BGSQD

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Frida
2017-11-08 18:30 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | 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.

Please join us for Frida (2002), directed by Julie Taymor and starring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina.
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 more people come, the more likely we’ll continue the event! The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.
Synopsis: Despite illness, injury, and life-long pain, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo lived a full and extraordinary life. She and her husband, painter Diego Rivera, both had many other relationships over the course of their marriage. Frida’s doctor told her that Diego “has never been, nor ever will be, monogamous.” Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes.

John Hanning reads from his book Unfortunate Male
2017-11-10 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join us on Friday evening for a special performance by artist John Hanning. The lights will go out at 7:30. Seating is limited – Do not miss this! A special edition of the artist book is available, 25 copies.
Unfortunate Male chronicles John Hanning‘s diagnosis with AIDS with his medical records, photographs and memory text. Hanning’s book is a meditation on memory. Why do we remember some things and not others? Do memories sustain us or ruin us? Is it possible to rewrite or reenact memories? How do photographs and medical forms – relics of sorts – facilitate or challenge our ability to remember and tell stories?
John Hanning is a Brooklyn based artist and writer. He connects places and ideas – pictorially and conceptually, composing his personal iconography as he traces his life to the present. He is the author of Unfortunate Male.

Photograph by Michael McFadden. @mcfaddenphoto

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CENTER WILL OPEN AT 5 PM ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10TH, IN OBSERVANCE OF VETERANS DAY.
THE BUREAU WILL OPEN AT 6 PM FOR THIS EVENT.

TELL 38: Overcome
2017-11-11 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.
Overcome is the theme of the 38th installment of TELL. Featuring Thomas March, Ali Lemer, Rosie Frascella, Simba Sandra Yangala, and Mariel Reyes.

$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.

Originally from Springfield, IL, Thomas March is a poet, teacher and critic based in New York City. Aftermath, his first poetry collection, was selected by Joan Larkin for The Word Works Hilary Tham Capital Collection and will appear in Spring 2018. His poetry has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, The Good Men Project, Pleiades, and Public Pool, among others. His reviews and essays have appeared in The Believer, The Huffington Post, and New Letters. With painter Valerie Mendelson, he is the co-creator of A Good Mixer, a textual-visual hybrid project based on a 1933 bartender’s guide of the same name; it will have gallery previews beginning in early 2018. Appearing regularly in Lambda Literary Review, his poetry column, “Appreciations,” offers appreciative close readings of excellent poems from recent collections by LGBTQ poets. A past recipient of the Norma Millay Ellis Fellowship in Poetry, from the Millay Colony for the Arts, he has also received an Artist/Writer grant from The Vermont Studio Center. In recent years, he has written and performed monologues at a number of venues in New York City, including Ars Nova, Joe’s Pub, The Peoples Improv Theater, and Sid Gold’s Request Room. Twitter: @realthomasmarch, Web: www.thomasmarch.org

Ali Lemer is a writer and editor and the author of numerous guidebooks and travel articles for companies such as Thomas Cook and Lonely Planet, as well as the co-editor of Joyful Strains: Making Australia Home (2013, Affirm Press). She’s also been a radio DJ, a roller derby announcer, a tech support assistant, a first-year English teacher, a desktop publisher and a waiter, so her mother is still waiting for her to settle down and find a good job already.

Rosie Frascella is a teacher activist and queer mama. She is a core member of the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and a 12th grade English teacher.

Simba Sandra Yangala was born in Zaire (currently the Democratic Republic of Congo). She is a performing artist, choreographer, playwright, actress, dancer and educator. She studied Liberal Arts at LaGuardia Community College and Social Sciences at the College of New Rochelle. She is the founder and Artistic Director of her performing arts company JungleDom Network in which she founded the Kamutshima Dance Troupe.
As a daughter of Africa, she is committed to creating a greater awareness and appreciation of African culture, the performing arts and particularly, female performing artists. Simba has a special gift of emphasizing with children from her over 10 years experience of working as an ethics educator. She imbues them with confidence and strives to teach the importance of community. With her generous heart and enthusiasm for the arts she has already nurtured a generation of children through the Ethics for Children program at Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. Tapping into her breadth of experience working with children, she has also taught drama with the Young Peoples Theater, is an assistant teacher with Education in Dance and thought African Dance with Arts East New York. At Play Kids she taught African Dance, French Sing-a-Long and Folk Sing-a-Long for children and also African Dance for adults.
Sitting down with her sisters, brothers and cousins, before bedtime as a child, Simba enjoyed story time by many family members including her maternal grandfather. That cherished valuable time of her childhood later influenced her own talent as a wonderful story teller. She has been in many of Susana Cook’s plays and performing and producing off-Broadway theater since 2004. Catch her in her next wave of performances or caring and dancing with children.

While somewhat of a shy performer and storyteller, Mariel Reyes has written & produced works for some of your favorite experimental theater spaces in NYC (Dixon Place, Brooklyn Arts Exchange) and has also appeared on screen in the film “Appropriate Behaviour” which premiered at Sundance in 2014.

Debut Poetry Book Launch and Reading: The Carnival of Affection by Philip F. Clark. Featuring poet David J. Bauman
2017-11-15 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Philip F. Clark and David J. Bauman will read from their current published work and works in progress. Refreshments will be served. The poets will sign copies of their books for sale at the close of the event.

