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Collecting. Preserving. Researching.

2nd Annual

Queer History South

Network & Conference

Archives for All, Y’all

Best Practices for Digital Access & Community Networking

Sept 30 – Oct 2, 2022

Dallas, Texas

Register Now
Donate to Support QHS

About Queer History South

QUEER HISTORY SOUTH is a vehicle for locating and sharing the rich, but often under-documented history of southern contributions to LGBTQ history and society.

QHS embraces the direct connection between sharing our stories and inspiring present-day activism. It strengthens our movement to know we are a part of the long legacy of American history and activism.

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Who We Are

Queer History South is a network of professional and community members invested in preserving and promoting LGBTQ archiving and history in the US South.  The primary purpose of QHS is to provide networking, professional development, and best practices for those directly working (formally or informally, professionally or communally) in the fields of Southern LGBTQ histories, archives, exhibits, historical research, and historical education. QHS meets every two years at a different location across the South.

Who Can Attend

QHS is open to anyone interested but will be of particular interest to archivists, historians, students, faculty, researchers, public historians, oral historians, and community organizations invested in preserving local histories. QHS has attendance from across the US, but primarily focuses on 13 Southern states: Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia.

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Conference Schedule

8:00am – 9:00am Registration

Sign-In & Vaccination Verification
The Dallas Way: Faces of LGBTQ+ History Gallery in the H. Paxton Moore Fine Art Gallery (Ground Floor, Building B)
9:00am – 10:30am Opening

Welcome and Overview of the Conference
Plenary Speaker: Moises “Moe” V. Vela, Jr.

Speaker Bio: Moe Vela has been named one of the “Top 100 Hispanics in America” by Hispanic Business magazine and was twice named one of the “101 Most Influential Latinos” by Latino Leaders magazine, as well as, one of Washington’s Top 300 Insiders by the National Journal. He was also named to the Powermeter 100—the Washington area’s most influential individuals for Hispanic Communities by El Tiempo Latino, a Washington Post Company publication.
A proud fourth-generation Texan, Vela is the first Hispanic-American and LGBTQ-American to serve twice in the White House in a senior executive role.

Vela is the CEO of MoeVela, LLC , a strategic business advisory firm, and Founder of The Vela Group, LLC, a global business development consulting firm. Additionally, he is Of Counsel/Senior Advisor at the law firm of Stein Mitchell Beato and Missner and the Principal Advisor at TransparentBusiness. His most recent endeavor is the the co-creation, co-production, and co-star of the streaming-TV series Unicorn Hunters.

Vela is also the author of the best selling book, Little Secret, Big Dreams: Pink and Brown in the White House, an auto-biography detailing Vela’s upbringing in a Hispanic Catholic home in Texas, his coming out story, and his journey to the White House.
10:45am – 11:45am Block 1

Room Session and Presenters
C130 Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project
Arden Eversmeyer

“We had never held hands out in public, but before they put her in the ambulance, I kissed Bobbie on the forehead whispered that I loved her.” When interviewed for the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP), Jean, born 1927, talked about losing Bobbie. They’d been together for more than 35 years, living in rural Texas and had never show affection towards each other in public. Although many things have changed for lesbians now, it is essential that we remember and honor the lives of the women who came before us, living during a time when there were no books or magazines and no organizations, when being homosexual was classified as a disease for which you might be institutionalized, when simply dancing at a bar with another woman might land you in jail.
Some historians were trying to tell the story of these women, but it was always their interpretation of the story. The Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project has worked for more than 20 years to document and preserve the life stories of lesbians 70 and older. The OLOHP presentation will not only tell you about the Project and how it works, it will include a few readings of excerpts taken from their collection of 700+ interviews.
Expo Hall The Austin LGBTQ+ Oral History Project
Lauren Gutterman, PhD, Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Texas at Austin

This presentation will discuss my experiences training undergraduate students at UT Austin to conduct oral history
interviews with LGBTQ+ community members in Austin, past and present.
B269 Panel Discussion: Queering UA: Students Create a New Classroom
John Giggie, PhD, Associate Professor of History & African American Studies and Director of the Summersell Center for the Study of the South, University of Alabama
Isabella Garrison, Doctoral Student, History, University of Alabama
Kathleen Kelley, Student, New College, University of Alabama
Callum Campbell, Student, Communications & History, University of Alabama
Lewis Zannis, Student, History, University of Alabama

