Introduction

Queer Religion Boston is an ongoing historical research project that aims to map and chronicle the history of LGBTQ+ and religion in the greater Boston area. (For explanation of the terms used in this project’s title, please refer to our “Notes on Terminology” page.) We have included congregations that identify explicitly as safe spaces for queer folks and take as an organizing principle the welcome of LGBTQ+ communities. We have taken the same approach with the individuals we include on this map: people who have played some important role in the history of LGBTQ+ and religion in the greater Boston area. Not all of the entries' descriptions are yet complete, but all of the entries whose years of operation we know are listed on the map and on this website.

This project was started by graduate student Nicole Malte Collins in 2024 following her work as a Research Associate at Harvard’s Pluralism Project (see below), at which she preliminarily researched queer religion in the greater Boston area. After receiving positive feedback on a research report she put together on the topic—and since there seemed to be no other systematic attempts to broadly look at queerness and religion together across American cities—she began this project with the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network.

Thanks to Carl Foote for his technical help on this project, and to Mark Bowman for supporting and supervising it since it was pitched to him in late 2023.

This project takes inspiration from the following similar mapping projects:

Introduction

Contents