Bluestockings actively supports "movements that challenge hierarchy and all systems of oppression"[1] and is one of 13 identified feminist bookstores in the United States and Canada.

[2] Ideologically, Bluestockings has been influenced by intersectional feminism,[3] anti-capitalism, and the anti-globalization movement of the early 2000s, and conceptually, by other collectively run spaces and infoshops like Time's Up!

[4]: 20–21  Its collective members see Bluestockings as an experiment in self-managed autonomous space that challenges the neoliberal economic organization of New York City, creating a community for queer or femme activists.

[3] Some notable speakers include members of the band Pussy Riot, poet Eileen Myles, Transgender Vanguard, and the Icarus Project.

[13] Brooke Lehman, a former member of Direct Action Network, and Hitomi Matarese, an artist, bought the store from Welsh, and formed a new collective.

[18] The collective hoped to remain on the Lower East Side to oppose the effects of gentrification and keep the store open as a queer safer space.

[22] Bluestockings offers free Narcan kits, and trainings to use them; the bookstore's landlord attributed the attempt to the "unauthorized use of the premises as a medical facility".