My first in-person conference in four years was a fun and affirming space, and was the most interdisciplinary conference I have been to so far in my career.1 The Queer History South conference was held from September 30-October 2 at Dallas College’s El Centro Campus in downtown Dallas, Texas. I attended sessions, facilitated a breakout group, and spent one-on-one time with activist Mandy Carter. Oh, and I ate a ton of good food.
I represented Nashville Queer History, an organization and digital hub I founded in September 2021 that researches, preserves, and shares the LGBTQ+ history of Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Because I still consider myself new to the field of queer and trans history (my focus in undergrad and graduate school was Black civil rights and student activist movements), I came to absorb, listen, and learn from others who have been doing great work across the southern United States. I walked away feeling less alone in not only my public history endeavors but also my queer identity.
The other great thing about this trip was that I stayed with two of my best friends, Kathryn Slover and Evan Spencer, who live in Arlington and work at UT-Arlington Libraries. I arrived a day before the conference and spent time catching up with them; we had not seen each other since before the pandemic started in 2020. On Thursday, we drove by the absolutely massive AT&T Stadium, ate an amazing lunch at Tic-Taco, took a much needed afternoon cat nap (see Winston the orange tabby below), devoured more incredible food in Ft. Worth (my hamburger had grilled peaches on it!), and watched Evan try to rally his kickball team back from defeat. It was a wonderful first day in Texas.
Winston was unusually cuddly during my stay.
The day one plenary speech from Moe Vela struck a personal chord with me. A fourth-generation Texan, Vela is most known for being the first Hispanic-American and LGBTQ-American to serve twice in the White House; in 1996, he began his role as chief financial officer and senior policy advisor for Hispanic outreach activities for the Office of the Vice President, and later he served as Director of Administration for Vice President Joe Biden during the Obama administration. He talked about his childhood and the mental health issues that came with hiding his sexuality. While working for Vice President Gore, Vela’s partner was dishonorably discharged from the military for being gay and he told Gore he wanted to resign from his position. Gore refused to accept his resignation and then embraced Vela while saying something along the lines of, “I see you, I accept you, and I celebrate you.” I have never had someone say such words to me as a queer person, and I cannot imagine what it must have felt like for Vela to experience that in such a vulnerable moment. His speech highlighted how the personal is political and historical, and how vital it is to share our stories.
The first day featured multiple sessions of concurrent presentations. Choosing which ones to attend was a truly cruel task. Since I recently became a metadata librarian, I enjoyed a group discussion on “Description and Metadata for LGBTQ+ Collections” by Elliot Williams of the Texas Digital Library. In the afternoon, I learned about the Invisible Histories Project from co-founders Maigen Sullivan and Josh Burford, the incredible work of James Capello conducting community-led archival research, and the work of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana. For lunch, my plate had a delicious barbecue chicken sandwich, green beans, potato salad and some iced sweet tea to drink. I also spent part of lunch exploring the Pride in Dallas exhibit located near the entrance of Dallas College.
Kathryn and I ended day one of the conference by visiting the oldest lesbian bar in Texas—Sue Ellen’s. A silent auction for a local LGBTQ+ equality organization was happening at the bar. We stayed for one drink before heading out into the gayborhood with rainbow crosswalks, BDSM shops, LGBTQ+ thrift stores benefiting AIDS/HIV organizations, and, of course, more gay bars.
Day two began with a plenary speech from Mandy Carter, a Black lesbian activist who co-founded Southerners on New Ground, the National Black Justice Coalition, and Equality North Carolina. She was a riot, and I am so grateful I got to speak with her one-on-one for a lengthy time later in the day during the breakout session I facilitated on community archives. We talked about the need for intergenerational connection among younger and older queer people, sustainable community organizing, and sharing wisdom.
I got to meet many Internet friends at this conference, too, including Samantha Rosenthal who presented on her recent book, Living Queer History, as well as the community work of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project.
Samantha sharing some questions you can ponder about your local queer and trans community.
After dinner, we stumbled upon a protest at the JFK Memorial. Hundreds of protesters held signs, waved Iranian flags, and chanted in support of greater freedom following the death of Mahsa Amini.
The final event of my time in Dallas was hanging at Cidercade with Kathryn and Aiden Bettine (another Internet friend) on Saturday night. Appropriately decorated with fake cobwebs and monster figures for the first day of October, Cidercade has multiple rooms of pinball machines, classic arcade games, and other favorites like skee-ball and a knockoff of Dance Dance Revolution. Memories of watching mall goths spend hours stomping away to synth-pop beats came flooding back to me. It also had me wondering about the queer history of the shopping mall.
Kathryn and Aiden playing Mortal Kombat.
Dallas, you were lovely. I was especially impressed with the University of North Texas’s work preserving LGBTQ+ collections, and the tireless work of The Dallas Way in acquiring archival material from the local community. I appreciate sharing space with all of you, and I cannot wait to return to the gayborhood. Next time, we will line dance at the Round Up Saloon for a good ole queer country time!