Project Description
Documentary focus
This archive documents changes to LGBTQ+ identities over time using resources specific to the state of Michigan. Items are drawn from a variety of archives, with a focus on southeast Michigan, especially the University of Michigan, from the 1960s to the 2010s.
Consideration of archival concepts and practices
This archive reflects the core archival practice of documenting experiences that might otherwise be forgotten. However, we also aim to challenge traditional practices by focusing on an area (Michigan) that is not usually associated with LGBTQ community and activism.
The goal of this archive is to show how LGBTQ individuals and organizations describe LGBTQ identities in their own words.
Criteria for record selection
This archive focuses on southeast Michigan, especially Detroit, Ann Arbor, and the University of Michigan. Items were selected from Michigan historical archives and from LGBTQ archives across the country. We sought out events, individuals, organizations, and institutions that we knew to be connected to both Michigan and LGBTQ community, culture, and activism, and selected items that described people’s identities (rather than activities, behaviors, or characteristics not associated with identity).
Target user group
The primary users of this archive are English-speaking queer people seeking to better understand their own history. Beyond this main group, LGBTQ allies can benefit from learning about queer history. Linguists and historians can use this archive to analyse how trends in queer identity labels fit into the broader context of language change over time, and social scientists studying gender and sexual minorities might get insights about what identity labels have been used over time.
Perspectives
The perspectives expressed in this archive are primarily LGBTQ students and faculty of the University of Michigan, plus LGBTQ activists, organizers, and allies in Ann Arbor and Detroit. Due to the materials we sourced, perspectives of LGBTQ people who were not involved with or active in community and organizing efforts unfortunately could not be included.
Additionally, while the institutional perspectives of the University of Michigan are visible at the margins of this archive, they are not the focus. We believe that positioning the views of an institution that is marginalizing a community directly alongside the perspectives of that marginalized community obscures the imbalance of power that results in oppression, and creates a false sense of neutrality in the archival record.