Safe Cities and Queer Spaces: The Urban Politics of Radical LGBT Activism

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) visibility is at a high. Gay marriage is a reality. Gay urban enclaves are threatened by their own success, historic icons of the movement subsumed by urban development. Yet violence and homelessness continue, and socioeconomic disparities are reinforced in LGBT communities, particularly among women, people of color, young and old, and gender-nonconforming. Overlapping identities and systems of oppression exacerbate the marginalization of LGBT-identified people, creating “unjust geographies” that intertwine race, class, gender, and sexuality. These queer struggles play out in gay centers and in urban areas far from those. How might researchers understand the complex and intersectional nature of queer marginalization in urban space today, situated within multiple modes of social and spatial oppression? How might those involved in the envisioning and making of cities contribute to the social movements still fighting for change and justice? Building on theories of critical geography and queer theory, this article explores the organizing work of queer activist organizations in two New York City neighborhoods, including the author's participatory role as a designer and activist: FIERCE's campaign for a queer youth center in the West Village and the Audre Lorde Project's safe neighborhood campaign in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Through an analysis of the strategies, politics, and spatial implications of such work, the article delineates the ways in which queer community organizers on the ground are fighting for social and spatial change, outside and despite dominant economic and sociopolitical structures.