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Community Corner

Weho to Host LGBT History Conference for First Time

The four-day event makes its West Coast debut Thursday at Plummer Park.

It has been said that gay youth do not know anything about gay history. Well, there’s a group of older gays dedicated to preserving that gay history for those who may someday want to know about it. And they are holding a conference in West Hollywood this weekend.

The LGBT Archives, Libraries, Museums and Special Collections (ALMS) conference is Thursday through Sunday in Plummer Park. This is the third international ALMS conference and the first one being held on the West Coast.

“We’re hoping to get people to understand that a huge amount of LGBT history happened in California and that a significant portion of it happened before Stonewall,” says conference organizer Angela Brinskele, who serves as director of communication for the West Hollywood-based June Mazer Lesbian Archives, the host organization.

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About 125 people from around the globe are expected to attend. What they share is a deep passion for gay history and ensuring that it “survives unchanged.”  

“Gay and lesbian archives are mainly run by volunteers. They do it for the love of it since so much of this would be lost,” explains West Hollywood resident Lynne Kirste, who will be doing two presentations about film at the conference. “This is a chance for them to come together, network, share ideas and see what other archives are doing.” 

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ALMS will have many workshops and speakers aimed at academic audiences, but several events are free and intended for the general public. 

Thursday at 7 p.m. in Fiesta Hall, theologian Dr. Marie Cartier will give the opening address. Her topic is “Baby, You Are My Religion,” discussing the butch-femme bar culture of the mid 20th century.

“Bars in the gay community were often like a church, because everything happened in the bar,” Brinskele said of Cartier’s talk. “Over and over again, people said bars were where they created community. Marriage ceremonies happened there, wakes were held there.”

Sunday at 10:30 a.m. in Fiesta Hall, activist Cleve Jones, best known for creating the AIDS Quilt, will close the conference by discussing oral history and activism.

“The AIDS Quilt is a favorite thing to people in archives,” said Brinskele. “Cleve did a wonderful thing. There’s so much LGBT history in those quilt panels.”

Also open to the public is a free tour of the Mazer Archives and ONE Archives Gallery on Friday from 7:30-9 p.m. Both are located in the Werle Building on Robertson Boulevard, adjacent to West Hollywood Park.

The rest of the events are for conference-attendees only, but interested locals can buy a day pass for $100 or register for the entire conference for $150. ALMS was able to keep conference registration prices low, because the city of West Hollywood donated the space in Plummer Park. Registration is available on site.

Several workshops are worth noting.

Friday morning, Lillian Faderman, considered the world's leading scholar on lesbian history and co-author of the book Gay LA: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics and Lipstick Lesbians, will give a presentation.  

Saturday afternoon, Kirste will present a workshop on LGBT culture as seen in home movies. “People tend to think home movies are boring,” says Kirste. “But they’re not. It’s like a time machine where you get to see how people really lived their everyday lives.”

Among the home movies Kirste plans to show are a lesbian birthday party, a group of gay men at Muscle Beach in the late 1950s and an early San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade with Harvey Milk.

Other workshops on the schedule include presentations on a new global LGBTQ thesaurus, African-American LGBT culture, creating a transgender archive and hidden censorship in LGBT books.

Anyone can register to attend the conference. Visit the Mazer Lesbian Archives website to learn more.

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