Queer Public History

Over the course of the last half century, queer history has developed as a collaborative project involving academic researchers, community scholars, and the public. Initially rejected by most colleges and universities, queer history was sustained for many years by community-based contributors and audiences. Academic activism eventually made a place for queer history within higher education, which in turn helped queer historians become more influential in politics, law, and society. Through a collection of essays written over three decades by award-winning historian Marc Stein, Queer Public History charts the evolution of queer historical interventions in the academic sphere and explores the development of publicly oriented queer historical scholarship. From the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and the rise of queer activism in the 1990s to debates about queer immigration, same-sex marriage, and the politics of gay pride in the early twenty-first century, Stein introduces readers to key themes in queer public history. A manifesto for renewed partnerships between academic and community-based historians, strengthened linkages between queer public history and LGBT scholarly activism, and increased public support for historical research on gender and sexuality, this anthology reconsiders and reimagines the past, present, and future of queer public history.

Queer history is a living practice. Talk to any group of LGBTQ people today, and they will not agree on what story should be told. Many people desire to celebrate the past by erecting plaques and painting rainbow crosswalks, but queer and trans people in the twenty-first century need more than just symbols—they need access to power, justice for marginalized people, spaces of belonging. Approaching the past through a lens of queer and trans survival and world-building transforms history itself into a tool for imagining and realizing a better future. Living Queer History tells the story of an LGBTQ community in Roanoke, Virginia, a small city on the edge of Appalachia. Interweaving &8239;historical analysis, theory, and memoir, Gregory Samantha Rosenthal tells the story of their own journey—coming out and transitioning as a transgender woman—in the midst of working on a community-based history project that documented a multigenerational southern LGBTQ community. Based on over forty interviews with LGBTQ elders, Living Queer History explores how queer people today think about the past and how history lives on in the present.

The Routledge History of Queer America presents the first comprehensive synthesis of the rapidly developing field of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer US history. Featuring nearly thirty chapters on essential subjects and themes from colonial times through the present, this collection covers topics including: Rural vs. urban queer histories Gender and sexual diversity in early American history Intersectionality, exploring queerness in association with issues of race and class Queerness and American capitalism The rise of queer histories, archives, and collective memory Transnationalism and queer history Gathering authorities in the field to define the ways in which sexual and gender diversity have contributed to the dynamics of American society, culture and nation, The Routledge History of Queer America is the finest available overview of the rich history of queer experience in US history.

Winner of the Stonewall Book Award in nonfiction The first comprehensive history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender America, from pre-1492 to the present "Readable, radical, and smart—a must read."—Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home Intellectually dynamic and endlessly provocative, this is more than a “who’s who” of queer history: it is a narrative that radically challenges how we understand American history. Drawing upon primary documents, literature, and cultural histories, scholar and activist Michael Bronski charts the breadth of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from 1492 to the present, a testament to how the LGBTQ+ experience has profoundly shaped American culture and history. American history abounds with unknown or ignored examples of queer life, from the ineffectiveness of sodomy laws in the colonies to the prevalence of cross-dressing women soldiers in the Civil War and resistance to homophobic social purity movements. Bronski highlights such groundbreaking moments of queer history as: • In the 1620s, Thomas Morton broke from Plymouth Colony and founded Merrymount, which celebrated same-sex desire, atheism, and interracial marriage. •Transgender evangelist Jemima Wilkinson, in the early 1800s, changed her name to "Publick Universal Friend," refused to use pronouns, fought for gender equality, and led her own congregation in upstate New York. • In the mid-19th century, internationally famous Shakespearean actor Charlotte Cushman led an openly lesbian life, including a well-publicized “female marriage.” • in the late 1920s, Augustus Granville Dill was fired by W. E. B. Du Bois from the NAACP’s magazine the Crisis after being arrested for a homosexual encounter. Informative and empowering, this engrossing and revelatory treatise emphasizes that there is no American history without queer history.

The ArQuives, the largest independent LGBTQ2+ archive in the world, is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and celebrating the stories and histories of LGBTQ2+ people in Canada. Since 1973, volunteers have amassed a vast collection of important artifacts that speak to personal experiences and significant historical moments for Canadian queer communities. Out North: An Archive of Queer Activism and Kinship in Canada is a fascinating exploration and examination of one nation’s queer history and activism, and Canada’s definitive visual guide to LGBTQ2+ movements, struggles, and achievements.

Have pride in history. A rich and sweeping photographic history of the Queer Liberation Movement, from the creators and curators of the massively popular Instagram account LGBT History. “If you think the fight for justice and equality only began in the streets outside Stonewall, with brave patrons of a bar fighting back, you need to read We Are Everywhere right now.”—Anderson Cooper Through the lenses of protest, power, and pride, We Are Everywhere is an essential and empowering introduction to the history of the fight for queer liberation. Combining exhaustively researched narrative with meticulously curated photographs, the book traces queer activism from its roots in late-nineteenth-century Europe—long before the pivotal Stonewall Riots of 1969—to the gender warriors leading the charge today. Featuring more than 300 images from more than seventy photographers and twenty archives, this inclusive and intersectional book enables us to truly see queer history unlike anything before, with glimpses of activism in the decades preceding and following Stonewall, family life, marches, protests, celebrations, mourning, and Pride. By challenging many of the assumptions that dominate mainstream LGBTQ+ history, We Are Everywhere shows readers how they can—and must—honor the queer past in order to shape our liberated future.

Honorable Mention for the 2023 Francis Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize 2023 Judy Grahn Award-Publishing Triangle Finalist Restores queer suffragists to their rightful place in the history of the struggle for women’s right to vote The women’s suffrage movement, much like many other civil rights movements, has an important and often unrecognized queer history. In Public Faces, Secret Lives Wendy L. Rouse reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the suffrage movement included a variety of individuals who represented a range of genders and sexualities. However, owing to the constant pressure to present a “respectable” public image, suffrage leaders publicly conformed to gendered views of ideal womanhood in order to make women’s suffrage more palatable to the public. Rouse argues that queer suffragists did take meaningful action to assert their identities and legacies by challenging traditional concepts of domesticity, family, space, and death in both subtly subversive and radically transformative ways. Queer suffragists also built lasting alliances and developed innovative strategies in order to protect their most intimate relationships, ones that were ultimately crucial to the success of the suffrage movement. Public Faces, Secret Lives is the first work to truly recenter queer figures in the women’s suffrage movement, highlighting their immense contributions as well as their numerous sacrifices.

'Sexuality delivers the goods, making the history and theory of sexuality downright sexy ... I learned more in one session with this book than I've figured out in a lifetime.' Christine Burns MBE, author of Trans Britain They're back! Writer Meg-John Barker and artist Jules Scheele once again team up in this cheeky and informative comic-book follow-up to Queer and Gender. Sex is everywhere. It's in the stories we love - and the stories we fear. It defines who we are and our place in society ... at least we're told it ought to. Sex and sexuality can seem like a house of horrors, full of monsters and potential pitfalls. We often live with fear, shame and frustration when it comes to our own sexuality, and with judgement when it comes to others'. Sex advice manuals, debates over sex work and stories of sexual "dysfunction" only add to our anxiety. With compassion, humour, erudition and a touch of the erotic, Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele shine a light through the darkness and unmask the monsters. 'The art introduces a set of reoccurring characters, tongue-in-cheek references to the Scooby-Doo gang, who journey through a haunted house confronting and unmasking the villains: patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, and capitalism personified ... The sum: accessible, compassionate reading for readers wanting to think more deeply about sex, society, and how they intersect.' Publishers Weekly