Iām A.L., and youāre receiving this message because you saw this tweet and DMād me your email. Thank you for your trust, and thank you for your patience! I do realize that I tweeted this out in the before-times, pre-COVID-19ā¦
ā¦so you said you wanted to ābuild a closer community,ā but you waited five months to make contact?
Yes. Itās complicated. Because life. The pandemic happened (and is still happening). The uprisings happened across the United States and weāre still in the throes of a historic time. Every day, every hour, brings another plot twist that no one saw coming.
Okay. So youāve had some time to think through Queer Agenda, then.
Not exactly. But Iāve been thinking about building some type of queer architects & designers community for awhile now. Itās always been on the back burnerābecause lifeāand itās never felt like the right timeāuntil now.
[to skip the following wall of text, scroll down to the image and the header that reads, āsoā¦ here we go!ā]
Some context: I am an architect by training, my license is only two (monster) exams away, and I am currently working with a non-profit developer. During graduate school, I helped found Queer Students of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (the website is horribly out of date, but I did design the logo!). After graduating, I was briefly part of the now-inactive QSPACE (cool name though, right? I wish I could borrow it). In 2018, I marched in NYC Pride with Build Out Alliance, a professional development organization for LGBTQ architects (we stepped off 2 hours late -_-). Iāve been to a couple American Institute of Architects (AIA) conferences and paid the extra $60 to attend the LGBTQ Happy Hours. At last yearās AIA conference, I spoke on a panel session titled The Silent Minority: LGBTQ+ Voices in Architecture. Back in New York City, I spoke on a panel organized by FXOne called Letās Talk Identities.
ā¦are you building a CV right now?
My point is: personally, Iāve participated in a myriad of queer-specific professional development events and activities but have rarely found a feeling of belonging to a community, a network of people. Of queer architects and designers, specifically. Iām not looking to network for a job, to host panels, to write or produce anything of material valueāIām looking to build relationships with others, and to facilitate that among other people as well. To be honest, Iām still feeling out what that means. I tweet a lot, so thatās where I find people to be in community with, but itās extremely ephemeral (and sometimes toxic). Nothing says ānot ephemeralā like an email newsletter, though, so thatās what Queer Agenda is right now.
soā¦ here we go!
In the spirit of not exactly having thought things completely through yet, I invite you to join me in an experiment. Whether or not the experiment works depends on all of us. Thatās right, all of us. I invite you to set aside a block of timeāit can be as short as 5 minutes or as long as an hourāto leave a comment on this post with whatever thoughts come to you. You donāt even need to edit itātypos are allowed. Just type.
Are you searching for community? What kind of network do you want to build together? What does your community look like right now?
How did reading this make you feel? Did you find the conversation-style writing cheesy? Do you want to unsubscribe immediately?
How did you get here? Whatās your context?
Whatās on your queer agenda?
And of course, a newsletter wouldnāt be a newsletter without more buttons.
Thank you for reading.
Until next time š»,
š¬with a cool breeze from an air conditioner,
A.L.
Just a note about the commentsāyou may have to create an account with substack. If you'd like to remain anonymous or incognito, give yourself a username/display name that isn't your real name :)
im so glad you kicked this off A.L.! i responded to your tweet bc i would love to know more queer architects or have some sense of community w/in the bigger one. in addition to being a newsletter, i think it would be cool for this to result in a regular zoom happy hour or other ways for all the rest of us to connect & become familiar, so we will recognize & be able to support one another out in the bigger field.