Photos by Ben Robson.

Before reading this article, I implore you to explore the history of the Stonewall Riots (yeah, yeah, it’s courtesy of Wikipedia, but they have the most in depth history of it), that shaped New York and the entire LGBT community in the 1960’s, as well as are discussed below.

The main goal in my life is to live as openly and truthfully as I possibly can, even if it means facing persecution. Perhaps it’s a bit trite that I, an openly gay man, is the one to do the write-up on the LGBT exhibit in the Student Union, but here we are. Running through the end of September, “Publicly Identified” covers the LGBT history of Charlotte dating back to the 1940’s up until present day. This expansive exhibit (don’t let the size fool you, you’ll need at least half an hour in here) covers the stories, hardships and triumphs of the LGBT community of Charlotte in perfect depth, leaving you inspired and proud, no matter what you identify as.

I sat down with the curator, UNC Charlotte professor Joshua Burford, to discuss the exhibit, as well as some LGBT issues going on today.

Starting very simple, why do you think it’s important to run the exhibit in the Student Union? And why right now?

Well, the timing of the exhibit really just came down to scheduling, but we really wanted it to be close to October, for LGBT history month, so we really just chose a good block of time to show it. Why it’s important to have it on campus is whole different issue. We had an exhibit at the Levine Museum last year and a lot of students saw it, but we really wanted students to be able to experience what the collection is doing that’s even easier for them. We have students coming to the Union for their Union business and then they can just walk right through the exhibit, which is what’s been happening so far and the turnout has always been crazy good.

Where do you think Charlotte stands within the world of LGBT history?

We have a misconception about how the south has been interacting with the national LGBT community. There’s a stigma that we’re about 10-15 years behind in the south, which is not true, seeing as we have history going back to the 1940’s in the exhibit so far. Not to mention, if you look at the scheduling of our pride celebrations, our first organizations of political activism, all of this was happening only a year or two after Stonewall, so we are not behind. If you look at the way we’ve organized as a community, staying true to our southern, grassroots ideology, we are leading, then and now, about how we organize ourselves in terms of identity, resource development and resource development. Charlotte is doing really good, we’re not behind at all.

(photo by Ben Robson)

Much of the history presented in the exhibit is Transgender history, which is often swept under the rug. Why do you think trans erasure has been so commonplace in mainstream society and even the transgender community?

There are two things in play. When we think of history, we like to imagine that historians are the most democratic of people and that they study all that is there, but that’s not really true. The study of LGBT history up until about 10 years ago was white people’s history, simply because if you think about the way economic status plays into cultural preservation, people of a particular socioeconomic status, primarily cisgender, wealthy, white people were the people who had the time, money and wherewithal to actually preserve their history, they paid for the first history lessons, their history were the easiest to obtain. People who were at risk for their gender identity, for socioeconomic reasons don’t have the luxury to preserve their history, because they’re simply trying to survive a situation that’s basically trying to eliminate them. There has been a lot of ignoring of trans history because it’s been seen as not important, but it’s also because a lot of it simply doesn’t exist. We’re digging deep trying to find trans history enough to where people can see it. Even then, a lot of people in the LGBT community decided to simply ignore the trans people that were at Stonewall and then by extension, the two previous riots that happened in L.A. and in San Francisco, simply because they were led by trans people. In that time, trans identity was simply considered too controversial for gays who wanted to mainstream their identities.

From that, what are your views on the controversial new “Stonewall” film?

*lets out exasperated sound of disgust* I wish that I had something positive to say about it, but I don’t believe in the idea of “visibility at any cost,” even though a lot of people do. I think what I’ve seen of the film is very typical, simply to sell a mainstream story. This film is not being made for queer people, it just isn’t… they can’t sell a mainstream movie about trans women of color, sex workers, drag queens and malcontent, because audiences never see that. When you see gay and lesbian people on TV, or even when you see trans people on TV, you see wealthy, able-bodied trans people, even if you do see some trans people of color, they’re a very particular kind of trans person of color. The reaction to the film has been very heartwarming to me though, simply to see audiences go “Nope, we are not going to watch this, this is crap” because it is. It’s not just inaccurate, it’s violently colonizing, erasing all trans people into caricatures, which is frustrating, but unfortunately typical.

(photo by Ben Robson)

Do you think the negative stigma of HIV/AIDS in the late 20th century in the LGBT community has paved a way for something more positive in the LGBT community? Turning something ugly and malicious and flipping it on its head.

I think it could have, but I don’t think it actually has. The things we did in the LGBT community surrounding HIV/AIDS were all done by radical outsiders, who came in and changed the nature of how we could organize ourselves. We really began to look at how shame became such a role in our community, so there was a real positive change that was led almost exclusively by HIV positive people. The problem came around 1997 or 1998, where we stopped talking about complex issues and only talked about same sex marriage and the military. After that, we just stopped talking about HIV/AIDS, we just did, because it became manageable, and no longer an immediate threat, then we just quit. There was a moment in history where could’ve done something amazing in our community with it, but we opted into a conversation about mainstream acceptance and equality. Equality isn’t actually a thing, because nobody truly has it.

Whats the next step for the LGBT community in Charlotte?

I can only speak from my own perspective, but we’ve made some great progress in the recent months in bringing the community together through conversations, with work being done to create a new community coalition initiative, that’s helping us set an agenda for the community. I also think there’s a resurgence now in political activism in Charlotte, as people are seeing themselves as a part of a political process now, building that and moving that forward really seems like something that’s worth investing our time in. Finally, I think we’ve allowed enough space in our community for trans people to have their own voice and how we move forward being led by the trans members of our community is really important as well.

(photo by Ben Robson)

Can you talk about Time Out Youth? What it is and what it hopes to achieve?

It started in the early 90’s by the work of Tonda Taylor, who is a native Charlottean, who was in New York during Stonewall, who came back to Charlotte in that first migration of queer identified people back into the city. They do a lot of amazing work, they’ve really grown from just a support group model to an agency that are working in schools, they’re training and filling in the work because we don’t have a dedicated LGBT shelter, making sure people have places to live and whatnot. We work with Time Out Youth in the Carolina Conference for Queer Youth which we do every October, to make sure we’re having conversations about youth, with youth, treating them as colleagues and not problems.

By the closing of the exhibit, what do you hope is achieved from a student’s perspective?

The first is that, like I mentioned before, that Charlotte is not behind, that we’ve never been behind. We have to give up that notion that we are limited as both queer identified people and as southerners. We have to stop playing that game, because it’s not useful. The second is that if they can see how much work has been done in such a short amount of time, what can they do to continue the process? If it’s been done before, what can we do now? Imagine how much work was done in the 1990’s without the internet, imagine what we could do now. I want visitors to see themselves as a part of history.

When is the reception that people can attend? What will happen at the reception?

Sept. 17 at 7:00 p.m., we’re having the official naming of the collection, whom we’re naming after three local activists. After that, we’re having a reception where community people and students can get together, because there’s going to be a lot of people in attendance that are featured in the exhibit. Everyone is invited to come out, so we can have conversations with and about people from our queer past, present and future, to experience the collection as a timeline and a living thing.

“Publicly Identified” is currently in the Student Union Art Gallery until Sept. 30. Visit http://timeoutyouth.org for more information about Time Out Youth and http://visitgaycharlotte.org for information about things happening in the Charlotte LGBT community and how to get involved.