Join the students from the University of Alabama who founded a new program in queer history as they reflect on their experiences. In the facilitated conversation, students will speak about navigating archives, working with administrators, collaborating with community partners, and discovering local queer histories on- and off-campus. They will explore how their work has changed their understanding of student-led community history.
C100 On Naiad Press of Tallahassee, Florida: Exploring the Balance between Shared Authority and Social Justice in Queer
Public History
Michael David Franklin, Assistant Director of Honors in the Major and Honors Faculty, Florida State University
RaeAnn Quick, Student, Florida State University

This presentation will use our work on a public history project about Naiad Press – an internationally prominent lesbian publishing company located in Tallahassee, Florida, from 1980 to 2003 – to think about legacies of racial segregation in queer spaces, as well as the ethics of framing a majority-white lesbian community’s history through oral history research.

In July 2021, we began to conduct interviews with narrators who in the past worked for or published with Naiad Press. Due to snowball sampling, the narrators we have interviewed to date have been overwhelmingly white, with many saying little to nothing about the racial dynamics of Naiad Press or the North Florida region. On the other hand, the sole narrator of color affiliated with Naiad Press who we have interviewed so far, who identifies as a Chicana lesbian, spoke at length about her experiences in connection with Naiad Press’s stakeholders about race, ethnicity, national identity, and sexuality. Working with oral histories from this majority-white pool of narrators, we compiled a retrospective exhibition about the cultural and local significance of Naiad Press at Florida State University’s Museum of Fine Arts that opened in June 2022.

As researchers committed to social justice through public storytelling of queer and trans histories, we wish to find ways to engage Tallahassee’s racial history to frame this majority-white cultural institution, even if the oral histories themselves affirm and celebrate Naiad Press as a queer-positive workplace and social hub. Tallahassee, Florida, is the state capital of Florida and is home to Florida State University and to Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), a nationally prominent HBCU. Particularly due to the active role of students from FAMU, it served as a key regional site for the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s. Yet, legacies of racial segregation still are prevalent in Tallahassee, which in 2015 was named by the University of Toronto's Martin Prosperity Institute the most economically segregated city in the United States in terms of income, education, and occupation. (Source: https://community-wealth.org/content/segregated-city-geography-economic-segregation-america-s-metros)

Drawing from academic literature about feminist oral history methodology, social justice work in public history, and shared authority in oral history work, our presentation presents a case study about oral history research and museum exhibition curation with a majority-white network of queer narrators to explore the following questions: how do researchers balance a commitment to shared authority with a commitment to social justice through queer public history? How do researchers via the best practices of shared authority collaborate with a majority-white network of queer narrators who are largely silent about race, or who have a generationally informed understanding about racial justice different than that of the
researchers? In doing so, how do researchers create a public history project that uses an intersectional lens to frame a majority-white queer community’s history? And as the researchers, how does our whiteness affect our ability to do this work? In exploring these questions through this case study, we hope to create a conversation with QHS attendees that will generate ideas, insights, and possible approaches.
C370 Description and Metadata for LGBTQ+ Collections
Elliot Williams, DPLA Metadata Aggregation Outreach Coordinator, Texas Digital Library

LGBTQ+ people understand the power of language and the importance of being named and described as who we understand ourselves to be. Similarly, library and archives workers recognize the value of good metadata for helping researchers and community members find and understand resources. This session will explore issues of metadata and description for LGBTQ+ materials in archives and digital collections. What does inclusive, accessible metadata look like for our materials and our communities? How do we balance local needs with national standards to describe materials in respectful, accurate, and useful ways? After an introductory presentation, the majority of the session will be spent in small-group and collective discussion, with the goal of sharing experiences, resources, and perspectives.
11:45am – 1:15pm Student Poster Session and Lunch
1:30pm – 2:30pm Block 2

Room Session and Presenters
B269 Touching Up Our Roots with #TUOR: Atlanta’s Queer Digital Story Tour
Eric E. Solomon, PhD, Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies and English, Emory University-Oxford College

A self-guided audio tour of sites integral to the LGBTQIA+ story in Atlanta. Curated and narrated by Dave Hayward, founder of the LGBTQ Story Tour, and co-founder of Touching Up Our Roots: Georgia’s LGBTQ+ Story Project. Lesbian herstorians Maria Helena Dolan and Lorraine Fontana provide additional narration. Developed and produced by Dave Hayward and Dr. Eric Solomon. In 2016 Hayward founded the live LGBTQ Story Tour with Atlanta Pride and the LGBTQ Institute.
Expo Hall Podcasting in the Stacks: What I learned in my first year of podcasting
Lolita Rowe, Assistant University Archivist for Outreach and Engagement, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Podcasting is one way to provide a platform to open conversation within your local and national community to learn and engage with history, archives, and storytelling. The goal of the Rose Library Presents suite of podcast is to invite conversation about an historical person, event, or place centered on archives. Learn if podcasting is right for your you by listening to how tips and tricks learned from creating two podcast series.
C130 Invisible Histories Project: How IHP is Working to Save LGBTQ History in the Deep South
Maigen Sullivan, Director of Research and Development, Invisible Histories Project
Josh Burford, Director of Outreach and Lead Archivist, Invisible Histories Project

