BGSQD

How to Stop Worrying about Food & Fall in Love with Your Body—A Queer Body Love Workshop
2016-10-30 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | NY
Do your feminist, body positive beliefs feel out of whack with your real, lived experience? Do you feel like you know how to talk the talk but you don’t know how to walk to the walk? Are you sick of wasting time, energy and money on guilt, shame and anxiety about what you did or didn’t do with your body?
If you know that you’re ready to make a shift towards radical self acceptance, once and for all, stepping towards feeling sane around food and confident in your body, I invite you to join us for this powerful Queer Body Love workshop. You will learn strategies and mindset shifts you can take home and apply for the rest of your life.
Experience the possibility of freedom and deep love for yourself, and take home ideas and tools to support you:
● Feel great naked.
● Eat without worry.
● Stop dieting & trust yourself and your body.
● Deepen a sense of confidence in yourself as a powerful, beautiful human being
You deserve to shine, feeling strong & beautiful, inside and out.
This is your moment. Come join me for an afternoon of inspiration, insight, & support to begin a sustainable shift towards radical self-love, once and for all.
Please register in advance at https://bit.ly/NYC-QBL if possible. Walk-up registration may be available at the door but isn’t guaranteed.

Elizabeth Cooper founded her own company, Queer Body Love Coaching, to support folks find freedom from struggles with food, body image and self worth so they can live into the power and beauty of who they are. She studied yoga intensively in 2008 at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. This provided the personal development framework for her to heal my own relationship to food, her body and herself. She has been an active and serious student of Buddhism since the fall of 2011, when she lived at a Buddhist monastery and nunnery in India. That along with studying the cultural politics of the body, feminism and queer theory, in Princeton and in life, provide the basis for her work. She’s excited to bring this workshop, popular in the Bay Area, where it’s been presented a dozen times, to New York!

Union Square Slam presents Joanna Hoffman and WOWPS Qualifier #2
2016-11-01 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is hosting our second of three qualifiers for the Women of the World Poetry Slam, held in Dallas, TX this March. The top two winners of the night will qualify for a spot in our WOWPS Finals December 14th. AND THEN THERE’S OUR FEATURE, 15-year slam veteran and all-around bomb-ass Unicorn, Joanna Hoffman!!
6pm: Free Writing Workshop
7pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8pm: Slam Round 1 (2 minute round; 8 poets)
8:30pm: Feature
9pm: Slam Rounds 2 and 3 (1 minute/5 poets; 4 minute/3 poets)
$5 Admission // All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
About Our Feature:
Joanna Hoffman (www.joannahoffman.com) is a spoken word poet and teaching artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She is a 15 year veteran of slam, or competitive performance poetry, who has competed on 5 National Poetry Slam teams, ranked 4th at the 2012 Women of the World Poetry Slam and was the 2012 champion of Capturing Fire, an international LGBTQ poetry competition. Her full-length book of poetry, Running for Trap Doors (Sibling Rivalry Press) was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and featured in the American Library Association’s list of recommended LGBT reading for 2014. She was recently named a White House Champion of Change for LGBT advocacy through art. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming on Upworthy, Buzzfeed, Winter Tangerine, decomP, PANK, The Offing, Union Station Magazine, The Legendary, Sinister Wisdom and in the Write Bloody Publishing anthologies We Will be Shelter and Multiverse.

Heather Love and Sarah Schulman in Conversation on the publication of Sarah's New Book: Conflict Is Not Abuse
2016-11-05 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Heather Love and Sarah Schulman in conversation on Schulman’s new book: Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair.

Heather Love is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work includes Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History (Harvard) and the editor of a special issue of GLQ on Gayle Rubin (“Rethinking Sex”) and the co-editor of a special issue of Representations (“Description Across Disciplines”). She has written on topics including comparative social stigma, compulsory happiness, transgender fiction, spinster aesthetics, reading methods in literary studies, and the history of deviance studies. She is currently completing a book on practices of description in the humanities and social sciences after World War II.

Sarah Schulman is a novelist, nonfiction writer, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and AIDS historian. She is co-founder of the MIX: NY Queer Experimental Film Festival (now in its 29th season), The ACT UP Oral History Project www.actuporalhistory.org, is on the Advisory Board of Jewish Voice for Peace, and is Faculty Advisor to Students for Justice in Palestine at the College of Staten Island where she is a Distinguished Professor. Conflict Is Not Abuse, is her 18th book.

