Queer Politics collection
Scope and Contents
The collection contains roughly 265 pieces of ephemera and writings representing historical intersections of LGBTQ+ activism in the United States. These materials include event flyers, programs, meeting minutes, correspondence, brochures, pamphlets, letters, articles, zines, buttons, and bumper stickers.
Dates
- Creation: 1965 - 2010
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open and available for research in the MSU Libraries Special Collections' reading room. For preservation and security purposes, researchers are limited to accessing one folder at a time.
Conditions Governing Access
The material is stored off site. Please request 3 working days in advance if you wish to use it.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright is retained by the authors of the items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. For photocopy and duplication requests, please contact the Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections, Michigan State University Libraries.
Biographical / Historical
The Queer Politics collection consists mostly of ephemera documenting LGBTQ+ activism in the United States from the mid-1960s to the early 2000s. Some of the topics covered includes the AIDS epidemic and the divergent views from different organizations, boycotting of corporations over their financial support to right wing politicians and their anti-gay policies, conscientious objection to the military draft, immigration rights, unionization support, civil rights for sexual minorities, the support or opposition to specific politicians or ballot initiatives such as the “Briggs Initiative,” as well as marches and demonstrations.
Extent
1 Linear Feet (2 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
The collection is organized in eleven series:
1. AIDS organizations
2. Articles, interviews, letters, speeches, and other writings
3. Gay politicians
4. LGBTQ+ action campaigns
5. LGBTQ+ civil rights
6. LGBTQ+ conscientious objection
7. LGBTQ+ events
8. LGBTQ+ immigration rights
9. LGBTQ+ people in the military
10. LGBTQ+ people in the workplace
11. LGBTQ+ political groups
Series 7 (LGBTQ+ events) contains 3 subseries: LGBTQ+ conferences, LGBTQ+ demonstrations, and Pride events.
In order to highlight the many topics covered within the collection an intellectual arrangengement of series and sub-series was created using terms from the Homosaurus Vocabulary. A vocabulary developed by the people and communities represented in this collection.
The physical collection is arranged alphabetically.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
This collection was purchased from Tomberg Rare Books in 2013.
Separated Materials
The following materials have been separated from the collection and individually cataloged for enhanced discovery and access:
Albany Trust and Homosexual Law Reform Society. Spectrum: A.T./H.L.R.S. newsletter
Anarchy Collective (Great Britain). Anarchy. Towards a rational bisexuality, vol 1, no. 1 (1971)
ANSLIM. Beyond Sexuality: A New and Provocative View of Sexual Liberation : Including: Celibacy, Androgyny, 'Mens Liberation', and Bisexuality
Bay Area Men's Resource Catalog Collective. Bay Area Men's Resource Catalog
Bay Area Men's Resource Catalog Collective. Future History: A Resource Journal for Men Against Sexism
Black lace no.1 (Spring 1991)
Brodine, Karen. Woman sitting at the machine, thinking : poems
Burk, Charlotte. Feminism in the 80's : facing down the right
Burnett. John F. The meaning of gay liberation : an analysis and program for action
Caulfield, Charles R. with Billi Goldberg. The anarchist AIDS medical formulary : a guide to guerrilla immunology
Clausen, Jan. A movement of poets : thoughts on poetry and feminism
Connecticut Stonewall Foundation, et al. Challenging and Changing America: The Struggle for Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender Civil Rights 1900- 1999 [Exhibition Catalog]
Institute for Social and Economic Studies (Oakland, Calif.). CrossRoads: Contemporary Political Analysis & Left Dialogue
Day, Hem. Hommage à Georges Eekhoud, né à Anvers en 1854, mort à Bruxelles le 24 mai 1927
Deaderick, Sam and Tamara Turner. Gay resistance : the hidden history
Dubrovsky, Ruth and Lorna Niles. Lesbian and gay exclusion : the policy that dares not speak its nam
Dykes & gorgons vol. 1 no. 1
Gay Freedom Day (San Francisco, Calif.) and Gay Freedom Day Committee (San Francisco, Calif.). Gay Freedom Day, a Celebration
Gay Shame. Creating change or creating chains? : resisting the non-profit industrial complex & building cultures of direct action
Gay Switchboard (Berkeley, Calif.) and Committee of Concern for Homosexuals. Gay Switchboard
Gay Teachers and School Workers Coalition
Greenberg, David F. The problem of prisons
Hay, Harry. Radically gay : gay liberation in the words of its founder
Human Rights Commission of San Francisco (San Francisco, Calif.). Gay Advisory Committee report on the public hearings
I promise you this : [a collection of poems for Harvey Milk]
Kennedy, Hubert C. Anarchist of Love: The Secret Life of John Henry Mackay
Kepner, Jim. Picket Lines
Kissack, Terence S. Free Comrades: Anarchism and Homosexuality in the United States, 1895-1917
Latvijas Asociacija Seksualai Vienlidzibai. Logs (1992)
Lauritsen, John, and David Thorstad. The Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935)
