U.S. History: LGBTQ+ History Resources

The ACT UP Oral History Project is a collection of interviews with surviving members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, New York.

The ArQuives was established to aid in the recovery and preservation of our histories. Its mandate is to: Acquire, preserve, organize, and give public access to information and materials in any medium, by and about LGBTQ2+ people, primarily produced in or concerning Canada.

Documenting Lesbian Lives Oral History Project is a collection of life histories of women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, woman-identified-woman, queer, or who prefer not to identify with sexuality categories. The project provides a complex and nuanced collective story of American lesbian history and experience.

The LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory connects archives across Canada and the U.S. to produce a digital history hub for the research and study of gay, lesbian, queer, and trans* oral histories.

The LGBTQ Religious Archives Network (LGBTQ-RAN) is an innovative venture in preserving history and encouraging scholarly study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) religious movements around the world.

Over 80 oral histories were conducted from 2018-2019 through the National Park Service’s Stonewall Oral History Project, in partnership with The Center and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Hear from community members, activists, West Village residents and more about their personal experiences related to the Stonewall Riots, as well as organizing before and after the events.

StoryCorps OutLoud launched in 2014 on the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Dedicated to documenting and sharing stories from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people from across the United States, OutLoud is an extension of our longstanding commitment to preserving LGBTQ stories in a time of profound change in social attitudes about sexuality and gender identity in our country.

The Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS), located at the City University of New York, Graduate Center, was founded in 1991 and is the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study of historical, cultural, and political issues of vital concern to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals and communities.

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 Worcester, Massachusetts at the College of the Holy Cross, the DTA is an international collaboration among more than fifty 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.

The Empty Closet is one of the oldest continuously published LGBT papers in the United States. The online archive contains digitized papers dating from 1971-2015.

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.

Pew Center resources related to gender and LGBT.

Directory of web pages from the University of California, Santa Barbara that includes general resources, women's studies & feminist theory, queer studies, and men's studies.

Founded in 1985, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Historical Society is recognized internationally as a leader in the field of LGBTQ public history.

The glbtq project was founded in 2000 by Publisher Wik Wikholm to create the world's largest encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture and history and to deliver it online. The website is no longer being updated.

This is the first formal and comprehensive guide to primary source material relating to the history and culture of lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgendered (LBGT) people held by repositories in North America.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month is currently celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan.

The Lesbian Herstory Archives is dedicated to collecting and preserving history pertaining to the lesbian community. This website contains select digitized materials from the LHA collection and was developed by graduate students at Pratt Institute School of Information.

“LGBT+ and queer histories are an integral part of human history. To reflect the methodological advances and rich research findings across a wide spectrum of fields, chronologies and geographical regions more fully, LGBT+ histories and perspectives in all their diversity need to be represented in teaching and university-based research, as well as in museums, galleries, archives and libraries.“

The NYPL has collected the archives of the International Gay Information Center, the Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs, and other documents to create an extensive archive of LGBT history in the United States.

he USF Libraries’ Special Collections is determined to expand its collection of historically significant lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) materials in monographic, audio-visual, ephemeral, and archival formats. Our focus is on collecting materials that document LGBTQ+ history, culture, politics, community relations, and public health.

The LGBTQ Theme Study is a publication of the National Park Foundation for the National Park Service and funded by the Gill Foundation. Each chapter is written and peer-reviewed by experts in LGBTQ Studies.

The LGBTQ Religious Archives Network (LGBTQ-RAN) is an innovative venture in preserving history and encouraging scholarly study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) religious movements around the world.

The LGBTQ Game Archive documents the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer content in games.

The largest repository of LGBTQ+ materials in the world through the University of Southern California Libraries

OutHistory.org was founded in October 2008 by Jonathan Ned Katz, author of Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (1976) and other books on the history of sexuality and gender.

eople 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.

The QDHP is an ongoing effort to document and preserve pre-2010 LGBTQ spaces online.

From January 2000 until March 2015 "Queer Music Heritage" was both a radio show and a website, and the goal of both was to preserve and share the music of our culture. It has become the resource on the net for the history of LGBT music.

The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) was first launched in November 2003 in an effort to preserve queer zines and make them available to other queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest DIY publishing and underground queer communities.

While military service oftentimes demands sacrifices from those in uniform, historically, LGBT veterans have faced a unique set of challenges. For many of these veterans, following a call to serve meant keeping their private lives entirely private, for fear that exclusionary policies would hold them back or end their careers altogether. Here, we present stories of LGBT veterans who served from the WWII era to the present, that illustrate these veterans’ bravery, honesty, and unwavering dedication to their country.

Over 80 oral histories were conducted from 2018-2019 through the National Park Service’s Stonewall Oral History Project, in partnership with The Center and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Hear from community members, activists, West Village residents and more about their personal experiences related to the Stonewall Riots, as well as organizing before and after the events.

The Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria is committed to the preservation of the history of pioneering activists, community leaders, and researchers who have contributed to the betterment of trans, nonbinary, Two-Spirit, and other gender-diverse people.

Welcome to Wearing Gay History, home to the digitized t-shirt collections of numerous lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender archives across the United States.

A Proclamation issued by President Joe Biden on June 1, 2021 recognizing Pride Month and the need for full equality for LGBTQ+ Americans.

The History Project is the only organization focused exclusively on documenting and preserving the history of New England’s LGBTQ communities and sharing that history with LGBTQ individuals, organizations, allies, and the public.

The mission of the Lambda Archives of San Diego is to collect, preserve, and share the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in San Diego, Northern Baja California and Imperial County region.

The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archive at UCLA is an outreach and collection-building partnership between the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives and the UCLA Library. These collections expand the pool of primary source materials available to researchers and to the community at large.

The Rainbow History Project's mission is to collect, preserve, and promote an active knowledge of the history, arts, and culture of metropolitan Washington DC’s diverse LGBTQ+ communities.

This digital archive preserves and makes public the rich histories included in the documentary Shoulders to Stand On and the Green Thursday radio program.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission produced this story map to celebrate LGBT Pride Month. This interactive map documents the history of LGBT culture in and around Greenwich Village. Organized chronologically, it focuses on three important eras: The 19th Century, Early 20th Century, and sites associated with the LGBT Liberation Movement Since Stonewall.

The ArQuives was established to aid in the recovery and preservation of our histories. Its mandate is to: Acquire, preserve, organize, and give public access to information and materials in any medium, by and about LGBTQ2+ people, primarily produced in or concerning Canada.