Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Cumming Out Party: Oct. 2!!




Queer fAction is finally cumming out. We're going to step it up this year, and we want YOU to join us.


Who: YOU, your friends, lovers, aunts, cousins, grandfathers...
What: Hanky Code party. Dancing. DJ. Queer History. Collective Art.
Where: SAW Gallery (67 Nicholas St.)
When:Friday, Oct 2nd. 9pm-1am
Why: because we're awesome like that
How: by donation, $5-$10 sliding scale

A night of queer history, collective art, great music, dancing, drinking (cheap beer), gender bendin’, and much more will ensue. But more importantly, cum out to get familiar with Queer fAction, our basis of unity, and fellow queers!

Queer fAction is a radical queer group, based in Ottawa, challenging gender oppression, patriarchy, heterosexism and all other oppression within the queer community and society at large. We believe in the complete freedom of sexual and gender expressions, harnessing the power of grassroots to express solidarity and confront oppression.

Wear a hanky! The Hanky Code was used by men who have sex with men in the 70's to flag what they were looking for. We're reviving and expanding this sexy tradition to all queers! Wear a certain coloured hanky in a certain pocket so people know what you're looking for! For more info on the hanky code, go to: http://alt.xmission.com/~trevin/hanky.html We'll have a few hankys on sale ($3) in case you forget yours.

For folks who want to get involved, we will be having a new members meeting on October 5th at 7pm in UCU301 (at Ottawa U). Check us out at: www.queerfaction.blogspot.com


**Note to folks who don't identify as queer: Come to the party! But please be prepared to be perceived as queer. Please respect the queer space and don't be rude or dismissive if someone queer hits on you. You might consider wearing an orange hanky in your right pocket (“nothing now”) as a queer-positive solution.

**This is a discrimination-free party. Stigma based on HIV status, gender identity or expression, sexuality, race, class or ability is bullshit.

**Club Saw is wheelchair-accessible.


*****************************************************

fAction Queer va avoir un party!

Qui: TOI et tous tes amiEs, tes amantEs, tes tantes, tes cousinEs et ton grand-père...
Quoi: Party de Code Bandanas. Danse. DJ. L'histoire queer. L'art collective.
Où: Galerie SAW (67, rue Nicholas, à Ottawa)
Quand: vendredi 2 octobre. 21h00-1h00
Pourquoi: c'est le fun
Comment: don de 5$ à 10$, échelle flexible

Une soirée d''histoire queer, arts collectives, de la musique, la danse, bière moins chère, gender bendin', et encore plus! Mais plus important, viens connaître fAction Queer, nos points d'unité et d'autres queers!

fAction Queer est un groupe queer basé à Ottawa. Nous nous opposons à l'oppression de tous genres, incluant, mais non limité à, l'hétérosexisme, le patriarcat, le classisme et le sexisme. Nous croyons en la liberté totale de libre
expression de nos désirs et expressions sexuelles. La solidarité et l'action directe sont nos armes.

Porte ton bandana! Le code bandanas était employé par les hommes queer au années 70 pour annoncer leurs préférences spécifiques. Nous rétablissons et élaborons cette tradition sexy pour tous les queers! Porte un hanky de certain couleur dans un certain poche pour que les gens savent ce que tu cherches! Pour plus de renseignements sue le code bandanas clique ici: http://www.skinhy.com/zg-skincuirff.htm Il y aura quelques bandanas en vente (3$) si tu oublies le tien.

Pour les gens qui veulent s'impliquer, une réunion pour les nouveaux membres aura lieu le lundi 5 octobre à 19h00 dans la salle UCU301 (à l'U d'O). Pour plus d'infos: www.queerfaction.blogspot.com


**Aux les gens qui ne s'identifient pas comme queer: Venez au party! Mais SVP soyez prêt d'être perçu comme queer. SVP respectez l'espace queer et ne soyez pas rude ou méprisant si une personne queer vous cruise ou vous fait des avances. Vous pourriez considérer porter un bandana orange dans la poche droit (« rien maintenant ») pour une solution queer-positive.

