Transness in the Late 19th Century
Our project discusses the lives and legacies of Frances Thompson and Lizzie Montgomery, two Black transgender women, and Ellis Glenn, a white gender-bending individual who were each uniquely targeted by local newspapers for their gender identities and/or presentation between the years 1866 to 1899. By analyzing the rhetoric used to describe them, we expose how transness (or the state of being trans) has been portrayed as a threat to the fabric of post-Civil War Southern society, especially in regards to the politics of race, gender, and disability. In addition, we relate the coverage of Frances, Lizzie, and Ellis to modern news coverage of transgender topics and people.
The life of Aaron henry
Aaron Henry was a prominent civil rights activist. He is well known for being the head of the Mississippi branch NAACP. This exhibit shows how his his struggle with civil rights also intertwined with his queer sexuality.
Dragonflies of Dallas
Founded in January 1994 by Dr. Chwee-Lye Chng, the Dragonflies of Dallas is a gay Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) support group. This exhibit displays snapshots into the Dragonflies’ lived experiences with one another as a family. In the communal spirit of the Dragonflies, we have created a new issue of The Buzz of Dragonflies, the Dragonflies’ official monthly newsletter, for November 2023 as well as provided Asian snacks for visitors and friends to enjoy.
Dallas 1992 Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
Our project focuses on the Dallas 1992 Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and aims to analyze its impact. We will start by examining the state of film in the late 80s and early 90s then move on to the inaugural festival in 1990. Lastly, we provide an overview of the 1992 festival and explore its effects on the community. The festival was the second of its kind in Dallas and aimed to promote unity through realistic portrayals of queer individuals through independent film. A festival setting like this is often the only way that these independent films are shown to the public, all the films selected had never premiered in Dallas before. At the time, mainstream media often presented stereotypical and shallow depictions of queer individuals, the only way to fill theaters and turn a profit was to cater to the non-queer masses.
GayOS: A history of queer workers in tech
Queer people are everywhere - tech included. Go to any computer science/engineering organization in UTD, or any tech office in Texas, and you are bound to find queer people. Yet we often tend to think of queer history and tech history as two completely separate things. It turns out, there is a dep connection between queer history and tech history. This interactive exhibit portrays the people developing many of the technologies we use every day explored, expressed, and advanced queerness.
HIV/AIDS in Dallas: An Abridged History of the Fight for Care
HIV/AIDS in Dallas: An Abridged History of the Fight for Care” is a minidocumentary by Zane Buresh. The film explores the emergence and growth of an infamously deadly disease that devastated America’s gay community in the 1980s–particularly in Dallas. As the local government and Parkland Hospital’s medical officials drag their heels despite the rapidly rising death toll, a grassroots collection of LGBTQ+ activists take charge of their own destinies, deploying whatever drastic and unorthodox measures they can to save themselves and their community.
Junior Queer Historians
This is a project geared toward kids and families to learn about Queer History. Kids can participate in activities, learn history, and earn badges. The topic covered during Ecstatic Time Event will be Lesbian Mothers in the US South and their struggle to keep balance during custody battles.
Ladies Loved and Lost: The History of Austin's Lesbian Bars
This exhibition documents and visually maps out the history of enumerated lesbian nightlife presence in downtown Austin, Texas from the early 1960's to 2008. Because there are no longer any public club spaces that are specifically made for lesbians, women, and gender nonconforming people in Austin, this represents an increasingly pressing issue surrounding urban renewal and underrepresentation in a city that boasts tolerance and inclusivity. Lesbians and the need for female and gender-nonconforming spaces have always existed in Austin, and this list of over twenty lesbian-centered spaces highlights this need, despite concerted city official efforts to bastardize these spaces into straight or strictly gay-male bars. With this presentation, I hope to display the fact that these spaces have existed for decades, should exist in our present lives, and should be understood better in our collective memories in order to prevent these spaces from being forgotten, lost, and destroyed.
Little Feather Productions Presents
From 1979 to 1992, Little Feather Productions, an entirely volunteer-run concert promotion group, brought women's music performers to DFW. Performers at Little Feather concerts were drawn from a highly developed, very queer national women's music network that included independent record labels, music festivals, and other concert producers. By arranging these concerts, the volunteers of Little Feather Productions provided Dallas with unique spaces for lesbian community building.
Where do We Exist for All of Time? A Zine about Queer Southern Zines!
Zines are very important to queer history and counterculture in general. In this project, we examine how queer identity has been expressed through zine culture and take a look at how southern queer folk were able to express themselves through this medium. A zine is a small, self published magazine that has been around for many years, with it being popularized for punk and other countercultures in the 1970s and on. This project examines zines from 80s-early 2000s on queer culture in the south, along with the many facets of one’s queer identity in the south.