hosts her own show, “The Ellen Show But Violent” every month. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 2017, and founded the Absurd Comedy Collective in 2016 in an effort to make more inclusive spaces for marginalized comics.
twitter: @rachel_kaly / ig: @rachel.kaly / www: rachelkaly.com

Girl Tales Live Reading and 2nd Season Fundraiser!
2018-11-18 15:00 - 18:00 | NY
Who? You and the kids in your life!
What? A live reading of The Literate Mermaid by Christina Quintana, and a fundraiser for a second season! We’ll have a silent auction of a bunch of goodies, face painting by Maggie Allen, a coloring station and a feminist photo booth!
Where? Bureau of General Services—Queer Division @ The Center 208 West 13th Street Room 210 NY, NY 10011
When? Sunday, November 18th @ 3pm
Why? Girl Tales is a podcast featuring reimagined fairytales. Damsels in distress? Princesses in need of protection? You won’t find those here. The girls in our stories take control of their own destinies, turning your favorite fairytales into exciting new adventures.

Girl Tales offers a feminist twist on classic fairytales, fables, and myths. With energetic voice actors and professional sound design, these radio plays burst to life at the touch of a button.
We’ve just ended out first season and have reached over 10,000 listeners all around the world. We want to celebrate that with you and make sure we’re ready to get a second season up and running! Will you join us? Will you help us?
Cost: The Bureau is donating our space for this event because we believe in Girl Tales! If you are able to support the Bureau with a donation we would very much appreciate it! But no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Panel Discussion & Signing with Sasha Velour | VELOUR: The Drag Magazine
2018-11-18 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join Sasha Velour, international drag superstar and winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9, for the release of her hardcover art book, Velour: The Drag Magazine [Collector’s Edition] with a discussion at The LGBT Community Center on Sunday, November 18th at 6PM followed by a signing in the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

Sasha Velour will be joined by Velour editor and panel moderator, Johnny Velour for an exclusive discussion with long-time Velour: The Drag Magazine collaborators: Miss Malice, Pearl Harbor, Ohni Lisle, and Lady Quesa’Dilla. A signing with Sasha Velour will take place following the panel at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division — just upstairs in room 210!

The panel discussion is a free event with registration. Books will be on sale at the Bureau following the panel. The signing is free and open to the public.

At 296 pages, entirely ad-free, Velour: The Drag Magazine [Collector’s Edition] compiles all three volumes of Sasha’s critically-acclaimed magazine, Velour (House of Velour, 2015-2017). It is designed from cover to cover by Velour herself, in her unique signature style, and features illustrations, collages, fashion editorials, poems, interviews, and essays by over 75 queer artists and drag performers from around the world. Since its inception, the magazine has been dedicated to showcasing the work of drag queens and drag kings, queer, trans, AFAB (assigned female at birth), and non-binary drag artists from all backgrounds.

The pieces collected in this coffee table book are as varied and valid as the drag artists they depict. “There is ‘no right way’ to do, or even define drag,” Sasha Velour insists, “We seek to celebrate it all.”

REGISTER FOR A FREE SEAT HERE.

Fighting for Trans Lives: Mizz June's War Call
2018-11-20 19:30 - 20:30 | NY
There’s no getting around it, the current political climate is a battleground. Add rising murders of Transgender women (specifically, Transwomen of color) to the already increasing issues being faced by the TLGBQ community, and it’s no wonder a song like War Call was created.

War Call, the debut single and music video from NYC based trans hip hop artist Mizz June, addresses these issues using powerful visuals and rhythmically layered beats. Directly following the screening of the music video, there will be a panel/discussion with the artist and representatives from community organizations who’re taking action around bettering the lives of Transgender people.

Organizations such as FIERCE! NYC – a membership based TLGBQ youth of color organization in The Bronx that empowers its members through youth led campaigns and leadership development programs; House of GG – the first national retreat site, educational, and historical center dedicated to Transgender people in the USA, and New Alternatives a non-profit geared towards empowering homeless TLGBQ youth by providing them with valuable tools such as education and basic life skills trainings that will ensure self sufficiency beyond the NYC shelter system- will discuss how we can support each other, and move forward during these intense times. Show up, and learn how.

This event is FREE!

From the Lower East Side of Manhattan and The Bronx, Mizz June, the musical persona of NYC based Actor Julienne Brown- got her start in Musical Theater and Activism. A protegee of luminary public figures Octavia St. Laurent and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, she was the first out Black Transwoman to be a guest cast member on a daytime soap opera (“All My Children”)

She has appeared in music videos and, performed on various well known stages in NYC and around the U.S. Her debut single, “War Call” can be found here: www.theonetheonlymizzjune.com/music
And, here:
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2SiLxQe
iTunes: https://apple.co/2Pk42oO
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2z51AYX
Google Play Music:https://bit.ly/2yGuzDf
Bandcamp: https://mizzjune.bandcamp.com/

Crime For The Holidays: Inside and Outside the Law
2018-11-29 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Two award winning authors of crime fiction–Ann Aptaker and Cheryl Head–discuss their Lesbian protagonists’ relationship to the Law: one choosing to live as an outlaw, the other working within the Law.

Native New Yorker Ann Aptaker‘s Cantor Gold crime series (Bold Strokes Books) has been honored with Lambda and Goldie Awards. The current book in the series, “Flesh and Gold,” examines issues of sex work and sex trafficking in pre-Castro Havana. Aptaker’s short stories have appears in two issues of the “Fedora” anthologies, the online zine “Punk Soul Poet,” and is featured in the November special issue of Switchblade: Stiletto Heeled. In addition to her life as an author, Aptaker has been a curator at museums and galleries and is a professor of Art History at New York Institute of Technology.