The Invisible Histories Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit based in Birmingham, AL that locates, preserves, researches and makes community accessible the rich and diverse history of LGBTQ people in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. IHP acts as an intermediary between institutions like universities, libraries, museums, and archives and LGBTQ people and organizations. Join us for this presentation on the history of IHP, an overview of the IHP model, and a discussion on the challenges faced in developing and implementing a public history and community archiving project and nonprofit in the Deep South.
C370 Wrestling with Incomplete Archives
Robert Fieseler, Journalist and Researcher
Frank Perez, Executive Director, LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana

Often in queer historical inquiry, a researcher will visit a relevant archive in the South and discover that little material exists pertaining to a given queer topic–sometimes no material at all. They'll find state agencies have destroyed or redacted what they view as damaging reminders of the past. They'll negotiate with former activists, now elders, hoarding priceless collections in basements with no clear estate plans. And they'll confront age-old racial and religious biases hindering the collection of stories from whole communities. What does one do? How does a researcher move forward when it seems like all evidence is either locked away or erased? LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana Executive Director Frank Perez and author Robert W. Fieseler will discuss and relate personal stories of how they've confronted these queer quagmires.
C100 Mapping Trans Joy
Sophie Ziegler, Founder, Solidarity History Initiative, Louisiana Trans Oral History Project
Nathalie Nia Faulk, Co-Director, Last Call Oral History Project
SK Groll, Doctoral Student, Louisiana State University and Program Coordinator, Baton Roots Community Farm

This presentation describes a project to collect and share stories of trans joy across Louisiana. The Solidarity History Initiative, Louisiana Trans Oral History Project, and Last Call Oral History Project, are creating an online map to enable trans and gender non-conforming (TGNC) individuals from across the state to contribute audio and video narratives, specifying places that are personally important to them as sites of trans joy. For our purposes, a place of trans joy can include any location that individuals feel included, loved or honored, as well as places where significant personal or communal events happened. Together, we're re-imagining the geography of Louisiana through a lens of trans joy.
2:45pm – 3:45pm Block 3

Room Session and Presenters
C130 Community-Led Archival Research
James Capello, PhD, Professor of Anthropology, Savannah College of Art and Design

Participants from local community organizations who identify as non-binary and/or trans made quilts along with offering oral histories. We created a community art show with the archival materials and worked with Emory to donate the materials that were created. Along with sewing their own quilt squares in response to prompts such as "who is chosen family for you?" I recorded and documented their oral histories and engagement in activism in Atlanta. I also documented through photographs and field notes trans led activist events from 2018 to 2021. Since SFQP is led by Black, Indigenous, and Latinx trans people many of these events were immigration rallies, documenting the stories of trans women being held by I.C.E., and prison abolition events. Hopefully this presentation can act as a example of a successful led community research and archival project that documents how radical the Deep South can be.
B269 Documenting Queer Without Fear in Georgia
Morna Gerrard, Women’s/Gender and Sexuality Collections Archivist, Georgia State University Library
Rachel Senese, Digital Projects Coordinator, Georgia State University

The presenters will discuss Georgia State University’s approach to collecting LGBTQ+ materials, and its willingness to take risks with what it makes accessible online.
C100 Outrageous Oral, A Program of The Dallas Way
Robert Walker Emery, President, The Dallas Way

Outrageous Oral is the most entertaining aspect of The Dallas Way. Speakers from all walks of LGBT+ life present their personal stories. They may seem improvised, but they are not. They are personal, vulnerable, and compelling. They are intimate, funny, poignant, encouraging, heartbreaking, and captivating. Ultimately, they are celebratory. Over 100 personal LGBT+ stories have been shared thus far. This break-out session focuses on how to produce an Outrageous Oral event from speakers to marketing, all the way through permanently storing them in an LGBT+ archive.
Expo Hall Coming Out Together to Share Our History: A Collaborative Exhibition (Panel Discussion)
Francesca Marini, PhD, Associate Professor and Programming & Outreach Librarian, Texas A&M University Libraries
Christian Kelleher, PhD, Director, University of Houston Special Collections and Archives
Vince Lee, Archivist, University of Houston Special Collections and Archives
Rebecca Hankins, Wendler Endowed Professor, Texas A&M University Libraries
Brian Riedel, PhD, Associate Director, Center for the Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality, Rice University

