Jennifer Shields reflects on the significance of Queer History Month and the enduring presence of LGBTQ+ communities across time.
Happy Queer History Month, Aotearoa – Pūmahara Ia Te Wā! This July marks the second celebration of Queer History Month across the motu, thanks to the efforts of Kawe Mahara Queer Archives Aotearoa, who’ve compiled a full calendar of events spotlighting our stories.
Back at university, I studied papers on the history of sex and gender. As a teenager just beginning to understand my own identity, these classes opened a whole world of perspectives. They showed me how concepts of gender and sexuality have been constructed differently across time and cultures – and more importantly, they affirmed something vital: us queer folk, we’ve always existed. Discovering these stories made my journey easier and ignited a lifelong passion for queer histories.
I started devouring everything I could find. One pivotal moment that still resonates deeply was discovering archival footage of Sylvia Rivera speaking at the 1973 Gay Pride Rally in New York. I found it on YouTube in 2014. Watching her, nearly 50 years later, defying a hostile crowd with unrelenting courage, moved me. I wrote about it, years later in 2019 for a poetry event celebrating 50 years since the Stonewall riots:
in 2014, 91 years after the term ‘transsexual’ was coined, i sit in a dark room and watch sylvia rivera take the stage at the 1973 gay pride rally in new york. i watch as the crowd boo and jeer.my heart fills with love and hope as she, speaking to me across decades, leans on the mic stand and stares back at the crowd, defiant.
We were here first.
i watch as she describes her experiences of incarceration to a crowd that will not listen. i watch her hunched over, embodied with anger, standing up for herself and all those who no one stands up for. i watch her chant ‘gay power’, huddled over and out of breath, continuing to fight. i reach out and grab that tendril, that frayed end, and i hold on tight.
Later, I discovered Making Gay History, a podcast that shares archival interviews with LGBTQ+ trailblazers. Hearing host Eric Marcus speak with Sylvia in her apartment, recorded decades ago, was pure magic – the past speaking directly to the present.
Last year’s inaugural Queer History Month in Aotearoa was incredibly special. I’d spent years learning about overseas histories, but only knew fragments of our own. Kawe Mahara’s launch event changed that. Through community-donated archives and shared stories, we were connected to our own rich, complex past. These records are more than just history – they’re living links to who we are and where we’ve come from.
These stories and histories are more important than ever – as we see the forced removal of queer histories in the United States, and the purging of research about our communities in a terrible reflection of the burning of Magnus Hirschfeld’s archives in 1930s Germany, we should remember that history rhymes, and the challenges we face are not new. Our communities have persevered under the worst conditions, and we can learn from the ways we have come together, supported each other, and shown solidarity to one another.
our community experienced a generational loss so many of our forebears lost everyone around them and we lost so much knowledge that wasn’t passed on
but it’s there we were here first and those frayed tendrils are there, even though they tell us otherwise reach out, hold tight those tendrils have love to share
For more info on Queer History Month visit laganz.og.nz
