Press Release

CONTACT : Lauren Gutterman, Project Coordinator outhistory@gc.cuny.edu (212) 817-1955

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: OutHistory.org Launches “Local LGBTQ Histories Contest”

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, OutHistory.org, will award five substantial prizes for the best online exhibits about the local LGBTQ histories of villages, towns, cities, and counties in the U.S. since June 1969. The top exhibits will receive awards from $5,000 to $1,000. The contest is supported by a grant from the Arcus Foundation to The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS), an institute of the City University of New York Graduate Center.

OutHistory.org, the U.S. LGBTQ history website, is an ambitious attempt to put reliable information about this history on line, and to enlist the community in the effort. OutHistory.org, like Wikipedia, encourages anyone with documents, data, and citations to contribute to the site. “OutHistory.org’s an unprecedented experiment in recording the history of the LGBTQ community, by the community” says the site’s founder and director, the historian Jonathan Ned Katz. Along with community created content, the site publishes entries by major scholars in the field of sexual and gender history.

OutHistory.org hopes to receive at least one exhibit submission from every US state. Drafts of local history exhibits must be posted on OutHistory.org by June 28, 2009. Creators will be able to develop their sites over the next year, and winners will be announced in June 2010. Guidelines for “Since Stonewall” contestants are available on the OutHistory.org website.

OutHistory.org will offer some technical and scholarly assistance to participating groups as they work to recover and present their local LGBTQ histories. OutHistory.org will assemble a group of researchers to provide scholarly support for contestants during the history-writing process. OutHistory.org will also convene a panel to judge the best local LGBTQ histories.

In the four decades since Stonewall, several major books have been published on the subject and a formerly ignored LGBTQ history has begun to be recovered. Many cities have established LGBTQ community centers, newspapers, and social and political groups, some towns have created school-based advocacy groups, and a grassroots archives movement has sought to preserve the documents of LGBTQ history.

“There are histories of gay life in NYC, LA and San Francisco, but there is a lack of public knowledge about LGBTQ histories outside of major metropolitan areas,” says Lauren Gutterman, OutHistory.org’s Coordinator. “We think this local LGBTQ history contest will begin to correct that omission,” she added.

Katz and Gutterman believe that the new local histories produced will demonstrate the huge, positive effects of organized LGBTQ political action since June 1969 and highlight the work still to be done. According to CLAGS Executive Director Sarah Chinn, “In the wake of Proposition 8, we need to remind Americans that gays and lesbians have a long history of actively resisting discrimination.”