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Bryan talks to the creator of Queering the Map, a digital archive of queer stories from around the globe

Bryan talks to the creator of Queering the Map, a digital archive of queer stories from around the globe

Released Wednesday, 8th May 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Bryan talks to the creator of Queering the Map, a digital archive of queer stories from around the globe

Bryan talks to the creator of Queering the Map, a digital archive of queer stories from around the globe

Bryan talks to the creator of Queering the Map, a digital archive of queer stories from around the globe

Bryan talks to the creator of Queering the Map, a digital archive of queer stories from around the globe

Wednesday, 8th May 2024
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0:02

Hi, I'm Jeremy Stahl. I'm Slate's Jurisprudence

0:04

editor. Ordinarily, I edit our courts and

0:06

legal coverage from the comfort of my

0:08

home office in Los Angeles, but for

0:10

the next month and a half, I

0:12

will be locked in a lower Manhattan

0:14

courtroom with the rest of the press,

0:17

a jury of 12 New Yorkers,

0:19

Justice Juan Marchón, prosecutors,

0:22

Trump's defense team, and the former president

0:24

himself as history unfolds. I've temporarily moved

0:27

myself and my family from Los Angeles

0:29

to New York to cover this case

0:31

firsthand, like I have done in

0:34

other cases, including the Paul Manafort case,

0:36

the Roger Stone criminal trial,

0:38

and Donald Trump's first impeachment. I'm

0:41

hoping that my background knowledge of the

0:43

many, many criminal travails of our former

0:45

president can offer something to you, Slate's

0:47

listener. Over the next several

0:49

weeks, you'll be hearing from me on

0:51

Amicus, Slate's legal podcast, and

0:53

in articles on slate.com, from the

0:55

jury selection, to the opening arguments,

0:58

to the witness testimony and

1:00

cross-examination, and the prosecution's case

1:02

and the defense's case, and

1:04

ultimately to a final verdict.

1:07

We will be providing you wall-to-wall

1:09

coverage throughout the entirety of the

1:11

trial as it unfolds from the courtroom.

1:14

There's no way I'd be able to do it without the

1:16

support of Slate Plus. So if

1:19

you're not already a subscriber, please

1:21

join today by clicking try free

1:23

at the top of the Amicus

1:25

show page on Apple Podcasts, or

1:28

visit slate.com/Amicus Plus to get access

1:30

wherever you listen. Thank

1:32

you so, so much. Hello,

1:52

and welcome to Outwards, Slate's podcast

1:54

about queer living, laughing, loving, and

1:57

all those other L words, especially

1:59

the L-word. L word. I'm

2:01

Brian Louder, an editor at Slate, and on this

2:03

week's show, we're going to be talking about a

2:05

project that I've long admired and think is just

2:07

one of the coolest ideas in the world, because

2:10

it does indeed kind of involve the whole world.

2:12

Queering the Map, which launched in

2:14

2017, is an online initiative built

2:16

around queer cartography, the notion that

2:19

we can map space with our

2:21

personal queer experiences. That might

2:23

sound a little high falutin, but just think about

2:25

it. Where was the house party where you had

2:27

your first gay service, the intersection where you started

2:29

nervously coming out to a parent or friend,

2:32

the cafe where you got a text about

2:34

the loss of a queer elder, the shop

2:36

mirror where you first experienced gender euphoria. With

2:38

Queering the Map, you can drop a pin

2:40

on all of these special points in space

2:42

and share those stories with others. And once

2:44

you see that beautiful globe overflowing with hundreds

2:46

of thousands of moments of queer joy, sorrow,

2:49

and everything in between in 28 different languages,

2:51

you can't help but feel the truth of

2:53

the slogan that the queers, we are everywhere.

