SchwuZ Requests Attendee and Performer to Conceal Texts in Solidarity with Palestine

On October 13, 2023, the Berlin nightclub SchwuZ hosted the event Drag Open Stage Finale at which club staff asked a German-Palestinian attendee with family in Gaza to turn his shirt inside out so the text on it would not be visible. The text read “Anti-Apartheid Club.”

At the same event, a drag performer was asked not to display a banner again after the performer displayed it at the end of their performance. The text on the banner read “Free Palestine / It is not a conflict, it is settler colonialism to which resistance is justified.”

Following these two incidents, the group Drag For Palestine published an open letter which questions SchwuZ’s handling of these incidents in the context of “an extreme spike in the repression and criminalization of international solidarity with Palestinians.” The letter describes how SchwuZ staff explained that “another guest felt offended” by the text on the shirt, although it was not clear what exactly that guest was offended by. As for the banner text, SchwuZ staff told the performer that the drag event was “not about a political agenda”, and that “it is not possible to show the complexity of the situation in a banner”. The letter further cites that one of the event’s presenters made an announcement on stage declaring that “any statement made on stage does not represent SchwuZ’s values.”

The open letter highlights how “Queer liberation and liberation from any form of oppression must go hand in hand. Drag is an inherently political art form […] Just as anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist expressions are part of drag, the solidarity with Palestinian liberation has its representation in this art form.” It demands that SchwuZ not censor Palestinian or pro-Palestinian voices in the future, and that SchwuZ issue a public apology for their acts of intimidation, and express solidarity and support for Palestine and against the apartheid. The authors call for a boycott of SchwuZ as performers or visitors until they show accountability.

To date, there has not been an official response from SchwuZ to the open letter. SchwuZ, which was founded in 1977, is Germany's oldest queer club and one of the largest cultural institutions in the queer sector.