PHILIP F. CLARK, a native New Yorker, received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry at City College, New York, in 2016, where he is currently an Adjunct Lecturer in English. He was the graduate editor of The Promethean Literary Journal. His poetry has been published in Assaracus Journal of Gay Poetry, The Good Men Project, “Between: New Gay Poetry, published by Chelsea Station Editions, The HIV HERE AND NOW Project, and most recently, Transition: Poems In the Aftermath, published by Indolent Press. His poetry reviews and interviews have been published in Lambda Literary. His blog The Poet’s Grin can be seen at https://philipfclark.wordpress.com His current debut volume of poetry The Carnival of Affection, is published by Sibling Rivalry Press. It was a winner of the Jerome Lowell De Jur Award for Poetry in 2016.

DAVID J. BAUMAN has recently published work in 2 Bridges Review, Barely South Review, and Yellow Chair Review. His poems have also been published in journals and magazines such as San Pedro River Review, Blue Hour, Contemporary American Voices, and T(OUR). He is a recipient of the Richard Savidge Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and Bloomsburg University. David’s chapbook Moons, Roads, and Rivers will be published in November of 2017 by Finishing Line Press. When he is not writing and publishing poems, David manages a small branch library in the Wilkes-Barre area, where he is the Editor of Word Fountain, the Literary Magazine of the Osterhout Free Library.

Opening Reception for Getting Lost in Oneself (PrOceSS)-Adriana Varella
2017-11-16 18:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join us at the Opening Reception for Getting Lost in Oneself (PrOceSS)-Adriana Varella
Performance by Raquel Maveck (QueefCore-music) at 7 PM

Getting Lost in Oneself (PrOceSS)-Adriana Varella is on view at the Bureau from November 16, 2017 through January 14, 2018 Sunday, January 21, 2018.

Artist’s statement:
Seventeen years ago I left Brazil to San Francisco and after NYC, as my work started being the object of censorship. Today a number of progressive and queer shows are being shut down as extreme alt-right conservative groups gain strength in Brazil and worldwide. This exhibition is a protest against repression and censorship.
About the works in Getting Lost in Oneself (PrOceSS):
In Cracks in Civilized Landscapes an experimental-video-performance, where we challenge architecture as patriarchal authority. In this work, Adriana Varella and her girlfriend are filmed having sex in a number of public, and somewhat “sacred” spaces: church, castle, museum, bank and other monuments such as Rio de Janeiro’s City Council, the Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, the Military Fortress of Urca, Rio se Janeiro, the Eiffel Tower, Paris, etc etc . As we fuck, we attempt to subvert their sacred, heroic and sexist dimension. We infiltrate these buildings to decipher the oppressive power beyond their formal aspect and use sex as a revolutionary process of desecration. In New configurations for queer families Orion proposes a debate that defies normative concepts of family (as a reductive model of authoritarian state) as they play with images of polygamy and orgies. Orion also presents Barricades, in which they defy the police state as they steal NYPD barricades and transform them into art objects. In Manhattan Bridge, Jack and David collect trans man images from the internet and bring them to life in a large scale painting with the Manhattan Bridge walking pass in the background.

Adriana Varella will talk with curator Denise Carvalho and the artist: January 11th, 7 PM

MOMENTUM! 5 Years and Counting! A Birthday Party and Fundraiser for the Bureau!
2017-11-17 18:00 - 21:30 | NY
Join the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division to celebrate our 5th birthday!

MOMENTUM: 5 Years and Counting! will begin at 6 PM with an hour-long reception followed by a variety show MC’d by actor, entertainer, and former Miss LEZ Drae Campbell, and featuring author/blogger Jeremiah Moss (Vanishing New York: How A Great City Lost Its Soul); poet, writer, and performer Pamela Sneed; comedian, activist, and instructor Elsa Waithe; drag performer Lady Quesa’Dilla; and burlesque performer and porn star Chris Harder. DJ Viva Ruiz will bring guests to the dance floor for the final hour and a half!
Raffle prizes! Food! Drink! Dancing! Performances! Fun!

Tickets are only $25.
Purchase tickets

Flyer Design: Paul Moreno

Big thanks to our donors!
Lagunitas Brewing Company

Saxelby Cheese Mongers

Raffle prizes include:
T-shirts and other goodies from Tom of Finland Store

1 pair of tickets to Sasha Velour’s Nightgowns on New Year’s Eve!

2 pairs of tickets to Chris Harder’s Porn to Be a STAR!

Performers and Readers:

Drae Campbell is an actor, storyteller, curator and all around entertainer. She received a BFA in Theater from the University of The Arts in Philadelphia. She’s been spotted on IFC.Com, Conan. Refinery29 and in numerous films. Some theater credits include: Only You Can Prevent Wildfires, Ricochet Collective, Non-Consensual Relationships With Ghosts, La Mama, My Old Man, Dixon Place, Oph3lia at HERE. She appeared as a radical lesbian in Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History Of Popular Music at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Drae once reigned as Miss LEZ and she hosts and curates a live monthly storytelling show called TELL at BGSQD.
www.draecampbell.com

Viva Ruiz is a queer big mouth.
thankgodforabortion.com

Photo by Christopher Schulz
Jeremiah Moss, creator of the award-winning blog Vanishing New York, and author of Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul, is the pen name of Griffin Hansbury. His writing on the city has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Daily News, and online for The New Yorker and The Paris Review. As Hansbury, he is the author of The Nostalgist, a novel, and works as a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City.

