Uppsala has no permanent gay bar and no permanent gay club, so the city's queer life has its fixed address here instead. RFSL Uppsala is the local branch of the Swedish organisation that has worked on LGBTQI rights since 1950, and it keeps its own premises on the third floor of a red brick building near the railway tracks, a few hundred metres east of the police station on Råbyvägen. People call the building tornet, the tower, after the metal section in its middle.
A weekly drop-in evening is the way in for most people. There is coffee, tea and cake, board games, free condoms and safer sex material, and someone on hand if a visitor would rather have a private conversation than company. It is open to LGBTQI people and to allies, and nobody needs to be a member to walk in.
The queer library sits on the same floor and holds more than 300 books on LGBTQI subjects, fiction as well as non-fiction, in several languages, with a catalogue kept online. Members borrow at no cost. Regular groups meet alongside it: a trans group, an asexual network, a bi, pan and queer group, a board games group, a creative group, and Newcomers, which is aimed at queer migrants and people going through asylum claims. The branch also gives information on PrEP and STIs, and legal help on asylum matters.
Uppsala Pride is organised from these rooms, and club and pub nights are run from time to time with outside organisers. The premises are wheelchair accessible and a lift serves the third floor. The entrance is on the side of the building away from the tracks, and the facade carries lit signs for several other tenants.
The people in this picture are AI-generated.