Cheryl Head is the award winning author of the Charlie Mack Motown Mysteries (Bywater Books). The first book in the series, “Bury Me When I’m Dead,” was a 2017 Lambda Literary Awards finalist. The current book is “Wake Me When It’s Over,” released in May 2018, with book three, “Catch Me When I’m Falling,” scheduled for March 2019. Her book “Long Way Home: A World War II Novel,” was a 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in the Historical Fiction, and African-American Literature categories. Head is the Director of Inclusion for the Golden Crown Literary Society. She lives in an historic 1870 rowhouse in Washington, D.C.

Charlie Bondhus, Kevin Hinkle, and Dean Kostos Poetry Reading
2018-11-30 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Come see poets Charlie Bondhus, Kevin Hinkle, and Dean Kostos read their latest work. Books on sale and drinks on tap!

Charlie Bondhus is the author of Divining Bones (Sundress, 2018) and All the Heat We Could Carry (Main Street Rag, 2013), winner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. He received his MFA in creative writing from Goddard College and his Ph.D. in literature from UMASS Amherst. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Missouri Review, Columbia Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Nimrod, and Copper Nickel.
He has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Sundress Academy for the Arts, and the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers (UK). He is associate professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College (NJ). More at: https://charliebondhus.com.

Kevin Hinkle of Asbury Park is a photo-based artist whose work has been exhibited in juried art shows including, locally, the Center for Contemporary Art (Bedminster, NJ), Montclair Art Museum’s Affordable Art Fair, the Center for Visual Arts (Summit, NJ) the Perkins Center for the Arts (Moorestown, NJ), as well as in exhibits in New York (where he received an Honorable Mention in Soho Photo’s Small Works exhibit), Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, California.
Hinkle’s work has also appeared in literary and arts journals such as The Tishmann Review, The Baltimore Review, Tupelo Quarterly, The Tulane Review, Grey Sparrow, The Pedestal Magazine, and Utter, several of these in conjunction with the poetry of Charlie Bondhus.
In addition to being part of numerous private collections, Hinkle’s work can be found in the corporate art collection of PNC Bank.

Dean Kostos’s memoir—The Boy Who Listened to Paintings—is forthcoming. His most recent collection of poems is Pierced by Night-Colored Threads. His previous books include This Is Not a Skyscraper (recipient of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, selected by Mark Doty), Rivering, Last Supper of the Senses, The Sentence That Ends with a Comma, and the chapbook Celestial Rust. He coedited Mama’s Boy (a Lambda Book Award finalist) and edited Pomegranate Seeds (its debut reading was held at the United Nations).
His poems and personal essays have appeared in over 300 journals and anthologies, such as Boulevard, Chelsea, Cimarron Review, The Dos Passos Review, The Good Men Project, Mediterranean Poetry (Sweden), New Madrid, Memoir Journal, Southwest Review, Stand Magazine (UK), Storyscape Journal, Western Humanities Review, and on Oprah Winfrey’s website Oxygen.com. His choral text, Dialogue: Angel of War, Angel of Peace, was set to music by James Bassi and performed by Voices of Ascension. His literary criticism has appeared on the Harvard UP website and elsewhere. A multiple Pushcart-Prize nominee, he served as literary judge for Columbia University’s Gold Crown Awards and received a Yaddo fellowship.
He has taught at Wesleyan, The Gallatin School of NYU, and The City University of New York. His poem “Subway Silk” was translated into a film by Jill Clark and screened at Tribeca and at the San Francisco Indiefest. He presented his paper “Schemes and Schemata: Endless Play” and read his poems at Harvard’s Mahindra Humanities Center.

Office Hours Poetry Workshop Craft Class with Catherine Barnett
2018-12-01 11:00 - 14:30 | NY
Office Hours Poetry Workshop presents: a FREE craft class and reading with Catherine Barnett. The craft class takes place from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the Bureau.
A public reading with Catherine Barnett, Jen Levitt, and Paco Marquez will follow from 1:30 PM-2:30 PM.
Spaces for the craft class are limited to 15 persons so please RSVP in advance to sarahmariesala@gmail.com. Please bring a notebook and pen/pencil in addition to your technological device in case of cross-genre prompts.
Improv for Poets: In this workshop we’ll practice improvisational writing, adapting theatrical exercises to our work on the page. We’ll also practice the energizing if at times uncomfortable art of not-knowing as we use the often under-explored resources of syntax to carry our poems into new territories. With supporting materials from Layli Long-Soldier, Wislawa Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Forrest Hamer, William Carlos Williams, Kathleen Peirce, and Larry Levis.
Office Hours Poetry Workshop provides post-MFA poets access to continued support for manuscript-development and everyday writing. The workshop culminates in a public reading each fall and spring to showcase sizzling new work. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are woman-identified. Our name derives from our side hustle. Many of us are freelance, adjunct instructors, who continue to thrive in the margins of academia.

Catherine Barnett‘s third collection, Human Hours, was just published by Graywolf Press in early fall 2018. She is the author of Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced and The Game of Boxes, winner of the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. Her honors include a Whiting Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She teaches at NYU and Hunter and works as an independent editor in NYC.

Jen Levitt is the author of The Off-Season (Four Way Books, 2016). She received her MFA from NYU, and her poems have appeared in Boston Review, The Literary Review, Sixth Finch, Tin House and elsewhere. She lives in New York City and teaches high school students.

