"LOTUS MINK" Film Screening and Performance Event
2019-05-04 18:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | NY
Join @newfest alum filmmaker @derricklmiddleton, director of Shape Up: Gay in the Black Barbershop as he premieres an exclusive sneak peek of his upcoming film Lotus Mink, a documentary about his start in drag! Film Screening with live performances from Lotus Mink, Egyptt LaBeija & Thee Suburbia America followed by Q&A! 6pm Saturday, May 4th at @bgsqd

Derrick L. Middleton is a Harlem born filmmaker/performance artist. His directorial debut Shape Up: Gay in the Black Barbershop world premiered at President Obama’s White House in 2016 and won the Audience Choice Award at Newfest. His follow-up film titled Lotus Mink is at once a meditation on the construct of black masculinity and a documentary about the creation of his drag persona Lotus Mink.

NYC Gay Guys' Book Club Discusses Rabih Alameddine's Angel of History
2019-05-07 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
NYC Gay Guys’ Book Club is a group of gay guys of all ages who meet the first Tuesday of every month. We usually meet at the Jefferson Market branch of the public library on 6th Avenue & West 10th Street, but we’ll meet at the Bureau while the library is being renovated. We read an eclectic range of books from classics to newly-released works. We don’t necessarily read books with a gay theme or characters and always open to suggestions. Very easy going; more social than academic. You don’t necessarily have to commit to coming every single month, just whenever your schedule or reading tastes permit.

This month (May 7th) we are discussing Rabih Alameddine‘s Angel of History.

On Tuesday, June 4th, we’ll discuss Joan Dempsey‘s This Is How It Begins.

Both Rabih Alameddine‘s Angel of History and Joan Dempsey‘s This Is How It Begins (and many other titles!) are available for purchase at the Bureau. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you for your support!

This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau are much appreciated!

Office Hours Spring 2019 Showcase Reading
2019-05-09 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Check out sizzling new writing at the Office Hours Spring 2019 Showcase! The workshop provides post-MFA poets access to continued support for manuscript-development and everyday writing, culminating in a public reading each fall and spring to showcase stellar new work. We welcome all poets, especially people of color, LGBTQ+, and those who are femme-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:
Laura Cresté, Linda Harris Dolan, Emily Hockaday, Francisco Márquez, Paco Márquez, Holly Mitchel, Madeleine Mori, Dacota Pratt-Pariseau, and Noel Sikorski.

Laura Cresté holds an MFA in Poetry from NYU. She is the winner of Breakwater Review’s 2016 Peseroff Prize, and her work has appeared in No Tokens Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Powder Keg Magazine, and Bodega Magazine.

Linda Harris Dolan is a poet and editor. 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 taught writing at The King’s College and NYU. Linda’s work appears in The Grief Diaries, Roanoke Review, and Blood and Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine, and she was a 2016 Best of the Net nominee.

Emily Hockaday is a Queens-based poet and editor. Her newest chapbook, Beach Vocabulary, is forthcoming from Red Bird Chaps. She is author of Space on Earth (Grey Book Press), Ophelia: A Botanist’s Guide (Zoo Cake Press), What We Love & Will Not Give Up (Dancing Girl Press), and Starting a Life (Finishing Line Press). Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, most recently Newtown Literary, The Maine Review, and Salt Hill. She is Associate Editor of Analog Science Fiction & Fact and Asimov’s Science Fiction, and she can be found on the web at www.emilyhockaday.com and @E_Hockaday.

Francisco Márquez is a Venezuelan poet with work appearing in The Brooklyn Rail, Bennington Review, and Narrative magazine. He has received honors from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Poetry Project, and Letras Latinas. He lives in Brooklyn.

Paco Márquez is author of the chapbook Portraits in G Minor (Folded Word Press, 2017). His poetry can be found in Apogee, Ostrich Review, Live Mag! and Huizache. 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). Originally from México and Northern California, Paco lives in Manhattan, where he helps run Office Hours! He lives with his partner of 13 years. More at: pacomarquez.net

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 in Baltimore Review, Juked, and Narrative, among other journals.

Madeleine Mori is a Japanese-American poet originally from San Francisco. She received a bachelor’s degree in winemaking from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and an MFA from New York University, where she served as a Poetry Editor of Washington Square Review. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in BOAAT, Cosmonauts Avenue, Salt Hill, Sixth Finch, Neck, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. She is the Poetry Editor at Pigeon Pages and lives in Brooklyn.

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.

Noel Sikorski is a Senior Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. Her poems have appeared in American Poets Magazine, Georgetown Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Bellevue Literary Review.

Jerry The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens Book Signing & Reading
2019-05-10 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Jerry the Marble Faun of Grey Gardens (Jerry Torre) will read from his book The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens: A Memoir of the Beales, the Maysles Brothers, and Jacqueline Kennedy, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography. Jerry will sign books following the reading.

The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens: A Memoir of the Beales, the Maysles Brothers, and Jacqueline Kennedy is Jerry Torre’s touching and at times haunting memoir about his teenage days as caretaker of Grey Gardens, the now-celebrated mansion chronicled in the iconic documentary Grey Gardens and two feature-length films. The book is a behind-the-scenes look at “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” and their bizarre and reclusive life of squalor amidst the tremendous wealth of East Hampton, the family bond that developed between Jerry and them, and the afternoon everything was turned upside down forever with the arrival of documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles.

Copies of The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens 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!

Keetje Kuipers, Meg Day, & Jason Schneiderman
2019-05-12 18:00 - 19:30 | NY
Join poets Keetje Kuipers, Meg Day, and Jason Schneiderman for a reading of their work at the Bureau!

Keetje Kuipers currently teaches at Hugo House in Seattle and serves as Senior Editor at Poetry Northwest, where she is the author of the literary recipe mash-up Line Cook and curator of the series On Failure. Keetje lives with her wife and daughter on an island in the Salish Sea. She is currently at work on a novel set in Wyoming, as well as a memoir about the seven months she spent living alone and off the grid, two hours down a dirt road from the nearest human being.