Union Square Slam presents an evening with Jersey City Slam
2016-11-08 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is committed to exposing all the poetry this city has to offer. We want communities to merge and form into bigger communities. For this show we are happy to have the great literary/slam organization Jersey City Slam.
Here’s a little more about JC:
Jersey City Slam was founded in 2010 and has since become a pillar in New Jersey’s poetry community. J.C. Slam provides a platform for New Jersey’s best poets to showcase their skills and talent on a national level. It also is a way for the community to connect to Jersey City’s vibrant and thriving art community. By putting the power in the hands of the judges picked at random from the audience J.C. Slam lets the community decide who represents Jersey City at the annual National Poetry Slam, Women of the World Poetry Slam and the Individual World Poetry Slam. Jersey City Slam is a live event that offers local performers to participate in the open mic segment and judge Slam poets performances.
JC Poets:
Ann Marie Manso
Chris Rodriguez
Erin Anastasia
Rashad Wright
6;00pm: Free Workshop with I.S. Jones
7:30pm: Sign-ups and Socialize
8:00pm: Open Mic
8:45pm: Jersey City Slam
All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Open Mic // $5

Nicolas Moufarrege DUETS Book Launch, with Dean Daderko and Elaine Reichek
2016-11-09 18:00 - 19:30 | NY
To launch the latest volume of Visual AIDS’ DUETS publication series, curator Dean Daderko and artist Elaine Reichek will discuss the art and life of Nicolas Moufarrege (1947–1985) in a conversation moderated by Visual AIDS Programs Director Alex Fialho. An Egyptian-born Lebanese raised in Beirut, Moufarrege lived briefly in Paris before landing in New York in the early 1980’s. He molded a complex mixture of his cultural roots into idiosyncratic embroidered artworks and a distinct curatorial and critical writing sensibility that are highlighted in the DUETS publication through an interview between Daderko and Reicheck. Artist LJ Roberts writes the publication’s foreword and archivist Sur Rodney (Sur) contributes the afterword.

Visual AIDS initiated DUETS to foster dialogue between artists, writers and activists about their creative process and issues around HIV/AIDS, including maintaining the legacies of those like Moufarrege lost too early to AIDS.

Event image: Nicolas Moufarrege, Banana Pudding, c. 1982. Thread and paint on needlepoint canvas and mixed media, 10 x 12 inches. Collection of Laura Skoler

Dean Daderko is curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Daderko first encountered Moufarrege’s work in the exhibition The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984 and was entranced. After researching his work and contacting the artist’s family members, Daderko included a selection of Moufarrege’s works in SIDE X SIDE an exhibition he guest curated for Visual AIDS at La MaMa La Galleria. His recent exhibitions include Double Life (2015); LaToya Ruby Frazier: Witness (2014), which traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and Parallel Practices: Joan Jonas and Gina Pane (2013). In 2008, Daderko guest-curated SIDE X SIDE for Visual AIDS at La MaMa Galleria, an exhibition that included paintings by Nicholas Moufarrege, alongside works by Scott Burton, Kate Huh, Martin Wong, and Carrie Yamaoka.

Elaine Reichek is an artist based in New York. Reichek and Nicolas Moufarrege were artist colleagues and dear friends, and Reichek was one of the curators of Nicolas’s memorial exhibition at the Clocktower, the Institute for Art and Urban Resources, in 1987. Reichek has exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad for more than forty years, including solo shows at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Jewish Museum; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; Tel Aviv Museum; Stichting De Appel, Amsterdam; and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Her work is in the collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia; and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, among many others. Her most recent solo exhibitions include “Minoan Girls” at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica (2016), and “Swatches” at Zach Feuer Gallery, New York (2015).

20Something Monthly Manhattan Meetup
2016-11-09 20:00 - 21:30, 2016-12-14 20:00 - 21:30 | NY
If you are new to the city, recently out, just looking for friends, or whatever experiences brought you to us – we offer a safe space where we can mingle and talk about our experiences as an LGBT person in New York City. We recommend this 20Something Meetup to anyone who is looking for a more casual space to explore their sexual/gender identity. There will be light refreshments. Bring friends!
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau and 20Something. No one turned away for lack of funds.
20Something is the largest social events organization for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in New York City, aged 21 to 30. We hold a monthly social, and two monthly icebreaker/discussion groups at the Brooklyn Pride Center and at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the queer cultural center and bookstore on the second floor of The LGBT Community Center, in Manhattan. With more than 2,500 members, we engage young adults across all 5 boroughs with a safe, confidential, and respectful platform to meet other LGBT folk. Many of our members have made long lasting friendships, relationships, and have been connected to important LGBT services and resources. Whether you are new to the city, recently out, or just looking to make friends – 20Something offers a space for you to pave the way to your own adventures in New York City – and make living here a little easier. Become a member: meetup.com/20SomethingNYC

Matchers4Men
2016-11-11 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Matchers is a Friday night event for gay men who are in the dating scene, who want to find a partner without the frustration and lack of success in meeting guys online or in bars. It’s a room full of approximately 35 eligible men, seated so they can see each other.
Each guy wears a nametag, but instead of his name, it’s a code (#001, 002, etc.). He’s also given paper and pen to take notes about the guys he’d like to meet, as well as a printed sheet for him to fill in the codes of the guys he’d like to meet.
The event is like a talk show, but instead of a panel of guests, it’s the audience which discusses various current events topics, like politics and social issues. The moderator guides the discussion, and tries to ensure that as many attendees as possible get to add their proverbial two cents (or more).
This is an effective, alternative way to meet people, rather than talking about oneself for a minute or two. It’s much more interesting and provocative, and gives participants a more accurate sense as to who is a better match.
This segment lasts 90 minutes, after which there’s a 30-minute social period, where guys can get to know each other, one-on-one.
Finally, guys fill out and submit to the moderator the sheet with their choices of guys they’d like to go on a date with. Participants are informed the following day of the guys who also chose them, their matches.
The event is FREE!
For more information, please contact Scott at matchers4men@gmail.com and/or visit the blog, matchers4men.blogspot.com

Fire Island Artist Residency Presents: Tyler Ashley, Matthew deLeon, and Donald C. Shorter Jr.
2016-11-12 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
Fire Island Artist Residency Presents:

An evening of performance with Tyler Ashley, Matthew deLeon, and Donald C. Shorter Jr.

