Double Take: Two Voices, One Night: An Evening of Readings and Conversation with Franklin Abbott and Vinny Cusenza (in person & live-streaming)
2025-09-13 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for an evening of readings and conversation with Franklin Abbott and Vinny Cusenza
Franklin Abbott will celebrate his poetic memoir My Ordinary Life
My Ordinary Life is as therapeutic as it is poetic with an affirmation of trauma that begins to allow it to surface and be healed.
Interwoven are stories of friends who were lost, the pain and fear of isolation, the confusion of the world opening and closing again. Abbott interweaves his own aging, the deaths of both of his parents and the growing awareness and appreciation of the simple gifts of everyday life.
Vincent Cusenza celebrates the publication of his historical/thriller/romance debut novel Blood and Soil.
The only things that closeted Columbia undergrad Tony has in common with Jake, a mixed-race mountaineer with bad love luck, are his bone-bred biases and a raw attraction that defies his notions of happiness.
They meet in August 1960 in the Highlands, a hidden outpost of Appalachia on Manhattan’s doorstep, where summer colonists from the city, struggling locals, and an insular mountain tribe uneasily coexist. Eddie, a troubled rebel, has just lost his girl to Jake’s brother, and chafes under the thumb of his white-nationalist uncle, Sheriff Schmidt, who is locked in a racially charged reelection battle.
Three mysterious murders and the sheriff’s cover-up of the crimes upend Tony and Jake’s lives and roil their clannish world. The two men find themselves pitted against Schmidt in a high stakes search for the truth, and must confront their mutual distrust and the Highland’s Nazi past to save their bond and their very lives.

To reserve a copy of My Ordinary Life (RFD Press, April 23, 2025, paperback, $19.95) and/or Blood and Soil (Pen and Pencil Press, July 1, 2025, paperback, $18.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve My Ordinary Life and/or Blood and Soil for September 13 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase both books (click on titles below) on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
My Ordinary Life
Blood and Soil

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Vinny Cusenza co-wrote his first novel, The Adventures of Pen and Pencil, in fourth grade with his best friend Steve Drayzen. Besides novels, he writes personal and travel essays, memoir, and epistolary meditations on his place in the world. He has won awards for his photography, founded a small New England inn, sang with Liza Minnelli onstage in Central Park, and herded rhinos. Vinny lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn with husband Steve and Neko, their transsexual cat.

Franklin Abbott is the editor of three anthologies on men and masculinity, a CD of original songs and poetry and 3 collections of poetry including his latest, My Ordinary Life, from RFD Press. He is an original radical faerie, a long-time community activist and founded the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival. Abbott worked for over 40 years as a psychotherapist in private practice with special interest in spirituality, medical trauma, relationships and group dynamics. A native Southerner he lives in Atlanta’s Decatur community.

Compulsory Heterosexuality: an Introduction to Adrienne Rich (in-person only/registration required)
2025-09-15 18:30 - 21:30, 2025-09-22 18:30 - 21:30, 2025-09-29 18:30 - 21:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Is heterosexuality a coercive institution that aids and abets the oppression of women? So argues Adrienne Rich in her famous essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” which gave voice to a nascent lesbian liberation movement in search of alternatives to heterosexual feminism. A major poet, Rich was also one of the key theoretical and literary voices of the women’s liberation movement, and her prose work is by now canonical in the field of gender studies. And with her poetry, Rich created a body of verse that investigated social, cultural, and political conditions for women in the last half of the twentieth century, as well as the personal toll of feminist politics. Her writings have been at the heart of numerous feminist controversies, from trans exclusionary radical feminism to pornography, but have nonetheless continued to shape lesbian feminist discourse into the present day. How can we understand Rich’s unique corpus of poetry and feminist theory? How, for Rich, does one inform the other? And what is the problem with heterosexual feminism? How do gender, sexuality, reproduction, and liberation relate?
In this course, we will explore Adrienne Rich’s complicated legacy as theorist, activist, and poet by reading her work alongside the work of her fiercest critics and allies in the feminist movement, including Mary Daly, Susan Sontag, Andrea Dworkin, Michelle Cliff, and Audre Lorde. Beginning with Rich’s foundational theorization of compulsory heterosexuality, we will read her essays on sexual violence, lesbian love, women’s education, motherhood, pornography, and racism alongside key poems from her oeuvre spanning the crucial years of women’s liberation. In what ways have women’s bodies historically been viewed as being at the service of men, and how has heterosexuality instantiated that belief? What would it mean to build a “women’s culture” and how might this further feminism’s aims? What political potentials lie in viewing motherhood as an institution, rather than an innate desire or calling? What role might anger, disagreement, and even violence play in the feminist fight to end patriarchal oppression?
Instructor: Hannah Leffingwell
Course Schedule
Monday, 6:30-9:30pm ET
September 08 — September 29, 2025
4 weeks
$335.00
Three scholarship spaces are reserved for each course, because we realize that not everyone can afford to pay the full fee. Students who cannot pay the full fee should email us at info@thebrooklyninstitute.com to learn about our scholarship options. We will not ask questions about your financial situation, but we do ask that you use the system in good faith and consider the needs of other students and faculty members.
Register here: https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/new-york/adrienne-rich/
If you experience difficulties entering your card at checkout, please feel free to call 718-422-7767 or email info@thebrooklyninstitute.com for assistance.
The course meetings will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011. The Bureau is closed on Mondays, but will open for these meetings at 6 pm on the scheduled Mondays.

I'm Prancing As Fast As I Can Conversation with Jon Kinnally, Hosted by Blair Fell (in person & live-streaming)
2025-09-17 18:30 - 19:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Jon Kinnally celebrates the publication of his memoir I’m Prancing As Fast As I Can: My Journey from a Self-Loathing Closet Case to a Successful TV Writer with Some Self-Esteem.

Host Blair Fell will lead a conversation with Jon Kinnally with some selected readings from Jon.
WARNING: Those who don’t remember my past are doomed to repeat it.
I’m Prancing As Fast As I Can is a coming of Gay story that takes us from a scared, self-hating kid who spends most of his time under his desk staring at the hunky man on the Doan’s Pills box, to becoming a writer on Will & Grace, helping to make it a little easier for other scared, self-hating kids who might also be hiding and staring at their secret desire. It’s a journey through Olympic mustaches and when Chér’s name had an accent and losing your virginity to a trucker and chasing Gay bashers in six-inch heels dressed as a drag bunny and a terrible virus and memorials and memorials and memorials and ACTing UP and using the word “lover” and having a fan who’s also a serial killer and Gay penguins and spreading your boyfriends’ ashes with your new boyfriend and Prop 8 and getting to write lines for divas on Ugly Betty and Gay marriage and more stuff like that and in the end ketamine therapy to help it all make sense.
This event is co-sponsored by The Other Side of Silence:
“As NYC’s oldest and longest-producing LGBTQ+ theater company, The Other Side of Silence (TOSOS) is dedicated to an honest and open exploration of the life experience and cultural sensibility of the LGBTQ+ community and to preserving and promoting our literary past in a determined effort to keep our theatrical heritage alive.”

To reserve a copy of I’m Prancing as Fast as I Can (Permuted Press, August 12, 2025, paperback, $18.99), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve I’m Prancing for September 17 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase I’m Prancing as Fast as I Can on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Jon Kinnally was born in Syracuse, New York, and went to college at Oswego State, before moving to a then-affordable Manhattan, where he pursued acting and performed with his writing partner, Tracy Poust, in their comedy group Loud Blouse.
After relocating to Los Angeles, they got a job on a new show called Will & Grace and stayed with it for it’s entire eight seasons, eventually running it and returning for the reboot. Over the years, there were many Emmy nominations as well as a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Writing in Episodic Comedy in 2018.
He has also worked on several other shows with Tracy, including Ugly Betty—Emmy and NAACP award nominations—and The Crazy Ones which they ran, and had the privilege to write for the great Robin Williams.
He currently lives in Spain with his husband, Chris, and their cats, Howard Bannister and Elliott.

