by GABRIEL GALINDEZ

At New York Comic Con, a celebration of geek fandom, this past October, booth #1575 added a swatch of colorful pride amid big name brands like Disney’s Marvel and Warner Brother’s DC Universe.

The booth was adorned with a banner that showed a rainbow, the symbol of gay pride, and the iconic X-Man Storm — one of the first women of color in comics who was a fierce African member of a team that was an allegory for diversity — flanked by LGBT characters from comic books, fantasy, and science fiction.

T-shirts carrying slogans such as “Strong Female Character” were for sale. Convention-goers could pick up stickers with pronouns to signify a person’s preference, like the gender neutral “they, them, ours.”

The group behind the booth was Geeks OUT, whose mission is to give the LGBT community a voice in the geek community, a place that has predominantly catered to the straight white male. Look at any comic book or video game that emphasizes scantily clad females who fail miserably at the Bechdel test, when a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.

The convergence of the superhero blockbuster movie and the growing acceptance of LGBT rights and marriage equality in the United States has created a space in pop culture ripe for a group like Geeks OUT. With popular television shows such as “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead,”featuring queer characters, there’s a community that needed representation.
Geeks OUT was conceived six years ago when founders Josh Siegel and Joey Stern attended Comic Con in New York and noticed this need.

“We felt there wasn’t any queer presence there and we knew there was kind of a community waiting…,” said Siegel, 40, an artist and business owner living in Astoria. “But they didn’t really seem to have a central meeting point or any kind of organization.”

At dinner later that day, the two hatched the name and the next day they purchased the web domain name. Their goal, which they realized, was to get a booth at New York Comic Con the next year to provide a safe space for the LGBT community.

The idea took off and Geek OUT’s mission of inclusion has spread beyond the convention to monthly events that provide the queer geek community in New York a place to come together. They also have a strong feminist point of view that is geared towards empowering women in media.

Among the events they have held are The Walking Dead-themed bar crawl, superhero themed self-defense classes and outings to see upcoming genre movies.

In November, Geeks OUT, hosted a brunch in the West Village’s infamous Boots and Saddles drag bar. The theme was “Netflix and Refill” celebrating the release of Netflix’s Jessica Jones television series, which is based off the Marvel comic book Alias. One of the drag hosts Lilith LeFae cosplayed as the obscure character’s superhero persona, Jewel. Later, she hosted a trivia game based on the comic book.

The odd mesh of gay and geek culture makes the group stand out.

The group has opened up a niche safe space where they can let their geek flag fly within New York City’s gay community. For example, at these places just wearing a super hero T-shirt isn’t a novelty it’s a conversation starter and perhaps even the beginning of a new friendship.

People who attend Geeks OUT Events say they create a closeness amongst gay geeks.

“They have a sense of like we’re all together in this…,” said Jackson Eather, 23, a regular at Geeks OUT! events. “Growing up you get that kind of outcast sense so when all the outcasts band together that’s really the gay family you’re kind of always looking for.”

Almost everyone who attends regularly can boast a slew of new friends. Some like Alvaro Galvan and Mike Continues are now domestic partners after meeting at a retreat event associated with the group and hosted in part by founder, Siegel. “None of us are really bar people so we probably wouldn’t have met anywhere else,” Alvaro said.

The couple are frequent contributors to some of Geeks OUT creative events. Dreamweaver is an event that invites artists within the community to create pieces inspired by queer geek icons like George Takei, famous for playing Mr. Sulu on the original Star Trek series, and Ian McKellan, a world renowned actor who plays Gandolf in The Lord of the Rings movies and Magneto in the X-Men franchise. In 2013 they celebrated Aliens actress Sigourney Weaver. She got wind of the event and sent special video thanking the group and the participants.

The organization’s love of art has grown into what co-founder, Josh Siegel, considers to be one of the group’s biggest achievements: New York’s first LGBT comic convention: Flamecon. The all-day event celebrates and showcases queer artists.

The convention held earlier this year in August, like any “Artist Alley,” boasted tables displaying queer comic books, illustrators, and writers. They also hosted panels about queer culture.

Also, in keeping with their safe space mantra, all of the bathrooms were labeled “Gender Neutral” and were open to all. The event was followed by a special show, “Fireball,” which showcased body positive burlesque performances.

Next year Flamecon will be two days and it already has a line-up of queer artists from the comic book industry as well as other writers and novelists.

The scope of Geeks OUT is expanding with smaller chapters popping up in cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. They are also present at other conventions around the country like GaymerX in California, PAX South in Texas, and C2E2 in Chicago.
“We’ve grown every year,” Kevin Gilligan, 35, the group’s convention coordinator, said. “New York Comic Con is more and more successful for us in terms of the people that we reach, the response that we get.”

After New York Comic Con this year, the group hosted its fourth annual, SNIKT after-party. The event had a male host dressed in a pink Power Ranger outfit, a drag performer dressed up like a Dalek from the British TV show Doctor WHO, and a cosplay contest with prizes provided by local New York comic book shop, Midtown Comics.

The contest is riddled with “sexy male” versions of genre characters (the opposite of “normal” conventions where sexy female cosplay is a given), cross play (when someone dresses up as a character in their opposite gender), and obscure references only the truly geeky would know. Mostly it was a celebration of what GEEKS OUT has achieved and what the group stands for.

“As queer fans we were kind of isolated,” said Siegel, one of the co-founders. “Now we’re all out of the closet as fans and it’s a lot more fun and so if Geeks OUT can be a presence in these cities, towns, and only too, where people can realize that not only are you not alone as a queer person you’re not alone in that fact that you’re a total dork.”