Meg Day is the 2015-2016 recipient of the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, a 2013 recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Poetry, and the author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street 2014), winner of the Barrow Street Poetry Prize and the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award, and a finalist for the 2016 Kate Tufts Discovery Award from Claremont Graduate University. Day is Assistant Professor of English & Creative Writing at Franklin & Marshall College and lives in Pennsylvania. www.megday.com

Jason Schneiderman is the author of Hold Me Tight (forthcoming from Red Hen in 2020); Primary Source (Red Hen 2016);Striking Surface (Ashland Poetry Press 2010); and Sublimation Point (Four Way 2004); as well as the editor of Queer: A Reader for Writers (Oxford UP 2016). He is an Associate Professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY.

Heelz on Reelzzz: Short Film Screening
2019-05-17 19:30 - 21:30 | NY
Fabulous evening of queer short films featuring femmes, queens, hustlers and other magical creatures! Curated by Heather María Ács
Doors 7:30, Screening 8pm $5-$15, NOTAFLOF (No one turned away for lack of funds)

Starring:
Bad Ally Web Series
Ariel Mahler and Daquisha Jones

Mouth Wide Open
Writer/Director Siobhan Aluvalot
Featuring Fanciulla Gentile, Shawna Shawnté & Stevie Ann DePaola

QUEER HABITS
Documentary by Drew Denny

Work by Celeste Chan

Flu$h
Writer/Director Heather María Ács
Featuring Tanisha Thompson Christine Davitt Morgan Sullivan Minerva Summer And MORE!!!

Accessibility: The Bureau is located at the LGBT Center. ADA compliant. Elevators. Ramps. Armless chairs.

Office Hours Craft Class & Reading With Candace Williams
2019-05-18 11:00 - 14:30 | NY
Office Hours Poetry Workshop presents: “Generative Erasure Poetry”— a FREE craft class and reading with author Candace Williams.

The craft class takes place from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM. A public reading with Candace Williams, Omotara James, and Safia Jama 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.

“Generative Erasure Poetry”
How can erasure poetry be a means for confrontation and dialogue? What makes a good erasure poem? After analyzing a few erasure poems, we will discuss the process for selecting source texts and surfacing poetry in those texts via erasure. Readings include work by Chase Berggrun, jayy dodd, Solmaz Sharif, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Srikanth Reddy. Students can bring their own source texts to erase. Candace will also supply a few texts.

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.

Safia Jama was born to a Somali father and an Irish-American mother in Queens, New York. A Harvard graduate and a Cave Canem fellow, she has poetry appearing or forthcoming in Ploughshares, Boston Review, BOMB, Cagibi, and RHINO. Safia is a Pushcart-nominated poet and her manuscript was a semi-finalist in the Pleiades Press Editors Prize for Poetry. She was the subject of a “Shades of U.S.” documentary about her life and work (CUNY TV). Safia teaches in the English Department at Baruch College.

Omotara James is the author of the chapbook, “Daughter Tongue,” selected by African Poetry Book Fund, in collaboration with Akashic Books, for the 2018 New Generation African Poets Box Set. Born in Britain, she is the daughter of Nigerian and Trinidadian immigrants. Her honors include a 92Y/Discovery Prize, a Nancy P. Schnader American Academy of Poets Prize and being shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared in Academy of American Poets, Literary Hub, Poetry Society of America, Winter Tangerine, Nat.Brut and elsewhere. She has been awarded fellowships from Lambda Literary and the Cave Canem Foundation. She is an MFA candidate poetry at NYU and edits poetry for American Chordata.

Candace Williams is a black queer nerd living a double life. By day, she is a progressive middle school humanities educator and robotics coach. By night and subway ride, she’s a poet. Her first full-length manuscript futureblack is a finalist in the 2018 National Poetry Series open competition. Candace’s first chapbook, Spells for Black Wizards (The Atlas Review), is a winner of the TAR Chapbook Series, and sold out of its first print run on the day of its launch.

TELL 54: That Time Of The Month. Period.
2019-05-18 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.
That Time Of The Month. Period. is the theme of the 54th TELL, Co-presented by Brooklyn Performance Space, JACK.
Queer stories and perspectives on queeriods, periods, menstruation and that time of the month.
Featuring stories by Mariam Bazeed, Bloom Davis, Renée Imperato, Evie Litwok, Kiera Nagle, and Kei Williams.
We ask that you arrive with an offering of tampons, pads, panty liners, disposable wipes and any other menstrual hygiene products to be donated to the Hetrick-Martin Institute, an organization that provides community, basic needs, health, education, and career services to LGBTQ youth. There is also a $10 Suggested donation for Hetrick-Martin Institute Inc. and the Bureau.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP on Facebook and keep an eye on the invite for updates and info!

Photograph by Grace Chu

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

Mariam Bazeed is an Egyptian immigrant, writer, and performance artist living in a rent-stabilized apartment in Brooklyn. They have an MFA in Fiction from Hunter College. An alliteration-leaning writer of prose, poetry, plays, and personal essays, Mariam is a current fellow at the Center for Fiction, and a past fellow at the Asian American Writers Workshop and the Lambda Literary Foundation. As a performance artist, Mariam has been a fellow of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU, and Needing It! by the Helix Performance Network. Mariam’s work has been supported by residencies from Hedgebrook, Marble House Project, the Millay Colony, the Kimmel Nelson Harding Center for the Arts, and Art Omi. Mariam’s first play, Peace Camp Org, was staged at La Mama Theater, NYC (2017) in the Squirts Festival of Queer Performance Art; the Arcola Theatre, London (2018), in its inaugural festival of International Queer Playwrights; and The Wild Project, NYC (2018), in the Fresh Fruit Festival, and is available in anthology from Oberon Books, UK.
To procrastinate from facing the blank page, Mariam curates and runs a monthly(ish) world-music salon and open mic in Brooklyn, and is a slow student of Arabic music.

