{"id":94761,"date":"2025-02-18T02:09:47","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T02:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/activist\/the-rave-salvaging-toilets-for-londons-queers\/"},"modified":"2025-02-18T02:09:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T02:09:47","slug":"the-rave-salvaging-toilets-for-londons-queers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=94761","title":{"rendered":"The rave salvaging toilets for London\u2019s queers"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n
<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/div>\n

Happy Endings \u2014 Public bathrooms have long been contested spaces for LGBTQ+ communities, and rising transphobia is seeing them come under scrutiny. With the infamous rave-in-a-bog at an east London institution, its party-goers are claiming them for their own.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a dark evening in early January. From my vantage point inside east London\u2019s Dalston Superstore<\/a>, I can see one of the very few people out on the streets battling the freezing wind. The city is a desolate, post-Christmas wasteland, covered with that<\/em> grey sheen of the first few days of the year. <\/p>\n

Above me, the iconic queer bar\u2019s skylight opens up onto the inky black sky. There are a smattering of different groups and couples sharing conversation. Above their heads, a projection of gay porn, images from parties at Superstore and iconic queer faces incongruously play on loop, mismatching the subdued vibe. Even the vibrant paint on the venue\u2019s frontage\u00a0can\u2019t keep January malaise completely out.<\/p>\n

I sit staring out of the window, swirling the straw around my drink when I\u2019m ripped from my thoughts by Lady Gaga<\/a> (not the first time, to be fair). I look over to the DJ booth and see Ciara and Perrin turning up the volume of the music, before unfurling a length of homemade bunting made from scraps of fabric. They swiftly hang it across the breadth of the space, pulling tools and props from bags for life scattered around the floor.<\/p>\n

A little later, I am standing in the corner of the toilets, holding the rope of another length of the bunting up against the wall as another member of the crew nails the other end to the opposing wall. Around me, the team sets up decks and speakers, blow up balloons, tape over lights, replace bulbs with disco lights and spray paint a flag with the words \u2018Happy Endings\u2019. The acerbic plastic of the spray lingers in our noses, as the normally unremarkable bathroom is transformed into a completely different world. <\/p>\n

The toilet rave is perhaps one of the most instantly recognisable parts of a Happy Endings<\/a> party. With the exception of a couple of years where Covid restrictions made it impossible, it has been a key feature of the collective\u2019s events at the venue since the very beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were always thinking of ways to make the best of the space we have,\u201d Daniel, a member of the collective, says. \u201cInitially we did live sets and had musician friends playing little solo shows in the toilet. It was working really well, but once we tried to have DJ in the toilet after a live gig, we knew that that was the way to go. It was just so wild, fun and intense, we absolutely loved it and turned it into a signature.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the party is in full flow, there is very little that can prepare you for it. The combined effect of pounding beats from the speaker wedged into a corner and a single, ominous red light glowing above an end cubicle, makes pushing the door open feel like stepping into a liminal space. People undulate in the centre of the room, constantly shifting and moving to the music, stepping around one another while\u00a0people go in and out of the cubicles. Someone stands at the hand drier, which bellows hot air into the room as ravers throw it back under, among, or on top of whatever decorations the collective have draped over the space. Mirrors are replaced with foil, and the room somehow feels both claustrophobic and infinite at the same time.<\/p>\n

I stand in the middle, among the bunting I had helped to hang a few hours earlier, dancing with the crowd. Through the flashes of fabric and light, I catch glimpses of the faces of my fellow party goers. Joy, ecstasy, pleasure appears around me in Zoetropic fashion. It strikes me how contradictory it feels to see and feel these things, in this space.<\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/div>\n
\n

\u201cWe are not just creating a different space to dance \u2013 we\u2019re participating in a wider legacy of queer people carving out spaces where they can exist on their own terms, in defiance of a world that often seeks to eradicate us.\u201d<\/p>\n