transnational queer underground

The “transnational queer underground” emerged as a reference to the “international pop underground”, a convention initiated by Calvin Johnston (K Records/Portland/USA) in 1991 to take a stand against the sell-out of the music industry and also laid the foundation for the riot grrrl movement. In 2009 I was doing a lot of research on issues related to queer music for an article I was writing at that time and thought that the information I collected might be useful to some other people as well.

The articles that are posted here are mostly related to music, since that is my main topic, but as more and more people participate and help shaping the transnational queer underground I hope we will soon be able to offer a broader range of subjects. And I am always looking for people who would like to contribute something, either on a regular basis or just once. Go to the [PARTICIPATION] section to find out more.

Besides articles you can also find some basic information here. In the category [BANDS] there is a list of queer musicians, with links to their websites, so you can find out more about them. In the category [ARTISTS] you can find links to some visual artists. There are also a lot of queer [FILM FESTIVALS] worth checking out. [QUEER VENUES] offers you a list of places to go to in different cities around the world, recommended by people from those areas. In the [TEXTS] section you can find some links to (scientific) publications that are available on the internet. Finally there is a page called [LINKS] which I will have to work on in the near future to get a better structure.

There are a few things that are very important to me.
The history of queers has been widely neclected in the past and is still underrepresented in the present. So this is a small approach towards changing that.
The term queer, as used on this page, should be seen as a description for people or a group of people who do not act conforming to heteronormative rules and/or feel uncomfortable with categories implemented through a heteronormative society. This also means that there should be no references to biologisms, because they are constructed by society. There is nothing inherent about being a girl or a boy and you shouldn’t even have to define as either of these two, so there really is no need in reinforcing these categories here. And I see this the same way when it comes to sexual orientation, RACE, ethnicity or even nation states. We should question these categories and help deconstructing, instead of reproducing them.