Blair Fell writes and lives in New York City. Blair’s television work includes Queer as Folk, and the Emmy Award–winning California Connected. He’s written dozens of plays including the award-winning plays Naked Will, The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun, and the downtown cult miniseries Burning Habits. His personal essays have appeared in HuffPost, Out, Daily News (New York), and more. He’s a two-time winner of the prestigious Doris Lippman Prize in Creative Writing from the City College of New York, including for his early unfinished draft of The Sign for Home. Concurrently with being a writer, Blair has been an ASL interpreter for the Deaf since 1993, and has also worked as an actor, producer, and director.

OUTspoken: The Publishing Triangle's Reading Series, September Edition (in person & live-streaming)
2025-09-18 18:30 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Publishing Triangle presents the September edition of its monthly OUTspoken Reading Series as host Rob Byrnes welcomes Franklin Abbott, Vincent Cusenza, Liza Flum, Jon Kinnally, Finn Mott, and Kara Zajac.
Join us in-person or watch the live-stream to hear from some of queer literature’s most dynamic established and up-and-coming voices.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

TELL: Misunderstood (in person & live-streaming)
2025-09-20 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
TELL is a monthly queer storytelling show hosted and curated by Drae Campbell. It is the longest running event at the Bureau! 11 years and going. Each month there is a different theme and a different line up of queer artists who tell true stories from their lives on a theme.
The theme for September 2025 is Misunderstood, featuring storytellers Rudy Ramirez, Dusty Childers, and Everett Bragg.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the storytellers and the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Drae Campbell is the host and curator of TELL, an award winning podcast that can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Theater: The Nosebleed (Lincoln Center Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theater & National Tour, Lortel Nominated), Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater), Only You Can Prevent Wildfires (Teatro Circulo), My Old Man (Dixon Place), Storm Still (DirectorFest, Drama League), La Cage Aux Folles (Barrington Stage Company).
Film and TV:Senior Escort Service, Blunderpuss, It’s Very Common, TOW.
TV: Bull, New Amsterdam.
BFA, The University Of The Arts
Ig @draebiz and @tellqueerz

Dusty Childers (Dust Tea Shoulders/ @duddylynn) is a multi-disciplinary artist (and self proclaimed style icon) who directs, provides dramaturgy, curates, hosts, conjures costumes, styles, speaks their truth in front of audiences, drags it up, dances, twirls flags and fans, and instructs the future via the public school classroom. Dusty’s body and body of work has graced the likes of Sundance, SXSW, True/False, The Guggenheim, St. Anne’s Warehouse, The Whitney, BAM, Parsons, International Center of Photography, Signature Theater, Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, Town Hall, Joe’s Pub, Abrons Art Center, NY Live Arts, The Wild Project, Dixon Place, Irving Plaza, The Knockdown Center (Bushwig), The PIT, Don’t Tell Mama, Rockwood Music Hall, The Slipper Room, Judson Memorial Church,The MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival, La MaMa, Metropolitan Bar, Sid Gold’s Request Room,The Delancey, Bureau Of General Services Queer Division, Starr Bar, Wise Men, Governor’s Ball, Club Cumming, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, This n’ That, C’mon Everybody, Nowhere Bar, House of Yes, Bushwick Bazaar, Drom, The Deep End, and the Soho Playhouse (NY Fringe Festival). He has worked alongside MacArthur Genius Taylor Mac, acclaimed writer/performer Justin Sayre, performance artist Machine Dazzle, artist Nayland Blake, pop star and DJ Ana Matronic, director Silas Howard, Bitch (of Bitch and Animal),drag artist Charlene Incarnate, performance artist/puppeteer Glenn Marla, rapper Mister Wallace, singer Big Dipper, director Stephen Winter, performance artist/writer Dan Fishback, filmmaker/drag performer Sequinette Jaynesfield, choreographer/singer Miguel Gutierrez, burlesque star World Famous *BOB*, professional clown Eric Schmalenberger and singer Amber Martin (among countless others). Dusty and his work have appeared in Art In America, Artforum,OUT Magazine, Electric Dirt (by Queer Appalachia), TimeOut NY, Velour Magazine, Next Magazine, Aljazeera, NY Times, OutThere Magazine (UK) and Ud & Se (Dutch).

Rudy Ramirez is a director, writer and teaching artist specializing in the development of new work and new artists. They have directed and developed work for a number of organizations around the country, including the Contemporary American Theater Festival, The Lark, Latino Theater Company, National Queer Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, New York University, Octopus Theatricals, The Playwrights’ Center, Signature Theatre, and the University of Texas at Austin. They are the Associate Artistic Director of The VORTEX in Austin, TX, where they were named Best Director of 2017 in the Austin Chronicle Readers Poll. They have written and performed two autobiographical shows, Promised Land: A Radical Queer Revival and Footnotes for People Who Don’t Speak Spanish. They have an MA in Performance Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA in Directing from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They are currently the Benedetti Resident Artist at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts where they will be working on their musical about the life of Emma Goldman, Emma When You Need Her.

Everett Bragg is an Austin Texas native. He is a Transmasc comedian, videographer and host of DEI Comedy in Austin. Everett’s comedy is a unique perspective on the misunderstanding of being a Trans Man in the state of Texas while the threat of reproductive rights and trans rights are being stripped away. Not only does his comedy make audiences laugh but teaches native Texans that Trans people are not a threat and deserve equality everywhere.

Crime Ink: Iconic—Queer Crime Fiction Inspired by Icons | New York Launch Party (in person & live-streaming)
2025-09-24 19:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us for an evening celebrating the groundbreaking anthology Crime Ink: Iconic (An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons), edited by award-winning novelist John Copenhaver and Bywater Books publisher Salem West. This vibrant collection reclaims space for LGBTQ+ voices in crime fiction, a genre that has too often sidelined queer writers.
The need for Crime Ink: Iconic is clear: a 2023 study of thirty major crime anthologies revealed that, of 517 stories published, fewer than one percent were written by LGBTQ+ authors.
Responding to this gap, Crime Ink: Iconic gathers more than two dozen celebrated queer writers who draw inspiration from cultural icons such as James Baldwin, Radclyffe Hall, Oscar Wilde, Candy Darling, and Laverne Cox. The result is a collection that spans cozy mystery, noir, psychological thriller, and procedural—placing queer voices and characters firmly at the center.
For this event, Copenhaver will be joined by contributors Robyn Gigl, award-winning author and a leading voice in contemporary legal thrillers; Ann Aptaker, Lambda Literary Award–winning novelist and noted figure in queer noir; and Christopher Bollen, acclaimed author of psychologically rich crime fiction. Together, they will discuss the anthology’s origins, the icons who inspired their stories, and the importance of ensuring LGBTQ+ perspectives are represented in one of the world’s most enduring literary genres.

To reserve a copy of Crime Ink: Iconic (Bywater Books, September 2, 2025, paperback, $23.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Crime Ink for September 24 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Crime Ink: Iconic (click on title below) on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
Crime Ink: Iconic

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

ANN APTAKER’s Cantor Gold Crime series has been the recipient of Lambda Literary and Golden Crown Literary Society’s Goldie Awards. Her short stories have appeared in the anthologies Fedora, Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, Private Dicks & Disco Balls, Scattered, Smothered, Covered & Chunked, Our Happy Hours: LGBT Voices from the Gay Bars, Switchblade Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, the Guns & Tacos novella series, and the online zine Punk Soul Poet.

CHRISTOPHER BOLLEN is the author of six literary thriller novels, including Havoc, The Lost Americans, and A Beautiful Crime. He writes for a number of publications including the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Interview Magazine. He lives in New York City.

JOHN COPENHAVER is an award-winning author whose latest novel, Hall of Mirrors, was named a New York Times Crime Novel of the Year. His debut, Dodging and Burning, won the Macavity Award, and The Savage Kind earned the Lambda Literary Award. A founding member of Queer Crime Writers, he teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University, mentors in the University of Nebraska MFA program, and lives in Richmond, VA, with his husband, artist Jeffery Paul Herrity.

