anarchism - QZAP - The Queer Zine Archive Project

LESBIAN & GAY FREEDOM MOVEMENTIllustration of a woman having sex with a dolphin LGFM SUPPORTS DOLPHINS WHO WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH HUMANS LGFM, BM BOX 207, LONDON, WCIN 3XX. 40p — LGFM newsletter, issue #5

This week, I’m looking at four issues of the newsletter for the UK group “Lesbian And Gay Freedom Movement”, which is unfortunately very difficult to find more information on due to their pretty generic name. The content of the newsletters, however, is… definitely not generic!

QZAP holds four issues of the Lesbian And Gay Freedom Movement newsletter: #5 (Summer 1991), #6 (Summer 1992), #8 (Winter 1993), and #10 (Spring 1995). The newsletters came to QZAP via the Emma Centre, a Minneapolis infoshop that I wrote more about last week.

LGFM described themselves as “a movement to bring anarchist ideas and ideals to lesbians, gays and bisexuals, and to make sexuality and the overthrow of patriarchy major campaigning issues for all anarchists.”

The newsletter fought the respectability politics that had crept into lesbian and gay movements, criticizing a focus on legal rights rather than liberation.

In the early 90s, when these zines came out, the age of consent in England was 16 for heterosexual sex, and 21 for homosexual sex. The age of consent for gay sex was lowered to 18 in 1994, between issues #8 and #10 of this newsletter. The age of consent was only equalized across all combinations of genders in 2000. These newsletters reflect a time when debate was raging in the UK more broadly, and also within queer communities, about the role of the state in sexual ethics. As these newsletters show, queer sexual mores were a wide-open question, and some of the positions staked were pretty far outside of the current mainstream.

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HOW YOU CAN HELP END OPPRESSION OF FAT DYKES1) Stop assuming that being fat is a matter of choice for most fat wonyn. 2) Stop assuming I should lose weight one of the oppressive assumptions that thin womyn make is that all fat womyn want to lose weight. - 3) Stop assuming or believing that I'm killing myself by being fat uppression kills! 4) I have lots of feelings when I eat. So do thin people. Don't attribute pain, despair, low self-esteem, or other mental symptons to we just because I'm fat. 5) Don't always assume that fat people are jolly and funny. 6) Don't ignore fat people. Fat people are easily ignored because we often try hard to be inconspicuous. 7) Don't point to the exceptional weight loser. Weight loss is statistically atypical. 8) Don't expect Fat Liberation to become a major political movement before YOU start to change. 9) Remember, 1 am me. I am not your dictatorial fat father, I am not your nurturing Aunt Clara, I am not your seductive fat mother. 10)Get rid of your terror of being fat. Get rid of your fear of fat people. It is hurting all of us. II)Don't leave it to Eat dykes/womyn to do all your consciousness raising for you. 12) Don't treat fat people like we're uncool. Just because we are not allowed to wear the latest styles doesn't mean we don't know what's going on. 13) Let yourself be attracted to a fat dyke/womyn. It's not an accident if you've 'never' been attracted to a fat lesbian. 14) ilave sex fantasies about fat womyn/lesbians without turning us into earth mothers and comforters. 15) Whenever you fantasise, draw or otherwise image lasbians/womyn, see us as we really are. all shapes and sizes and colours. It is the responsibility of artists and graphics womyn, etc to show fat images in a positive way. 16)Invite us to go swimming or to the sports club. Take our pictures when you have your camera out (unless we ask you not to). Don't put your sheme of fat upon us. 17) Don't drink diet pop or in any other way support the diet industry. The patriarchy makes huge amounts of money though the diet industry by playing on womyn's fears of being fat of getting fatter. 18) Remember that fat oppression is a fat person's problem too. We are all taught to be afraid of being fat, or fatter. 19) Remember what Vivian Mayer says: "Fat is not a feminist issue, Fat LIBERATION is!!". 20)Stop dieting yourself! In summary, support me as a fat dyke by:...understanding my oppression...exposing fatophobia where you see and hear it (eg don't let your agency or organisation post netices about diets or groups that assume we need to lose weight)...letting and helping me love my body FAT without any overt or covert assumptions of having to lose it. Encourage fat lesbians and womyn you know to...stop dieting...join a support group or talk with other fat dykes about being fat...come out of our closets...build pride and rid ourselves of our self-hatred. HELP US THROW OUR WEIGHT AROUND! (10) — “HOW YOU CAN HELP END OPPRESSION OF FAT DYKES”, from LGFM #5

In Issue #8 of the newsletter, LGFM listed the groups they supported as:

“Oppressed sexualities including transexuals, girl/girl & boy/boy lovers, girl/woman & boy/man lovers, transvestites, S&Mers…
Children in their fight for liberation and freedom to choose their own sexuality.
Lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in prison, ‘care’, and psychiatric institutions.
Isolated and lonely lesbians, gays and bisexuals, and those just ‘coming out’.”

