The 16th-25th of september it is time for the second annual International Queer Culture Festival in Saint Petersburg. The festival is a very important event for the freedom of self-expression for gender variants in Russia and the world. The Queertopia Festival gives the festival it’s fullest support. It’s events like Queertopia and the Queer Culture Festival in Saint Petersburg that create safer spaces for queer people and a building ground for queer activism and a queer tomorrow where discrimination is eradicated.

The festival program is impressive and we hope and believe that the festival will be a huge success. Together we are Rainbow Warriors in solidarity with eachother! Visit their website here.

Calling all superstar-wonderful-weirdos! The 22nd-25th of july we made history together! 700 queers filled the town of Norberg for the first queerfeminist musicfestival with camping in Europe leaving it shining with all the colors of the rainbow. It truly was a success with 4 days of queerfeminist music, seminars and love-love-love beyond the norms.

Us organizers have however run into a little problem. Economically we went 5000 euros minus. This however is not all that much and we believe that together we can make this work! We are over 3 000 people in Queertopias Facebook-group and the deficit will be gone if 100 people donate 50 euros or if 200 people donate 25 euros or 300 people donate 12 euros and so on and so forth . So, maybe you weren’t able to make it to the festival cuz you were working, but really support the festival or maybe you were at the festival and would love to see it happen again next year? If so, and if you feel it’s economically possible for you, please-please-please donate <3 <3 It will earn you a spot in queer heaven <3

Donations can be made to: PLUSGIRO-ACCOUNT 52 95 62-1 (for transfers in Sweden) or to IBAN: SE54 9500 0099 6042 0529 5621 SWIFT-code: NDEASESS (for international transfers)

LOVE-LOVE-LOVE BEYOND THE NORMS FROM THE QUEERTOPIA ORGANIZERS!

PS We are a not-for-profit festival, so if we were to get more than 5000 euros in donations all the proceeds will go to Queer organizations in Bosnia and Lithuania <3

Queertopia is made up and created by everyone present. To make the dismantling of the festival easier, we have implemented a cleaning system. When you arrive on the festival site, you get a garbage bag for SEK 20. When you go home, you check in your full garbage bag and get your money back. Naturally we separate waste and recycle. You will get more information at the entrance. Please remember that we can only accept cash.

Please note that you cannot use credit cards neither in the entrance to the festival, nor anywhere on the festival site. Cash withdrawal from an ATM can be made in Norberg’s centre. Only Swedish currency can be used.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any better, that’s when the Queertopia festival goes all out there and releases the following fabulous acts! Click to read more.

Erik Mägi will lead the seminar Law for all families.

GBG Queerinstitut presents its venerable past and reveals its grandiose future plans.

Goldie Dartmouth is a radical fat femme queer finno-english burlesque performance artist currently based in Berlin.

Goldie Dartmouth & Amy Brachi will hold a workshop called Understanding control in queer relationships and communities.

Lisa Gålmark is an independent culture journalist, writer and lecturer in issues concerning animal rights and feminism.

Meshuggahbabes is a trio consisting of Idol-Johan, Idol-Amanda and Idol-Erik. Their concept is to do naked, almost acoustic versions of well-known radiohits – pop, r’n'b, hiphop, with the pattern of them all being a bit “dirty”.

FUL-TALK! (The magazine ful) is a culture magazine and a stage of art.

Dance queerpolska! Learn to dance old Swedish folkdance in a queer feminist manner.

Ain’t I a Woman - the campaign for papperless womens right to asylum will talk about LGBTQ-peoples and womens right to asylum and the need for more rights in the Swedish asylum process.

It’s only one week left till the historical, revolutionary, activist, queerfeminist and completely phenomenal Queertopia Festival starts!!! Before we greet you in Norberg we just want to remind you of some things:

1. You can buy tickets at the festival site for 700 SEK (70 euros). But we would like you to buy tickets beforehand, cuz it makes our planning easier.

2. If you can’t come to the whole festival remember that there are one day tickets for sale for 250 sek (25 euros). Buy these at our ticket site and keep on clickin’ till ya get to the ticket categories). You can also buy two one day tickets for 500 SEK in case you only can be at the festival friday and saturday.

3. We will be organizing a gigantic and phenomenal and fantastic parade on sunday at 2 PM. Don’t miss it! The parade is in the spirit of D.I.Y. (Do it Yourself), so own contributions are welcomed and supported. As of now there are plans for creative actions againt the male dominance in the culture- and music world!