2:55

We'll be right back with a conversation about Queering

2:57

the Map. Warmer,

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4:07

Deaf Sex and Money, we feature interviews

4:09

with you, our community of listeners, getting

4:11

honest about uncomfortable things. I

4:14

developed an illness where it isn't safe for

4:16

me to drive. A friend of mine

4:18

said to me, sex is like air, you

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4:36

All right, we're back. To help us explore Queerin'

4:39

the Map, we're joined today by its

4:41

founder, Lucas LaRuchel. Lucas is a designer,

4:43

researcher, writer, and of course queer cartographer,

4:45

which I think is the coolest title

4:47

someone could have. And their work is

4:49

concerned with queer and trans digital cultures,

4:51

community-based archiving, and artificial intelligence. The writing

4:53

has been published in the Sociological Review,

4:55

MIT's Immers and elsewhere, and their projects

4:57

have been written about and featured in

4:59

the New York Times, Time Magazine, Wired,

5:02

and Vogue among numerous other publications. I'm

5:04

so excited to have Lucas on the

5:06

show today. Lucas, welcome to outward. Thank

5:08

you so much for having me, and

5:10

thank you for that beautiful introduction of

5:13

Queerin' the Map and myself. It's

5:15

my pleasure. It's truly just an amazing project,

5:17

so I'm excited to talk today. I guess

5:19

let's just start at the beginning, which for

5:21

you, and with all good things, starts in

5:24

Canada, I think. You

5:26

built Queerin' the Map as part of a class project

5:28

in your BFA program, and so I'm curious just how

5:30

did that idea come to you, and what did it

5:33

look like in the beginning, maybe versus what it looks

5:35

like now? Definitely. Yeah,

5:37

so I built the first version

5:39

of Queerin' the Map as part

5:41

of a web design class during

5:44

my BFA, and at the time

5:46

I was reading a lot of

5:48

queer theory in relation to space,

5:50

and I was really interested

5:52

in thinking about places beyond where

5:55

we usually imagine Queerin' trans life

5:57

occurs, places like bars, books, and

5:59

stuff. stores, bathhouses, et cetera, or

6:01

particular neighborhoods or stretches of streets,

6:04

because while I was, you know,

6:07

I was definitely having formative queer

6:09

and trans experiences in those locations,

6:11

a lot of the ones that

6:14

oriented me more intensely, let's say,

6:16

happened in smaller, perhaps less, quote

6:19

unquote, significant or well understood areas.

6:21

So places like alleyways, places like

6:23

this, you know, this place in

6:26

the middle of the forest where

6:28

I would meet my first love,

6:30

and we would talk about our relationship

6:32

and the barriers to its full expression,

6:35

you know, park benches, specific subway trains,

6:37

these sort of places that

6:39

were less places as much as they

6:41

were ephemeral moments that happened to occur

6:44

in space, and even the lack of

6:46

a consistent architecture or infrastructure necessarily around

6:48

that space still felt like they lingered

6:50

in those places despite the passage of

6:53

time. And so because I am, I

6:55

mean, and was at the time learning,

6:57

I had to become a web developer

7:00

and was really interested in generally the

7:02

internet as a place for queer storytelling,

7:04

because I grew up in small town

7:06

Ontario, Canada. The internet was the first

7:08

place that I found out that there

7:10

were other people who had experiences similar

7:12

to mine, and so I was really

7:14

interested in the internet as a place

7:16

for queer storytelling. And so what I

7:18

was thinking about at the time, which

7:20

was queer and trans space, what I

7:23

was learning about, which was digital infrastructures

7:25

and web development came together and I

7:27

built the first version of Queering the

7:29

Map in 2017. And

7:32

so the first version of Queering the Map

7:35

was really just a place that

7:37

housed my own stories and the

7:40

stories of my immediate friends in

7:42

Montreal. And then slowly it started

7:44

to grow out of Montreal into

7:46

Toronto, stories started popping up in

7:48

Vancouver, then the States, then in

7:51

Australia, and

7:53

slowly, I Mean, long, long,

7:55

long, long, long story short over the

7:57

past, I Guess, six, seven years. Line

8:00

and it's grown all across

8:02

the world around seven hundred

8:05

and eighty six thousand plus

8:07

submissions and twenty different languages

8:10

all across. Across the World's.