In Issue #5, this list also includes “people with mental and physical disabilities, also those who are non-monogamous, like cottaging [cruising] or picking people up in public places, […] those of us who enjoy sex toys and pornography […] and sex with animals.” Issue #10 also includes fat people and “those who don’t define or identify themselves as anything” in the list of those whose sexual liberation they seek.

This makes me very very very very very uncomfortable! It is pretty intense to see some of your most deeply-held views (police abolition, bodily autonomy for sex between consenting adults, including people with disabilities, and including sex that includes power exchange) being placed alongside and in equivalence with… other stuff.

FUZZY BOXES!QUEER, DICK SUCKING, ARSE FUCKING, PISS LOVING, TONGUE KISSING, NIPPLE CHEWING, CUDDLE SNUGGLING SLUT. THE LIBERATION AND ENJOYMENT OF SEX AND SEXUALITY IS A PERSONAL STRUGGLE OF EACH PERSON. THE UPBRINGING AND SUPPRESSION OF OUR CHILDHOOD SEXUALITY CAN TAKE YEARS TO OVERCOME ALONG WITH THE SUFFOCATING DEFINITIONS AND BOXES WHICH WE ARE OBLIGED TO PICK UP IN TEEN AND LATER YEARS FROM SOCIETY. THOUGH HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE MERGING AND FUZZING OF THE EDGES OF THESE BOXES WE'RE PLACED IN? ARE DEFINITIONS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF OPPRESSION SET TO CONTROL US AND STOP US FROM RELEASING OUR TRUE POTENTIAL AND TRUE CAPACITY TO LOVE AND ENJOY OURSELVES? HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE FACT THAT I'M QUEER, ENJOY ALL KINDS OF SEX WITH ALL KINDS OF MEN, FALL IN LOVE WITH GUYS, HAVE AND WANT RELATIONSHIPS WITH GUYS, BUT EVERY NOW AND THEN WANT TO PUCK WITH A WOMAN. I'VE ENJOYED THE FEELING OF SLIPPING INTO A SOFT WARM VAGINA UNTIL I CUM. YET CONSIDER MYSELF QUEER AND COULD NEVER GO BEYOND FRIENDSHIP WITH A WOMAN. — From LGFM #8

Let’s look more closely at what’s in these newsletters:

Issue #5 takes up the cause of Ben Wilson, who was incarcerated for “having sex with boyfriends under 16”, sentenced to life in prison, and chemically castrated with estrogen. There’s also a letter from “an inmate in [the] New York State Prison System who has run afoul of the age of consent”, defending “consensual intergenerational sexual relationship[s]”.

Issue #6 shares several stories of people prosecuted for sex with animals, arguing that it’s inconsistent for factory farming to be permitted and bestiality not. There’s also an interesting essay where a writer talks about their experiences coming into BDSM as someone who had never been able to orgasm before having experiences as a bondage bottom. It also argues that gays and lesbians should, instead of fighting for inclusion in institutions like police and the military, instead look towards their abolition.

Issue #8 focuses on SM, including a report from an SM pride march in London, but also includes an essay by a queer teenager opposing age of consent laws, arguing that “abuse can’t be stopped by the law, neither can protection be given; but control, guilt, and fear can and will occur.”

A caterpillar mounting a crinkle-cut french fry, with a speech bubble saying, "KNOCK IT OFF ASSHOLE! I'M A FRENCH FRY"

From issue #6

Outside a women's washroom, and under a sign reading "WHIPLASH FETISH CLUB", a cop holds a huge wiggly dildo, and is saying, "SARGE I FOUND THIS TRUNCHEON ON ONE OF THE STALLS!"

