Chamblee54

There’s an invisible yet palpable mist of nervous uncertainty in the air these days. Will our banks crumble and our economy collapse? Are our already-stifled freedoms being further stripped away by evil corporations and misguided politicians? Will our water and food supplies be contaminated and rendered useless by a blind and wasteful society? And perhaps most threatening of all, will any these events delay the release of the new Madonna album? With the year 2012 upon us, and the bleak ambiguity of the future unfolding before our very eyes, we must all prepare for the inevitable rebirth of humankind. We mark this as a time to burn away the old, negative, destructive practices, to turn ourselves to a more loving, compassionate way of living and relating to each other. If the end of days is near, then we say it’s time to celebrate! The Intergalactic Love Affair descends upon Atlanta to welcome all the creatures throughout the cosmos with love in their hearts to rejoice in our diversity of body and mind, and our prosperity of spirit! Transport yourself to a time of galactic disasters, meteor storms, alien invasions, mutant outbreaks, zombie uprisings and robotic overlords! Break out your ray guns and iridescent bell-bottoms and prepare for the DIGITAL DOOMSDAY DISCO! This locally produced phenomenon is a Valentine’s costume ball where imagination, creativity, and embracing your inner-misfit push the limits of pageantry and spectacle. On February 10th, you are welcome to join us as we transform Jungle Club into a visual feast of color and light, pump up the music with stellar DJs, and sprinkle in magical performance art. To guide the way, we have enlisted local dance-floor icons Diablo Rojo (of Manshaft fame) and Vicki Powell (Ladystache and Sunday Services at Church) for an epic DJ DUEL that is going to light the joint on FIRE! Call the fire trucks honey, because it is going to be smoking! Cosmic nuns, frolicking space nymphs and mind-bending acrobatic aliens will serve up a nova of excitement throughout the night. THE RAINBOW CONNECTION The Intergalactic Love Affair (IGLA) is a community celebration-meets-fundraising event lovingly thrown together by the collaborative efforts of the Atlanta Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and the Atlanta Radical Faeries. Now in its 2nd year, the event was conceived as an opportunity to unite the passion and creative powers of a group of friends toward raising funds for queer-minded organizations in the Atlanta community. In its inaugural year, all proceeds from IGLA went to YouthPride to shine a light on the issues facing young queers in our community. This year we fire the spotlight on an often overlooked group in our alphabet soup – the Atlanta transgender community – by donating 100% of funds raised from this year’s event to the Feminist Women’s Health Center (FWHC) and their TransHealth Initiative. The FWHC is one of many independently run feminist centers across the country whose goal is to empower people through education and services that encourage healthy and meaningful lifestyle decisions. Agency spokesperson Jaime Chandra states, “The Center is not just about women; it’s not just about choice. It’s about empowering people to live a healthy life as they truly want to live that life, without judgment.” The FWHC offers compassionate and affordable healthcare to gender variant and intersex individuals, as well as hormone-therapy for transmasculine clients. For the Trans Health Initiative, there was a need in the FTM and transmasculine community for informed healthcare and hormone therapy as bias and ignorance in mainstream clinics often prevented them from getting the care they need. The THI clinic – which has been actively seeing clients despite a forced 5-month hiatus due to a lack of a medical supervisor who could administer hormonal therapy – is happy to announce that they will relaunch their program in the upcoming weeks with a new Primary Medical Supervisor so that hormone therapy can start up again. Additionally, a new coordinator, Sybastian Welch (a trans-identified man and advocate), has spearheaded the project on integrating recommendations into the program to help realize the actual needs of the Trans-masculine community. “Co-creating Space for Love’s Most Bold and Beautiful Expression” The Intergalactic Love Affair was conceived in a common social space when a group of friends asked themselves, “How can we translate the immense sense of love present within our circle and pay it forward to our local communities while also fostering bonds between them? AND how can we make it FABULOUS and FUN?!” The Atlanta Radical Faeries are a very loosely aligned fellowship of friends, family, mutants, and misfits uniting countless queer sub-cultures to foment community through acts of radical self-expression, love, and compassion. Through delicious pot luck meals, healing heart circles, honest and open discussion groups, and volunteer work, we strive to emote the intentions of self-affirming love, empathy, and compassion that drive us all. Many of these same philosophies can be applied to our partners in crime, The Atlanta Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. An order of 21st century queer nuns, the Sisters are dedicated to the manifestation of cosmic joy through freedom of expression, community outreach, social activism and charitable acts. Their manifest states, “We love expiating stigmatic guilt and spreading cosmic joy. We paint our faces to express the diversity in the community and by bringing our inside expressions out and to reflect the beauty of the people we meet and serve.” The Sisters have been in Atlanta since 2009 and delight in helping our communities through condom ministries, diverse fundraisers and promoting health awareness. They are first-line fighters in the campaign for universal human rights in the queer community. The Intergalactic Love Affair is intended to be the beginning of a series of events that will provide public forums, panels, mixers, and performances that will spotlight social issues impacting our queer community. You are invited to join the discussion at facebook.com/intergalacticloveaffair. In the meantime, set your phasers to FABULOUS, rip up your mama’s old sequin gown for your new alien space-frock, and meet us at Jungle on February 10th for what will be a night you won’t soon forget! This text also appears in David Magazine.