The three artists, whose work is on display in the Bureau’s current exhibition, Coney Island Babies, will perform original works at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division!

An Evening of Sex & Culture with Carol Queen
2016-11-13 18:00 - 20:00 | NY
Usually found holding down the fort in San Francisco, Carol Queen joins us for a night of sex-positivity, pomosexuality, and possibly some brainiac-level smut. She’ll read from her body of work and follow it up with lively chat with attendees—maybe even some discourse!

Carol Queen PhD [www.carolqueen.com] is a cultural sexologist and co- founder of the Center for Sex & Culture in San Francisco. She is a noted erotic writer and essayist whose work has appeared in dozens of anthologies. She’s written four books: the essay collection Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture; erotic novel The Leather Daddy and the Femme; Exhibitionism for the Shy, which explores issues of erotic self-esteem and enhancement; and most recently (with Shar Rednour) The Sex & Pleasure Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex for Everyone. She’s also edited several volumes of erotica and essays and has appeared in several explicit educational videos, notably “Bend Over Boyfriend: An Adventurous Couple’s Guide to Male Anal Pleasure.” Queen works as staff sexologist at Good Vibrations, the women-founded sex shop, where she has worked since 1990. Queen has been speaking publicly about queer sexualities for over 40 years. Her perspective in addressing sexual diversity incorporates personal experience, accurate sex information, and informed cultural commentary. She has addressed many conferences, including the International Condom Conference, the International Conference on Prostitution, and the International Conference on Pornography; she frequently addresses college as well as general and specialized audiences. In February 2009 she debated the question of promiscuity (“Virtue or vice?”) for the Oxford Union at Oxford University, England.

Union Square Slam presents Emily Eastman and Open Slam #3
2016-11-15 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Well, America. Thanks for giving us ever more reason to gather together and write, create, read, scream poems into microphones. Come get held/witnessed/free this Tuesday with our 3rd qualifying slam of the season, and none other than the Wicked Queer Glitterbomb of Love, Emily Eastman!!!
6pm: Free Writing Workshop
7pm: Sign-Ups
7:30pm: Slam Round One
8:15pm: Feature
8:45pm Slam Rounds 2 and 3
$5 // All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
About our Feature:
Emily Eastman is a genderqueer poet & organizer who hails from Manchester; New Hampshire’s loudest middle child. A longtime community & staff member of the Slam Free or Die poetry series, they have helped to facilitate countless events & workshops on both a local & national level. They have performed, hosted, shouted, bout managed, & wept their way across the country, from classrooms to concert halls, and several barrooms in between. They have competed & represented Slam Free or Die at many national tournaments, including the Individual World Poetry Slam (2014, 2015) the Women of the World Poetry Slam (2015, 2016) and the National Poetry Slam (2015, 2016.) Interests include strong coffee, dismantling the white supremacist heteropatriarchy, & spending dinner dates talking about radical softness. Their greatest review to date came as a text from their 11-year-old sister: “Adequate.”
About our Slam:
There are six opportunities to compete for the Union Square Slam National Team. The top two winners of each Open Slam have secured their spot in Finals, pending participation in a Specialty Slam.
Each open slam will :
– consist of up to 8 poet competitors
– have a 3 min time limit for each round with a 10-second grace period
– will go from 8 in the first round to 5 in the second round and 3 in the third round (this is subject to change depending on the number of competitors that night — see below)
– be scored cumulatively — the winner of the night will have the highest cumulative score from all three rounds.
Union Square Slam Nationals Qualifiers (Open Slams) are on the following dates:
September 20th
October 18th
November 15th
January 17th
February 21st
March 21st
Union Square Slam National Team Selection Finals will be held on April 18th.
In order to represent Union Square Slam at any National Competition, you must meet the following requirements:
– Be 18 years old or older (all ages can compete in our slams! You just won’t be able to rep us at PSI events)
– Be an active member of PSI at the time of competition (register at www.poetryslam.com you cover your annual registration fee of $20 — questions? Talk to Cecily or the current slam manager)
– Read, sign, and adhere to the PSI Code of Conduct
– Participate in at least one Specialty Slam during the 2016-7 season. Specialty Slams include WOWPS qualifiers, Nerd Slams, Petty Slams, Iron Poet Slams, etc.