From issue #10

In Issue #10, there’s an article about the role of anarchist women in the Spanish Civil War, a report on the raid on a London fetish club, Whiplash, from someone who was present, remarks on Irish liberation, and a report from a squat in Ljubljana. This issue also reports critically on the age of consent for sex between men in the UK being lowered from 21 to 18, and on the decriminalization of sex in the military, arguing that there should be no legal age of consent, and no military. There’s also a cool story encouraging people not to let ableism inform their assumptions around who has sex, and with whom:

“I was at a feminist event with a woman and she was with someone in a wheelchair who couldn’t speak (except after orgasm) and couldn’t lift their arms. Communication was by use of a board with printed letters and words on it which was pointed to with tongue or nose.

Two feminists I knew who were giving the lecture at the event came up to us. I introduced them to my friend and the person with disabilities. The feminists ignored the wheelchair user and addressed my friend. They asked if she was the facilitator for the day for the user. She replied, “No! This is my lover”.

The feminists had immediately assumed that an ‘attractive’ woman with a physically challenged person must be a carer – not a friend or lover. I think we have a long way to go….before the disabled are thought of as equal and as sexual people.”

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In a choice between a politics of liberation and of respectability, I would align myself strongly with liberation. I do not believe the world is made safer by policing and incarceration, including with regards to situations where someone harms another person in a way that involves sex.

Illustration of three horses, with text reading "Freedom is not a COMMODITY""Liberation is not a sports bra" "Resistance is not a grapefruit diet" — From LGFM #5

As someone who reads and talks and thinks a lot about queer history, this is not my first time running into these questions. Patrick Califia’s essay collection Public Sex is a fascinating collection of essays on sex, BDSM, leather culture, and censorship, from a writer who was at the centre of the 1970s-80s “lesbian sex wars”. Califia comes out swinging in favour of porn, weird sex, free expression, bi and trans inclusion, and an expansive big tent of queerness that refuses to exclude people based on the transgressiveness of their sexual interests, including sexual relationships between adults and minors. It’s a book I really recommend, both as a historical document and as a source of insight into the ongoing conflict between purity culture and freakiness that are still dividing queers to this day.

I feel like I’ve been ending each of these posts by saying, “Well, one thing I can say for certain is that I am grateful for archives.” But it’s always true. I’m not really sure what compels me to seek out the material in QZAP’s archive that most challenges me, but I really can’t seem to help it. I am sure they have many delightful light-hearted zines of which I agree with every word. But the ones that most draw me in are the ones that also most trouble me.

A comic book illustration of two people talking, with the captions replaced by:"My pleasure is nameless: those all too rare moments when I act for myself afford no handholds for the constraints of power!" and the other person replying, "But do we have pleasure sufficiently powerful to act) as a practical weapon?" In the background, a third person looks on sadly, thinking, "Everyone's a revolutionary sexual dissident- except me." — From LGFM #8

And one thing I am sure of in the case of every one of these zines, is that I am glad it’s archived. I want these materials to be available for people to struggle with. I don’t want archives to only be a home for work that I and nobody else object to. I want us to stay with the thorniest topics and the messiest and most troubling parts of our shared history.

Lee P, interning at QZAP in summer 2024, is a long-time zine maker whose current project is Sheer Spite Press, a small press and zine distro. Originally from unceded Algonquin land, Lee calls Tiohtià:ke // Mooniyang // Montreal home. Lee is also a member of the organizing collective for Dick’s Lending Library, a community-run, local library of books by trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit authors.

A few days after I decided to make this week’s blog post about Queeruption, I sent up a distress flare to QZAP: I wasn’t sure how to write about it in any kind of concise way.

Queeruption is a queer anarchist festival that’s had 12 editions in 12 locations between 1998 and 2017. QZAP holds materials on 5 of these: Queeruptions 3 (2001 in San Francisco), 4 (2002, in London), 8 (2005, in Barcelona), 9 (2006, in Tel-Aviv), and 10 (2007 on Coast Salish territory, Vancouver).

Here’s what Milo of QZAP said when I asked them for their help in thinking through how to write about Queeruption:

“Thinking about Queeruption, and the abundance of materials that came out of it, either officially or unofficially, and the number of folks who have been involved can be a little overwhelming.

One of the ways that I think of it is that it was (and this is my perception and experiences) intended to be a radical queer temporary autonomous space. Because it happened in multiple locations, and was leaderless, for the most part, each instance was a reflection of the needs, desires and situations of the folks who organized and hosted, while also trying to take into account the needs of all of the participants, as well.

