By Robin Abad Ocubillo and Wesley Reibeling

LGBTQ+ people are natural placemakers. Through their activism, art, community-building, and their very existence, they shape cities in ways that are often overlooked.

On the contrary, in many parts of the world, LGBTQ+ folks still face discrimination and exclusion. As the Human Dignity Trust reports, 64 countries still criminalize consensual same-sex relationships, and at least 14 criminalize transgender identity or expression. Despite these challenges, queer communities remain some of the most resilient and creative, including when it comes to using public space to claim their rights and visibility.

This tension of exclusion and potential is why the Global LGBTQ+ Storytelling Congress was founded in 2023 to uplift LGBTQ+ voices globally in conversations about urban space through the power of storytelling.

In June 2024, the Congress was thrilled to participate in the 4th International Placemaking Week in Baltimore, Maryland, where two co-founders of the Congress, Robin Abad Ocubillo and Wesley Reibeling, ran an LGBTQ storytelling workshop. Alongside the conference, Robin and Wesley conducted interviews with local LGBTQ+ community members to provide valuable insights into how community members define and experience queer space in the City of Baltimore.

Placemaking Week, organized by Project for Public Spaces and the Neighborhood Design Center, brought together activists, leaders, and urban professionals from around the world to envision more inclusive, place-led futures for cities in the vibrant hub of Baltimore. The event organizers created a safe and supportive space that centered the experience, perspectives, and efforts of people who are elevating many different types of marginalized communities and initiatives in Baltimore and beyond.  

International Placemaking Week LGBTQ+ Storytelling Workshop 

The Congress was in good company at Placemaking Week. Some of the incredible equity-centered workshops included “What Could a Non-Sexist Baltimore Look Like?”, which called for economic and social transformation to address gender, race, and class, and Culture House’s workshop,"How to Create a Pop-Up Community Space," which explored ways to create inclusive spaces that counter social isolation. The Congress’s Queer Placemaking Workshop was a hands-on approach to placemaking that brought together LGBTQ+ identified placemakers and allies to delve into issues centering equity and to co-create tools and frameworks to celebrate queer and trans existence through storytelling. 

"Storytelling is a perfect tool to help share the nuances of our wonderful, urban, queer, and trans communities, and their experiences—how they navigate public space, advocate for visibility, and often build resilience in cities grappling with systemic challenges. As placemakers, we have a responsibility to amplify the incredible work that is often taken for granted in the urban realm."  

—Robin Abad Ocubillo at Placemaking Week

In this interactive workshop, participants reviewed key data highlights, shared their personal connections to this content, and co-created tools and strategies for capturing and sharing LGBTQ+ stories.

How Does the Global LGBTQ+ Storytelling Congress Work?

The Congress seeks insights and Indigenous ways of knowing from all over the world, from portraiture to oral histories, in order to workshop methodologies for LGBTQ+ people to safely and sensitively tell their own stories of heroism and community leadership.

The Congress makes it a priority to center women, trans and non-binary people, Indigenous folks, disabled folks, and people of color in its work. Throughout this arts-based storytelling project, the safety of participants is always top of mind. Staying trauma-informed and obtaining informed consent is crucial to every step of the Congress’s process. All of the interviews the Congress conducts happen in public space—in parks, plazas, streets and sidewalks. This highlights the presence that community members have in the physical, social, and psychological geographies of places.

Prior to Placemaking Week in Baltimore, individual members of The Congress were sparking critical conversations about queer and trans urban space alongside The Global Placemaking Summit in Mexico City (October 2023) and at The Global Cultural Districts Network convening in Athens (May 2024).

“We aim to inspire the global placemaking community, including designers, planners, and policymakers, to think deeply about how we can work together to create inclusive and caring spaces. Our goal is to inspire leaders through our storytelling project to go deep with their local community, learn from them, and — most importantly — listen to them, so that when they design the built environment, they do so with LGBTQ+ communities in mind.” 

—Wesley Reibeling at Placemaking Week

Key Findings So Far

In less than one year since forming, The Congress has interviewed queer activists, artists, advocates, placemakers, and community leaders in Mexico City, Athens, Baltimore, and the Netherlands while holding workshops and panel discussions on queer perspectives on sense of place. These interactions have generated profound insights, highlighting patterns that are universal to the queer experience and essential to the pursuit of queer liberation in public spaces and policy. The Congress synthesized these sentiments into the ways that governments, institutions, and cultures that shape those spaces.

Public spaces often lack representation and visibility of LGBTQ+ individuals, leading to feelings of exclusion and limitations on authentic self-expression. 

