How to Make New Friends with Queer Brown Babes
Meet SG Gladstone, founder of Queer Brown Babes, a QTBIPOC group in New York City.
I moved to New York City for grad school, so for the first two years of living here I really didn’t have fun. I didn’t go out and my only friends were my classmates. I had my head down and worked diligently to meet deadlines and get my degree. But after I graduated at the end of 2022, I finally peaked my head over my computer and was ready to have fun. I invested in my hobbies (art, salsa and bachata classes!), explored the city more, and made an effort to meet new people.
One way I found new friends was by searching for queer people of color groups relevant to my interests. How do you find said groups? I’m a journalist — research is kinda my thing so that’s what I did. I literally went to town on Google. “Queer salsa dance classes” “Queer events in NYC” “LGBTQ groups NYC” Once I found the name of groups and orgs, I followed them ALL on Instagram, including the people who run them. From there, I looked out for events that interested me. I also scrolled Lex to see what people were posting and found more groups and events that way. (For those who don’t know, Lex is an app that started off as classified personal ads but it’s morphed into a forum where queer people post just about anything.)
I eventually went to events and meetups by myself and met some really cool people to hang out with. I know that sounds scary but it really forced me to talk to other people and get out of my comfort zone. I mean, if you show up to an event with someone you already know, odds are you will not socialize with anyone else. I highly recommend trying it out!
Once you meet new people at an event, then it opens up your world to other people they know! That’s what happened to me. Someone I met at a meetup added me to the Queer Brown Babes WhatsApp group.
Queer Brown Babes is a meetup group for queer Black, Indigenous, People of Color based in New York City. SG Gladstone, a Black nonbinary person originally from Sacramento, founded the group in May 2022.