All that to say, that’s why each one is different and might be hard to capture the zeitgeist in a single post. Also something something about liminality and the intentional places on the margins that we create and then collapse.”

Each edition of Queeruption grapples with its location in a particular way. In the case of Barcelona, this focuses on the politics of gentrification and squatting. For the event held on Coast Salish land, the event materials have a stronger emphasis on the historic and ongoing colonization of that land, and how to support Indigenous resistance. The fraught and contested relationship between Queeruption and its location is most evident in the materials for Q9, held in Tel-Aviv in 2006.

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When in doubt, it’s good to start by situating yourself. I’m writing this on the traditional territories of the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee peoples, in so-called Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. I live and hold citizenship on the other side of the border in Canada. I’m a white person with a Canadian passport, which makes it pretty easy for me to cross the border and come here. It’s probably easier for me to get to Tel-Aviv than it is for a Palestinian in Gaza to get there.

The Queeruption materials all make clear that the organizers and participants try, in various ways, and probably with varying degrees of success, to be in good relationship with the locations the events are held. As politically engaged people, they show a clear desire to add something to their communities via Queeruption that would last beyond the duration of the event. In Barcelona, the organizers squatted a previously unoccupied factory for the event. It had formerly produced synthetic leather, and attendees were invited to use the leftover materials to make jewelry, BDSM gear, or sex toy harnesses. The space was turned over for other use after the event, and best as I can tell, it still seems to house artist studios today. It’s extremely cool!

Map of the Queeruption Barcelona space

I don’t expect a queer anarchist party to solve all the problems of the world or the country or the city it takes place in. But part of reading about these events is inevitably picturing myself there. Would I have fun? Would I feel comfortable? If I felt uncomfortable, would it be in a productive way or just a shitty way? And what about my friends? Would they be able to get through the border? Would they be able to get through the door?

I generally feel like the answer is to organize more things, and fight to make more space at the current things, not that we shouldn’t organize anything if it’s not going to be perfect and magically exempt from all of the violence of the world that surrounds us. And also, to always remain curious and critical, to look at who’s in the room and consider who isn’t.

CYBER FORAT:: Orginally when we were thinking about writing this zine, we were very excited to tell you about cyberforat, a free, squatted internet cafe in the centre that uses linux software and is collectively run by friends of ours....... But now we are even more fucking excited to announce-- WE DONT HAVE TO TELL YOU HOW TO GET TO CYBERFORAT, BECAUSE THE ENTIRE COLLECTIVE HAS DECIDED TO CLOSE THEIR LOCATION IN THE CENTRE FOR A WEEK AND MOVE HERE TO THE QUEERUPTION FACTORY TO PROVIDE FREE INTERNET DURING QUEERUPTION!! So you will be able to use the internet here in the factory for free, hopefully all week, thanks to the intelligence and abilities of the amazing cyberforat crew!!! wooooooo hooooooo!!!!!!!!

THIS C/Juan Ramon Jimenez 22-BUILDING This building was squatted nearly two months ago by the queeruption collective. It might have been possible to use an already squatted space for queeruption, but we decided we would rather squat something new. This was not only in order to have more squatted space in the city, but also to make a space that during queeruption would be "ours", so that we as queeruption would not have to! compromise with anybody and so that we would be able to organize the gathering exactly how we wanted to. Because it was just squatted recently, the building is not free of problems. There's not a space for everything we need a space for and we were't able to make it very pretty. But more importantly, there are dangers in the factory and things to be careful of. This was a factory that made artificial leather and there are still machines and chemicals in some parts of the factory. Queeruption is already a chaotic event and so please don't create any additional stress by trying to get into spaces that are obviously closed off. If you do come across any chemicals or strange machines, then please leave them alone. Also because of the fire risk we can't have any fires on the patio or use candles in the sleeping spaces. Emergency exits are at the front doors and there is also an emergency exit at the back of the sex party room. After queeruption finishes there are other projects planned for the factory and although it is Ok to stay for a couple of days to help clear up, after this it will not be possible for people to stay in the building. So if you want to stay longer in Barcelona after queeruption, you should make friends with people who have houses here, or maybe think about squatting something new. -38-

Queer Movement in Barcelona Barcelona is thought of as the most cosmopolitan city of Spain, and one of the most modern in Europe, but actually the queer movement hardly exists, it is not known about; very few people have ever heard the word queer. There are many homosexual people in Barcelona and 99% of them are swallowed up by and trapped in the "fashion gay" system, victims of Kalvin Klein, their mirrors, superficiality and meaningless consumerism (1 beer = 8 euros) The last 1% that's left over of gay people in Barcelona have in the last 3 years been making small self-organised gatherings, where we have been communicating and sharing our experiences around identity, gender, and ways to live our sexuality. We hope that by making Queeruption in Barcelona, many people will find an alternative to the 'fashion victim gay', and choose something other than this.