ROBYN GIGL is the author of four novels featuring Erin McCabe, a transgender criminal defense attorney. Time magazine selected her novel, Survivor’s Guilt, as one of the 100 best Mystery/Thriller books of All Time. It was also named as one of the best crime novels of 2022 by the New York Times, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and won the Publishing Triangle’s Joseph Hansen Award for LGBTQ+ Crime Writing. Her fourth novel, Nothing But the Truth, was selected by the New York Times as one of the best crime novels of 2024.

Quill R Kukla: Sex Beyond "Yes" with Avgi Saketopoulou (in person & live-streaming)
2025-09-25 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Philosopher Quill R Kukla questions traditional notions of consent in this honest, humanistic reimagining of what it means to have pleasurable, ethical, and respectful sex.
Every discussion of sexual ethics revolves around consent, but is this notion enough to help us understand good sex? How does the dominance of consent help or prevent us from negotiating the complexities of intimacy and pleasure?
Georgetown professor Quill R Kukla argues that the idea that consent is the gatekeeper between the realms of good and bad sex does not give us the tools we need to navigate pleasure and intimacy. They claim that traditional discussions of consent make no room for the reality that we can have good sex even though we may get drunk or high, or become forgetful with age, or be limited by social pressures and power relationships.
Kukla explores the ambiguous realms in which sexual agency requires much more than the ability to just say “yes” or “no” to sex. They confront moments of discomfort: How does consent work for people with dementia, a condition that is also associated with increased libido? Or in sex work, where sexual contracts challenge our traditional conceptions of ethical sex? How can we express our agency when exploring new kinks, where our hesitations and ambivalence are part of the thrill? Or even in everyday sex—where partners inevitably differ in enthusiasm, power dynamics, and experience?
Combining rigorous research and universal lessons that apply both in and out of the bedroom, Kukla approaches the concepts of sexual agency, sexual pleasure, and consent with unapologetic verve. Challenging readers to think beyond reductive concepts of consent, gender, and freedom, Sex Beyond “Yes” reframes the communication and social support we need to establish sexual relationships founded on genuine respect, open discourse, and unhindered joy.
To reserve a copy of Sex Beyond “Yes” (W. W. Norton & Company, September 2, 2025, hardcover, $24), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Sex Beyond ‘Yes’ for September 25 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Sex Beyond “Yes” on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better:
sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Quill R Kukla lives in Washington, DC, and Berlin. They are Professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies at Georgetown University, and the Editor-in-Chief of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. They are also an amateur competitive boxer and powerlifter, the parent of a young adult, and the devoted caretaker of a corgi and two cats. This is their fourth book.

Avgi Saketopoulou is a Cypriot and Greek psychoanalyst in NYC, and a member of the faculty of NYU’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She is the author of Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia and a lover of queers and of motorcycles.

Fight the Power! 15 Years of HOMOCATS Opening Reception
2025-09-26 18:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Fight the Power! 15 Years of HOMOCATS
J. Morrison
Exhibition Dates: September 26 – November 23, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, September 26, 2025, 6-8 PM
HOMOCATS and the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division are excited to present Fight the Power! 15 Years of HOMOCATS, an art exhibition celebrating 15 years of the HOMOCATS zine series. J. Morrison created the HOMOCATS at a printmaking residency at the Anderson Ranch in Colorado in 2010. Morrison was inspired during Obama’s presidency to create a zine advocating for affordable health care, marriage equality, and equal rights. 15 years on, HOMOCATS continues this quest with a mission to fight phobias, champion equal rights for all, combat harmful cultural stereotypes, and challenge stigmas, all while protesting the current U.S. administration. Paying homage to historic queer symbols such as the rainbow flag and pink triangle, Morrison’s work also engages pop art and pop culture with playfulness and humor.
The exhibition takes its name from the first HOMOCATS zine, “Fight the Power,” and features some of the original posters that were first shown in 2013 at the Bureau’s original location, at Strange Loop Gallery in Chinatown, NYC. The exhibition also includes a selection of digital c-prints (seen on TV shows), print editions, and artwork from the series. HOMOCATS zines and hand-screen-printed apparel are available for purchase at the Bureau.
The zines are beloved and collected by many museums, universities, and libraries worldwide, including the NY Public Library, MoMA, the Whitney, and the Met. The zines were featured in the “Over the Rainbow” exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and are currently on view at the University of Texas Fine Art Library in Austin.
For more information about HOMOCATS and J. Morrison visit: homocats.com
Image from “Fight the Power” 2020 riso edition

The Publishing Triangle: Raíces & Resistencia – A Latinx LGBTQ+ Poetry Night (in person & live-streaming)
2025-09-27 15:00 - 17:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Publishing Triangle presents Raíces & Resistencia: A Latinx LGBTQ+ Poetry Night, hosted by Emanuel Xavier. Join us on Saturday, September 27 at 3 PM at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division for an afternoon of powerful poetry celebrating Latinx Heritage Month.
Featured poets: Emanuel Xavier, viento izquierdo ugaz, Joshua Garcia, Yoseli Castillo Fuertes, and Darrel Alejandro Holnes.
This event is free and open to the public. Books by the authors will be available for purchase, and a signing will follow the reading. Don’t miss this vibrant gathering of poetry, community, and celebration.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Participants’ biographies:
Emanuel Xavier is a poet, author, and activist who came of age in the New York City ballroom scene and founded the legendary Glam Slam, a fusion of spoken word and drag ball culture. He is the author of several poetry collections, including Pier Queen, If Jesus Were Gay, Love(ly) Child, and the forthcoming Still, We Are Sacred. Recognized as an LGBTQ+ Icon by the Equality Forum, his work has earned honors from the Lambda Literary Awards, the International Latino Book Awards, and the American Library Association’s Over the Rainbow Books list.

viento izquierdo ugaz (they/he) is a transdisciplinary artist, cultural organizer, poet, and language justice worker. Through writing, photography, and moving image they address how the burden of imposed migration has woven its threads into the visual tapestry of their lineage. They are a co-organizer of BODYHACK, a NY mutual aid happy hour for trans & non-binary people, and TRANSMISSION, NYC’s first trans music festival. Izquierdo is a 2020–21 Poetry Project Curatorial Fellow and a 2021–22 Leslie Lohmann Museum and EmergeNYC Fellow. Their first chapbook is Estoy Tristeza (No Dear, 2018).

Joshua Garcia is the author of Pentimento (Black Lawrence Press, 2024), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. His poetry has appeared in Ecotone, The Georgia Review, Passages North, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the College of Charleston and has received a Stadler Fellowship from Bucknell University and an Emerge—Surface—Be Fellowship from The Poetry Project. He lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York.

Yoseli Castillo Fuertes is a bilingual Afro-Dominican lesbian poet, educator, activist, and mom. A Cave Canem alum, her work has been featured in anthologies across New York, Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Santo Domingo. Yoseli is the author of De eso sí se habla / Of That, I Speak (2012) and coeditor of the anthology Pájaros, lesbianas y queers, ¡a volar! (2025). She is dedicated to creating spaces that uplift queer, immigrant, and Afro-Caribbean voices.

Darrel Alejandro Holnes is an Afro-Panamanian American poet and playwright whose work explores Black and Latinx histories, migration, and memory. He is the author of the award-winning collections Migrant Psalms and Stepmotherland, with poems in Poetry Magazine, The American Poetry Review, Callaloo, and more. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, his honors include the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, an International Latino Book Award, the CP Cavafy Poetry Prize, and others.

EASY SUNDAY POETRY with BRYAN BORLAND AND ANTHONY DIPIETRO (in person only)
2025-09-28 15:00 - 17:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Slip into something comfortable and join us for an Easy Sunday that’s equal parts poetry, pleasure, and provocation. Bryan Borland, poet, publisher, and founder of Sibling Rivalry Press, and Anthony DiPietro, unapologetic gay sex poet and arts provocateur, will read from their newest books and trade conversation about poetry as resistance, as seduction, as bridge-building and boundary-burning.

