Special places for LGBTQ people are a big concern for now than any time else. Today we are going to talk about this issue. So if it’s somehow your concern too, follow us until the end.
Special places for LGBTQ people are now very critical. We should increase the number of them for this group of people, which are a less paid attention one. There are some parts of everyone left in the points where they have gone and visited. No matter whether it is the place they live in or a shop they visit.
There is always a little bit of your energy and vibe left there. Maybe, it was something more abstract some years ago, but now, in the digital and modern era, the footprint of our presence is more tangible. Now all the things that we have said or even done are recorded.
That being said, it is both scary, and, at the same time, it is full of potential. Most specifically, it has potential for those people who are mostly underestimated while they are in a big battle to show their irritating but invisible stories to the public.
Special Places for LGBTQ People
The things we were saying in the introduction were for no people but the people of the LGBTQ community. They are the ones who have been removed repeatedly from the mainstream and the records of it. The ones who have been violated and told to keep their visibility and freedom to themselves in order to be safe.
But what can we do against such a thing? Are there any way out? The answer is yes. Maybe it is hard, but it is possible for sure. We can help those people mostly via the Internet. Actually, the Internet and, let’s say, social media were some mediums in recent years which could help so many people and groups of society.
Here again, Internet can act as a contrary story against such a thing, which LGBTQ are resisting. Internet should indeed suggest a narrative, which is made by people, private and nonprofit organizations, and scientists. They can be very helpful in making documents from those people and mapping them out. Hereby, they actually lead them to show themselves publicly.
Making LGBTQ Records Digital
There is a database used for finding special places for LGBTQ people called Mapping the Gay Guides. It works based on the guides that Bob Damron made. He is a man of business that traced all the experiences that he had as a man who was gay and when he was on a vacation across the US from 1960 till now.
He chose to make his observations throughout his vacation systemic, and then he thought of even selling them. That may remind you of Green Book. No, I don’t mean the movie! Which was very fun and entertaining, yet unrelated to the real book that much.
Indeed, the Green Book, in real context, was a historical book made to aid black people find places across the US that were safe. So, let’s get back to Bob Damron. He gathered one of the greatest investigations about the LGBTQ culture (1965-1980).
He then sold the idea solely to another man of the field named Dan Delbex in order to commence his firm – the Damron Company, in the 1980s. Even nowadays, you are still able to buy a number of the main and primary copies in a virtual way. Other copies are present in virtual libraries.
Gina Gatta, the writer and the main editor of Damron Guides, declared in an interview that she saw the studies and books about special places for LGBTQ people or the other stuff they need are no longer attractive to them.
The fact was especially true for the people of this group who were inhabitants of urban towns and places. Now, when we come to a way to offer guides for a kind of little but important and diverse use, the Internet can be the best choice possible.
Mapping the Gay Guides
The website named Mapping Gay Guides was constructed by Eric Gonzaba and Amanda Regan, respectively, an assistant professor at CSU Fullerton and a history and geography department of Clemson University lecturer.
When they were both working on their studies for the dissertation, the idea came to their minds to turn the guides of Damron into a source, which was all digital and virtual. But let us elaborate more on the guide in order for you to understand it better.
It is worth noting that the guide of Damron is not the only guide for the special places for LGBTQ people; and there are more, including Gayellow Pages and Spartacus Guides. They suggest the same information or similar ones.
That being said, none of them is perfect, and all of them have certain problems. An important point here to mention is that we can clearly see from different guides that spaces between the community of LGBTQ people have some developments over the years.
So many entries exist that our scientists want to map them out. They are actually attempting to vast the pool of knowledge for other scientists in the field. Here we should point to one of the Regan quotes. As per this investigator, the digital record somehow is able to make history democratic.
Digital Record Can Get Back Lost Voices
The most important thing here is that this kind of history can get back all of the lost voices throughout history as well. That is also the main thing that Regan, Gonzaba, and other investigators of their team are trying to do. They want to simply say out loud that the history of these people is present everywhere!
The way we map in modern times itself gives multiplied power to LGBTQ people’s voices. Mapping the Gay Guide might have been made in the first place just to point out the special places for LGBTQ people, but it is now more than that and can give those people their lost power and voice back!
Source: inoreader