8:12

Yeah. I mean it's incredible. I love

8:14

this concept of ephemeral Space Has earth places right?

8:17

That is not a bar. It's not. It's not

8:19

a community center or whatever. it's these. The space

8:21

was made sort of by you or ones interaction

8:23

with her right? I can think of like a

8:26

dorm room and college were very specific thing happened

8:28

to me that that's like that would be on

8:30

my map riot but no one else would know

8:32

that as like a queer space assist assist space

8:35

but is made clear by our existence and at

8:37

an answer the meaning we bring to that. I

8:39

wanted to ask eat see you Talked a little

8:41

bit about how the site started. I was

8:43

curious. It is as it went on. you had

8:45

to change anything about you're thinking or approach from

8:47

sort of what you'd maybe thought it was gonna

8:49

be at the beginning and then is. All these

8:52

people sucks it's coming on using at what changes

8:54

a gf demand. Definitely. I

8:56

mean there's ten, needs are multiple

8:58

and major, that and a lot

9:00

of holes in order to accommodate

9:02

the rising amount of traffic. And

9:04

actually right now I'm getting close

9:06

to launching a new version of

9:08

the site with a much more

9:10

robust attend to handle the amount

9:12

of traffic that it's receiving which

9:14

is just exploded will have a

9:16

robust back and as love a

9:18

robust back and saying that that's

9:20

a need Seminary made some nonstop

9:22

which seems to be the case

9:24

with math, but. I think arguably the

9:26

most important in suspects and seems that

9:28

concerns the front and experience of the

9:30

state Top and really early on in

9:33

the projects and into doesn't he team.

9:35

We added a moderation system me has

9:37

the project was always anonymous and that

9:39

was always a really important part. Which

9:41

means that there's no user profiles, attack

9:43

range of the points so there's no

9:45

identifying user information that's attached to any

9:47

of the posts made on the marina

9:50

map not even on our end in

9:52

the past And with it which matters

9:54

of course for people. And woman various parts

9:56

of the world including the you has said this point

9:58

where it where that could be dangerous. Right?

10:00

How do a a I play

10:02

and so that is always super

10:04

important. But the moderation panel was

10:06

added because you know very quickly

10:08

that started to gain traction outside

10:11

of my immediate community is so

10:13

to came in out various spam

10:15

how serious you know attacks on

10:17

the project both sauna on a

10:19

technical level and then just son

10:21

supposed themselves and so in in

10:23

twenty seen we added that the

10:25

moderation panel which meant that every

10:27

post that. Is submitted is

10:29

read by a human moderator. Famously

10:32

means that it takes a very

10:34

long time to get a post

10:36

ah approved on Kramer. Not because

10:38

it's all done through for human

10:40

labor to ensure that there no

10:43

hate seats, spam and particularly am

10:45

any breaches of anonymity so no

10:47

first name, last name, know phone

10:49

numbers now exact address as or

10:51

email addresses, social media handles, etc

10:54

and eating that be used to

10:56

breed someone's anonymity and that's a

10:58

really. Critical part of the projects

11:00

in terms of maintaining its safety

11:02

as well as ensuring. I mean

11:04

there's a human aspect to the

11:06

fact that every single story on

11:08

quitting the map has been read

11:10

by. it's a human being robbed

11:12

and once it's done, moderated of

11:14

course. Ah, with rather than it

11:16

just being you know, mass moderated

11:19

surreal, I'm sort of ai system.

11:21

what's right? Eventually, when I attempted

11:23

to explore using machine learning as

11:25

as a vehicle for moderates and

11:27

it was a pretty significant failure.