**C'est un party sans discrimination. La sérophobie et tout stigmate basé sur l'identité ou expression de genre, la sexualité, la race, la classe, ou un handicap sont de la marde.

**Club SAW est accessible aux fauteuils-roulantes.



Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Call for Action: Tell IGLTA that Apartheid Israel is not for LGBT Leisure Tourism!

From: http://queerswithoutborders.com/wpmu/blog/2009/09/07/call-for-action-tell-iglta-that-apartheid-israel-is-not-for-lgbt-leisure-tourism/

ISSUED BY:
Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, Toronto
Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Queer BDS activists from Israel

On October 10-16, 2009, the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) is planning to hold a tourism conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, aimed at boosting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) leisure tourism to Israel. The audience of this conference is expected to be made up mostly of travel agents who specialize in promoting LGBT tourism. With this conference IGLTA, in cooperation with an Israeli LGBT organization, the Aguda, will give its symbolic and financial support to a state that continually occupies, oppresses and dispossess millions of Palestinians and murders and imprisons many thousands of them.

We, queer activists and groups, call on LGBTQI people and friends around the world to join us in our protest against IGLTA’s promotion of leisure tourism to apartheid Israel. We demand that IGLTA cancel its planned conference in Israel and cease any promotion of tourism to this country.

For some time now, Israeli officials and organizations such as the Aguda, who are cooperating closely with IGLTA, have been promoting LGBT tourism to Israel through false representations of visiting Tel Aviv as not taking sides, or as being on the “LGBT” side, as if LGBT lives were the only ones that mattered. It is implied that it’s okay to visit Israel as long as you “believe in peace,” as if what is taking place in Palestine/Israel is merely a conflict between equals, rather than an oppressive power relationship. Consistent with globalization’s tendency to distance the “final product” from the moral implications of the manufacturing process, LGBT tourists are encouraged to forget about politics and just have fun in a so-called gay-friendly city.

This Zionist propaganda disguises the reality of anti-LGBT violence. Last month’s Tel Aviv shooting in a gay center has reminded us that it is not as friendly as it is depicted to be. Since that attack, numerous reports have been released on the prevalence of violence against LGBT people in Israel, including a state official report suggesting that “80% of gay teens in Israel suffer some sort of sexual orientation-related abuse” (Ynetnews.com).

Even more importantly, Tel-Aviv’s flashy coffee shops and shopping malls, in contrast with the nearby deprived Palestinian villages and towns, serve as evidence that the Israeli society, just as the Israeli state itself, has built walls, blockades and systems of racist segregations to hide from the Palestinians it oppresses. The intersection of physical and societal separations and barriers have justly earned the term apartheid, referring to an historically parallel racist regime in South Africa against the indigenous Black population of that country. Leisure tourism to apartheid Israel supports this regime. It is not neutral, and it certainly is not a step toward real peace, which can only be based on justice.

We encourage people to visit Palestine and join Palestinians in solidarity with their popular struggle. A number of organizations are doing this, including International Solidarity Movement, Palestine Solidarity Project and International Women’s Peace Service. This clearly is not what IGLTA is doing. Instead, by its actions, IGLTA calls on our communities to turn our backs on the oppression of Palestinians, and to ignore a specifically effective Palestinian popular non-violent initiative – the BDS movement.

On July 9th 2005 171 Palestinian civil society’s organizations issued a statement calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. These measures are to be applied until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194 (http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52).

In recent months, especially after the murderous assault on Gaza, the BDS movement is gaining momentum worldwide. New groups are forming and many have implemented successful non-violent protest actions around the world. These actions inspire us for what is to come. By supporting BDS now, we can have a significant impact on the overall struggle for justice in Palestine. We urge LGBTQI people and friends around the world to endorse the Palestinian call and to join this particular action of solidarity and protest.

TAKE ACTION

Please email International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association, calling on it to cancel its planned conference in Israel and any promotion of tourism to this country. You can compile your own letter or use the sample letter below.

