You’re probably asking: has it really been three years since the start of the pandemic—since the start of this newsletter?! (Yes.) Has Queer Agenda been dormant for that long? (Yes.) Is this newsletter ever going to come out of hibernation? (Yes!)
Writing this newsletter has always been a balance between oversharing (which I am prone to do), self-promotion (which I try not to do, but end up doing anyway), research & data, and connecting queer folks together. Perhaps I’m overthinking it, but I want to make this newsletter worthy of sending through the internet and landing in your inbox. Our attention spans are (often very) limited and I hope this next evolution enriches your day!
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Queer Agenda is now Queeries. Instead of using different names for the newsletter and survey, creating both vines of information—and future branches, buds, and offshoots—will live as projects under the umbrella moniker. Much like the umbrella term queer, Queeries will refer to many different things all at once.
Yes, this means that Queeries as a platform, a survey, a project, a practice, is evolving. Stay tuned ;)
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Survey: Designing Beyond the Binary
Last week, I finally sat down for an interview for Designing Beyond the Binary, a trans- and queer-led research project to better understand the lived experiences of trans, nonbinary (enby), and gender-nonconforming (gnc) individuals and communities to support more inclusive design of the places we use—and more broadly, the relationship between gender and the built environment. I had meant to do this months ago—I have an unread email that I can finally mark as read now, because I’d finally gotten to it—but life kept getting in the way. Tale as old as time, but here we are.
I had taken the anonymous survey prior to the Zoom interview. For folks who can’t or don’t want to commit to an interview, the survey is where it’s at: it’s long at 48 questions, but they’re short, place-based, and only a handful are demographic-based. If you’re really being thoughtful, it should still take under 20 minutes to complete.
Here is a preview of the questions, which flow into one another seamlessly on Typeform:
Think of one place you like to be in or go to. Do you feel physically safe in this place? Do you feel emotionally comfortable in this place? Do you feel you belong in this place? What type of place is this? How enclosed is this place? How crowded is this place? How loud is this place? What is the temperature of this place? What materials are in and around this place? Does this place feel gendered?
The 30-minute interview was with K Kaczmarek (they/them), an interior designer at Mithun (which was awarded the 2023 AIA Architecture Firm Award, the highest honor the AIA bestows on an architecture firm). K is no stranger to being an outsider: they were a teacher and a hair stylist for fourteen years before pivoting to interior design. Through working with their mentor, K began to see the inequity they faced in the built environment as a design challenge—and started Designing Beyond the Binary to root their work in design through a lens of queerness.
As an amateur queer data nerd, it’s extremely exciting and heartening to learn about Designing Beyond the Binary’s combination quantitative + qualitative research methods. The study’s results will measure the joys and struggles of trans experiences in space, and identify trends in spatial qualities like scale, adjacencies, lighting, and materiality—all things that designers can change. K isn’t working alone: also part of their team is Jake, a Landscape Architect, and Claire, an Architect, so that their analysis will be interdisciplinary and will reach overlapping fields of built environment design and stewardship.
I had a great conversation with K—not just because they’re fun to talk to, but also because the questions really made me think beyond the everyday work that I do. I always welcome opportunities to take a step back, reflect, and synthesize my values with my work, and get existential about why I’m here and what I’m actually trying to do.
Here are some of the questions from the interview, which sparked offshoot conversations and helped add deeper context to my survey responses:
How does your gender identity impact different places? How is your gender identity impacted by different places? What kind of design do you practice? How does your gender identity impact your work? How could the built environment support you better, related to your gender identity?
Designing Beyond the Binary is aiming for 2,000 responses by the end of March. Please consider forwarding this opportunity to participate on to your queer design friends—especially your trans and gender non-conforming buddies!!! Extra links are below for more information and context.
Visit Designing Beyond the Binary’s Instagram »
Interview with K on Pride by Design »
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Don’t mind the logos, the newsletter is just trying to find itself.
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Last but not least: a poll for the masses.
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As always, thank you for reading. I hope these words inspire in some way, shape, or form.
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Until next time 🎊 ,
A.L.