¿Why spell Karcelona WiTh k? Why do we sometimes say Karcelona and not Barcelona? Barcelona is trying to sell itself as a trendy cultural European city. More and more infrastructure is being built for tourists and rich people. The old town is being "cleaned up" to make way for more designer bars and shopping areas, and the old industrial areas are being made into luxury flats. Last year there was a huge exhibition event called Forum 2004 which claimed to be an international meeting point for dialogue on cultural diversity, sustainability and peace. Funded by multinational companies whose operations have nothing to do with these three values, the city government was more interested in using the event to bring in investment to the city, and as an excuse to redevelop a whole section of the city into a new business district. We want to reject this image of Barcelona and welcome you instead to the Barcelona we actually live in. To remind you that this is a city where there are good things, but they are rapidly being commercialized out of existence, where there are many many people who reject, resist or are excluded from the new Barcelona. Because the other side of the story, is, as in any other part of this fucked up world, harsh repression trying to force people into their allotted social roles; a prison society (carcel is the Spanish word for prison). Prison society refers to physical prisons - the threat hanging over the thousands of immigrants who the state has not granted legal status to, or those who the state chooses to lock up for their political, economic or other activities. But it also includes the 'prisons without walls' of capitalist society: shit jobs, schools that turn children into machines, the constant police presence on the streets, the culture of conformity that is promoted everywhere from television screens to the commercial gay scene.

Jonterias Foolishnes polla cock. cunt coño, chocho chichi ¿Puedo compartir tu saco de dormir? Me gustan las personas sin genero!! Me gustan las chicas. Me gustan los chicos. Est@ ti@ esta que te cagas!! Me cago en dios!! La sodomia es super guay!! Donde estan todas las bellezas queer? Los heteros pueden ser muy fachas. caliente azotar chupamela ¿me dejas olerte? ¿dormimos junt@s? ¿solo dormir? Mmmmm.... ufffff!!! Que calor! Una cerveza, por favor. ¿Me pones hielo en la espalda? No es no. Ahora, no, quizas luego. Dejame en paz! No me toques!! Tocame!! Comelo. 77 To cum me corrooo000000 Can i share your sleeping bag? I like people without gender!! I like girls. I like boys. That kid is so hot!! Holy shit!! Sodomy is the best thing ever!! Where are all the cute queer kidz? Straight people can be fucking fasc Turned on ** to spank suck my cock Can i smell you? Can we sleep together? Only to sleep? Mmmmm Fucking hell it's hot!! One beer please. Can i have a bee Can you run ice down my spine? No means no. Not right now but maybe later. Leave me alone! Don't touch me!! Touch me!! Eat Me. correrse I'M CUMMING...

The Queeruption materials are cool because they show a community in the process of figuring out its collective values and how to align an event to them on the fly. Everything is provisional and up for debate. The way the Queeruption zines and materials present snapshots of this work is remarkable and precious.

The festival zine for Queeruption Barcelona reminds participants that to make the event successful, they needed to take part in “DJing, performing, dressing up, dancing, flirting, fucking, talking, laughing, and meeting new people… Wash your own dish, clean a toilet once this week, chop a carrot!! CONTRIBUTE!!! DON’T JUST CONSUME!!!”

To build the world we want to live in, we’re gonna need to chop a lot of carrots and have a lot of hard, messy community conversations. Consensus-based decision-making is pretty mind-boggling if you’re not used to it! It can be really seductive to want someone else to do all the work, and just be able to show up to a fully-realized event. But learning how to work together and talk it out and compromise, how to build in a way that’s really different from capitalist ways of gathering, how to sometimes take space in illegal or unauthorized ways.

Documenting this work gives us something to build on, and shows us some things that are possible but that we may not have considered. And archiving this documentation means that the work and conversations can spread far beyond the time and space of one event.

Tag: anarchism

Queeruption & the value of documenting and archiving hard conversations

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