Queer Pasts is a collection of primary source exhibits for students and scholars of queer history and culture. The database uses queer in its broadest and most inclusive sense, to embrace topics that are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and to include work on sexual and gender formations that are queer but not necessarily LGBT. Each of the document collections in the database will include a critical introductory essay that helps explain the significance of the primary sources in historical terms and in relationship to previous scholarship. We ask our project editors to address the strengths, limitations, and characteristics of their archive and to explore the ways in which archives are constructed, constrained, and contested.
This database seeks to broaden the field of queer history, including projects that focus on the experiences and perspectives of under-represented historical groups, including people of color, trans people, and people with disabilities.