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Witness to the horrors in Chechnya
New documentary reveals life-or-death struggle to escape ‘gay genocide’
In an era when documentaries often seem geared more toward a slick and buzzy “docu-tainment” style than to the unfiltered presentation of real-world facts and experiences, “Welcome to Chechnya” blasts you in the face like a gust of icy wind.
A harrowing look at the “underground railroad” that sprung up within Russia to help the victims of the notorious “gay genocide” being perpetrated under Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, it’s a film that makes you want to look away but doesn’t let you do it. It conveys the unthinkable trauma of living in a constant state of terror while making a desperate, clandestine run for your very life; more than that, it permits us to put a human face – albeit a digitally altered one – on the crisis.
Part of the film’s impact undoubtedly stems from its subject matter, but it’s at least equally due to the artistry of its director, David France. It’s not the first time he’s been behind a heavyweight LGBTQ documentary. The longtime journalist made his directing debut with “How to Survive a Plague” in 2012, documenting the early years of the AIDS epidemic with an activist’s passion in a film that won him a host of awards and nominations for several more, including an Oscar.
Now, “Chechnya,” which premiered at last year’s Sundance Festival and was released by HBO last summer, has made the shortlist for this year’s Academy Awards, raising the possibility for a second chance at taking home the coveted statue. Yet Oscar gold was not what France had on his mind when he had a conversation with the Blade about the film earlier this week. Rather, he wanted to discuss the people in the film.
France, like everyone else, had been appalled by the tales coming out of Chechnya in 2017. “We all read the stories,” he tells us now, “but it wasn’t until I read Masha Gessen’s New Yorker piece about the work that ordinary Russians were having to take upon themselves that I became really fascinated.”
He is referring to the network of LGBTQ activists that mobilized in the absence of outside help to extract refugees in daring escapes, hide them in safe houses across Russia, and work with groups around the world to get them out of the country. In “Welcome to Chechnya,” he follows a handful of these accidental heroes, as well as several of the survivors they protect, as they orchestrate and enact spycraft that would be right at home in an episode of “The Americans.” In the process, he shines a light on more than just the atrocities being committed against queer people in Chechnya. He also illuminates a level of courage that most of us have never had to muster.
“That’s what drew me in,” France says. “The fact that ordinary citizens took it upon themselves to intervene, to try and save lives, while the rest of the world was doing so little about it.”
“It’s not like they had been already doing this work,” he explains. “Olga [Baranova, one of the activists who appears in the film] was running a community center that had an annual arts fair – that’s the extent of her training for the kind of cape-wearing heroics that you see her carrying out.”
With his cameraman and producer Askold Kurov, France spent months in the underground, chronicling the efforts of the activists and the stories of the survivors under their care, and getting plenty of first-hand experience with the kind of fear under which they had willingly chosen to live, day after day. After all, getting out of Chechnya wasn’t enough to make anyone safe; Chechen authorities were willing to stop at nothing to make sure nobody had a chance to expose what was going on, up to and including tracking down, recapturing, and maybe even killing any potential witnesses – and anyone who stood in the way was putting themselves in peril, too.
“I remember going on one of the extractions,” he relates. “We were getting ready to make a run with a couple whose location had been found out. We had only a few hours to get them to the airport, and then we got word of a rumor that a group of assassins had been dispatched to prevent them from leaving the country. We had one bodyguard, with one sidearm, with us.
“That kind of unbelievable peril is what hung over, and what still hangs over, every aspect of the work these ordinary Russian activists have taken on for themselves.”
It’s also what made it a challenge to film the refugees, for whom anonymity was a matter of life or death.
“I wanted to show what they looked like,” he tells us. “The pain that they wore on their faces, the hope – and certainly the fear. And most of them wanted the world to know what had happened to them, to expose these crimes – but they also understood what it would mean for them and their families if they stood up publicly and revealed their truths. They were terrified, and here I was asking them to let me film them anyway and then figure out how to solve this problem later.”
