Digital Transgender Archive

Related Sites

Projects Focused on Trans History

Below is a list of links for archives, encyclopedias, articles, ebooks, and other helpful resources related to trans history, broadly understood. If you are looking specifically for links to our collaborating institutions, please visit the Institutions page.

A Gender Variance Who's Who

"This site is the most comprehensive on the web devoted to trans history and biography. Well over 1200 persons worthy of note, both famous and obscure, are discussed in detail, and many more are mentioned in passing–especially in the year-end summaries."

Arresting Dress: A Timeline of Anti-Crossdressing Laws in the United States

A timeline showing the evolution of several U.S. laws enforcing sex-specific dress. Most of these laws have since been overturned.

Black Trans Archive

Created by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, "WE ARE HERE BECAUSE OF THOSE THAT ARE NOT": A Black Trans Archive is an interactive archive "made to store and centre Black trans people, to preserve our experiences, our thoughts, our feelings, our lives, to remember us even when we are at risk of being erased."

Drag King History

"This website was created to showcase the extensive history of performers from breeches roles to en travesti, variety to vaudeville, male impersonation to drag kings, and drag kings to gender free. It is our sincerest hopes that this site serves to preserve these art forms and to create community and unity. We hope you find this site informative, empowering and enlightening. This is our gift to all of the courageous performers who came before us and to those who will come after so they too may weave their influence onto the stages, films and literature for all to enjoy."

Gendertalk

"Over 400 inspiring, entertaining and informative programs. Each program is indexed with links to more info. We’re not taping new shows, but you can still listen!"

Gender Talents

"A web-based project by artist Carlos Motta that engages movements and discourses for gender self-determination within trans and intersex communities internationally. Gender Talents features an online archive of video portraits of trans and intersex activists who thoughtfully perform gender as a personal, social, and political opportunity rather than as a social condemnation."

History UnErased

"Intersections and Connections curriculum presents LGBT+ history within a more complete story of civilization. Our holistic, non-judgmental, age-appropriate approach encourages critical analysis and historical thinking skills while normalizing LGBT+ identities."

LGBT Religious Archives Network

Compiles materials pertaining to religious movements of LGBT individuals and organizations. The site hosts special exhibitions and includes several collections of photographs, oral histories, and profiles of influential individuals in international LGBT religious movements. Trans-specific materials can be found through searching the site’s collections catalog.

Lili Elbe Digital Archive

The digital archive hosts the German typescript and all four editions of this narrative published in Danish, German, and English between 1931 and 1933, plus the first complete English translations of the Danish edition and the German typescript.

Making Gay History

"The Making Gay History podcast mines Eric Marcus's decades old audio archive of rare interviews—conducted for his award-winning oral history of the LGBTQ civil rights movement—to create intimate, personal portraits of both known and long-forgotten champions, heroes, and witnesses to history."

OurStory Scotland

"OurStory Scotland is a recognised Scottish Charity (SCIO) [that collects, archives and presents] the life stories and experiences of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender) community in Scotland. This involves oral history work with all ages, including the older generation, whose stories reveal the tremendous changes that have occurred in the situation of LGBT people during their lifetime. In addition to collecting stories, images, artifacts and research materials from LGBT lives, [OurStory Scotland] present[s] our heritage through the arts, in exhibitions, storytelling and drama."

OutHistory.org

Provides historical information relating to transgender, gay, lesbian, and bisexual people through a mixture of primary source materials, biographies, and timelines. Materials can be searched by time period, individual, place, source type, and subject.

Queer Digital History Project

The Queer Digital History Project "is an ongoing effort to document pre-2010 LGBTQ digital spaces online. [Their] current projects include a catalog of early LGBTQ online communities, an archive of transgender-related Usenet newsgroups, and interactive maps of TGNet, one of the first international transgender-specific BBS networks

Reed Erickson and the Erickson Educational Foundation

A history of Reed Erickson and his impact on public and medical understandings of transsexualism through the Erickson Educational Foundation (EEF).

Stormé DeLarverié Home Page

This website provides biographicaly information on Stormé, including a life history, a list of songs, and a gallery of photographs.

That's So Gay: Outing Early America

An exhibit hosted by The Library Company of Philadelphia with a few pages on crosss-dressing and gender bending.

To Survive on This Shore

"Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender-Variant Older Adults."

Tracking Transgender: The Historical Truth

Cristan Williams’s personal blog, which shares historical research on the etymology of trans-related terminology.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

A site dedicated to the Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual day of mourning first recognized by Gwendolyn Ann Smith.

