The OutHistory website contains oral histories from the LGBT movement.
A 2023 interview about the documentary film-in-progress Sally, which focuses on lesbian feminist author and activist Sally Gearhart.
An interview with the author of a groundbreaking 1975 essay on lesbian history.
For Women's History Month in 2016, OutHistory republished an interview by Jonathan Ned Katz with Alma Routsong. On January 20, 1975, the author of Patience and Sarah spoke to Katz about discovering her lesbianism and her development as a…
Cathy Cade is a photographer who has been documenting the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since the 1970s. Based in Berkeley, California, she is the author, publisher and photographer of A Lesbian Photo Album: The Lives of Seven…
The subject of a famous Nan Goldin photograph, Jimmy Paul, speaks about his life, and about encountering an inaccurate caption on that photograph in a major queer history art show. Published originally on OutHistory in 2015.
OutHistory presented the first public showing of a documentary film about long-time gay activist Randy Wicker. The 50 minute film, produced and directed by Michael Kasino, uses interviews, movies, and still photos to detail the life of this ornery,…
Barbara Gittings interviewed by Jonathan Ned Katz in 1974 about her development as a Lesbian, and about the founding and early history of the New York Daughters of Bilitis.
In 1965 Drum magazine called it “the first sit-in of its kind in the history of the United States.” To honor the fiftieth anniversary of this major act of LGBT resistance, Marc Stein presented reports of the sit-in at Dewey’s restaurant in Center…
A 1974 interview with Harry Hay about founding the Mattachine Society in California.
An exhibit on the history of The Flame, a gay bar in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Published originally on OutHistory in 2013.
This proud moment in civil rights activism is also a moment to reflect on how LGBT civil rights strategies have overlapped with, drawn strength from, and patterned themselves on a century and a half of anti-racist struggle in the United States.
Man-i-fest follows the letters of Lou Sullivan to David, highlighting the topics and mentors that shaped the FTM community in San Francisco from 1976 to 2009. The central items in the exhibit appeared in Gateway: the newsletter of Golden Gate…
This is a short history of the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Club, published originally on OutHistory in 2013. This history explains how the club got started in San Francisco, California as the first registered…
Highlights of LGBT history in Seattle, drawn from the History Project members’ collective research conducted over fifteen years. An overview of the early history of taverns in Pioneer Square, the formation of early organizations that led to the…
A survey, through black and white portraits and texts, of many pioneering openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender individuals elected to public office in the United States beginning in the 1970s. For information on a touring exhibit version of…
The history of African American gays and lesbians on Chicago's South Side. First published on OutHistory in 2012.
Polk Street’s history through the lens of neighborhood change in the early twenty-first century. Polk Street was San Francisco’s premier gay male center in the 1960s and 1970s. First published on OutHistory in 2012.
To honor the 40th anniversary celebration, in June 2009, of the Stonewall Riots, OutHistory for the first time published nine pages of New York City Police Department records created early on the morning of the rebellion’s starting date, June 28,…
Transcripts of interviews on Philadelphia LGBT history from the 1940s to the 1970s, along with an introduction by the interviewer, who completed much of this work as part of his Ph.D. dissertation research at the University of Pennsylvania. The…