To reserve a copy of Bryan Borland’s chapbook Crow in the Desert and/or Brotherful (Sibling Rivalry Press, July 30, 2025, paperback, $18) and/or Anthony DiPietro’s Kiss & Release (Unsolicited Press, February 13, 2024, paperback, $17.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve book(s) for September 28 event” in the subject line and let us know which title(s) in the body of the email.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better:
sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Bryan Borland, poet and publisher of the groundbreaking and impactful Sibling Rivalry Press, is the author of multiple collections of poetry, including DIG (Stillhouse Press), which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry and a Stonewall Honor Book as chosen by the American Library Association. His latest publications are the chapbook Crow in the Desert (Queer Punk Collective) and the full-length collection of poetry Brotherful (Sibling Rivalry Press). He is also founding editor of Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry, returning to print in the fall of 2025. For more, visit www.bryanborland.com.

Anthony DiPietro is a gay sex poet and arts administrator originally from Providence, Rhode Island. A graduate of Brown University with honors in creative writing, he also earned a creative writing MFA at Stony Brook University. Now serving as deputy director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, he resides in Worcester, MA. He has a chapbook, And Walk Through (Seven Kitchens Press, 2021), and his debut collection, kiss & release (Unsolicited Press, 2024), was longlisted for a Mass Book Award in Poetry. For more, www.AnthonyWriter.com and Instagram @ant.providence.

Book Launch—Blood, Sweat & Queers: Vampiric Love Stories (in person & live-streaming)
2025-10-04 17:00 - 19:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join author Mae Murray (I’m Sorry if I Scared You), author Andi Astra, editor Margaret Hall (GEMIGNANI: Life and Lessons from Broadway and Beyond), and editor Jamie Ryu as they crack open the coffin and unleash the vampire with Blood,Sweat & Queers, a collection of 8 LGBTQ+ vampire stories. A portion of every purchase of Blood, Sweat & Queers is being donated by the publisher to The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization that provides crisis counseling, advocacy, and research for LGBTQ+ lives.

To reserve a copy of Blood, Sweat & Queers: Vampiric Love Stories (Contrarian Publishing, October 7, 2025, paperback, $19.99) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Blood, Sweat & Queers for October 4 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Blood, Sweat & Queers on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Mae Murray is a writer and editor hailing from Arkansas, now living in eerie New England. She occasionally contributes essays and film criticism to Fangoria.com and Dread Central. She is the recipient of the 2022 Brave New Weird Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction. The Book of Queer Saints Volume I was her editing debut and a 2023 British Fantasy Award nominee in the Best Anthology category. Her debut novel, I’m Sorry If I Scared You, released in 2024.

Margaret Hall is a scholar of vampire literature, an author, a teacher, a director, and a theatre historian. Margaret is a staff writer for Playbill Magazine, the pre-eminent theatre publication in the United States, as well as a teacher at various accredited programs, including Juilliard and New York University. She is the youngest known nominator in the history of the Drama Desk Awards.
Her debut biography, GEMIGNANI: Life and Lessons from Broadway and Beyond, explored the life of esteemed Broadway music director Paul Gemignani. An unflinching advocate for the societally marginalized, Margaret is an autistic woman, and the founder of the non-profit Autistic Theatremakers Alliance. She has received both a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama, and a Masters in Musical Theatre History from New York University. Grá a bhfuil grá agat dó.

Jamie Ryu worked for Big 5 powerhouse publishing companies like Macmillan and HarperCollins before forging her own path as the founder of Contrarian Publishing. With ample editing experience and a degree in Comparative Literature from New Yor University, she is well-equipped to help writers unlock the full potential of the stories they’re meant to tell and aid them in pursuing their goals, whether that be traditional publishing or indie publishing. She is a proud, queer Korean American woman, and is sadly married to a man (a wonderful man, but a man nonetheless).

Andi Astra is a queer, multidisciplinary illustrator and creative based out of Hilo, Hawaii. While studying English Literature at Eastern Michigan University in 2015, Andi began creating science fiction and alien centric art under the name Spooky Girl, using these themes to explore their own identity and relationship with femininity. Since then, Andi has built a successful career as an illustrator, and has begun to expand their universe by writing stories that explore the strange, queer and ethereal.

Generation Queer Live: A Conversation with Joshua Allen and Author Kimm Topping (in person & live-streaming)
2025-10-05 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join author Kimm Topping and featured artist Joshua Allen for a conversation on the power of storytelling and art in Generation Queer. They’ll reflect on the creative process, the importance of queer/trans narratives, and how young people are shaping change. A book signing will follow the discussion.
To reserve a copy of Generation Queer: Stories of Youth Organizers, Artists, and Educators, Kimm Topping (Author) and Anshika Khullar (Illustrator), (Tu Books, May 27, 2025, hardcover, $22.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Generation Queer for October 5 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Generation Queer on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Kimm Topping, Ed.M., is an artist-educator, writer, and historian dedicated to preserving LGBTQIA+ history. Their first book, Generation Queer, is a nonfiction YA highlighting the stories of LGBTQIA+ youth activists. Their historic tours of Cambridge and New York City spotlight queer and feminist activism from the 1970s to the 1990s, and their series, Mapping Feminist Cambridge, is available through the Cambridge Women’s Commission.
As founder of Lavender Education, a national program promoting LGBTQIA+ history and youth leadership, Kimm leads impactful workshops, professional development, and historic walking tours. Kimm lectures at Harvard Graduate School of Education, specializing in gender, sexuality, and equity. Their work has been recognized by the 2025 Curve Power List and the 2023 Inaugural In-Service Award from the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.

Joshua Obawole Allen (b. 1995, Brooklyn, New York) is a multidisciplinary artist and activist whose practice envisions a more just, equitable, and joyous world.
Working at the intersections of art, community organizing, and cultural strategy, Allen uses visual storytelling to honor Black queer and trans life while shifting the cultural conditions so that Black queer and trans people are not merely surviving, but thriving.
Their work has been included in group exhibitions at AM:PM Gallery (2025), the Center for Black Visual Culture at NYU (2024), Leslie-Lohman Museum (2024), Armory Week (2024), the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporic Arts (2024), and the national For Freedoms / Wide Awakes billboard campaign (2020). They are featured in the 2024 For Freedoms monograph published by Phaidon Press and the anthology Generation Queer from Lee & Low Books. In Spring 2025, Allen appeared as a cover star for Dazed Magazine.
Allen is also a regular contributor to Queerty x Native Son, where they write on art, culture, entertainment, and politics, helping to shape public discourse around intersectional justice and representation.
In addition to their artistic and editorial work, Allen brings over a decade of experience in grassroots organizing. They served as the first-ever Activist-in-Residence at New York City’s LGBT Center, where they piloted a mentorship program for Black queer and trans youth. In 2020, they were recognized as one of The New Yorker’s Hometown Heroes for their community service during the COVID-19 pandemic. That same year, they led a record-breaking grassroots fundraising campaign that raised over $300,000 in just 18 days for Black trans youth, and later co-organized the Brooklyn Liberation March, which drew over 15,000 people in support of Black trans lives.
Allen’s work continues to build bridges between art and activism, rooted in the belief that cultural change is inseparable from systemic change.

