Overcoming Amnesia: 25+ Places to Learn Queer History Online

Photo: edit of Jennie June's self-portrait, "The Author at Thirty-Four"

At the end of a recent video, I promised to offer some resources on queer history "a couple days from now". That was (checks notes) two months ago, so I guess I'm right on time! 

Here are a bunch of places you can learn about queer history, almost all of them free. (Actually, all of them free, if you know where to look.) I've included everything from the classics to some obscure deep cuts.

This list is non-exhaustive and regrettably Americentric (if you want to help me change that, check out the final section). It also includes some contemporary works, where I feel they do a good job capturing their place and time, and might be considered "queer history" in the future.

Without further ado:

Photo: Crystal LaBeija in The Queen.

Movies

(Note: the year and country listed refer to the time period a movie covers, not when the movie was released or where it was produced.)

Paris Is Burning (USA, 1986-1989)

The definitive LGBT documentary by a long shot - and when you watch it, you instantly understand why! Dives into the iconic ball scene of 1980s New York City
and makes you fall in love with every person interviewed. Endlessly charming & heart-wrenching. Dorian Corey did nothing wrong.

Where to find: free on YouTube in non-ideal quality, free on Watchdocumentaries, stream on Criterion Channel or HBO Max, rent/buy on iTunes

• Further viewing: Malcolm McLaren’s “Deep In Vogue” music video, sampling Paris Is Burning & starring Willi Ninja. Free on YouTube.

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How to Survive a Plague (USA, 1980s-1990s)

Oscar-nominated doc about American AIDS activists' work to make treatments more available in the early years of the crisis. Has faced criticism for neglecting the work of poor and racialized AIDS activists. I haven't seen the movie yet so I can't speak to that, but it's nonetheless widely acclaimed, and seems like a good starting point.

Where to find: stream on HBO Max, rent/buy on iTunes

• Further reading: the director wrote a book of the same name, "How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS". Buy/more info here.

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Call Me Kuchu (USA/Uganda, 1992-2011)

A documentary about David Kato, the activist often described as “Uganda’s first openly gay man”. It chronicles his fight against the Ugandan government’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act, and his eventual murder in 2011.

Where to find: free on YouTube, divided into 5 parts. Rent/buy on Vudu. 

• Further viewing: God Loves Uganda, a documentary about how American evangelical Christians worked to intensify homophobic sentiment in Uganda and pass the Act. Free on YouTube. 

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Tongues Untied (USA, 1980s)

A poetic, experimental memoir-doc by Marlon Riggs about being a Black gay man. Groundbreaking in its both form and content - when it aired on PBS in 1991, it was the first time two men had ever kissed on television. A couple friends say this is the most beautifully-crafted movie they've ever seen.

Where to find: free on Kanopy with an eligible library/university card. Stream on Criterion Channel.

• Further viewing: I Am Not Your Negro, a similarly experimental documentary about James Baldwin, who majorly influenced Marlon Riggs. Free on YouTube.

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I Am Going to Make Lesbian Porn (China, ~2014)

An intimate production diary by three friends setting out to produce a feminist adult film: genderqueer director Dajing, bisexual Xiaoying, and straight girl Ruohan. Offers insight into 2010s Chinese society and gender relations. 18+, obviously.

Where to find: Taiwanese LGBTQ streaming service GagaOOLala. (I got a subscription just to research this list, and it's great.)

• Further viewing: So Long!, another movie by Dajing about a trans man’s last days in Beijing before moving away. Streaming on GagaOOLala.

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The Queen (USA, 1967)

A documentary shot at the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pageant, an early drag pageant rife with drama, and accusations of rigging! Some iconic moments from Crystal LaBeija, who would later found the House of LaBeija and create ball culture as we know it today. Paris Is Burning two decades before Paris Is Burning.

Where to find: free on YouTube, or buy 4K restoration from Kino Lorber.

• Further reading: a 2015 interview with the pageant's host, Flawless Sabrina. Read here.

Faraway (Canada, ~2019)

This short follows a young gay man through four Montreal seasons as he struggles to mend his relationship with his ill, conservative mother. Light on story but vibes-forward, expertly captures feeling, place and time. Majorly underrated.

Where to find: trailer on YouTube, full short streaming on GagaOOLala.

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Photo: Black Madonna of Częstochowa, One From the Vaults episode thumbnail

Podcasts

These are available on all major platforms (exception: One From The Vaults isn't on Spotify)

One From the Vaults (International, 35 episodes)

A podcast that highlights forgotten figures of the trans past. Lovingly reported and researched - nearly all of their subjects are new to me. We've always been here!

Start with: #35 La Prophétesse

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Harsh Reality: The Story of Miriam Rivera (US/Mexico, 7 episodes)

A miniseries on the life of Miriam Rivera, star of a 2004 dating show where several straight men courted her before eventually learning she was trans. Great show.

Start with: #1 Something About Miriam 

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Heavyweight: “Vivian” (Canada/US/Brazil)

An episode of (IMO) the best podcast ever made. A woman whose uncle died of AIDS tries to track down the man who cared for him in his final days, and thank him.

Listen here. 