Paco Márquez is author of the chapbook Portraits in G Minor (Folded Word Press, 2017). His work has appeared in Apogee, Ostrich Review, Live Mag! and Huizache, among others. As Spanish Editor for William O’Daly, he assisted in translating Pablo Neruda’s initial book, Crepusculario, for the first time into English, Book of Twilight, (Copper Canyon Press, 2017). His work has been supported by New York University, The Center for Book Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Originally from México and Northern California, Paco lives in New York City with his partner of 12 years. More at: pacomarquez.net

LSTW magazine issue 3 NYC launch
2018-12-01 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us on Saturday, December 1st from 7PM – 9:30PM at the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division in celebrating the launch of LSTW Issue 3!

Published annually, LSTW is an intimate exploration of lesbian communities across Canada. The bilingual print magazine, based in Montreal, Quebec, celebrates diverse and authentic queer voices from coast to coast to coast.

Meet founder & publisher Florence Gagnon and other members of the Lez Spread The Word team to discuss the creation of the magazine, and its third issue, which includes: An in-depth profile of Emmy-winning writer, producer and actor Lena Waithe. Other highlights include an investigation into conversion therapy in Canada today, a conversation between Muslim writers of color Fariha Róisín and Samra Habib, a photo essay about Mexico City Pride and a look at how virtual reality is queering the porn industry.

The 230-page magazine is the result of efforts by more than 20 women keen to bring about positive change. Working from a desire to broaden access to LGBTQ+ communities, lstw honors role models, promotes diversity and shines a spotlight on lesbian culture in a new way.

+ beauty bar at the event by @fluidebeauty!

Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.

lstw‘s appeal transcends borders. The magazine is distributed in over 20 cities across North America and Europe, with key retail sites that include Casa Bosques Mexico City, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, magCulture London, Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum Amsterdam, Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth LA, and McNally Jackson Books and Artbook @ MoMA PS1 in New York.

Launched in Montreal in 2012, Lez Spread the Word is an LGBTQ+ organization devoted to producing content by and for queer women. Its first project was an eponymous news and entertainment website, followed by the awardwinning web series Féminin/Féminin, which aired on Radio-Canada in Quebec and France Télévisions in Europe, and through Amazon and Hulu in the United States. A dramedy that looks at the intersecting lives of a dozen or so queer characters, Féminin/Féminin recently wrapped its second season. Other notable initiatives include the bimonthly party Où sont les femmes?; #12, a beer co-created with Montreal’s Brasserie Harricana; and the sold-out play Coco. In the fall of 2016, Lez Spread the Word published the first issue of lstw, a bilingual print magazine committed to fighting queer invisibility.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Café au Lait
2018-12-05 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. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

On Wednesday, December 5th, please join us for Café au Lait (1993), written and directed by Matthieu Kassovitz, starring Julie Mauduech, Hubert Koundé, and Mathieu Kassovitz.

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: A young woman introduces her two boyfriends (a wealthy African Muslim law student and a poor Jewish bike messenger) to each other on the same day she reveals that she is pregnant. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In French with English subtitles.

New Poems from the Bathhouse
2018-12-06 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
subway hookups, bathhouse encounters, and missed connections:
we present new work
(seedy and/or psychedelic)
from Youtube prophet
MessiahSez
and poets
Kyle Dacuyan
and A.W. Strouse
Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Event image: Charles Demuth, Turkish Bath with Self Portrait, 1918 (Public Domain)
Kyle Dacuyan is a poet in Brooklyn, NY.
A.W. Strouse is a poet who teaches medieval literature.
Messiah Sez is a YouTube sensation.

Keith Taylor Presents.. Version 2.0
2018-12-07 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
Performances by LGBT artists Trance, Durrty Hanna, Rockstar Sissy, Vermex Van Croix, Baller Brown, Fabiola Blonde, & Keith Taylor.

Followed by the premiere screening of “Silence” 3rd music video from THE STAGE Remixed & Revamped! EP

This event is a fundraiser for New Alternatives

Suggested donation of $10 to benefit New Alternatives. No one turned away for lack of funds.

New Alternatives provides a range of services designed to help LGBTQ+ youth succeed in transitioning to stable adult lives and welcomes all youth as they are with no barriers to entry.

Feminist Data Set Workshop
2018-12-08 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Please join Caroline Sinders and Dilettante Army for a workshop and discussion of Feminist Data Set. This session coincides with the launch of Dilettante Army’s newest online issue, Plot, which includes an essay by Sinders. For an initial discussion of queer aesthetic data points, Sinders will be joined by her fellow Plot contributor Rebecca Ariel Porte and by artist LJ Roberts.
This session will investigate varying methods of creating a feminist data set. What is feminist data inside of social networks, algorithms, and big data? A feminist data set queers the archive, the spreadsheet, and the data set. It moves beyond a white and male space, forcing the technology to reflect the community. A feminist data set acts as a means to combat bias and introduce the possibility of data collection as a feminist practice, aiming to produce a slice of data to intervene in larger civic and private networks. Exploring its potential to disrupt larger systems by generating new forms of agency, the session asks: can data collection itself function as an artwork? How can we create data to be an act of protest against algorithms?
Participants are invited to name digital content such as images, gifs, videos, sound, music and texts, which they feel is feminist and queer in nature, to feed into the data set, which teaches an AI system to recognize such. Queer data is art, interviews, and writing by queer and trans folx, with special attention paid to the work of people of color data (examples: the Combahee River Collective’s “A Black Feminist Statement,” “I Want a Dyke for President,” the sculptures of Simone Leigh, Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness, etc.). This process raises questions concerning qualitative data collection and requires the group to reflect on categories supposed to capture feminism.
If possible, please bring your own laptop! This will help you research data points and share any files you find.

