we're here and we're queer

a blog about queer history and culture & the 80s

[cookiethoughts]

All Out! Dancing in Dulais

I was researching LGSM for a paper about the movie Pride and I came across this video. It´s a video made by LGSM for the miners. 

[lesbianherstorian]

“when you meet a lesbian person” published in an atlanta lesbian feminist newsletter, 1976

[childofzami]

“Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.”

- Audre Lorde, There is No Hierarchy of Oppression 

[hater]

are there any books, movies, articles, etc that you would recommend to someone interested in learning more about the aids crisis?

ya of course! obvs this is gonna be a really partial list and if anyone wants to add to this post that’d be awesome but here are a bunch, i’ve included links where i could find them <3

books

and the band played on by randy shilts - a long and comprehensive book that traces the early years of the epidemic and media/government response, pretty essential imo

how to survive a plague by david france - goes along with the documentary of the same name. interesting and easy to read if you’re just starting to learn more!

moving politics: emotion and ACT UP’s fight against AIDS by deborah b. gould - a really fantastic and well researched book on what act up accomplished and how. like even just the bibliography of this book is great if you want to find some stuff to read

the gentrification of the mind: witness to a lost imagination by sarah schulman - this is a short memoir that touches on a lot of topics and isn’t necessarily the most informative for like, research but i found it to be a good starting point in comprehending the sheer erasure of the aids epidemic in american history and the cultural impact it had

haven’t read it but i’ve been meaning to- punishing disease: HIV and the criminalization of sickness by trevor hoppe

a few memoirs + other stuff: close to the knives by david wojnarowicz, borrowed time by paul monette, AIDS and its metaphors by susan sontag and also honestly… read angels in america if you haven’t and the recently released oral history, the world only spins forward by isaac butler and dan kois

movies

how to survive a plague (documentary)

beats per minute (fictionalized, french w english subtitles but really fantastic)

united in anger: a history of ACT UP (documentary)

websites + articles

ACT UP oral history project

Before Occupy: How AIDS Activists Seized Control of the FDA in 1988

7 New Yorkers Remember the Early Days of the AIDS Epidemic

History of HIV and AIDS Overview from Avert

AIDS History Project from UCSF (lots of stuff linked here)

art

a lot of the research i did about this focused on art! check out gran fury (let the record show here), david wojnarowicz, felix gonzalez-torres, fierce pussy, zoe leonard, and more at visual AIDS

[beachdeath]

Ordinary Person, Wild Radical

Seventeen years before the Stonewall Riots, Dale Jennings proclaimed to a California court that he was a homosexual. It was the first glimmer of a civil rights revolution. This is the story of an unsung, and reluctant, hero.

good morning everyone! i first started working on this story last april, and now, finally, fourteen months later, it is out in the world for you to read! i worked my ass off! please enjoy!

[beachdeath]

In 1950, the FBI, charged with the responsibility of supplying the Civil Service Commission with background information on employees and applicants, took the initiative of establishing liaison with police departments throughout the country. Not content with acting only on requests to screen particular individuals, it adopted a preventive strategy that justified widespread surveillance. 

The FBI sought out friendly vice squad officers who supplied arrest records on morals charges, regardless of whether convictions had ensued. Regional FBI offices gathered data on gay bars, compiled lists of other places frequented by homosexuals, and clipped press articles that provided information about the gay world. Friendship with a known homosexual or lesbian subjected anyone to investigation. 

The Post Office, exploiting its authority to prevent the dissemination of obscene material through the mails, joined the antihomosexual campaign. The department established a watch on the recipients of physique magazines and other forms of gay male erotica. Postal inspectors subscribed to pen pal clubs, initiated correspondence with men whom they believed might be homosexual, and, if their suspicions were confirmed, placed tracers on victims’ mail in order to locate other homosexuals.

– John D’Emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970

[lesbianherstorian]

a vintage t shirt featuring a play on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in place from 1993 to 2011

[archivings]

Fashion and Surrealism opening at The Fashion Institute of Technology(1987), photo by Seiji Kakizaki for High Fashion Magazine February 1988

[lesbianherstorian]

“WE ARE FAMILY” on a lesbian float at the san francisco pride parade, photographed by jan phillips, june 1985

[lesbianherstorian]

45 years ago this month - artwork on the cover of the lesbian pride issue of lavender woman vol. 2 no. 4, june 1973

[sensitivehomo]

I love those glasses and I’m vain

[lesbianherstorian]

the houston, texas group L.O.A.F. (lesbians over age fifty) is a nonprofit social and support group for mid-life and elder lesbians. it was founded in october 1987 by arden eversmeyer after her life partner passed away, with the help of five other founding mothers. there were monthly newsletters, a lending library of lesbian/feminist literature, and social events like pool parties, brunches, country dance nights, campouts, picnics, and potlucks. L.O.A.F. continues to fight for the betterment of older lesbians and just last year they celebrated their 30th anniversary of “LOAFing”. pictured are members posing with their iconic penny loafer logo at the houston lesbian and gay pride week, june 1994

[lesbianherstorian]

a lesbian couple in front of the white house at the march on washington for lesbian gay and bi equal rights and liberation, photographed by elvert barnes, april 1993

[enoughtohold]

happy pride, please enjoy this beautiful photo of george michael. people really thought he was straight!

[hungariandancesoflugosi]

Magazine cover with The Communards - 1980s (1986?)

Richard Coles is so handsome wearing this gray suit….. *-*

[deathbypride]

I first met Mark at a party. And Mark really liked my boyfriend and was determined to let me know, so it was queeny looks from one end of the room to the other. I was trying my hardest to be cool, but at the same time I was getting more and more annoyed. After that I saw him at Movements. Everybody was just dancing and having a good time. And then we more or less got into a fight. It was that territorial thing again: this was my boyfriend and how dare you? I suppose I was looking so aggressive at him I think he asked me did I have a problem. This was one of his big phrases. I remember he pushed me; then I pushed him. Then he pushed me so hard that I fell over this table. And then we just started laughing.

Jimmy Somerville on Mark Ashton, from Walking After Midnight: Gay Men’s Life Stories

(Somerville’s song For A Friend was written for Mark after his death: x) 

[lesbianherstorian]

lesbianas de latino america at the los angeles christopher street west pride parade, june 1981