Untitled Musical Project Presents ~ Lisa Stephen Friday, D’LOURDES, & Déa and the Drips (in person & live-streaming)
2025-10-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
UNTITLED Musical Project Presents ~ D’LOURDES, Lisa Stephen Friday, & Déa and the Drips
A night of togetherness and music, celebrating, and fundraising for the UNTITLED Musical Project Community at the Bureau, in room 210 of The LGBT Community Center.
Featuring openings acts by D’LOURDES & Lisa Stephen Friday.
Déa and the Drips will play their upcoming debut album, Transvolution, a project about evolution and revolution. The songs promote authenticity and self-made beauty, and are poetry mixed with pain mixed with pleasure. Ranging from folky introspectives to punk anthems with shades of pop melancholy.
Sit, stand, sway, dance; for it will be joyful.
An interview with Déa about Transvolution:
https://switchbitchnoise.com/interview-dea-thatcher-on-transvolution-the-new-album/

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd

UNTITLED is a not-for-profit dedicated to supporting musical theatre writers of BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and their intersecting identities by fostering their work from inception. Through writers’ groups, developmental readings, dramaturgical support, and resources aimed to further artists’ professional careers in the creation of new musical theatre, UNTITLED creates a space and community where BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ writers can create bold, new, and challenging works.

D’LOURDES is a queer Filipino-American music artist who first appeared with the release of their self-titled EP in May of 2022. With the heart & lyrics of a singer songwriter, they blend alternative rock, funk, & RnB to cultivate a type of alternative pop that is purely their own. You can find them at the intersection of Alanis Morrisette, Paramore, and Olivia Rodrigo.

Lisa Stephen Friday (she, her, hers) is a singer, musician, actor, and theater maker based in New York City. Her work has awarded her a New York Voices commissioning for the 2025/26 season with Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. Lisa’s work includes her one-woman show TRANS AM the musical, DOLL/GIRL (about the life and work of Greer Lankton), and her latest project: A Musical for Henrietta. In 2022, TRANS AM premiered at the Keegan Theater in Washington DC and was featured in the Hangar Theater’s summer season. TRANS AM made its New York City debut at Joe’s Pub in March. In 2023, DOLL/GIRL had its first public presentation at Judson Memorial Church, where Lisa and co-creator Joseph Ritsch were artists in residence. TRANS AM will be featured at Joe’s Pub in September 2025, thanks to collaborative efforts with the WP Theater and New York State Council on The Arts. From 2000-2006, Lisa fronted and wrote songs for the band Lisa Jackson and Girl Friday. They were a featured act at NYC’s CBGB’s and headlined the monthly party Homocorp and shared the stage with bands such as The Psychedelic Furs, The Motels, and Pat Benatar. Recent theater credits include Robert O’Hara’s Barbecue at The Human Race Theater in the role of Adlene and Pipeline Theatre Company’s World Premiere of House of Telescopes. Prior to her years with Lisa Jackson and Girl Friday, Lisa worked as an actor and singer in NYC, performing in regional productions at theaters like Goodspeed Opera House, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and The Ordway Theater. In 1999, Lisa toured the country with the National touring company of the Buddy Holly Story.

THE DRIPS are a new BK based Indie trio that fuses together a gnarly potion of folk, pop, & punk-rock. The coven is made up of Déa, Aspen, and Caro, who met on a moonlit night in a dunkin-donuts parking lot. Their hex-proof cauldron bubbling with musical musings is specially brewed to seduce queer comrades far and wide.
https://linktr.ee/madebyDTM

lesbian book club: October edition (in person only)
2025-10-11 11:00 - 12:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
We’ll be reading fiction and non-fiction — classic, contemporary, revealing and visionary. As a group we will decide what to read each month, focusing on lesbian authors and/or related topics. Co-founded by lesbian book lovers Judi Komaki and Piper Olsen.

For our October 11th meeting, we’ll read On Strike against God, Joanna Russ, edited by Alec Pollak (Feminist Press, July 3, 2024, paperback, $17.95). Purchase a copy before October 11th, and receive a 15% discount ($15.25 instead of $17.95). Just mention the lesbian book club when making your purchase.

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

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required.

GOLD FOR THE DEAD Book Launch (in person & live-streaming)
2025-10-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Lambda Literary and Goldie Award-winning author Ann Aptaker releases the latest in her acclaimed Cantor Gold crime series, GOLD FOR THE DEAD, with a reading and book signing, and featuring a conversation with best selling-selling award-winning author Felice Cohen. Join us for an evening of lively, edgy Queer crime fiction and discussion celebrating the Queer women who write it.
To reserve a copy of Gold for the Dead (Bywater Books, October 14, 2025, paperback, $18.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Gold for the Dead for October 15 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Gold for the Dead (click on title below) on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
Gold for the Dead
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Ann Aptaker’s Cantor Gold Crime series has been the recipient of Lambda Literary and Golden Crown Literary Society’s Goldie Awards. Her short stories have appeared in the anthologies Fedora, Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, Private Dicks & Disco Balls, Scattered Smothered Covered & Chunked, Our Happy Hours: LGBT Voices from the Gay Bars, Switchblade Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, the Guns & Tacos novella series, and the online zine Punk Soul Poet. Her short story, “Neon Women,” was selected for inclusion in the 2025 Best American Mystery and Suspense anthology.

Felice Cohen is the author of the 2023 Goldie Winner Half In: A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Forbidden Love (about a secret age-gap affair she had at 23 with her 57-year-old female boss), 90 Lessons for Living Large in 90 Square Feet (…or More) (inspired by the viral YouTube video of her tiny NYC studio) and What Papa Told Me (about her grandfather’s life before, during and after the Holocaust). Felice has been featured on Good Morning America, NBC, NPR, Time, Globe & Mail and more. Felice splits her time between NYC and Cape Cod, MA.

TELL: TESTED (in person & live-streaming)
2025-10-18 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
TELL is a monthly queer storytelling show hosted and curated by Drae Campbell. It is the longest running event at the Bureau! 11 years and going. Each month there is a different theme and a different line up of queer artists who tell true stories from their lives on a theme.
The theme for October 2025 is Tested, featuring storytellers Gabriella M. Belfiglio, Sunny Jay, and Chris Manley.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
Suggested donation to benefit the storytellers and the Bureau: $10.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Drae Campbell is the host and curator of TELL, an award winning podcast that can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Theater: The Nosebleed (Lincoln Center Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theater & National Tour, Lortel Nominated), Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater), Only You Can Prevent Wildfires (Teatro Circulo), My Old Man (Dixon Place), Storm Still (DirectorFest, Drama League), La Cage Aux Folles (Barrington Stage Company).
Film and TV:Senior Escort Service, Blunderpuss, It’s Very Common, TOW.
TV: Bull, New Amsterdam.
BFA, The University Of The Arts
Ig @draebiz and @tellqueerz

Gabriella M. Belfiglio is a queer artist teacher and mother living in Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of the newly released book The Fig Thief. She is a winner of the W.B. Yeats Poetry Contest. Belfiglio has had writing published in the award-winning anthology Poetic Voices Without Borders, The Potomac Review, The Monterey Poetry Review, The Centrifugal Eye, and Lambda Literary Review, among other places. Belfiglio is an anti-violence activist, working to make the world a safer place for all people. She can most often be found reading with a cat on her lap.

Chris Manley (he/they) is an American writer, performer and clown. He is best known for his character Buttons. He was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for his performance in “The Nosebleed,” has performed with Cirque du Soleil and is honored to be listed in Le Petit Clown August Alphabetique alongside Abbott & Costello. He has performed at Lincoln Center, Ars Nova, The Montreal Just for Laughs Festival, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, The People’s Improv Theater, the Toronto Sketch Fest and the Chicago Sketch Fest. You can see him in several national commercials and award winning films.

