Women's Studies Now! "Storytelling York's LGBTQ+ Community Archive"

For York LGBT History Month, we will show and tell the story of our singular collection of out-of-print feminist and LGBTQ+ publications, capturing a glimpse of York's and the North East's LGBTQ+ community life, art, and activism. This includes OUT (or Shout): York's Own Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual monthly newspaper, published locally in the 1990s and currently archived nowhere else but in CWS, alongside other rare and wonderful artefacts from local women's, feminist, and LGBTQ+ history.

This event will feature a mini exhibition, an introduction by the archivist who collated this collection--filmmaker, visual artist, and writer, Ania Kaczynska--and a roundtable discussion with interdisciplinary scholars of queer history, art, and activism, including Dr Boriana Alexandrova (CWS & Department of English & Related Literature) and poet and researcher Jaye Cook (CWS). Attendees will also be able to view some out-of-print LGBTQ+ newspapers and take a small selection of scanned copies home for their own reference/learning if they wish. 

York's Centre for Women's Studies was founded in 1984 (celebrating its 40th anniversary this year) and, since then, it has served not only as a prestigious education centre for intersectional and transnational feminist/gender studies based at the University of York, but also as a hub for feminist and LGBTQ+ activism, art, and thought. Among its many community-built treasures, CWS holds a rare collection of local and international artivist zines, newsletters, posters, and artwork that has been collected and donated by the Centre's vast local and international community for decades. This precious collection of feminist and LGBTQ+ artivist and intellectual history was collated and catalogued in 2023, with a long-term plan of making it freely available to researchers and the public. 

This York LGBT History Month event will mark the first of several CWS 40th Anniversary events in a series of talks, roundtables with local scholars, creators, and activists, and exhibitions of CWS's unique collections. Attendance is free, and a drinks reception will follow.