Caroline Sinders is a machine learning design researcher and artist. For the past few years, she has been focusing on the intersections of natural language processing, artificial intelligence, abuse, online harassment and politics in digital, as well as conversational spaces. Caroline is the principal designer and founder of Convocation Design + Research, a design and research agency focusing on the intersections of product design, user research, AI, emerging technology and public good.
Caroline has held fellowships with the Yerba Buena Centers of the Arts, Eyebeam, the Studio for Creative Inquiry and the International Center of Photography. Her work has been featured at MoMA PS1, the Houston Center for Contemporary Art, Slate, Quartz, the Channels Biennale, as well as others. Caroline holds a masters from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Rebecca Ariel Porte (Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) is a member of the Core Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, where she teaches a spectrum of courses in literature, philosophy, and theory across centuries, cultures, and canons. She is currently at work on a book about paradise, Arcadia, and the Golden Age.

LJ Roberts creates large-scale textile installations, intricate embroideries, artist books, and collages. Their work investigates overlaps of queer and trans politics, activism, protest, narrative, and craft. LJ’s work has been shown at such venues as The Brooklyn Museum, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Museum of Arts and Design, Yerba Buena Center of the Arts, The Victoria and Albert Museum, The 8th Floor, Vox Populi, The Orange County Museum of Art, The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, The Oakland Museum of California, The DePaul Art Museum, The ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, The Bowdoin College Museum of Art, and The Museum of the City of New York.
LJ has been the past recipient of The Fountainhead Fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University, and residencies at IASPIS-Stockholm, The MacDowell Colony, QueensLab, Ox-Bow School of Art, ACRE, The Textile Arts Center, and The Bag Factory in Johannesburg, South Africa.
In 2015 LJ was one of nine recipients of The White House Champions of Change Award for LGBTQI Artists.
LJ lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Issue Launch Party for TSQ: Trans*Historicities
2018-12-09 15:00 - 17:00 | NY
Join TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly and co-editors Leah DeVun and Zeb Tortorici for the launch of TSQ’s new issue “Trans*historicities.” This issue brings together artists, curators, and scholars imagining a history of trans* before the advent of terms that scholars generally look to for the formation of modern concepts of gender, sex, and sexuality. Contributors — including Kadji Amin, M.W. Bychowski, Julian B. Carter, Julian Gill-Peterson, J. Halberstam, Asato Ikeda, Maya Mikdashi, Carlos Motta, Kai Pyle, C. Riley Snorton, Jennifer Wilson, and others — consider what we find if we look for trans* before trans*.

Leah DeVun is a historian, artist, and associate professor at Rutgers University. She’s the author of Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time and articles in Radical History Review, GLQ, WSQ, Osiris, and ASAP/Journal. Her artwork and curatorial projects have been featured in publications such as Artforum, Hyperallergic, People, Huffington Post, Art Papers, and Slate and at venues such as USC’s ONE Archives Gallery and Museum, Skidmore College’s Tang Teaching Museum, NYU’s Fales Library & Special Collections, Houston Center for Photography, Blanton Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and Leslie-Lohman Museum, among others.

Zeb Tortorici is an historian and associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. He is the author of Sins against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain (2018), and has recently co-edited two issues of Radical History Review on the topic of “Queering Archives.” He also edited Sexuality and the Unnatural in Colonial Latin America (2016) and co-edited Centering Animals in Latin American History (2013). His co-edited anthology Ethnopornography: Sexuality, Colonialism, and Anthropological/Archival Knowledge is forthcoming with Duke University Press.

Meryl Meisler's SASSY '70s
2018-12-13 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Meryl Meisler, with camera in hand, documented the process of her coming out and exploring LGBTQ NY communities during the 1970s. She’ll be sharing her images and stories of Disco, nightlife, Fire Island, and self portraits from her book Purgatory & Paradise SASSY ‘70s Suburbia & The City.

Copies of Purgatory & Paradise SASSY ‘70s Suburbia & The City will be available for purchase at the event. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.

Meryl Meisler was born in the South Bronx and raised in North Massapequa, Long Island in New York. Inspired by Diane Arbus and Jacques Henri Lartigue, Meryl began photographing herself, family, and friends while enrolled in a photography class at The University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1975, Meryl returned to New York City and studied with Lisette Model, continuing to photograph her hometown and the city around her She frequented and photographed the infamous New York discos.After a 31-year career as a NYC public school art teacher, she began revealing large bodies of unseen work. Her monographs, “A Tale of Two Cities Disco Era Bushwick” and “Purgatory & Paradise SASSY ‘70s Suburbia & The City,” (Bizarre Publishing) are internationally acclaimed. Meryl lives and works in New York City, continuing the photographic memoir she began in 1973 – a uniquely American story, sweet and sassy with a pinch of mystery. She is represented by Steven Kasher Gallery.

Office Hours Poetry Workshop Fall Showcase Reading
2018-12-14 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Writers from the Fall 2018 Office Hours Poetry Workshop will read the innovative poetry they’ve developed over the course of five workshop sessions. Our free workshop provides post-MFA poets access to continued support for manuscript-development and everyday writing. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are woman-identified. Our name derives from our side hustle. Many of us are freelance, adjunct instructors, who continue to thrive in the margins of academia.