Lavender papers 2. An analysis of lesbian oppression
Lavender vision
League for Civil Education. The LCE News
Levin, James. Reflections on the American Homosexual Rights Movement
Los Angeles Research Group. Toward a Scientific Analysis of the Gay Question
Mackay, John Henry, George Schumm, and Gabriele Reuter. The Anarchists: A Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century
Mackay Society. The Arrow: Bulletin of the Mackay Society
McCubbin, Bob. The Gay Question: A Marxist Appraisal
Melbourne Gay Teachers and Students Group. Young, Gay, and Proud
Milligan, Don. The Politics of Homosexuality (Pluto Press)
Milligan, Don. The Politics of Homosexuality (Edinburgh Gay Activists Alliance)
Mitzel, John. Sports & the Macho Male
Molloy, Alice. In Other Words: Notes on the Politics and Morale of Survival
National Gay Student Center (U.S.) and J. Lee Lehman. Changes in Gay Student Rights
National Socialist League (U.S.). NS Mobilizer
New American Movement (Organization). Working Papers on Gay-lesbian Liberation and Socialism
On homosexuality : a Stalino-Leninist guide to love and sex. Revolutionary Union
Our Paper: Your Paper
Peacott, Joe. Disinformation and Distortion: An Anarchist Exposé of AIDS Politics
Pearce, Frank, and Andy Roberts. Who screws who? : church + state v. sexuality : press treatment of homosexuals
Radical America. Facing AIDS: a special issue. vol. 20 no. 6 (1987)
Radical America. Founding of the Mattachine Society: an interview with Henry Hay. vol. 11 no. 4 (1971)
Radical chick
Raico, Ralph. Gay Rights: A Libertarian Approach
Red-LHOCA. Festividad Homosexual
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. On the position on homosexuality in the new draft programme
Roscoe, Will, and Harry Hay. A Blessing from Wovoka
Ruth, Barbara. From the Belly of the Beast: [poems]
Ruth, Barbara. The Politics of Relationships
San Francisco Gay Democratic Club. Gayvote: news from the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club
San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO. Northern California labor v.39 no.3 (1986)
Shelley, Martha. Crossing the DMZ
Shutes, Chris. Two Local Chapters in the Spectacle of Decomposition
Socialist Alliance (Australia) and Farida Iqbal. The Road to Rainbow Liberation: Marriage, Sex and Gender Rights Today
Socialist Workers Party. San Francisco Local and Socialist Workers Party. Northern California Bay Area District. Discussion Bulletin
Socialist Workers Party. SWP Discussion Bulletin
Stanford, Adrian. Black & Queer
Stonewall Organizing Committee. Stonewall Means Resistance
Student Christian Movement of Great Britain and Ireland and Malcolm Macourt. Towards a Theology of Gay Liberation
The Lavender & Red Book: A Gay Liberation/socialist Anthology
The Sentinel (San Francisco) vol. 25 no 24 (1978)
The Storm : a journal for free spirits
The voice of the Gay Students Coalition, v. 1 no. 2 (1974)
Times Change Press. Come out! : Selections from the radical gay liberation newspaper
Timmons, Stuart. The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement
Town talk
Transcending our plumbing
Trottier, Tom. The LGBT Movement and the Fight for Equality
Turnover. Gay oppression: a socialist perspective
United Methodist Church (U.S.). Board of Education. Division of Higher Education, Methodist Church (U.S.). Motive, vol. 32 no. 1 Lesbian/feminist issue
United Methodist Church (U.S.). Board of Education. Division of Higher Education, Methodist Church (U.S.). Motive, vol. 32 no. 2 Gay men’s liberation issue
Vocations for Social Change (Firm). Vocations for Social Change. Gay folk
Voelcker, Hunce. Songs for the Revolution
Wages Due Lesbians (Organization) and Selma James. Out of the Clause into the Workhouse
What Is Marxism All About?
Wittman, Carl. Refugees from America: A Gay Manifesto
Woman to woman: a book of poems and drawings by women
Women's Health Interaction and Donna Chiarelli. Uncommon Questions: A Feminist Exploration of AIDS
Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor. Growing Up Gay
Processing Information
Processed by Jillian C. Coy in September 2013 and partially reprocessed by Lydia Tang in June 2019.
Reprocessed by Eli Landaverde in 2025 to incorporate missing items, standardize titles and dates, refolder all materials and encase materials in need of preservation, create a series arrangement, and provide an updated historical note for the collection.
Topical
- Gay liberation movement -- United States -- History -- Sources.
- Gay Men -- United States -- Political activity -- History -- Sources.
- Gay rights -- United States -- History -- Sources.
- Homosexuality -- Political aspects -- United States -- Sources.
- Lesbians -- Political activity -- United States -- History -- 20th century -- Sources
- Title
- Queer Politics collection
- Status
- 4 Published And Cataloged
- Author
- Eli Landaverde (2025). Lydia Tang (2019). Jillian C. Coy (2013).
- Date
- 2025-04
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Revision Statements
- 2019-06-06: Finding aid revised to reflect noted missing items, revised access policy, and refinement of alphabetical folder arrangement.
- 2025-04: Finding aid revised to incorporate missing items, standardize titles and dates, create a series arrangement, and provide an updated historical note for the collection.
Repository Details
Part of the Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections Repository