Photo by Patricia Silva
Pamela Sneed is a New York-based poet, writer and performer. She is author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery, KONG and Other Works and a chaplet, Gift by Belladonna. She has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Time Out, Bomb, VIBE, and on the cover of New York Magazine. She has appeared in Art Forum, The Huffington Post and Hyperallergic. In 2017, She was a Visiting Critic at Yale and Columbia University. She is a Visiting Professor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts for 2017/18. She is online faculty at Chicago’s School of the Art Institute teaching Human Rights and Writing Art and has also been a Visiting Artist at SAIC in the MFA summer low-res program. She has performed at the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Poetry Project, NYU and Pratt Universities, Smack Mellon Gallery, The High Line, and was an artist- in- residence at Pratt University, Denniston Hill and Poet-Linc, Lincoln Center Education. She directed a final showcase at Lincoln Center Atrium. Her collage work appeared in Avram Finklestein’s FOUND at The Leslie Lohman Museum in 2017. Her work appears in Nikki Giovanni’s, “The 100 Best African American Poets.” Her forthcoming chapbook, Sweet Dreams, will be published by Belladonna in February 2018.

Elsa Waithe is a comedian, activist, and instructor from Norfolk, VA. Now residing in Brooklyn, NY, Elsa’s comedy is a mix of lighthearted but critical jabs at attitudes and issues around homosexuality and race, but her 2 favorite topics are weed and herself.
She’s been featured on NPR’s This American Life, hosted the monthly comedy show “Affirmative Laughter” at The Experiment Comedy Gallery, and now teaches stand-up comedy to teen girls with Gold Comedy #ComedyForGirls.

Photo by: Alonzo Maciel. Wig by: Steven Perfidia Kirkham
Lady Quesa’Dilla

Photo by David Ayllon
Chris Harder is a New York male burlesque performer, writer, and porn star. Known as “The Raunchy Romeo of Burlesque,” Harder has toured his solo burlesque performances throughout the US as well as Europe including shows in London, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, and Stockholm. Harder was named “Best of the Naked City” by the Village Voice (2011) and also crowned “Best International Male Performer” at the 2011 World Burlesque Games, London. Recently, Chris Harder was one of the American Headliners for the 2017 Helsinki Burlesque Festival and also a featured burlesque performer at the 2017 World Buskers Festival, New Zealand. Harder is also the writer and producer of the Nasty Drew and That Harder Boy series, New York. Find out more and #getHarder at www.HarderBurlesque.com and @HarderBurlesque on Instagram and Twitter.
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Why donate to the Bureau?
The Bureau is a vital, unique queer space in New York City. Visitors find themselves surrounded by LGBTQ books and publications by and about our community, whether they are new or treasured classics, well-known or obscure and difficult to find. From Audre Lorde and James Baldwin to Michelle Tea and Brontez Purnell, from the latest books on transgender youth and intersex activism to contemporary gay manga and fantastical polygender coloring books, visitors encounter an array of LGBTQ books and publications that they will not find anywhere else. With new work that we receive directly from zine makers and small independent presses, visitors always discover new friends.
The Bureau hosts over 200 events every year, many of which would not otherwise find a venue. These are both community-driven events such as book-discussion groups, activist strategizing meetings, and writing workshops, as well as book launches by both well-known and emerging authors and poets. Additionally, the Bureau hosts at least 5 exhibitions yearly: both solo and group exhibitions of art works as well as activist materials. The Bureau has collaborated with organizations such as Visual AIDS and Fire Island Artist Residency, as well as with veterans of The Lesbian Avengers activist group and activists fighting police violence against people of color to bring you provocative and inspiring exhibitions year round.
At 5 years and counting, we want to improve and enhance the experience of visiting the Bureau and attending our events and exhibitions. The Bureau needs new, sturdier bookshelves, new audio-visual equipment, cushioned seating, and office equipment that will facilitate our work for the community. The members of our community who share their work in our space and our guests deserve a high-functioning and comfortable venue.
Please donate to the Bureau to help us improve your experience of our space, our events, and our exhibitions so that we can serve you as we’ve always envisioned. As always, thank you for your support!
CLICK HERE to set-up a recurring monthly donation or to make a one-time donation.
One of the best ways to support the Bureau is by setting up a recurring monthly donation of any amount. This enables us to have a stable and reliable source of funds to cover operating costs, keep our inventory fresh, and address the needs of the project as they arise. Thank you for your support!

Anti-Fascist Book Club Reads Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower
2017-11-19 13:30 - 15:30 | NY
A reading group for those fighting fascism!
Hopefully our readings will inspire thoughtful and informed activism.
Join us for our fourth meeting on Sunday, November 19, from 1:30 to 3:30 PM. We will discuss Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower is available for purchase at the Bureau. Please support the Bureau and purchase your copy from us. Thanks!
In our first meeting in April we discussed the first 100 pages of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism.
In our second meeting in May we discussed James Baldwin’s Going to Meet the Man.
In our third meeting in July we discussed Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Questions? Ideas for future readings?
Write to Grey Vild: greyvild@gmail.com

Reading with Actors of Olympus Nights on the Square, Book 2 of Juliana Series, LGBT History in the Early Post War Years
2017-11-28 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
What if Your Love Was Illegal?

Actors will read from Vanda‘s recently released novel, Olympus Nights on the Square. This is a story about LGBT history in New York City during the early Post-War Years (1945-1955). Sexy, funny and deadly serious. Full of mobsters, the FBI, McCarthyism, lesbian pulp and “cures” for homosexuality.

Copies of Olympus Nights on the Square 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!

Reception at 7.
Reading at 7:30.

