About us
Queer U Stories (QUS) is the volunteer-driven initiative for the LGBTQIA+ history of the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands.
The name stands 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.
Team
Meet the QUS-core team (click on each name for their photo and CV):
- Eric Vocking
- Evert van der Veen
- Gianna Mula
- Iris Bouman
- Justine Allasia
- Kees van den Berg
- Lieve van Borssum Waalkes
- Marijke Huisman
- Maurice van Lieshout
- Nine Geertman
They are supported by many dedicated contributors.
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):
- Queer City Tour: Guided city walks for groups.
- Queer City Map: A printed map featuring a queer history tour of Utrecht’s inner city.
- Queer City Walk Online: An interactive experience via the Utrecht Time Machine
- Book: Utrechtenaren, een queer geschiedenis, published by WBOOKS in 2024.
- Exhibition: was on display in Utrecht’s City Hall in October 2024 and can now be visited online.
- Presentations: Available upon request.
Website
- timeline of Utrecht’s vibrant queer history,
- profiles people who challenged conventional gender and sexuality norms, and
- shares captivating stories from the city’s colourful past.
Follow QUS on social media:
History QUS
Exhibition ‘Unstable Image’ by Cyanne van den Houten, Centraal Museum Utrecht 2023/-4
Cyanne fed QUS to AI to help robots tell each other queer fairy tales.
Rainbow canon at the Utrecht Pride 2022
On Utrecht Pride 2022 mayor Dijksma waves at the boat of the Utrecht municipality with the rainbow canon on the side. Photo: Ralf Mens
‘If the walls could talk’ theatre by ‘Oester’
Theatre about the Utrecht rainbow canon in the Utrecht Cathedral Tower (2022)
Poster ‘Out of the shadow of the Cathedral’, 2022
Musical performance about the Utrecht rainbow canon by the choirs ‘Cantotori del Duomo’ and ‘Cantate Zus en zo’, Cathedral Square, Utrecht, October 29, 2022
Launch of the Utrecht rainbow canon, 2021
Utrecht mayor Dijksma receives the brooch with the QUS-logo from jewelry designer Jet Bartman at the launch of the Utrecht rainbow canon on October 11, 2021. Photo: Bas van Setten.
The QUS core team
Click on the photo for more info
Justine Allasia
Kees van den Berg
Lieve van Borssum Waalkes
Iris Bouman
Nine Geertman
Marijke Huisman
Maurice van Lieshout
Gianna Mula
Evert van der Veen
Eric Vocking
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 LGBTIQ+ 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.
For QUS he co-developer of the exhibition Queer Utrecht Stories, amongst other things.
Marijke Huisman (1972) is an assistant professor of Public History at Utrecht University. She is interested in emancipatory historiography. She has published ‘Savannah Bay, history of a special bookshop, 1975-2019’, amongst others. Together with Maurice van Lieshout and Evert van der Veen, she wrote a book on Utrecht queer history: Utrechtenaren, a 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 queer magazines Sek and Homologie. He took the initiative for the queer history exhibition Goed Verkeerd (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 a book on Utrecht queer history: Utrechtenaren, a queer geschiedenis (W-books, October 2024) with Marijke Huisman and Evert van der Veen.
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 LGBTIQ+ advisory committee. In recognition of his work towards LGBTIQA+ emancipation, Evert was honoured with a royal decoration and named Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau in 2021.
For QUS he co-authored Utrechtenaren, a queer geschiedenis (WBOOKS, 2024) together with Maurice van Lieshout and Marijke Huisman, a book chronicling Utrecht’s queer history. He was also co-developer of the exhibition Queer Utrecht Stories.
Lieve van Borssum Waalkes (2000) studied Liberal Arts & Sciences; International Law & Political Science/IR at University College Utrecht. At the end of last year she completed her last semester on exchange at the University of California, Santa Barbara. During her studies she did a board year and was part of creative initiatives such as the UCU Fashion Design Team. Currently, she works at a museum, which fits well with her love for art.
For QUS she contributed to our book, among other things.
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 LGBTIQ+-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 The Pink Cloud and gay café The Skyscraper, titled ‘Roze Wolkennachten’. He is now a board member of the Utrecht LGBTIQ+ 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.
Iris Bouman (1998) is a historian and interested in queer history. After studying History and Genocide Studies, she now works as a historian on various projects about the history of the Second World War in the Netherlands. She also regularly writes about music, including at 3voor12 Utrecht. Since 2024, she has been coordinating the Dutch Railway Museum’s crowdsourcing project, in which volunteers describe the museum’s digitized historical photos and thus make them accessible.
For QUS she, among other things, co-developed the Queer Utrecht Stories exhibition and coordinates the social media in Dutch language.
Justine Allasia (1998) was born in France and moved to the Netherlands in 2019 to continue their studies. They completed a master’s degree in urban planning in 2021 and in cultural history & heritage in 2023. Justine is interested in queer history, de- and postcolonial history and hip-hop culture. They are looking for a PhD, and in the meantime they do research for QUS and work on publications about (post-)colonial memory and about women’s activism.
At QUS she is a guide for the Queer City Walks and manages the English-language social media, among other things.
Nine Geertman (1976) lives in Utrecht since 2004. She works as an independent graphic designer. Nine’s work tells stories, it lets you experience something. This experience can be seen in the form of exhibitions, museums, experience centers, magazines, house styles, campaigns and more. She also regularly photographs within the LGBTIQ+ community.
At QUS she, among other things, designed the exhibition Queer Utrecht Stories.