University of Pittsburgh Library System

This project offers a comparative analysis of Pittsburgh’s queer communities and social life in the 1970s, the 1990s, and the twenty-first century. Along with communities around the country, queer individuals in Pittsburgh faced a variety of implicit and explicit discrimination, fed by the conservative turn towards a more hetero- and cis-normative culture after the Second World War. In response to direct systemic violence and social isolation, queer people began to create their own community spaces where they could turn for resources, support, and mutual aid. Using queer periodicals, event records, and personal accounts, I craft a narrative of these people and places to highlight how they enabled survival, love, and joy in the face of persecution. By drawing on resources created by and for queer audiences, my work transcends narratives of queer tragedy and trauma to consider how queerness can provide a space of community, vibrancy, and love. I also use my research to reconsider my own experiences of queer community in Pittsburgh in 2024. This has led me to reflect on the disappearance of the physical spaces that I read about and the seeming dissolution of the community itself. I have found that modern representations of queerness have been sanitized to conform and assimilate to narratives from dominant powers. Thus, my research also confronts modern definitions of “pride” and emphasizes the value of anticapitalism and queer liberation in creating a strong, healthy, and supportive community. I intend to use my findings to reflect on local queer histories and to create space for community in the present by creating a virtual space for creating and collecting contemporary records of queer communities. Queer archival materials are scarce and I hope that my work can make future research about queer communities easier. I also hope to establish a community across archives in Pittsburgh, as my research incorporates multiple sites, including the Heinz History Center and Carnegie Mellon University.