Festive Fagmas: The Queer Craft of Community Building

Fagmas by Elisha Fall (image credit: Every Mouth Needs Filling)

DIY paper chains festoon the ceiling. Cabbages and sprouts, with holes gouged in them to house the candles, clash green against pink tablecloths. In the back, chefs chatter, introducing themselves and their dishes in the kitchen.

Whether early or late, we’ll greet you all smiles, pouring your drink with one hand, sorting the speaker with the other. The space fills with fresh faces flushed from the cold; queer couples to straight partners, groups of friends or solo travellers. Cropped cuts and crop-tops are crowded beside jumpers and jeans.

Soon, the unchoreographed dance of where to sit begins. Strangers perch one too many on a bench, smiling apologetically while straining to listen. Bottles bought from adjacent newsagents are popped, corked and poured. Slowly, happy chatter clouds the windows with condensation, closing out the outside world.

You’re at Fagmas, a fundraiser run by queers for queer causes. And here, for a few hours, you can escape with us to celebrate in our community, care, and connection.

Community building is not necessarily a queer craft, yet the craft of community building is central to queerness. Lumped together in the jumble of LGBTQIA+, what we share is not conforming to the ‘norm’. Defined as ‘a standard or pattern in social behaviour that is typical or expected,’ the ‘norm’ here is heterosexuality.

More important than what we’re not, though, is what unites us: community. Our fundraisers build on this through conviviality. Coming from the Latin con-vivere, it literally means ‘to live with’. ‘Queer conviviality’ is, you guessed it, our version thereof. This is important, for when you’re denied connection, sharing food becomes a form of resistance. By feeding ourselves physically, we are nourished socially.

As the first course comes out, the happy clamour quietens, and merry faces turn towards the chef. The food is often on theme, like chef Shannon Higgins’ Cassatella di Sant’Agata’s, or ‘Saint Agatha’s breasts,’ for a top-surgery fundraiser; or my co-hosts Every Mouth Needs Filling’s cocktails made from foods used for HRT (hormone replacement therapy).

Beyond this, chefs have free rein. For as much as this is a fundraiser, the space is also for them to experiment. They get creative with plating and experiment with flavours. It’s also a space for building networks, sharing ideas, and platforming queer creativity.

With each new dish, excitement once again sweeps the room as guests eagerly anticipate their food. Once the chef has announced their course, helpful hands, stacked with plates, serve it, and the crowd raucously cheers the chef back into the kitchen.

This year, across 6 fundraisers, we’ve made £3,000+. Though it pales to the £30,000+ needed for some gender-affirming surgeries, it’s about more than money. The funds help, of course, but everyone is also here for something they believe in: mutual aid. Attend a fundraiser—and we hope you do—and indulge in the knowledge that you’re helping those you might not even know.

Queer spaces are often condemned for their pleasure-seeking. But, as writer Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin suggests, partaking in hedonism—something we’re shunned for—is also queer resistance. At our fundraisers, we unashamedly chase pleasure, relish the food and exult in each other. And, if you’re lucky, we’ll be joined by Cake Sit.

Before dessert, the shop’s shutters roll down, and a new hum of activity begins. Performers change outfits, and a cake appears on a stool in the corner of a room. The music changes, the lights dim, and Cake Sit enters stage left.

If you’ve never seen a cake sit, you’ll soon understand why the shutters come down. Ziggy becomes Gordon Ramsey, screaming the f-word at a black forest gateau, strips off her chef’s whites and cracks eggs on her bare body. To the sound of All-American Rejects’ Dirty Little Secret, Shereen wipes herself in red velvet, before dressing in officewear and striding offstage.

Though run by queers for queer causes, Fagmas is open to all. Within reason. Queer spaces are queer, and it’s ok if some are off limits. But here, you never know who might walk in. We’re hosted by BRIC., a trans-run space in Hackney. Joe, the owner, ensures it’s open to all, as you have no idea who’s walking through the door. It could be someone venturing into their first queer space, looking for a chance to explore themselves.

In these places, a gesture as small as your warm welcome could change someone’s life. Not all of us were always openly queer, and who knows which one of you might be next.

Straight after Cake Sit, dessert is served. And, as we wipe icing from the floor with billows of blue roll, new cakes come forth from the kitchen, this time for you to hedonistically indulge in. Wine glasses clink and laughter rings around the room, any initial shyness forgotten now with warm conversation and indulgent food.

Soon, the plates are cleared, people take to the sofas or go outside for a fag. Chefs chat with guests, as performers and helpers share a well-deserved drink. In the back, the kitchen fills back up with helping hands as everyone natters over the washing up, cleaning down, while catching up. The lines between served and servers—barely there to begin with—are broken down completely as friends grab a dishcloth and guests help sweep.

The festive season can be hard for queer people. It’s supposed to be a time of family unity, albeit peppered with mild irritation and a dash too much to drink. But, with almost half of LGBTQ+-identifying 18- to 25-year-olds estranged from one or more family members, for some this is a time of division. Cue the ‘chosen family,’ another pillar of queer life. Your chosen family are those with whom you foster connections, and for many queers, their chosen family shows them love their biological family could—or would—not.

The fundraisers we curate are fabulously silly; an escape from reality. We’ve worked hard to make them so, but every bite remains political. We self-organise instead of being overlooked, and raise funds that our government denies us. But most importantly, we’re here to craft our community, so that each and every new face through the door feels like they’re coming home to family.

As we clean down the space, slowly, the last of you trickle out, cheeks flushed with a good time, jackets braced against the cold. The lights come up, the paper chains come down, and we divvy out the fruits from the tablescape. Everyone has work tomorrow, and many have a long journey home, but we’ve still stayed late, each and every one of us helping craft this: our queer community.

Images taken and owned by Barney Pau.