Bloom Davis is a producer and performer from Austin Texas. You can catch them upside down performing acro drag burlesque, rightside up with their sketch comedy team Boogiemanja, and inside out producing queer and trans events.

Renée Imperato is a Stonewall Era Veteran, Chairperson of The SAGE Advisory Council and a member of Peoples Power Assembly.

Evie Litwok is the Founder and Executive Director of Witness to Mass Incarceration (WMI). A non-profit organization devoted to raising public awareness of conditions within the nation’s prisons and ending mass incarceration, WMI uses documentation, leadership development, grassroots organizing and advocacy to make impact.
Litwok left prison homeless, jobless, and penniless in 2014. Despite the lack of resources, she began speaking out about her experiences there and formed WMI in 2015.
Besides catalyzing a national conversation about mass incarceration, WMI works to eliminate sexual violence in prisons and guarantee emergency evacuation of incarcerated people during times of disaster. She also created the Suitcase Project, which gives newly released people essential items such as a mobile phone, laptop computer and gift cards to ease reentry.
A veteran of the women’s and gay rights movements, Litwok puts the voices of formerly imprisoned women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community at the center of the conversation as she works to change their narratives from invisibility and victimization, to empowerment.
Her work has led to a growing network. Litwok is a part of the National LGBT/HIV Criminal Justice Working Group, which meets regularly with the Bureau of Prisons to discuss increasing safety and dignity for LGBTQIA+ prisoners. WMI is also part of the Raising the Bar Coalition and attends regular meetings with the Justice Department’s Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Management Office.
It is her hope that educating the public and developing initiatives will result in policy reform, a radical change in conditions of confinement, and meaningful re-entry.
Litwok formerly worked in the financial industry and holds an MA degree in Psychology from Temple University.

Kiera Nagle, is a queer NY native, artist, writer, educator, and licensed massage therapist. She recognizes her privilege in working with people to facilitate their own healing, which she believes is a body-mind-spirit process, whatever medium it takes. https://meridianmassagenyc.com

Kei Williams is a queer transmasculine identified designer, writer, and public speaker. A founding member and former organizer with Black Lives Matter Global Network, the aims of Kei’s work is to transform global culture from the individual into a systemic analysis of structural racism. As Movement NetLab’s Strategic Network Mobilizer, Kei has helped to develop powerful conceptual and practical tools that facilitate the growth and effectiveness of the most dynamic, emerging social movements of our time.
As lead-organizer on campaigns such as Safety Beyond Policing, Swipe It Forward, and Trans Liberation Tuesday, Kei uses their platform to bring in the voices of those most marginalized by society — those who are queer, gnc, and transgender, and those living with mental illness. Recently, Kei completed their two-year residency at Civic Hall as an Organizer-in-Residency.
Passionate about their city – Kei invites you to check out the Black Gotham Experience, an immersive visual storytelling project that celebrates the impact of the African Diaspora on New York City since 1625. Kei currently serves as BGX Studio’s Culture Producer & Designer.

Chalkboard
2019-05-24 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Buzz Slutzky and Greg Newton present Chalkboard.

No grades.
No degrees.
No goals.

All are welcome.
No prerequisites.

Art histories
Humor as critique
Silence as strategy
Failure
Impotence
Insincerity
Inauthenticity
Queers

Buzz explores comedic critiques of history. What role does humor play in art? Does humor strengthen art’s power, or do punchlines trivialize meaning? How have artists used humor to question power and make our own narratives? Why would one be historically accurate when one can be ~hysterically~ accurate?

Greg explores anti-expressive tendencies in the art world of 1950s-60s New York and the lives of the artists who chose not to express themselves. Getting personal with silent (quiet) subjects. The appeal of the negative, then and now.

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

Chalkboard has the potential to become a series.

Buzz Slutzky is a non-binary transgender artist, writer, and performer whose practice incorporates drawing, painting, sculpture, and video. Their visual art and writing often play between autobiographical and historical content. As a performer, Buzz has mixed stand-up comedy and musical comedy under the persona Stoni Butchell, among others. Buzz studied visual art and social movement histories at Sarah Lawrence College and received their MFA from Parsons Fine Arts. They currently teach film and visual art at CUNY College of Staten Island and SUNY Purchase College.

Greg Newton studied religion and art history at Hunter College. He completed his coursework and examinations for a doctorate degree in art history at CUNY Graduate Center. After having his dissertation topic approved—”The Emergence of Monochrome Painting in 1950s New York”—Newton aborted his pursuit of the degree and a career in academia. He co-founded the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division in 2012 with his partner, Donnie Jochum.

Friends of Dorothy—Gay Oz Fan Panel and Book Signing
2019-05-29 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Dee Michel will present his book, Friends of Dorothy: Why Gay Boys and Gay Men Love The Wizard of Oz, which is based on questionnaires filled out by over 100 gay Oz fans. Three respondents, Atticus Gannaway (Senior Writer, NYU School of Law’s Office of Communications; Former Editor-in-Chief, The Baum Bugle), Erick Neher (Vice President/Marketing, Hearst Magazines; Culture Editor-at-Large, The Hudson Review), and Joe Yranski (Film Historian; former Senior Film and Video Librarian, New York Public Library), will discuss what Oz means to them individually and also what messages stories set in the Marvelous Land of Oz have for gay boys and gay men in general. Info about book at www.deemichel.info.

Copies of Friends of Dorothy: Why Gay Boys and Gay Men Love The Wizard of Oz will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Dee Michel has just written Friends of Dorothy: Why Gay Boys and Gay Men Love The Wizard of Oz and has given many talks on the Oz–gay connection. He served as a volunteer at Boston’s Gay Community News and as the first male co-chair of the Gay Task Force of the American Library Association.

