ESTROGUN: Unapologetically c*nt in the face of the complex socio-political maelstrom
Published December, 2024
by Freddie Hudson
In the first of a series of articles exploring the cultural and social diversity of Prague and Czechia, music journalist Freddie Hudson interviews the Prague-based transfemme collective ESTROGUN.
With Germany and Poland to the North and Austria and Slovakia to the South, Czechia sits on the fence between the so-touted “progressive” Western Europe — which today seems little more than an imaginary ideal on par with the American Dream — and the traditionally recognised East of Europe and its problematic relationship with queerness.
The “neither-nor” status of Czechia’s political geography makes itself felt in many ways, some of which contribute to some of the best aspects of the country and its national identity, and there have been many visible attempts (relative to some near-neighbours) to align itself closer to a Western EU benchline. Nevertheless, when thinking about the political climate of the country, and how well society here adopts and naturalises those so-called “progressive” ideals — equal human rights, moral respect and social standing for all — Czechia as a nation is far from exemplary.
Czechia’s politics can be (quite incompletely) defined by its status of Social Outsider; being too West for East, and too East for West, in a half-decade the country’s political climate has bucked like a bull, apparently in sympathy with the political shifts of its neighbours, and while the general facts of politicised life and existence in the country have not yet changed as utterly as in neighbouring Slovakia, the future of a Czechia operated under progressive ideals may be diminishing in the face of surging populist movements spouting a predictable and transparent agenda filled with anti-immigrant and anti-queer rhetoric.
The emergence of the pro-Russian government in Slovakia over the last two years has had visible and concerning impacts on the political state of Czechia; Russian flags were brought to the “Czech Republic First!” protests against Petr Fiala’s centre-right coalition government in 2022, attended by 70,000 people per some sources; the flags represent the creeping of Russian ideals, and anti-(liberal) American sentiment into mainstream European political thought, especially in regard to the progression of LGBTQIA+ rights and liberties. Just next door, Slovak Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová is conducting witch hunts against any institution utilising funding for projects even touching upon matters of LGBTQIA+ identity, only two years after the high-profile murder of Juraj and Matúš, two young queer people, at a gay bar in Bratislava.
Across the European continent and around the world, trans people in particular are increasingly demonised/fetishised by the media, and commonplace political dialogue is becoming increasingly polarised. In Czechia as with elsewhere, small progressions in legal rights are marked against far more public displays of intolerance, including outright disgust from senior political figures. As is often the case, the variance in opinion between politicians, the general public, and the subclass of people that comprise the nightlife industry remains enormous at each level, and stalwart support for the queer and trans communities can be found to be vocalised within the principle underground nightlife spots in the city.
Although sidelined cultures belonging to the broader nightlife periphery have always laid the foundations for wider acceptance of LGBTQIA+ rights, it’s wrong to think of the relationship between nightclubs and queer — especially trans — people as being wholly beneficent: conversations about the imperative universality of rights might take place in club discourse here, but in Czechia’s cis-operated club spaces there remains a general lack of knowledge, tact and understanding when interacting with such communities, for a number of quite nuanced reasons.
Into this complex socio-political maelstrom enters ESTROGUN: an “unapologetically cunt” event produced by transfemmes based in Prague, the collective has made a visible mark on the Prague scene’s calendar over the last year, with the founding members gradually becoming regular names on the city’s cultural map, playing at venues like Planeta Za and Fuchs2. However, visibility without sufficient structural support can be little more than fetishistic tokenism; in the following interview, ESTROGUN’s founding members — Dev Saints, Lil Autotune, exegesis, Bugiebby, divinity statue and vividx — share their story of being openly, proudly trans, in a nation that finds itself on the frontline of the encroaching hardline clero-fascism in Europe.
“Cishet people need to experience us in full force.”
Photography and Editing By Iryna Drahun
Interview by Freddie Hudson
Answers by ESTROGUN Collective, unless indicated
Thank you for this interview. I’d start with simple questions: how long has ESTROGUN been operating nights? And, how often do you do events?
We founded the collective, and started working on the initial vision of what ESTROGUN is now at the beginning of 2024, with each of us coming with absolutely different backgrounds. That alone could tell you that we are still rookies, yet we already threw 5 parties since our first event in March. At the beginning, we went really crazy with how much stuff we wanted to create, but now we think the ideal plan would be 3 to 4 parties a year at max.
You’ve made a really strong impression in just one year. Were you the key drivers of organising all of the events, or did you get approached by events spaces?
We were approached by NGOs for a couple of our events. Our Altenburg event in June of 2024 with Pangea Prague and then our benefit event with Ciocia Czesia in September. They helped us a lot with covering costs of the events and the promotion itself. With the rest of the events, we were the key drivers of everything. We were only approached by one venue the past year but unfortunately it did not fit our vision.
Has there been enthusiasm from the venues in booking a transfemme collective?