There is still a touch of awe in his voice as he says, “Remarkably, a couple of dozen people agreed to let me do that.”
He continues, “There were people, of course, who couldn’t take that leap with me. There was one person who was nervous even about me filming other people in the shelter. These were people who had just escaped the most horrific abuse and torture, and violation from their own families. They were hiding from their brothers and their uncles, from their own fathers. That dislocation of familial love was so traumatic to everybody there that some of them were just on a very sharp edge – unable to reckon with the past, unable to find security in the present or see hope in the future. You see that in the film with one of them, who even attempts suicide. For those people, it was a difficult arrangement to have me shooting even on the other side of the shelter house. I understood that and I tried to be very respectful.”
The challenge of maintaining privacy would eventually be surmounted by new, state-of-the-art identity protection software, a high-tech touch that France – savvy storyteller that he is – was able to parlay into one of the film’s most dramatic and unexpected moments. A considerable amount of screen time in “Welcome to Chechnya” is devoted to an anonymous refugee who has escaped from his tormentors into the network, where he is reunited with his family and his boyfriend of 10 years; a turning point comes when, despite being poised for removal to another country, he chooses to go public with his story and make an official complaint to the Russian government. As he makes that decision, the false features realistically rendered over his real ones melt away before our eyes, revealing his unaltered face – and with it, his true identity. It’s a powerful effect, and it’s our official introduction to Maxim Lapunov, whose subsequent appearance before a Russian court to tell his story is captured in the movie. Unsurprisingly, his claims are dismissed, and the need to get him and his loved ones out of the country becomes even more imperative.
In talking about Lapunov, the awe returns to France’s voice. “Maxim’s moral courage is unmatched. It was really clear that his life was going to be fucked up for the foreseeable future, no matter what he did. The courage that he showed was the courage to throw his body in the way to make sure that other people don’t get treated the way that he was treated – to save people’s lives. He could have gone anywhere in the world, and just nursed his post-traumatic memories in safety, but instead he went back into the fire. That was remarkable. I watched him make those decisions, I watched him take on that risk, I watched him bring his family along on that journey and win their allegiance in these choices – these are human dramas like you see in Hollywood films that actually are taking place in the queer battle against the crimes in Russia.”
He segues into a similar expression of respect for David Isteev, another activist prominently featured in “Chechnya.”
“When you look at his face, you just get this incredible sense of high alert and of moral purpose. It makes me think of the stories we have heard from the Holocaust, of citizens who would otherwise have been untouched who reach into some deep reserve to do something. That’s him. And being in the presence of that was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life.”
If it sounds like he has bonded with his subjects, it’s because he has. Being embedded in the shelter network for such an extended period of time, he and Kurov became part of the underground themselves. “We were no longer visitors from outside,” he says. “We were experiencing what they were. I spent nights full of terror inside those safe houses, when rumors were flying about people who might have been seen, locations that might have been revealed, dangers that might have been heightened – I felt that with them. We huddled together, and, in a way, I became part of their journey.
“I do feel personally attached to those people having been through that with them. It’s something like the bond of warfare that you read about. I would do anything for David. I would do anything for Maxim and his family.”
The real emotion apparent in these professions of kinship is surely one of the reasons why the documentarian is still, more than six months after his film’s debut, eager to talk about it. The people with whom he developed these strong bonds are still very much at risk.
The biggest horrors in “Welcome to Chechnya” are only glimpsed briefly in dark and blurry videos intercepted from the web by the network, or described in the stories of torment, humiliation and brutality told by the survivors, but they cast a dark enough shadow over the imagination to make us want to believe they are safely in the past. Unfortunately, as France is quick to remind us, LGBTQ persecution in Chechnya is still very much “an ongoing humanitarian crisis.” Just last week, two refugees were kidnapped from the network by Russian authorities and returned to Chechnya, an incident that brought the situation there back into the headlines.
“These were two very young men, one of them 20, and the other 17 – not even a man,” relates France. “They had been abducted last summer in Chechnya and tortured, they barely got out alive. They were rescued and extracted by the network and were being held in a safe house while the work was being done with foreign partners to try and get them out. Now they are back in detention in Chechnya. It’s a very volatile situation.”