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Nancy/Radiolab: “David and Dominique” (US)

A conversation between two gay men living with HIV: a white man in his 60s, and a Black man in his early 30s. Discussing their lives, intergenerational relations, and what's changed in the past 40 years. Tender and sincere - it's a privilege to be let in on this conversation.

Listen here. 

• Further listening: the rest of Nancy, an LGBTQ culture podcast. Mostly deals with contemporary stuff, but some  history episodes too. Listen here. 

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Photo: Leslie Feinberg.

Books

(If you order any of these from Amazon, I’m stealing the package off your porch!)

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries edited by Untorelli Press

A zine collecting several speeches and statements by STAR cofounder Sylvia Rivera, plus one interview with Marsha P. Johnson.

Where to find: free PDF and printable version here.

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Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinberg

A book on the fight for trans liberation across continents and across millennia.

Where to find: most booksellers, or borrow a digital copy from the Internet Archive 

• Further reading: Feinberg's seminal novel Stone Butch Blues. Free PDF, or cheap paperback here.

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How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective Statement edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

A history of the Combahee River Collective, a lesbian, radical socialist, Black feminist organization whose work is highly influential to this day.

Where to find: most booksellers.

• Further reading: the titular Combahee River Collective Statement, a landmark document of Black feminism. Only 11 pages long. Free PDF.

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Let The Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 by Sarah Schulman

A definitive oral history of the highly influential HIV/AIDS activist group, written by one of its members!

Where to find: most booksellers.

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The Invention of Women by Oyeronke Oweyumi

About Yoruba understandings of gender and sex, and how they changed following European colonization. Oweyumi argues that for a long time, gender didn't matter (or maybe even exist) in Yoruba culture, which disrupts Western conceptions of it being "natural". This book was really helpful in the research for my video What Are Women? 

Where to find: free PDF.

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Read My Lips by Riki Wilchins

Insightful and very funny collection of essays by a trans lesbian activist who came out in the 70s and was involved in many pivotal moments of U.S. trans history. A highlight essay is called "Our cunts are not the same!", if that gives you any idea.

Where to find: free PDF.

• Further reading: Zagria's bio page on Riki Wilchins.

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Screenshot from the zine Fuzz Box.

Wikis & archives

A Gender Variance Who’s Who 

A true hidden gem: biographies of literal thousands of trans and gender-variant people across history, most incredibly obscure, yet rich with detail. Again, the care put into research astounds me - this site has been lovingly maintained since 2007 almost entirely by one woman!

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WorldCat 

Not a destination itself, but a massive directory of libraries across the world that'll tell you where to find information on whatever you're interested in. In many cases, WorldCat hosts the internet's one and only reference to a book or magazine issue. Extremely powerful search feature.

Check out their collection, “Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940” 

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Queer Zine Archive Project

A huge archive of queer zines from around the world, dating back to 1976. Search by topic or location. Easy to spend hours or days hopping from one zine to the next.

Some of my favourite finds are transsexual prisoner advocacy zine Gender Anarky and the incredibly NSFW 90s zine Fuzz Box.

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Black Trans Archive

The coolest website in history. Where most archives are bare paragraphs of text with the occasional photo, this one takes the form of a video game. Perfectly captures every thought and emotion it sets out to. More on it in this video I made.

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PrettyQueer 

A blog that ran from 2011-ish to 2013, and covered culture, politics and community.

It's only accessible through the WayBack Machine these days, which is a shame, because it hosts some excellent writing here by people who'd later become quite prominent - Darnell L. Moore, Imogen Binnie, Morgan M. Page, etc!

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Magnus Hirschfeld Society

Surviving works by German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, whose groundbreaking Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was targeted by Nazi book-burnings in the 1930s. This goes all the way back to 1892!

(Note: The site is originally German, so it's been auto-translated into English. Might not be perfectly accurate.)

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The ArQuives

Canada's premier LGBTQ2+ archive. Alongside a physical location in Toronto, they share some of their collection online and feature digital exhibitions. Their button archives and t-shirt archives are especially fun to peruse!

• Further reading: Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada (1964-1981)

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Tretter Transgender Oral History Project 

An American oral history project, featuring nearly 250 interviews with trans folks about their experiences & activism. Some people you've probably heard of, many you probably haven't!

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Trans Reads 

A huge catalog of writing by and about trans and gender-variant people. Lots of historical & nonfiction stuff, but they have fiction too, including the big trans lit titles!

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Well, that's my time! Thanks for having a look :) If you want to help me keep this document updated, please give me money lol. This took the better part of a week and a gal's gotta eat. And look, you're already on my Patreon! It's a sign!

Contribute to this document

If you have any corrections or resources about events not covered here, please send them my way. Either DM me on Twitter, or send an email to lilyalexandrecontact at gmail dot com with the subject line "Overcoming Amnesia contribution". I won't add every submission, but I'll at least read them all!

Some topics I'm especially interested in including: early queer newspapers, pre-WW2 nightlife in Berlin, info on Crystal LaBeija, info on the Gender Anarky trans prisoners' collective, motsoalle relationships in Lesotho, gay men & lesbians in Iran, international HIV/AIDS militancy, precolonial gender variance, autobiographies from outside the U.S./Europe, anything to do with intersex/bi/ace history, anything that explains what went down at Topside Press (omg please). In all cases, the older the better.

(And I definitely have enough on New York in the 80s.)

xoxo Lily