Archives In Rainbow

October was Archives Month and LGBT History Month, and one way to celebrate was attending the online panel discussion Archives Against Erasure: The NYC Trans Archives . The NYCTA was founded in 2023 and is distinguished as the first and only trans community-based archive in the Eastern United States. The NYCTA is run completely by and for trans people, collecting ephemera often passed over by traditional archives that highlights trans liberation and social justice. Each speaker brought their own unique skillset and insight into the past, present, and promising future of this archival initiative.   The panel consisted of NYCTA co-founders and members Red Washburn, Eli Erlick, Gabriel San Emeterio, Riah Lee Kinsey, and Elvis Bakaitis along with moderators Rachael Dreyer, Racine Amos, and Eric Fasick of Penn State’s Eberly Family Special Collections Library. Rachael opened and centered the talk by making a poignant connection between the work of the NYCTA and the 2016 article “To Sudd...

The Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) in New York are celebrating 50 years since their foundation in 1974. The institution is one of the oldest LGBTQIA+ archives in the country and even in the world. But they are more than an archive about the Lesbian community. They have become a global reference in the documentation of Lesbian women lives and experiences; a museum; and a center of activism and intersectional solidarity and sisterhood that gather women of different ages and origins but with the same objective: to recover and to be inspired by the lives of the women that love and desire other women. We can consider LHA as the first LGBTQIA+ archives with the explicit aim of documenting the reality of the community, especially from the past, but not exclusively. The initiative arises from the evidence of the passivity, if not negligence, of institutional archives when it comes to document and to preserve the memory of Lesbian women. It is the first time that an archive dedicated to th...

The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project invites us to a virtual session about LGBTQ+ presence at St. Patrick's Day Parade . The St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue is the most significant expression of Irish culture and celebration in New York City. But for 25 years, beginning in 1991, the fight for LGBTQ participation was met with “high levels of madness.” This intergenerational talk will feature  historian Emma Quinn  and  activist Brendan Fay , who will discuss this decades-long campaign and the importance of Irish LGBTQ visibility in St. Patrick’s Day celebrations around the city. Amanda Davis from the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project will moderate and there will be time for Q&A from the audience. The session will be next October, 29th, at 6:30 pm EDT, and you can register at  NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project website .                            This free virtual program is part of the NYC L...