Yet it’s also a situation in which, perhaps ironically, he sees a hope that has been scarce for the past four years.
“The United States, in this new administration, has expressed great concern for those two kids and demanded information on their safety,” he points out. “The European Court for Human Rights has demanded access to them, and safe passage for them to get back to the safe house where they were being held.”
For him, it’s a call to action. “The Russian LGBT network is on the ground, still fighting this fight,” he says. “We can urgently throw our voices behind their efforts with regard to these two youngsters – we could save their lives. There are petitions, but that’s not enough. We know from watching these activists’ work that it’s essential, it’s extensive, and as you can imagine, it’s costly. They cannot raise money within Russia, so they’ve asked people who see the film to help them by donating. There’s a donation page on the movie site. We’ve just watched almost $200,000 move through there, in the six months since the film came out, and that money goes to the Moscow Community Center, Olga’s group that runs the shelter system, to the Russian LGBT Network that does the extractions and runs the global hotline for the crisis. And it also goes to Maxim and his legal case, which is still percolating through, and showing great progress in, the European courts.
“So, I think there’s hope, but we have to act urgently. I think what’s shocked us all, in the last few years, is how easily we can lose ground. All this progress that we’ve made over the last 30 or 40 years can be reversed in a heartbeat, and that’s what’s happened in Russia, and Russia has led the way in this dramatic reversal of queer progress, all across Europe. It’s going to take a lot of people coming together internationally to stop that, but it is possible.”
He’s a realist in his expectations, though. “We can’t hope for regime change in Chechnya or in Russia. Those are not practical, immediate goals. But we can force Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya to stop this. He is a puppet of Putin’s. If we make it politically untenable for Putin not to intervene there, then he will lift up the telephone and say to Kadyrov, ‘Stop it.’ That’s all that it takes. It’s that simple. We haven’t gotten there because we haven’t had the kind of global leadership that can bring collective pressure on Putin to do that. I think we’re in a place where we can now.
“Even just watching the film is an important step. The Russian government has said repeatedly that this is not happening, that there’s no evidence, even – ridiculously – that there are no queer Chechens. They say that no one has come forward, but Maxim did that, officially, and they rejected his claims. The people protected by the digital technology we deployed in the film have also spelled out their stories, so they are witnesses. And we’re all witnesses, now.”
The passion creeps back into France’s voice as he recalls, “That was my promise to the people in the network, when I said I wanted to film with them, that I was going to help make this so that everybody in the world knows what’s happening.
“Anybody who sees the film becomes a witness, and it becomes an act of resistance just to talk about what you see in it.”
a&e features
Television loses a legend, longtime ‘Will & Grace’ director James Burrows
Iconic hitmaker leaves behind a legacy of telling LGBTQ stories
You don’t have to be a pretentious film major to name 10 movie directors. But naming television directors is not that simple. They’re the unsung heroes of your favorite shows, and the late James Burrows was the television director. He passed on June 19, but his DNA runs through television history.
He directed over 1200 episodes of television and over 50 pilots. He co-created “Cheers” and directed many episodes of long-running series like “Friends,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Two and a Half Men.” You also may remember him from playing a heightened version of himself on the Lisa Kudrow comedy “The Comeback.”
He has left an indelible mark on the LGBTQ community. As recently as last year, he directed the series run of “Mid-Century Modern” starring Nathan Lane, Matt Bomer, and Linda Lavin. He was also a longtime director of “Will & Grace” and directed every episode of the series revival. He even directed the unaired “Absolutely Fabulous” pilot with Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Johnston, and Zosia Mamet.
Not to mention he’s worked with queer icons throughout history, including Betty White and Stockard Channing on their single-season series, and Jennifer Coolidge in “2 Broke Girls.”
He started his career on shows like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Rhoda,” “Laverne & Shirley,” and the first four seasons of “Taxi.”
