Queer Reads Lexicon

A Community-generated Index and Archive Platform Exploring Queerness in Chinese Speaking Communities

The ideology and the emancipation of queer identity is often associated with Western contexts and institutions. How have Chinese-speaking people in diverse geographic regions, both in China and in the diaspora, started our own dialect of queer language?

Queer Reads Lexicon is a community-generated index and archive of queer language used in Chinese speaking communities. Viewers can browse through the current index of 100+ words, add a new word, as well as add new definitions to exisiting words. The lexicon platform is developed by Mark Lam (Site currently in development).

︎︎︎ Luanch Project

Client: Queer Reads Library

Feature design: Intially, when QRL approached me for the project, we thought of creating a mindmapping tool to show relations of queer terms brought up by participants at their lexicon workshop. After several ideation, we identified a lexicon index, that is scalable and collaborative, would be the more appropriate format.
Playful elements: draggable stickers (drawings from QRL workshop mindmaps), typewritter effect on homepage (showcases entries recorded in the lexicon)
Data Collection: Much consideration is given regarding types of personal identity data to collect and display from participants, with respect to partipicants’ privacy and considering the project’s future goal of mapping queer lauguage to geographical locations

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