In her life, Debbie Friedman did not want to be defined by her sexuality, but there’s something that feels queer about her music. The hidden history, the lyrics about liberation and joy, and, yes, a whole lot about women dancing with timbrels.
Black August is a month-long dedication to honoring black radical political history, the ongoing fight against the prison industrial complex, criminal (in)justice systems. So why are most of the voices upheld this month from cis men?
This series was an opportunity to honor our queer history by recreating iconic pride photographs through a modern lens, making explicit the connection between the past and the present that forms the living legacy we’re all a part of.
I realized that even though I’d vaguely heard or read about the lesbians of ACT UP, I didn’t really know enough about the specifics. Who were these women? What was their history?
When Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Simpson met in 1890, they fell for each other hard. Their once-hidden letters are collected in a new book.
“In high school, I kissed a girl for the first time. It felt too comfortable and too right to think I was anyone but whom I was in that moment. I’ve followed that honesty my whole life.”
Janelle Monáe is, quite simply, peerless.
Billie Jean King will go down as one of the greatest tennis players — one of the greatest athletes, actually — of all time. 39 Grand Slam titles. 20 Wimbledon victories. And, of course, her Battle of the Sexes win over Bobby Riggs, which sold out the Astrodome and was viewed by more than 90 million people.
“I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community.”
“Marriage is a magic word. And it is magic throughout the world. It has to do with our dignity as human beings, to be who we are.”
Barbara Hammer was the evidence that living a queer life could be good, and long, and full of wonder at a time when I felt like this was all was out of reach.
In 1974 it felt like every American was watching President Nixon’s impeachment hearings. With a single speech, a black lesbian changed the opinion of a nation. She was only getting started.
Maybe Josephine Baker and Frida Kahlo were actually lovers? Maybe they weren’t. What always mattered most was the idea that they even could.
Despite her early resonance, Hothead Paisan has faded from lesbian and queer cultural memory. Today we’re bringing her back.
Demonic witch queens are always queer. Fact.
Shaven heads on women have challenged and informed ideas of beauty, power and tradition for centuries. Here’s the history of a very queer style.
The age-old challenge: what to get for your rad, free-thinking, take-no-BS, burn down the cisheteropatriarchy, revolutionary friend or loved one? Capitalism sucks. These gifts don’t!
Eleanor Roosevelt, Frida Kahlo, Naomi “Micky” Jacob, Elsie de Wolfe and Elisabeth Marbury — and their puppers!
The first time I googled “bisexual history,” one of the top hits was an article called “Are you worried your partner might have a bisexual history?”
The weekend Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, I visited the Lesbian Herstory Archives and spent the day with coordinators Maxine and Saskia to learn about our past and draw strength in the present.
