Connecting queers in Bristol and beyond

A quarterly double-sided print newsletter distributed by post, by queers for queers hopes to bring LGBTQ+ together – in Bristol and beyond.

“Modern Queers isn’t just about creating connection and community between queers, in response to the lack of queer spaces, it’s also specifically about trying to do that offline,” say the founders of the new project.

Run collaboratively by Hannah Aspinall, Jacob Cain, Rachael Clerke, Jen Conway and Danny Prosser, Modern Queers is a way for LGBTQ+ people to feel connected with their community when queer spaces can feel increasingly distant.

“We’ve been spending many a night during this pandemic missing our queer community and dreaming about the next time we might all be together on the dance floor of a stunning queer party,” says the Modern Queers team.

“Danny used to be involved in organising Thorny and we miss it! We imagine, because of Covid-19, many queers are yearning to reconnect with each other.

“But even before this year of lockdowns and isolation began, we were feeling frustrated by the lack of queer spaces there are for us in our own city. There isn’t a reliable place to go to be with our community.”

Thorny at the Exchange. Photo: Paul Samuel White

The team add: “Modern Queers isn’t just about creating connection and community between queers, in response to the lack of queer spaces, it’s also specifically about trying to do that offline. A kind of positive rejection.

“Of course there has been amazing digital queer connection happening, for example we are massive fans of Queer House Party. But we were interested in creating something physical that you could hold in your hands.”

The quarterly newsletter, inspired by a 1994 copy of Lesbian Connection that Jen picked up at the Lesbian Herstory archives in New York, Hannah’s love of the email newsletter as a medium, and watching Cate Blanchett stuff envelopes as Phyliss Schlafly in the TV show Mrs America, will be community-led.

The majority of each issue will be formed by submissions, relevant news and personal ads.

Writers from Cardiff, Glasgow and Berlin have already been confirmed for the first issue, with submissions still open.

A 1994 copy of Lesbian Connection inspired Modern Queers. Photo: Modern Queers

Anyone queer can submit up to 100 words, at any time.

“By queer, we mean someone who identifies as LGBTQIA+ and/or socially and politically identifies as queer,” say the Modern Queers team. “You can also still be working this out.

“A subscription is £6 for four newsletters a year, which is £1.25 per newsletter and a £1 solidarity fee to help us send copies to LGBTQIA+ charities and groups, like Freedom, that Jacob works with, for free.”

Allies can gift their subscription to a queer person, and the newsletter will also be available as an MP3 file and in large print.

“We want the newsletter to nurture and strengthen our community,” the team says. “There is still so much more work to be done, especially for our trans siblings of colour and sex workers.

“As queer activist Adam Eli says: ‘Queer people anywhere are responsible for queer people everywhere’.”

Main photo: Jen Conway

Read more: Bristol in 2020: the LGBTQ+ community