11:29

Just because of the of the use of

11:31

language, it's really hard for an Ai to

11:34

detect. You know, how is the word sag

11:36

it being used for example. In

11:39

a way that see no a self

11:41

definition or reclamation of the term or

11:43

the been used as an epithet Preserved

11:45

and and it has so much of

11:47

course so much of the language inquiry

11:50

not uses these kinds of you know

11:52

slurs or reclamation, the language etc either

11:54

in describing an experience that happen to

11:56

someone or using those terms in and

11:58

upon. And reclaimed way it wasn't or

12:00

hasn't been particularly affected to use any

12:03

sort of machine learning model to assist

12:05

with this labor of mater a sense

12:07

Yeah, so that's that's I think finn

12:09

been one of the biggest. Yeah.

12:12

More assertive that that assess the

12:14

the front end user experience and then

12:16

it has been. I mean some I

12:18

often describe myself as a steward of

12:21

clearing the map I created it, I

12:23

designed it, I developed the first

12:25

version and continue to work on it

12:28

in a developmental capacity as well. But

12:30

really it's most of my labor is

12:32

around maintenance and infrastructure maintenance and the

12:35

communications around the project because it just

12:37

requires so much. So much upkeep because

12:39

everything is moderated because the infrastructure

12:41

needs. Change all the times certain

12:43

you know parts of code become

12:45

obsolete. And yeah, so it's It's

12:47

a beer long labor of love

12:50

that's undertaken by myself and then

12:52

a network of a volunteer developers

12:54

and moderators from across the world

12:56

that help with the with the

12:58

maintenance and develop. yeah of the

13:00

process does. So fascinating it's it's

13:02

interesting to hear about a thing

13:04

that maybe I cannot. Take

13:07

over as is is sort of judging those words as

13:09

I hadn't thought of. Ah, but that makes them as

13:11

complete hands. Serif and about the sir technical

13:13

side of things. I think it would be

13:15

a good moment and the conversation now to

13:17

actually hear some of the stories. Were gonna

13:19

listen to a few of those. Either.

13:27

Party with I ruined for

13:29

my birthday. I just. Looked

13:31

at the new. To do

13:33

it who? The person in a museum or

13:35

the saloons. In even seen.

13:38

Forgotten to really sincere and

13:40

and that I can tell

13:42

you my strong seems. Kingston,

13:46

Jamaica. Yes, I still haven't the

13:48

meaning of thing to do. So

13:50

many player girls, they don't get

13:52

up together supporting. Each other's homophobia.

13:54

so. Much pressure, So many last,

13:57

so much anti retreated, love and

13:59

acceptance. From that

14:01

literally threatened. To read the from us anyway

14:03

they could. That's funny, the power we have and.

14:07

For the first time everything closed source

14:09

of comfort happiness lying next to you,

14:12

trusting asleep and I think of how

14:14

I knew I was going and how

14:16

much meant to me how islam. As

14:21

Saucer tidal wave first started to

14:23

wonder about my sexuality I also

14:26

heard of unable to this. Day

14:29

cabarets and six and of

14:31

another father to. Put

14:35

myself in four miles. Change.

14:39

In China. My mom kissed a girl

14:42

here and liked it. Thanks mom for

14:44

keeping up the family tradition of being

14:46

as clear as humanly possible. Do.

14:56

You have I want to say a favorite story

14:58

because they're too many probably to do that but

15:00

maybe have a type of story or or things

15:02

it's unfair and on the side that that sort

15:04

of surprise your that you weren't expecting. You know,

15:06

I think we expect to read about may be

15:08

coming out maybe first, romances laws, that kind of

15:11

thing but as there is it's a kind of

15:13

sawyer or maybe one that that really sticks in

15:15

your mind is surprising for the Pot Farm. Yeah.

