This weekend, a new LGBTQ+ center that’s three years in the making will debut in Uptown, inside the long-empty space right next to Magers & Quinn Booksellers.
Queermunity comes from co-founders Hilary Otey (a transplant originally from Oklahoma) and Kayla Barth (a northern Minnesota-raised veteran who returned to the state after a deployment). Their backgrounds may have differed dramatically, but as Queermunity’s outreach and partnerships manager Seth Anderson-Matz explains, they shared a struggle in navigating the local queer community—finding resources, tapping into the social pipeline.
That was something they also heard from other queer folks, especially those who were new to the Twin Cities or seeking community for the first time.
“It’s funny, because we have such a robust queer population in the Twin Cities,” Anderson-Matz says. “We’re known, nationally, for having such a large and thriving community; we have one of the largest Pride festivals in the country.”
What was missing, Otey and Barth felt, was a central access hub for resources, social events, and more, especially as the number of queer spaces has dwindled and the community scattered. At Queermunity, that will mean lots of collaboration and relationship-building between existing organizations, always with an appreciation of the work that was done before them.
“We always say, ‘We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we’re just trying to put all the wheels on the same truck,’” Anderson-Matz chuckles.
(Interestingly enough, Queermunity’s opening comes about a month after the nonprofit Queerspace Collective opened an LGBTQ+ youth center at the corner of Lyndale and Franklin avenues.)
Beginning Monday, November 11, the space will be open to the public from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and folks can drop in, access resources, or just hang out. You can grab food and a drink at the Queermunity Cafe, which has a menu of soups, fresh salads, and sandwiches developed by chef Jun De of the Bella Chow pasta pop-up, along with coffee and tea and beer and wine.
After that? There’s all kinds of stuff going on. Anderson-Matz rattles off a list of upcoming events from the “super stacked” November programming calendar: a queer veteran’s meetup, a reading with S. Bear Bergman, and drag story hour. There’s a movie night with Twin Cities Queer Skaters; there’s drop-in zine making; there’s a queers of the South meetup. A free marriage license signing is coming up on November 17. Every Thursday is sober Thursday in the cafe.
It’s a mix of educational programming, community services, and fun social events, all with an eye towards making Queermunity a “multigenerational, multicultural, multidimensional space.”
Queermunity does things a little differently than some other orgs in that they’re not a nonprofit but a social enterprise LLC. Rather than relying on grant funding, the business has a membership-based model, with monthly tiers that start at $20 and perks for members like discounts in the cafe and makers market, meeting space rentals, and a credit you can use in the cafe.
It’s a model that involves a lot of trust and transparency, but it also removes some of the red tape that comes with grant funding (already difficult to come by for LGBTQ+ nonprofits, Anderson-Matz says) and gives Queermunity complete control over how funds are spent. “We hear from our community partners all the time that they have thousands of dollars for programming and no money to pay their rent,” he explains.
Hopefully that won’t be a problem at Queermunity, which is taking over a big, open Uptown space with lots of windows and natural light. The group’s founders want this to be a sustainable, reliable space—Anderson-Matz points to the recent sudden closure of Rainbow House as the kind of thing that can be unmooring to the community.
And being in Uptown, for all the talk of its demise/diminishing/death, gives the outreach manager a lot of hope, too. Some businesses may be closing, but others, like Umbra Arts, are just getting ready to move in.
“Small, community-based organizations… are taking over these buildings that were abandoned by the corporations that gentrified the neighborhood and then dipped out,” Anderson-Matz says.
Queermunity
Address: 3036 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis
Hours: Open daily from 8 a.m.-8 p.m.
Grand Opening: Queermunity will host a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony this Saturday, November 9, at 10 a.m.; followed by a family fun day with a photobooth, games, and more; followed by an 18+ evening cabaret. More info here.
