It’s still January! Before we get to anything else, I would like to encourage y’all to join us in opposition to Ash Reagan’s Nordic Model bill. Scotland for Decrim have made a nice tool for emailing your MSPs, which you can find here. Do it now! No finishing the newsletter until you do it! Leatherdykes stand with SWs!

Now then…

Upcoming Events

History Night / Bootblack Social

We’re giving our long awaited Leatherdyke History & Culture presentation on Wednesday 21st January, at Adrian’s on Victoria Road (G42 8RW) from 7pm till late as well. The presentation starts at 7:30pm sharp, so get there in good time. After the presentation, we’ll have some kits for practicing bootblacking or giving it a go for whoever wants to try.

FEMME presents Rebel Dykes

FEMME are screening Rebel Dykes (2021) also at Adrian’s on Victoria Road (G42 8RW), Thursday 29th January from 6:30pm. We’ll be there providing some bootblacking services, and the producer, Siobhan Fahey, will be there for a Q&A!

Trans Healthcare Access Glasgow’s Pub Quiz

I’m doing some shameless cross promotion here for THAG’s Pub Quiz, happening Sunday 1st February, at Variety Bar on Sauchiehall Street (G2 3LG) from 7:30pm till 9:30pm. Teams are of 3–5 people, but if you don’t have a quiz team ready to go you can talk to a host there. There are prizes also! Make sure to get your tickets in advance here.

Bar Night

Our next usual bar night will be on Wednesday 4th February, at Game Over on Drury Street (G2 5AA) from 7pm till 11:30pm(ish). As always, there will be no engagement from us with whatever cultural nightmare is happening around the time (Valentine’s day in this case) – no flowers, no hearts, just leather.

Leatherdykes Recommend…

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel (Photographer Rowan)

“It holds up! It’s kind of shocking how legible a lot of queer culture from the late 80s into the 90s is 35-ish years later as basically what we’re doing now and how much of the comedy and drama still feels topical. If you’re enjoying current lesbian comics stuff (shout outs to my favs: Annabelle Olendzki’s Doghaus and The Lavender Variety and Bells White’s Dead End Dot Com) it’s definitely worth going back and (re)visiting the classics at the same time.”

Piaffe (2022), dir. Ann Oren (Milo)

“Okay so crucially nobody actually has any lesbian sex in this movie, BUT it is really good. I don't really know how to explain what it's about - the othering and fetishization of trans women, kinky sex, struggling with depression, living vicariously for an institutionalised loved one, the way that some people get to “dabble” in queer life while others live and die by it (you may or more not agree that all of this is going on in this film). There's a lot going on in this film but I really like it, as do all the people I've shown it to. Vibe-dense and cinematic.”

Blog

It feels like just last month I was saying we’d had our best bar night yet! But now, once again, our last bar night was our best attended. I don’t know how that happened in the first week of January, honestly. Thank y’all, at any rate.

Shout out to everyone who bought a zine last event also! The money we made there will be used to pay for posters, more zines, etc. Running costs for all this are pretty low but not none – so it really does help. The zines will continue to be available at future events. AND! Bootblack Rowan & I finished a first draft of ANTI-PROTOCOL!! (I did in fact write my section, hah.) Currently we are waiting for Milo to tear it apart so we can put it back together, but hopefully it’ll be on our gay little front desk for y’all soon enough.

Also! We’ve managed to get some short pieces together for a zine from admin team. That will be coming… also soon, hopefully.

As always, I am sending you my love in addition to all these pithy words.

With extremely, extremely cautious optimism,
yr girl, yvette, for Glasgow Leatherdykes