Queer Nation
Encyclopedia
Queer Nation was an organization founded in March 1990 in New York City
, USA by AIDS
activists from ACT UP
. The four founders were outraged at the escalation of anti-gay and lesbian violence on the streets and prejudice in the arts and media. The group is known for its confrontational tactics, its slogans, and for the practice of outing
.
in New York's Greenwich Village
to create a direct action
organization. The goal of the unnamed organization was the elimination of homophobia
, and the increase of gay
, lesbian
and bisexual visibility through a variety of tactics.
The direct-action group's inaugural action took place at Flutie's Bar, a straight hangout at the South Street Sea Port on April 13, 1990. The goals included a desire to make it clear to (straight) patrons that queers would not be restricted to gay bars for socializing and for public displays of affection, and to call attention to the fact that most "public" space was in fact heterosexual space. Through parodying straight behavior (such as "spin the bottle") at these events, queers refused to be invisible while publicly questioning the naturalized status of heterosexual coupling activity. Visibility actions like this one became known as "Queer Nights Out."
Although the name Queer Nation had been used casually since the group’s inception, it was officially approved at the group's general meeting on May 17, 1990.
The militant protest style of the group contrasted with more assimilationist gay rights organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign
or the Log Cabin Republicans
. Queer Nation was most effective and powerful in the early 1990s in the USA, and used direct action
to fight for gay rights. They also worked with AIDS organization ACT UP
as well as WHAM! Even though never officially disbanded, many of the local groups did so in the mid to late 1990s.
The group's use of the word "queer" in its name and slogan was at first considered shocking, though the reclamation has been called a success, used in relatively mainstream television programs such as Queer Eye
and Queer as Folk.
Other slogans used by Queer Nation include "Two, Four, Six, Eight! How Do You Know Your Kids Are Straight?" and "Out of the Closets and Into the Streets," and the widely imitated "We're Here! We're Queer! Get used to it!"'
Queer Nation members show up en masse at Macy's department store where Olympic gold medallist Greg Louganis
is promoting a new swimsuit line. Queers arrive with WHEATIES cereal boxes with swimmer’s picture pasted on front, to recall the time the cereal maker rejected Louganis as a spokesperson, ostensibly because he is gay.
Responding to the 120% increase in violence against queers, Queer Nationals climb the billboard on the roof of Badlands, a Greenwich Village bar and hangs a 40-foot banner that reads: "Dykes and Fags Bash Back!"
A pipe bomb explodes in Uncle Charlie’s, a Greenwich Village gay bar, injuring three. In protest, Queer Nation mobilizes 1000 queers in a matter of hours. Angry marchers fill the streets, carrying the banner “Dykes and Fags Bash Back.”
The inauguration of "Queer Shopping Network." Members of Queer Nation travel from New York City to the Newport Mall in Jersey City with leaflets offering information about queers, safe sex tips, and a list of famous queers throughout history. The leaflets are titled "We're here, we're queer and we'd like to say hello!"
for 11 seasons from 1996 to 2004, by which time it claimed to be the world's longest running free-to-air LGBT television show. The programme was funded by NZ On Air under its mandate to provide for the interests of minorities in the community.
Queer Nation chapters were founded in dozens of other cities, including Atlanta, Boston
, Charlottesville, Virginia
, Chicago
, Columbus, Ohio
, Columbia, S.C.
, Houston, Minneapolis, Montreal
(known as Queer Nation Rose), Philadelphia (known as Queer Action), Nashville
, San Francisco, Seattle and Toronto
.
Queer Nation/San Francisco was founded in June 1990 by Mark Duran, Steve Mehall and Daniel Paíz; they organized a meeting at the San Francisco Women's Building the following month where the group was launched publicly. In the fall of 1990 the group helped organize a protest against a visiting televangelist who vowed to "exorcise the demons" from San Francisco on Halloween. The organization was active through 1991; an attempt to revive the group in 1992 was unsuccessful. An offshoot, the San Francisco Street Patrol, was a neighborhood safety patrol in the Castro District; it outlived QN/SF itself by a year.
The Queer Nation chapters in Atlanta, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina; Berea and Lexington, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee were active in protesting homophobic policies of the Cracker Barrel
restaurant chain.
Queer Nation in Houston was active from the beginning of 1991 through late 1994. On July 13, 1991, the group held a major demonstration to protest police response to the July 4 gay-bashing murder of Paul Broussard; that demonstration involved between 1200 and 2000 individuals who seized the intersection of Montrose Boulevard and Westheimer Street at the heart of Houston's gay neighborhood. Other actions by the group included a march in the suburban town that was the home of Broussard's killers, seizing the rotunda of Houston City Hall after another murder, protesting the Houston Post
's firing of columnist Juan Palomo after he came out, and protesting discrimination against HIV-positive nurse Brian Bradley. The group also took the lead in organizing GLBT and HIV/AIDS protests at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston.
