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P!NK BLOC hosts drag demo

More : P!NK BLOC, Politiq queer, Student Protest, student strike

by Michael Hawrysh on June 14, 2012

Sequined provocateurs the P!NK BLOC are calling on all of their gender-fluid friends to Parc Émilie-Gamelin Friday (June 15) at 6pm for a march to show LGBTQ support for the student strike. Get out your heels – or your ties, or both! – and join the #ggi crew, along with Dukes of Drag and an assortment of queers allied with the student cause.

The P!NK BLOC, a group of LGBTQ students, feminists and allies, has been colourfully animating student protests for the past few months. Dressed in flashy hot pink and armed with sequins and glitter, they have been adding a feminist and queer perspective to the student movement, chanting cheers such as “Consensual sex is hot, tuition fees are not” and challenging police patriarchy with cheers like “police you suck, but do you swallow?” and “You’re sexy. You’re cute. Take off your riot suit!”

But now they’ve decided to crank up the fabulosity and get frocked with a Genre de Grève, a protest in full drag to denounce “the recent violation of our fundamental rights and our freedom of expression”. In a press release, the bloc sent a message to police and the mass media: “we refuse to become the caricatures that you portray us as… Our bodies should not be the subject of ridicule. Our gender expressions should not be the subject of your judgement.”

In keeping with the defiance of the controversial Bill 78, the protestors will not be providing the police with an itinerary. The P!NK BLOC stated: “Charest wants us to give an itinerary? We reclaim our right to circulate freely, without being intimidated. Harper and his gang want to prevent us from protesting wearing a mask? We reclaim our right to self-representation, to dress and wear make-up as we please. Tremblay and his lackeys want to create false divisions between us (students vs. taxpayers, youth vs. baby boomers)? We reject these simplistic dichotomies, just as we reject the hetero-patriarchal system that puts us into these rigid boxes.”

The protest begins tomorrow (Friday, June 15) at 6pm in the Parc Émilie-Gamelin. For more information, visit pinkblocmontreal.wordpress.com or on Facebook.