4. If you have a hard time affording the trip up to Norberg, try hitch-hiking or carpool! Please write something at our carpooling forum. Carpooling is inexpensive, good for the environment and you get to know new wonderful people. Can it get any better!? <3 <3 <3

See you next week in Norberg and don’t forget that we aren’t sure if the festival will be organized next year, so this just might be a once in a lifetime-opportunity. Don’t miss it! And by the way, there will be no need for The Queertopia Festival next year cuz this years festival marks the start of the revolution and than Queertopia Festival won’t be needed since the whole world will have turned into a Queer Utopia!!!! <3

LOVE BEYOND THE NORMS FROM THE QUEERTOPIA FESTIVAL ORGANIZERS <3 <3 <3 <3

Feel like going drag during Queertopia?

Be a diva, a grrl/boi next door, a cuddly bear or a panther – with a little help from our very own drag tent! All for free, at this summer’s Queertopia festival!

And if you happen to have clothes to give away, you can donate them too. Our goal is to provide different types of clothes in all sizes, and the more that contribute, the better!

We’re happy to present even more fabulous activities happening at this year’s Queertopia festival! The schedule for performances/workshops/films will be posted soon. (For workshops held in Swedish only, se the Swedish version of the web site at www.queertopiafestivalen.se!)

(Klick the links to read more!)

Performance:

Femme Façade (fr)
Noll Corpus Butohdans
Teater Kaiserin

Workshops:

Irina Schmitt leads “Normcritique and pedagogy?! A workshop for teachers and others who are interested in making schools less normative”http://queertopiafestivalen.se/english/wp-admin/post-new.php

Poe Liberado will lead a workshop called “How to be a good White ally”.

The countdown has begun! It is now only a little bit more than three weeks left till the festival starts and queerfeminist history is written! The schedule for the music stages is ready and can be viewed here. Make sure to check it out so you don’t miss any of your favorites. The schedule for workshops, theater, performances and seminars will also be up soon!

And don’t forget to book you tickets now! The 7th of july the ticket prices will rise from 60 euros to 70 euros. So hurry up and get your tickets and be a part of making history and planning the revolution at Europe’s first queerfeminist festival with camping!

See you in Norberg in three weeks! We will destroy the hetero norm and show everybody what love beyond the norms looks like!

PS In case you’ve missed it we have now booked the fantastic band Kumbia Queers (Arg/Mex) to the festival!

The male dominance in the music world is extreme. One of the queertopia festivals goals is to be an alternative to the all-boys-club of music. As part of this work we have done a gender equality-study of the line ups at 9 festivals (8 swedish and 1 danish). The results are not positive. The male dominance is nearly full scale. Some festival’s seem to almost have forgotten that female artists exist. Most festival’s have booked more than 90 percent men and it is only The Queertopia Festival that has booked a majority of female artist’s. The festival that faired second best in the study is Urkult which has booked around 30 percent female’s. It is clear that a festival like Queertopia, that turns heteropatriarchal structures upside-down and inside-out, is needed.

There are two things that are important to say about the study:

1. We have chosen to count the number of individuals in a band instead of counting every artist as one. We have chosen to count the 25 artists/bands that the festival’s have chosen to market as their headliner’s. The reason for this is that an important aspect of the music scenes male dominance is that the music that men make is seen as more important/relevant than the music that women make. It is almost only male artists that are worshipped and seen as geniuses and icons – men become ”the voice of a generation” while women, at best, can become ”the voice of a generation of women”, since white western heterosexual cis-men are seen as the norm for all humans.

Two festivals in the study have chosen to not have headliners, and instead categorize their artists in alphabetical order: The Queertopia Festival and Urkult. For Queertopia this has been a political choice, to work against the patriarchal and capitalist structures that always organize different artists works in hierarchies.

2. We don’t think that sex/gender has to have anything to do with what your genitals look like. It doesn’t have to have anything to do with what gender the government gave you when you were born. As queer activists are goal is to abolish the gender binary. At the same time this studies goal has been to demonstrate the gender-power structure in the music world. In an effort to compromise between these two goals we have chosen to not count the number of men and women, as if they were fixed categories. Instead we have chosen to use the terms ”perceived male” and ”perceived female”. We don’t want to give ourselves the right to decide someone elses sex/gender.

This is what the gender (in)balance looks like at the festival’s that we have studied (the study was done on the 25th of may):

EMMABODA

Perceived male – 69

Perceived female – 16

SIESTA

Perceived male – 66

Perceived female – 2

ROSKILDE

Perceived male – 84

Perceived female – 2

ARVIKA

Perceived male – 74

Perceived female – 3

HULTSFRED

Perceived male  – 80

Perceived female – 4

WAY OUT WEST

Perceived male – 46

Perceived female – 10

PEACE AND LOVE

Perceived male – 69

Percieved female – 4

URKULT

Perceived male  – 54

Perceived female – 26

QUEERTOPIA

Perceived male – 31

Perceived female – 76