I hope that I don’t get arrested for not asking her first, but in case you missed the August edition of Safety First: UWW Police Services Newsletter (PDF), then you didn’t get to see the featured staff member for the month – our very own Cindy Estrup. Cindy has been on the LGBT Task Force for a while now (longer than I have) and makes sure that we don’t get too rowdy at our meetings.
Congratulations Cindy!
They say knowledge is power. How you do gain knowledge? From information, whether it comes from books, the interwebs, or talking with other people. Well, when I think about getting a hold of information, I think of the library. Yes, I may be slightly biased because I’m a librarian, but still – it’s a perfectly valid place to begin the quest for knowledge.
When one is seeking information on a particular topic, it can be quite daunting to even know where to start searching. Researching LGBT issues is no different. For this reason, check out the Guide to Locating LGBT Materials in the University Library for a little nudge in (hopefully) the right direction. The guide doesn’t list every single source that could possibly be useful, but it’s more to get your wheels spinning and that should take you where you need to go. The guide is linked from the Library’s website under Guides → By Subject → Assorted Topics.
With the fantastic thunderstorms that have woken everyone up before they actually intended to get out of bed, Susie has provided the perfect solution.
(photo credits: Susie Williams)
If you haven’t walked past Winther in a while, these pictures show you just what you’re missing (though you might want to wait until the rain stops).
Oral histories have been a way to capture the past passed down from generation to generation. Many family histories never make it into published form, and word of mouth serves as the vehicle for remembering days gone by. In the same way, the LGBT ‘family’ has its own vivid (dare I say colorful?) narrative and there needs to be a way to channel the plethora of voices from the community into one collective body of knowledge.
It turns out that there is a way. I attended a conference in Seattle last month and heard a presentation by the Northwest Lesbian & Gay History Museum Project, a group that seeks to record the events of yesterday with first-hand accounts of the people that LIVED those moments. In addition, they also collect ephemera like party invitations, photos and other lesbian and gay artifacts to ensure that future generations will be able to learn and understand what it was like to grow up ‘different’ in the Northwest. The group, which includes two geography professors from the University of Washington, has also produced a historic map of gay Seattle and a collection of narratives from the project.
After the presentation, that got me thinking – is there anything like that in Wisconsin? As a matter of fact, there’s the Milwaukee LGBT History Project, which has a collection housed at UW-Milwaukee Library – Archives Department. You’ll also find more items of LGBT interest on the Archives website. Pretty cool, huh?
Anybody know of any more local collections?
As long as you haven’t been living under a rock, you know that same-sex couples can now be legally married not only in Massachusetts, but also California. Just how many marriage licenses have been issued since the ruling took effect (June 17)? According to the Los Angeles Times, the two-day total for licenses (17-18 June) almost topped 4,000. That doesn’t include Thursday or Friday of that week. I’d say there’s a rush to the courthouse.
That’s all well and good for the Californians, but what about the rest of the 270 million people in the United States? Granted, not everyone has the conundrum of not being able to marry, but still. If you’re looking for a refresher on the current state of affairs as well as the history of same-sex marriage laws, the Pew Research Center has an incredibly informative article on its Stateline.org website.
For more information on a state-by-state basis, the Human Rights Campaign features tons of information on their website about all legal matters that affect the LGBT community. Just use the Community section in the center of the home page.
