 | |
Type of site | web mapping |
|---|---|
| Founded | May 2017 |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Founder(s) | Lucas LaRochelle |
| URL | www |
| Current status | Active |
Queering the Map is a community-based online collaborative and counter-mapping platform on which users submit their personal queer experiences to specific locations on a single collective map. Since its inception, users have contributed more than 500,000 posts in 23 languages to the platform. [1]
In 2017, Canadian artist and designer Lucas LaRochelle began working on Queering the Map for a class project at Concordia University in Montreal. [2] The project was launched in May of the same year. LaRochelle has cited the lasting impact of personal memories on their perceptions towards places and Sara Ahmed's ideas on queerness as an orientation towards space as influences behind the project. For LaRochelle, a queer space can be a relational experience created by and/or shared between queer people. [3] LaRochelle has stated that their main intent for initiating the project was to archive these spaces, which transcend the traditional notion of queer spaces as fixed places (like businesses or neighborhoods) that are reclaimed by clearly defined communities. [4]
In February 2018, Montreal DJ Frankie Teardrop shared Queering the Map on Facebook, greatly increasing its visibility. [2] During this month, the number of pins on the map increased from 600 to 6,500 within a three-day span. The same month, a cyberattack generating pins with comments in support of U.S. president Donald Trump forced LaRochelle to take down the site and ask for help on its URL. [4] Over the next two months, 8 volunteers developed a more secure version of the site on GitHub, [2] and the project qualified for Cloudflare's free Project Galileo cybersecurity service. Notably, a moderation system was developed for the platform through this process. [3] In April 2018, Queering the Map was relaunched. [5]
In 2019, LaRochelle began developing QT.bot, an artificial neural network trained to generate hypothetical queer stories using the data submitted to Queering the Map. [6]
Queering the Map has received press coverage through media outlets based in Australia, [7] Brazil, [8] Canada, the Czech Republic, [9] France, Spain, [10] Switzerland, [11] the UK and the U.S., including Autostraddle, CBC Arts, CityNews, [12] Condé Nast Traveler, [13] Fugues, [14] Numerama, Paper, rabble.ca, [15] The McGill Daily, The Skinny, [16] VICE, and VOGUE. [17]
In 2023, an article by Reckon reported on LGBTQ Palestinians turning to Queering the Map to share their stories during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. [18]
In 2018, Queering the Map received an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica [19] and was longlisted for the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards [20] and the Lumen Prize for Digital Art. [21]
Queering The Map is becoming widely known in the design field and is part of a larger 'queer turn' [22] in design seen in work by designers and design researchers like Ece Canli, Emeline Brulé, Luiza Prado de O. Martins and Tiphaine Kazi-Tani, which has been described as "radical, chaotic and deconstructive." [23]
Qt is a cross-platform application development framework for creating graphical user interfaces as well as cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as Linux, Windows, macOS, Android or embedded systems with little or no change in the underlying codebase while still being a native application with native capabilities and speed.
The LGBTQ community is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning individuals united by a common culture and social movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality. LGBTQ activists and sociologists see LGBTQ community-building as a counterweight to heterosexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, sexualism, and conformist pressures that exist in the larger society. The term pride or sometimes gay pride expresses the LGBTQ community's identity and collective strength; pride parades provide both a prime example of the use and a demonstration of the general meaning of the term. The LGBTQ community is diverse in political affiliation. Not all people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender consider themselves part of the LGBTQ community.
The leather pride flag is a symbol of leather subculture as well as kink and fetish subcultures more broadly, including BDSM. The flag was designed by Tony DeBlase in 1989.
Over the course of its history, the LGBTQ community has adopted certain symbols for self-identification to demonstrate unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another. These symbols communicate ideas, concepts, and identity both within their communities and to mainstream culture. The two symbols most recognized internationally are the pink triangle and the rainbow flag.
Dixon Place is a theater organization in New York City dedicated to the development of works-in-progress from a broad range of performers and artists. It exists to serve the creative needs of artists—emerging, mid-career and established—who are creating new work in theater, dance, music, literature, puppetry, performance, variety and visual arts.