This panel presentation brings together different institutions in College Station, and Houston, Texas, and discusses a new collaborative exhibition, Coming Out Together to Share our History: LGBTQIA+ Collections in College Station, Houston, and Beyond, on display at the Texas A&M University Cushing Memorial Library and Archives from July 12 through December 16, 2021. The exhibition showcases contributions by nine organizations, including academic and community archives and represents unique histories and archival collections. The partners are: JD Doyle Archive, Gulf Coast Archive and Museum of GLBT History, The Charles Law Archives, The Botts Collection, The Banner Project, Nick and Jake Studio, Texas A&M, University of Houston, Rice University). This panel will discuss how the exhibition came together and what its goals were, and it will address how the exhibition is being positively received. It will also briefly discuss the organizations and collections represented in the exhibition, as well as future plans. This exhibition is an example of successful community outreach and collaboration.
C370 Unspoken, Untold: Bolstering Underrepresented Histories with Oral and Archival History
Maria Katsulos, Student, Southern Methodist University
Bethany Bass, Student, Southern Methodist University
Hannah Hall, Student, Southern Methodist University

In 2011, the Princeton Review ranked Southern Methodist University as the eleventh most gay-unfriendly university in the country. This past August, Campus Pride listed it among ten religious schools living up to LGBTQ-inclusive values. What has changed over this past decade — and how? Managed by a diverse group of LGBTQ+ students navigating a predominantly white, Christian university, SMU PRIDE combines archival, oral, and institutional history to better understand the queer community's roots at SMU. This panel will discuss the group's research process and their findings. Using archival material from the 1980s onwards and oral history interviews, our panelists and their project will illuminate the need for student-driven projects investigating their own histories.
4:00pm – 5:00pm Block 4

Room Session and Presenters
C100 Using Archives in “Queericulums”
Aaron Elkins, PhD, Associate Professor of Library and Information Studies, Texas Woman’s University

Given that queer culture and history are not taught in a comprehensive fashion in the United States public education system, queer youths, young adults, and adults are effectively left to situate themselves within such cultural and historical narratives as they choose to construct; as a result, these constructed narratives may be incomplete and value hegemonic culture and history over accuracy. How does the idea of using queer community archives to prepare a “queericulum” that presents a more inclusive and comprehensive depiction of queer culture and history interact with the notions of queer liberation? How can we use counter stories about queer history and culture in queer community archives to more effectively work towards dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy in the queer community and in mainstream society?
C130 Capturing the Faerie Playhouse, New Orleans: Documenting at-risk queer spaces through virtual tours and oral histories
Jaimi Parker, Exhibits Coordinator Librarian, University of North Texas Special Collections

The Faerie Playhouse was the home of Stewart Butler, an activist for human rights and the LGBTQ+ community and remains important to the local community after Stewart’s passing in March 2020. According to notes written by Stewart and remembrances of the community, the iconic pink Creole cottage decorated with red hearts on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans served as a playhouse, wedding chapel, youth refuge, memorial garden, meeting place, hospice and art gallery. It served these roles and many more since Stewart and his partner Alfred purchased the home in 1978 and continues to do so, though the future of the home is uncertain after Stewart’s passing.

In July 2022, a team from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) collected oral histories from friends and family of Stewart Butler and scanned the Faerie Playhouse using Matterport photogrammetry and virtual-tour technology in order to capture the space. These materials will be used to create a full interpretive tour of the Faerie Playhouse. NCPTT hopes to use this project as a template on which to expand and capture the tangible and intangible aspects of other at-risk sites of importance to LGBTQ+ communities throughout the South.
B269 Oral history interviews and gaps in queer archival records
Rebecca Russell, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, Rice University
Amanda Focke, Head of Special Collections, Rice University
Brian Riedel, PhD, Associate Director, Center for the Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality, Rice University

This presentation will discuss the importance of oral history interviews filling in gaps in the archival record for queer history. Examples include a collection of oral histories conducted by Rice undergraduates with Houstonians who have made contributions to the LGBTQ+ community and a collection of a community partnership's efforts to collect, preserve, and make available the oral histories of individuals impacted by HIV / AIDS epidemic in Houston, Harris County and Southeast Texas, with special emphasis on those who experienced the early years of the epidemic.
Expo Hall The LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana: A Community Success Story
Kathleen Conlon, Acting President, LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana
Frank Perez, Executive Director, LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana

