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Promotional flyer for Zorita’s 1949 film, I Married a Savage, ca. 1949. In addition to her attire and the fact that she’s featured alongside her signature snake and her “Jungle Queens,” the film’s plot was anchored in deeply racialized, “exotic” tropes that were made more palatable to general audiences through the prism of her whiteness, femininity, and sexuality. Courtesy of the Tawny Petillo Collection.

Zorita in Miami

A queer Southern history.
by Julio Capó Jr. via Southern Cultures on April 8, 2025
Motown Records advertisement for the Dynamic Superiors.

Trapped in Motown’s Closet

The intersection of Black music and queer identity.
by Mark Anthony Neal via Medium on June 2, 2024
Victims of AIDS participate in the National March for Gay Rights in Washington D.C. in 1987.

The First National Coming Out Day 35 Years Ago Took on Reagan and AIDS Stigma

On Oct. 11, 1988, at the height of the AIDS crisis and a wave of homophobia, people were asked to take a daring step by declaring publicly that they were gay.
by Nora Neus via Washington Post on October 11, 2023
The covers of "Romance in Marseille" and "Amiable with Big Teeth" by Claude McCay over a blue blackground splattered with paint.

Zeal, Wit, and Fury: The Queer Black Modernism of Claude McKay

Considering the suppressed legacy of Claude McKay’s two “lost” novels, “Amiable with Big Teeth” and “Romance in Marseille.”
by Gary Edward Holcomb via Los Angeles Review of Books on September 11, 2023
LGBTQ+ Pride balloon arch at parade

Who's Afraid of Social Contagion?

Our ideas about sexuality and gender have changed before, and now they’re changing again.
by Hugh Ryan via Boston Review on July 31, 2023
Photo collage in green and pink patterns, with a photo of Barbara Ann Richards in the center.

In the 1940s, a Trans Pioneer Fought California for Legal Recognition. This Is How She Won.

Barbara Ann Richards designed—and then demanded—the life she deserved.
by Michael Waters via Slate on March 20, 2022
Scratched photograph of Don Ward and Robert in the early seventies.

The Untold Story of Queer Foster Families

In the 1970s, social workers in several states placed queer teenagers with queer foster parents, in discrete acts of quiet radicalism.
by Michael Waters via The New Yorker on February 28, 2021
Marchers carry a banner that reads "Lesbian & Gay Rights - Human Rights"

The History of 'Coming Out,' from Secret Gay Code to Popular Political Protest

In the 1950s, 'coming out' meant quietly acknowledging one's sexual orientation. Today, the term is used by a broad array of social movements.
by Abigail C. Saguy via The Conversation on February 10, 2020
Portrait of Anne Lister

The 19th Century Lesbian Made for 21st Century Consumption

Jeanna Kadlec considers Anne Lister, the center figure of HBO’s Gentleman Jack, and the influence of other preceding queer women.
by Jeanne Kadlec via Longreads on June 6, 2019

The Partners of Greenwich Village

Did the census recognize gay couples in 1940?
by Dan Bouk via Census Stories, USA on July 3, 2018
RuPaul in American flag bodysuit and gloves at 1993 March on Washington.

LGB and/or T History

“Transgender” has gone from an umbrella term for different behaviors, to an umbrella term for different identities.
by Hugh Ryan via Digital Transgender Archive
Collage of gay film covers

Good Queers and Bad Queers

Myths are fed back as stereotypes and strawmen to divine some boundary for acceptability.
by KJ Shepherd via Contingent on June 27, 2025
Mary MacLane.

“I Am Making the World My Confessor”: Mary MacLane, the Wild Woman from Butte

In 1902, a woman named Mary MacLane from Butte, Montana, became an international sensation after publishing a scandalous journal at the age of 19.
by Hunter Dukes via The Public Domain Review on April 23, 2025
Trans activist Sylvia Rivera during her “Y’all better quiet down” speech at an early gay pride rally in New York City, 1973.

Why Are Trans People Such an Easy Political Target? The Answer Involves a Surprising Culprit.

Making a whole group of people this vulnerable does not just happen overnight.
by Zein Murib via Slate on April 7, 2025
A sign reading "Ladies" above a doorway.

