How to preserve LGBTQ+ history in the face of hate
How to preserve LGBTQ+ history in the face of hate
In a world where LGBTQ+ history is often overlooked, preserving it becomes a spectacular act.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
VO: Stonewall. The first Pride parade. Harvey Milk.
If you paid attention only to the milestones, you might think LGBTQ culture got its start in the 1970s.
At the Faulkner Morgan Archive, curators prove that LGBTQ history stretches much farther into the past.
Josh Porter: We are trying to share this history, want this history to be known, and that queer people have, are in Kentucky and have always been in Kentucky and will forever be in Kentucky. And how looking at history and through these materials really opens your eyes to that.
We always say that people, you don't have to be a spectacular icon to be worth preserving and for your history to be shared and saved. VO: In a world where LGBTQ history has often been overlooked or erased, preserving it becomes a spectacular act. One of the archive’s subjects is Sweet Evening Breeze, who was a fixture in Lexington in the 1920s. Josh Porter: Looking back to the sort of queer, gender-bending, cross-dressing Black person in Kentucky, you really would think that they would not be liked at all. And she did deal with a lot of discrimination and a lot of hate. But Sweets was interestingly beloved by so much of the town and had a sort of power in the town. There's one story where four drag queens got arrested at the local gay bar.
The story goes that Sweets called the judge and got the case dropped. VO: In 2021 this archival evidence was transformed into a piece of public art. Sweets’s mural is now one of several official LGBTQ historic sites in Lexington. As more LGBTQ people are able to be open about their lives, more of their stories have come into the limelight. But higher visibility can come with a price. Sarah Moore: I think a lot of us can point to a number of queer stories that we're seeing all throughout media. A number of us probably know queer people in our own personal lives, because there is a growing acceptance of LGBTQ people.
As we've started to see the increased visibility, not only of diverse representations of sexual orientation but also of gender identity, we've started to see this pernicious rise in anti-trans hate specifically, especially as questions about trans people accessing health care, playing sports, accessing things like legal documents where they might want to change their gender identification.
And so we see this kind of paradox between an increased visibility and an increased awareness of LGBTQ issues while also seeing an increase in hate targeting that same community. VO: To document anti-LGBTQ hate, GLAAD’s ALERT Desk tracks both criminal and noncriminal events—from physical assaults and bomb threats to protests and street harassment. Drag shows, health care providers, and educators have all been frequent targets. In the midst of rising hate today, LGBTQ people might turn to the past for something surprising—joy. Josh Porter: I just think it gets magical—especially, I think, finding the joy in queer history. So, oftentimes we talk about the difficulties and how hard it was and the struggles and the fights of that, which is definitely a part of our archive. We document a lot of that struggle. But I think also looking at the way that queer people were having fun, were enjoying themselves, had community, were documenting themselves, I think that's sort of the magic of it.
Josh Porter: We are trying to share this history, want this history to be known, and that queer people have, are in Kentucky and have always been in Kentucky and will forever be in Kentucky. And how looking at history and through these materials really opens your eyes to that.
We always say that people, you don't have to be a spectacular icon to be worth preserving and for your history to be shared and saved. VO: In a world where LGBTQ history has often been overlooked or erased, preserving it becomes a spectacular act. One of the archive’s subjects is Sweet Evening Breeze, who was a fixture in Lexington in the 1920s. Josh Porter: Looking back to the sort of queer, gender-bending, cross-dressing Black person in Kentucky, you really would think that they would not be liked at all. And she did deal with a lot of discrimination and a lot of hate. But Sweets was interestingly beloved by so much of the town and had a sort of power in the town. There's one story where four drag queens got arrested at the local gay bar.
The story goes that Sweets called the judge and got the case dropped. VO: In 2021 this archival evidence was transformed into a piece of public art. Sweets’s mural is now one of several official LGBTQ historic sites in Lexington. As more LGBTQ people are able to be open about their lives, more of their stories have come into the limelight. But higher visibility can come with a price. Sarah Moore: I think a lot of us can point to a number of queer stories that we're seeing all throughout media. A number of us probably know queer people in our own personal lives, because there is a growing acceptance of LGBTQ people.
As we've started to see the increased visibility, not only of diverse representations of sexual orientation but also of gender identity, we've started to see this pernicious rise in anti-trans hate specifically, especially as questions about trans people accessing health care, playing sports, accessing things like legal documents where they might want to change their gender identification.
And so we see this kind of paradox between an increased visibility and an increased awareness of LGBTQ issues while also seeing an increase in hate targeting that same community. VO: To document anti-LGBTQ hate, GLAAD’s ALERT Desk tracks both criminal and noncriminal events—from physical assaults and bomb threats to protests and street harassment. Drag shows, health care providers, and educators have all been frequent targets. In the midst of rising hate today, LGBTQ people might turn to the past for something surprising—joy. Josh Porter: I just think it gets magical—especially, I think, finding the joy in queer history. So, oftentimes we talk about the difficulties and how hard it was and the struggles and the fights of that, which is definitely a part of our archive. We document a lot of that struggle. But I think also looking at the way that queer people were having fun, were enjoying themselves, had community, were documenting themselves, I think that's sort of the magic of it.