CopWatch Training
2016-11-16 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
CopWatch is an effective and legal tool for empowering communities, ending police misconduct, unprofessional behavior, and discrimination. You have the right to observe and record all police activities in public places. Learn how to exercise you rights safely and legally. Workshop will be taught by comedian and activist Elsa Waithe. Suggested donation of $5, but no one will be turned away.

Switch n' Play
2016-11-17 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Switch n’ Play offers an evening of queer performance from members K.James, Nyx Nocturne, (wo chan) Pearl Harbor, and Vigor Mortis. Following the performances, the performers will hold a Q&A panel discussion of drag, gender, community, and the politics of embodiment.
Switch n’ Play is a Brooklyn drag collective, established in 2006. Queer in every sense of the word, Switch n’ Play spans the gender spectrum in life and onstage. Twice nominated for the Brooklyn Nightlife Awards in the Best Drag Performance Show and Best Burlesque Show categories, SnP and its members have also been featured in the Huffington Post, Posture Magazine, Vice Broadly, and Velour Magazine. They produces shows at Branded Saloon in Prospect Heights Brooklyn every 2nd and 4th Saturdays.

TELL 29: BIRTHDAYS—Special Edition for Bureau's 4th Birthday!
2016-11-19 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
In honor of the Bureau’s 4th birthday, BIRTHDAYS is the theme of the twenty-ninth installment of TELL. Featuring Skye Cabrera, Michael Bret Cohen, Miss Crimson Kitty, and Dora Vargas!

Come celebrate the Bureau’s 4th birthday with this special birthday edition of TELL! Cake will be served!

$10 suggested donation – 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.

Skye Cabrera is a Poet / Musician from the Bronx who has been performing since 2009 at venues such as Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Brooklyn Historical Society, The Bronx Museum, Apt 78, the Hispanic Panic series and more. She is the author of two poetry books, “Music for Caterpillars” in 2011 and most recently “Meet me at the Cube”.
In 2013 her Spoken Word video “when a woman speaks” was featured on Madonna’s Art for Freedom project.
Her work reflects the urban inner city queer experience, angst, love, identity and purpose.

Michael Bret Cohen has worked in the adult entertainment industry and is one of the subjects of “The Red Umbrella Diaries”, a doc about a sex worker reading series which is touring the film festival circuit. He is currently working on a book of essays and has completed a poetry chapbook he is self publishing in the new year about his last 3 years on the road and roadside traveling through America. His NSFW blog: www.velveteenfur.tumblr.com

Photo By David Ayllon
Called the female-on-female drag pioneer by Time Out New York, Miss Crimson Kitty is taking drag culture by storm one perfected lip-synch at a time! The drag daughter of Rebecca Glasscock of Rupaul’s Drag Race The Lost Season, she has created a haven for other queens at LADYQUEEN which is NYC’s only all female drag revue and created an education revolution by creating LadyQueen University; A 6 week workshop designed to turn any Lady into a LadyQueen!
Crimson has been featured in the press such as the Huffington Post, Oyxgen, Time Out, and Next Magazine for her gender illusionist skills and is known both nationally and internationally as one of the top reigning queens in her field. As a title holder for Dragnet and nominated for many nightlife awards, she is representing a realm of drag much overlooked in the community and aims to change the perception of drag solely based on gender.
Photo by David Ayllon

Dora Vargas is a Brooklyn native who dabbles in music and songwriting. She is mostly known as a singer among her friends and acquaintances. She has performed at such venues as the Bureau, karaoke night at Ginger’s, the Court St. R train station with a tin can, a lesbian wedding, and the shower.

Imani Cezanne and Emi Mahmoud Present Matte Fearless: A Women of the World Poetry Slam Champions Showcase
2016-11-20 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
After an unprecedented decision to share the 2016 Women of the World Poetry Slam Championship, Emi Mahmoud and Imani Cezanne have reunited to put on a one of a kind show! Come one, come all to the for an unforgettable night of love, laughs, poems and womanhood.

Union Square Slam presents Venessa Marco and WOWPS Qualifier #3
2016-11-22 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Did you know? Both our USS rep Gabrielle Smith and USS Organizer Extraordinaire Taylor Steele excelled to Finals Stage at last year’s WOWPS competition? Come on out for your last chance to qualify for USS’s WOWPS Finals Dec 14th!! And while you’re at it, come get your heart salvaged by none other than the dynamite Venessa Marco!!
6pm: Free Writing Workshop
7pm: Sign-Ups and Socialize
7:30pm: Slam, First Round (2 min round)
8:15pm: Featured Poet
9pm: Slam, Second and Third Round (1 min and 4 min rounds)
$5 // All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
About our Feature:
Venessa Marco is an Afro-descendant poet, writer by way of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Marco currently resides in Harlem, New York. She was a member of the 2012 Da Poetry Lounge in Hollywood, California slam team and a member of the 2013 Nuyorican Poets Cafe, which placed 3rd in the nation. In 2014 Marco competed in The Women of The World poetry festival and placed 6th in the nation. She is a recipient of the Cora Craig Author Award for young women writers allocated by Penmanship Books.
About our Slam:
WOWPS is:
a) an acronym for Women of the World World Poetry Slam
b) one of three national poetry slam events put on annually by Poetry Slam, Inc.
c) held in Dallas, TX from March 15-18th, 2017
Union Square Slam WOWPS Qualifier rules:
Qualified competitors are poets who are female assigned or identified individuals who are PSi members and are 18+ or 21+ years of age, depending on the Host City. This includes gender non-conforming individuals.
8 poets, 3 rounds. Cumulative Scores.
First Round: 2 min (all)
Second Round: 1 min (all)
Third Round: 4 min (top 5)
Cumulative score wins the slam. Top two winners advance to Finals.