Sunny Jay (performer, cartoonist, & metaphysician) recently retired from ex-patriotism abroad in the EU and has returned to his home empire of the US. He currently resides in the Philadelphia and awaits the revolution. (popcorn)

Kate Bornstein and Caitlin Sullivan: Queer Love on the Run (in person & live-streaming)
2025-10-19 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join Generous Press and queer luminaries Kate Bornstein and Caitlin Sullivan to celebrate the launch of NEARLY ROADKILL: QUEER LOVE ON THE RUN. After a brief reading from the book, the authors will chat with Generous publishers Elaina Ellis and Amber Flame about gender rebellion, queer sex on the internet, and the intersection of political resistance and happily ever after.
In this rowdy erotic cyber-romance originally written in the 1990s, two people meet online and fall in love in every guise they can manage. As Scratch and Winc go from anonymous lovers to accidental heroes and gender outlaws, they expose the shadowy Web stretched between technology and capitalist greed, nearly becoming roadkill on the internet superhighway. With a little help from their friends including a brave teenager and a mysterious hacker, these darling rebels fight government intervention and find chosen family in this eerily prescient tale.
The 30th anniversary “reboot” edition includes an updated lens for today’s readers, as GenZ investigative journalist Drew uncovers what just might be the greatest queer love story of all time. Like Octavia Butler’s PARABLE OF THE SOWER, Margaret Atwood’s A HANDMAID’S TALE, and George Orwell’s 1984, the return of NEARLY ROADKILL is right on time with urgent lessons for our contemporary landscape.
Generous Press aims to please readers like you by publishing lush, high-caliber romance fiction and other books about love by brilliant LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and disabled authors. Built on joy, we are writing a world in which all people feel cherished and free.
NEARLY ROADKILL is published in collaboration with Row House Publishing.

To reserve a copy of NEARLY ROADKILL: QUEER LOVE ON THE RUN (Generous Press, September 9, 2025, paperback, $18.99) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Nearly Roadkill for October 19 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Nearly Roadkill (click on title below) on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
Nearly Roadkill

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

KATE BORNSTEIN is a trans icon whose pioneering books about nonbinary gender, GENDER OUTLAW and MY GENDER WORKBOOK, are available in six languages and taught at hundreds of colleges. Kate’s 2006 book, HELLO, CRUEL WORLD: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws propelled them into an international position of advocacy for marginalized youth, earning two citations of honor from the New York City Council.

CAITLIN SULLIVAN has written several plays, 2 1/2 novels, a comic book, worked as a journalist, and reported and edited for the Seattle Gay News for many years. She lives in a small rural town near a loud donkey and quiet cows.

BARGAIN WITCH: Brooke Palmieri in conversation with Claywoman (in person & live-streaming)
2025-10-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us to celebrate the publication of DOPAMINE Books’ latest release, Bargain Witch: Essays in Self-Initiation, the debut collection from trans scholar and self-initiated witch Brooke Palmieri. In Bargain Witch, occult history, the eternal now and our magickal queer futures align. Palmieri takes us into his stories, from working at London’s oldest occult shop to bonding with his scrappy familiar to saluting the queer witches whose shoulders we stand on, in a work Susan Stryker asserts is ‘Magic, through and through.’
Brooke will be joined in conversation by Claywoman.
To reserve a copy of Bargain Witch (Dopamine/Semiotext(e), October 7, 2025, paperback, $17.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Bargain Witch for October 24 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Bargain Witch (click on title below) on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
Bargain Witch
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Brooke Palmieri is a writer and artist living in Joshua Tree, California and working at the intersection of memory, history, and transsexual alternate realities. He will be in conversation with Claywoman, is a 500 million year old extra terrestrial from the Mirillion Galaxy. She comes to Earth from time to time to chat with Earthlings. She loves Earth and all its inhabitants, who she finds incredibly fascinating, giving lectures at various events and engaging in public conversation with prominent Earthling artists and intellectuals.

Claywoman is the conception of actor/writer and performer Michael Cavadias, BFA from NYU Experimental Theater Wing. Film and TV credits include Wonder Boys, All We Had, I Remember Nothing, Girls, and Difficult People. Theatre credits include Ahohni’s “She Who Saw Beautiful Things” at The Kitchen and “Star Odessey – The Pilot” at MoMA PS1. Michael’s character Claywoman was originally created at Blackips Performance Cult in the 90s and developed at Mabou Mines. “The Mystery of Claywoman” (directed by Rob Roth) was presented at The New Museum, The Wild Project, Town Hall, Abrons Art Center and Howl Festival. “Conversations with Claywoman” was featured at The Meltdown Festival in London and continues regularly at Pangea in New York City. Claywoman recently performed at The Yaga Gathering in Lithuania. Michael’s newest projects include “Cancellation Island”, a fictional podcast co-written by John Cameron Mitchell, and a Claywoman video/film series to come.

Queer Junk Journaling 101 (in person only)
2025-10-25 12:00 - 14:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Ready to cut, paste, and collage your way into creative liberation? Join us for Queer Junk Journaling 101—a hands-on workshop designed for LGBTQ+ adults (ages 18 and up) who want to explore the joyful, low-pressure world of junk journaling. Whether you’re a seasoned scrapbooker or a total newbie, this is your invitation to play with washi tape, stickers, ephemera, and emotion—while crafting pages that celebrate your travels, your truth, and your tenderest thoughts.
Inspired by five years of practice and a passion for queer visibility in a hobby dominated by cishet influencers, this workshop oﬀers a welcoming space to create, connect, and reclaim the page. With junk journaling now making headlines in the NYTIMES and LATIMES, there’s never been a better moment to dive in. Come make something messy, meaningful, and magnificently yours.
JOURNALS AND PAPER CRAFTING SUPPLIES WILL BE PROVIDED BUT YOU ARE WELCOME TO BRING YOUR OWN EPHEMERA AND TOOLS!
Space is limited to the first 16 people who arrive.
The Bureau normally opens at 1 pm, but we will open at 11:30 AM on Saturday, October 25th, for this event.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

About the facilitator:
Michael Williams is a New York–based photo editor and visual storyteller whose career spans editorial portraiture, performing arts publicity, and celebrity event coverage. Born into a farm family in small-town Iowa, he began photographing professionally in high school and earned his BA in Journalism & Mass Communication from the University of Iowa, with a minor in French and study abroad in Lyon. His path has included an MFA stint at Columbia College Chicago, a fellowship in Amsterdam, and roles at Gamma Liaison, Getty Images, and now Everett Collection, where he directs entertainment photo assignments. Outside of work, Williams continues to photograph—especially his vintage Barbie collection, featured in LIFE and PEOPLE—and leads creative workshops in junk journaling and stationery arts for the LGBTQ+ community.

Lesbian Lives Book Celebration (in person & live-streaming)
2025-10-26 11:00 - 13:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Closing book celebration for the Lesbian Lives 2025 Conference
Featuring readings by Lana Lin, SaraEllen Strongman, Padraig Rooney, Cheryl Clarke, and Diane DiMassa.

Copies of the following books will be available for purchase at the event:
Essential Poems by Pat Parker, edited by SaraEllen Strongman (Sinister Wisdom, October 14, 2025, paperback, $19.95)
The Autobiography of H. LAN Thao Lam, Lana Lin (Dorothy A Publishing Project, September 30, 2025, paperback, $18)
Rebel Angel: The Life and Times of Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Padraig Rooney (Polity Press, April 15, 2025, hardcover, $29.95)
Archive of Style: New and Selected Poems, Cheryl Clarke (Triquarterly Books, August 15, 2024, hardcover, $29)
Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, Diane DiMassa (New York Review Comics, September 2, 2025, paperback, $34.95)
To reserve a copy/copies of any of these titles, please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a book/books for October 26 event” in the subject line, and let us know which titles in the body of the email.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better:
sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!
Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

About the Lesbian Lives 2025 Conference:
For the first time since its inception in 1993, the Lesbian Lives Conference is crossing the Atlantic to New York City! The conference is hosted by the Journal of Lesbian Studies, Sinister Wisdom, and CLAGS: the Center for LGBT Studies at the City University of New York. Lesbian Lives brings together academics, artists, writers, and activists to showcase, enjoy, and critically analyze lesbian culture.
Rooted in an ethos of inclusivity, dialogue, diversity, and accessibility, the conference welcomes people of all sexualities and genders.
Lesbian Lives 2025 will be held on October 24 and 25 at the Graduate Center CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10016.
In keeping with its arrival in the global city of New York, this year’s theme is:
“The Lesbian International: Creating Networks of Knowledge Across Space and Time”
Our aim is to foster international and interdisciplinary conversations on critical issues in lesbian studies today. By engaging with global scholars, activists, and artists, we seek to deepen understanding of the lesbian erotic and generate new knowledge, artistic imaginations, and activist strategies to sustain lesbian lives and resistance.
UPDATE: Lesbian Lives 2025 is completely sold out. We are running a waiting list for people still interested in joining the conference. Stay tuned for public event announcements as well. To join the wait list for a registration if more become available, click here.

