I don’t think I need to tell you life feels extremely difficult right now. LGBTQ+ lives — especially trans lives — are under attack at every level of the government and by pervasive and insidious societal programming attempting to erase and demonize queer and trans identities. Shit’s rough! Queer community building feels not only like a balm but like an imperative. If you’re struggling to find your queer community or just looking for other avenues for deep connection, our team shares our own approaches and the unexpected places where you can not just survive but thrive. From queer sports leagues to dinner parties to craft groups to martial arts to simply calling the people already in your life, there are so many ways to nurture queer community in your everyday life. Share how you’re finding or taking care of your queer family in the comments!
The Horrors Persist, but So Does Queer Community
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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, fiction, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the former managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cake Zine, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The AV Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. When she is not writing, editing, or reading, she is probably playing tennis. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya has written 1099 articles for us.
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Comments
I second martial arts. Especially if you’re a woman or woman-adjacent, there will be a decent proportion of queer women there. This will depend on the individual gym’s culture–places that are openly woman- and LGBTQ-accepting (flag sticker on the door, higher-belt women, women instructors) will be friendlier to queer people. Some places can be the bigoted type of macho, so I highly recommend showing up to watch or taking a trial class.
Hard agree. I just joined Muay Thai and it is very queer coded. Only been there for a few weeks now and one of the (I suspect) queer girls has already asked to hang out! Also agree on sports, specifically kickball and softball seem to lean queer coded. It’s tough out here so happy that people are finding those social supports irl, online, and whatever other ways work for them!
Anyone suggesting gay bars ate safe spaces is lying to you. They are drug infested dives filled with predators, enablers, and their victims. If you know any young gay person you should tell them to avoid them. They are like strip bars without security
Whoa, can you tell me where we can find gay bars such as this? To uhh avoid them, of course… 🥵 Somehow the ones near me just have overcrowded screenings of gay reality TV shows and people desperately trying to avoid their exes. I must be doing something wrong!!!