Queer Nation/Portland generated many original and popular sticker designs and slogans, including "Fuck Your Gender," "Bend Over Pretty," and a series of stickers interpolating Madonna lyrics, as "Strike a Pose, Not a Fag."
Family Values: Two Moms and Their Son by Phyllis Burke. New York: Random House, 1993. ISBN 0-679-42188-2. In this nonfiction book, the author recounts her struggle to adopt her domestic partner's son, a drama that is set against a backdrop of Queer Nation actions in San Francisco in 1990-1992.
News articles:
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, USA by AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
activists from ACT UP
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power is an international direct action advocacy group working to impact the lives of people with AIDS and the AIDS pandemic to bring about legislation, medical research and treatment and policies to ultimately bring an end to the disease by mitigating loss of health and...
. The four founders were outraged at the escalation of anti-gay and lesbian violence on the streets and prejudice in the arts and media. The group is known for its confrontational tactics, its slogans, and for the practice of outing
Outing
Outing is the act of disclosing a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person's true sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. Outing gives rise to issues of privacy, choice, hypocrisy, and harm in addition to sparking debate on what constitutes common good in efforts...
.
History
On March 20, 1990, sixty LGBT people gathered at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services CenterLesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center is a nonprofit organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population of New York City and nearby communities.- History :...
in New York's Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
to create a direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
organization. The goal of the unnamed organization was the elimination of homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
, and the increase of gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
and bisexual visibility through a variety of tactics.
The direct-action group's inaugural action took place at Flutie's Bar, a straight hangout at the South Street Sea Port on April 13, 1990. The goals included a desire to make it clear to (straight) patrons that queers would not be restricted to gay bars for socializing and for public displays of affection, and to call attention to the fact that most "public" space was in fact heterosexual space. Through parodying straight behavior (such as "spin the bottle") at these events, queers refused to be invisible while publicly questioning the naturalized status of heterosexual coupling activity. Visibility actions like this one became known as "Queer Nights Out."
Although the name Queer Nation had been used casually since the group’s inception, it was officially approved at the group's general meeting on May 17, 1990.
The militant protest style of the group contrasted with more assimilationist gay rights organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign
Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign is the United States' largest LGBT advocacy group and lobbying organization; according to the HRC, it has more than one million members and supporters...
or the Log Cabin Republicans
Log Cabin Republicans
The Log Cabin Republicans is an organization that works within the Republican Party to advocate equal rights for all Americans, including gays and lesbians in the United States with state chapters and a national office in Washington, D.C...
. Queer Nation was most effective and powerful in the early 1990s in the USA, and used direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
to fight for gay rights. They also worked with AIDS organization ACT UP
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power is an international direct action advocacy group working to impact the lives of people with AIDS and the AIDS pandemic to bring about legislation, medical research and treatment and policies to ultimately bring an end to the disease by mitigating loss of health and...
as well as WHAM! Even though never officially disbanded, many of the local groups did so in the mid to late 1990s.
The group's use of the word "queer" in its name and slogan was at first considered shocking, though the reclamation has been called a success, used in relatively mainstream television programs such as Queer Eye
Queer Eye
Queer Eye is an American reality television series that premiered on the Bravo cable television network in July 2003. The program's name was changed from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy after the third season to broaden the scope of its content...
and Queer as Folk.
Other slogans used by Queer Nation include "Two, Four, Six, Eight! How Do You Know Your Kids Are Straight?" and "Out of the Closets and Into the Streets," and the widely imitated "We're Here! We're Queer! Get used to it!"'
Early timeline
Here are some of Queer Nation's first actions:- April 20, 1990
Queer Nation members show up en masse at Macy's department store where Olympic gold medallist Greg Louganis
Greg Louganis
Gregory "Greg" Efthimios Louganis is an American Olympic diver and author.He received the James E. Sullivan Award from the Amateur Athletic Union in 1984 as the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States....
is promoting a new swimsuit line. Queers arrive with WHEATIES cereal boxes with swimmer’s picture pasted on front, to recall the time the cereal maker rejected Louganis as a spokesperson, ostensibly because he is gay.
- April 26, 1990
Responding to the 120% increase in violence against queers, Queer Nationals climb the billboard on the roof of Badlands, a Greenwich Village bar and hangs a 40-foot banner that reads: "Dykes and Fags Bash Back!"
- April 28, 1990
A pipe bomb explodes in Uncle Charlie’s, a Greenwich Village gay bar, injuring three. In protest, Queer Nation mobilizes 1000 queers in a matter of hours. Angry marchers fill the streets, carrying the banner “Dykes and Fags Bash Back.”
- May 12, 1990
The inauguration of "Queer Shopping Network." Members of Queer Nation travel from New York City to the Newport Mall in Jersey City with leaflets offering information about queers, safe sex tips, and a list of famous queers throughout history. The leaflets are titled "We're here, we're queer and we'd like to say hello!"