He continued to work steadily and directed successful pilots that went to series for “Roc,” “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “Dharma & Greg,” and “Wings.” He directed multiple episodes of “Friends,” “Caroline in the City,” and “Frasier.”
This magic continued into the 2000s with him directing the pilots for “Two and a Half Men,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and multiple episodes of “Mike & Molly,” and the entire return series of “Will & Grace.”
What was the secret to his success? He’d enact the “fun clause” in his contract. In his words, “Life is too short to deal with obnoxious leads,” he shared. “So as long as the writing is good and the cast is fun, I’m going to enjoy the experience.”
He had the magic touch, having multiple pilots turned into long-running series. He was nominated for an Emmy 24 times in 26 years and worked consistently until a year before his death.
The secret was the way he brought the cast together. He describes, “it was my job to mold them into an ensemble, and they did round into a group of people who loved each other.”
This earned him 11 Emmy Awards and five Directors Guild of America Awards, including being awarded the inaugural DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Television Direction.
In a 2003 interview by the Television Academy, he was asked how he wants to be remembered, and he said, “That every night forever you can tune in somewhere, and there’ll be a show I did.”
He’s survived by his wife, Debbie, four daughters, seven grandchildren, and the countless people whose careers he launched and the countless viewers he inspired with his television legacy.
a&e features
D.C. prepares to party as Pride celebrations kick off Saturday
Bars, clubs have busy lineups; Pride on the Pier returns
Capital Pride’s date change isn’t slowing down the festivities. Back in December, the Capital Pride Alliance shifted the calendar for Pride celebrations in the nation’s capital from the second weekend of June to two weeks later to the weekend of June 20-21 to not conflict with President Trump’s birthday and 250th anniversary of America celebrations, with the aim that “our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers… We are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance.”
On the heels of WorldPride last year, the city shows no sign of slowing down. Instead, restaurants, bars, clubs, and neighborhoods are taking the opportunity to be even more visible. The Blade has put together a (non-comprehensive) list of parties, activations, and activities across town:
Pride on the Pier returns on Saturday, June 13 to the Wharf on the Southwest waterfront. The event, sponsored and hosted by the Washington Blade, is free and runs from 4-9 p.m. There will be vendors, DJs, and drag performances all day. VIP tickets are $25 and come with air conditioned party room, private bathrooms, and free cocktail. More details at prideonthepierdc.com.
Capital Pride Official Opening Party: RIOT! is the official opening dance party of Capital Pride, taking place Friday June 19, 9 PM-3AM. The 2026 edition headlining performer is Myki Meeks, a finalist of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” season 18; Bob The Drag Queen will perform a special set. DMV-area DJs and performers include: Bambi, Baphomette, Bumper, Cake Pop!, Connor, DJ Ed Bailey, DJ Diyanna Monet, Evry Pleasure, Jakknife Complex, Mari Con Carne, Pussy Noir, WessTheDJ. Trade owner Ed Bailey is producing the event.
Kinetic Presents brings the heat across the entirety of Pride weekend as well. It again is partnering with Capital Pride Alliance to produce four events over four days this Pride, including the Official Main Event on Saturday (the Friday official event is at Echostage). Kinetic’s parties are splayed across various D.C. venues, with special performances, massive productions, shirtless dancers, play zones, dance-forward audio and visuals, and international DJ talent. Thursday, June 18 at 10 PM at District Eagle is Lust, with music by Dan Slater and TOMI. Friday, June 19 at 10 PM is UNCUT XXL Heavy Load, at A.i. Warehouse in Union Market District, with music by Alex Acosta, Felipe Lira & Mitch Ferrino; the party is a “high-octane night of muscular house and tribal rhythms.” Saturday, June 20 at 10 PM brings that official main event, Kinetic Toy Land, at Echostage, with music by GSP & Matt Suave. Alaska Thunderfuck headlines. Sunday evening June 21 at 10 PM closes with discoVERS at SAX. A portion of tickets supports the DC LGBTQ+ community through Capital Pride Alliance.