Homosexuality in the Palestinian territories is considered a taboo subject; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people experience persecution and violence. There is a significant legal divide between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the former having more progressive laws and the latter having more conservative laws. Shortly after the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank in 1950, same-sex acts were decriminalized across the territory with the adoption of the Jordanian Penal Code of 1951. In the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and under Hamas' rule, however, no such initiative was implemented.
LGBT representation in hip hop music have existed since the birth of the genre even while enduring blatant discrimination. Due to its adjacency to disco, the earliest days of hip hop had a close relation to LGBT subcultures, and multiple LGBT DJs have played a role in popularizing hip hop. Despite this early involvement, hip hop has long been portrayed as one of the least LGBT-friendly genres of music, with a significant body of the genre containing homophobic views and anti-gay lyrics, with mainstream artists such as Eminem and Tyler, the Creator having used casual homophobia in their lyrics, including usages of the word faggot. Attitudes towards homosexuality in hip hop culture have historically been negative, with slang that uses homosexuality as a punchline such as "sus", "no homo", and "pause" being heard in hip hop lyrics from some of the industry's biggest artists. Since the early 2000s there has been a flourishing community of LGBTQ+ hip hop artists, activists, and performers breaking barriers in the mainstream music industry.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+(LGBTQ+)music is music that focuses on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities as a product of the broad gay liberation movement.
Autostraddle is a queer and trans-owned online magazine and social network for lesbian, bisexual, and queer women, as well as non-binary people and trans people of all genders. The website is a "politically progressive queer feminist media source" that features content covering LGBTQ and feminist news, politics, opinion, culture, arts and entertainment as well as lifestyle content such as DIY crafting, sex, relationships, fashion, food and technology.
KDE Frameworks is a collection of libraries and software frameworks readily available to any Qt-based software stacks or applications on multiple operating systems. Featuring frequently needed functionality solutions like hardware integration, file format support, additional graphical control elements, plotting functions, and spell checking, the collection serves as the technological foundation for KDE Plasma and KDE Gear. It is distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
LGBT culture in Portland, Oregon is an important part of Pacific Northwest culture.
Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but do not depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ+ representation. The purpose of this method is to attract ("bait") a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion or possibility of relationships or characters that appeal to them, while not alienating homophobic members of the audience or censors by actually portraying queer relationships.
The Google Maps pin is the inverted-drop-shaped icon that marks locations in Google Maps. The pin is protected under a U.S. design patent as "teardrop-shaped marker icon including a shadow". Google has used the pin in various graphics, games, and promotional materials.
The KDE Gear is a set of applications and supporting libraries that are developed by the KDE community, primarily used on Linux-based operating systems but mostly multiplatform, and released on a common release schedule.
A lesbian bar is a drinking establishment that caters exclusively or predominantly to lesbian women. While often conflated, the lesbian bar has a history distinct from that of the gay bar.
Lucas LaRochelle is a Canadian artist and designer based in Montreal, Quebec. They are best known as the creator of the community-based online collaborative mapping platform Queering the Map.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted inequities experienced by marginalized populations, and has had a significant impact on the LGBT community. Gay pride events were cancelled or postponed worldwide. More than 220 gay pride celebrations around the world were canceled or postponed in 2020, and in response a Global Pride event was hosted online. LGBTQ+ people also tend to be more likely to have pre-existing health conditions, such as asthma, HIV/AIDS, cancer, or obesity, that would worsen their chances of survival if they became infected with COVID-19. They are also more likely to smoke.
The Queen's Head was an LGBTQ-friendly pub and lounge in Portland, Oregon, United States. Daniel Bund opened the restaurant in late 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Described as an inclusive drag bar and gay club, The Queen's Head hosted burlesque and talent shows, karaoke, poetry slams, trivia competitions, and other events.
Sonali Patel, also known as Alyy Patel, is a Canadian LGBTQ+ activist. She is best known for her research, advocacy, and public speaking engagements concerning the issues and experiences of Queer South Asian Women in Canada. Patel has made monumental strides for Queer South Asian diaspora in the Canadian LGBTQ+ movement. Patel is among the first to academically theorize and advocate for the culturally unique discrimination against Queer South Asian Women in North American LGBTQ+ Communities. Patel is a pioneer of research on Queer South Asian Women in Canada. Patel first coined the acronym 'QSAW' to abbreviate 'Queer South Asian Women' as a group or collective identity.