Featuring:
Marty Correia, Linda Harris Dolan, Jimena,, Jen Levitt, Paco Márquez, Caitlin Grace McDonnell, Holly Mitchell, Madeleine Mori, Elsbeth Pancrazi, Dacota Pratt-Pariseau, Sarah Sala, Victoria Sanz, and Irene Villaseñor.

Marty Correia’s work has appeared in The Mailer Review, Cagibi, FUSE, Punk Soul Poet, Lady Business, Sinister Wisdom and Flock. Marty produces the reading series: A Tribe Called Butch and is a memoir manuscript editor. A graduate of NYU’s creative writing MFA program, Marty recently finished Pigeon Mothers, a novel set in 1986 in Bridgeport, CT and Coney Island, NY. She is represented by the Frances Goldin Literary Agency and has lived in the East Village with her spouse Kate Conroy since 1996.

Linda Harris Dolan is a poet, editor, and professor. She holds an M.A. in English & American Literature from NYU, and an M.F.A in Poetry from NYU, where she was a Starworks Creative Writing Fellow. She’s former Poetry Editor of Washington Square Review and is currently a freelance editor. She teaches at Rutgers University. Her work appears in Barrow Street, Breakwater Review, Cordella Magazine, No Dear Magazine, The Brooklyn Review, The Grief Diaries, Blood and Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine, and Roanoke Review. Her poems have also been featured in the performance series, Emotive Fruition. She’s a 2016 Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee.

Jimena is a poet & artist born and raised in NYC. She’s a first generation Mexican-American trans woman. She graduated from Hunter College with a B.A. in English. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry. She is a Pink Door fellow (2019) and she curates events centered on QTPOC [with disabilities.]

Jen Levitt is the author of The Off-Season (Four Way Books, 2016). She received her MFA from NYU, and her poems have appeared in Boston Review, The Literary Review, Sixth Finch, Tin House and elsewhere. She lives in New York City and teaches high school students.

Paco Márquez is author of the chapbook Portraits in G Minor (Folded Word Press, 2017). His work has appeared in Apogee, Ostrich Review, Live Mag! and Huizache, among others. As Spanish Editor for William O’Daly, he assisted in translating Pablo Neruda’s initial book, Crepusculario, for the first time into English,Book of Twilight, (Copper Canyon Press, 2017). His work has been supported by New York University, The Center for Book Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Originally from México and Northern California, Paco lives in New York City with his partner of 12 years. More at: www.pacomarquez.net

Caitlin Grace McDonnell was a New York Times Fellow in poetry at NYU and has received fellowships from Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her poems and essays have been published widely, and she published a chapbook of poems “Dreaming the Tree” (belladonna 2003) and a book “Looking for Small Animals” (nauset press 2012). Currently, she teaches English at CUNY, lives in Brooklyn with her nine-year-old daughter, and is at work on novel.

Holly Mitchell is a poet from Kentucky, now based in New York. A winner of an Amy Award from Poets & Writers and a Gertrude Claytor Prize from the Academy of American Poets, she received an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in several journals, including Baltimore Review, Juked, Slice, and Paperbag.

Madeleine Mori is a Japanese-American poet originally from San Francisco. She received a BS in Wine and Viticulture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she was the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize. Her work has appeared in BOAAT, Cosmonauts Avenue, Salt Hill, and Sixth Finch, among others. She received an MFA from New York University, where she served as a Poetry Editor of Washington Square Review, and was the recipient of the 2017 Lucille Clifton Memorial Scholarship from the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. She is the Guest Poetry Editor at Aperçus and lives in Brooklyn.

Elsbeth Pancrazi is the author of Full Body Pleasure Suit, which was the 2016 Tavern Books Wrolstad Contemporary Poetry Selection. She has been recognized for her writing as a Poets House Fellow and an artist-in-residence at Caldera Arts in Sisters, Oregon. She is working on a new book starring the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

Dacota Pratt-Pariseau is a Vermont poet. She has an MFA from NYU and has been published in Prelude and Bodega Magazine. She currently lives in Harlem.

Sarah Sala‘s debut poetry collection, Devil’s Lake, was a finalist for the 2017 Subito Book Prize, and her poem “Hydrogen” was featured in the “Elements” episode of NPR’s hit show Radiolab. The founder of Office Hours Poetry Workshop, she’s currently at work on Migrainer, a lyric essay examining the interstices of migraine and creativity.

Victoria Sanz is a Latina Miami native living in Brooklyn. She holds degrees in English, American Sign Language, and Poetry. She currently teaches 2s and 3s at Maple Street School, and is working toward her doula certification. Some of her work can be found in Phantom Limb, smoking glue gun, and SWWIM.

Irene Villaseñor is a multidisciplinary artist. She’s pursuing a MFA in Art Writing and Art Criticism at the School of Visual Arts to work on a manuscript about contemporary Indigenous art. Her poem “10 Truths and a Lie” is included in Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color (Nightboat Books, May 2018). She’s also written for the Los Angeles Review of Books, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, and Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought. Irene was interviewed for the book It’s Not About Grit: Trauma, Inequity and the Power of Transformative Teaching by Steve Goodman (Teachers College Press, June 2018). Previously, she was part of the team at American Documentary | P.O.V. that received a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. Irene also received the Catalog for Giving’s Urban Hero Award and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice’s Women We Love, Women We Honor Award.

TELL 49: Permission
2018-12-15 19:00 - 21:30 | 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.

TELL ends the year with a night of storytellers curated by Mariel Reyes @marielwashere

Featuring stories by Chrissy Etienne, Katie Fricas, Winter Laike, and a story and video excerpt by Arisleyda Dilone.