Please email your letter to all management and staff members of IGLTA:

john@iglta.org, richard@iglta.org, deven@iglta.org, usa@iglta.org, tom@iglta.org, aaron@iglta.org, europe@iglta.org, australia@iglta.org, newzealand@iglta.org, caribbean@iglta.org, latinamerica@iglta.org, argentina@iglta.org, brazil@iglta.org, canada@iglta.org, france@iglta.org, germany@iglta.org, greece@iglta.org, israel@iglta.org, lebanon@iglta.org, mexico@iglta.org, poland@iglta.org, southafrica1@iglta.org, southafrica2@iglta.org, spain@iglta.org, sweden@iglta.org, switzerland@iglta.org, turkey@iglta.org, uk@iglta.org, usa@iglta.org

(John Tanzella, Executive Director; Richard Brower, Strategic Development & Marketing Manager; Deven Chism, Administrative Assistant; Babs Daitch , Special Projects; Ann Corbitt, Event Planner; Tom Nibbio, Manager - Partnership Development; Aaron Riggins, Manager - Membership Development; Carlos Kytka, Manager - Europe; Mark Proffit, Australia / New Zealand Ambassador; André Rojer, Latin America Ambassador; Alfredo Ferreyra, Argentina Ambassador; Clovis Casemiro, Brazil Ambassador; Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce , Canada Ambassador; Clark Massad, France Ambassador; Edwin Brown, Germany Ambassador; Andreas Balakakis, Greece Ambassador; Shai Doitsch, Israel Ambassador; Bertho Makso, Lebanon Ambassador; Ron Kuijpers, Mexico Ambassador; Piotr Wojcik, Poland Ambassador; Adriaan Coetzer, South Africa; Brian Kruger, South Africa Ambassador; Juan A. Carmona Del Solar, Spain Ambassador; Tobias Holfelt, Sweden Ambassador; Spyros Petridis, Switzerland Ambassador; Mustafa Kartopu, Turkey Ambassador; Darren Cooper, United Kingdom Ambassador; Babs Daitch, United States of America Ambassador)
Source: http://www.iglta.org/staff.cfm

Sample Letter

Dear International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association management and staff members,

It was brought to my attention that your organization, IGLTA, is planning to hold a conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, between October 10th, 2009 and October 16th, 2009, aimed at boosting LGBT tourism to Israel. As someone who believes in protecting human rights, I am disturbed by your attempt to promote leisure tourism to apartheid Israel. I plead with you to distance yourselves from Israel’s crimes. Please cancel the conference, along with any other promotion activity on your behalf of tourism to Israel.

Just as I consider LGBT rights to be a human rights issue, the rights of Palestinians are a human rights issue as well. I reject any attempt to depict Tel Aviv as separate from Israel, the state that it is, to a large extent, sustaining. Given the continued occupation, colonization and oppression of the Palestinian people by Israel, it seems to me awful and hypocritical to promote leisure tourism to its largest and richest city in the name of LGBT human rights. In an environment of racist segregation, as imposed on the Palestinians by the annexation wall and other fences and blockades, leisure tourism promotion to Tel Aviv and Israel is especially harmful and morally corrupt.

The extent of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, and its long duration, require that organizations and businesses be wary of connecting themselves with it. In the territories occupied in 1967, unarmed Palestinians, including teenagers and children, are routinely shot and imprisoned by the Israeli army. Israeli forces routinely destroy people’s homes, confiscate their land and resources, discriminate against Palestinians in their access to water, and restrict their everyday movement between Palestinian towns and villages. Millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants are prevented from returning to their homes and hometowns, many living in refugee camps without any compensation for their continued loss and suffering. In only the three weeks of its most aggressive military offensive on Gaza, the Israeli army killed more than 1400 Palestinians, wounded thousands of people and destroyed the houses of tens of thousands of people.

Since IGLTA, in its activities, is providing symbolic as well as financial support to Israel, I see it as inevitable to connect IGLTA to such atrocities. Only by abstaining from dealing with Israel can you distance yourselves from such moral corruption and the rightful criticism that will come with it.

Sincerely,

Your name
Your city and country of residence

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Queers Against Apartheid

Check it out! A few pictures of the Queers Against Apartheid, from Canada to Israel contingent in the Pride Parade.