PAC and Tels Quels invite Brussels Pride-goers to turn slurs into political joy

During Pride Week, PAC and Tels Quels are hosting a collective reading and discussion around Julien Marsay’s Queer – Riposter à l’injure on Wednesday 13 May 2026 at the RainbowHouse Brussels, in the Marsha P. Johnson room. The event starts with a friendly aperitif at 17:30, followed by the arpentage at 18:00, and it is open to everyone, with no need to have read the book in advance.

The idea is simple and sharp: how do queer communities reclaim words that were once used to wound them? The answer, at least for this evening, is collective reading, conversation and a shared political imagination that turns injury into response.

A reading practice with roots

The format is arpentage, a participatory reading method that comes from workers’ education and lets a group discover a book together, critically and collaboratively. That matters because the event is not built around expertise or literary performance; it is built around access, exchange and shared interpretation.

Julien Marsay’s book focuses on how insults have historically been forged to marginalise LGBTQIA+ people, while also showing how queer communities have turned those same stigmas into banners of struggle and belonging. It is exactly the kind of text that fits Pride Week, when political reflection and festive energy can sit side by side.

Why this event stands out

What makes the evening feel particularly Ket-friendly is its tone: inclusive, thoughtful and not at all academic for the sake of it. The organisers are providing all the materials, plus the aperitif, so the event feels as welcoming as it is intellectually serious.

That balance is important in a Pride programme, where events can sometimes split between club nights and panels. Here, the conversation itself becomes the activism. And because the session is multilingual — FR-NL-EN — it also reflects the layered reality of Brussels queer life.

Why it matters now

Events like this help shift Pride from a symbol into a practice. They make room for people to think together about language, power and resilience, and to do so in a space named after Marsha P. Johnson, one of the most enduring icons of queer resistance. In a city where Pride increasingly stretches across a whole week, this kind of encounter gives the programme some real intellectual and emotional weight.

For Ket, the strength of the event is that it treats queer solidarity as something active and joyful, not just commemorative. That is exactly the kind of Pride-side programming that deserves attention.

Useful links

• RainbowHouse Brussels
• PAC
• PAC – about us
• Tels Quels events page

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