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Making it in Shanghai: LesQueers' Gabby Gabriel

ShanghaiWOWeng 2018-11-30


Meet Gabby Gabriel, founder of LesQueers and believer of the rainbow being one of the world’s greatest unifying forces. No matter where it's found, the rainbow carries the same meaning: you are welcome here. Her goal is both visionary and pragmatic - to put queer people not only on the map, but at the forefront of the mainstream.

 


LesQueers was initially founded in 2014 as a WeChat group to combat the absence of a distinctive queer women’s scene in Shanghai. The group steadily grew as a community hub and safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community and has quickly expanded its reach globally to count more than 10,000 members today. Since its inception in 2016, LesQueers launched China's first official Diversity and Inclusion training and has organized more than 20 talks, 100 discussion groups, 30 workshops and 500+ events in Shanghai to ermpower the 500 million LGBTQIA+ people in the world and to revolutionize how the community connects across the world, and how allies can learn more.


We sat down for a chat with Gabby to learn more about the launch of her new all-inclusive international LGBTQIA+ community app.

 

Gabby, tell us about what first brought you to Shanghai.

 

I actually moved here in 2012 because I was engaged to a woman from the UK and, back then, the US didn’t have federal marriage equality – meaning she wouldn’t have been able to get a green card. So, we decided to move to China while we waited for the laws to change.

 

We started off as English teachers. She was a teacher by profession in the UK and I had just graduated from university. In 2014, I started this LesQueers (LQ) WeChat group which eventually just kept on getting bigger and bigger.

 

What does the growth of LQ look like after that?

 

Last year we had around 2,000 people throughout different WeChat groups but it’s not just online; we do a lot of events too – of which we’ve had over 500. One of my friends was going back to New York and suggested that we think about bringing it back to the US. I wasn’t sure it would be popular there. I thought the reason why it was popular here was because it’s harder to find people.

 


But we set up a meet up account in New York and within 24 hours we had 100 people signed up. At that moment, I quit everything I was doing and started making this app. This was April last year, and now it’s finally launched!

 

What drove you to create an app for the community?

 

Basically an app like this does not exist, and there is a big need for it. All the LGBTQIA+ applications that exist are focused on dating, which I believe limits the impact of the community. This application solves a big need: an ability to find communities no matter where you are; an online space that is really for us, by us.

 

Tell us more about your app and how the journey began.

 

So there are actually going to be two apps – one being an international version, and the other for China  “LQ中国”.There are also two different types of accounts - individual and business. The idea was to make it not only an app where people could make friends or network professionally, but for the community to make better decisions on where they’re spending their money which integrates with the system we have started distributing in Shanghai.

 


When I started making the app last April, I had no idea how I was going to do it. I had no technical expertise whatsoever. I ended up meeting a girl who had just graduated from art school as a UI/UX designer, and when I told her about my idea to make the app she helped by giving me an idea of what to do to start the process. She also became one of our co-founders, and is moving to LA when we open our LA office in July.

 

And what was your experience like in developing an app with no technical background?

 

When I first started, I didn’t really know what or how to get to where I wanted this to go. However, through determination and not being afraid to ask for help, I was able to eventually get to where I am today. There were a series of challenges as to knowing who I could trust, and how to find the right team to make my vision a reality. I had to survive a few scams before creating the right teams for the LQ.  Now we have 2 technical teams: one to manage the international side and one to manage the Chinese side.  


 

During the time you were going through all of this, what were community responses like?

 

It’s been a true community effort. Everyone in the community has been helping so much. They all know that I’ve been doing this LQ thing for 3-4 years now and that all my energy and time goes into it. People help the team out, even if they aren’t working full time, people come after work or offer their services online. During Christmas we did some fundraising events and people just gave back for things that had come about as a result of LQ - relationships, job offers, friends, etc. Then, with another investor in January I was able to get to where we are today and our team keeps growing with people who have been a part of the community want to work for a social enterprise, and who believe in our mission. This is the beginning of a global initiative.

 

So what are the biggest features of the app that you think will be most useful to the community?

 

First off, having a place to find friends is a huge challenge. That’s why so many people get on Tinder just to try and make other LGBT friends. So that’s definitely one of the more useful aspects because you can select any city in the world and find communities, events, and anything else that is going on in those cities.

 

The business accounts allow for businesses to show their direct support for our community. They can market their products or post job opportunities. Meanwhile, the community can identify which places are actually safe and welcoming, while understanding the business’ policies with a click of a button.

 

Q Key is a sticker that goes with our application, and last week we went to over one hundred businesses to ask them to put the sticker on our app. Over 50 said yes, most of which have registered and have been approved. The sticker is a way to visually communicate your LGBTQIA+ friendliness to our community. We will continue to do this sticker initiative all over Shanghai, and we are launching it in the US and South America next month. We have also created an organized guide to help communities anywhere in the world.

 


Through the app we also want to be mainstream, so that’s also a part of why businesses are invited to make accounts. It’s the first app in the world that is LGBT-focused and that includes this type of account, where businesses or groups can have a Facebook-style page that is more interactive like a user account.

 

Allies are allowed to be on the app as well, since there are so many people looking to contribute to social movements who aren’t necessarily sure how. Through this app, there’s a way for everyone to get involved and I hope that allies do join the app because I want them to learn more about people who have different gender identities or sexual identities.

 

What would you say you’ve learned from this experience as a woman in tech?

 

That your idea has value, and to have determination in why you started…I think we put so much emphasis on who can make this tech without realizing that it’s actually more important to have an entire community behind it. Another lesson learned is to not give up. We’re only just launching but there were so many times when it would have been easy to just throw in the towel. There’s always a solution to the challenges you face, it’s just a matter of stepping back and being able to see it from a wider perspective.



Committed to empowering the diverse radiance of the LGBTQIA+ community, LesQueers have launched their all-inclusive international app to help communities find themselves, each other, and others based on location, identity, and much more.They also launched China’s first official Diversity & Inclusion training program that is specific to gender/sexual identity inclusion and also invented the Q Key, a system for the LGBTQIA+ community to better identify what it means to be queer-friendly. This system will be searchable within their application. You can contact Gabby via email gabby@lesqueers.com

 

You can download the app by searching for LQ中国on the App Store.

 




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