This is the 49th installment of TELL. The night’s theme is PERMISSION.
$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

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 BGSQD. Check her out online! www.draecampbell.com.

Katie Fricas is a cartoonist from New York City. She makes non-fiction essay comics about art, politics, and hidden histories in a wiggly, slap-happy style for various publications and websites. She got her start illustrating for $pread Magazine (RIP) and self-publishing a comic about her life called Blabbermouth. Her work pops up in various anthologies, including the 2018 Ignatz award-winning book, Comics for Choice, and her comics have also appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the New Yorker, and PEN America. Her series, Checked Out, about almost a decade spent working at NYC’s oldest library, appears regularly on the website Spiralbound. When she isn’t scuttling all over the city, she can be found at home scanning the funnie pages.

Winter Laike is a Brooklyn-based musician and storyteller whose musical works include a collection of songs based on Craigslist missed connections, a rock opera inspired by a series of dreams, and songs about life’s everyday struggles. He has appeared on the stage at venues such as The Knitting Factory, The Bowery, Music Hall of Williamsburg, the Duplex, and the Tank. When he’s not writing music, Winter enjoys making the internet accessible, riding his bike, making not-your-mother’s Rice Krispie treats, playing with puppies, and gorging on pizza, donuts, and ice cream.
Winter’s next performance will be Monday, December 17 at The Tank, where he will be performing musical works in various stages of development, including some of the aforementioned projects. More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/498900230587403

Arisleyda Dilone (b. 1982/Santiago, Dominican Republic). Arisleyda is a filmmaker, writer, actor, multilingual translator and model. Her practice is rooted in revealing the deeply personal through all the mediums necessary. In 2015 she completed the short film: Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito /Mom and Me and My Little Rooster. As a writer, she was a contributing author in Period: Twelve Voices Tell the Bloody Truth a book of essays. She is currently working on a feature length documentary titled: This Body, Too.

Arisleyda is a member of Diverse Filmmakers Alliance, Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective and Ay Ombe Theater.

Chrissy Etienne is a queer Haitian poet and storyteller by way of birth right.
They’d like to know what going home feels like.

Global Gay
2018-12-18 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Directed by Salvino Raco, Global Gay is a performance piece and reading based on Frédéric Martel‘s book, Global Gay: How Gay Culture Is Changing the World, now available in English translation, which describes how lgbtq culture has changed societies everywhere, especially in the post-Stonewall Era. Martel’s book also examines the challenges to lgbtq folk in cultures that are hostile to alternative forms of sexual and gender expression. Directed by Salvino Raco, the full production will be presented at LaMaMa ETC in June 2019 as part of the Stonewall50 commemorations.

Salvino Raco, Italian director based in Paris, has conceived and mounted many productions in the “theater of engagement” sphere. His works focus on human rights issues and protest against oppressive political and cultural structures, in the Brechtian tradition. An abridged version of “Global Gay” was presented to much acclaim at the Milan Triennale in 2016.

Craig Anthony Bannister, associate producer, is artistic/program director for Spectrum Arts Production. As part of his work with Salvino Raco, he is initiating a series of intergenerational workshops designed to interpret the “Global Gay” to a wide audience, ranging from Stonewall veterans of 1969 to today’s young people struggling with lgbtq and gender-fluid issues.

Edward Moran, producer/translator/narrator, has assisted Salvino Raco in translating his scripts and production notes from French to English, and has also assisted him in introducing Raco’s work to American theaters. A resident of New York City since June 1969, he was a witness to the Stonewall rebellion and its aftermath.

CARPE ANNUM: Readings by Jeppesen, Kitto, Benderson
2019-01-04 18:00 - 20:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
What better way to start off another year on our exhilarating ride toward redemption/oblivion, than a reading by three of the sharpest minds around? In a rare NYC appearance, writer and critic TRAVIS JEPPESEN will read from his work. On the same bill: the great essayist SVETLANA KITTO and the legendary BRUCE BENDERSON. Hosted by JASON NAPOLI BROOKS

Drinks will be served for a donation. Admission is $10 suggested donation to benefit the Bureau (no one will be turned away for lack of funds).

Travis Jeppesen is the author of the novels Victims, Wolf at the Door, and The Suiciders, as well as two volumes of poetry and a collection of art criticism, Disorientations: Art on the Margins of the “Contemporary”. In 2018, his book See You in Pyongyang, about his time living and studying in North Korea, was published. His essays and criticism have appeared in Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, Artforum, Afterall, Art in America, Texte zur Kunst, Flash Art, Bookforum, Spike, Frieze, and Mousse, among other publications. Jeppesen is based in Berlin and Shanghai, where he teaches at the Institute for Cultural and Creative Industry at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His new collection of essays, Bad Writing, is forthcoming from Sternberg Press.

Svetlana Kitto is a writer and oral historian in New York City. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Guernica, Interview Magazine, and BOMB, among other publications. She co/curates the reading and performance series Adult Contemporary, which is presented quarterly with Hauser & Wirth.

Bruce Benderson is a novelist, essayist, journalist and translator, widely published in France. Benderson’s erotic memoir Autobiographie érotique, about a nine-month sojourn in Romania, won the prestigious French literary prize, the Prix de Flore.His book-length essay, Toward the New Degeneracy, looks at New York’s Times Square, where rich and poor once mixed in a lively atmosphere of drugs, sex, and commerce. Benderson argues that this kind of mingling of classes has been the source of many modern avant-garde movements, and he laments the disappearance of that particular milieu. His novel User (1994) is a lyrical descent into the world of junkies and male hustlers. He is also the author of James Bidgood (Taschen, 1999), about the maker of the cult film Pink Narcissus.