Vanda is working on a series of novels about LGBT history in New York City.
Juliana (Book 1, 1941-1944) was released in February 2016. Olympus Nights on the Square (Book 2) was released October 17, 2017.
From 2014 to 2016, Vanda produced a show based on Juliana at the Duplex Nightclub in which actors performed chapters from the book every month. The show included singing and dancing from the 1940s.
As a playwright, Vanda has received numerous honors, among them an Edward Albee Fellowship. Her play, Vile Affections, published by Original Works, was a finalist for a National Lambda Award.

OUR HAPPY HOURS: LGBT Voices from the Gay Bars
2017-12-02 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
OUR HAPPY HOURS: Voices from the Gay Bars celebrates the heritage–and fast disappearing culture–of LGBTQ bars, often the only sanctuaries for LGBTQ expression and life. Eight authors featured in the OUR HAPPY HOURS anthology will read a short passage from their work, share reminiscences of LGBT bar culture, and participate in a Q & A with attendees. The authors will sign books, available for purchase at the event. Proceeds from book sales will be donated to the Ali Forney Center for LGBT Youth in New York, and the Attic Youth Center, Philadelphia.

To reserve copies of Our Happy Hours, please write to contact@bgsqd.com.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family
2017-12-06 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.
Please join us for Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family (2004), directed by Susan Kaplan and featuring Sam Cagnina, Steven Margolin, and Samantha Singh.
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 more people come, the more likely we’ll continue the event! The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.
Synopsis: Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family is a documentary following the lives of a New York triad over eight years as they build a family and business together. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.

TELL 39: Just My Imagination
2017-12-09 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.
Just My Imagination is the theme of the 39th installment of TELL. Featuring Tyler Ashley, Ryan J. Haddad, Sasha Kolodkin, Alice Pencavel, and Jennifer Marline Rodríguez.
$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.

Sasha Kolodkin is a Baltimore-bred, Brooklyn-based playwright, poet, and performer. A recent graduate of SUNY Purchase, she spends her days writing, studying drama, and devising new ways to degrade and destabilize the more dastardly departments of the United States Government (when she isn’t daydreaming at her disinteresting day job). She is also a dramaturgical consultant for The Cameri Theatre, and a school ambassador with PFLAG.

TYLER ASHLEY is a choreographer and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. Ashley has performed in the work of Elizabeth Streb, Walter Dundervill, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Yackez, Katy Pyle, and Biba Bell among others. Ashley’s own performances have been presented by Performa, Friends of the High Line, Times Square Alliance, NADA Art Fair, BOFFO, and seen at Art Basel, The Knockdown Center, The Chocolate Factory, Movement Research, Danspace Project and more.
Ashley is also known as The Dauphine of Bushwick – a nightlife personality, performer, and promoter. The Dauphine started the party called BABY TEA three years ago, which has raised nearly $20k for LGBTQI youth over the course of three trans advocacy fundraisers. The Dauphine has performed and/or promoted at The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, NADA Art Fair, BUSHWIG ’14-’17, The Austin International Drag Festival, Fire Island Pines, New York Live Arts, and more.

Jennifer Marline Rodríguez put some of her “best years” in her late teens writing weekly for a national newspaper on literature, visual and performance arts in her home country Dominican Republic (popularly abbreviated ‘DR’). She entered the world of experimental poetry readings in the early 2000s with an ensemble of poets, actresses, writers, musicians and filmmakers who produced and staged a multimedia show called Blues en Vértigo before spoken word was a hit in DR. Around the same time she joined a literary weekly gathering whose regular members were called erranticistas, the most elusive ism in Dominican contemporary literature and arts, and the most fascinating joint to be at in the city in those years. After graduating from college with a degree in Social Communication, Jennifer came to the US with a Fulbright scholarship to pursue an M. A. in Hispanic Literatures and Languages. Currently she is a PhD candidate at Princeton University, writing a dissertation on Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik and Guatemalan performance artist Regina José Galindo. She has published academic articles in Chile and Mexico, as well as a poetry collection in DR. Previously unpublished texts have been featured in anthologies in Argentina, Mexico and Santo Domingo. Recently, the activist and art collective Proyecto 21 from Mexico City incorporated her poetry in its performance repertoire. At Princeton, she was teaching assistant to Argentine theater director Vivi Tellas in a workshop on Documentary Theater and Biodrama. This spring she went onstage at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club for Susana Cook’s “Non-Consensual Relationships With Ghosts”, and this summer she co-curated F.isura a solo exhibit of performance art photographer Antonio Juárez which opened in Mexico City this June. But absolutely nothing on storytelling in public. Oh! oh!

Alice Pencavel is a writer, teacher, and performer whose work has been presented by IRT Theater, United Solo Festival, Portland Fringe, Naked Angels, Manhattan Rep., Superhero Clubhouse, Playlight Theater, and the Kitchen Theater, among others. She frequently hosts play readings and performs original work in local, covert spots. As a Teaching Artist, she has worked with Arts Connection, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Brooklyn Acting Lab, Stages on the Sound, Girls Write Now, SAY (Stuttering Association for the Young), and others. Some general appreciations include coffee, tea, chocolate, dreams, the moon, etc. alicepencavel.com

Ryan J. Haddad is an actor, writer, and autobiographical performer. His acclaimed solo play Hi, Are You Single? was most recently featured in The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival. He has performed original work at La MaMa E.T.C., Dixon Place, and The New Museum. His credits include The Maids and two Lucy Thurber world premieres at Williamstown Theatre Festival, “Noor and Hadi Go To Hogwarts” for Theater Breaking Through Barriers, and an appearance on the Netflix series “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” ryanjhaddad.com

Negative Press Reading + Launch
2018-01-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
New year, new cultural horizon! Negative Press, a gay Marxist poetry collective, invites you to an evening of poems and other provocations.

