The Brightside Unveils 'Safe Space' Plans To Combat Antisocial Behaviour

Brisbane venue The Brightside has made a public commitment to stamping out misogyny, homophobia and other brands of intolerance and antisocial behaviour on its premises, becoming the first non-traditional LGBTQI venue in Queensland to do so.

According to signage recently installed in the venue — and a post on its Facebook in late August — The Brightside considers itself "a safe space for those that identify as queer, gender neutral, trans, non-binary, female and male", and urges that any punter who feels unsafe as the result of actions of another guest or staff member to seek out the venue's management to address the issue.

Although "not a policy as such yet", the initiative will see The Brightside's management and staff take concerted steps to make the venue an all-inclusive space free of violence and antagonism regardless of gender, race or sexuality, and comes as a core focus for functions manager Cael Johnston, a previous Brisbane resident who returned to the city earlier this year after a six-year stint in Melbourne, during which time he worked with "a pretty awesome, progressive group" of people at Destroy All Lines.

It was in that position, he says, that he formed an interest in creating more inclusive event spaces. 

"I was in a role as a national event manager, so I got to work across clubs, events and tours and stuff all across Australia," Johnston explained. 

"During that time, getting the privilege to work with some awesome places on Oxford Street and a few other places, I was fortunate to see things from a different perspective, about how a nightclub/gig experience is different for different groups of people and communities.

"So, I kind of just decided when I moved back this year that any projects that I was going to work on, I would attempt to make it a little bit more inclusive and I guess exactly that, a safer space for females, trans, non-binary people to come and have a good time."

Embodying the hallmarks of what could be considered a blanket 'safe space' goes far beyond a mere statement of intent, however — a fact not lost on Johnston, who acknowledges the real work for the venue's staff now lies ahead in "working out how to go from proclaiming the venue as being a safe space to having those things to make it a safe space", he says. 

"I also work for Black Bear Lodge — I do both The Brightside and Black Bear Lodge — and ... I'm hoping to implement this safe space initiative, as you've called it, and essentially work out how to go from stating or making it clear to people that come to our venues that we are a safe space," Johnston said. "But on the education side of it, to kind of back it up — so we've got a staff meeting at The Brightside this week, and it's about having some of those people who dwell in those communities or, I guess, identify as trans, non-binary, asexual, to kind of come and ... have a chat about it, what it means to be or identify in that way, to go, 'What are some of the issues or things that they've faced in the past? How can we make their life a little bit easier?'"

Johnston says that the majority of responses to the venue's stance have been positive, though some "have kind of scoffed a little bit", especially those people questioning his motives — as a straight, married man — for spearheading the implementation of such an ideal. 

"I guess one of the main reasons why I would like to do this is, my whole life I've had a lot of female and gay friends, so I've always kind of been aware of those struggles that they face," he explained. "My night out and their night out are very, very different things.

"I've always caught a bus home, or caught a train home, or caught a taxi home, and never had any issues; and then you have a chat with even my wife and some of their stories are just crazy. I couldn't comprehend some of the stuff they have to go through even on a weekly basis. My wife has so many stories that, if you were to ask, they wouldn't know where to start, which is crazy. So essentially I just want my venues that I work on to be a safe haven for people where, if they do have an issue, it can be addressed and it can be fixed — or not 'fixed' as such, but seen to, and given the respect that it needs, whereas I don't think you're gonna get that at a lot of spaces. And I guess I really hope that it goes from just being some small music venues to being adopted at a lot of other places."

Of course, a standard of inclusion and tolerance has long been a fixture of traditional LGBTQI-friendly spaces — while Anderson and The Brightside aren't looking to minimise or obscure the immeasurable contributions such venues have made to the LGBTQI community over the past several decades, they're certainly hoping this can be the first step towards a breaking down of the stereotypical points of difference between "gay" and "non-gay" clubs.

"I think that's the most feedback I've had — when I started going clubbing, if you identified as gay, you had The Wickham and The Beat to go to; they're your two spaces," Johnston reflected. "But I think times have changed, and I think that those spaces serve a particular cross-section of the community, probably older people, but for young people… you know, they're gay but as Tom Ballard once said, 'I want me being gay to be the least interesting thing about me'. And I think that was something that stuck with me, because a lot of my friends kind of talk like that as well; 'Yeah, I'm gay, but who cares?' They don't want to get harassed and they want to know that they can have a good time and people aren't gonna give them shit, or if something does come up, they can go and talk to management and they're not going to get laughed out of the building or made to feel stupid or whatever.

"I think, also, The Brightside naturally has that punk/hardcore thing, and we've noticed over the last million years that that world attracts the rejects and the people that don't fit into a lot of other communities, but then it also creates this weird, jockish-type character with a lot of macho kind of bravado attitude towards anyone else. So it's a weird thing where you've then got to go, 'Hey, yeah, we want everyone that has never felt like they fit into other venues and communities to come here,' and then when you see people kind of rising above and treating everyone like shit, that's when you've got to chop it and let them know that it's not welcome, and that kind of attitude is not wanted."

Johnston has already taken steps to break down those barriers and diversify the kinds of shows The Brightside is hosting these days — "There's hip hop, there's dance, there's drum-n-bass, there's theatre productions now — there's everything," Johnston said — including recent inclusion Girl Thing, which he says was another primary catalyst for making the venue's stance official.

"I guess just speaking with [the Girl Thing crew] as regularly as I do, they kind of just let me live inside their world a little bit, of what it's like to be gay in the modern world and to go clubbing, but then they have been really pushing this safe space angle themselves because their nights would be nothing if they didn't kinda come at it from those angles," Johnston said. "They need their community to know that if they come out to this night, that there will be gender-neutral bathrooms; they won't be harassed if the picture on their ID is different to what they look like in person; and I guess some of those things are what I'm addressing now.

"We've also got a few gay staff members at The Brightside and Black Bear Lodge, that we can kind of go, 'All right, well, how does this make you feel? What about this wording?' You know, I would hate for it to be seen as a way of… not making money, as such, but, you know, if The Brightside can be seen as a safe space where people can go and enjoy themselves, then I want to be that place. It sounds wanky but I think it's quite a punk-rock attitude to have, in a weird way."

And that, ultimately, is the crux of The Brightside's safe space initiative: absolutely everyone is welcome — until they make anyone else feel like they're not.

"I don't know if it's on us to educate people at all, but I think that there's a few things: I think they need to know, first up, any kind of bigotry just won't be tolerated," Johnston concluded. 

"This is what type of venue we are; if you come to our venue with a kind of attitude that is anything but love and acceptance, then go somewhere else — you're not wanted here. That's the message I'd like to send out."

"Hopefully we see a real change over the next little while, and what shape that takes is anyone's guess, but I like that we've now got a jumping-off point," he continued. 

"We've said what we're doing, so now it's just a case of being able to back that up, and when situations do arise, we know how to handle them, and I really hope the general public will be able to help us navigate our way through that."