This presentation outlines how the project started, its goals and projects, and challenges faced archiving LGBT+ history in Louisiana
C370 Student Panel: Exploring the Experiences of Graduate Students in LGBTQ History and Archiving Fields
Kendel R. Bolton, MPS, Consultant for Dallas College
Emma Frank, University of South Florida Special Collections
Lev Rosenberger, North Carolina State and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Shannon Wheeler, IHP Intern, UNC-Chapel Hill PhD Student

Join graduate students for this conversation about the challenges and opportunities faced by those doing research and internship work around LGBTQ history and archiving in the South. This facilitated discussion will ask current and recently graduated students to explain their projects, explore the challenges they faced in this work, detail the benefits they received from their projects, and discuss ways in which they feel students can be better supported in their coursework and internships.
5:00pm – 7:00pm Break
7:00pm Evening Options

Visit the LGBT Historical Marker at the Gay Crossroads at Throckmorton and Cedar Springs
Visit the Round-Up Saloon, the world’s largest LGBT Cowboy Dance Hall at 3912 Cedar Springs Road
Attend the Inaugural Texas Trans Pride at 3911 Cedar Springs Road, 7pm-4am
Visit the AT&T Discovery District at 208 S. Akard Street
Opening Day of The Great State Fair of Texas, ride the Green Line to Fair Park Station
9:00am – 10:15am Opening and Plenary
Plenary Speaker: Mandy Carter
Speaker Bio: Mandy Carter was born in Albany, New York in 1948 and relocated to North Carolina in 1982 after working for the War Resisters League (WRL) in California. There she worked at WRL’s southeast office and served on the planning committee for the annual Lesbian and Gay Pride march. In the early 1990s, Carter was a public policy advocate for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

Carter is the co-founder of Southerners on New Ground, the National Black Justice Coalition, and Equality North Carolina. She was one of two openly LGBTQ speakers at the 2003 Lincoln Memorial Rally for the 40th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and was on the national steering coordinator for the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

Carter was nominated as one of the “1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005.” She was honored with the 2006 Spirit of Justice Award from Boston’s Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the Anderson Prize Foundation’s Susan J. Hyde Longevity Award in 2008.In addition to being inducted into the LGBT Hall of Fame by the International Federation of Black Prides (now The Center for Black Equity) in 2012, Carter was a 2013 recipient of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation’s Vicki Sexual Freedom Award for her human rights work.

The collection of Mandy Carter papers from 1970 through 2013 is held at Duke University Libraries.
10:30am – 11:30am Block 5

Room Session and Presenters
C100 Queer Persistence in the Archives
Amy L. Stone, PhD, Trinity University Professor

This presentation explores the necessity for persistence in archival research, particularly archival research outside of conventional archives. I focus on queer geographies of the South, relational persistence, and emotional investments during a research project on LGBTQ involvement in citywide festivals in the urban South and Southwest.
C370 “We Could Do Better”: Librarian Engagement as a Measure of Queer Content in Libraries
Dawn Betts-Green, PhD, Assistant Director, Invisible Histories Project

Although the LGBTQ community, from all appearances, maintains a strong connection to libraries as safe spaces, it is unclear whether the libraries themselves are providing relevant resources and services to the community. In addition, LIS research on LGBTQ patrons has centered on collection development how-tos and high level, broad suggestions without evaluating the actual state of the libraries’ resources and services to these patrons. My own research suggests that the primary influence on what libraries have on their shelves is an actively engaged librarian dedicated to proper collection development practices and diversity and inclusion.
Expo Hall Book Discussion of Living Queer History: Remembrance and Belonging in a Southern City
Samantha Rosenthal, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Roanoke College; The Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project

Read the book in advance if you can! Then join author Dr. Gregory Samantha Rosenthal, co-founder of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project, for a discussion of the book and how to apply Living Queer History’s concepts and themes in your own local queer communities.
B269 Re-Engaging the AIDS Quilt as Archive of Local Activist Histories
Nino Testa, PhD, Associate Professor of Professional Practice, Texas Christian University