• Queer places come into being in physical space where, and in times when, LGBTQ people feel safe and free to express their genuine selves. 
• Queer places exist beyond the stereotypically gay neighborhoods. These places aren't limited to fixed locations; instead, they can be ephemeral, recurring, or mobile, like raves, pop-up or guerrilla takeovers, and rural gatherings. Queer histories and memories are made all over the ever-changing city.
• Many community members shared how crucial safe mobility and accessibility are for expanding a sense of place-belonging. Spaces, events, and programs must be inclusive for everyone, including those who are mobility-assisted, visually impaired, or deaf.  
• We must also acknowledge the distinct challenges faced in rural LGBTQ+ placemaking, which can differ greatly from urban settings where proximity to and diversity of other queer people is higher. Regardless of the size of a community, one conclusion emerged clear: incorporating queer voices at every stage of urban planning is essential.

Institutions and Governments have a unique responsibility to serve, protect, and uplift all communities. In areas where these entities fall short, LGBTQ+ communities are stepping up with mutual aid where governments and institutions cannot.

• Allyship with larger organizations with free space, technical support, marketing, and other resources without expecting anything in return. 
• Critical self-reflection is a fundamental queer ethos that should be embraced by both individuals and organizations, including allies and mainstream groups. Institutions must prioritize accountability by adopting a trauma-informed approach that involves those who caused harm to disenfranchised communities, rather than placing the burden solely on LGBTQ+ individuals.

Queer Culture is rich and diverse in its own right. Mainstream cultures should adapt to embrace it  rather than expecting queer culture to conform. 

• Elders and youth are some of our most vulnerable populations, who need targeted care, outreach, programs, and facilities.
•  Cultural competency cannot be imposed from the outside; it comes from the experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals and practitioners. Therefore,  institutions must make a concerted effort to include and support queer people on governance bodies, leadership teams, and staff. 

What recommendations came out of the Baltimore Placemaking Week LGBTQ+ Placemaker Storytelling Workshop?

Placemaking week attendees offered many inspiring ideas for extending storytelling for and about the LGBTQ+ experience. Marginalized histories brought to life through embodied experiences can be powerful. Engagement can take many forms; for example a Jane’s Walk or walking tour, collective bike rides, or even gallery and bar-hopping through historically significant places. Activation like block parties and local public space takeovers are great for building connections and community. Place games and play are perfect mediums for sharing stories across generations and identities.

Finally, participants cautioned about the dangers of pinkwashing, the practice by large entities to promote themselves as LGBTQ+ supportive or inclusive while failing to provide meaningful support. True allyship requires more than performative gestures. Communities need authentic commitment to transformation. Displacement is just the beginning of erasure, so let’s build policies and programs that help vulnerable groups stay rooted in place.

What’s Next?

Queer spaces aren’t just where we gather, they’re where our stories live. Stories—told through experiences, movements, and connections to one another—shape the cities we inhabit. 

Looking forward, the Congress plans to continue documenting these stories from queer placemakers worldwide. It is currently refining its Storytelling Toolkit and hopes to one day make it available open source. It is expanding leadership to be more inclusive, and exploring new ways to share LGBTQ+ stories across different platforms and to fund future work. Just this past September, the LGBTQ+ Storytelling Congress spoke at Art of City-Building in Halifax, Canada, and Placemaking Week Europe in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In October 2024, the Congress will share updated findings at The High Line Symposium in Detroit, Michigan.

As for the placemaking movement at large, It’s time to rethink and reshape urban spaces to reflect the diversity, resilience, and creativity of LGBTQ+ communities. Let’s demand policies that center co-creation in design, protect queer spaces, and draw attention to the stories that define us. 

Storytelling is how we preserve our past, celebrate our present, and imagine our future—so let’s make sure it belongs to all of us.

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About the Global LGBTQ+ Storytelling Congress

The Global LGBTQ+ Storytelling Congress was co-founded by Robin Abad (San Francisco, CA), Ana Abenheim (Strasbourg, France), Thalia Kiousi (Athens, Greece), Norman Ornelas Jr. (Los Angeles, CA), Jeffrey Shumaker (New York, NY), Eric Solis (Mexico City, Mexico), and Wesley Reibeling (Toronto, Canada) with advisor Carmen Mays (Birmingham, AL). In March 2024, Thalia Kiousi officially joined the Congress as a co-founder.

If you’re interested in joining the Congress, volunteering with us, or learning more about this organization’s work, feel free to reach out via email or follow us on Instagram at @lgbtqi_stories.