9:30 Club always comes in clutch for the LGBTQ community. Already in June, it produced Kitty Kat Ball on June 7, and Kiesza performed on June 8. On June 20 at 10 PM, the famed Mixtape party hits the stage, care of gay DJs Shea van Horn and Matt Bailer, who have spun together for coming up on two decades. Mixtape has been held at several venues across the city over those years, and now settled on 9:30 Club for Pride. On June 25 at 7 PM, Big Freedia – the bounce artist from New Orleans – hits the 9:30 Club scene for the eighth time, as part of the Big Freedom Tour.
Crush: New this year from the 14th Street bar is the Pride Pop-Up, sitting pretty in the parking lot at 1820 14th St., N.W., at the corner of Swann Street by the start of the Pride Parade route. Hours are Friday from 2-10 PM and Saturday from 12-10 PM. Friday evening features Grizzly Bear Happy Hour, a DJ will set up shop on Saturday, and for those needing another layer, there’s a Crush merch store. Co-owner Mark Rutstein “has always wanted to throw a party in that parking lot, so he did,” said co-owner Stephen Rutgers. Note that Crush (the bar) will have a cover on Friday and Saturday.
Kiki: Over at Kiki, there’s a full slate of Pride-themed programming all week. Tuesday, June 16 at 9 PM brings karaoke; Wednesday, June 17 at 7:30 PM is trivia; Thursday June 18 at 9PM is “Night of 1000 Tatianna’s Drag Show”, and Friday June 19 at 9 PM brings the Juneteenth Serve Drag Show. Saturday, June 20 at 10 PM, post-parade, is a Pride Dance Party with DJ Lemz. Sunday daytime at 5 PM is the Father Figures Daddy Issues Special Drag Show; and after the festival at 8 PM, DJ Tezrah hits the tapes.
Jane Jane: Right along the parade route, gay-owned Jane Jane has transformed its space into a “No Kings, Yas Queens” activation in a direct response to the America 250th commemorations happening downtown, from the colorful window installation, to merch (including a custom bandana and tank) to disco wig installations. Events include industry night on Mondays, donations to LGBTQ charities, and to-go cocktails during the Pride Parade.
Shaw’s Tavern: Gay-owned Shaw’s Tavern on Florida Avenue celebrates Pride week with a full lineup of themed events, entertainment, and specials, including Pride trivia on Monday, June 15 at 7:30 PM, bingo on Tuesday, June 16 at 8 PM, a cabaret on Thursday, June 18 at 9 PM, Juneteenth Drag Brunch on Friday, June 19 at 12:30 PM, and both a pre-parade brunch (10 AM-4 PM) and post-parade party (5-9 PM) on Saturday, June 20. Sunday, June 21 at 7 PM brings Mama’s Sunday Supper & Drag Pride Show in the evening for anyone who is still awake.
Trade: This classic has a weekend of events, starting on Thursday, with Tiburon Pride Edition, a Latin Dance party in the Shark Tank. On Friday, the bar opens early (at 2 PM), with all-day happy hour and the Jx&Evry Show. On Saturday, the bar opens at noon, offering a prime parade viewing spot from its windows. There will be the CLASH drag show hosted by Tatianna and Crimsyn, and Sweet Spot party that night. On Sunday, the bar opens for normal hours at 2 PM, with DJs Adam K, Alex Love, and WESSTHEDJ.
Pitchers: The multi-level bar in Adams Morgan is hosting a Pride-themed show on Thursday, June 18 at 10 PM, with drawstring bag giveaways – the only kind of bag that will be allowed into the bar during Pride weekend. The show features drag queen Kyle Sonique Love.
Barrel House Cafe and Bar: Also by the parade route on 14th Street, Barrel House Cafe takes advantage of its large patio to have a slate of events during Pride week, including Schism, a drag and burlesque show on June 18 at 10 PM, as well as an all-day Pride party coinciding on parade day.
