Queer Nation

History

On March 20, 1990, sixty LGBTQ people gathered at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center 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 organization of Queer Nation, being non-hierarchical and decentralized, allowed anyone to become a member and have a voice.

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."

Another method for Queer Nation to grab attention was the use of banners at protests and rallies. One banner used read “Dykes and Fags Bash Back,” another “Queer Nation…Get Used To It!” which referenced the organizations famous chant “We're here! We’re Queer! Get used to it!”

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, Log Cabin Republicans, or National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. 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. The use of the word "queer" disarmed homophobes by reversing its derogatory nature.

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 Chicago was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1995.

Current activities

Beginning in the summer of 2013, Queer Nation began to experience a resurgence of sorts. As anger began to rise within the American and global LGBT community over Russia's recently approved anti-gay laws, Queer Nation organized a series of actions throughout that summer and fall, pressuring corporations and public officials to divest from Russian holdings and assets, as well as to pressure public figures and corporations to withdraw sponsorship or participation in events held in or in the name of Russia, most prominently the 2014 Winter Olympics scheduled to be held the following February in Sochi, Russia.

Early timeline

Here are some of Queer Nation's first actions:

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!"

A boycott of the music group Snap! was arranged by members of Queer Nation after the lead singer, Turbo Harris was accused of assaulting Boston club owner, Dennis Moreau.

Queer Nation in other locales

Queer Nation chapters were founded in dozens of other cities, including Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Boston, Charlottesville, Virginia, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Ohio, Columbia, S.C., Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee Minneapolis, Montreal (known as Queer Nation Rose), Philadelphia (known as Queer Action), Nashville, San Francisco, Seattle and Toronto.

San Francisco

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. In another campaign, they distributed their trademark neon stickers that read "Trans Power/BI Power/Queer Nation". 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.

In 1992, Transgender Nation was founded by members of Queer Nation as the "first explicitly queer transgender social change group in the United States."

Los Angeles

Queer Nation LA was active in the early 90s staging protests against Hollywood's perceived homophobia and disrupted the 64th Academy Awards by staging a "kiss-in", obstructing entrants from the event while members of the group kissed on the red carpet. Other more radical actions include a blockade of Ventura Blvd, confrontations with various church groups in the area, and the taking over of a political science class at Los Angeles City College.

Houston

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 LGBT and HIV/AIDS protests at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston.

Portland

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."

Denver

Queer Nation/Denver began in November 2012 by Todd Alan Haley II, using the original Pink Panthers Patrol insignia of the pink triangle with the "clawed" panther's paw in the center. Going by the name: The Pink Panthers Movement /PPM, Haley wanted to ensure that the original message the Pink Panthers Patrol created was never lost, either by apathy or legal pressure brought on by MGM Pictures/Studios. What began with just 3 party members in June 2010, now their growth exceeds over 1200 active and supporting party members. Teaming up with various feminist groups along the USA, The Pink Panthers Movement vows to remain a non-profit group dedicated to helping other LGBT non-profits and the Women's Liberation Front. The PPM's slogan: "Our Rights, Our Community!" and "Curb your homophobia, we bite back!"

Southeast

The Queer Nation chapters in Atlanta, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina; Berea and Lexington, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee founded by Kelvin Lynn Cothren and Cheryl Lynn Summerville were active in protesting homophobic policies of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain.

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.

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