15:18

I guess. I'm not

15:20

sure if it's necessarily surprise saying

15:22

I'm pretty striking in a surrogate

15:24

yeah, I see. I think the

15:26

ones that are particularly striking or

15:28

that I find particularly important in

15:30

terms of how the Platform has

15:32

grown and how it circulates our

15:35

stories that reveal the particular socio

15:37

political context of a place to

15:39

go first person narrative. So I

15:41

mean an example of that in

15:43

recent months has been many of

15:45

the posts in In Gaza in

15:47

Palatine on that. If something's the

15:49

experience, as queer and trans people

15:51

living under the israeli occupation and

15:54

genocide that's unfolding and so does

15:56

the poignancy of them stories to

15:59

reveal something very particular about a

16:01

socio-political context through first person narrative

16:03

to repeat myself, I think are

16:11

what makes Queering the Map important

16:14

as a platform for queer storytelling

16:16

is that it makes that link

16:19

very apparent, the relationship between queerness

16:21

in place and complexifies it. Because

16:23

I think it's very easy to,

16:25

and there's a particular Western vision

16:27

of the world that imagines for

16:29

example, like the West as the

16:32

only safe place for queer people

16:34

and the global South as

16:37

a place that's unsafe for

16:39

queer people. And I think

16:41

Queering the Map complexifies that

16:43

sort of binary thinking

16:45

in terms of thinking about how

16:48

our love and connection being found

16:50

in certain places where

16:52

we imagine that it's not possible, how

16:55

is hardship being found in places that

16:57

we imagine to be like, you know,

16:59

good places to be, good and safe

17:01

places to be queer and trans, like

17:03

places like Canada or the United States

17:05

or the United Kingdom. And I think

17:07

there's because of the amount of stories,

17:09

there's a lot of complexity that I

17:11

think speaks back to that binary way

17:13

of thinking about how and where queer and

17:15

trans life unfolds. I think even stories that

17:18

are in rural places, we tend to imagine

17:21

that there are no queer people in

17:23

rural locations, and Queering the Map very

17:25

much reveals that there are in fact

17:27

queer people living in a rural location.

17:31

Some of the experiences are awful, some of

17:33

them are amazing, some of them

17:35

are fine, some of them are boring, some of

17:37

them are funny. So I think it's a very

17:39

helpful tool or platform for complexifying how we understand

17:42

how queer and trans people are living

17:44

and experiencing particular locations. One of

17:46

the things that I think is

17:48

also, to use the word important

17:50

again about the platform, is

17:52

the variety of storytelling that there's

17:55

also, you know, there's a story

17:57

that will break your heart in

17:59

a variety. of ways and then there's

18:01

a completely absurd or hilarious story and

18:03

one can encounter them you know sometimes

18:05

geographically side by side in terms of

18:08

how one's navigating the interface of the

18:10

map from one click to another and

18:13

this variety of storytelling

18:15

that's really all over

18:17

the place is a

18:19

really important aspect of the project

18:21

even though it's moderated there isn't

18:24

a particular kind of story that

18:26

they're moderating for. It's really been

18:28

about following how

18:30

people are using the platform

18:33

and sometimes it's to divulge

18:35

incredibly moving stories

18:37

of personal experience and sometimes it's

18:41

to you know speculate on the existence of

18:43

queer and trans penguins as happens a lot

18:45

on the query the map and I think

18:47

it's important that those things live simultaneously inside

18:50

of yeah inside of a queer archive like

18:52

like querying the map. I wish

18:54

you could hear from this this queer penguin. Alright

18:56

we need to take a short break here but

18:58

we will be back with Lucas LaRochelle right after

19:01

that. We've

19:13

anticipated two of my questions so I did

19:15

want to talk about Palestine in particular and

19:17

the post that you've been getting from there

19:19

you talked a little bit about it already.