Although much has been written about how to understand and interpret the AIDS Quilt as a cultural phenomenon, detailed archival attention to particular panels and the collection of oral history interviews about those panels can illuminate local histories of AIDS activism, art, and community organizing in a way that macro histories of the Quilt cannot. With the recent acquisition of the AIDS Quilt by the National AIDS Memorial, this presentation will consider how the AIDS Quilt might be re-engaged as an anchor for public history projects documenting histories of direct action AIDS activism in local communities across the South.
C130 Cruising for Queer Histories Outside of the Gay Bar
Alexis Rodriguez, Vice President, LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida
David Matteson, Associate Curator of Education and Outreach, Orlando Museum of Art

In 2021, the LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida celebrated its 16th anniversary, a milestone representing persistent collaboration between community members and university historians to interpret the region’s queer past. Recently, the Museum has expanded its preservation efforts to locate instances of queer community building that occurred outside of gay bars and nightclubs. This presentation will address the challenges of the Museum’s evolution by focusing on two specific cases: an archiving effort to document regional LGBTQ sports leagues and an exhibition that wrestled with the shifting generational perspectives on what defines a “queer space.” Though gay bars have long represented a “safe haven” for the LGBTQ community, the future of these spaces is precarious – as evidenced in Orlando with the 2020 closure of the iconic Parliament House after operating for 45 years. Given this shifting landscape, how might queer historiography adapt to reflect a more nuanced understanding of community beyond its traditional preoccupation with barroom legends? What are the spaces (and the people who find belonging within them) that we have neglected in our interpretation of the queer past and how can new collecting endeavors address these oversights? In addition to reflecting upon these questions, the presentation will contribute to a larger reimagining of queer theory to be more radically inclusive within public history scholarship and praxis.
11:45am – 1:15pm Resource and Expo Lunch
1:30pm – 3:00pm Introduction to and Overview of The University of North Texas LGBTQ Archives Room C130
Morgan Gieringer, University of North Texas Libraries Head of Special Collections
Wes Phelps, PhD, Associate Professor of History, University of North Texas
Karen Wisely, PhD, History Instructor, Tarrant County College

Morgan Gieringer will give an overview of the creation of the LGBTQ Archive at UNT, its evolution and major milestones in the collection, preservation and digitization of unique historical resources documenting the LGBTQ communities of the north Texas region. Recognized by the Texas Digital Library with the 2021 Excellence Award, the UNT LGBTQ Archive includes physical, digital and web-based content and archivists lead an active outreach program that includes exhibits community programming. Karen Wisely and Wes Phelps will discuss their original research utilizing the archive, as well as activities such as a podcasts and an oral history project which complement the archival holdings at UNT.
3:15pm – 5:00pm Facilitated Affinity Sessions
5:00pm – 6:00pm Break
6:00pm – 9:00pm Evening Event: Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum at 300 N Houston Street
Doors open at 6:00 pm, Sunset 6:37 pm, Bar opens at 6:39 pm
9:00am Closing Day Session
Welcome
Spoken Word with Niecee X
VideoOut: Busting Misconceptions about the Queer South: An IHP and VideoOut Production
Plenary Speakers: Historical Texas LGBTQ Legal Panel featuring Dick Peeples and Wesley G. Phelps, moderated by Mike Anglin
Closing

Program in English

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Programa en Español

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Pricing &  Registration

$175

Institutional Support Full Conference

Full Conference Attendance

For those with institutional financial support

Coffee Breaks

Plenaries

Breakout Sessions

Evening Events

Lunch

$60

Students

Full Conference Attendance

Limited to 50 Attendees

Coffee Breaks

Plenaries

Breakout Sessions

Evening Events

Lunch

$125

Non-institutional Support Full Conference

Full Conference Attendance

For those without institutional financial support

Coffee Breaks

Plenaries

Breakout Sessions

Evening Events

Lunch

$80

Community Participant

Limited to 100 Attendees

Morning Plenary Sessions

Evening Events

Sunday Closing Events

$60

Delayed Broadcast*

Recorded Plenaries

Recorded Sunday Closing

Select Sessions Recording

Available Two Weeks After In-Person

*Queer History South Delayed Broadcast Schedule

The following sessions will be recorded and offered as a delayed broadcast approximately 2 weeks after the conference.
Also included are the three plenary sessions.

