First, a bit of a yarn.

One too-balmy Saturday afternoon in July '26, wearing too much leather pants for the weather and feeling too incensed for words and almost as terrified, I took the mic at a protest in Hyde Park. A protest against conformity, oppression, suppression. Against any suggestion that my people would be surrendering to conservative, homogenising, religious and/or capitalist influences. Then I looked out into the crowd and realised I was among friends. My people. I felt held, and I felt furious on all of our behalf. The situation surrounding Divine Playhouse's illegal eviction from their Kent Street premises and that subsequent protest bought two things home to me.

The first was just how very much we have lost in the years since marriage equality, as corporate pinkwashing consumes the pride movement, progressive causes stagnate, and methodologically questionable hypocrites with moral superiority complexes peddle fear and division, sewing discord from all sides. (I'll explain all that – why i pinpoint marriage equality as the starting point, who I'm talking about , my thoughts on the rot, etc. – in a later post). We have been made marginal in cultures where we should be central. In some small part, I think we have allowed it to happen because we define ourselves as marginal. I have started to wonder what would happen if we just placed ourselves at the centre.

The second was the extent to which the "we" of the above included pretty much everyone from all of, and really only a few who aren't part of at least one of, the three communities, I think of as "my community" – three parts of the world that I had interacted with, in the main, as distinct and separate groups, with divergent (though rarely conflicting) interests. I have begun to re-integrate. Noticing that these were disparate groups (with some cross over) in membership, but in fact generally unified in their aims and interests: artists, queer & trans community, and sex-people - workers and not-for-profit participants alike. All are marginalised by the religious, culturally conservative, and monied classes of our society. All seek to promote empathy, and multitudinous diverse roads towards love, joy, presence, and empathy. At their best all are care first (and first nations first), humanist and environmentalist, open minded, celebrating of diversity, and facilitous of healing and growth through love.

This is an offering. A contribution to those aims and interests. Maybe one way for those types of people to gather, learn and grow from each other, and experience some of that joy and love.

I have no idea what it will become. It's totally open to whoever comes along to decide if you want to contribute your beliefs, your beauty, your passions, if you want to build networks and collectives of community connection through and around this concept, or if you just want to passively consume my various ramblings. I'm here for any and all of the above.

Here are the only things I know (have decided) so far:

1. The Offensive Trade Union is a radically welcoming, care-led and pleasure-positive community for queers, artists, sex workers, and progressive radicals, outcasts and underdogs of all stripes. No longer out- or under- anything, it is an assertion of our centrality.
2. No exclusionary, dehumanising, or adversarial behavior or rhetoric will be tolerated. I'm sick of watching oppressed become oppressor every turn of the screw. We can do better and we can be kinder. Here, we're going to give people the benefit of the doubt, offer help and healing, and not judge even our most imperfect allies. The invitation to collaborate is open to all who come in good faith. Empathy for each other above all.
3. It is created and administered (for now) by me, Charley Allanah, and will feature (to begin with) reflections, calls to action, and provocations arising from my artistic practice, my involvement in advocacy, collective action and the union movement, and also from my work in the sex industry and related advocacy (under the alias Natasha Ambrose, who'll have her own patch).
4. A labour of love is nonetheless a labour. That's why there's a small subscription price. If you genuinely can't afford it e-mail me, I'll let you in, no questions asked. If you can cancel a subscription to an American tech billionaire to afford it, do that. If the distribution of labour evolves so will the distribution of the funds that labour generates.
5. It is emerging. I'd love for this to become your landing page for community connection, for sharing your ideas and passions.

If you subscribe today, you'll get full access to the website in all it's emergent glory, as well as email newsletters about new content when it's available. You'll be part of ensuring that The Offensive Trade Union continues to exist, and you will have an open invitation to participate, however you like.

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Much,

Charley