Queering the Map and the
Power of Ordinary Ideas
Pride
"so many of the places that held this lingering significance were outside of spaces that we might understand as 'queer' or LGBT+ spaces — like the Gay Village in Montreal, where I lived at the time — yet those were really the places where transformative relationships to other queer people were happening for me."
Queerness doesn't live only in the places we've designated for it. It lives in the corners, the sidewalks, the unremarkable spots that only mean something to the person who was there. That's what Queering the Map understood before it was even a real website — and it's why, years later, it still feels unlike anything else on the internet.
Since I've written multiple articles expressing my love for indie websites, I think Pride Month is the perfect time to shine a light on one of my favorite LGBTQIA+ sites: Queering the Map.
Queering the Map was made by queer Canadian artist Lucas LaRochelle — you should check out their website at lucaslarochelle.com — as a simple class project while they were enrolled at Concordia University in Montreal. It was started all the way back in 2017 and launched in May of that same year. It was small at first — after all, this was just someone's class project — but it later grew organically (or as organic as reposts and shares can be called) into something far larger than even Lucas knew how to handle.
This was unfortunately shown in 2018 when a cyberattack hit the website, forcing Lucas to shut it down and ask for help. In a genuine showing of camaraderie within the programming community, eight volunteers came together alongside Lucas to build a safer version of the site. Now in 2026 it's still going strong, with over 86,000 pins — each one carrying a deep, personal queer memory.
Who Is Lucas LaRochelle?
Admittedly, I didn't know either before I wrote this article. There's really no mention of them — at least as far as I've clicked — anywhere on Queering the Map itself. Which, at least to me, shows a level of humility and a real willingness to put the spotlight not on themselves, but on the queer people whose stories make this website what it is. They do, however, have a website where you can see their other work.
When doing research on Lucas specifically, one thing stood out to me. We're so used to people who seem born to be leaders — especially in tech, with figures like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg — that it can feel like the ordinary person can't actually impact the world. But Lucas is that ordinary person. Nothing particularly alien or unachievable stands out in their story. No multi-million dollar family name. No "small loan of a million dollars." In the context of Queering the Map, this was just an ordinary queer college student who wanted to code something they thought was cool.
That's the absolute core of the indie web.
A Living Archive for Queer Stories
I want to put some real emphasis on the importance of Queering the Map as an archive for queer stories. As a somewhat privileged member of the LGBTQIA+ community — I sure do love garlic bread! — I do tend to forget how life and love can truly be for my fellow queer companions.
Sure, you can click the pins in countries like the US and Europe and find some wonderful things there. You can even click on my country, the Dominican Republic, and find some touching pins too. But the ones that impact me the most are the pins located in countries where queerness is still heavily criminalized and stigmatized — or in the very particular case of Palestine, countries that are currently being bombed.
There is a level of awareness that hits differently when I read pins from those areas. Knowing that by pure random chance I could have been born there — stigmatized for something completely out of my control, unable to consensually love who I want to love and be loved in return. It's sobering.
The Somberness, and the Joy
That somberness feels prevalent in a lot of queer works. From Willi Colón's hit El Gran Varón to Keith Haring's Unfinished Painting, there is a deep weight there for any queer person consuming this kind of art. I believe part of that somberness is the intimacy we feel with other queer people in general — after all, who you love is deeply intimate in and of itself.
And I think that intimacy is exactly what makes Queering the Map work, at least for me. Lucas LaRochelle said it best: "I think intimacy is one of the things that's so special about Queering The Map, which in many ways is lacking from dominant social media platforms."
But within that somberness, there is joy. Countless stories of queer people loving freely and expressing that universal human desire. Proof that even in the darkest depths of what humans can create for each other, the flower of queerness is still able to bloom.
All You Have to Do Is Create
This is why Queering the Map matters. A simple website made for a college project became one of the largest archives of queer life stories on the web. And even if you yourself aren't queer, the story behind it should still be inspiring — that any real idea can make an impact. All you have to do is create.
Sources: sissyscreens.com · lucaslarochelle.com · queeringthemap.com