Kees van den Berg (1948) was born and raised in Utrecht and has been active on several fronts in the field of LGBTQI+ emancipation since the early 1970s (including COC-Midden Nederland, stand-up gay comedy at Spitsroeden, gay bars, rainbow festival and LGBTQI+ policy advisor for the municipality of Utrecht). Also due to his efforts, the national pride day (Roze Zaterdag) took place in Utrecht in 2013, the year of the commemoration of the famous Peace of Utrecht in 1713. In recent years he has been active as an ambassador for Roze 50+, which represents the interests of LGBTIQ+ elderly people. In season 2018-2019 he was Mr. Senior Pride Netherlands. He received a royal decoration and was appointed Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau in 2022 for his commitment to LGBTIQ+ emancipation.

About his life the local TV station made a short impression.

For QUS he co-developer, among other things, the exhibition Queer Utrecht Stories.

Marijke Huisman (1972) is an assistant professor of Public History at Utrecht University. She is interested in emancipatory historiography. She has published, among others, ‘Savannah Bay, history of a special bookshop, 1975-2019’. Together with Maurice van Lieshout and Evert van der Veen, she wrote the book Utrechtenaren, een queer geschiedenis (W-books, October 2024). She is now working on a queer history of the Netherlands.

Maurice van Lieshout  (1953) was active in the 1970s and 1980s in the national- and Utrecht department of the COC and employee of Sek and Homologie. He took the initiative for the queer history exhibition Good Wrong (Amsterdam Historic Museum 1989) and from 1988 to 1994 he was gay literature studies lecturer at the University of Amsterdam. He has written various articles on the history of homosexuality and is the editor and co-author of a number of books on the subject. He is now working on a book about the first generation of gay activists in our country.

He made numerous contributions to QUS including the book on Utrecht queer history with Marijke Huisman and Evert van der Veen: Utrechtenaren, een queer geschiedenis (WBOOKS, october 2024).

Gianna Mula was born in Sardegna, Italy, where she studied literature before moving to the UK. There she started a literary magazine, worked as a bookseller and completed her MA in Creative Writing and Publishing at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.

Since 2019 she lives in Utrecht, where she is part of the queer theater company Theater Oester. She manages her personal collection of queer books and publications on www.bibliograficaquir.studio.

For QUS she contributed on LGBTQIA+ Christians, among other things.

Evert van der Veen (1960) is a trailblazer. Active in the Utrecht queer community since the 1980s he published books and articles and developed websites.

He began his career as a lecturer/researcher at Gay Studies at Utrecht University and later served as a policy advisor on queer issues for the Municipality of Utrecht. Evert was instrumental in founding the MidZomerGracht festival and the EuroGames Utrecht, and chaired both COC Midden-Nederland and the municipal LGBTI+ advisory committee. In recognition of his work towards LGBTQIA+ emancipation, Evert was honoured with a royal decoration and named Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau in 2021.

Evert took the initiative to create QUS. He co-authored the book Utrechtenaren, een queer geschiedenis (WBOOKS, 2024) met Maurice van Lieshout and Marijke Huisman. He also co-developed the exposition Queer Utrecht Stories together with Iris Bouman, Nine Geertman and Kees van den Berg.

Laura Meijer (1994) is a linguist and has conducted research into the course of conversations, for example between doctors and patients and government agencies and citizens. As a volunteer at the COC, she organised networking drinks for AutiRoze Utrecht. In addition to her (volunteer) work, Laura is active as a painter; her work has been exhibited in, among others, the library on Neude and the Maarschalkerweerd Vegetable Garden, both in Utrecht.

Eric Vocking (1963) was born and raised in Utrecht. He has been an independent graphic designer since 2000 and runs design agency Via Bertha with a colleague.

In 1985 he became a volunteer at the Utrecht COC. A few years later he switched to LGBTQI+-youth organization PANN and was a party employee and board member there. He did the design for the Midzomergracht festival for the first 10 years. In 2018 he edited the book about the history of the gay discotheque 'De Roze Wolk' and gay café 'De Wolkenkrabber', titled 'Roze Wolkennachten' (Pink Cloud Nights), that is available as a flipbook on our site. He is now a board member of the Utrecht LGBTQI+ swimming club Nat Utrecht and is responsible for the design of the club magazine De Natte Krant.

For QUS he designed, among other things, the logo and the Queer city map.