Jason Napoli Brooks’ fiction and non-fiction have appeared in various publications, such as Ninth Letter, Asymptote, Bomb Blog, Colors, and the gay fiction anthology Satanica. His first novel, Shelter, was the recipient of The Chapbook Award for Best Fiction of 2006. From 2014-2017 Brooks published the psychedelic mystery series Cock of the Walk in zine format. It reached a wide audience and is now being translated intoSpanish. Brooks wrote the script for the multimedia theater work, Soundstage, starring actor Rebecca Hall and created/directed by Rob Roth, which premiered in New York City at Here Arts Center in September 2018. Brooks is the founder, curator, and emcee of the long-running Enclave Reading Series, which takes place at Club Cumming, actor Alan Cummings’ nightclub in the East Village.

Social Sculpture for Individual Goals
2019-01-05 11:00 - 13:00, 2019-01-19 11:00 - 13:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Social Sculpture for Individual Goals is an opportunity to check in with others about your personal goals.

The way it works is very simple: A group of individuals gathers together, and, depending on how many individuals are present, together we decide on a specific amount of time that each person will be allotted to speak to the group about their personal goals. We ask for one person to volunteer as a timekeeper, and that person keeps track of time, letting the person who is speaking know when they have one minute remaining, and when their time is up.

As each one of us takes our turn to speak, the group listens quietly and gives us an opportunity to speak from the heart about our personal goals. This process of personal goal-related sharing can go in many different directions, and each person who speaks is welcome to use this time in whatever way feels most helpful to them. This process provides an opportunity for the speaker to sort out their thoughts, to gain clarity around personal goals, to share setbacks and successes, and to be accountable to others. As we listen to others, it is an opportunity for us to practice deep listening and to receive inspiration from others.

While this is not an overly rule-bound process, we do ask that attendees keep the following guidelines in mind:

– When it is someone else’s turn to speak, others in the group do not interrupt or query that person. We allow the person who is speaking to have ‘the stage’ to themself during their turn.

– During your own turn, keep the focus on yourself, and do not give feedback to others who have already spoken (note: it is okay to reference something someone else said, for example, something that inspired you–as long as you are mentioning it in relation to your own goals and your own process).

– Nobody is required to share. It is okay to attend and just listen to others, without sharing anything yourself. Also, it is okay if someone wants to speak for less than their allotted time.

– Please keep in mind that this is an open community forum; therefore, information that attendees choose to share is not considered confidential or anonymous.

This project is a collaboration between the Bureau and Ben G. Adams, a psychologist and artist whose work focuses on approaching tropes of personal and social transformation as art forms. The term ‘social sculpture’ was originally developed by 20th century conceptual artist Joseph Beuys in reference to the idea that all human beings are artists, and that all aspects of life can be approached as art forms. Ben’s previous work includes an art book and dieting system titled The Creative Process Diet, mixed media works in printmaking and sculpture, and another (currently ongoing) iteration of Social Sculpture for Individual Goals developed in collaboration with the Religious Society of Friends of Truth (a.k.a. ‘Quakers’) beginning in January 2017.

There is no required cost to attend Social Sculpture for Individual Goals, which is being very generously sponsored by the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, an independent organization that is operated entirely by volunteers. During the meeting we will pass around a bowl so that everyone who attends will receive an opportunity to make a voluntary donation to support the Bureau. The suggested donation is $10, and we ask attendees to be as generous as possible in their support of the Bureau, which generously sponsors Social Sculpture for Individual Goals and many other community-building projects.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Tom of Finland
2019-01-09 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. This month we’ll be at our regular venue, the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division.

On Wednesday, January 9th, please join us for Tom of Finland (2017), directed by Dome Karukoski and starring Pekka Strang.

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: Based on the life of Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, the film contrasts his closeted life as a post-WWII advertising executive in Helsinki with the joyful eroticism of his (now iconic) illustrations of hyper-masculinized gay men in uniforms and fetish gear. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In Finnish with English subtitles.

Community, Perversity and the Queer Left
2019-01-17 18:30 - 20:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Community, Perversity and the Queer Left: A political conversation about community, politics, sex and history. Verso Books’ recent re-publication of Jeffrey Escoffier’s American Homo and three other pioneering works by radical queer left thinkers published in the early 1980s is the occasion of a discussion facilitated by Christopher Mitchell, a professor of Gender Studies at Hunter College, with Jeffrey Escoffier, author of American Homo: Community and Perversity, on the relevance of the queer left today.

Copies of American Homo: Community and Perversity (along with the other three titles from set 17 of Verso’s Radical Thinkers series) will be available to 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!

Jeffrey Escoffier is on the faculty of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. His book, American Homo: Community and Perversity, was recently re-issued by Verso Books in its Radical Thinkers series. He the author of Bigger Than Life: Gay Porn Cinema from Beefcake to Hardcore and the editor of Sexual Revolution, an anthology of the most influential writing on sex from the 1960s and 70s. He is the former executive editor of Socialist Review. He was one of the founders and the Publisher of the pioneering LGBTQ journal OUT/LOOK from 1989 to 1992.

Christopher Mitchell is a historian of queer life in NYC and a professor of gender studies at Hunter College, CUNY.