A Pre-Lambda Awards Reading of Queer Nonfiction
2019-06-02 16:00 - 17:30 | NY
Join us for an afternoon reading of queer nonfiction before the Lambda Awards. Lesbian Memoir/Biography nominees Barrie Jean Borich (Apocalypse, Darling), Sandra Gail Lambert (A Certain Loneliness), and Zahra Patterson (Chronology) will read from their newly published books, and LGBTQ Nonfiction nominee Ria Brodell will present from their art book, Butch Heroes.

Copies of the nominated books will be available at the Bureau. To reserve copies please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com.
Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you for your support!

Barrie Jean Borich is author of Apocalypse, Darling which PopMatters said “… soars and seems to live as a new form altogether. It’s poetry, a meditation on life as ‘the other,’ creative non-fiction, and abstract art.” Her memoir Body Geographic won a Lambda Literary Award and her book-length essay, My Lesbian Husband won the Stonewall Book Award. Borich teaches at DePaul University where she edits Slag Glass City, a journal of the urban essay arts.

Ria Brodell is a non-binary trans artist, educator and author based in Boston. Their work addresses issues of gender identity, sexuality, religion and contemporary culture. Brodell attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Brodell has had solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, is a Lambda Literary Award Finalist, a recipient of an Artadia Award, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship and an SMFA Traveling Fellowship. Their work has appeared in the Guardian, ARTNews, The Boston Globe, the CUT and New American Paintings, among other publications. Brodell’s book, Butch Heroes, was released in 2018 via MIT Press.

Photo Credit- Adrianne Mathiowetz

Sandra Gail Lambert is the author of the Lammy-nominated memoir A Certain Loneliness and a novel, The River’s Memory. She has upcoming work in The New York Times and has been published in The Paris Review, The Southern Review, Brevity, and LitHub. Lambert is the co-editor of the anthology Older Queer Voices: The Intimacy of Survival.

Zahra Patterson is a writer and educator. She is the author of Chronology (Ugly Duckling Presse 2018), which has been listed as a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Her short pieces have been published in The Felt, Kalyani Magazine, and unbag (forthcoming). Her work includes the creation of Raw Fiction, a one-time (twice-done) youth literary arts project. She holds an MFA in Writing from Pratt Institute.

NYC Gay Guys' Book Club Discusses Joan Dempsey's This Is How It Begins
2019-06-04 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
NYC Gay Guys’ Book Club is a group of gay guys of all ages who meet the first Tuesday of every month. We usually meet at the Jefferson Market branch of the public library on 6th Avenue & West 10th Street, but we’ll meet at the Bureau while the library is being renovated. We read an eclectic range of books from classics to newly-released works. We don’t necessarily read books with a gay theme or characters and always open to suggestions. Very easy going; more social than academic. You don’t necessarily have to commit to coming every single month, just whenever your schedule or reading tastes permit.

On Tuesday, June 4th, we’ll discuss Joan Dempsey‘s This Is How It Begins.

Joan Dempsey‘s This Is How It Begins (and many other titles!) are available for purchase at the Bureau. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you for your support!

This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau are much appreciated!

OLNY Poly Movie Night: Lutine
2019-06-05 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 June 5th, please join us for a viewing of Lutine (2016), a very self-referential docu-comedy about polyamory directed by and starring Isabelle Broué.

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: Simultaneously a documentary about polyamory, a making-of the documentary, and a comedic fiction about the director’s life and loves, the project appears to be having an identity crisis while the characters (or are they the actors?) try to figure out what this polyamory thing is. Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes. In French with English subtitles.

Living in this Queer Body Podcast Celebration with Morgan Bassichis / Cyree Johnson / Amelia Bande / Lee Relvas
2019-06-08 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
A night for RITUAL and RELATIONSHIPS

Please join Living in this Queer Body Podcast host Asher Pandjiris in celebrating the podcast launch. We will have performances by Morgan Bassichis, Cyree Johnson, Amelia Bande, and Lee Relvas! Also, bring your hopes and dreams for the podcast and your queer bodies. We will assemble these hopes in queer ritual, generate a space to talk feelings and meet some past and future podcast interviewees.

LITQB seeks to embody and share the principles of intersectional, trans-affirming, gender nonconforming, and sex-worker affirming feminisms and support liberatory social movements.

Reception at 7 PM
Performances at 7:30 – 9pm
9-9:30 Mingle

Morgan Bassichis is a comedic performer whose shows have been described as “out there” (by Morgan’s mother) and “super intense” (by Morgan). Recent performances include Klezmer for Beginners at Abrons Arts Center (2019), Damned If You Duet at the Kitchen (2018), More Protest Songs! at Danspace Project (2018), and The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions: The Musical at the New Museum (2017). Morgan has presented work at The Whitney Biennial (2019), Hirshhorn Museum, MoMA PS1, the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Whitney Museum, and has received support from Art Matters, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Morgan lives in New York City, and has contributed writing to Artforum, Radical History Review, Captive Genders, and other anthologies.

Cyrée Jarelle Johnson is a poet and librarian from Piscataway, New Jersey. SLINGSHOT, his debut book of poetry, will be published by Nightboat Books in September. Find Cyrée online at cyreejarellejohnson.com or @cyreejarelle on social media.

Amelia Bande is a Brooklyn-based artist, writer and performer from Chile. Her solo and collaborative work has been shown at Artists Space, The Poetry Project, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, Adult Contemporary, Storm King Arts Center, Tang Museum, MoMA Library, MIX NYC, Abrons Arts Center, Participant Inc., BOFFO Performance Festival, and more. She has been an artist in residence at WORM Filmwerkplaats, The Shandaken Project and Yaddo. She was co-editor of Critical Correspondence, an online publication of Movement Research. Her chapbook The Clothes We Wear was published by Belladonna in 2017. Amelia also teaches Spanish at CUNY and NYU. Amelia is a queer dyke, a writer, performer, music maker, teacher. I create live capsules of intimacy. Low-fi musicals. She performs alone and with others.

