WGS 290: Black Sexual Cultures: Across Page, Stage, and Screen

Bishopsgate Institute Special Collections and Archives document the experiences of everyday people, and the extraordinary individuals and organisations who have strived for social, political and cultural change.

The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. Based in Boston, Massachusetts at Northeastern University, the DTA is an international collaboration among dozens of colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, public libraries, and private collections. By digitally localizing a wide range of trans-related materials, the DTA expands access to trans history for academics and independent researchers alike in order to foster education and dialog concerning trans history.

Our “Voices and Activism” primary source sets highlight personal stories and diverse activism within the LGBTQ community. They explore topics including the intersections of race and sexuality, building solidarity within queer community, the need to preserve and teach LGBTQ history related to people of color, and moments of joy and love. The sources selected here document the lives of Black queer people.

Ky-Ky was a derogatory term used within the lesbian community in the 1950’s bar scene to describe someone who did not conform to butch or femme style of presentation. Lesbians who were ky-ky disrupted the order of the bar scene by rejecting gender presentation norms and instead embodying their own diverse gender identities. Instead of separating trans, lesbian, queer, and gender non conforming stories within our history, we aim to bring these identities together and reveal how they intersect and have throughout history.
KyKy is a digital archive and educational resource for lesbian, queer, gender non conforming, and trans people of the African Diaspora.

The Lesbian Herstory Archives exists to gather, preserve and provide access to records of Lesbian lives and activities. Doing this also serves to uncover and document our herstory previously denied to us by patriarchal historians in the interests of the culture that they served. The existence of the Archives will thus enable current and future generations to analyze and reevaluate the Lesbian experience.

Some of our collections have been digitized, allowing you to access selected materials from your computer. Our main collections pages offer summaries of what is contained in each collection and include links to any available digital collections. Below is a list summarizing which of those collections include digital components.

The Center Archive is open to all researchers, by appointment. Please search our collections to focus your research needs.
Appointments are currently scheduled Wednesdays and Thursdays 12-6 p.m. To make an appointment, or for more information about archive resources and donating materials, email archive@gaycenter.org.

The LGBTQ+ objects and archival collections at the National Museum of African American History and Culture focus on the familiar, untold, and unknown stories that have shaped the nation’s past. With the goal of promoting greater understanding of LGBTQ+ identities and contributions, the National Museum of African American History and Culture is exploring new ways of helping visitors reinterpret artifacts and the lives of people who have changed the course of history.

Welcome to the LGBTQIA+ Studies Resource Guide. This guide offers an introduction to the LGBTQIA+ collections of the Library of Congress. The Library collects at the research level in the area of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Asexual (LGBTQIA+) studies. Library holdings are particularly strong in LGBTQIA+ politics, history, literature and the performing arts. This guide is organized by subject, format, and time period.

Listen to New Yorkers tell their stories through the NYC Trans Oral History Project.

This guide is designed to highlight collections focused on Black LGBTQIA+ Studies within the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. It is also a good starting point for conducting research in other New York Public Libraries and archives that collect materials created by and for LGBTQIA+ communities.

Umbra Search African American History makes African American history more broadly accessible through a freely available widget and search tool, umbrasearch.org; digitization of African American materials across University of Minnesota collections; and support of students, educators, artists, and the public through residencies, workshops, and events locally and around the country.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, one of the Library’s renowned research libraries, houses one of the world's most extensive research collections in the fields of theater, film, dance, music, and recorded sound, as well as a wide array of circulating and reference materials.

An explorable archive built to preserve and share the diverse history of LGBTQ spaces, organizations and happenings in Los Angeles from 1871 through today.

People with a History presents the history of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people [=LGBT]. It includes hundreds of original texts, discussions, and images, and addresses LGBT history in all periods, and in all regions of the world.