There is a huge amount of recent and continued interest in LGBTQ oral history. Often (but not always) the projects focus on bringing elders into conversation with queer youth.
LGBTQ oral histories may be found in a variety of places – the below is a selection of collections with a specifically queer focus. One of the exciting aspects of oral history is the blending of past and present – empowering everyday people to share, relate, and even re-imagine their own lives. Throughout human history, spoken word/storytelling has remained one of the strongest and most fertile areas for creativity, identity formation, providing a localized vision of history. For an up-to-date list, check the LGBTQ Oral History Hub.
Northeast
NYC Trans Oral History Project – In partnership with The New York Public Library, interviews are now maintained on a site through the Wayback Machine, and found here. The uniqueness of this project stemmed from its t peer-to-peer model – participants were invited to upload recordings of their friends, family, and community members.
Queer Newark Oral History Project is “community-based and community-directed,” though connected to Rutgers University’s History Department and city-based funding sources.
Princeton LGBTQIA Oral History Project
Providence, RI – Queer Stories Project – Within the Providence Public Library, this initiative seeks to bring queer youth (ages 14-18) into contact with LGBTQ elders.
Midwest
Transgender Oral History Project of Iowa
Tretter Transgender Oral History Project (University of Minnesota)
Southern United States
There are more than a few oral history projects from the South, focusing on queer lives:
Queer Appalachia Oral History Project – Life reflections by people “who grew up, and/or currently live in the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) designated Central Appalachian Region, especially Eastern Kentucky.”
Queer Mississippi Oral History Project
Georgia Transgender Oral History Project
Southwest Virginia LGBT+ Oral History Project
Florida Queer Oral History Project
Voices Out Loud Project (Tennessee)
California
GLBT Historical Society Oral History Projects – Interviews with Bay Area-based residents; also includes the San Francisco ACT UP Oral History Project.
Not Geographically Specific
Old Lesbian Oral History Project (OLOHP) – The project was started in 1998, “when Arden Eversmeyer started working with women she knew who were ill and dying in her area, Houston, Texas.” The OLOHP mission is to collect “the life stories of hundreds of lesbians 70 years of age and older, told in their own words.” Through years of work, they have created an extensive trove of personal narratives from older lesbian-identified women, and also a thriving community network. The project is so well established that it even has its own newsletter, as well as several published books that have resulted from interviews. Transcripts and audio recordings associated with the project between 1979-2018 are available at the Smith College Archives, and it continues to be an active network.
LGBTQ Religious Archives Network Oral Histories – Interviews with early religious leaders are hosted on this useful website, linking together the spiritual lives of LGBTQ people alongside their community-based activism. Currently an entirely virtual archive, the site was “Initiated in 2001 as a project of the Chicago Theological Seminary, LGBTQ-RAN was a program of the Center for LGBTQ & Gender Studies in Religion in Berkeley, California, from 2008-2020.”
Transgender Oral History Story Bank – A site that includes many resources, including this page of interviews/clips.
