ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Atlanta’s queer community as an example of the assertions that underlie queer as a community. Queer people share an identity and they manifest this identity through a shared code for conduct engaged in Atlanta’s queer institutions and designated spaces. Atlanta offers distinct space for the participants to understand what it means to be queer and the freedom to live these meanings in a specified community. The participants, residents, and visitors, reflected on ways Atlanta is unique, for example, its concentration of African Americans, and in ways it is much like any other city, for example, suffers from segregation. The institutions and organizations noted by participants reflected on Atlanta’s queer community – the places where they feel they can be queer, with other queers – spaces to call home. A number of participants spoke of Atlanta’s queer community, especially in context to particular institutions and organizations, in glowing terms.