Kay Gabriel is a minor internet personality.

Zachary LaMalfa is a minor internet personality.

David W. Pritchard is a minor internet personality.

A.B. Robinson is a minor internet personality.

Cam Scott is a minor internet personality.

Art by Cam Scott

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Three of Hearts: Kinsey
2018-01-03 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.
Please join us for Kinsey (2004), written and directed by Bill Condon and starring Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, and Peter Sarsgaard.
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 more people come, the more likely we’ll continue the event! The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.
Synopsis: When Indiana University Professor Alfred Kinsey turns his attention from insects to the scientific study of human sexuality, his controversial work has a profound impact on society’s attitudes toward sex. Along the way, he makes discoveries about himself as well. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes.

Artist Adriana Varella in conversation with curator Denise Carvalho
2018-01-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join us for a conversation with our current exhibiting artist, Adriana Varella, and curator Denise Carvalho.

Varella’s exhibition, Getting Lost in Oneself (PrOceSS), is on view at the Bureau through January 21, 2018.

Image: Adriana Varella, CRACKS 1, metal barricade collected in the streets of NYC (5ft x 6ft).

Dr. Denise Carvalho is a Brazilian-born curator, art critic and scholar who lives and works in the United States. She holds a Ph.D. in cultural studies, M.A. in art history from the University of California, Davis, a Masters in anthropology from Hunter College, and a B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts.

As a curator, her exhibitions include “Amor” (2016) at Oi Futuro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; “ Love on the Edge” (2015) at Galeria Arsenal in Bialystok, Poland; “Beyond Limits” at the Art Institute in San Diego and as part of the Postglobal Biennial (2013); the 3rd Mediations Biennale in Poznan (2012), with exhibitions at the National Museum, the Jesuit Gallery, the Zamek Culture Centre, and the Archdiocesan Museum; “Innerspacing the City” (2013) at the Chelsea Museum (2011); “Minimal Differences” (2010) at White Box, NYC; “Intangible Interferences” (2010) at Momenta Art in Brooklyn, NY; “Bodies of Dispersion” (2010) at Galeria Arsenal, Bialystok, Poland; “A Part of No-Part” (2010) at the Chelsea Museum, NYC. She is also the curator of “Preemptive Resistances” at Westport Arts Center (2009), “Holy Holes” at Dumbo Arts Center (2008), and “Infinitu et Contini” at Smack Mellon (2007). She has curated earlier international exhibitions and symposia, such as “Hybrid Dwellings” at Arsenal Gallery in Poland (2001) and “Fairy-Tale” (1999) at the Center for Metamedia in the Czech Republic. Her curatorial projects explore current theoretical issues through multimedia works.

As an art critic, Dr. Carvalho has published numerous articles and reviews in art magazines and journals, including Art in America, Sculpture, Art Nexus, NKA Journal of African Contemporary Art, Afterimage, and The International Journal of Art and Society, as well as in several artists’ catalogues. Dr. Carvalho is also an independent scholar and has taught at various universities in the United States, including Indiana University in Bloomington, Ohio State University, School of Visual Arts, Fashion Institute of Technology, Institute of Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, New Jersey City University, Pratt Institute, San Francisco State University, Humboldt State, and CSI CUNY.

TELL 40: First Look/Fresh Start
2018-01-13 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.
First Look/Fresh Start is the theme of the 40th installment of TELL, with special guest host Topher Gross. Featuring Harvey Katz, Mariah MacCarthy, Emily Ray Reese, and Wazina Zondon.

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

Topher Gross (photo by Asher Torres)
Topher Gross is a born and bred Brooklyn kid who learned the art of storytelling from his Jewish grandma, Edith. He is an appearance enhancement artist aka hairstylist, party thrower+ yenta, aspiring cartoon voice over actor and marijuana dispensary owner. Topherhas performed stories at Tell, Tell It, at various burlesque shows, dinner tables, on live journal and a blog for original plumbing magazine. He was featured on the Graham Norton show as the “big gay following” of Kylie Minogue.

Harvey Katz first became a woman at a turquoise and peach colored Bat-Mitzvah in Miami in the early 90’s before coming into his manhood in a small city in Georgia. He spent 13 years on the road as a spoken word poet and is currently maybe pursuing a career in nursing. His lack of boundaries and general impulsiveness means he’s collected a story or two over the years. Catch him hosting Take Two Storytelling or trying to convince people to buy his hats on Etsy. This is life post poetry career.

Mariah MacCarthy writes plays, Young Adult novels, essays, overly-revealing one-woman shows, and sexts. She’s won some awards, her favorite being the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. She’s an angry queer and she loves you.

Emily Ray Reese is a Lesbian from a ghost town in the mountains of New Mexico. She came to New York ten years ago after volunteering for the Peace Corps in El Salvador. Reese is a filmmaker by day and a dance floor demolisher by night.

Wazina Zondon is a queer Muslim Afghan raised in New York City. She is the co-writer and co-performer of Coming Out Muslim: Radical Acts of Love, a personal storytelling performance capturing the stories and experiences of being queer and Muslim.
When she’s not agitating and reclaiming a truly radical Islam, she teaches Sex Ed at an all-girl, high school in Brooklyn, NY. She also co-hosts Follow that Flannel, a silly yet informative sexuality podcast.

