In the tour window:
Queer Pioneer Square offers a small window into queer life in Seattle, Washignton before the term gay liberation was ever coined. While 1969 is often cited as the birth of the gay rights movement in the US with the Stonewall riots in New York City, historians, indigenous scholars, and groups like The Northwest Lesbian and Gay History Museum Project (NWLGHMP) have found a vibrant and often visible queer world in many cities including here in Seattle. The heart of this early queer community was the Pioneer Square neighborhood. Pioneer Square is known as Seattle’s “original neighborhood” and as the area became the first long term settlement of Seattle in 1852 after white settlers took the land to take advantage of the timber resources from indigenous people. At the turn of the century, Pioneer Square was the heart of downtown Seattle, but as the city grew, the downtown core drifted north and over time, Pioneer Square became a less desirable place. As this happened, the area also became identified for providing services for people on the edges of Seattle society. The queer community was part of the wave of individuals who would end up calling Pioneer Square home starting in the late 1800s and until the 1970s Pioneer Square was the heart of queer Seattle. The neighborhood was where queer folks met, loved, and created spaces in the form of bars, clubs, theaters, and poltitical organization but they were also met with police violence including arrests and a corrupt police pay off system for spaces to remain open. Most of the original buildings no longer exist or have been heavily modified, however through the use of stories and archival materials we hope folks can still connect to this queer past in our modern spaces.
This project uses the word “queer” as an umbrella term that includes all people that challenge or challenged gender and sexual norms. This includes people that identify as gay, lesbian, trans, bisexual, asexual, intersex, two spirit, etc. who may have identified various ways throughout time as our language has changed. This history is also intersectional, meaning that we need to acknowledge that people always carry various identities including but not limited to gender, sexual orientation, race, class, ability, etc. While the current research on Pioneer Square is heavily about white gay men during this time period, women, trans folks, and people of color struggled to find community and were sometimes not as welcomed in the community that formed in Pioneer Square.
Queer Pioneer Square draws on the digital mapping project and walking tour, Pioneer Square and the Making of Queer Seattle. Join this VR experience for a glimpse into the project and feel free to check out the entire project here. There are four intersections represented in the VR tour and they can be followed in sequence using the arrows at each site. These intersections represent key stops of the actual walking tour, in the order they are visited.
Tour guide: Julian Barr. Photos by: Stephanie May