An initiative to create an alternative community space in Boston where transgender and queer people can come together is surpassing its fundraising goals and looking to open by June 2024, according to the Boston Globe.
Reports the Globe:
In 2010, Carina Traub ventured off to the first specifically queer space she had ever gone to but told her parents she was going to statistics tutoring instead. A high school student at the time, she got lost during the long drive from her San Francisco suburb to the event in an even deeper suburb of the city.
“My experience of finding a queer community initially felt very shameful, like something I had to hide,” Traub said. Now, Traub, who lives in Boston, is the director of development at QT Library, a nonprofit community organization tailored to the queer and trans community. They surpassed their $50,000 fund-raising goal with a Kickstarter campaign in July, and they plan to open a brick-and-mortar library in Boston in June 2024. …
Niki Green, QT Library’s director of operations, said the group envisions their location as a hybrid word-life space for all ages, offering “computers, Wi-Fi, access to the internet, bookable conference rooms and event spaces, as many different types of seating for people of all sizes and mobilities, and intergenerational spaces.”
“It is our hope that this becomes a space that other community organizations that currently exist as Instagram groups or Discord servers can use to spend time,” Stepansky said. “In this moment of tremendous challenge and physical and legislative violence, we are fighting back in all the ways that we can.”
Traub suggested that QT Library also has the chance to play offense; not only defense. “We can build a beacon,” she said. “It’s important for us not just to respond, respond, respond to the hate and the violence, but to show that another way is possible.”
Read the complete Boston Globe story here.
Not a subscriber? Sign up today for a free subscription to Boston Spirit magazine, New England’s premier LGBT magazine. We will send you a copy of Boston Spirit 6 times per year and we never sell/rent our subscriber information. Click HERE to sign up!
