No One / 1

For our first stop, Amsterdam felt like a natural choice, given the gratitude we owe the city’s nightlife for shaping our understanding of what it means to be queer, and to dance as one.

 

With a history of progressive developments, like squatting, legalizing same-sex marriage, pioneering harm reduction practices, and integrating club culture with queer expression at institutions like Club RoXY or Club iT, Amsterdam has become a known haven for many dancing queers around the world. This appeal has also led to a dense population which incentivizes the development of residential buildings that marginalized groups cannot afford, simultaneously reducing nightlife spaces.

 

Like the essence of queerness, Amsterdam’s stance on queer rights and nightlife is anything but singular or linear. Communities and places that gave the city its strength are facing more disadvantages. Meanwhile, the city's renowned electronic music scene further invites the co-optation and commercialization of queer culture, at the expense of queer people.

 

To talk about queer nightlife in Amsterdam today is to go back to its roots, into the underground, speaking to those who are creating spaces and changes from their communities upwards. With 12 stories that span collectives, artists, organizers, historians, advocates, and community members, Issue 01 invites you to immerse in the ecstatic energy, diverse expression, ingenious entrepreneurship, community love, and collective resilience that is alive today, in Amsterdam's queer nightlife.

 

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Their arms raised, swaying to the bassline. Skin glistening against the colorful lights. Red light, red smoke, surrounded their red dress, weaving in and out, among dancing queers. 

 

Steaming heat, pumping beats, and stomping heels, they wore them fiercely and danced in them joyously. Their femininity, masculinity, and humanity converged on the dance floor. They were us, and we were them. With them, we were everyone. Without them, we were no one. 

 

This vivid encounter at a party by Supernature—a queer collective in Amsterdam—was perhaps when the seed for No One Magazine was initially sown. There, for the first time, we saw the meaning of “queer” manifest: a harmony of beauty, fierceness, individuality, and community. Dancing among the diverse expressions of queerness, our subconscious fears about our identity faded away, replaced by a newfound appreciation and conviction in the power of dancing as who you are, with everyone as they are.

 

Following this encounter is our burning urge to discover more of this incredible space, not only in Amsterdam—the city we now call home—but also around the world; in a quest to broaden our understanding of the queer identity in the context of its underground nightlife. From Skopje to Prishtina, Quito to Philadelphia, queer nightlife around the world has shown us not only its creativity, but also its incredible strength, uniting and dancing against the injustices our community faces.

 

Did you know that there is only one queer bar in Prishtina that hosts drag performances and queer parties next to a rowdy, macho-dominated street? Or about the thriving ballroom scene in Ho Chi Minh City where attendees make their own clothes? Or were you aware that the queer party scene in some Southeast Asian countries is distinctly divided by class and wealth? We didn't, until we encountered the brave and ingenious local queer communities from these places. 

 

No One Magazine is our passion for sharing these joyous, and sometimes heavy, encounters with dancing queers around the world, documented in pages. As a print publication, we aim to archive underground queer stories in time capsules that take up physical and mental space, raising awareness, and starting important dialogues, both within and outside of our community. 

 

Through interviews with locals and on-the-ground stories, we hope to bring the global LGBTQIA+ community closer, sharing our challenges, celebrating our victories, and ultimately, opening up this whole world to us: the dancing queers.