Lee Relvas is an artist and writer living in New York. She is a recipient of the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program award 2018-2019, and received the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant in 2016. She has had recent solo exhibitions at Callicoon Fine Arts in New York and Artist Curated Projects in Los Angeles, and has also exhibited and performed at venues including The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, The Hammer Museum, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and Art in General.

Queer Brooklyn in Conversation: Narrating Tides and Cities: A Talk between Hugh Ryan and Benjamin Shepard
2019-06-09 16:00 - 17:30 | NY
Join us for a conversation with Hugh Ryan, author of When Brooklyn Was Queer, and Benjamin Shepard, author of Illuminations on Market Street and Brooklyn Tides: The Fall and Rise of a Global Borough (with Mark Noonan).

Hugh Ryan’s When Brooklyn Was Queer is a groundbreaking exploration of the LGBT history of Brooklyn, from the early days of Walt Whitman in the 1850s up through the queer women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, and beyond. Not only has Brooklyn always lived in the shadow of queer Manhattan neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Harlem, but there has also been a systematic erasure of its queer history―a great forgetting. That Ryan unearths. Shepard’s work explores similar themes of cultural erasure as spaces of difference are forced to contend with seas of identical details encroaching. What will become of Brooklyn? Tracing the emergence of Brooklyn from village outpost to global borough, Brooklyn Tides investigates the nature and consequences of global forces that have crossed the East River and identiﬁes alternative models for urban development, providing an ethnographic reading of the literature, social activism, and ever ebbing tides impacting this transforming space. The formation of the Brooklyn we know today is inextricably linked to the stories of the incredible people who created its diverse neighborhoods and cultures. Ryan and Shepard will discuss a few of these narratives, comparing Brooklyn with historically queer spaces such as Manhattan and San Francisco, unpacking the cross currents and cultural tides from Brooklyn to Greenwich Village, East Coast to West, Fulton to Market Street.

Copies of Ryan’s When Brooklyn Was Queer and Shepard’s Illuminations on Market Street are available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve copies please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Words and music by Gregg Shapiro and Jill Sobule
2019-06-11 19:00 - 21:15 | NY
Poet Gregg Shapiro and singer/songwriter Jill Sobule present an evening of poetry and song. Shapiro will be reading from his new book More Poems About Buildings and Food (Souvenir Spoon Books, 2019). Sobule will perform songs from her new album Nostalgia Kills (Pinko Records), and favorites from her songbook.

Like This Afternoon Forever: Jaime Manrique with Larry Mass
2019-06-13 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
For the last fifty years, the Colombian drug cartels, various insurgent groups, and the government have fought over the control of the drug traffic, in the process destroying vast stretches of the Amazon, devastating Indian communities, and killing tens of thousands of homesteaders caught in the middle of the conflict.

Inspired by these events, Jaime Manrique’s sixth novel, Like This Afternoon Forever, weaves in two narratives: the shocking story of a series of murders known internationally as the “false positives,” and the related story of two gay Catholic priests who become lovers when they meet in the seminary.

Lucas (the son of farmers) and Ignacio (a descendant of the Barí indigenous people) enter the seminary out of a desire to help others and to get an education. Their visceral love story undergoes stages of passion, indifference, rage, and a final commitment to stay together until the end of their lives. Working in a community largely composed of people displaced by the war, Ignacio stumbles upon the horrifying story of the false positives, which will put the lives of the two men in grave danger.

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

Check out this article about Manrique’s Like This Afternoon by Larry Mass

Jaime Manrique is a Colombian-born novelist, poet, essayist, and translator who writes both in English and Spanish, and whose work has been translated into fifteen languages. Among his publications in English are the novels Colombian Gold, Latin Moon in Manhattan, Twilight at the Equator, Our Lives Are the Rivers, and Cervantes Street; he has also published the memoir Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me. His honors include Colombia’s National Poetry Award, a 2007 International Latino Book Award (Best Novel, Historical Fiction), and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a distinguished lecturer in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at the City College of New York. Like This Afternoon Forever is his latest novel.

Jaime Manrique has been named the recipient of the 2019 Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, presented by the Publishing Triangle

Lawrence D Mass, M.D. is a co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis and was the first to write about AIDS in the press. He is the author/editor of We Must Love One Another Or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer, and is completing On The Future of Wagnerism, a sequel to his memoir, Confessions of a Jewish Wagnerite. He is a specialist in addiction medicine.

Opening Reception for Y’all Better Quiet Down
2019-06-14 18:00 - 21:00 | NY
Image: Buttons from The LGBT Community Center National History Archive

Y’all Better Quiet Down
June 14 – September 15, 2019
Opening reception on Friday, June 14, 2019, 6-9 PM

Companion exhibition at
Leslie-Lohman Museum
June 6 – July 21, 2019

Curated by Nelson Santos and Jeanne Vaccaro
Download Press Release

The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is proud to present Y’all Better Quiet Down, a group exhibition of art and ephemera in response to the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. A companion exhibition will take place at the Leslie-Lohman Museum. Both exhibitions are curated by Nelson Santos and Jeanne Vaccaro.

Y’all Better Quiet Down takes its title from a 1973 speech made by trans activist Sylvia Rivera at the Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally in Washington Square Park. Responding to an anti-trans statement by lesbian feminist Jean O’Leary, Rivera tells the crowd she’s been beaten and thrown in jail for gay liberation. Amidst a chorus of boos, she implores her “gay brothers and gay sisters” to understand gay liberation as an intersectional struggle for racial justice, gender self-determination, prison abolition, and housing, employment, and economic equality.