19:21

Can you tell us tell our listeners what

19:24

what you're hearing from there what sort of

19:26

what kinds of stories are being posted from

19:28

there right now because I read up on

19:30

them and I've been following that and it

19:32

has been you know heartbreaking doesn't

19:34

even really begin to describe it but but

19:36

it's also doing this preservation thing that the

19:39

project is supposed to do so maybe

19:41

just linger on that for a little longer what are

19:43

you seeing particularly from Gaza and from Palestine

19:45

right now? Yeah

19:48

I mean I would encourage everyone

19:51

to look at and read

19:53

the stories themselves to

19:55

see what kinds of things people are saying

19:57

but I think top line what this

20:00

stories are speaking to

20:02

are the, I mean,

20:04

and obviously the immense amount of

20:06

loss and mass

20:08

death that the genocide is bringing

20:11

and that it is in fact

20:13

affecting queer and trans people as well. There

20:15

are also queer and trans Palestinians

20:18

and I think there is this sort of,

20:20

it's an imagination. It's also a very powerful

20:24

structural force called pinkwashing, which

20:26

is the Israeli state's attempt

20:28

to paint itself as, you

20:30

know, quote unquote, the only

20:32

safe place for queer people

20:34

in the Middle East. And

20:36

then using that logic as

20:38

a way of essentially excusing

20:40

their attacks on Palestine as

20:42

somehow in line with queer

20:44

and trans liberation by framing

20:46

Palestine as a place that is

20:49

entirely unsafe for queer and trans people,

20:51

which is not to say

20:53

that Palestine, the or Israel is, you

20:55

know, a fantastic place. But what

20:58

queering a map is revealing, at least in

21:00

the stories that have been posted there, is

21:02

that, you know, it's hard to

21:05

be a queer person anywhere. It's especially hard to be

21:07

a queer person when your people are being erased. And

21:09

that is the most

21:13

pressing issue that these stories reveal. And

21:15

then I think the work that they

21:17

do in their circulation and the way

21:20

that they've been circulated is speaking back

21:22

to these attempts of pinkwashing to, yeah,

21:24

to try to frame the genocide of

21:27

Palestinians as somehow in line with queer

21:29

liberation when those two things cannot be,

21:31

yeah, I mean, it's fundamentally not true.

21:35

Well, that brings me to thinking about, and

21:37

you mentioned this too, like, what is it,

21:39

what does this mean in a place like,

21:41

you know, do we think of as quote

21:43

unquote, good for queer people like the United

21:45

States or Canada? I wanted to ask like

21:47

in the climate that we're seeing here in

21:49

the United States with, you know, all of

21:51

the anti-trans legislation, both sort of official legislation,

21:53

and then the social backlash that's happening from

21:55

that, how frightening it is, how it looks

21:57

like it's not gonna get better anytime soon.

21:59

What role do you see a

22:01

project like Querying the Map playing in

22:04

that climate, right? Because it's easy to

22:06

get excited about stories of joy and

22:08

that kind of thing, but we're in

22:10

a difficult time, a sorrowful time in

22:12

a lot of ways. And so I'm

22:15

curious how you see the project sort

22:17

of acting in that environment. Yeah. I

22:21

mean, I think that ultimately Querying the Map

22:23

functions as a document, as

22:27

an archive, and does hold

22:29

stories, of course, of joy and connection

22:31

and also extreme hardship. I think one

22:34

of the, I mean, it's why

22:36

it's important, why history is important,

22:38

why archives are important is because

22:41

of their capacity to document and

22:44

transmit knowledge across time and

22:46

across space. And I think particularly

22:49

the, I mean, this is of course

22:51

true of the hopeful and joyful stories

22:53

as well, but I think it's particularly

22:55

important, the stories of sorrow and hardship

22:58

and structural homophobia and transphobia are

23:01

documented because if it's happened before,

23:03

it can happen again. Yeah. To

23:06

have a record of that in some capacity,

23:08

even if it's through first person

23:10

narrative, as is often the case

23:12

on Querying the Map, is extremely important in

23:15

terms of documenting the present, but also being able

23:17

to look back

23:19

in 10 years and have

23:21

a better understanding of how a place

23:23

was at a particular moment in time

23:25

so that the kinds of things that

23:28

are happening presently in the United States,

23:30

particularly in regards to trans life, are

23:33

remembered and stopped hopefully and not

23:35

allowed to happen again. Yeah. And

23:38

just showing presence also, I think, is important.

23:43

Well, on

23:45

that note, I wanted to ask you what

23:47

you think the future of Querying the Map

23:49

is. Obviously, you're

23:51

doing a lot of work on the sort of back

23:53

end and maintenance and all of that, so that's exciting.