'Queer City: A Reader' book launch & 'Queer City' film screening
2018-01-14 16:00 - 18:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Bodies that listen, dance, resist, manifest and become visible in our contemporary city. Bodies that dance the sounds of funk music, rap, samba, voguing, waacking, among other sonic styles of contestation, resistance and struggle. Through talks, dinners, experiences and exchanges, a city seeks to discuss how we live, work, share and survive the different LGBT + stories and realities… and how we understand all this through a queer, intersectional and non-normative lens?

The mini-documentary Cidade Queer – Queer City, directed by Danila Bustamante takes the name of a 2016 site-specific, collective curatorial process in São Paulo, Brazil. The overall process, film, and related publication, Queer City: A Reader were organized by Lanchonete.org, ArtsEverywhere/Musagetes, EXPLODE! and many other partners. Queer City: A Reader contains an account of the site-specific program in São Paulo, but also invites other contributors at the intersection of the contemporary city and queer thought. The Reader is one of the first books out of Publication Studio São Paulo (in partnership w/ Publication Studio Guelph housed at the Musagetes/ArtsEverywhere office).

Copies of Queer City: A Reader will be available for purchase at the event for $20.
To reserve a copy of Queer City: A Reader please write to the Bureau at contact@bgsqd.com.

https://publication-studio.myshopify.com/products/queer-city-a-reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opTx-OShKvI

Event image: photograph from Pato Hebert‘s Ataqueridas series

Lanchonete.org is an artist-led, cultural platform focused on how people live and work in, navigate and share the contemporary city with the Center of São Paulo as our outlook. It gets its name from the ubiquitous lunch counters—convivial, fluorescent-lit, open-walled, laborious, points of commerce—that populate almost every street corner. Lanchonete.org is about the issues that big cities face, the different forms of ‘urban power’, and the Right to the City, but not insomuch as to define these constructs…rather to stretch the platform as far as is necessary to consider diverse viewpoints. Lanchonete.org takes its cue from French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre’s Le Droit à la ville (1968), or one that “demand[s] a transformed and renewed access to urban life.”

Queer Sex Magic 101
2018-01-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
If sex is sacred, your body is a temple. Join writer, witch and tarot reader Ashley Young for an evening of learning how to worship It! This workshop provides hands on tools on how to incorporate magic into queer sex practices. From creating altars with candles and crystals, using divination such as tarot and developing sex rituals, participants will examine how to call on spiritual practice to enhance one’s queer relationship with themselves and others. This workshop will also look at alternative relationships and sex practices such as polyamory and kink.

Space is limited to 20 participants. The $10 fee will be shared equally between the instructor and the Bureau.
Tickets:
https://www.artful.ly/store/events/14193

Ashley Young is a Black Queer genderqueer (pronouns they/them/their) writer, teacher, witch and tarot reader. They are a spirituous, pagan and Santeria practioner reading cards through their small business Black Unicorn Tarot and in house at Catland Books in Brooklyn, NY. They identify as a polyamorous, kinky, Dominant Mama switch. Their work has been published in three anthologies and several online journals on topics such as POC LGBTQ issues, mental illness, sex/body positivity and more. Ashley lives in Brooklyn with a fellow witch and two sweet, wild cats.

Ron Amato & Models Discuss His Photo Book "THE BOX"
2018-01-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join fine art photographer and Fashion Institute of Technology Associate Professor of Photography Ron Amato for a brief presentation of his striking, sexy, and sensual book of male nudes, The Box.

Following Amato’s presentation, he and several of the models featured in The Box will answer questions, and Amato will sign copies of the book.

To reserve a copy of the book please contact the Bureau at contact@bgsqd.com.

Ron Amato is an full-time Associate Professor of Photography at New York City’s FIT (The Fashion Institute of Technology), where he has been for the last 12 years, 6 of which as the Chairperson of the Photography Department.

He has exhibited extensively in the US and internationally, been published in a number of anthologies and photographed for fitness and sports magazines, including Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness and Sports Illustrated. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband Seth and their two Fox Terriers, Ben and Zeb. Visit Amato’s classy, but NSFW website at www.ronamato.com.

Opening reception for MARK JOHN SMITH’S - MAN MANY MEN
2018-01-25 18:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
MARK JOHN SMITH’S – MAN MANY MEN
January 25th – March 18th 2018
Opening reception on Thursday, January 25th, 6-9 PM
*Bring a pen – this work needs defacing.
The Bureau of General Services – Queer Division is proud to present Man Many Men, a solo exhibition of new works by artist Mark John Smith.
Download Press Release here.
Press release
Press disease
Press release
Press please

British gay
Language
Dyslexia*
Every day

*sic
sick
six

In a series of new interactive and immersive works, Smith questions the conflicting lexicon of the everyday in relation to spaces of intimacy. His work explores the manner in which prejudice and bias are enacted through the self – via both high and low relief implementations of façade.
Man Many Men is comprised of elements imported from the entertainment industries, inviting visitors to employ all senses in an experiential tapestry that fuses language, gesture and identity. This is a body of work that hurts, sleeps, cries, fucks, exhales, sucks, breathes, sees.
On February 15, join Smith for a walk-through of the exhibition. Why not snuggle down as we invite you to embed yourself in the creation of new confessional and constructed narratives? There’s always a need for a ‘duvet day’.