Bunker: Bunker again plays host to a series of afters. Friday night (Saturday 3:30 AM) is Unhinged, and Saturday night (Sunday 3:30AM) is Unholy. The regular Saturday night party (10 PM) brings in Venetian and Tiara Missou. All parties have cover charges.
District Eagle: Beyond the Kinetic party on Friday, June 19 brings Gear Night at 10 PM; Saturday, June 20 at 10 PM is LOBO presents PRISM, and Sunday, June 21 is Sundaze wit Papi at 6 PM.
African Art Museum: On Thursday, June 18 at 5 PM, this Smithsonian museum is hosting a free event with artists and curators celebrating its exhibit, “Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art,” “based on years of close collaboration and dialogue with African visual art practitioners who claim belonging in the LGBTQ+ community, however they define those terms,” according to the museum.
KNEAD Hospitality & Design: The gay-owned KNEAD restaurant group (including spots like Gatsby, Mi Vida, Succotash The Grill) is featuring the GLITTERATI cocktail, made with Tito’s, St-Germain Elderflower, Butterfly Flower, ginger, and yes, glitter. A portion of proceeds from every Glitterati cocktail sold will benefit The Trevor Project. The cocktail will be sold throughout June.
The Fountain Inn is partnering with Rhodium spirits (Rhode Island’s first LGBTQ+ owned distillery) all month, making cocktails like gimlets and espresso martinis featuring Rhodium’s liquors. Proceeds benefit SMYAL, an organization dedicated to empowering LGBTQ+ youth.
Hard Rock Cafe: Hard Rock DC is taking part in the chain’s annual “LOVE OUT LOUD” campaign, with Pride merch, specials on June 20, and a donation to The Trevor Project.
a&e features
Fighting ‘Rainbow Panic’ in museums
Here’s how we can resist the escalation of anti-LGBTQ censorship
Back in February of 2025, I wrote a piece for New York City-based arts publication Hyperallergic about the importance of museums stepping up for their LGBTQ staff. I was right to be concerned. Over the last three years, censorship of LGBTQ histories and art has exploded in the museum field. Discourse surrounding censorship of art and artifacts reflects galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM) institutions’ push to erase LGBTQ stories, language, and people from not just exhibitions but also the wider museum field.
Many now recognize this rush of censorship in the early 2020s as the “rainbow panic,” first coined by historian Wendy Rouse in her piece published in July 2025.
While LGBTQ censorship in GLAM institutions is not new, the recent push to censor queer and trans histories under the Trump administration began in May 2024 when members of the City Council of Lubbock, Texas cut funding for the First Friday Art Trial due to the inclusion of a drag performance.
Additional cancellations followed, including in February 2025, when the Art Museum of the Americas canceled “Nature’s Wild With Andil Gosine” scheduled to open in March. While the museum did not say why, some of Gosine’s work that was set to be part of the exhibition reflected on LGBTQ identity and activism in the Caribbean.
That same month, the National Park Service removed mentions of transgender people from the Stonewall National Memorial website, now seen as a watershed moment in queer erasure. In response, the LGBTQ+ History Association issued a statement warning about the recent moves to censor and erase LGBTQ history and art.
The Association was right to be concerned because the following month, Trump released his Executive Order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” where he targeted the National Museum of American History, National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the American Women’s History Museum.
But it wasn’t just erasure, it was also intentional renaming. Also in February 2025, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art changed its traveling exhibition of work by women, queer and trans artists, changing the title that was originally “transfeminisms.” By June, the Art Institute of Chicago changed the title of an exhibition of Gustave Caillebotte’s work and removed discussions of gender and sexuality from the wall text that were included when the show was displayed in Paris and Los Angeles.
In the last year, censorship has especially escalated with Amy Sherald cancelling her show “American Sublime” at the National Portrait Gallery (and moving it to the Baltimore Museum of Art) and art scholar Ignacio Darnaude writing in an Out op-ed that the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) exhibition “Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return” did not include information about the artist’s queer identity or the work’s connections to AIDS. The National Portrait Gallery has denied claims of erasure.
