We caught up with co-founder Dill to find out more about Ponyboy and their approach to creating events that celebrate trans club culture.

Can you tell us a bit more about Ponyboy, and the experience of going to one of your events?

Our aim with Ponyboy events, and everything we do, is to create a window into a world that feels like a trans utopia. I want to build worlds for trans storytelling to take shape as part of a huge collaborative effort, exploring different themes to ensure we are always able to be flexible and have every event feel uniquely different from the last.

For one recent event we visually mapped the entire venue and had immersive visuals that took the audience on a journey through the nine circles of hell, and for another we draped venues in fresh flowers for Pride. We’re always looking for ways to push the conversation forward as to what clubbing as part of a community can look like. I think our events are extremely special, which is a reflection of the community here.

What does club culture mean to you?

To me, club culture is first and foremost about community, the root of everything I do with Ponyboy is concerned with finding ways to create jobs and creative opportunities for trans people in Glasgow. I have a very invested interest in seeing trans people thrive and survive here, and wouldn’t personally be able to navigate the transphobic noise of the world enough to live authentically without this community around me. Clubs have always been the only spaces that I’ve felt safe enough to express myself and have been a huge vehicle in cementing my identity.

Club culture and underground queer scenes and spaces are where we are able to shape and disrupt culture. It’s where entire fashion movements, dance movements and genres of music are birthed, that often come to be repackaged on runways, in tv shows and within spaces where people are actually making money and sustaining a livelihood – which is a system I’m keen to disrupt.

What’s next for Ponyboy?

My goal as a curator has always been to uplift the trans community wherever I can. I’m always looking for new ways to transcend the parameters of what we’re currently doing and find new ways to spotlight our beautiful community in different ways. I want all of the people we work with to ultimately be incredibly successful, whatever that might look like to them.

I produce prints featuring only trans artists, because more trans artists should be in magazines. I produced this shoot with an entirely trans cast to be displayed on billboards, because more trans people should be on billboards. I want to see the artists contributing to the gorgeous queer scene here transcending clubs, onto runways, onto tv shows and within magazines. I want them to be full-time djs performing internationally, if that’s what they want.

As for the rest of 2024 – we’ve had a documentary filmmaker following us for a year, so that’s expecting to come out later this year, alongside our second Ponyboy print.

@ponyboyglasgow