Uncovering & Celebrating LGBTQ2S+ History in Arizona

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Wednesday, December 8, 2021

9 a.m. to Noon

View the recording on the Arizona Preservation YouTube channel

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Description: 

 

A panel of historians and preservation advocates who have been working with LGBTQ2S+ communities in numerous states will provide user-friendly documents and tools that they used to record the histories of these communities. Q&A to follow to discuss how these lessons can be applied to telling the stories important to LGBTQ2S+ communities across the state. Attendees will help us build a list of places significant for their association with LGBTQ2S+ history that will be publicly available.

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Moderator:

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Marshall Shore is known as Arizona's Hip Historian. In 2016, he took on the role as project manager for the Arizona LGBT+ History Project, and currently sits on the board of the National Museum of LGBT Culture and History. Marshall Shore’s passion is uncovering the weird, the wonderful, and the obscure treasures from our past: the semi-forgotten people, places, and events that have made us who we are today. He brings our heritage to life in entertaining and educational presentations such as tours, BINGO, and lectures. 

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Panelists:

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J. Seth Anderson was born in Utah and grew up in Salt Lake and Phoenix, but currently lives in Boston where he is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Boston University. His interests are varied and include Urban History, Western History, Russian History, Mormon History, and the History of Sexuality. His dissertation, "Straight Talk: Elite Universities and the Genesis of Gay Conversion Therapy" explores the relationship between academia and the state in creating and reinforcing ideas of sexual orientation change efforts across space and time and how this process made visible the abstract tensions between "expert authority" and individual choices related to sexual identities. He completed his MA at the University of Utah where he researched the history of HIV/AIDS in the state of Utah and its effects on individuals, families, medical care, and activism. In his free time, he likes to play piano. He and his husband, Dr. Michael Ferguson, were the first same-sex coupled legally married in Utah in December 2013.

• Presentation: "LGBT Historical Excavation: Arizona’s Unique Opportunity for Preservation and Celebration"

 

Marcus Brooks (he/him) is a Taft Fellow and PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Cincinnati. He researches race and racism, culture, and the internet. In his work Marcus interrogates how discourse and media are used to propagate racist and antiracist ideologies. His work has been published in Sociological Spectrum and Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, including the first-ever publication using primary historical documents to unearth the life and work of a little-known Atlanta University sociologist, Augustus Granville Dill. This work corrects the many flaws in the miniscule literature about Dill and urges sociologist to reconsider the history of the discipline and the process of canonization.

• Presentation: "Augustus Granville Dill: Reclaiming and Finding Space for Ignored Black Queer Histories"

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Carolyn Evans is a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University. She is a historian of women, gender, and sexuality, and her dissertation project focuses on the history of LGBTQ+ people and communities in Phoenix. 

• Presentation: "Lessons from the 307 Lounge: The Opportunities and Challenges Facing LGBTQ Historic Preservation in Phoenix, Arizona"

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Alexis Rodriguez is the vice president of the LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida and is a graduate student in the History program at the University of Central Florida. His research interests include the history of premodern sexualities in the Iberian peninsula and Maghreb region, discourses on sexualities, and the development of modern-day LGBTQ movements and communities. He is also interested in discourses related to cross-dressing and social acting, along with issues relating to memory and historical narratives.

• Presentation: "Queering Orlando: The Role of Female Impersonation and Queer Spaces within Central Florida's LGBTQ Community"

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Shayne Watson (she/her/hers) is the owner of Watson Heritage Consulting, an architectural history and historic preservation planning consultancy based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her research on San Francisco's LGBTQ history has been recognized by California's two most prestigious awards in historic preservation: the Governor's Historic Preservation Award and the California Preservation Foundation's Trustees Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation. Shayne recently spearheaded the landmarking of the Lyon-Martin House in San Francisco and is currently writing a nomination for Gilbert Baker's iconic rainbow flag in San Francisco's Castro district. Shayne is founding chair of the GLBT Historical Society’s Historic Places Working Group.

• Presentation: "LGBTQ History in San Francisco, Citywide Historic Context Statement"