Opening reception for Tobias Wong, “Untitled” (Golden) ...
2019-01-18 18:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Please join us at the opening reception for Tobias Wong, “Untitled” (Golden) … on Friday, January 18, 2019, 6-9 PM

Tobias Wong, “Untitled” (Golden) …
January 18 – March 17, 2019
Download a PDF of the press release.
New York, New York –The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is proud to present Tobias Wong, “Untitled” (Golden) …, an exhibition of the late artist/designer’s work that played with the definition of what constituted art or design. The exhibition will present a selection of his work alongside objects from his personal collection that served as muses for his artistic design work. This includes a wide variety of table lamps as well as ephemera that he collected.
In a press release issued at the time of Wong’s death in 2010, architecture and design curator, friend, and colleague Aric Chen wrote: “Through his work, Wong helped bring forth much of what is now taken for granted in contemporary culture. Influenced by Dada and, especially, Fluxus, he questioned authorship through appropriation; held a mirror to our desires and absurdities; upended the hierarchy between design and art, and the precious and the banal; and helped redefine collaboration and curation as creative practices. Working within what he termed a “paraconceptual” framework, Wong prompted a reevaluation of everything we thought we knew about design: its production, its psychological resonance, its aesthetic criteria, its means of distribution, its attachment to provenance, its contextualization and its manner of presentation. Wong was a keen observer, an original mind, a brilliant prankster, and an unerring friend.
“Wong’s work was widely exhibited, including at the Museum of Modern Art and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. His many projects included those for Colette, Comme des Garcons, Prada/OMA, Cappellini and Swarovski Crystal Palace. In addition to the objects he created, re-created, repurposed, rarefied and otherwise manipulated, Wong’s work included events and happenings that included, among many others, a pop-up tattoo parlor at Art Basel Miami Beach/Design Miami and the Wrong Store, a “store” in New York that was in fact never open. (As with much of Wong’s work, both were collaborations.) Wong was named Young Designer of the Year by Wallpaper* magazine (2004) as well as the Brooklyn Museum of Art (2006). In 2008 and 2009, he served as founding co-creative director of 100% Design Shanghai, affiliated with the 100% Design fairs in London and Tokyo.
“Born and raised in Vancouver, Wong studied in Toronto before moving to New York in 1997 to attend the Cooper Union, from which he graduated with a major in sculpture.”

The exhibition is curated by:
Dean MacGregor, an artist who has done projects at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Morgan Library and many others. He recently did his sleeping project at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Pablo Griff is an artist and was a consultant to the retrospective of Tobias Wong’s work at the Museum of Vancouver in 2012.

Image: Tobias Wong, blue anus, 1998 (replica 2016 courtesy Lite Brite Neon, Brooklyn), Estate of Tobias Wong

TELL 50: BELIEVING
2019-01-19 19:00 - 21:30 | 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.

BELIEVING is the theme of the 50th installment of TELL. That’s right, the 50th TELL!
Featuring stories by Juju Garcia, Linden Crawford, Wo Chan, Jordana De La Cruz, and REXYLAFEMME.

$10 suggested donation to support the Bureau and the performers. No one turned away for lack of funds.

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.

Juju Garcia’s passion for fashion, film and music magnetized him away from the most economically segregated city in the country – San Antonio, Texas – all the way to New York City, at the age of 18. After some growing pains, he discovered a skill for writing pop songs and is now determined to inject queerness into the music industry, while being a voice for young, queer folks trying to find their way in the world.

Linden Crawford grew up in Sacramento, California, and went to the same high school as Joan Didion, which they hope counts for something. Linden moved to Brooklyn after an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of New Orleans, and recently had their first publication, a personal essay about getting top surgery, called “All in One Piece”, in the New York Times.

Wo Chan is a queer poet and drag performer living in Brooklyn. Wo has received fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, Kundiman, and the Asian American Writers Workshop. As a member of the Brooklyn based drag/burlesque collective Switch N’ Play, Wo has performed at venues including The Whitney, National Sawdust, New York Live Arts, and BAM Fisher. Check them out on instagram @theillustriouspearl.
Photo by AJ Jordan

Jordana De La Cruz is a Brooklyn-based director, cultural producer, queer babe, and dog mom extraordinaire. She creates events, performances, and public programs that spark cross cultural dialogue and challenge the traditional notions of identity. She has worked with JACK, La Mama, The Flea Theater, IATI Theater, INTAR Theatre,The Story Pirates, and Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company, among others. Jordana is currently curating public programs at the Park Avenue Armory, a cultural arts institution dedicated to producing unconventional work.

REXYLAFEMME (rex renée leonowicz) is a visual + performing artist, writer, and songwriter born and raised in NYC. As a working class trans femme, rex’s work is grounded in a politics of radical resistance, healing, and witness. rex blends genders and genres, often utilizing drag and burlesque, to critically respond to the relationships people “on the margins” have with our surroundings and each other. rex’s book of poems and illustrations, when there is no one and there is everyone, is available from Magic Helicopter Press. S/he was a 2017 EmergeNYC Performance Fellow with the Hemispheric Institute at NYU and has an MFA in Poetry from Mills College.

Physique Pictorial Volume 47 Release Party
2019-01-20 16:00 - 18:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Come celebrate the release of Physique Pictorial, photographer Bob Mizer’s art journal that fought censorship laws back in the day — and freed up the nude male physique throughout American culture.

The new Physique Pictorial relaunched last year and you can help us celebrate the release of the latest volume with The Bob Mizer Foundation and the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division.

Come and meet Physique Pictorial’s spokespersons, Ross Collab and Edward Joseph who are hosting the event in the incredible space that is the Bureau. Enjoy queer art, conversation, drinks, music, vintage Bob Mizer films, and even a chance to win a copy of the new Physique Pictorial V47!

Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Bureau. No one turned away for lack of funds.