Legacy
A television program of the same name with a focus on lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) New Zealanders and current events and issues regularly aired in New ZealandNew Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
for 11 seasons from 1996 to 2004, by which time it claimed to be the world's longest running free-to-air LGBT television show. The programme was funded by NZ On Air under its mandate to provide for the interests of minorities in the community.
Queer Nation in other locales
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...
, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
, Columbia, S.C.
Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...
, Houston, Minneapolis, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
(known as Queer Nation Rose), Philadelphia (known as Queer Action), Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, San Francisco, Seattle and Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
.
Queer Nation/San Francisco was founded in June 1990 by Mark Duran, Steve Mehall and Daniel Paíz; they organized a meeting at the San Francisco Women's Building the following month where the group was launched publicly. In the fall of 1990 the group helped organize a protest against a visiting televangelist who vowed to "exorcise the demons" from San Francisco on Halloween. The organization was active through 1991; an attempt to revive the group in 1992 was unsuccessful. An offshoot, the San Francisco Street Patrol, was a neighborhood safety patrol in the Castro District; it outlived QN/SF itself by a year.
The Queer Nation chapters in Atlanta, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina; Berea and Lexington, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee were active in protesting homophobic policies of the Cracker Barrel
Cracker Barrel
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. is an American chain of combined restaurant and gift stores with a Southern country theme. The company was founded by Dan Evins in 1969 and its first store was located in Lebanon, Tennessee, where the company is now headquartered...
restaurant chain.
Queer Nation in Houston was active from the beginning of 1991 through late 1994. On July 13, 1991, the group held a major demonstration to protest police response to the July 4 gay-bashing murder of Paul Broussard; that demonstration involved between 1200 and 2000 individuals who seized the intersection of Montrose Boulevard and Westheimer Street at the heart of Houston's gay neighborhood. Other actions by the group included a march in the suburban town that was the home of Broussard's killers, seizing the rotunda of Houston City Hall after another murder, protesting the Houston Post
Houston Post
The Houston Post was a newspaper that had its headquarters in Houston, Texas, United States. In 1995, the newspaper was absorbed into the Houston Chronicle.-History:The newspaper was established on February 19, 1880, by Gail Borden Johnson...
's firing of columnist Juan Palomo after he came out, and protesting discrimination against HIV-positive nurse Brian Bradley. The group also took the lead in organizing GLBT and HIV/AIDS protests at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston.
Queer Nation/Portland generated many original and popular sticker designs and slogans, including "Fuck Your Gender," "Bend Over Pretty," and a series of stickers interpolating Madonna lyrics, as "Strike a Pose, Not a Fag."
External links
- Queer Nation Manifestos
- Some articles
- article
- Queer without Fear
- article by a former QN member
- Website of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
- Guide to the Alan Klein papers at NYU's Fales Library. Klein is a founding-member of ACT UP/New York and a cofounder of Queer Nation/New York.
- GLBT Historical Society (San Francisco). Houses the records of Queer Nation/San Francisco and the San Francisco Street Patrol; also holds papers from several Queer Nation/San Francisco activists, including Fernando Aguayo-Garcia, Brian Bringardner, Gerard Koskovich and Marco Place. In addition, Queer Nation materials appear in other collections at the Historical Society, including the San Francisco Groups LGBT Ephemera Collection and the papers of Jenni OlsonJenni OlsonJenni Olson was born and raised in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Olson is a film exhibition curator, director, award winning documentary filmmaker, and author. Olson co-founded and still writes for PlanetOut.com, and campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge.-Biography:Olson was...
.
Outside Reading
"The Case For and Against Queer Nation," pp. 256–66, Johansson, Warren & Percy, William A. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Harrington Park Press, 1994.Family Values: Two Moms and Their Son by Phyllis Burke. New York: Random House, 1993. ISBN 0-679-42188-2. In this nonfiction book, the author recounts her struggle to adopt her domestic partner's son, a drama that is set against a backdrop of Queer Nation actions in San Francisco in 1990-1992.
News articles:
- San Francisco Chronicle, 30 October 1990: 'Spiritual Warfare' at Civic Auditorium
- San Francisco Examiner, 30 October 1990: Local Gays Plan Rally Against Televangelist's 'Prayer Army'
- Wall Street Journal, 30 October 1990: The Devil, You Say? San Francisco Faces Halloween Exorcism
- San Francisco Chronicle, 1 November 1990: 6,500 Christians Attend S.F. 'Exorcism'
- San Francisco Examiner, 1 November 1990: Prayer Army and 'Pagans' Tangle
- Los Angeles Times, 29 April 1991: Gays Bashing 'Basic Instinct'
- San Francisco Examiner, 30 April 1991: Film Forges Ahead Despite Gay Protest