By Malavika Kannan, The EmancipatorThis story was originally published in The Emancipator, a nonprofit newsroom aimed at leveraging the power of journalism to turn public opinion against racist policies and ideas.Mary Kang for the EmancipatorSubscribe nowOn a freezing December night the backstage room of Brooklyns Red Pavilion was warm and smelled sweetly of hairspray.The dressing room was lively. Drag queens came and went, bearing elaborate dresses and wigs. Someone pulled down their pants to reveal a ribbon-wrapped butt cheek.The holiday party drag show would start in an hour.The nights party had a mission: raising money for Trans Lifeline, a hotline offering direct support to trans people in crisis. Queer nightlife has a radical history, as a space where Black and Brown people love freely and express themselves. Now, a new surge of queer artists, partygoers, and DJs are using nightlife to fundraise for its most marginalized. The 2024 post election-holiday party was also an interlude before a new president took office, one whose campaign vilified trans adults and children. Theres a shared sense that hard times lie ahead, but many find refuge in queer nightlife.Mary Kang for The EmancipatorObviously our communities are going to really be put to the test in the coming years of the new administration, with trans people having the lowest life expectancy of many minority groups, Kanika Peach told The Emancipator in an earlier phone call.Luckily, in the Red Pavilion, Kanika has a captive audience. When you have the mic, she said, its your responsibility to speak power and provide space.The Red Lantern District, an all-Asian drag show, was founded by drag queen Felicia Oh to resist the racial tokenization she experienced in the drag scene. Theres always danger when trans people gather the performers commute in groups for safety but in 2024 we learned we cant take anything for granted and to hold our chosen family close, Felicia said.Mary Kang for The EmancipatorThe holidays can be an emotional time for queer people who are isolated from their families of origin, or excluded from religious traditions. Her chosen family includes Kanika and Kekoa, fellow Asian American drag queens who perform by her side at the Red Lantern.This show is gonna remind queer people that we have to take care of each other, Kekoa said. Were worried about people in red states. We live in a much safer bubble. We dont need the money here, but other people do.Nightlife has long been a staple of queer culture and resistance. During the height of the pandemic, however, gatherings halted. There was a slow burn of pent-up emotion, particularly amid Americas racial justice reckoning of 2020.The next year, Black and Brown nightlife returned with a vengeance, giving people space to revel and shake off the isolation. Uncloseted Media is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.For example, the Body Hack parties which raise money for the Black trans mutual aid program G.L.I.T.S., or Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society had its long-awaited return in 2021.These young people understand our community from every angle from the art world to the gaming world to the nerdy world. All the elements to create this utopia for our community called Body Hack, said Ceyenne Doroshow, legendary trans mother and founder of G.L.I.T.S. In just one week, Ceyenne raised $1 million for G.L.I.T.S. and purchased a 12-unit property in Queens where she now presides over an intergenerational housing unit for trans youth, adults, and elders.In October 2023, following the Hamas attacks and Israels retaliatory violence against Palestinians, some queer organizers felt a call to action. Hundreds of nightlife workers formed DJs Against Apartheid. The groups mission statement points out that queer nightlife was founded with the clear intention to uplift the marginalized.As of July 2024, theyd raised $34,000 in support of Palestinians, as well as NYC-based Fund the Inside, which provides commissary relief to incarcerated QTBIPOC. For many, overlapping advocacy for Palestinians and trans people is instinctive.Queer people understand what it means to be silenced, to be ostracized. Our bodies are the sites of people enacting their rage and their violence, says Thanushka, a Sri Lankan DJ and 15-year veteran of queer nightlife. Were in a really apocalyptic time and nightlife has a hard time being separate from that. She described a moment of one after another collective crisis that shes felt since 2020, from the pandemic to Trumps reelection to numerous climate-related disasters. The vibes are not good.Mary Kang for The EmancipatorTo lift the vibes connecting a desire for community, shrinking communal spaces, and a thirst to get involved organizers host everything from thrift swaps for Gaza to Queer Comedy for Gaza to techno nights. Its not always an easy stand to take publicly some party organizers declined The Emancipators interview request for fear of exposure. But others are loud: Body Hack requests partygoers donate $20 per person at the door, more if youre White or cisgendered. In the traditional nonprofit world, most funds are raised through expensive galas, auctions, tables and celebrity guests, but the mutual aid playbook is different. Two nights before their December party, the Body Hack Instagram posted: I dont care how cold it is Imma need you to shake that ass for mutual aid. Someone dutifully comments, Shaking my ass for mutual aid with my drains in, meaning that he will show up even recovering from his top surgery, no questions asked.Lucas Hilderbrand, a scholar of queer nightlife, said that while early nightlife activism centered around protesting police harassment and discrimination at bars, the AIDS epidemic created a new strategy.Bars become ground zero for activism of fundraising, he explained. The earliest, and most common, strategy was the drag benefit show. These functions were viewed as a community-building practice, as opposed to just writing a check.Mutual aid too, Hilderbrand explained, has always existed in some form, but post-2020, the very grassroots concept is now in the language, people know what it means.Mutual aid [has] been ingrained in us as queer people to be there for each other, but after 2020 we really needed to push the envelope even more, Kanika said.Kekoa called it spotlight mode: the way her body aligned when shes performing, shoulders pushed back and chin high with pride.Mary Kang for The EmancipatorIts sink or swim, she said. She is determined to put on a good show. When people start making out, I know its good.When Felicia explained that the show is a fundraiser for Trans Lifeline, she had to pause for the cheers to quiet down. Trans Lifeline does it all without the help of police, she said, then added, because fuck the police. The room erupted again.When the show started, Kekoa didnt hold back she was regal, towering in her 4-inch heels and a satin floor-length dress, smiling and waving as she swept through the room. By 11:30 pm, the room was packed.And sure enough, people were making out.Next, Felicia brought the house down with a sexy rendition of Sabrina Carpenters A Nonsense Christmas. Kekoa and Kanika enacted making love onstage. The mood was heightened, otherworldly. Nobody leaves without a wet pussy, Felicia vowed into the mic.Subscribe for accountability journalism.Coats came off and were piled on chairs as the room warmed. By this point, nobody was sitting, everybody was on the floor. Between songs, the queens coterie gathered the cash off the floor. Thats not counting, of course, the money that poured in on Venmo. We are 21st century hookers! the girls insisted.By the end of the night, theyve raised a thousand dollars.The drag show ended, and devolved into a free-for-all on the dance floor. Kekoa, finally out of spotlight mode again, gave out high-fives and hugs like Oprah. Outside, people gathered to smoke and chat as the first snow of the winter fell, lit up by the neon club entryway.Kekoa, normally all smiles, grew serious at the mic: Our community is under attack and its in spaces like this that we can come together and love together, she said. I want to thank you guys for being our chosen family this holiday season. I want you to know you always have a place at Red Lantern District.And then the girls hugged: We will keep us safe and keep us protected, Kanika promised. I want you to take this power you feel right now out these doors into your community.If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button:Donate to Uncloseted Media