Closed for Thanksgiving
2016-11-24 | NY
The Bureau will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 24th.

Union Square Presents: Taylor Steele's Book Release!
2016-11-29 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Taylor Steele‘s got a new collection of poems she wants to share with all of you! Come celebrate this book with her and every member of every team/collective Taylor has been a part of. It’s a family affair!
Dirty.Mouth.Kiss, published by the amazing pizza pi press, features art by Ashley Tenn.
7:00 – Mix + Mingle (And buy a book, maybe???)
7:30 – Show Starts
$5 Entry // $13 Book // All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
Will there be FREE PIZZA? Who knows? Will Taylor break out her guitar and sing a few ditties? Come find out!
Featuring Performances By:
Ashley August + Timothy DuWhite + Nkosi Nkululeko + Kearah Armonie + Patrick Roche + Roya Marsh + Jay Salazar + Gabriel Ramirez + of course, TAYLOR STEELE!
About the Author:
Taylor Steele is a Bronx-born, Brooklyn-based writer and performer. Her work can be found at such esteemed publications as Apogee Journal, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Rogue Agent, and more. Taylor is or has been a content writer for Philadelphia Printworks, The Body is Not an Apology, and Drunken Boat Journal. She is an internationally ranked spoken word artist, placing 5th and 6th in the Women of the World Poetry Slam in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Most importantly, Taylor is a triple-Taurus who believes in the power of art to change, shape, and heal.
About the Book:
“These poems, this book, are the first step in my journey towards honoring the ugly in: me, love, the world. I wasn’t trying to make any of this pretty. This is how my truth tumbled out of me.” – Taylor Steele

Show & Tale: HIV & AIDS
2016-12-01 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
The first Show & Tale in honor of World AIDS Day, a date that originated in 1988 and has been a powerful reminder of HIV and AIDS ever since. We invite attendees to bring an object of importance to them as it relates to their past or present experience with HIV and AIDS.

Not everyone has lost a loved one to this disease but almost everyone’s lives have been touched by it in one way or another.

Do you have photos of the March on Washington or pieces of the AIDS Quilt? ACT-UP fliers, magazine or newspaper clippings? Meeting notes, poems & other pieces of your/their archive? World AIDS Day not only enables us to memorialize those who have died, but to raise awareness and show support for those living HIV+ lives.

Show & Tale is like Antiques Roadshow meets The Moth, or your favorite Pinterest board come to life!

Everyone is welcome to share with a 3 minute time limit. No judges, no prizes, no competition. And no need to practice! Just come and Show your object and share its Tale.Just want to come and listen? Awesome! Observers are always welcome.

Opening Reception for Growing Sideways: Catalina Schliebener
2016-12-02 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
“Scratch a child, you’ll find a queer.” — Kathryn Bond Stockton
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division presents Growing Sideways, an exhibition of new work by Buenos Aires-based, Chilean artist Catalina Schliebener, organized by independent curator John Chaich, on view December 2, 2016 through January 22, 2017 with an opening reception on Friday, December 2 from 7-9 pm at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 W 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, on the 2nd floor of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center.
Growing Sideways presents over five dozen drawings on collage that will frame the space and culminate in a site-specific floor-to-ceiling installation, growing across two and three dimensional surfaces and creating a disjointed narrative exploring gender formation and erotic curiosity through Schliebener’s combination of cuttings from found children’s books with abstract drawings and felt pieces that recall organic sensual shapes in nature and the body. Two series–“Peek-a-Boo” and “Sassy and Butchy”–comprise this show.
The exhibition takes its title, and somewhat its conceptual and formal inspiration, from queer scholar Kathryn Stockton Bond’s notion that rather than the normative view of “growing up”, the non-straight child “grows sideways”1 through life-long, lateral interactions between childhood motivations and adult identifications, formed by sly intentions, blurred chronologies, and animalistic attachments.
For Bond, queer children “grow meanings by putting people and things rather oddly besides themselves”2— not unlike the medium of collage.
As the critical acclaim of the recent exhibition Cut Ups at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art and the popularity of the queer collage workshops at the Bureau attest, collage particularly speaks to queer artists and audiences alike as a medium for reclaiming queer desires from prescribed or mediated sources.
However, while collage often fills a surface with cut-and-pasted content, Schliebener isolates and reconfigures shapes as decorative details enhanced by the feathery, light strokes of ink drawings and recreated in felt details against a mysterious, generous use of negative space.
“Whether drawing and collaging on individual paper panels or creating a mural on the floor-to-ceiling wall, Schliebener combines the additive qualities of drawing, reductive acts of cutting, and nuances of figure and ground to explore the ambiguities of gender,” notes curator John Chaich.
Moreover, Schliebener intentionally cuts elements from children’s books–making the exhibition’s setting at a contemporary, independent bookstore within one of the country’s oldest LGBTQ community centers, which houses work by highly regarded queer artists such as Keith Haring and Fierce Pussy, all the more fitting. Apropos, a selection of books of artist-curated books will be on sale especially for this exhibition.

