Worcester's Queer AF Holds First Pride Month Event As Season Kickoff

WORCESTER, MA — Worcester waits until September to celebrate LGBTQIA+ Pride month (to allow college students to participate), but one of the city's premier queer events will for the first time hold an event during the traditional June Pride month.

Queer AF, the annual queer fashion and art show, will hold a model search Thursday in Worcester ahead of the main event in September. And according to organizers, it's another step in Worcester's evolving queer scene in New England's second-largest city. The evolution also comes against a backdrop of anti-gay incidents and legislation across the nation, including in Massachusetts.

Just a few years ago, Worcester only had one gay bar: the venerable MB Lounge in the Canal District, which is still a hub of Worcester's September Pride events. But the scene is getting bigger.

Queer AF was first held in 2018 (with a two-year pandemic hiatus), started by Joshua Croke, the founder of the LGBTQIA+ youth nonprofit Love Your Labels. In 2023, the event will coincide with the recent opening of Femme Bar, Worcester's first lesbian bar and one of just 21 across the country.

Worcester also now has regular drag queen story time events at the Redemption Rock brewery, and voters elected the city's first nonbinary city councilor in 2021: Thu Nguyen.

Queer AF will take place at Mechanics Hall Sept. 8. The event will showcase a range of talent from local queer artists, designers, performers and models. Thursday's model casting at 6 p.m. will take place at the White Room event space, 138 Green St. Any queer performer or model over 18 can attend and partake in other activities like a runway walk workshop and socializing with a cash bar.

Queer AF also acts as a fundraiser for Love Your Labels, which offers youth programming focused on fashion design and drag queen storytime events. Also during June Pride month, Femme Bar will sell a drink called the "Queer AF-tini" with a portion of proceeds going to Love Your Labels.

"In our advocacy for human and civil rights, we must center joy — the joy of community and the joy within ourselves. Queer AF and Pride events go beyond celebrating queerness," Croke said in a news release. "They embrace the essence of queer joy and resilience. In a world where many of us are unjustly denied love and happiness, sharing LGBTQ+ stories and standing up for our basic human rights becomes vital and transformative work."