Strap-on.org: How a "Queer-Positive, Sex-Positive, Trans-Positive, Girl-Positive" Online Community Influenced Queer Culture, 1996-2006

In the mid-1990s, as internet access became more common at universities and in private homes message boards at Chainsaw Records and later Strap-on.org became a forum for thousands of radical queer and feminist activists and music fans.  Le Tigre, among other bands, mentioned the community explicitly in their music at the time, and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney discussed Chainsaw’s message board in her recent memoir.  This presentation places the messageboard and its users in the political and social contexts of the 1990s, arguing that they played a key role in influencing contemporary discussions about gender and gender identity. 

Riot grrrl, queer punk, and the political activism of Queer Nation and ACT-UP influenced the musical and political tastes of forum users, who analyzed music and politics in an explicitly queer and woman-affirming virtual space.  In the 1990s, some twenty years before these topics became mainstream and associated with the millennial generation, trans and non-binary young people went to Chainsaw.com and Strap-on.org to find community and argue the political implications of gender identity, non-binary gender, and transition. By 2000, their discussions turned into real-life activism.  Among other activities, messageboard users spearheaded a renewed campaign to end the womyn-born-womyn policy at the Michgan Womyn’s Music Festival and, through an associated boycott of participating artists, influenced countless queer and radical communities to think differently about the relationship between sex, gender, and identity.