- Queer Nation
Queer Nation was an organization founded in March 1990 in
New York City ,USA by AIDS activists from ACT UP.citation |title=Queer Theory/sociology |first=Steven |last=Seidman |authorlink=Steven Seidman |page=414 |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |isbn=1557867402 ] 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 ofouting .History
On
March 20 ,1990 , sixty LGBT people gathered at theLesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center in New York'sGreenwich Village to create a direct-action organization. The goal of the unnamed organization was the elimination ofhomophobia , and the increase ofgay ,lesbian andbisexual 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 goal: to make clear to patrons that queers will not be restricted to gay bars for socializing and for public displays of affection. More 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 .Queer Nation's popular
slogan "We're here. We're queer. Get used to it." was adopted and used by many in theLGBT community.The militant protest style of the group contrasted with more assimilationist gay rights organizations such as the
Human Rights Campaign or theLog Cabin Republicans . Queer Nation was most effective and powerful in the early 1990s in the USA, and useddirect action to fight forgay rights . They also worked with AIDS organizationACT-UP as well as WHAM! Even though never officially disbanded, many of the local groups did so in the mid to late 1990s.citation |title=Queer Nation/Seattle Disbands |url=http://www.qrd.org/qrd/orgs/QN/qn.seattle.disbands-02.05.95 |accessdate=2008-03-29 |date=February 5 ,1995 ] citation |title=We're Here, We're Queer, We're Finishndash Maybe |first=Doug |last=Sadownick |periodical=LA Weekly |url=http://www.qrd.org/qrd/orgs/QN/queer.nation.is.dead-LA.WEEKLY |date=October 1 1993 |accessdate=2008-03-29 ] citation |title=Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexualities |first=David |last=Bell |first2=Gill |last2=Valentine |publisher=Routledge |page=295 |isbn=0415111633 ]Queer Nation is credited with starting the process of reclaiming the word "
queer ", which, previously, was only used in a pejorative sense. The group's use of it in their name and slogan was at first considered shocking, though the reclamation has been called a success,citation |title=Cast Out: Queer Lives in Theater |first=Robin |last=Bernstein |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=0472069330 ] used in relatively mainstream television programs such as "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy " and "Queer as Folk".Queer Nation is also linked to several controversial incidents in which closeted public figures were outed. Queer Nation's reasoning was that ending the "hypocrisy" benefited gays as a group because it let them know there actually were gay people in influential places, and promoted gay rights by forcing the outed and the organizations they belonged to take a stance on issues concerning gays. Many in the
gay community did not agree with Queer Nation's radical tactics and favored a less confrontational course of action.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".
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 medalist 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.*
April 26 ,1990 Responding to the 120% increase in violence against queers, Queer Nation climbs to 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 gay current events and issues regularly aired in
New Zealand for eleven years until 2004, by which time it claimed to be the world's longest running LGBT television show.Fact|date=March 2008Queer Nation in other locales
Queer Nation chapters were founded in dozens of other cities, including
Atlanta ,Boston ,Chicago ,Columbus, Ohio , Columbia, S.C.,Minneapolis ,Montreal (known as "Queer Nation Rose"),Nashville ,San Francisco ,Seattle andToronto .Queer Nation/San Francisco was active from the spring of 1990 to about 1993. 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.citation |periodical=
Wall Street Journal |date=30 October 1990 |title=The Devil, You Say? San Francisco Faces Halloween Exorcism |first=Chip |last=Johnson |accessdate=2008-03-29 |url=http://www.toobeautiful.org/wsj_901030.html ] An offshoot, the [http://www.glbthistory.org/about/ourstory/fall00.lasso#SFSP San Francisco Street Patrol] , was a neighborhood safety patrol in the Castro District, outliving QN-SF itself by a year.
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