Book Release: Little F with Michelle Tea and Julian Delgado Lopera (in person & live-streaming)
2025-10-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join us to celebrate Michelle Tea’s latest work, Little F – a cross-country road odyssey that follows brings a queer, teenage runaway from new moon rituals in Arizona canyons to Texas bus stations, from the luxe drag stages of Houston’s Montrose district to the jazz-soaked streets of the French Quarter and beyond. In this new novel, Michelle Tea tells the story, by turns raw, romantic, and sweet, of a sheltered boy taking his first leap into queer life, among all the complicated queers who live it.
“Little F is the book I’ve been needing all my life. It’s like Michelle Tea has a magnifying glass pointed straight into every angsty teenage queer’s soul. I can’t wait for everyone to meet Spencer, her heartbreakingly tender and deliciously messy hero, whose cross-country odyssey is equal parts To Wong Foo and My So-Called Life. I saw the best parts of myself in this book. The anger. The hunger. The private, indestructible yearning. I laughed so hard I cried.” —Edgar Gomez, author of High Risk Homosexual
With readings from the book + conversation between Michelle Tea and Julian Delgado Lopera
PLEASE NOTE: THE BUREAU IS NORMALLY CLOSED ON TUESDAYS.
WE WILL OPEN AT 5:30 PM ON OCTOBER 28TH FOR THIS EVENT.

To reserve a copy of Little F (Feminist Press, October 14, 2025, paperback, $17.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Little F for October 28 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Little F (click on title below) on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
Little F
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Michelle Tea is the author of over twenty books of fiction, memoir, poetry and children’s literature. Her autofiction Valencia, a cult classic, won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Fiction. Her essay collection Against Memoir was awarded the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for The Art of the Essay. Tea is also the recipient of awards from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. A founder of Drag Queen Story Hour, she has received honors from the American Library Association and Logo Television. Tea curated the Sister Spit Books series at City Lights Publishers, founded the ongoing imprint Amethyst Edition at the Feminist Press and is the founding editor of DOPAMINE Books, a collaboration with Semiotext(e).

Julián Delgado Lopera is the author of The New York Times acclaimed novel Fiebre Tropical (Feminist Press 2020), the Winner of the 2021 Ferro Grumley Award and a 2021 Lambda Literary award; a finalist of the 2020 Kirkus Prize in Fiction and the 2021 Aspen Literary Prize. Julián is also the author of ¡Cuéntamelo! (Aunt Lute 2017) an illustrated bilingual collection of oral histories by LGBT Latinx immigrants which won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award.
Julián’s work has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York Public Library, Baldwin for the Arts, Hawthornden Foundation, Black Mountain Institute, Creative Work Fund, Hedgebrook, California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission, Headlands Center for The Arts, Brush Creek Foundation of the Arts, Lambda Literary Foundation and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. His work has appeared in American Short Fiction, Granta, Teen Vogue, The Kenyon Review, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, The White Review, LALT, Four Way Review, Broadly, TimeOut Mag to name a few. He is the former executive director of RADAR Productions and one of the founders of Drag Queen Story Hour. Julián has been curating Latinx history projects for over 10 years in partnerships with places such as the GLBT Historical Society, SF Public Library, El/la Para Translatinas, Galería de la Raza and Brava Theatre.

Dreaming Trans Futures: Lucie Fielding and Avgi Saketopoulou in Conversation (in person & live-streaming)
2025-10-29 19:00 - 21:00 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
In a moment marked by escalating and ever-chilling anti-trans sentiment and violence, do trans joy, the trans erotic, and trans pleasure have a place? How might we go about imagining—and enacting!—pathways that lead to trans thriving? On the occasion of the publication of the second edition of Trans Sex: Nurturing Trans Erotic Embodiment and Gender-Pleasure, the book’s author, Lucie Fielding, and psychoanalyst Avgi Saketopoulou will engage in a wide-ranging conversation that dreams of trans futures steeped in and animated by desire, solidarity, mutual entanglement, and (gender-)pleasure.

To reserve a copy of Trans Sex: Nurturing Trans Erotic Embodiment and Gender-Pleasure (Routledge, October 23, 2025, paperback, $28.99) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Trans Sex for October 29 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

You can also purchase Trans Sex (click on title below) on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
Trans Sex

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Lucie Fielding is a therapist, a sex and kink educator, and the author of the book Trans Sex: Nurturing Trans Erotic Embodiment and Gender-Pleasure (2nd Ed). The first edition of Trans Sex (2021) Clinical Approaches to Trans Sexualities and Erotic Embodiments (Routledge, 2021) was shortlisted for a 2022 Lambda Literary Award in the Transgender-Nonfiction category and was awarded the 2022 AASECT Book Award (Book for Sexuality Professionals), the 2024 SSTAR Health Professionals Book Award, and the 2024 APA Division 44 Distinguished Book Award.

Avgi Saketopoulou is an immigrant from Cyprus and Greece and a practicing psychoanalyst. She teaches at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Her published work centers on issues of queer desire, consent, and is committed to renewing sadism as an ethical and political intervention. She is the author of Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia and co-author, with Ann Pellegrini, of Gender Without Identity. In 2025, she co-founded P-HOLE (Psychoanalytic Hub for Online Liberatory Education), a pro-trans, pro-queer, pro-Palestine, anti-racist learning group, committed to decolonial practices, and to disability and economic justice. Her next book project is provisionally titled Sadism’s Offer: Aesthetics and the Revolutionary Impulse.

Unstoppable: Straight Women on the AIDS Frontlines (in person only)
2025-10-30 19:00 - 20:30 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join award-winning author Victoria Noe and GMHC Director of Community Relations Krishna Stone in celebrating the release of Noe’s newest book on straight women in the HIV/AIDS community, UNSTOPPABLE: Straight Women on the AIDS Frontlines. Building on the success of her 2019 ground-breaking F*g Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community, Noe turns to how straight women are facing the shock and awe of 2025, and answering the question ‘where do we go from here?’ A book signing with Noe and some of the women in the book will follow the discussion.
To reserve a copy of UNSTOPPABLE: Straight Women on the AIDS Frontlines (King Company Publishing, September 16, 2025, paperback, $16.95), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Unstoppable for September 14th event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Unstoppable (click on title below) on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
UNSTOPPABLE: Straight Women on the AIDS Frontlines

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better:
sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Deep into her fourth career, St. Louis native Victoria Noe is a Chicago-based award-winning author, speaker and activist with two degrees in theater. Her Friend Grief series – the result of a promise she made to a dying friend – recognizes the importance of friendships in shaping our lives and illuminates an often disrespected form of grief. Noe’s long-time HIV/AIDS activism then led her to write F*g Hags, Divas and Moms: The Legacy of Straight Women in the AIDS Community, the groundbreaking book that honors the women who changed the course of the epidemic. An accomplished public speaker, she has presented to a wide variety of organizations and events, including ACT UP/London, Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Muse and the Marketplace, BookExpo America, Chicago Women’s History Center, Printers Row Lit Fest, and Open Hand/San Francisco, as well as libraries and bookstores around New York state and the Midwest. During COVID, she led workshops for Let’s Reimagine and Global Grief Network, and Honoring Our Experience. Noe’s 2023 book, What Our Friends Left Behind: Grief and Laughter in a Pandemic, shares the challenges faced by people who grieved a friend during COVID.
With Unstoppable: Straight Women on the AIDS Frontlines, Noe shares more stories of women in the HIV/AIDS community, and how they’re responding to the shock and awe of 2025.
She is a member of ACT UP/NY, Alliance of Independent Authors, and Chicago Writers Association. Try to keep up with her at victorianoe.com or email her at victoria@victorianoe.com. She promises to respond quickly. Probably.

