Pride Month is in full gallop, so all the evil corporations are busting out their rainbow merch and waving their rainbow flags in vulgar displays (read: performative and often insincere) of allyship. For most of us, this means we'll be seeing an emphasis on queer representation on our feeds.
In the US, queer history is so seldom taught that it often gets reduced to pride flags, a saccharine and diluted version of the AIDS crisis, and gay marriage. But there's so much more to learn about and celebrate than that.
The first step to remedying this: changing up our perspectives and actively supporting and engaging in LGBTQIA+ experiences in multidimensional ways.
This can look like a lot of different things: following queer creators on social media, watching content by and about queer people, reading queer authors, and educating yourself about LGBTQIA+ issues from an intersectional lens.
For a more immersive experience, visit some of these incredible museums telling queer stories and centering queer perspectives that have opened up again across the US.
GLBT Historical Society & Museum — San Francisco, CA
In the iconic Castro District of San Francisco, the GLBT Historical Society & Museum was founded during the AIDS crisis to preserve LGBTQIA+ history. The Museum formed in 1985 when activists took on the project of collecting and keeping the possessions of AIDS victims in order to preserve their stories.
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives — Los Angeles, CA
The ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives in LA is a vast archive of LGBTQIA+ materials. A division of the libraries at the University of Southern California, the ONE Archives is the largest repository of queer history and theory in the world. The archives evolved from 1952 ONE Inc. which published ONE Magazine and now serves to educate and promote diversity through learning and programming.
Stonewall National Museum & Archives — Fort Lauderdale, FL
Although you can visit the actual Stonewall bar in NYC, the Stonewall National Museum & Archives in Florida hold an impressive collection of queer art and memorabilia. The museum started in 1972 when founder Mark Silber started collecting and preserving queer erotica in his basement, Stonewall’s national archives document a century of history, with over 30,000 items. Its sister site is a gallery which hosts live events, screenings, and exhibitions to promote and celebrate contemporary queer artists.
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art — New York, NY
When artists and partners Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman held their "Exhibition of Homoerotic Art" in Soho in 1969, the provocative event was an immediate success. With the Stonewall riots breaking out a month later, mere blocks away, the growing energy around queer freedom made the gallery's mission critically important. The pair kept growing their collection for their exhibit and, at the onset of the AIDS epidemic, began actively collecting art from dying queer artists to preserve their legacies.
The project evolved into the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation and was officially made into a museum in 2016. Now, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art preserves and displays 30,000+ items and has a research library containing over 3,000 volumes.Andy Warhol Museum — Pittsburgh, PA
Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum houses a comprehensive collection of Andy Warhol's career and reminds the public consciousness that his work was far more than just Campbell Soup Cans and Marilyn Monroe prints – though they're on display, too. The exhibit acts as a complete retrospective of his work and its various phases, especially his unapologetically queer works, from both private and public collections.
From early drawings of the male form to the extravagance of his later masterworks, the museum remembers Warhol as a gay icon and celebrates his influence and legacy through mentorship programs, arts initiatives, educational programs, and even an annual drag workshop and queer prom.
Museum of Trans History and Art — San Francisco, CA
MOTHA was founded by Chris E. Vargas in 2013 as a conceptual and evolving art project. A series of exhibits, events, performances, discussions, and more, MOTHA reinvents the idea of a museum and assumes multiple forms to celebrate the multiplicity of gender and queerness.
According to their mission statement, "The mission of MOTHA is to ask audiences to think critically about what a visual history of transgender life could and should look like, and if it's even possible to compile a comprehensive history of an identity category for which the language is fairly new, sometimes contested, and still rapidly evolving."
MOTHA is both a venue to celebrate and support trans artists as well as an exercise in resisting binary and rigidity in our everyday thinking.
Pride Month is a fabulous way of challenging binary and cis-heternormative thinking. This is a lifelong project and so is learning queer history and celebrating queer artists.