About us

Queer U Stories (QUS) is the volunteer-driven initiative for the LGBTQIA+ history of the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

QUS stand for Queer Utrecht Stories - highlighting the diverse narratives of Utrecht’s rainbow communities - while also playing on the phrase queer your stories: inviting everyone to embrace their own queer stories. In Dutch, QUS is pronounced as “kus”, meaning “kiss”, symbolizing love and connection.

Activities

QUS inspires a diverse range of creative individuals—including theatre makers, visual artists, and musicians—to explore and engage with Utrecht’s rich queer history (see illustrations). The QUS team collaborates with various partners to shed light on this often-overlooked history.

Discover more through these suggestions (for additional details, click on the italicized text):

• Book: Utrechtenaren, een queer geschiedenis, available at bookstores and online from the publisher WBOOKS.
• Expo: was on display in Utrecht’s City Hall in October 2024 and can now be visited online.
• Queer City Tour: Guided city walks for groups.
• Queer city map: A printed map featuring a queer history tour of Utrecht’s inner city. There is also a queer route available online via the Utrecht Time Machine.
• Lectures: Our team tells stories about Utrecht's queer history on request.

Website

Thousands of people follow the progress of this website, which showcases:

• timeline of Utrecht’s vibrant queer history,
• inspiring stories about people who challenged conventional gender and sexuality norms,
• captivatingstories.

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History QUS

When Kees Diepeveen took office as alderman for diversity in Utrecht in 2016, the Utrecht rainbow community introduced him to the queer history with a walk through the city. Diepeveen was so exited about it, that he provided funding for a project on queer history. The team started with the online rainbow canon that they launched on Coming Out Day 2021. What followed and continues is a wave of creative productions about the Utrecht’s queer history.