In support of Man Many Men, Mark presents Blue Blue Balls, an intimate and jarring publication featuring images and text lifted from within the artist’s personal devices. The book features an accompanying essay by Matt Whitman – artist filmmaker and faculty at Parsons School of Design.
“We become complicit in a kind of ‘Freudian slip’. Smith slowly points us outside of the safe assumptions built within language and toward something a bit more sinister. The mistake, in its innocence and earnestness is, in fact, a reminder of our role as viewer and violence of assumption.”
Copies of the book will be available at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division for the duration of the artist’s show.

Mark John Smith is a British artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He holds an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and BA Hons Degrees in Fine Art and Art History from The University for the Creative Arts in the United Kingdom. Mark is a founding member of Franklin Collective and currently serves on the advisory board of Rutgers University’s Design Thinking program. Last year Mark exhibited with Franklin Collective at Petzel Gallery, Manhattan, NY in group show WE NEED TO TALK…. In November 2017, Mark launched JML50, The Reading Room 2017, and The Placards 2017, new publicly commissioned works currently on view at the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library. In mid-2018, a feature length documentary following his work on JML50 will be released.

Affirmative Laughter Returns
2018-01-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Host Elsa Waithe is bringing some of NYC’s funniest non-straight non-White non-cis male comedians together for a night dedicated to diversity and hilarity.

This Month:
Jes Tom
Sydnee Washington
Wanjiko Eke
David Bradley Isenberg
+MORE!

The Bureau will host Affirmative Laughter on the last Friday of every month.

Homo GoGo Man: a fairytale about a boy who grew up in discoland
2018-01-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Author Christopher Duquette reads a chapter from Homo GoGo Man: a fairytale about a boy who grew up in discoland, a novel about club hopping in New York City from 1976 – 2004. Duquette will be accompanied by a DJ playing music relative to the hedonistic disco era that captivated and eventually devoured a curious and confused young man who had been fatally bitten by the disco bug, hoofing professionally and recreationally for thirty years of his adult life.

Born in 1958 like Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson (R.I.P.), Christopher Duquette was part of the X-gens who wanted the most out of life, regardless of the cost. Proving his emotionally and financially unsupportive parents wrong, he succeeded in completing a Master Degree in 5 years from Stony Brook University, found cache in the corporate world acquiring well paid employment to finance his hedonistic lifestyle until crashing and burning from too much of the above at age 44.

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs
2018-02-07 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.
Please join us for Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs (2008), written by Matt Groening and directed by Peter Avanzino and starring Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, and Stephen Hawking.
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 more people come, the more likely we’ll continue the event! The event is free, although a $10 suggested donation to help fund future events is much appreciated.
Synopsis: 1000 years in the future, Philip J. Fry (originally from the year 1999 when he accidentally froze himself), feeling distraught after a break up with his polyamorous girlfriend, launches himself into the anomaly, a rip in the fabric of the universe. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Animated.

TELL 41: Ghosts
2018-02-10 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.
Ghosts is the theme of the 41st installment of TELL. Featuring Moira Cutler, Mieke Dee, Lulwana Mulalu, and Dorian S.
$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.

Moira Cutler has a lot of stories and has had more than her share of adventures. She’s travelled a bunch, done crazy things, and trusted many strangers. Moira has done a bunch of acting for Susana Cook and her own obscure little shows.

Mieke Dee

Lulwama Mulalu is a lover of words, a Pisces, a queer poet and singer-songwriter from the small county of Botswana, in Southern Africa. Her name means to make good and she believes that everything happens for a reason. Lulu is a senior currently studying Psychology and Drama, with voice somewhere in the eclectic mix at Bennington College, VT. She enjoys spelling colour with a U and is the biggest Ellen DeGeneres fan in the world. No really, it borders on being an obsession.

Dorian S. is an ex suburban teen who spends most of his time teaching yoga, reading, playing with cats, commuting, pondering US health care, and making playlists. He has always loved a good story and is just happy to be (here).”

Duvet Day
2018-02-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join artist Mark John Smith for a walk-through of his solo exhibition Man Many Men, on view at the Bureau through March 18, and a book signing of the accompanying publication Blue Blue Balls.
*Bring a pen – this work needs defacing.
Snuggle down with Mark as we invite you to immerse yourself in the creation of new confessional and constructed narratives. Mark’s practice calls for your voice to be added to an ever evolving, collaborative tapestry as archive. There’s always a need for a ‘duvet day’.
Think Felix. Think Tracey. Think Robert.
They miss you.

Mark John Smith is a British artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He holds an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and BA Hons Degrees in Fine Art and Art History from The University for the Creative Arts in the United Kingdom. Mark is a founding member of Franklin Collective and currently serves on the advisory board of Rutgers University’s Design Thinking program. Last year Mark exhibited with Franklin Collective at Petzel Gallery, Manhattan, NY in group show WE NEED TO TALK…. In November 2017, Mark launched JML50, The Reading Room 2017, and The Placards 2017, new publicly commissioned works currently on view at the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library. In mid-2018, a feature length documentary following his work on JML50 will be released.

Affirmative Laughter: Black Comedy Month
2018-02-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Host Elsa Waithe brings some of NYC’s funniest non-straight non-White non-cis male comedians together for a night dedicated to diversity and hilarity.
Featuring:
Dara Jemmott
Whitney Chanel Clark
Dave Lester
Chanel Ali

The Bureau hosts Affirmative Laughter on the last Friday of every month.