1 Bond, Kathryn Stockton. Growing Sideways, Or Queer Children in the Twentieth Century. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009.
2 Bond, Kathryn Stockton. “Growing Sideways, Or Versions of the Queer Child.” Curiouser: On the Queerness of Children, Ed. Steven Bruhm and Nathasha Hurley. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Event image: Catalina Schliebener, Peek-a-Book 31, cut paper and ink on paper, 8.5 x 5.5 inches, 2016
Download a PDF of the press release.

Free, public programs will accompany the exhibition:
• Saturday January 7, 2017, 3pm, Hands-On Queer Collage Workshop
• Thursday, January 12, 2017, 7pm, Artist Dialogue with curator John Chaich and Kris Grey, Deputy Director of Education and Visitor Experience at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art.

An extension of Growing Sideways will be mounted in Buenos Aires at Haché Gallery in March 2017, co-curated by Chaich.

Catalina Schliebener (born in Santiago, Chile, in 1980) received her bachelor of philosophy of Universidad de Arte y Ciencias Sociales ARCIS, in Santiago. Afterwards she studied visual arts at the same university. From 2002-2008, she worked as an assistant professor within the areas of philosophy and art theory at several universities in Chile. Schliebener’s work has been exhibited individually and collectively in galleries, museums and art fairs in Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Lima, Belfast, Londres, Miami and New York. She has also received scholarships granted by the Development of Culture and the Arts Fund of the Government of Chile (Fondart), the Board of Cultural Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Chile (Dirac) as well as the Henry Moore Foundation of the United Kingdom. Recent exhibitions include the solo show, Pin the Tail at Point of Contact Gallery at Syracuse University, and the group exhibition, Queering the BibliObect at the Center for Book Arts in Manhattan.

A Night of Fiction with Gerard Anthony Cabrera, Brad Windhauser, and Cameron L. Mitchell
2016-12-03 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Join us for a night of fiction featuring authors Gerard Anthony Cabrera, Brad Windhauser, and Cameron L. Mitchell. Gerard and Cameron will be reading their recent short story work while Brad will be reading from his recent novel The Intersection.

Gerard Cabrera is an original of Springfield, Massachusetts, the birthplace of basketball, Doctor Seuss, and Doctor Timothy Leary. He holds degrees from Brandeis University, Hunter College/CUNY, and Northeastern University School of Law. His fiction has appeared in JONATHAN. He practices law and lives in New York City.

Brad Windhauser is originally from Southern California, although he lives in Philadelphia. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte and is an Associate Professor (Teaching/Instructional) of writing at Temple University. His short stories and work have appeared in The Baltimore Review, Santa Fe Writer’s Project Journal, Ray’s Road Review, Northern Liberties Review, and Philadelphia Review of Books and Jonathan. The Intersection is his second novel. www.BradWindhauser.com

Cameron L. Mitchell grew up in the mountains of North Carolina and earned a degree in journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. His writing has appeared in The Queer South anthology, ImageOutWrite (v.5), Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Jonathan (issue 4), Glitterwolf Magazine, The Outrider Review, Blotter Magazine, The Gambler, and a few other journals and magazines. He currently lives in New York, where he works in archives at Columbia University’s medical school library. Mitchell is hard at work on his first novel. Find him on Twitter: @CameronLMitchel.

Authored Truth
2016-12-04 15:00 - 17:00 | NY
Sibling Rivalry Press Authors Imani Sims and Emily Jaeger, joined by Claudia Cortese, telling it like it is.

Come spend your Sunday afternoon with poems and opinions.
3:00pm: Book Signing
3:30pm: Show Starts.

Imani Sims is a spicy Chai-loving Seattle native who spun her first performance poem at age 14. She believes in the healing power of words and the transformational nuance of the human story. Imani empowers youth and adults through various writing courses and interdisciplinary shows nationwide. Her book (A)live Heart is available on Sibling Rivalry Press.

Emily Jaeger is an MFA candidate at UMASS Boston and co-editor/co-founder of Window Cat Press. A past Literary Lambda Emerging Writer and TENT fellow, her work has appeared in Four Way Review, Salamander, and Apt among others. Her chapbook The Evolution of Parasites was published by Sibling Rivalry Press.

