Day Time Event Schedule

With just 5 days to go until we FREE PRIDE we can now very excitedly reveal to you all the full line up for our day time event – taking place in The Art School from 2pm until 8pm!

We will have the Assembly Hall, Project Space 1, and Project Space 2 of The Art School – all rooms are wheelchair accessible, and there will be gender neutral toilets. Each room will have something different going on in the spirit of Pride.

Project Space 1 will be home to a series of talks and workshops on various issues important to the LGBTQIA+ movement

2.00 – Bisexuality Talk
2.30 – Domestic Abuse Talk
3.00 – Hollaback Workshop
4.00 – Disability Talk
4.30 – Asexuality Talk
5.10 – Who Cares? Workshop
6.05 – WestGAP Workshop
6.45 – Trans Discussion
7.30 – Sex Workers Open University Talk

The Assembly Hall will house a series of LGBTQIA+ artists performing music and poetry

2.00 – Calum Ingram
2.40 – TRANSmission
3.20 – Jessica Secmezsoy-Urquhart
3.40 – Liz Cronin
4.10 – Ross McFagin
4.30 – Banana Tree
5.00 – Elaine Gallacher
5.20 – Ana Hine
5.40 – David Chukwujekwu
6.15 – They They Theys

In the Assembly Hall you will also find stalls from:

LGBT Unity
Sex Workers Open University
Glasgow Women’s Library
Glasgow Roller Derby
Rape Crisis Scotland
WestGAP
Scottish Transgender Alliance,
Who Cares?
HOLLABACK Glasgow
Glasgow Disability Alliance

Project Space 2 will be a quiet area, for adults and children, with Arts and Crafts, and Queer books to read!

There will be an accessibility break of around 10 minutes between each scheduled time!

We are so excited for all of our daytime line up! We hope you are too!!

Night Time Performances!

Our night time event at The Art School from 10pm on Saturday will feature – as well as DJs, and short films – performances by local LGBTQIA+ performers:

ULTRA is a fresh face on the Glasgow drag scene. Having previously performed at Polyester at the Flying Duck and at the Art School’s Degree Show Party, their performance will undoubtedly feature glitter, glamour and killer heels.

“Are You In or Out?” is a new devised piece exploring the process of ‘coming out’ by Nicole J Owens. Imagining a generation where coming out didn’t exist and you were able to just be who you are without that obligatory process.

Gloria as an act is about exploring the inbetween – the space between genders, the space between bad taste and political satire, the space between their eyebrows, the space between ugly and glamorous, the space between drag and actual self, the space between talent and delusion.

These are performances not to be missed!!

Sex Workers Open University

Sex workers’ rights are LGBTQ rights!

Sex Worker Open University is a project created by and for sex workers. The project brings together sex workers, academics, activists, artists and allies to explore the richness, diversity and contradictions of the sex industry. SWOU wants to give a voice to sex workers, whose lives are too often stereotyped and voices too often silenced. They want to challenge media sensationalism, which, hand in hand with the UK government, often represents sex workers as victims or criminals.Their aim is to empower the community through workshops, debates, actions and art projects, as well as fighting against sex work criminalisation.

At Free Pride, members of Sex Workers Open University will be giving a talk entitled “Sex workers rights are LGBTQ rights” and discussing why the LGBTQI movements need to support the struggle for decriminalisation of sex work. The workshop will consist of a short presentation on the sex workers’ rights movement by several members of Sex Worker Open university, followed by a Q&A.

Free Pride Banner Making Night!

To help make the Pride march the sort of event we hope it to be, we are holding a night of arts and crafts to create political banners and posters that will catch the attention of everyone around. This nights will also be a good way for people to meet others and socialise before the event on Saturday!

The night will be this THURSDAY from 6pm until 9pm!

Check out the event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/525769504244950/

FREE PRIDE MARCH

On June 28 1970 the Christopher Street Liberation Day march in New York City marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Brenda Howard – a member of the Gay Liberation Front and other queer activist groups, who was a bisexual, polyamorous, sex-positive feminist, involved in BDSM – became known as the “Mother of Pride” for her work in coordinating the commemorative march. The March started a long tradition of commemorative marches held every year all around the world.

Pride marches are important. They remain a defiant and sometimes vibrant assertion and celebration of identity and community. They remain highly political spaces with the potential for protest and activism to fight for change. And they remain an event in which it takes a lot of courage to attend, especially in places in the world where there is increased threat of attack.

Free Pride will be joining Glasgow Pride’s Pride march on August 22nd before our free event. We will march to peacefully protest the issues in our manifesto and the issues we will be exploring during our event. We would love for you to march with us!

Check out our march event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1622277878034634/

The Commercialisation of Pride

One of the main issues that Free Pride has been set up to protest is the commercialisation of Pride. Pride is for LGBTQIA+ people. It is not for corporations to make themselves look LGBT friendly and make profit off us. Commercial forces are at work in Pride events all around the world, and we need to bring this to an end.

Earlier this year the founder of the website Project Queer made a pie chart showing the groups who were registered to march at this year’s Chicago Pride. His graph shows there were 132 floats or parade slots held by corporations, compared to just 11 held by LGBTQ groups, 5 by groups related to queer people of colour, 1 by a bisexual group, and 1 by a trans group. The representation of trans people at a Pride event should never be equal to or less than the representation of Starbucks.

