science

Queering the Map

Queering the Map is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Queering the Map rather than just read about it. In short: Queering the Map is a community-based online collaborative and counter-mapping platform on which users submit their personal queer experiences to specific locations on a single collective map. Since its inception, users have contributed more than 500,000 posts in 23 languages to the platform.

Key takeaways

Queering the Map belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Queering the Map to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Queering the Map from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Queering the Map is a community-based online collaborative and counter-mapping platform on which users submit their personal queer experiences to specific locations on a single collective map. Since its inception, users have contributed more than 500,000 posts in 23 languages to the platform.

History In 2017, Canadian artist and designer Lucas LaRochelle began working on Queering the Map for a class project at Concordia University in Montreal. The project was launched in May of the same year. LaRochelle has cited the lasting impact of personal memories on their perceptions towards places and Sara Ahmed's ideas on queerness as an orientation towards space as influences behind the project. For LaRochelle, a queer space can be a relational experience created by and/or shared between queer people. LaRochelle has stated that their main intent for initiating the project was to archive these spaces, which transcend the traditional notion of queer spaces as fixed places (like businesses or neighborhoods) that are reclaimed by clearly defined communities. In February 2018, Montreal DJ Frankie Teardrop shared Queering the Map on Facebook, greatly increasing its visibility. During this month, the number of pins on the map increased from 600 to 6,500 within a three-day span. The same month, a cyberattack generating pins with comments in support of U.S. president Donald Trump forced LaRochelle to take down the site and ask for help on its URL. Over the next two months, 8 volunteers developed a more secure version of the site on GitHub, and the project qualified for Cloudflare's free Project Galileo cybersecurity service. Notably, a moderation system was developed for the platform through this process. In April 2018, Queering the Map was relaunched. In 2019, LaRochelle began developing QT.bot, an artificial neural network trained to generate hypothetical queer stories using the data submitted to Queering the Map.

Reception Queering the Map has received press coverage through media outlets based in Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the U.S., including Autostraddle, CBC Arts, CityNews, Condé Nast Traveler, Fugues, Numerama, Paper, rabble.ca, The McGill Daily, The Skinny, VICE, and VOGUE. In 2023, in the midst of the Gaza war, it was reported that several pins had been dropped onto the Gaza Strip purportedly containing regretful messages from LGBTQ people living within the enclave. Several of these messages, which included individuals whose partners had died in airstrikes, as well as messages of solidarity towards LGBTQ Palestinians, went viral on social media.

Accolades In 2018, Queering the Map received an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica and was longlisted for the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards and the Lumen Prize for Digital Art.

Context Queering The Map is becoming widely known in the design field and is part of a larger 'queer turn' in design seen in work by designers and design researchers like Ece Canli, Emeline Brulé, Luiza Prado de O. Martins and Tiphaine Kazi-Tani, which has been described as "radical, chaotic and deconstructive."

References

External links Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Queering the Map

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Queering the Map claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Queering the Map before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Queering the Map ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Queering the Map

In research: Queering the Map appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Queering the Map in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Queering the Map is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Collaborative mapping, LGBTQ-related websites, Online archives, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Queering the Map outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Queering the Map in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Queering the Map means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Queering the Map out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Queering the Map in simple terms?

Why does Queering the Map matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Queering the Map?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Queering the Map.