“The Relationship Between Public Morals and Public Toilets”

Christine Jorgensen and the birth of trans bathroom panic.
by Nikita Shepard via Nursing Clio on November 27, 2024

Eroticize the Hood

A new book revamps Newark's reputation as unsexy, violent, destitute, defiantly declaring it “a place of desire, love, eroticism, community, and resistance.”
by José Sanchez via n+1 on October 8, 2024
A sign reading "Love Asheville, Y'all Means All!" with a rainbow heart in the background.

Y’all Means All: Past and Present LGBTQ+ Rights in the South

Despite an unwelcoming political climate and a dearth of LGBTQ+ protections, LGBTQ+ Southerners have persisted.
by Brittany Daniel via Nursing Clio on July 10, 2024
A man in uniform holding an honorable discharge certificate from the U.S. Air Force.

How The U.S. Military Built San Francisco's LBGTQ+ Legacy

Many LGBTQ+ veterans settled in the city as it was a common point of disembarkation and a place of gender nonconformity.
by Solcyré Burga via TIME on June 21, 2024
Person in a red veil.

Connecting with Trans History, Rebellion, and Joy, in “Compton’s 22”

Transgender people's reactions to watching oral histories of the legacy of a 1966 riot in the Tenderloin that was nearly lost to history.
by Drew de Pinto via The New Yorker on June 5, 2024
Zdeněk Koubek.

A Forgotten Athlete, a Nazi Official, and the Origins of Sex Testing at the Olympics

In 1936, the Czech track star Zdeněk Koubek became world-famous after undergoing surgery so that he could live openly as a man.
by Michael Waters via The New Yorker on June 1, 2024

UC Berkeley Student Brings to Light Stories of LGBTQ+ Japanese Americans Incarcerated During WWII

A UC Berkeley student’s award-winning research shines a light on LGBTQ+ life in Japanese American concentration camps during World War II.
by Tor Haugan via UC Berkeley Library on February 19, 2024
Lou Reed in front of a photography setup.

The Canonization of Lou Reed

In a new biography, the Velvet Underground front man embodies a New York that exists only in memory.
by Jeremy Lybarger via The New Republic on October 17, 2023
A collage of a feminine hand using a computer mouse and an eye layered over it as if watching.

Many Revolutions

The internet has expanded how we understand the possibilities of the trans experience.
by Jamie Lauren Keiles, Avery Dame-Griff via The Baffler on July 10, 2023

Digital Queers: How Computers Transformed LGBTQ Life in the United States

Digital communications allowed transgender individuals and organizations the digital tools to organize and connect at a previously impossible scale and speed.
by Avery Dame-Griff via Process: A Blog for American History on June 29, 2023
Marsha P. Johnson and others at Pride march, with large fan.

Beyond the Binary

The long history of trans.
by Stephanie Burt via The Nation on June 25, 2023
Goldfish bowl superimposed on close-up of eye.

Queer History Now!

“Queer” has experienced a loss of meaning and a curdling of political potential. To reinvigorate it, we need a new approach to history.
by Ben Miller via The Baffler on June 7, 2023
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz during a signing ceremony to ban conversion therapy.
partner

Conversion Therapy Is Harmful and Ineffective. So Why Is It Still Here?

Conversion therapies have never been about providing medical or mental care. Instead, they have been a tool to eradicate LGBTQ activism, culture and people.
by Andrea Ens via Made By History on May 15, 2023
A cut out from the magazine New Masses with the headline "For College Student H.H.C," pasted over a photo montage of an archive.

“H.H.C.”: The Story of a Queer Life—Glimpsed, Lost, and Finally Found

My hunt for one man across the lonely expanse of the queer past ended in a place I never expected.
by Aaron Lecklider via Slate on April 24, 2023
The old New York Times building in 2006.

The New York Times is Repeating One of Its Most Notorious Mistakes

The paper’s anti-trans coverage parallels its failings over gay rights and AIDS. But the Times appears determined not to learn from its own history.
by Jack Mirkinson via The Nation on February 20, 2023
A naked David Opal signaling a peace sign with his hands on a TV screen in front of a background of a 1970s themed living room.

What Became of the Oscar Streaker?

After Robert Opel dashed naked across the stage in 1974, he ran for President and settled into the gay leather scene.
by Michael Schulman via The New Yorker on January 30, 2023
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