This leads us to the most recent happening when in February 2026, a Pride flag was removed from the Stonewall National Monument after a directive from the Trump administration. Thankfully, later that month, protesters re-raised the flag. In April 2026, the National Park Service agreed to restore the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Memorial and keep it up permanently. But even with this victory — the result of queer and trans organizing — attacks on LGBTQ histories remain.
As the histories we fought to collect and interpret are censored and erased, through museums’ compliance-in-advance as well as government discrimination and decree, we (I write as a queer GLAM worker) see a willingness to sacrifice those histories and our communities for institutional safety, funding, and government support.
Please know the LGBTQ community will remember the hard truths we learned this past year — that we and our histories were expendable. If we can be cast aside, hidden, or disowned, whose histories are safe? How can (and can we) rebuild trust in the institutions that failed us this past year? It’s not just the LGBTQ community. In fact, just this January, the National Park Service removed signage from the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia that referenced slavery at the President’s House Site.
Please help us to fight the erasure of queer and trans histories and communities. Please stand with the LGBTQ community (and LGBTQ+ GLAM workers) against the violence we are facing — not just outside museums, but inside them too.
For ways that you can help to fight historical erasure, including against the LGBTQ community, please consider the following:
Consume queer history content. Whether it be by visiting exhibitions, listening to a podcast, going on a walking tour or lecture, or buying queer history books, your presence and money speak volumes. And learn your local queer histories. Often, we focus on the large-scale histories that surround the Stonewall Uprising, Compton Cafeteria Riots, and other pivotal moments, but there’s queer history all around us. It’s time to learn and celebrate these histories.
On that topic, volunteer and contribute your time to local LGBTQ history initiatives. Everyone is based in different parts of the country, so another great option for access are online projects like The Pink Triangle Legacies Project, Queer Zine Archive Project, Queer Digital History Project, and Invisible Histories. Everyone has skills, especially GLAM workers, to support the work of these independent history groups.
Financially support and visit grassroots LGBTQ+ archives and museums. Despite mass censorship and violence over the past year, queer and trans history workers have created and facilitated groundbreaking exhibitions and community action at the Museum of Transology (specifically the TRANSCESTRY exhibition), the Museum of Transgender Hirstory & Art, and other grassroots archives, libraries, and museums created by and for our communities.
Queer and trans museum workers refuse to be silenced and shut out of institutions that have long ignored our histories. The work that we do to seek representation is too important, too urgent, to abandon. We look to these grassroots efforts as models for how our institutions can preserve and tell queer and trans histories because many of them were founded themselves during times of censorship and violence.
Find and support your local LGBTQ (and other) employee resource groups and other organizations pushing for transparency and accountability at your workplaces. Right now, many of these groups have gone underground. Where you can, provide mutual aid and financial and organizational support to these groups, and you can be an advocate (especially if you have privilege and protection) for these organizations and their efforts.
Support the unionization of GLAM workers — show up for pickets and use your attendance and money to support institutions that support and invest in their LGBTQ cultural workers. This past year has been incredibly difficult for LGBTQ museum workers — from censorship and erasure of our histories to the firing of and discrimination against LGBTQ federal workers, federal agencies have denied our existence, cut off lifesaving care for LGBTQ people, and ordered the termination of employee community resource groups.
Mobilize and fight against anti-LGBTQ legislation affecting your queer and trans GLAM colleagues (and your neighbors). As goes LGBTQ histories and representation, so goes rights for queer and trans museum staff. The best examples of this are the experiences of queer and trans federal and trust workers. Call your representatives, participate in resistance efforts, and contribute to mutual aid supporting people most hurt by the legislation.
Hope is not lost! LGBTQ history, as I can attest, is not going anywhere, but amid the rising tide of censorship and erasure, there has never been a more important time to show up in support of LGBTQ preservation, curation, and education efforts. As the victory surrounding the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument represents, these are hard-fought battles but ones that we can win with your support.
As Washington shifts right, Democratic Socialists gain ground
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