23:56

But what about the future

23:59

of it? prospect of continuing it

24:01

keeps you interested and excited. What are

24:03

you looking forward to as

24:06

it continues to grow? What's

24:09

always kept me the most excited about

24:11

querying the map is maintaining it, is

24:13

wording it, is keeping it as a

24:15

resource. Somebody emailed me the other day

24:17

saying that they had posted something on

24:19

the map when they were

24:21

a teenager and couldn't find it anymore. And

24:23

I was like, Oh my God, maybe they'll

24:25

old really quickly. And

24:28

also made me feel, LOL, proud,

24:32

but made me feel

24:34

proud that I've managed to sustain the project for

24:36

six years.

24:39

And that it's a project that

24:41

has continued to be used and

24:44

circulated by people and

24:46

used in really meaningful ways.

24:48

And so my interest is really

24:50

thinking about how to make it a resource on the internet

24:54

that can stand the test of time. I mean,

24:56

I think about, you know, if I had this

24:58

resource when I was 13, living

25:00

in rural Ontario, how that

25:02

would have changed, how I might've

25:04

imagined my life. What was possible

25:07

to imagine? What was

25:09

possible? And I think that is those

25:11

resources and making those resources freely

25:13

available on the internet are extremely

25:15

important. And so it really is,

25:17

even if it's, it's, you know,

25:19

it's not necessarily the sexiest answer, but it

25:21

really is the main platform that, that

25:24

keeps me excited.

25:27

Um, because I want it to last, you know,

25:29

as long as the internet slash

25:32

the human race is around and

25:34

maybe even beyond that. So that

25:36

can see, yeah, can see.

25:40

And then maybe, you know, they'll all take

25:42

up, take up queerness if they're,

25:44

I mean, I'm sure they're all the aliens are.

25:46

You gotta hope so. Yeah, you gotta hope so.

25:48

Yeah. The concept of stewardship is really lovely

25:51

to hear you talk about. That's important and that

25:53

this resource in particular merits it. And so, you

25:55

know, I think that's a good place to end.

25:57

I thank you for doing that work for stewarding.

26:00

And also, of course, we're creating it,

26:02

but for maintaining it too, because it's

26:04

just an incredible, incredible document and resource,

26:06

and just a portrait of who we

26:08

are and where we are. The website

26:10

for queeringthemap is queeringthemap.com. Our

26:13

guest today has been Lucas LaRochelle. Lucas,

26:15

thanks so much for this conversation. It

26:17

was really lovely. Thank you so much

26:19

for having me. So

26:21

right now, at the time of this episode

26:23

coming out, the Queering the Map website is

26:25

undergoing some maintenance, so that it can continue

26:28

to be the awesome queer archive that we

26:30

all deserve. In the meantime, you can go

26:32

check out previous posts from around the world

26:34

on their Instagram, at queeringthemap. All

26:39

right, that is the show for this

26:42

week. Please send us feedback and topic

26:44

ideas at outwardpodcastatslate.com, or via Facebook or

26:47

Twitter at SlateOutward. Just a reminder, as

26:49

always, that by joining Slate Plus, you

26:51

will get ad-free podcasts, extra segments of

26:54

shows like Working, and you'll never hit

26:56

a paywall on the Slate site. You'll

26:58

also get my undying appreciation for supporting

27:00

my little magazine. To learn more about

27:02

that, go to slate.com, search Outward Plus.

27:05

Our show was produced by the Luminous

27:07

Palace Shaw. If you like Outward, please

27:09

subscribe in your podcast app, tell your friends

27:12

about it, and rate and review the

27:14

show so other people can join in with us. Until

27:17

next week, stay gay, everybody. It

27:23

may sound dull, maybe

27:25

even monotonous, but

27:27

this is what miracles sound like. This

27:30

is the sound of a child's surgery being

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performed by a robot. Our

27:36

personalized care leads to miraculous things,

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like innovative procedures with less pain

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and faster recovery. Children's

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Hospital, Colorado. Here, it's

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different.

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