Proximity: Words + Visions
2018-03-01 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Proximity: Words + Visions gathers poets, performance artists, & scholars sharing work focused on bodies, unravelings, de/stabilizations, intersections, mis/communications, & the mutability of binaries & borders. Hang out & bring all your selves.
Featuring:
Chia-Lun Chang, Miguel Gutierrez, Tiara Roxanne, and xtian w.
Reception: 7:00
Event: 7:30
Suggested Donation: $10, but no one turned away for lack of funds!

Chia-Lun Chang is the author of One Day We Become Whites (No, Dear/ Small Anchor Press, 2016). Recent work appears in Bettering American Poetry, PEN America, Hyperallergic, Literary Hub, MuseMedusa, Evergreen, 6×6, and The Tiny. She has received fellowships and support from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Tofte Lake Center, and Poets House. Born and raised in New Taipei City, Taiwan, she lives in New York City.

Miguel Gutierrez lives in Brooklyn where he writes, makes music and performances, and practices a form of bodywork called the Feldenkrais Method®. In addition to performing all over the godammn world, he’s read the text he’s written for his dance shows at the Poetry Project, People Herd, GUTS, Radar, and was in residence in 2012 at RadarLAB in Mexico. His writing has appeared in the Movement Research Journal, Emily Roysdon’s Uncounted, the “Tears” issue of handjob, the zin, and online in his blog about celebrities called Stargayze.com. His book of performance texts WHEN YOU RISE UP is available from 53rd State Press and he is at work on a second book of performance texts and essays called THE THINGS YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE. www.miguelgutierrez.org

Tiara Roxanne was born in a ghost town. She is a Berlin-based scholar and poet. She writes essays and poetry while engaging in theory and philosophy. She is currently researching intersections between the Indigenous body and Posthumanism. She was the recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston Award at Naropa University and has been featured in CA Conrad’s Jupiter 88, The Monster Issue of Gesture: A Literary Journal, Semicolon, Phlyogeny, Love Shuffle Review, Din Magazine, Interkors Magazine and Continent.

xtian w is a poet, essayist, performer, & city dweller. Their work appears/ is forthcoming in Bone Bouquet, Hematopoiesis Press, & Prelude, & they’ve made collaborative performances with friends. xtian is interested in trans everything.

Elsa & Wanjiko Do Half Hours
2018-03-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Your 2 favorite Black lesbians, Elsa Waithe and Wanjiko Eke are recording 30mins sets. Come support and put your laughter in the space. Hosted by Jes Tom.

Tina Alexis Allen presents her memoir Hiding Out
2018-03-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Join author Tina Alexis Allen for a reading from her new book Hiding Out: A Memoir of Drugs, Deception, and Double Lives.

Tina Alexis Allen is a GLAAD Award-nominated actress, producer, scriptwriter and playwright. Allen was a cast member of the TV series Outsiders (WGN America), and co-starred in the feature films Moving Mountains (2014), Tom’s Dilemma (2016), as well as the web-series Looking for Kathleen. Allen is also the co-founder of Gina Raphaela Jewelry’s mission-driven No More Violence collection.

Copies of Hiding Out 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!

Confront White Womanhood
2018-03-04 13:30 - 16:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
All tickets for this workshop have sold!! Thank you all for your enthusiastic interest in this workshop. We will have approximately 5-10 tickets available at the door. So if you did not buy in advance, come early and we can take the first 5-10 folks! See you on March 4th!!
Follow this link: https://eepurl.com/dkFZyr to sign up for our mailing list and stay up to date on future workshops.

For centuries, violence has been done in the name of—and even physically enacted by—white women. By examining historical contexts in conjunction with personal story-sharing exercises, we confront how white supremacy shows up in our own behavior. Through vulnerable discussions about individual complicity, we empower attendees to disrupt white supremacy from within their own communities.
Organizers Sophie Ellman-Golan, Rhiannon Childs, and Heather Marie Scholl (two white women and one Black woman) designed the Confront White Womanhood workshop to interrogate the ways white supremacy manifests within feminist spaces.
At this session, we will be joined by Jewel Cadet from BYP100. We will focus on the white history of feminism and the ways efforts for white female empowerment have harmed People of Color. Attendees will leave with an understanding of how white women can take tangible steps to interrupt our own racial biases and confront the ways we cause harm. We believe that white women can be better accomplices in the fight for freedom and are committed to helping them embody that change
Tickets are $20.
Partial ticket proceeds will be donated to BYP100 NYC, additional donations will be collected during the workshop.
Purchase tickets here.
BYP100 is a national, member-based organization of Black 18-35 year old activists and organizers, dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. We do this through building a network focused on transformative leadership development, direct action organizing, advocacy, and political education using a Black queer feminist lens. Donations will specifically benefit the NYC chapter which has done educational actions about Marion Sims, Swipe It Forward, Anti-Columbus day tours, and HOME (Housing Over Monitoring and Evictions) campaign.
For additional information on operating principles please visit www.ConfrontWhiteWomanhood.com
Please note that the Bureau will not be open to the general public during the workshop.

Canceled due to storm! OLNY Poly Movie Night: Mediterranean Food
2018-03-07 18:30 - 21:30 | NY
Hi all, The Center is closing at 4 PM today due to the coming storm. The Bureau will not be open today. Stay warm! Stay safe!
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.
Please join us for Mediterranean Food/Dieta Mediterránea (2009), directed by Joaquín Oristrell and starring Olivia Molina, Paco León, and Alfonso Bassave.
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: In this Spanish romantic comedy, Sofía, Toni, and Frank grow up together in a seaside village. While Frank encourages Sofía’s ambition to be a world-famous chef, she is also drawn to Toni’s vision of traditional family life. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.