Claudia Cortese is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her first book, WASP QUEEN (Black Lawrence Press, 2016), explores the privilege and pathology, trauma and brattiness of suburban girlhood. Her work appears in Blackbird, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast Online, and The Offing, among others. The daughter of Neapolitan immigrants, Cortese grew up in Ohio and lives in New Jersey. She also lives at claudia-cortese.com

Union Square Presents: Imani Sims, (A)live Heart Book Release and Open Mic
2016-12-06 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
Union Square Slam is thrilled to host an electric reading by Imani Sims, and celebrate her latest book release, (A)live Heart, out now on Sibling Rivalry Press and available at the Bureau!!!
7pm: Sign-Ups and Socialize
7:30pm: Open Mic
8:15pm: Imani Sims
$5 // All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible
About our Feature:
Imani Sims is a spicy Chai tea loving Seattle native who spun her first performance poem at the age of fourteen. Since then, she has developed an infinitely rippling love for poetry in all of its forms. She believes in the healing power of words and the transformational nuance of the human story. Imani works to empower youth and adults through various writing courses and interdisciplinary shows all over Washington. She is a 2016 CityArtist Grant recipient, Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas curator, and Gay City Arts Fellow where she brought Afrofuturism and Performance Art together for eight shows. Her book (A)live Heart is available from Sibling Rivalry Press.

Launch Party for "Queer Methods" Issue of WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly
2016-12-08 07:00 - 20:30 | NY
Please join guest editors Matt Brim and Amin Ghaziani for the launch of “Queer Methods,” the Fall/Winter 2016 issue of WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, published by The Feminist Press. “Queer Methods” presents pioneering feminist work on queer research practices across the disciplines, including sociology, performance studies, African American studies, lesbian cultural studies, critical psychology, African studies, transgender studies, media and digital studies, history, and literature. WSQ proudly features new poetry and prose selections by cutting-edge writers.

Matt Brim is associate professor of queer studies and director of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at the College of Staten Island, CUNY. He is author of James Baldwin and the Queer Imagination, as well as an interactive online study guide for teaching the HIV/AIDS documentary film United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. Currently, he is general coeditor of WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly and is a contributing editor for the James Baldwin Review.

Amin Ghaziani is associate professor of sociology and Canada Research Chair in Sexuality and Urban Studies at the University of British Columbia. He is coeditor of A Decade of HAART and author of three books: The Dividends of Dissent, There Goes the Gayborhood?, and Sex Cultures. His work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Sociology, Contexts, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Social Problems, and Theory and Society.

Mystery & Romance with Ann Aptaker, Jean Copeland & Maggie Cummings
2016-12-10 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Give a gift of crime and passion this season! And enjoy a zesty night with writers Ann Aptaker, Jean Copeland, and Maggie Cummings at a reading and book signing. Fill her stocking with Mystery & Romance from BGSQD!

Ann Aptaker: Ann Aptaker’s debut novel, “Criminal Gold” was a Goldie Award finalist last year. Her second book, “Tarnished Gold,” was this year’s Lammy Award and Goldie Award winner. Both books have earned excellent reviews from Curve Magazine, Crimepieces, Rainbow Reads, and other print and internet venues. Her Cantor Gold crime series celebrates her favorite themes: dangerous women, crime and mystery fiction, and New York City history. The third book in the series, “Genuine Gold,” releases in January.

Jean Copeland: Jean Copeland is an English teacher and author of lesbian fiction. Her debut novel, “The Revelation of Beatrice Darby,” won the 2016 Alice B Lavender Award and the Golden Crown Literary Society “Goldie” for debut author. She is also the author of “The Second Wave,” available now, and “Twice Around” coming in 2017. She resides in Connecticut with her cat, Charlotte.

Maggie Cummings: Maggie Cummings lives in Staten Island with her wife and their two children. She has degrees in English, theatre and criminal justice. She works in law enforcement in the NYC metropolitan area. She is the author of Totally Worth It and Serious Potential, the first two novels in the Bay West Social series. She is currently juggling work on the series finale as well as a standalone novel to follow.

WOWPS Finals!! Chrysanthemum Tran!! Charlotte Abotsi!
2016-12-13 19:00 - 21:30 | NY
WOWPS FINALS IS HERE!!! Come watch our top women and gnc poets battle it out to represent Union Square Slam in Dallas, TX this March!!

NOT TO MENTION: Our most stunning electric features, CHRYSANTHEMUM TRAN and CHARLOTTE ABOTSI, on their Rush Hour Poetry Collective Tour!!

Slammers:
!! Kearah Armonie !!
!! Ashley August !!
!! Carol Brown !!
!! Cecily Schuler !!
!! Taylor Steele !!

$5 // All Ages // Wheelchair Accessible

WOWPS is:

a) an acronym for Women of the World World Poetry Slam
b) one of three national poetry slam events put on annually by Poetry Slam, Inc.
c) held in Dallas, TX from March 15-18th, 2017
Union Square Slam WOWPS Qualifier rules:

Qualified competitors are poets who are female assigned or identified individuals who are PSi members and are 18+ or 21+ years of age, depending on the Host City. This includes gender non-conforming individuals.

