About Us

The London Queer Social Centre will be active from June 29th to July 12th 2014, running a series of events as an alternative to the corporate, homogenised, establishment official Pride London.

If you’re part of a group that would like to run an event during this year’s social centre, please drop us an email explaining your idea to house.of.brag@gmail.com

We prioritise providing a space and a platform to voices that otherwise have difficulty being heard. We would like to hear from groups fighting oppression both here and abroad, from people with stories to tell and ideas to share. Talks, workshops, debates and discussions, film screenings, performances, music and fun, whatever shape your event might take, we’d love to hear about it. Have a read of our Core Principles (below) to ensure you’re happy with what we’re about.

What is LQSC? The London Queer Social Centre is a squatted, volunteer-run, non-commercial project intended to provide a large free-to-use space available to queer/activist/liberation/radical and local communities to organise, network, share ideas, relax and have fun. It may be worth noting that although LQSC is not alcohol-oriented we do not have a dry space policy – alcohol may be brought in and around the space at any time except on specifically designated dry days. If you like to run an event on a dry-day, please get in touch.

Why a ‘queer’ social centre? Why not just a social centre for everybody? LQSC does welcome everybody, but the impetus for this project was the observation that there are very few places and opportunities for queer people to meet up and organise around issues that specifically affect queer people. We seek to provide a non-commercial, non alcohol-orientated space for that to happen, but in addition we welcome and hope to engage with anybody who has an interest in our ethos and what we’re doing.

Can I get involved? Sure! LQSC seeks to blur the line between service provider and service user. We run open organisational meetings (watch out for notifications of these on Twitter and Facebook) and we’d love to see you there. And we’ll need volunteers to help with the social centre itself – cleaning, cooking, setting up for events, etc. If you’d like to be involved with that, please email us and tell us!

Core Principles

i) We aim to create a platform centring the normally most marginalised voices. In line with this aim, we will not be dedicating stage time to political parties

ii) Donations do not buy a platform, logo, or any other special treatment or exposure

iii) We don’t negotiate or engage with the police

iv) We aspire to create spaces emphasizing safety, inclusivity and liberation

v) No entry to any of our events for people with fascist affiliations

vi) We consider squatting as a core tactical tool, in the militant spirit of pride as a protest