5 Reasons (Beyond Allyship) Why Queering Spaces is Important

There's a lot of discussion out there about how to show allyship to the LGBTQ+ community. Neutral signs on single-occupant bathrooms. Pronouns included on employee nametags. Pride flags on windows and rainbows in decor.

Queering a space goes beyond these signs, and can have profound and important impacts on the businesses, events, and people who interact with them, even if they don't identify as part of the queer community.

What Does it Mean to Queer a Space?

To me, queering a space means creating it with the intention that any queer person who enters it will be comfortable and know that they are safe. It means training the staff, giving weight to queer voices, and normalizing subtle gestures like asking for pronouns and not assuming gender roles. By a space, I mean any business, event, or class where people are present. A class in a studio where many events take place can queer the space during the duration of the class through the actions of the teachers.

Let me give you an example.

I have been dancing tango for well over a decade, and have taught a handful of times. As a queer woman, I train my teaching partners to embrace a more queer-friendly version of the dance. Instead of men do this, women do that, we refer to leaders and followers. Instead of assuming what role someone will take based on perceived gender, we encourage everyone to try both roles and choose one based on embodied experience.

What defines queer tango is the assertion that you cannot tell anything about the gender or sexuality of any person based on who they choose to dance with or which role they prefer. This has led to some beautiful evolutions of the dance. My favorite of these is called switching, when two dancers both know the lead and follow roles well enough to switch off during the dance. The beauty of queer tango is that anyone can participate, whether or not they identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, yet it is structured to ensure that anyone who is queer feels safe and supported.

But queering a space supports more than just the LGBTQ+ community. Here are 5 reasons that it supports everyone.

Reason 1: Offers Unexpected Options

When I teach queer tango to a mostly cis/het class, it invites people outside of expected conventions. Women try leading and men following. Sometimes they revert back to traditional roles the moment they get the chance. Sometimes, someone is surprised when they resonate with a role they wouldn't have otherwise chosen.

The beauty of queerness is that it is undefined. It opens the door to curiosity and exploration. This quality is valuable for everyone, not just queer folk.

Reason 2: Invites Curiosity

Difference often creates a defensive reaction. Thoughtful leadership and intentional staff training means that discrimination and microaggressions are met with kind, firm boundaries. It also means they can repurpose such interactions for conversation and growth.

A queer space transforms reactions against difference into curiosity and kindness. This is obviously not always a graceful transition, but powerful social leadership can set the tone for what is acceptable and how to handle discomfort.

Reason 3: Opens the Mind

Queer spaces expose people to different ways of being and thinking. This, in turn, opens minds and hearts to other kinds of difference outside of the LGBTQ+ world. The more comfortable people become with one kind of difference in particular, the more comfortable they can learn to be with difference in general.

The stories that we pick up give us a frame of reference to widen our expectations of what it means to be human. The more these stories spread and seep into the wider cultural consciousness, the more comfortable we all will be with differences.

Reason 4: Fights Colonialism

Many pre-colonial and indigenous cultures had well-established social norms designated for those who did not fit binary modes of gender or sexuality. They were accepted and celebrated members of society.

Colonialism wiped out these norms and replaced them with the rigid binary we know today. By creating spaces that reject this black-and-white thinking, we fight colonialism in subtle, yet powerful ways. We can remind ourselves what it feels like to be human without this part of a colonial overlay. And everyone who takes that felt-sense with them, spreads it in subtle ways to those they interact with.

Reason 5: Creates New Models

Every space that offers a queer alternative creates a new model for how to do so. The beauty of queerness is that there's no set way to do things or how to be. Any event and space can tweak the ways they invite queerness based on the nature of the space itself. And that, in turn, gives inspiration to other spaces looking to do the same thing.

Building A New World, One Space at a Time

To me, queering a space is an intentional act of creating the kind of world that I want to see. Whether the space is frequented by the LGBTQ+ community or not, creating a space where we will feel welcome is an act not just of allyship, but of cultural change. Every time a new queer space is created, it creates a ripple effect, giving permission to more spaces to take inspiration from the way the space is held. This is the way we create a new world: one intentional space at a time. Spaces that make room for the discomfort of those discovering them for the first time. Spaces where we call each other in, rather than out. Spaces where we can sit with the messiness of being very different humans learning to work and live together in community. Spaces where kindness is the core guiding principal, for everyone. Especially when things get hard.