5 poets // 4 rounds

2 min (all)
1 min (all)
(Break for Feature)
4 min (top 3)
3 min (top 3)

Cumulative score wins the Union Square Slam Representative spot to WOWPS in Dallas!!
About our Features:

Chrysanthemum Tran is an emerging queer and transfeminine Vietnamese American poet and teaching artist in Providence by way of Oklahoma City. In 2016, they became the first trans woman finalist of the Women of the World Poetry Slam. A three-time semifinalist at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, Chrysanthemum won “Best Poet” and “Best Poem” in 2016, and “Pushing the Art Forward” in 2015. A 2016 Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam champion and Pink Door Fellow, Chrysanthemum is a two-time member of the Providence national slam team and coaches the Providence youth slam team. Above all, they enjoy seasoning their cast iron skillet & avoiding the comments section.

A former Youth Grand Slam Champion, Charlotte Abotsi has taken on a directorship role at her home venue, the Providence Poetry Slam. There, she serves as a youth director, booking coordinator, and slam master. She has competed in several international slams, and most recently placed in the top 20 at the 2016 Women of the World Poetry Slam. She 1/2 of The Rush Hour Poetry Tour Collective, a collective demanding intersectionality at every avenue. Her poems have been written about in The Huffington Post and Mic.com. Her favorite typo is misspelling ‘live’ as ‘love’. She is a poet and writer who loves in Providence and is trying very, very hard.

TELL 30: FUCKERY
2016-12-15 19:00 - 21:30 | Online event, New York, NY, United States
TELL is an evening of story telling from the mouths and minds of queers in NYC hosted by Drae Campbell at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division since February 2014.
FUCKERY is the theme of the thirtieth installment of TELL. Featuring m.b., Jose Rios, Alex Koones, and Teshale Nuer!

$10 suggested donation – 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.

Having recently abandoned the sad sack of the corporate american dream for the deprivation and freedom of the freelance life, m.b. is an MFA student, editor, literary and commercial translator, events curator, singer, performance artist, cook, writer of fiction/poetry/memoir, and emerging insomniac. m.b. runs a monthly world-music and other performance series, has been the recipient of various writing and performance retreats and fellowships, has been a featured poet at the bowery poetry club for the-poet-in-new-york series, and has a varied and very weird performance history on the stages of carnegie hall, lincoln center, and symphony space, among others. m.b. is an alumnus of the helix queer performance network’s workshop “needing it” at bax/brooklyn arts exchange

At the young age of nine Jose Rios’s mother sat him down and gave him an extremely detailed talk about the birds and the bees. Today, Jose is a communication expert, sexual health educator, and body positivity activist spreading the message that fat people are having sex and skinny people need to get over it. Having moved from Phoenix, Arizona a year ago, Jose managed to get caught in an “accidental” sex part on his first night in New York City and there hasn’t been a dull moment since.

Alex Koones grew up working in New York kitchens and went on to Chef in some of the fancier ones such as The Breslin and Jean Georges. After years in professional kitchens, Alex left to put her experience towards building queer spaces. She is currently the founder and host of Babetown, a pop up supper club for queer women, trans and non binary people where she cooks up great food for a couple dozen queer babes every month.

Teshale Nuer is a NYC-Based writer, performer, educator and over-Activist specializing in Holistic Coaching and Embodied Storytelling. Teshale’s work focuses cultivating joy, healing trauma, centering the self.​​

Vaczine Magazine #3 Release Event / Signing
2016-12-16 19:00 - 21:00 | NY
Official launch of the annual Queer art & literary journal VACZINE Magazine

Broken Werd by VACZINE #3 guest editors Max Steele, Mike Albo, Pamela Sneed & Walt Cessna. There will be editions #1 – #100 / 500 of Vaczine Magazine #3 for sale. $20 each. The first 50 purchases come with a complimentary exclusive double sided signed poster by Gio Black Peter.
Event image: collage by Slava Mogutin for VACZINE

Like A Virgin: Queer Nuns in the Renaissance
2016-12-17 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
What was a lesbian who wanted to enjoy the company of women to do in the 1600s? Join a convent!

From cock-teasing nuns that toy with the emotions of the convent’s male visitors to cross-dressing nuns who become swash-buckling Spanish conquistadors while seducing women in South America, the stories Dr. Horacio Sierra shares in this presentation will change the way you think about nuns, feminism, and lesbianism in the seventeenth century.

This presentation uses movie clips, written excerpts, and humorous GIFs to demonstrate how the Catholic Church provided a safe haven for same-sex loving women in Renaissance England, Spain, and Mexico. Come learn how the convent was queered by real-life women such as Catalina de Erauso and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz as well the literary creations of William Shakespeare and Margaret Cavendish.

Dr. Horacio Sierra is an Assistant Professor of English at Bowie State University. His book Sanctified Subversives: Nuns in Early Modern English and Spanish Literature details the ways in which authors from both Protestant and Catholic nation-states used nuns and convents to explore ideas about womanhood, feminism, and queer sexuality.

Closed on Christmas Eve
2016-12-24 | NY
The Bureau will be closed on December 24, 25, and 31, 2016, and on January 1, 2017.
