Co-founders of Local Queer ATX, Caleb Armstrong (he/they) and Chase Brunson (he/him), share the inspiration behind their organization and tell us about their non-profit, Pride Month events, and monthly book club called The Local Queer Book Club.
AS: Can you start by introducing yourselves and telling us about your backgrounds?
CA & CB: “We’re Caleb Armstrong (he/they) and Chase Brunson (he/him), co-founders of Local Queer! We’ve been organizing queer community events since we met at Texas A&M in 2013. While at A&M, we founded Transcend, the university’s first recognized organization dedicated to transgender and gender expansive students and faculty. We also lobbied to have Texas A&M pay for the queer community to walk in the 2017 Houston Pride Parade—pretty exciting for a campus consistently ranked in the top 10 least LGBT friendly universities. So, when people ask us how we manage Local Queer we simply tell them it’s what we’ve always done! It also helps that outside of Local Queer, we are both event industry professionals operating in the nonprofit space. We have working experience planning galas, fundraisers, conferences, seminars, and other events which you can see reflected into everything we do for Local Queer.”
AS: Introduce us to Local Queer ATX! What was the initial inspiration for it?
CA & CB: “Three years doesn’t seem like that long ago, but the queer scene in Austin has changed so much since Local Queer was founded in 2022. We saw a need to connect queer women, sapphics, and gender expansive individuals in Austin as we felt that these populations were often overshadowed in larger LGBT community spaces that cater to cis gay men. We attended an event known as Queer Camp in 2021, where we met our friend Molly Syndor that had founded a queer group—known as Local Queer Collective—in Dallas.
We loved the vibe and wanted to bring a similar group to Austin so after attending Queer Camp again in 2022, we officially launched Local Queer in Austin. Since 2022, we’ve experienced rapid growth and are now recognized as the largest organization in the area dedicated to sapphic and gender expansive identities.”
AS: How has your organization changed or evolved since it started in 2022?
CA & CB: “In 2022 we started throwing small events, mostly happy hours and park gatherings, with the goal of just connecting the communities together and providing a space for these identities to make friends. Today, these cornerstone events continue, but we’re up to four monthly recurring meet ups now and a walk club that meets every single Monday! Each month you can meet new queer friends at a happy hour, move series, full moon celebration, or our book club. In addition to our recurring meetups, we average 10-15 different events each month ranging from club nights, boat parties, fundraisers, craft nights, advocacy trainings, and more. We love hosting community gatherings and events, and will try just about anything once to see if it sticks.”
AS: Tell us more about your non-profit, the Local Queer Foundation!
CA & CB: “We officially became a recognized 501C3 in August 2024! We formed the nonprofit in direct response to Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton’s relentless attacks on transgender Texans and our first fundraiser—Transistance—raised over $8,000! We used those donations to host passport clinics in partnership with Austin Public Libraries that provided financial aid to the gender expansive community to update their identification documents with their correct name and gender markers. More than 100 trans and gender expansive Austinites were able to apply for correct passports before the inauguration. Our next big event is Queer Camp, held over Memorial Day Weekend, and through the foundation we’ve been able to financially sponsor five camper spots for BIPOC trans community members.”
AS: Do you have any special plans or events coming up for Pride Month?
CA & CB: “For Pride Month we’re back at Lake Travis for our 3rd annual Pride Boat Party on June 14th—it’s the largest queer boat party in Austin! We’ll also be partnering with the Austin Motel for a queer singles and friend finder mixer on June 26th—anyone looking for a lover or new friends will have a great time playing games and taking a dip in the iconic pool! We’re also working on a pride party at a local club, details to be announced soon. Our June Move Series (held on the 2nd Sunday of each month at 6PM) where we gather to move our bodies in less traditional workout ways will be Pride themed and our weekly walk club on Mondays—Strut—will feature a rainbow walk night.”
AS: Tell us more about your monthly book club, the Local Queer Book Club! How do you choose the books that you read and how can people join?
CA & CB: “We meet on the last Wednesday of each month, around 6:30 pm usually at a branch of Austin Public Library or at Central Market on their patio. We read just about every genre there is while focusing on choosing books with queer themes or by queer authors across the spectrum. We select our books at book club or people can give suggestions in our discord group chat if they can’t make it in person. You can join the book club by RSVPing through the link in our instagram bio, website, or discord server. Our website is
www.localqueer.org!”
AS: How can people get involved, join, and support Local Queer ATX?
CA & CB: “There are plenty of ways to join, get involved, and support us! We’d love to see you at an event, have you join our volunteer team, or tell local businesses about us. Our calendar of events is posted on our Instagram page and on our website. You can also find a link to sign up as a volunteer in both of those places as well! Our volunteers are a huge part of how we keep Local Queer going. Our volunteers help support events by running the check in tables, setting up for events, greeting people and creating a welcoming environment. We are often looking for community sponsors for events in order to create something really special for the community. Businesses can get involved by hosting us for an event, in kind donations, or a monetary donation to our 501c3 nonprofit.”