On the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, Y’all Better Quiet Down recalls Rivera’s impassioned demand to show up and commit to the collective struggle. What showing up looks like takes many forms—rage, protest, care, community and introspection. This exhibition presents contemporary works, protest banners, archival ephemera, and stories from the New York City Trans Oral History Project, Y’all Better Quiet Down centers the everyday and enduring legacies of liberation movements.

Artists include Brogan Bertie, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Luis Carle, Sebastián Castro Niculescu, LJ Roberts, Tourmaline & Sasha Wortzel, Tuesday Smillie, and Chris Vargas; and ephemera from The LGBT Community Center National History Archive, Leslie-Lohman Museum Collection, WRRQ Collective, and the NYC Trans Oral History Project.

Y’all Better Quiet Down will be presented at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division from June 14-September 15, 2019; and the Leslie-Lohman Museum from June 6 -July 21, 2019.

Y’all Better Quiet Down will be presented at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division from June 14-September 15, 2019; and the Leslie-Lohman Museum from June 6 -July 21, 2019.

The exhibition will include two events at the Bureau:

a performance by Sebastián Castro Niculescu, titled Tired Selena, on Wednesday, June 26, 7 to 9 PM

an intergenerational lesbian all-star poetry reading by Belladonna* Collaborative inspired by the NYC Lesbian Switchboard, on Friday, July 12, 7 PM

More information about these events will be announced soon. Please check the Bureau’s events calendar (bgsqd.com/events) to see our upcoming events.

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Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
@The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
208 West 13th Street, Room 210
NY, NY 10011

Hours: Tuesdays-Sundays, 1-7 PM
Closed Mondays
Summer Hours: (July & August): Wednesdays-Saturdays, 1-7 PM
Closed Sundays, Mondays, & Tuesdays

The Leslie-Lohman Museum is the only dedicated art museum in the world to exhibit and preserve artwork that speaks about the LGBTQ experience. Our roots trace back to 1969 when Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman held an exhibit of gay artists for the first time in their SoHo loft. Throughout the 1970s, they continued to collect and exhibit gay artists while supporting the SoHo art community. During the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s, the collection continued to grow as they rescued the work of dying artists from families who, out of shame or ignorance, wanted to destroy it. This led to the formation of the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation in 1987. In recognition of its importance in the collection and preservation of LGBTQ history, the organization was accredited as a museum in 2016. With a collection of over 30,000 objects, the Museum hosts six major exhibitions annually, offers several public programs throughout the year, publishes an arts newsletter, and maintains a research library of over 3,000 volumes.

Leslie-Lohman Museum
26 Wooster Street
NY, NY 10013

Admission is free with a suggested donation of $9
Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 12-6 PM, and Thursday, 12-8 PM

Website: leslielohman.org
Email: info@Leslielohman.org
Phone: 212-431-2609

TELL: Queer Stories w/ Drae Campbell | Podcast Launch Party
2019-06-15 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
Celebrate the official launch of BRIC’s new queer storytelling podcast TELL. Join host Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center for refreshments and an evening of storytelling with guests Elsa Waithe, Ryan Haddad, Brian Vines, and Becca Blackwell!
TELL is a podcast that serves queer stories on queer terms. For the past five years, host Drae Campbell has been hosting and curating a night of live storytelling at the Bureau, and now she’s sharing those stories with the world! On each episode, Drae will curate a set of stories told by the queer folks who lived them, on everything from traveling to death to stolen bikes to family secrets.
So if you need a dose of of queer community, or just wanna hear great stories told by the people who lived them, you’ve come to the right place. Strap on your head phones and pull up your socks, ‘cause TELL is queering the narrative and telling our stories, on our terms.

Photograph by Grace Chu

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

Elsa Waithe is a Comedian, Actor, and Motivational Speaker from Norfolk, Virginia. She’s won the Virginia Beach Funnybone’s Clash of the Comics three times, has been featured on This American Life, and is a recurring guest on TELL.

Ryan Haddad is an actor, playwright and autobiographical performer based in New York. His critically-acclaimed solo play Hi, Are You Single? was featured in The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival and continues to tour the country. Ryan’s also performed at Joe’s Pub, La Mama, Ars Nova/ANT Fest, Theater Breaking Through Barriers and on TV in the shows Bull, Madam Secretary, and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. He is a member of The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group and a former Queer|Art Performance and Playwriting Fellow under the mentorship of Moe Angelos.

Brian Vines is an Emmy Award winning journalist. After completing the Masters Program in Broadcast Journalism at Boston University’s College of Communication he fetched coffee for some of the most respected journalists and news figures in the world during his tenure at CNN. After a stint in political communications Brian fell in love with his own reflection and reported for here! networks, NYC-TV, and the Guardian US among others. Brian is currently the Chief Correspondent at BRIC TV where he moderates the #BHeard Town Hall series on social justice and hosts, Going In With Brian Vines.

Becca Blackwell is a NYC based performer. They act in a lot of stuff and make their own work.

WorldPride–Stonewall 50 Poetry Extravaganza
2019-06-19 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for a celebration of pride and poetry. Be both audience and performer when we gather as proud LGBTQIA+ poets and people during WorldPride–Stonewall 50, a monthlong celebration of the 50th anniversary of Stonewall Uprising and a half-century of LGBTQIA+ liberation. With special guest poet Dante Micheaux, winner of the T.S. Eliot Four Quartets Prize from the Poetry Society of America and the T.S. Eliot Foundation of London—and dozens of other poets (list in formation). This event is organized by Indolent Books and supported by a Pride Gives Back grant form NYC Pride / Heritage of Pride.

