Welcome - Getting Started with Trans History and Trans Research - Trans Studies and Trans History

Archives are great!

- Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive, San Fransisco

New York City Trans Oral History Project

A community archive devoted to the collection, preservation and sharing of trans histories, organized in collaboration with the New York Public Library. Documents transgender resistance and resilience in New York City.

The Tretter Transgender Oral History Project (TTOHP)
Committed to collecting, preserving, and making available oral histories of gender transgression, broadly understood through a trans framework. Hosted at the University of Minnesota
Trans Oral History Project
The Transgender Oral History Project was the first community-driven effort to collect and share a diverse range of stories from within the transgender and gender-expansive communities in the US.
Trans Activism Oral History Project
The Trans Activism Oral History project’s purpose was to record elders’ history of activism on behalf of trans people and communities in order to establish and preserve trans-specific and trans-positive primary source historical narratives for future generations.
Smith College - Trans Oral History Archive Project
Oral history interviews with Smith College students and alumnae who identify as trans and/or non-binary, conducted by Sam Davis (Class of 2017) for his documentary project entitled "In Our Own Words: On Being Trans at Smith."
University of Victoria - Transgender Archives
Most substantial Transgender archive in North America. From their site "We believe that the history of pioneering Trans+ and other gender-diverse activists and the work they have done on behalf of their communities must be preserved. The Transgender Archives is actively acquiring documents, rare publications, and memorabilia of persons and organizations that have worked for the betterment of Trans+ people"

he/him

Email Me

Subjects: American Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, First-Year Writing, German, History, Jewish Studies, Slavic Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Research Guide Columbia Initiative on the History of Sexualities
Developed by Nikita Shepard, Includes links to Columbia archival and manuscript collections and databases.
Library of Congress - Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Reseach Guide
This page provides search strategies and a selection of recommended resources related to Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming research and histories.
Historical Cross-Dressing Laws Map
The Cross-Dressing Laws Map highlights municipal ordinances and state laws that were used to police trans people and other gender nonconformists in the United States since the 1840s.

Digitial Transgender Archive

The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.
GBLT Historical Society

GLBT Historical Society are among the largest and most extensive holdings in the world of materials pertaining to LGBTQ people
Metadata Core Title ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives is the largest and the oldest active repository of LGBTQ materials in the world. Founded in 1952, ONE Archives currently houses over two million archival items A small subset of this material has been digitized and is available online. For additional information about the Archives, please see their Website (https://one.usc.edu/).
LGBTQ Religious Archives Network

Preserving the history/ encouraging scholarly study of LGBTQ religious movements around the world

Sarah Allen Reade Papers
The material in this collection sheds light on Reed's own work as well as on what it means to be trans in the South.
Gender in the Archives
This collection contains oral histories collected from trans and nonbinary Barnard students and alums in an effort to fill archival gaps of trans representation within Barnard's archives. The collection also includes a zine made to accompany an exhibition associated with this project, as well as supplemental materials.
Ethel Spector Person papers
Person was best known for her pioneering research in the areas of transsexualism and transvestism. With Lionel Ovesey, Person did ground-breaking work on the psychosexual roots of transsexuality and transvestism, distinguishing core gender identity from gender-role identity, and gender identity from sexual preference. Unlike other researchers at that time, Person stepped outside the clinical setting to attend drag balls and visit sex shops, and consulted a wide variety of materials, including pornography.
-From CUL Finding Aid

Out History
OutHistory is a public history website that aims to generate, present, and promote high-quality evidence-based LGBTQ historical research for LGBTQ and general audiences. We also work to foster the development and growth of broad and diverse communities of people interested in learning about and producing LGBTQ histories