The only concern of these venues is to make as much money as possible. It’s very unlikely the people in charge of them care about visibility of any kind. Obviously we can only speak from our past experiences but unfortunately, that seems to be the reality.
vividx, by the artist: vividx is a Prague-based musician, DJ, multimedia artist and head visual editor of ESTROGUN. Their sonic work explores themes of sensuality, identity, and love through a mix of hard-hitting, experimental and electronic sounds. Their visuals are abstract and dynamic, combining distorted camcorder footage with flashing lights, text, and imagery to captivate the audience.
What was the instigating reason for beginning the night?
The obvious, painful lack of representation of trans, specifically transfemme people in music, media, the public eye, simply anything and everything that people consume. The scene is filled with productions and weekly parties that label themselves queer or queer-positive, but Prague always missed something straight up, unapologetically cunt that goes hand in hand with queer history — and beyond just masc people wearing harnesses and calling it a gay night out. We wanted to make a statement in the community where the dolls, trans people would feel at their most powerful.
Track embed; Bugiebby, exegesis – 5-star throat
Moreover, it feels like Prague is turning into a Berlin ripoff, and we wanted to preserve a sort of different side of clubbing that’s inherently for trans queer people, and whoever that enjoys different genres of music and not just monotone techno.
Lil Autotune/Simone by Dorota Franková
DJ, Performer, Visual Artist, Model, Diva & co-founder of ESTROGUN collective. Trans-Femme Princess in every sense of the words, Lil Autotune’s style and approach is always daring, sweet, brutal, confident and empowering. Transcending genre, her goal is to always make you feel loved and cherished at her performance-sets, self-described as a sensory overload; neither genre nor BPM is something that would limit her in delivering a club experience that is more than a DJ set, with an ambition to create mass hysteria on the dance floor. Gender euphoria ecstasy.
What events and artists have inspired ESTROGUN?
Bugiebby: With ESTROGUN as a concept, I feel like me and the girls influenced ourselves. We were all driven to create something new and fresh, something that we saw was missing from the club nights [in Prague]. But I think where artists who inspire us come into play is with our selections; we love to mix the most popular [acts] with the most niche soundcloud artists, so I’d say a lot of upcoming trans artists and musicians, as well as popular icons, inspire us when performing and creating visuals.
Lil Autotune/Simone: From my perspective, SOPHIE shows. I was at her London Fabric show, Primavera Sound 2019 performance & her final show at Lunchmeat Festival 2020. It was this strong energy, pure euphoria, yet a well structured performance; it wasn’t just a regular DJ set. The London show especially made a huge impact on my vision of what I want to do with my own concept, and it definitely inspired ESTROGUN too. I would also say that I have experienced different clubbing abroad. My friends do this party called Playground in Zurich. It’s super fresh, less of a techno crowd and more of really fun, cool & sexy kids from the area. Super diverse, colourful & wild. I DJed there twice now and it’s always super fab. The very opposite of darkroom clubbing.
divinity statue: For me, everything started thanks to two really important figures in my life; I started listening to SOPHIE when I was 15, and thanks to her I opened up to club music in general. Also it was thanks to her that I discovered Evita Manji, who brought me to my first club party when I was 16. It completely changed my life and helped me during a severe crisis: I had a bunch of personal problems to deal with, as well as being Ukrainian so I also had the war with Russia. I met Evita 2 months after the full scale invasion — it helped me find a meaning, hope, my own way to analyze and live through it. That’s how I started clubbing, and came to the realisation that I would love to do something in this area.
divinity statue, by the artist: As a DJ and a sonic project, “divinity statue” started as reflection and an emotional reaction to the personal traumatic experiences and worldwide events. Finding club spaces during early teenage years in a time of crisis and total loss of confidence in the future, music is their way of analysing meaning, and living through the battles with the social, while exploring transness and identity. divinity statue is about constantly asking questions in the face of grief and fear, on which we may never find answers. It’s about the pain, gratitude and feelings, yourself, others and everything in between.
“ We were thinking of throwing parties around the country to be more accessible, but ultimately it would be too dangerous as we would catch quite a lot of attention.”
What is unique about ESTROGUN?
Everything from the way people dress, the way we interact with the audience, the way we mix, the sonic variety of all of us, and most importantly the way we PERFORM. Since the beginning we built an idea around maximizing each element, constructing the full audio/visual act. We believe DJing requires a certain level of performance, where the DJ table becomes your stage and the podium. We try to create a connection with the members of the audience, craft an alive and breathing, almost theatrical identity, that people obsess over and come back to get more and more of at every function. Each night we become one with the crowd and experience collective euphoria, a chaotic emotional ride filled with nothing but bliss.
How is attendance at the events? Is it mostly people from overseas, or are there locals as well?
The attendees are always hot people, period. However right now we are still on the verge of discovery so our main goal is to reach a mainstream audience and burst the bubble, to reach people outside of our scene and show them our culture, while being ourselves.
Do trans people come from around the Czech Republic and neighbouring cities? I suspect that trans* representation isn’t great outside of the capital city?
We want all trans people to know that they’re always welcome. Regardless where they’re from. So far we’re doing pretty good, having people from all around the country, and even abroad visiting.
