Queer Nation was founded in March 1990 in New York City, USA by 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. One of the four was a survivor of anti-gay violence. Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... ACT UP, or the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals . ... The Death of Orpheus In Albrecht Dürers 1494 drawing, the banner hung in the tree reads: Orfeus der erst puseran (Orpheus, the first sodomite). The word puseran(t) derives from the Latin bulgarus from which come also the terms bugger in English and bougre in French. ...

On March 20, 1990, sixty queers gathered at the Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community 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. GAY can mean: Gay, a term referring to homosexual men or women The IATA code for Gaya Airport Category: ... In human sexuality, bisexuality describes a man or woman having a sexual orientation to persons of either or both sexes (a man or woman who sexually likes both sexes; people who are sexually and/or romantically attracted to both males and females). ... A transgendered person in New York Citys Gay Pride Parade Transgender (IPA: , from trans (Latin) and gender (English) ) is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the normative gender role (woman or man) commonly, but not always, assigned at... A protest by The Westboro Baptist Church; a group identified by the Anti-Defamation League as virulently homophobic. ... A lesbian is a woman who is romantically and sexually attracted only to other women. ...

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 the LGBT community. Aside from its militant protest style, as opposed to the more reformist 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! and were the birthplace of Queer Action Figures. Even though never officially disbanded, most sources agree that Queer Nation no longer exists. However, 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. Look up slogan in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The initialism LGBT is used to refer collectively to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people. ... HRC logo The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is one of the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equal rights organization in the United States. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For the band, see 1990s (band). ... Direct action is a form of political activism which seeks immediate remedy for perceived ills, as opposed to indirect actions such as electing representatives who promise to provide remedy at some later date. ... The gay rights movement is a collection of loosely aligned civil rights groups, human rights groups, support groups and political activists seeking acceptance, tolerance and equality for non-heterosexual, (homosexual, bisexual), and transgender people - despite the fact that it is typically referred to as the gay rights movement, members also... ACT-UP, or the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power, is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals . ...

Queer Nation is credited with starting the process of reclaiming the word queer, which, previously, was only used in a pejorative sense and Queer Nation's use of it in their name and slogan was at first considered shocking. Ten years later, queer is almost an ordinary word, used casually in the name of gay-supportive and relatively mainstream television programs such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Queer as Folk. The word queer has traditionally meant strange or unusual, but it is also currently often used in reference to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and asexual communities. ... Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is an hour-long American television series that premiered on the Bravo cable television network on July 15, 2003, and promptly became both a surprise hit (at least by the standards of cable TV) and one of the most talked-about television programs of... Queer as Folk Series 1 DVD Cover Queer as Folk is a 1999 British television series that chronicles the lives of three gay men let loose in Manchesters gay village around Canal Street. ...

Queer Nation is also linked to several controversial incidents in which closeted public figures were outed as gay or lesbian. Queer Nation's reasoning was that ending this "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 more assimilationist course of action. The expression being in the closet has been used to describe keeping secret ones sexual behavior or orientation, most commonly homosexuality or bisexuality, but also including transgender and transsexual people, paedophiles, and pederasts. ... // While outing often refers to an outdoor excursion, in the late twentieth century, the term acquired an additional meaning, taking someone out of the closet, that is, publicising that someone is secretly homosexual. ... GAY can mean: Gay, a term referring to homosexual men or women The IATA code for Gaya Airport Category: ... A lesbian is a woman who is romantically and sexually attracted only to other women. ... The idea of a gay community is complex reflecting the diverse nature of the individuals who make up that community. ...

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".

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!"

Queer Nation in other locales

Queer Nation chapters were founded in dozens of other cities, including San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Columbia, S.C. and Toronto.

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 [1]; in spring 1992 the group demonstrated against the filming of Basic Instinct in the city [2]. An offshoot, the Street Patrol, was a neighborhood safety patrol in the Castro District, outliving QN-SF itself by a year. The Queer Nation chapters in Atlanta and Columbia were active in protesting homophobic policies of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain. Basic Instinct is a 1992 thriller film, directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas. ...

See also

• Civil rights
• Gay rights
• Heterosexism
• Queer nationalism

Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ... The gay rights movement is a collection of loosely aligned civil rights groups, human rights groups, support groups and political activists seeking acceptance, tolerance and equality for non-heterosexual, (homosexual, bisexual), and transgender people - despite the fact that it is typically referred to as the gay rights movement, members also... Heterosexism is a predisposition towards heterosexual people, which some see as biased against lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender or intersexed, people among others. ... Queer Nationalism is a phenomenon which is related both to nationalism and to gay and lesbian liberation movement. ...

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. He is a founding-member of ACT UP and a co-founder of Queer Nation

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

Queer Nation also refers to:

• A web comic
• A TV show from New Zealand
• A club in London
• Chaucer's Queer Nation is the title of a book by Glenn Burger