The Nerdy Queer on Pride and Pins
We believe in love, acceptance, and diversity and we stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community in their mission to create an inclusive environment where everyone is free to be themselves.
We use our platform to help LGBTQ+ members express their creativity and spread their messages of love, inclusivity, and human rights using enamel pin badges, embroidered patches, and other custom merch.
One of our favourite clients, The Nerdy Queer, has repeatedly trusted us to create the badges they've designed. We spoke to them recently about how they use merch to share their message, which has become so successful it's now their full-time job.
Made by Cooper: What inspired you to use Star Wars, Pokemon, & Star Trek pride pin badges to support the LGBTQ+ community?
The Nerdy Queer: We’re huge pin nerds! We have jackets and bags covered in them. We’re also LGBTQ+, so for us, it was a match made in heaven. Pin badges are fantastic because you can wear them front and centre, loud and proud, but if you need to, they can also be kept somewhere just for you, where they can spark joy just for you. That was important for us because not every member of the LGBTQ+ community is in a place where they can be out and proud, so we wanted to create things that everyone could enjoy in their own way.
MbC: What specific milestones have you achieved with the pins and badges you made with us?
TNQ: To be honest, this totally snowballed for us. It started as one pronoun pin based on a pun! Now we have a few ranges of pins with a wide range of flags and a few different pronoun pins. The biggest milestone we’ve hit is that designing and selling pins is now our job. That was, quite frankly, a fantasy when we first started, so to have come that far is amazing.”
MbC: What do you hope to achieve with these products in the future?
TNQ: Our main goal is to offer people the chance to show off their LGBTQ+ pride in interesting ways that aren’t just a flag or plain pronoun badges. We feel like we’ve achieved that, but we want to offer more ranges of pins and be able to offer pins for more identities. Our current goal is to be able to expand the ranges we currently have to be more inclusive.
MbC: Can you share any positive experiences you’ve had as a result of your LGBTQ+ pride pins & merch store?
TNQ: Our most fun experience was when someone wore one of our pins on Channel 4 on The Gamemaster, and we got a flood of people contacting us to tell us about it! People will sometimes point at a pin we are wearing and say how much they like it, and we’ll look down to find out it’s one of ours; that’s always fun.
Most people recognise Pride Month as a celebration of love in all its forms, and while we've come far since the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, there's still much work to be done to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ members worldwide.
While showing support for the community during Pride Month is a start, it's crucial to make a stand for the other 11 months of the year too.
As an LGBTQ+ ally, offering a safe space for anyone who needs one and committing to learn about LGBTQ+ activism and the challenges community members face every day are as equally important as speaking out against harmful speech and bigoted views.
If you want to create your own LGBTQ+ merch to celebrate bisexual awareness week, mark national coming out day, respect the transgender day of remembrance, or plan ahead for Pride 2024, contact us to get started.
With love and pride,
The Made by Cooper Team
