Whoever has to deal – directly or not – with the LGBT community, knows that there’s a whole lot more beyond the ‘T’, and that, inside all those letters, there are even more letters and definitions. Keeping up with all these definitions can get complicated, especially because of all the English loan words that are enriching our Italian vocabulary.
However, you may like it or not, each one of these definitions is important, as much as it is important to know their meaning.
In fact, knowing all shades the queer culture is made of (which is called culture for a reason), helps fight against discriminations (both inside and outside the LGBTQIA community), and educate people about differences (which should be respected and praised).
But, if you really have trouble keeping up with all these new terminologies, or if you find it hard to explain to your sister what kind of differences occur between a butch lesbian and a femme lesbian, or if your best friend still does not understand what a demisexual and an asexual are, you might want to use a very useful and explicative guide made by three young and creative ladies: A Queer Culture Illustrated Guide.
Now at its third edition, this guide explains everything you have to know about the LGBTQIA+ community, and it’s a good example of how irony can beat stereotypes.
In order to better explain this awesome project to you, I decided to ask these girls a few questions, so that you could have a first person account of their work.
Personally, I would like to say how much I hope this guide could help (especially) those who feel the queer culture is just a heap of people trapped into offensive stereotypes, and that do not see how much this culture enriches humanity, even after all the discriminations it has (and still is) going through.
1) First things first. What are your names and what do you do in your life?
We are three young ladies who live and work in Milan for a project named A Queer Culture Illustrated Guide. Our names are Mariagloria, Martina and Giulia.
2) How and why did you come up with this project?
It all started with me (Mariagloria). I was debating with Martina at university. I was trying to explain to her the differences between sexual identity and sexual orientation, coming out and outing, different types of gay and lesbians, etc. and I was trying to do so with the help of some sketches. They were plain simple, with stick men, arrows and hearts in them. Then, starting with these drawings, I began working on a fanzine I subsequently self-published and spread among some friends and acquaintances of mine. A year later, also thanks to Martina and Giulia, I decided to take a step further by printing 100 copies and creating a dynamic website and Facebook page.
3) So, what is this guide about? How does everything work?
Our guide is full of definitions, from gender to demisexual, from drag queen to gaydar. Everything is apolitical and each definition is explained in a very understandable way, which is suitable for everybody, even for the ‘straightest’ straight man.
Two are the parts that people like the most: the one dedicated to clichés (every lesbian story has to be a drama, the average hipster gay guy has to have a beard etc.); and the one dedicated to false myths (gay people do not live in a special ghetto and they are not contagious).
There’s even a chapter dedicated to queer icons and famous personalities, both past and present. Our guide is also interactive: there’s a form, in our website, where you can suggest us a new icon or cliché.
Speaking of circulation, well, it is kind of simple. We have self-financed the first 100 copies, sold them and then restored them after reaching the initial amount of money. We also raise funds from associations and sold copies.
Each edition has new and updated contents as well as a new cover: the first one was light blue, the second one bright pink and the current one is rainbow (in honor of the Milan Gay Pride 2015).
4) If you could donate this guide to 3 people/categories of people, who would you choose?
Mariagloria: Confused teenagers/young adults.
Martina: Youth Aggregation Centers which are not directly involved in the queer world. This could build up some dialogue and bust stereotypes.
Giulia: Giorgia Meloni, taking it lightly (Translator’s note: Giorgia Meloni is an Italian right-wing politician, who is not that keen about same-sex marriage/gay rights).
5) What is the main purpose of this guide?
It would be easier if some people could just stop ignorantly discriminating other human beings by educating themselves in a funny way. And that’s our goal, educate people in a funny way.
When a straight guy, or maybe a fellow colleague at our office, asks for a copy, we know we are on the right path, and that we do have created a tool which can help not only the LGBTQIA community itself, but also a wider public.
6) What gave you the highest satisfactions?
Without doubts, the best satisfactions come from all the compliments we receive from all those associations and activists which support our project, and from all the praises we get from other graphic designers.
Our special thanks go to Chiara Reali from Le Cose Cambiano (translator’s note: Chiara Reali is the woman behind the Italian version of the American It Gets Better project), who helped us bringing our guide to schools both in Milan and Alessandria.
Another great satisfaction comes from the experience with Tessere le Identità, an LGBTIQIA association from Alessandria, where we met great people and had a great time.
7) Any future project?
The guide, as well as the website, is bilingual: each description is both in Italian and English.
We started getting in contact with independent libraries, but we are just at the beginning.
Generally speaking, we would love to take a step further by bringing this project to a more international and wider public. At the same time, we would like to keep on looking for associations and Italian schools with a thing for stick pink/ light blue men, rainbows and books.
Photo Credits: A Queer Culture Illustrated Guide
Contacts:
Website: queercultureguide.com
e-mail: info@queercultureguide.com
Facebook Page: facebook.com/aqciq