“Acceptance is very, very in these days. And while many take heart to see rainbows and glitter across their favorite brands, some LGBTQ-rights advocates are increasingly divided over whether that’s unequivocally a good thing—particularly if it’s coming at the expense of the radical politics that characterized the Stonewall Riots that birthed the modern pride movement.”

If a pie chart was made of your local Pride march, would it fare better than Chicago’s?

Check out the pie chart and the article here:
http://chicagoist.com/…/evidence_of_the_corporatization_of.…

Stall and Talk: WestGAP

Homelessness and poverty disproportionately affects young LGBTQIA people, who may be kicked out of their homes, are often discriminated against when trying to secure housing or employment, and face violence and harassment. These issues are rarely mentioned when discussing LGBTQIA rights, and that’s something we want to change.

WestGAP is an anti-poverty community group run by and for people in Glasgow who have first-hand experience of living in poverty. They provide a free, independent and confidential advice service covering welfare rights as well as support with housing problems, fuel poverty, homelessness and a wide range of other issues.

WestGAP will have a stall at Free Pride, and will also be giving a talk on LGBTQIA homelessness and poverty, looking at how new cuts to benefits will disproportionately affect LGBTQIA young people.
We hope to raise awareness of this issue and make it central to discussions of LGBTQIA rights, as well as making people aware of the brilliant support and help WestGAP provide!

Performers: They They Theys

We would love to extend a massive thank you to everyone who has responded to our call for LGBTQIA+ performers so far – the response has been overwhelming!

Cities, towns, and villages all over the world are full of talented LGBTQIA+ artists and individuals who all too often get sidelined at Pride events – getting hidden away in smaller tents and spaces while time on the mainstage is given to non-LGBTQIA+ performers with mild mainstream success. And we feel the diversity of performers on Pride mainstages rarely ever represent the diversity of our queer communities.

At Free Pride we want to create a space that will put LGBTQIA+ performers and artists centre stage, and that will prioritise the representation of those who are commonly sidelined on such stages – for example performers with disabilities and people of colour.

Throughout the day time event we will have poetry and music from many local individuals and groups. One group that we are excited to announce is the They They Theys!

They They Theys are poet Sandra Alland and musicians Lawrence, Chris Red and Nathan Gale. They are sometimes accompanied by the stunning films of Ania Urbanowska and BSL performance by Alison Smith. Their debut performance at ‘SEEP: Fluidity in Body & Landscape’ received 5 stars from The Skinny, and The Student said: “They They Theys are at once a band, a film and a poem. A beautifully shot film, carefully orchestrated with Sandra Alland’s words, and strings, a harmonica, percussion and an oboe, touches on the issue of bodily fluidity whilst also allowing itself to be a startling piece of art.”

Watch the short film here:
www.blissfultimes.ca/theytheytheys.htm

Check out more about them here:
https://www.facebook.com/TheyTheyTheys/timeline

Talks and Workshops: Who Cares?

At too many Pride events around the world the focus is too much on partying and creating a festival atmosphere. Pride has lost its radical, political edge and we want to return Pride to its roots. Unlike too many other Prides, at Free Pride we want to put priority on creating safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ people to have educational and radical discussions, talks, and workshops that brings the focus of the day back to LGBTQIA+ people and issues that are important and all to often overlooked.

Throughout the day we will have various talks and workshops on topics including bisexuality, asexuality, intersectionality, and sex work. One talk that we are very excited for is a talk from “Who Cares?”

Who Cares? Scotland is an independent charity and membership organisation that supports people brought up in the care system. At present, 15000 young people are living in care in Scotland. Who Cares? Scotland works intersectionally and explores and promotes all parts of young people’s identities. 90% of young people are taken into care because of abuse and neglect but they report feeling judged and stigmatised because of their care experience.

At Free Pride, LGBT care experienced young people will share their stories. They will talk to attendees about what it is like to be LGBT and in care. To worry about whether your new foster parent or children’s home worker will accept your identity and to have no control over where you live if they don’t. They will ask people in attendance to take the Pledge To Listen and let them know how they can help to make society better for young people brought up in care of the state.

Stay tuned to our event page for more information on the other talks, workshops and discussions, as well as the running order to be announced soon!

Stalls at Free Pride!

Stalls! Everybody loves stalls!

At Free Pride we aim to have a space for LGBTQIA+ groups, organisations, and charities, among others, to set up stalls to reach out to those of us at the event! Stalls like these are great ways for these groups to provide helpful and educational information and support to those who need it, as well as helping the distribution of important health and well being provisions (also sometimes cute tote bags and badges!)

At too many Pride events around the world these spaces are being dominated by corporate organisations who use their stalls to sell their products and capitalise on the pink pound, as well as using them to engage in pinkwashing
where they use their inclusion of LGBT staff members to distract from their failure to support the needs of queer people around the world. Many Pride events even require that entry wristbands or tickets are purchased to access these stalls, and as a result cut off the important information and support from those who may need it most.

At Free Pride we want stalls to be free to access! We already have stalls confirmed with LGBT Unity, Sex Workers Open University, Glasgow Women’s Library, Glasgow Roller
Derby, WestGap, and Rape Crisis Scotland.

So make sure you check out our stalls on the day from 2pm at the Art School!