Click to Expand the Queer History South 2022 Delayed Broadcast Schedule
Title/Presenter Description
The Old Lesbian Herstory Project
Arden Eversmeyer		 “We had never held hands out in public, but before they put her in the ambulance, I kissed Bobbie on the forehead and whispered that I loved her.” When interviewed for the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP), Jean, born 1927, talked about losing Bobbie. They’d been together for more than 35 years, living in rural Texas and had never shown affection towards each other in public. Although many things have changed for lesbians now, it is essential that we remember and honor the lives of the women who came before us, living during a time when there were no books or magazines and no organizations, when being homosexual was classified as a disease for which you might be institutionalized, when simply dancing at a bar with another woman might land you in jail.
Some historians were trying to tell the story of these women, but it was always their interpretation of the story. The Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project has worked for more than 20 years to document and preserve the life stories of lesbians 70 and older. The OLOHP presentation will not only tell you about the Project and how it works, it will include a few readings of excerpts taken from their collection of 700+ interviews.
Invisible Histories Project: How IHP is Working to Save LGBTQ History in the Deep South
Maigen Sullivan, Director of Research and Development, Invisible Histories Project
Josh Burford, Director of Outreach and Lead Archivist, Invisible Histories Project		 The Invisible Histories Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit based in Birmingham, AL that locates, preserves, researches and makes community accessible the rich and diverse history of LGBTQ people in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. IHP acts as an intermediary between institutions like universities, libraries, museums, and archives and LGBTQ people and organizations. Join us for this presentation on the history of IHP, an overview of the IHP model, and a discussion on the challenges faced in developing and implementing a public history and community archiving project and nonprofit in the Deep South.
Mapping Trans Joy
Sophia Ziegler, Founder/Oral Historian, Louisiana Trans Oral History Project
Nathalie Nia Faulk, Co-Director, Last Call Oral History Project
SK Groll, Doctoral Student, Louisiana State University and Program Coordinator, Baton Roots Community Farm		 This presentation describes a project to collect and share stories of trans joy across Louisiana. The Louisiana Trans Oral History Project, together with Last Call Oral History Project, are creating a online mapping tool to enable trans and gender non-conforming (TGNC) individuals from across the state to contribute audio and video narratives, specifying places that are personally important to them as sites of trans joy. For our purposes, a place of trans joy can include any location that individuals feel included, loved or honored, as well as places where significant personal or communal events happened. Collectively, these narratives will create rich documentation of one of Louisiana’s most marginalized communities.
Community-Led Archival Research
James Capello, PhD, Organizer, Southern Fried Queer Pride and Professor of Anthropology, Savannah College of Art and Design		 Participants from local community organizations who identify as non-binary and/or trans made quilts along with offering oral histories. We created a community art show with the archival materials and worked with Emory to donate the materials that were created. Along with sewing their own quilt squares in response to prompts such as “who is chosen family for you?” I recorded and documented their oral histories and engagement in activism in Atlanta. I also documented through photographs and field notes trans led activist events from 2018 to 2021. Since SFQP is led by Black, Indigenous, and Latinx trans people many of these events were immigration rallies, documenting the stories of trans women being held by I.C.E., and prison abolition events. Hopefully this presentation can act as an example of a successful community led research and archival project that documents how radical the Deep South can be.
Outrageous Oral
Robert Emery, President, The Dallas Way		 Outrageous Oral is the most entertaining aspect of The Dallas Way. Speakers from all walks of LGBT+ life present their personal stories. They may seem improvised, but they are not. They are personal, vulnerable, and compelling. They are intimate, funny, poignant, encouraging, heartbreaking, and captivating. Ultimately, they are celebratory. Over 100 personal LGBT+ stories have been shared thus far. This break-out session focuses on how to produce an Outrageous Oral event from speakers to marketing, all the way through permanently storing them in an LGBT+ archive.
Using Archives in “Queericulums”
Aaron Elkins, PhD, Associate Professor of Library and Information Studies, Texas Woman’s University		 Given that queer culture and history are not taught in a comprehensive fashion in the United States public education system, queer youths, young adults, and adults are effectively left to situate themselves within such cultural and historical narratives as they choose to construct; as a result, these constructed narratives may be incomplete and value hegemonic culture and history over accuracy. How does the idea of using queer community archives to prepare a “queericulum” that
presents a more inclusive and comprehensive depiction of queer culture and history interact with the notions of queer liberation? How can we use counter stories about queer history and culture in queer community archives to more effectively work towards dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy in the queer community and in mainstream society?
Cruising for Queer Histories Outside of the Gay Bar
Alexis Rodriguez, Vice President, LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida		 In 2021, the LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida celebrated its 16th anniversary, a milestone representing persistent collaboration between community members and university historians to interpret the region’s queer past. Recently, the Museum has expanded its preservation efforts to locate instances of queer community building that occurred outside of gay bars and nightclubs. This presentation will address the challenges of the Museum’s evolution by focusing on two specific cases: an archiving effort to document regional LGBTQ sports leagues and an exhibition that wrestled with the shifting generational perspectives on what defines a “queer space.” Though gay bars have long represented a “safe haven” for the LGBTQ community, the future of these spaces is precarious – as evidenced in Orlando with the 2020 closure of the iconic Parliament House after operating for 45 years. Given this shifting landscape, how might queer historiography adapt to reflect a more nuanced understanding of community beyond its traditional preoccupation with barroom legends? What are the spaces (and the people who find belonging within them) that we have neglected in our interpretation of the queer past and how can new collecting endeavors address these oversights? In addition to reflecting upon these questions, the presentation will contribute to a larger reimagining of queer theory to be more radically inclusive within public history scholarship and praxis.
On Naiad Press of Tallahassee, Florida: Exploring the Balance between Shared Authority and Social Justice in Queer Public History
Michael David Franklin, PhD, Assistant Director of Honors in the Major and Honors Faculty, Florida State University
RaeAnn Quick, Student, Florida State University		 This presentation will use our work on a public history project about Naiad Press – an internationally prominent lesbian publishing company located in Tallahassee, Florida, from 1980 to 2003 – to think about legacies of racial segregation in queer spaces, as well as the ethics of framing a majority-white lesbian community’s history through oral history research.
Capturing the Faerie Playhouse, New Orleans: Documenting at-risk queer spaces through virtual tours and oral histories
Catherine G. Cooper, PhD, National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, National Parks Service		 The Faerie Playhouse was the home of Stewart Butler, an activist for human rights and the LGBTQ+ community and remains important to the local community after Stewart’s passing in March 2020. According to notes written by Stewart and remembrances of the community, the iconic pink Creole cottage decorated with red hearts on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans served as a playhouse, wedding chapel, youth refuge, memorial garden, meeting place, hospice and art gallery. It served these roles and many more since Stewart and his partner Alfred purchased the home in 1978 and continues to do so, though the future of the home is uncertain after Stewart’s passing.
In July 2022, a team from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) collected oral histories from friends and family of Stewart Butler and scanned the Faerie Playhouse using Matterport photogrammetry and virtual-tour technology in order to capture the space. These materials will be used to create a full interpretive tour of the Faerie Playhouse. NCPTT hopes to use this project as a template on which to expand and capture the tangible and intangible aspects of other at-risk sites of importance to LGBTQ+ communities throughout the South.
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Covid-19 Policy