Featuring:
Adam Fitzgerald, Aimee Herman, Christina Quintana, Dante Micheaux, Don Yorty, Grey Vild, Guillermo Felice Castro, Jason Schneiderman, Jason Zuzga, Jeffery Berg, JP Howard, Lonely Christopher, Lynn McGee, Michael Klein, Michael Montlack, Sarah Sala, Sarah Sarai, Stephen Motika, Steven Cordova, William Leo Coakley

Out of the Shadows Book Launch with author Walt Odets
2019-06-20 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join author and psychologist Walt Odets for an engaging and provocative conversation centered around his new book, OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Reimagining Gay Men’s Lives, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Walt Odets will be joined in conversation by community health educator Rob Levy.
Copies of Out of the Shadows will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

Photograph by Dianne Woods

Walt Odets is a clinical psychologist in private practice who has worked with and written about the psychological, developmental and social lives of gay men for more than three decades. He is best-known for his seminal book, In the Shadow of the Epidemic: Being HIV-Negative in the Age of AIDS, which Duke University Press published in 1995 and was selected by The New York Times as one of the “Notable Books of the Year.” He lives in Berkeley, California and can be found online at www.waltodets.com.

Rob Levy is a Community Health Educator in the Rochester/Finger Lakes Region of New York State, where he lives with his husband and their adopted son. Prior to his current work in the substance abuse field, Rob taught high school and worked with at-risk youth in the city of Rochester. Shortly after the death of a friend to AIDS in 1996, Rob read Walt’s In the Shadow of the Epidemic, a book he feels saved his life.

Roots of LGBTQ Historic Preservation
2019-06-21 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Join the New York Preservation Archive Project (NYPAP) for a deep dive into how historic sites in New York City first began to be recognized for their LGBTQ significance. The evening will feature brand new clips from oral history interviews with leading preservationists as well as opportunities for audience discussion.

Twenty-five years ago local activists and preservationists set out to put LGBTQ history on the map. In 1994 REPOHistory’s Queer Spaces project placed temporary history markers on nine sites in Manhattan, The Organization of Lesbian and Gay Architects & Designers (OLGAD) published the first map of LGBTQ historic sites in Manhattan, and a first attempt was made to nominate Stonewall for the National Register of Historic Places. As we mark the celebration of Stonewall 50, there have been many gains and losses in the movement to preserve and recognize local LGBTQ landmarks. Understanding this history that led to the current moment will strengthen the preservation movement for the work ahead.

Oral histories featured at this event have been recorded through NYPAP’s ongoing oral history project on NYC’s LGBTQ historic preservation, funded in part by New York State Council on the Arts and Thompson Hine LLP. All the oral histories we collect are freely available to the public, so that future preservationists can benefit from the experiences captured. View NYPAP’s full oral history collection at www.nypap.org/oral-history.

Liz Strong is the Oral History Program Manager for the New York Preservation Archive Project (NYPAP). In her time with NYPAP she has run two oral history initiatives with preservationists in New York City, “Saving Preservation Stories” and “Through the Legal Lens”. This year she is also kicking off the latest oral history project, Uncover the Roots of NYC’s LGBT Preservation. In 2016, she wrote NYPAP’s introductory guide on “Oral History & Preservation”.
Outside of her work with NYPAP, Liz is a freelance oral historian and has served clients such as The Columbia Center for Oral History, The Washington Department of Commerce, The University of Arizona Steward Observatory, and many others. Since 2017, she has worked with the Brooklyn Historical Society as Project Coordinator for the “Muslims in Brooklyn” public history project. She earned her MA in Oral History from Columbia University in 2015, and her BA in Narrative Arts from Oberlin College in 2009.

Brad Vogel served on the Board of the Archive Project from 2012 until 2018, as well as Vice Chair for a period, before being selected as Executive Director. Vogel served as an historic preservation fellow with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in post-Katrina New Orleans and was named Louisiana Preservationist of the Year in 2011. Vogel also worked as an attorney in New York City for over six years and has published a book of poetry. He currently serves as on the international board of the Circumnavigators Club and as Captain of the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club.

RFD Reading + Celebration
2019-06-22 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
RFD, the oldest continually published queer zine, is celebrating Stonewall 50 with its Summer issue. We will look to the future of LGBT activism while celebrating the events of the past. This evening will include readings from NYC-area contributors published in RFD in the recent past, including the current issue. We will be offering subscription deals and will have the new issue available. Come listen to the voices of local queer radicals reading from RFD!
Readers include: Robert Croonquist, Dale Corvino, Pauline Park, Summer Minerva, Chas Nol.
Keith Gemerek will present a slide show of his photography of faeries in the city and beyond.

Pride Monologues
2019-06-23 17:00 - 19:00 | NY
Queer Playwrights Collective Presents a series of monologues by LGBTQIA voices, just in time for World Pride. Curated by Jeffrey James Keyes

Featuring monologues by:
Clarence Coo
Paul Hagen
Merryn Johns
Jeffrey James Keyes
Peter Macklin
Rae Mariah MacCarthy
Daaimah Mubashshir
DeVo Nelson
Nilan
Christina Quintana
Gabriel Shanks

And featuring performances by:
Matt W. Cody
Nathaniel P. Claridad
Cherrye J. Davis

The Melting Queen NY Launch
2019-06-25 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Please join Bruce Cinnamon to celebrate the publication of his debut novel, THE MELTING QUEEN.

About THE MELTING QUEEN:

Every year since 1904, when the ice breaks up on the North Saskatchewan River, Edmonton has crowned a Melting Queen—a woman who presides over the Melting Day spring carnival and who must keep the city’s spirits up over the following winter. But this year, something has changed: a genderfluid ex-frat brother called River Runson is named as Melting Queen. As River’s reign upends the city’s century-old traditions, Edmonton tears itself in two, with progressive and reactionary factions fighting a war for Edmonton’s soul. Ultimately, River must uncover the hidden history of Melting Day, forcing Edmonton to confront the dark underbelly of its traditions and leading the city into a new chapter in its history. Balancing satire with compassion, Bruce Cinnamon’s debut novel combines history and magic to weave a splendid future-looking tale.

Copies of The Melting Queen 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!