Transgender Media Portal

"The Transgender Media Portal aims to make audiovisual work by trans, Two Spirit, nonbinary, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people more available to artists, activists, festival programmers, researchers, instructors, and the public."

The "Trans + Gender" Project

An interactive timeline that tracks the historical emergence and etymology of the trans + gender compound. This timeline features clippings from books, correspondence, academic articles, and other related primary sources.

Transrespect Versus Transphobia Worldwide

An ongoing research project that monitors the human rights situations of trans people all over the world. The TvT website provides access to the project's past publications, as well as other articles in a variety of languages, and digitally maps the legal and social situation of trans people worldwide.

"The Sissies, Hustlers, and Hair Fairies Whose Defiant Lives Paved the Way for Stonewall"

A lengthy article on U.S. transgender history.

The Visibility Project

A national portrait and video collection documenting "the personal experiences of the Queer Asian Pacific American women and transgender community by interweaving visual art, personal narratives, and social justice onto an accessible online platform."

 

Organizations We Appreciate

Below is a list of links for organizations, advocacy groups, charities, and resource lists we appreciate and recommend supporting. 

2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations (2Spirits)

"We provide prevention education and support for 2-Spirit, including First Nations, metis and Inuit people living with or at risk for HIV and related co-infections in the Greater Toronto Area."

Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women & Transgender Community (APIQWTC)

"APIQWTC provides opportunities for Asian & Pacific Islander queer women and transgender people to socialize, network, build community, engage in inter-generational organizing, and increase community visibility."

The Audre Lorde Project

"The Audre Lorde Project is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color center for community organizing, focusing on the New York City area."

Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS)

"Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS) exists to restore and recover the role of Two-Spirit people within the American Indian/First Nations community by creating a forum for the spiritual, cultural and artistic expression of Two-Spirit people."

Black Trans Travel Fund

"The Black Trans Travel Fund is a grassroots, Black Trans led Collective, providing Black transgender women with financial and material resources needed to remove barriers to self-determining and accessing safer travel options."

GLAAD

An organization dedicated to shaping a narrative of equality surrounding LGBT issues in the media and generating positive change. Their guide on transgender issues provides definitions of related terms and distinguishes appropriate terms from derogatory ones: GLAAD's Transgender Timeline.

Indigenous Peoples Task Force

"The Indigenous Peoples Task Force strengthens the wellness of our community in a way that is based in indigenous values and ways of knowing. We were founded in 1987 to develop and implement culturally appropriate HIV education and direct services to the Native community in Minnesota."

The Marsha P. Johnson Institute

"The Marsha P. Johnson Institute (MPJI) protects and defends the human rights of BLACK transgender people. We do this by organizing, advocating, creating an intentional community to heal, developing transformative leadership, and promoting our collective power."

The National Black Trans Advocacy Coalition

"Through our national advocacy center and affiliate state chapters we work daily, advocating to end poverty, discrimination in all forms and its human inequities faced in health, employment, housing and education that are rooted in systemic racism, to improve the lived experience of transgender people."

National Center for Transgender Equality

A Washington, D.C., non-profit social justice organization that advocates for transgender equality in pertinent national issues. The NCTE’s resources page provides digital editions of local and national reports on transgender issues as well as educational and activist literature.

NativeOut

"Mission is to educate, gain acceptance, conduct outreach, promote visibility, encourage wellness, build alliances, and advocate for our Native American Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Two-Spirit community."

Montana Two Spirit Society

"The mission of the Montana Two Spirit Society is to advocate and educate the Montana LGBTQ community and general community about Two Spirit issues, histories and traditions."

Sylvia Rivera Law Project

"The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence."

Trans and Intersex History Africa

An interactive timeline of the contemporary trans and intersex movement on the African continent.

Transfaith

A national nonprofit organization "working to support transgender spiritual/cultural workers and their leadership in community." The site provides information on trans religious and spiritual practices, events, and activism.

Trans Student Equality Resources

A youth organization aimed at improving educational experiences and opportunities for trans and gender-nonconforming students. The TSER website makes available model policy literature, infographics relating to trans issues, and other online activism resources.

Trans Women of Color Collective

"Our Mission: To uplift the narratives, lived experiences and leadership of trans and gender non-conforming people of color, our families and comrades as we build towards collective liberation for all oppressed people."

Two-Spirit Resource Directory

Directory of Two-Spirit organizations and resources created by Harlan Pruden on behalf of the National Confederacy of Two-Spirit Organizations and NorthEast Two-Spirit Society with the support of the Stonewall Community Foundation.

Are we missing anything? Please contact us with corrections, suggestions, and updated information!