Krishna Stone is the Director of Community Relations in the Communications Department at GMHC (founded as Gay Men’s Health Crisis in 1982, the world’s first HIV and AIDS service organization). She originally connected with GMHC in 1986 as a walker in the first annual AIDS Walk New York and then started volunteering at GMHC. In 1993, she became a staff person at GMHC. As of 2024, she has been an employee for 32 years! She organizes community events such as rallies, candlelight vigils, non-denominational gatherings, press conferences, local/state/national conferences, dance party/fundraisers, panel discussions, trainings, and site visits for people all over the world. She coordinates interviews for media outlets, helps with social media promotion and developing public service campaigns and promotional materials. Krishna is also an ordained non-denominational minister.
For 21 years, she was a volunteer announcer along the route of the annual NYC LGBT Pride March. She continues to volunteer with other community-based organizations as well. In 2014, she received an award from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for “her outstanding dedication to combatting the spread of HIV.”
In 2017, Krishna was one of the four Grand Marshals for the NYC LGBT Pride March and in 2019, she was awarded the Sam Ciccone Community Service Award by the Gay Officers Action League New York (GOAL-NY). She was also profiled in both of Victoria Noe’s books on straight women in the AIDS community.
In 2020, she received the Gay City News Impact Award for her commitment and service for the LGBTQ+ community. And in 2021, she was spotlighted by POZ Magazine’s POZ 100: “Black Advocates—both HIV positive and negative—who are making a difference in the fight against HIV and AIDS in the United States”. On December 1, 2022, she received the World AIDS Day award from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene “for her work at GMHC and planning past World AIDS Day citywide events.”
She is the proud mother of her 30-year-old daughter, Parade.

Fire Island Invasion (in person only)
2025-11-01 15:00 - 16:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Fire Island Invasion
Book Reading • Photo Presentation • Live Conversation
Photographer Anderson Zaca and cover star Fifi Dubois bring the legendary Fire Island Invasion to life with stories, images, and insight.Zaca’s striking black-and-white portraits celebrate drag as protest, pageantry, and pure brilliance—rooted in the rebellious spirit of the ’70s and still dazzling today.
To reserve a copy of Fire Island Invasion, Anderson Zaca(Damiani Ltd, May 6, 2025, hardcover, $50), write to contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Fire Island Invasion for November 1 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

You can also purchase Fire Island Invasion (click on title below) on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
Fire Island Invasion

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Kids on the Street: Joseph Plaster in conversation with Hugh Ryan (in person only)
2025-11-06 18:00 - 19:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Join authors Joseph Plaster and Hugh Ryan as they discuss Kids on the Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, a hidden history of queer and trans street youth who, abandoned by family and society, forged street families, faith traditions, and mutual aid networks to survive in San Francisco’s Tenderloin.
Kids on the Street is the winner of The Publishing Triangle’s 2024 Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, the Urban History Association’s Joe William Trotter, Jr. Book Prize for best first book in urban history, and the 2024 Oral History Association Book Award.

To reserve a copy of Kids on the Street (Duke University Press, February 24, 2023, paperback, $28.95) please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Kids on the Street for November 6 event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
You can also purchase Kids on the Street (click on title below) on our online shop at bookshop.com/shop/bgsqd:
Kids on the Street

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!

Hugh Ryan is the author of When Brooklyn Was Queer, The Women’s House of Detention, and the memoir My Bad: A Personal History of the Queer 90s (and Beyond!), forthcoming in 2026.

Joseph Plaster is a queer public historian and author of Kids on the Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. He teaches and directs public humanities programs at Johns Hopkins University.

Expanding Dissociation-Informed Psychoanalytic Practice (registration required)
2025-11-07 19:30 - 21:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
In recent years, psychoanalysis has expanded its focus moving beyond repressive symptomatology to include dissociative processes. Concepts such as Howell and Itkowitz’s dissociative unconscious, Bollas’s unthought known, Stern’s unformulated experience, and my own idea of unexperienced-experience have become increasingly central in both theoretical and clinical discourse. Despite this growing attention, significant ambiguity remains particularly around distinguishing ordinary dissociation from defensive dissociation, as well as in understanding the various forms defensive dissociation can take. It’s common to conflate dissociation as a defense mechanism with dissociation as a structural feature of the self.
Drawing on Sullivan’s view of the self as a system, I propose a self-state continuum model of dissociative functioning—from a relatively continuous self-system to one that is structurally discontinuous. I differentiate between “dissociation of content” versus “dissociation as a structure of the self,” and highlight clinical phenomena that may help practitioners recognize these dynamics in their work. I will also illuminate some of the structural aspects of dissociation as a self-organization and provide clinical examples to illustrate how these patterns may manifest in treatment.

TICKETS: $50.00
Student tickets $25.00
(Proof of student status required)
Free for MIP candidates (RSVP candidates only)
THIS IS A HYBRID EVENT: IN PERSON AND ONLINE
CLICK HERE TO PAY AND REGISTER TO ATTEND IN PERSON
TIME: 7:30 to 9:30PM
LOCATION: Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
Room 210 of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
208 W 13th St, NY NY 10011
***
CLICK HERE TO PAY AND REGISTER TO ATTEND ONLINE
You will receive a Zoom link after you register.

Continuing Education Hours: 2
The Manhattan Institute is a NY State approved provider of continuing education hours for: LCSW, LMSW, LCAT, LMHC and Licensed Psychologists.

Johanna Dobrich, LCSW, holds a Master’s degree in Political Science from Rutgers University and is a graduate of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy’s (ICP) four-year psychoanalytic training program. She is a licensed clinical social worker with a private practice in New York City. Johanna has served on the faculty of ICP, the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center (PPSC), and the National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP), where she has taught courses on trauma, dissociation, and contemporary psychoanalytic practice from a Relational perspective. She also supervises candidates in psychoanalytic training. She has served on the Board at ICP and currently holds a position as an advisory member. She also teaches and consults in the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis’s Certificate Program in Trauma Studies.
Johanna is the author of Working with Survivor Siblings in Psychoanalysis, for which she received the 2023 Sandor Ferenczi Award from the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). She has published numerous articles and is recognized for her thoughtful writing on trauma, dissociation, and relational psychoanalysis. Her work offers insights into the complexities of loss, mourning, and the emotional lives of “survivor siblings”. Through her articles and book chapters, she bridges theory and clinical practice, providing valuable perspectives on developmental trauma and promoting healing through psychoanalytic approaches.
She is currently completing a book titled Moving from Grievance to Hope in Psychoanalysis: Applied Case Studies, which explores the use of psychoanalytic tools to promote social and collective healing within the socio-cultural field. The book is slated for publication in winter 2026 as part of Donnel Stern’s Psychoanalysis in a New Key series.

lesbian book club: November edition (in person only)
2025-11-08 11:00 - 12:00 | Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
We’ll be reading fiction and non-fiction — classic, contemporary, revealing and visionary. As a group we will decide what to read each month, focusing on lesbian authors and/or related topics. Co-founded by lesbian book lovers Judi Komaki and Piper Olsen.

For our November 8th meeting, we’ll read Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, Lillian Faderman (Columbia University Press, February 1, 2012, paperback, $24.95). Purchase a copy before November 8th, and receive a 15% discount ($21.22 instead of $24.95). Just mention the lesbian book club when making your purchase.

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

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required.

OUTspoken: The Publishing Triangle's Reading Series, November Edition
2025-11-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Bureau of General Services–Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, Room 210, New York, NY, 10011, United States
The Publishing Triangle presents the November edition of its monthly OUTspoken Reading Series as host Rob Byrnes welcomes Steven Reigns, Rodney Rhoda Taylor, Geoffrey Newman, and GOODW.Y.N.
Join us in-person or watch the live-stream to hear from some of queer literature’s most dynamic established and up-and-coming voices.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
youtube.com/@bgsqd
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Even better: sign up to make a monthly tax-deductible donation to the Bureau!

Thank you for committing to sustaining this vital project!
