I remember looking out the car window as a teenager passing by Oxford street and thinking ‘They don’t look very gay; how do you tell which bar is gay?’

Aside from a few strangers in early internet chatrooms this rather boring façade was my only link to other people like me. And being 15 without a fake ID, there wasn’t much chance of getting in and making a connection.

Even in a world with significantly higher representation on tv and presence on the internet, queer people, particularly young queer people can still feel isolated. Public spaces like bars and nightclubs are especially important for queers because we need to connect with each other to counter the effects of systemic discrimination.

People who feel part of a community are less likely to feel depressed, anxious and isolated.

The lockout laws hit queers disproportionately because they cover the inner city areas where we’ve built that critical community.

Our communities are about to take a second hit, this one coming from the proposed Westconnex Tollway spewing thousands of extra cars into St Peters, Enmore and Newtown every hour.

To ease the inevitable gridlock, a 24-hour clearway will need to be in place along King Street, depriving the local businesses of stop and go customers.

We’ve seen this occur before on Oxford Street, where after the introduction of clear ways the diversity of business plummeted and the noisy, barren street became an unpleasant place to be.

When there are fewer eyes on the street the capacity to self-regulate diminishes and we end up with late night altercations. With the majority of Newtown venues instituting voluntary lockouts and the impending clearways potentially wiping out the vibrant shopping strip, it’s clear that the same forces that are pummelling Oxford Street will also be hitting King.

We see these obviously terrible policies as symptoms of a much bigger problem. The influence of money on government decisions.

The Casino donated over $840,000 to the major parties since it opened in 1998 and for 2013/14, the most recent year we have figures for, property developers donated $3.6 million to subvert the democratic process. You would have to be very naïve to believe those donors aren’t expecting a return on their money, and they’re getting it. It’s no secret that both The Star and the new casino at Barangaroo are exempt from the lockouts and property developers have been snapping up Kings Cross businesses that have closed since the curfew began. We’ve already lost a series of iconic queer venues like Qbar and Phoenix as well as over 30 night-time economy businesses in Kings Cross. The Taxi Club was squeezed out a while ago.

Instead of trying to go back to the way things were, we need to diversify the spaces we gather in together as a community.

Reclaim The Streets (RTS) is an experiment in self-regulated space. There’s no door security to tell you you’re too drunk or not wearing the right shoes. There’s no domination of cliques or segregation by body types. You can’t charge exorbitant prices for entry or drinks so low income queers won’t have to choose between missing out on socialising and missing out on food.

And there’s no age restriction, so the youngest and most vulnerable members of our community can join in too, fake ID or not.

The RTS organising collective is really diverse and Newtown is still a pretty weird neighbourhood, making it a pretty queer event. It’s going to take on a lot of the same colour, vibrancy and loud excitement of Mardi Gras without the corporate influence.

This free mobile protest festival will take over the streets of Newtown as a demonstration of the gridlock the Westconnex will cause and a celebration of what that public space could be used for instead. We’re inviting everyone to come and see what an awesome adventure you can have when you take the cars off the streets and give that space back to people.

Local bands and DJs will play everything from drum n bass to sexy queer electro, techno, reggae, hardcore and 70s retro weird stuff across multiple sound stages.

Reclaim The Streets meets at Camperdown Memorial Park in Newtown this Saturday, December 12 at 2pm and leaves soon after. Check it out at reclaimthestreets.com.au