Bugiebby: Yes, a lot of trans girlies from around the republic, always a blessing to see them having fun, free of judgment. Znojmo, Karlovy Vary, Brno… you name it. It’s a great pleasure to have all the girls come see us. It’s clear they come to our parties to feel a form of freedom as the dolls outside the capital struggle much more with no representation out there. We were thinking of throwing parties around the country to be more accessible, but ultimately it would be too dangerous as we would catch quite a lot of attention.
Dev Saints, image by Youssef Motus: Dev Saints is a Prague-based performer, DJ, founding member and head producer of ESTROGUN. Moving to Prague in August of 2022, she found freedom and inspiration within the club scene, motivating her to push trans visibility further through music and performance.
Have you experienced practical difficulties in acceptance — getting the desired venue for the night or enough people coming to your events — inside the Czech music community?
Most definitely. Right from the start we sensed a weird energy from people that work in the Prague club industry/event organizers. It was very weird to us especially since a lot of them were being like “Diversity, gay people, pride!! Yay!!” and then when we as dolls tried to bring something new to the table, we were being pushed away, not being taken seriously and deemed as troublemakers. Dealing with people from the clubnight industry here in Prague truly opened our eyes to how this stuff works etc., it can be truly shady and unfortunately we have already experienced it.
Very recently, a very important opportunity was taken away from our hands with no further explanation, while other collectives or DJs that were a part of it and got scrapped from plans received an email with an apology. There was no such thing in our mailbox. Despite all of this, there has been praise from our attendees, and also praise from abroad, about our vision and concept, which we sincerely cherish.
You mention wanting to reach a mainstream audience, which implies that you want more cisgender people to come and attend the events. What do you think are the biggest barriers to achieving this?Is it a matter of convincing individuals, or effecting societal change?
We want to go more mainstream in the sense of challenging society. Cis-het people need to experience us in full force. We have a bit of a problem with the way these “queer party” productions label themselves as safe spaces. It comes off super pretentious and they often don’t stay true to themselves. In a way, labeling it as that is super non-productive. We should be able to welcome anyone in, yes, even the cishets, in order to expose them to something new, thought provoking, something that sparks up a conversation. Our existence itself becomes a protest so many times — let’s use it effectively.
Bugiebby, by Iryna Drahun: Bugiebby is a Prague-based music producer and resident DJ of ESTROGUN, releasing music under the night’s music label alongside her frequent collaborator exegesis. Combining their favorite genres and pop culture references, Bugiebby’s eclectic approach creates new approaches to club music by eroding boundaries.
What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned since starting the night?
We are all still constantly learning with each other and thanks to each other. But for now we could say: never do events 3 months in a row; never work without a contract; people in charge of the club industry don’t care about you, they’re not your friends and they will talk shit. Stand your ground, don’t settle for less, and prepare everything in advance.
How do you feel about the types of nights in the nightlife in Prague these days?
We are in the middle of a monotone techno epidemic. Communities genuinely crave new faces,new spaces, clear diversity, experimentation and concepts. Unfortunately there’s rarely any parties that offer something new and fresh here in Prague that genuinely gags their audience, over and over again.
Is it also the (self-professed) allies in the underground nightlife and club scene that are displaying this typical fearful reaction of viewing “maximal” trans identities as “troublemakers”? How has this manifested?
Dev Saints: It’s still not very clear to us why we were labeled as “troublemakers” before and unfortunately we never had the chance to sit down and see where things went wrong. The odds of us fucking something up on accident are very plausible but it’s pretty clear these venues forget we are still new to this. To us, it would mean very much to receive constructive feedback instead of a harmful accusation. Allyship aside. But the past is the past and what’s left for us is to be cautious with who we trust while working with them.
exegesis, by Zuska Bielecka: exegesis is a transfemme producer, performer, dj and diva, currently based in Prague. They give a fresh breath of air to genres like bubblegum pop, electronica and hardcore; on the dancefloor, music is a celebration of queerness and liberation.
Do you have to go abroad to attend the nights that you feel welcomed at and centred as transfemme individuals?
Lil Autotune/Simone: Absolutely. Partying abroad really changed my perspective on how good clubbing can be. I consider myself very lucky & blessed to have experienced parties in Barcelona, Zurich, London. For transfemmes it’s a whole different world in Western Europe. You can enjoy clubbing without limitations. And people are just more open and welcoming.
I do see that some of you get booked for performances outside of the ESTROGUN nights; when this happens, does it feel mainly inclusive, or tokenistic? Have you experienced any booker going a little further to ensure the safety and primacy of trans* people playing or attending these events?
From our experience, it was usually inclusive, especially if the collective are people we’re friends with. Some bookers do try to make sure that we feel safe, however there is still a journey with fully educating these people that claim some sort of power over the scene, and make changes according to it. We have to say though, it makes us feel hopeful to see people try. It’s important for both sides to set boundaries.
Text: Freddie Hudson, Reach Sound
Photos: Iryna Drahun, Youssef Motus, Divinity Statue, Zuska Bielecka, Dorota Franková,
This article is brought to you as part of the EM GUIDE project – an initiative dedicated to empowering independent music magazines and strengthen the underground music scene in Europe. Read more about the project at emgui.de.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.