Our Story

Imagine: a quietly majestic, lusciously colorful, resplendently book- and plant-filled, naturally-lit, immaculately-vibed open space for queer and trans people of all ages – including youth, families and elders – and all the folks they love.

That is the QT Library!

We're a Boston-based collective of queer and trans artists, educators, librarians, organizers, and community members working to open an LGBTQIA+ lending library and sober community space with a brick-and-mortar location in Boston.

Our team is passionate about building community through resource-sharing, program-making, and BOOKS! – and we’re building a space where the queer and trans community can gather, organize, rest, and grow. We're doing this as an act of joy and solidarity in the face of mounting physical and legislative violence against our communities across the nation (including waves of book challenges aiming to erase our stories and selves), and as a direct response to a national lack of sober queer- and trans-centered spaces.

The QT Library is an inclusive LGBTQ+ community designed for endless possibility.

A Brief History of the Library

FIRST:
A team of four artists / educators / book lovers / queer community members connected in June 2022 and began to meet, dream, and build a vision for the library from the ground up.

THEN:
…we made a ton of progress. Over the past year, we’ve articulated our mission and vision,  grounded our work in carefully selected values, started to build out a book collection and curatorial strategy, built (and rebuilt) a website, designed (and redesigned) an elegant logo, launched social media accounts, secured pro bono legal representation, sharpened our model for shared and non-hierarchical leadership, incorporated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, applied for federal nonprofit status, opened a bank account, expanded our team, successfully fundraised $56,000 through a Kickstarter campaign, launched our Letter to a Future Reader initiative, begun to establish relationships / partnerships with community leaders and organizations around Boston, hosted several public-facing programs and a weekend-long team retreat, and offered info sessions to connect with the community and share the QT Library love.

NOW:
We’re in the process of securing our legal status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and applying for grants. We’re actively building out a collection of 5000+ books, comics, magazines, and other physical materials created by/for the queer and trans community. We’re now continuing to expand our team as we build our collection, secure additional funding, and prepare to move into a brick-and-mortar space!

SOON:
We aim to have the library fully funded through the first two years, fully operational, and open to the public at a brick-and-mortar location (coming soon!).