advertisement
Listen on Spotify
There’s something about September that feels like everybody is finding their places again.
Students are settled back on campus. Fall leagues are underway. Calendars are filling up. The evenings arrive a little earlier, and summer already feels like something we were doing five minutes ago.
And maybe that makes this a good week to think about the places queer people make ours.
Sometimes they’re official. A community center. A softball league. A Pride festival.
Sometimes they’re decidedly less official. A stretch of road in Schenley Park where generations of queer Pittsburghers found one another. A bar stool. A dance floor. A friend’s kitchen table.
The place isn’t always what matters most. It’s what happens when we find each other there.
We build friendships. We flirt. We compete. We organize. We remember. We laugh. We make stories somebody will tell years from now.
And eventually, a place that might not look particularly queer to anybody passing by becomes part of our history.
This week, we’re celebrating the places we’ve made ours and the people who keep filling them with life.
Happy Monday, Pittsburgh. Let’s slay the week!
SLAY OF THE WEEK: The Fruit Loop Isn’t Going Anywhere
Sometimes preserving queer history means saving an old building. Sometimes it means protecting an archive. And sometimes it means not building a public works facility on top of it.
This week, we’re celebrating the City of Pittsburgh’s decision to drop plans for a new Department of Public Works facility along Prospect Drive in Schenley Park.
Because to generations of queer Pittsburghers, that area has another name: The Fruit Loop.
Long before queer people could swipe right or find each other on an app, places like the Fruit Loop helped LGBTQ+ people find one another.
It became a place for cruising, yes, but also gathering, picnicking, socializing, organizing, hosting Pride, and building community.
Queer Pittsburghers made memories there. They found connection there. During the AIDS crisis, they gathered there to remember people they’d lost.
That history doesn’t come with a grand monument. There isn’t a velvet rope around it. But it’s history all the same.
And that’s what makes this week’s news worth celebrating.
Queer history isn’t only contained inside museums or preserved in photographs. Sometimes it lives in landscapes, sidewalks, bars, ballfields, parks, and all the seemingly ordinary places where LGBTQ+ people found one another when the rest of the world wasn’t exactly making room for us.
The Fruit Loop became part of Pittsburgh’s queer history because queer people made it one. And now that history gets to remain right where generations of Pittsburghers left it.
That’s a slay.
SHARE YOUR JOY
Every Monday, Slay Weekly celebrates queer joy, but your joy doesn’t need to involve winning an award, making history, or doing something extraordinary.
We want the little stuff, too. Maybe you made a new queer friend. Maybe you finally went somewhere you’ve been nervous to visit. Maybe you kissed somebody cute. Maybe your garden did something spectacular.
Maybe you got the job, finished the project, went on the date, adopted the cat, wore the outfit, made somebody laugh, or simply had one really good day.
Tell us about it.
Send us your joy, big or small, and we might share it in a future Slay Weekly.
Because queer joy doesn’t have to be extraordinary to be worth celebrating.
advertisement
Never miss an issue of QBurgh. Get it delivered!
Queer Joy in the World: Pittsburgh Takes the Field
The Steel City Softball League’s Gracie Lou Freebushes recently headed to Columbus to represent Pittsburgh at the International Pride Softball Gay Softball World Series.
And they had plenty of company.
This year’s tournament brought together 4,200 athletes from 56 cities and 256 teams, competing across seven divisions.
Four thousand two hundred queer athletes and allies gathering around softball. We love sports.
The Freebushes battled their way through the enormous 96-team D Division, picking up wins against teams from Knoxville, Tampa Bay, and Southern New England along the way.
And Pittsburgh came home with some hardware, too.
Steel City players Wayne Dotson and Rob Hickman joined the Las Vegas Old Bats and helped the team capture the Master’s D Division championship.
Pittsburgh gays: athletic!
Back home, the Steel City Softball League is coming off its 45th season and is already looking toward 2027. That’s 45 years of queer Pittsburghers putting on uniforms, taking the field, building friendships, winning games, losing games, and creating community together.
Congratulations to the Freebushes, Wayne, Rob, and the whole Steel City Softball League community.
Pittsburgh looks good on the field.
Here’s the thing about queer spaces. They don’t always start out queer.
Sometimes they’re just places. A road through a park. A softball diamond. A coffee shop. A classroom. A porch. A dance floor.
Then somebody queer shows up. And then somebody else does. Someone makes a friend. Someone falls in love. Someone discovers something about themselves. Someone laughs so hard they remember the night years later. Someone feels safe enough to exhale. And eventually, we’ve made something.
Ours.
That’s how so much queer history has been built.
Not because somebody handed us a designated place and told us we were welcome there, but because queer people kept finding one another and making room for each other wherever we could.
Some of those places become historic. Some disappear.
Some are probably being created somewhere in Pittsburgh right now without anybody realizing what they’ll eventually mean.
So as we settle into September, maybe that’s our assignment.
Go where the queer people are.
Join the league. Visit the place you’ve never been. Sit down at the table. Introduce yourself. Bring somebody with you. And while you’re there, make a memory worth keeping.
Because queer community isn’t something that simply exists. We make it.
Take care of each other out there, Pittsburgh. We’ll see you next Monday.
Talk soon.
Listen on Spotify
advertisement