Bruce Cinnamon was born in Edmonton and grew up just downstream in Fort Saskatchewan, along the banks of the North Saskatchewan River. He holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Alberta and a Master of Global Affairs from the University of Toronto. His favourite authors and literary influences include Garth Nix, Haruki Murakami, Jorge Luis Borges, Rachel Carson, Thomas King, Tomson Highway, and Italo Calvino. THE MELTING QUEEN is his first novel and is a part of the Nunatak First Fiction series.

Tired Selena: A Performance by Sebastián Castro Niculescu
2019-06-26 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
How, and where, do we remember sites of queer/trans history? Which bars are memorialized in history and which are bulldozed over? Fifty years on from the inceptive Stonewall Riots, do we sometimes get tired of remembering? Is this okay? In this performance, we will perform a dual kind-of mourning, for Selena and for the Midtown bar Sally’s. Selena, the Tejana pop star, performed her legendary last performance at the Houston Astrodome in 1995. And Sally’s Hideaway & Sally’s II, bars situated around Times Square and populated largely by trans women of color, are reported to have existed, in different locations, from 1986 to 1997. What do these two events and spaces have to do with each other, if anything? Moving within the possibilities and difficulties of remembering each, this performance proposes a space for fatigue, joy, exhaustion, desire – and all their messy complications.

Presented on the occasion of Y’all Better Quiet Down, a joint exhibition at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and the Leslie-Lohman Museum, curated by Jeanne Vaccaro and Nelson Santos.

Enby Spoken Histories: Storytelling Event
2019-06-27 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Celebrating Queer Excellence Through Storytelling!

Enby Spoken Histories is an archival storytelling project that aims to record, preserve, and amplify the rich, diverse stories of individuals whose genders don’t fall within the binary. We have partnered with StoryCorps to build a longstanding, historical archive at the Library of Congress. We hope our stories educate and normalize both our humanity and our existence. By creating space through storytelling, we aim to continue building safer spaces for TGNC folks to thrive!

There is a distinct and severe lack of information, research, and representation in literature—academic or otherwise—detailing transgender lives and identities. Even moreso, there is an absence of nonbinary recognition in recorded material. Seeing this need for documentation of non-binary livelihoods, we have partnered with StoryCorps to build a longstanding, historical archive at the Library of Congress. This is groundbreaking!!! Our content is being recognized by an official archival space that doesn’t normally pay notice to queer, let alone non-binary, experiences.

We would like to invite people of all identities to join us in honoring some of the stories that have been shared so far. Enby Spoken Histories is a developing project that started as a passion project and is now taking shape as a larger oral history collection. Come honor the stories we have cultivated, along with the live talks from our community members.

This is especially important right now as we fight the attempted erasure of our community.

Join us while we share some of the stories we have recorded with StoryCorps.

Special Guests: Lexie Bean, Nicole Sgarlato, Bobby Sanchez, and more!

ALL IDENTITIES WELCOME!!!

World Pride impac+NYC Book-Signing
2019-06-29 13:00 - 15:00 | NY
Join QGBT men from around the world for our book signing event at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division from 1-3 PM on Saturday June 29.

Kaz Senju – Shinjuku Story
Matthew Papa – Songs to the Siren
Michael Craft – Sweet Tooth
Michael McFadden – Borderlands

Impac+ NYC is a social community of queer, gay, bi, and trans men living with HIV that meet for weekly happy hours, monthly dinners, brunches, picnics, river cruises, and more!

Bureau closed for Pride! See you at the Queer Liberation March and Rally!
2019-06-30 | NY
The Bureau will be closed on Pride Sunday, June 30th. Please join us at the Queer Liberation March and Rally!
From the Reclaim Pride Coalition website:
The Queer Liberation March is a people’s political march—no corporate floats, and no police in our march. Please see our statement on Why We March. We honor the powerful legacy of the Stonewall Rebellion by highlighting the most marginalized members of our community, as we commit to addressing the ongoing struggles that we face.
Retracing the steps of the original Christopher Street Liberation Day March of 1970, the Reclaim Pride Coalition will gather in Sheridan Square, march all the way up 6th Avenue, and end with a rally in Central Park’s Great Lawn.
Everyone is welcome to join the march at any point. No pre-registration or wristbands are required.
We will gather on 7th Ave south of Christopher Street before stepping off at 9:30am.
We will march one block up 7th Avenue, take a right on West 10th Street over to 6th Avenue and then all the way up 6th Avenue into Central Park.
There will be a midpoint gathering in Bryant Park at 11am where we encourage folks who cannot make the early step off to join the march.
You can join the march at any point by stepping off of the sidewalks into the streets anywhere north of West 23rd Street on 6th Ave. (Below this point it might not be possible due to street blocking for the HOP Pride Parade).
The march will end with a Rally in Central Park’s Great Lawn with disability access on the corner of East 85th Street & 5th Ave. You are welcome to join us here.
Click here for details about accessibility, what to bring and what not to bring and other important information.

NYC Gay Guys' Book Club Discusses James Earl Hardy's B-Boy Blues: Bureau Opens at 6 PM
2019-07-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
NYC Gay Guys’ Book Club is a group of gay guys of all ages who meet the first Tuesday of every month. We usually meet at the Jefferson Market branch of the public library on 6th Avenue & West 10th Street, but we’ll meet at the Bureau while the library is being renovated. We read an eclectic range of books from classics to newly-released works. We don’t necessarily read books with a gay theme or characters and always open to suggestions. Very easy going; more social than academic. You don’t necessarily have to commit to coming every single month, just whenever your schedule or reading tastes permit.

On Tuesday, July 2, the NYC Gay Guys’ Book Club will discuss James Earl Hardy’s B-Boy Blues.

Please note that the Bureau is closed on Tuesdays in July and August, but we will open for this event at 6 pm.

The Bureau’s hours in July and August: Wednesdays-Saturdays, 1 to 7 PM.

This event is free, but donations to support the Bureau are much appreciated!
