i theous

 Queer Mutiny Turns

Six in Amsterdam  

. 

Bv Jesse SANFORD

of urban decay. You are on the
side of a wide, slow-moving
canal, in a cool northern city. On the
bank, two hundred people, a galaxy
of genders and hair colors, are laugh-
ing, chatting, drinking and dancing.

Imagine a wonderland in the midst

. Abridge leaps over the water; from

it hangs a banner: “Queer Mutiny
Now!”

Beyond the crowd a dilapi-
dated warehouse of brick and con-
crete has somehow escaped conver-
sion into luxury lofts despite impos-
sibly large windows. Should you
climb the steps and enter, you would
find a vast, dimly lit space, a giant
kitchen along one edge, a stage, and
a shop where everything is free. You
could build your own bicycle from
parts piled in one corner, or pass
through a curtain into a working cin-
ema, just built last week, complete
with red carpets, floor lighting, and
rows of plushly upholstered theater
seats. All this from nothing, or barely

. anything: the warehouse is squatted

space-, the furniture from donations
or scavenged from dumpsters. Even
in the days of capita1ism’s supreme
triumph, it is still possible to host a
weeklong festival, providing food,
water and housing for 300 people
free of charge, on a budget less than
$6000.

Another banner hung luxu-
riously down two stories of the ware-
house. “Fuck the pope,” it read, “but
use a condom.” That caption pretty
much encapsulates the philosophy
behind the Queeruptions, a series of
political gatherings that take place
once or twice a year in an increasing-
13’ global spread of cities. It scarcely
need be said that this latest, in
Amsterdam June 1-7, was damn
straight punk rock.

I can still remember the
firs‘ Queeruption organizing meeting
I attended, held in the women-run
bookstore Bluestockings on New
York City’s Lower East Side. Anti-
Capitalist politics were nothing new
to me. In college I had written a col-
Umn for the campus newspaper
called “Yuppicide,” and my grand-
mother took me to my first demo

when I was eight. The queer connec-
tion, though, I hadn’t yet explored.
At that meeting were thirty queers of
a more dizzying array of genders
than I had ever imagined, moving
through the organization of what I
could see was a vastly more complex
event than any I had produced in the
past, and doing it with remarkably
little handwringing. (I didn’t realize
at the time that this was due primari-
ly to Matti1da’s,particular talent as a
facilitator.) Housing shares, food, a
wheelchair access ramp, workshop
schedules, plans for a demonstration
or two: all these things and more
were on the agenda.

During the next few years,
I was to move into a queer anarchist
collective, attend, enjoy and finally ,_
organize massive pan-gender sex
parties, and begin amassing a size-
able arrest record as a protestor
against corporate hegemony and the
abusive norms of the heterosexual
family which support it. I spent
countless hours in discussion of
white supremacy, the politics of gen-
der, sexuality and the family, of
ageism, classism, state surveillance
and veganism. For me, and for hun-
dreds of other queer organizers and
artists, the Queeruptions have
become a source of strength, suste-
nance, new ideas - and occasionally
a battle ground, where hard political
work comes as we all seek ways to
‘get along together.

Because Queeruption is a
do-it-yourself event, the participants
are responsible for the logistics;
because it is organized by consensus,
‘many different needs must be taken
into account before a decision can be
reached. It is due to these organizing
techniques, and to a deep commit-
ment to minimizing engagement with
the money economy, that broader
issues arise out of such seeming
banalities as food, water, waste,
event setup and security.

At Queeruption 6, for
example, admission to the sex party
required a special ‘X’ on the wrist
which could only be obtained after
reading, in one of five languages, a
long list of guidelines and back-
ground information on such topics as
condoms and consent. Much discus-
sion of racism, body fascism, and

gender had been necessary to devel-
op a layout for the space: there was
open space, dungeon space, gendered
space, foodfight space. When some-
one mentioned at a meeting earlier in
the day that cameras would be pro-
hibited at the party, there was an
objection — and organizers decided to
create as well a clearly-marked cam-
era space to accommodate film and
photo fetishists.

At all the Queeruptions I
have attended, well over half the
workshops never took place. This is
not necessarily a problem, since dis-
cussion and training in activism
takes place as circumstances arise. In
Amsterdam, half the attendees
bussed off to the Hague to protest
against the far-right Dutch
Nationalist Party, widely considered
a neo-Nazi from group. When we
made the mistake of marching past. '
the US embassy — which last year
had its windows smashed in a protest
against the Iraq invasion — we were
surrounded by riot cops, beaten, and
arrested. Back at the gathering, the
remaining attendees swung
into action — and those which had
never done legal support for a
demonstration had a perfect chance
to learn.

Likewise, those workshops
that did take place more often than
not were discussions of power and
bias issues that emerged during the

p logistics discussions. As has been

documented in Market This! a recent
film from Paper Tiger Television, the
NYC Queeruption ended in a bitter
conflict over white supremacy and
diversity in organizing.

Queeruptions are not for,
the faint of heart, though when diffi-
cult discussions seem a bit much —
perhaps one has been lingering too
long in Amsterdam’s legendary cof-
fee shops — one can always show up
for samba drumming or bicycle
ballet. V

Jesse Sanford is an activist and a
doctoral student in anthropology
at the University of California-
Berkeley. His work focuses on
ecology,‘ sexuality and technology

. in relation to comtemporury

politics.

 

Good legal advice i

i can make all thedifference. l

V.

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