Due to our ongoing commitment to the health and safety of our attendees, we will require everyone attending the conference to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination. NOTE: The CDC defines someone as “fully vaccinated” after two weeks of receiving their second dose in a two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccine series or two weeks after the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine. Attendees are highly encouraged to receive the new Omicron booster before attending as well.

You will be required to show proof of vaccination at registration in order to receive your nametag that will allow you into sessions and events.

Attendees of the conference will be required to wear masks while attending indoor events unless eating in the designated food areas or speaking during a presentation. Outdoor areas are available to eat meals. However, the State of Texas and Dallas County do not require masking.

Plan Your Stay

Host Hotel: The Westin Dallas Downtown
Rates range from $149 – $249 per night

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Learn More About Dallas

QHS 2022: Archives for All, Y’all is brought to you by the collaborative effort of:

A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors! This conference could not happen without their support.

AT&T

Humanities Texas

Dallas Holocaust & Human Rights Museum

The University of North Texas Libraries

The Dallas Way

Summerlee Foundation

Robert
Walker
Emery

Dallas Voice

Coalition for Aging LGBT

Mellon Foundation

Oak Lawn Pharmacy

ONE Archives Foundation

Stonewall Democrats of Dallas

Virginia and
Bob Dupuy

Cece Cox and
Shelly Skeen

University of Houston Libraries

Texas A&M University Libraries

William
Waybourn

Jay
Oppenheimer

Tom Phipps and Rick Aishman

Southern Methodist University Libraries

University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries

Southwestern University

Hollinger Metal Edge

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Department of History

The University of North Texas Division of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access

Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library

Rice University Fondren Library

Rice University Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Rice University Fondren Library

Rice University Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality

QHS Strives to Keep Attendance Costs Low for Socio-Economic Access

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QUEER HISTORY SOUTH is a vehicle for locating and sharing the rich, but often under-documented history of southern contributions to LGBTQ history and society. QHS embraces the direct connection between sharing our stories and inspiring present-day activism. It strengthens our movement to know we are a part of the long legacy of American history and activism.

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