Global TraQs is a company that collects LGBTQ stories from around the world. Anyone can just drop a pin to tell a story. Stories are important in helping people remember things that are important, and the similarity between people’s experiences around the world. They guide and teach people how to be in the world and, most importantly, they are used to facilitate understanding between people and groups. Through stories, people can understand how others live, how they think, what’s important to them.
Even though being not-so-straight is getting easier in many parts of the world, the struggle for tolerance, acceptance, dignity, or the mere right to live honestly is still present. While the LGBTQ communities are gaining an increasingly global outlook, individuals still have very different ways of negotiating their identities and living their everyday lives in different contexts. In some countries, mostly in the US and Europe, it is getting easier and easier to be out and live openly. In many other countries, LGBTQ individuals are still very repressed. By sharing stories, people can give each other hope, while also understanding what life is like for someone who is LGBTQ in a country they may not know a lot about.
GlobalTraQs’ purpose is to map out anyone’s stories, and give them a place in the world, and in history. Was there something funny that happened last week at the gay bar when you were out with your friends? Show GlobalTraQs where and when that happened, and tell them about it! Where did you meet your partner(s)? Pin it! Do you love to travel? Do you have tips in your favorite city, gay and lesbian hangouts that you want to tell other travelers about? They’d love to hear about them! Go crazy and map out everywhere you had a first kiss! Or drop a pin where you had an awful date, and tell us what happened! Are you straight, but have a queer relative? Tell us your stories! No story is too insignificant to tell. People are contributing to a giant map of not-so-straight stories so people can visualize the once-invisible worlds of LGBTQ communities. For people living in isolation, thinking they’re the only person in their part of the world that feels the way they do, seeing other people’s stories might give them the strength to carry on.