On Pride 🤲🏼

Spiraling 🌀 but in a good way 🌀

Another Pride Month has come and gone! Whether you spent all June partying or just one night out on the town or somewhere in between or elsewhere / none of the above, I hope you were able to bask in queer love and found fulfilling sources of joy. 🌀 And I hope you resisted and stood up for something this month, too. Because that’s what it’s all about, in the end—celebrating queerness in all its forms, and protesting the status quo in order to make the world a more just, more queer, place.

That’s how Pride Month started, after all: as a brick thrown at the police at the Stonewall Inn back in 1969, culminating in six days of uprisings. (There were momentous protests for queer rights before and after Stonewall, but this was theeee pivotal one.) That brick held the force of so many injustices. I always welcome the reminder that the progress we’ve made on accepting and celebrating queerness did not come without multiple fights. It’s those instances of sustained resistance that lead to large-scale change. 🌀

At the 2024 AIA Conference, at the very end of the Out in Architecture: Elevating LGBTQIA+ Stories to Build Equitable Futures panel, a younger member of the audience asked a very vulnerable question, one that would have made more sense in a one-on-one conversation than in a conference seminar session. After nearly 90 minutes of discussing Out in Architecture’s overarching themes and personal stories, I thought it poignant and telling that the final question asked of the panel was a bid for everyday advice—not unrelated to the book, but one hundred percent about what it’s like to be out in architecture. The person with the question felt safe enough to be open about their identity and their struggles, and I did not take that lightly. 🌀 We were running out of time—conference organizers were entering the seminar room—but each panelist took the time to give heartfelt, genuine, actionable counsel drawn from their personal experiences. Together, we invited such a raw, emotional inquiry into a professional conference on architecture. 🌀

Then, we were told to wrap it up as quickly as possible—another seminar needed to use the room. As the Out in Architecture panel and audience left, a noticeably different demographic of architects filed in and sat down. Within a minute, the energy in the room had completely shifted. Queer joy out, AI in architecture in 👀🌀

The panelists! Photo by Jessica Nelson.

So, in a way, going to the AIA Conference this year as a visibly queer nonbinary transgender person was both an act of celebration and protest. There were enough queer people to create safe spaces for tender moments like the young person asking an unguarded question to happen. No bricks were thrown, but metaphorical bricks were collected by queer attendees and we started the process of building our own space together, within the Conference. 🌀 So much has changed in regards to queerness in architecture in the past five years—I can barely imagine what the next five will bring. 🌀

For me, Pride Month is a convenient way to compartmentalize celebrations, but it is by no means the only month when queerness matters. The joke is that corporations will switch their logos back from rainbow colors at midnight on July 1st, and we’ve all seen it happen. 🌀 But I’m queer all day, every day, and there’s no turning it off. The way that I see the world is queer, and even if June is over, there’s still a lot of pride and celebration to be had. Here’s to more compassionate, big-love, promiscuous-care moments together in the future, in architecture and beyond!

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What’s coming up:

Out in Architecture 2 — Interested in knowing more or sharing your story through Out in Architecture Volume II? Interested in hearing more about events in your area? Curious about other ways you could get involved and share your story? Fill out this form :)

2024 NOMA Conference — It’s in Baltimore this October! I’ll be on a panel with Jha D Amazi (MASS Design Group) and Cyrus Dahmubed (Utile) called Queer Spaces: A Model Framework for Inclusive Design.

Q:DREAM virtual exhibition — Kind of a mess right now, but watch this space! More to come soooooooon.

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Once again, thank you for reading this newsletter. It really would not exist without you.

I hope these words inspire in some way, shape, or form.

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Until next time,

A.L.