Queering the Map is a site of holy communion. it's one of the best sites on the internet. every year or two i remember it, find my area, look at all the local pins, laugh and cry and feel whole, then add my own pin to add to the collection. i highly recommend you do the same.
man does it feel something to read through these in the areas ive lived, especially seeing the stark contrasts of memories between the urban places i've lived and the rural places where i grew up. i've added a handful of my own now, since my hometown only had a single pin and i do relate a lot of my memories with the physical space they happened in. it feels good to read what spaces you have memories with also hold for other queer people.
if there are no pins in a place that's meant something to you, adding one yourself sends the signal "hey! there are or were queer people way out here! we've had experiences and wrote them out for you to read!" which is the most relieving feeling you can get. i know when i was coming out and desperately trying to find validation that there were other people out there like me, coming across this and seeing pins in my hometown would have done so much to stop me from feeling so isolated. now hopefully someday someone there will look it up and see all of my pins and feel less alone, even if i've long since lived there.
