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As designers and urbanists engage with LGBTQ+ identity, what role do gender and sexuality play in the preservation, design, and management of urban space today? [...]
Marginalization means invisibility, both in history and space. New efforts seek to reclaim and preserve queer histories inscribed in sites across the city.
— Urban Omnibus
Urban Omnibus, a publication of the Architectural League of New York, recently launched its new series Intersections: Surfacing (guest-edited by Jacob R. Moore), allowing a more informed look at issues of gender and sexuality in the context of design & urban history. View full entry
On Friday, President Obama formally [declared] the Greenwich Village bar and its surrounding area the Stonewall National Monument, and creating the first National Park Service unit dedicated to the gay rights movement.
According to the White House, the monument designation will consist of 7.7 acres, protecting the tavern, Christopher Park across the street, and several other streets and sidewalks where spontaneous protests were held for equal rights in 1969.
— The New York Times
More on Archinect:Queer Space, After Pulse: Archinect Sessions #69 ft. special guests James Rojas and Susan SurfaceThe enduring significance of gay bars in American citiesObama administration to designate Stonewall as America's first LGBT memorialHow LGBT Acceptance Is Redefining Urban AmericaU.S... View full entry
The moment a space like [a gay bar] disappears, a sense of identity goes with it. “When you don’t have those spaces, you lose the ability to see yourself," [...]
"...we also need to continue to modify it in a way so everybody has access, so we’re not doing the same thing that the mainstream population is doing to us and isolating ourselves in certain spaces due to access.”
— attn.com
Related on Archinect:Obama administration to designate Stonewall as America's first LGBT memorialAs "gayborhoods" gentrify, LGBTQ people move into conservative AmericaThe future of gay neighborhoodsHow LGBT Acceptance Is Redefining Urban AmericaU.S. LGBTQ preservation group pushes to preserve more... View full entry
Façadomy is new publication that looks at contemporary identity through the lenses of art and architecture. Façadomy's inaugural issue, Gender Talents explores the landscape of self-determined gender. It builds off the work of progressive sexologist Esben Esther P. Benestad, who has observed seven distinct genders in their practice as a therapist in Norway. Three prominent voices in contemporary art and architecture reflect on these seven themes... — Façadomy
Conversations around gender and identity – long excluded from the "gentleman's profession" of architecture – are seeping more and more into architectural discourse.For example, the AIA announced recently that they would cancel their conference in North Carolina because of the passage of HB... View full entry
New York's iconic Stonewall Inn, where the modern gay rights movement took root, will become the first national monument honoring the history of gays and lesbians in the U.S. under a proposal President Barack Obama is preparing to approve.
Designating the small swath of land will mark a major act of national recognition for gay rights advocates and their struggles over the last half-century.
— AP
Originally built as stables in the 1840s, the Stonewall Inn was the site of historic riots after police raided the LGBT bar on June 28, 1969. While such raids were then common, that night the bar-goers fought back – in the process helping to catalyze the LGBT liberation movement.The news was... View full entry
For most, the act of going to the bathroom is an unremarkable part of their daily routines. However, for transgender people, fear of harassment makes this small decision a tough obstacle.
In North Carolina a recent law has been introduced requiring people to only use bathrooms that match the gender they were assigned at birth.
Web designer Emily Waggoner was "devastated" by the new legislation, and decided to do something to help those in need of a safe location to use non-gendered bathrooms.
— BBC
Waggoner, who grew up in North Carolina although currently lives with her partner in Boston, worried about the safety of her transgender friends back home after the state passed this new, and highly controversial, legislation.While purporting to be in the interest of "safety," such legislation... View full entry
Despite skewing Democrat, LGBT people are flocking to red states. It’s a sign that cities in the center of the country are becoming more accepting, but it’s also an indication that traditional LGBT safe havens are prohibitively expensive.
ConsumerAffairs.com analyzed U.S. Census data and Gallup polling information to model the movement of the LGBT community from 1990 to 2014. The overall trend is striking.
— the Daily Beast
"In 1990, the LGBT population was concentrated in coastal metropolitan areas and other safe havens—cities like San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Atlanta. By 2014, LGBT hot spots cropped up in some seemingly unlikely places: Salt Lake City, Louisville, Norfolk, Indianapolis, and other red... View full entry
With the issues of serving openly in the military and same-sex marriage now largely resolved, the fight for all-gender restrooms has emerged as the latest civil rights issue in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (L.G.B.T.) community — particularly the “T” part.
Schools and universities (...), museums (...), restaurants (...) and even the White House (...) are recasting the traditional men’s/women’s room, resulting in a dizzying range of (often creative) signage and vocabulary.
— the New York Times
