Our New Name is: LGBTQ+ History Association
Dear friends,
Thank you all for your participation in this important process. The discussions surrounding our organizational name have been robust and fruitful. It seems appropriate to make this change during Pride month.
The votes are in, and LGBTQ+ History Association was the name most favored by the highest number of respondents. Over the coming weeks, this name will replace CLGBTH across our web presence and in official documents. The revamped website will launch with the new name later in the summer and hopefully incorporate some of the other features requested during the listening sessions.
If you are artistically inclined and want to try your hand at a new logo, feel free to send us some of your ideas.
Thank you all again for your contributions to the organization and to the field.
– Jay & Yaari
Reminder to Vote
If you haven’t already, please vote on our new organizational name. The ballot has been emailed out to everyone on the listserv.
We appreciate all of the conversations started by previous co-chairs and the thoughtful deliberation and engagement with this important decision in the months since. We know that no name is perfect and complete agreement is unlikely. As the field grows and our organization grows with it, we will likely revisit the name over the years. We hope to reach the broadest possible consensus by ranking choices in order of preference.
Voting will remain open for one week until Thursday, June 27, at 23:59 (Eastern Standard Time). We will announce the results on Friday afternoon via the listserv.
The survey is completely anonymous. If you have any difficulties or questions, email clgbth.cochairs@gmail.com . If you need to sign up for our listserv or update your preferred email, the fastest way to do so is to use your preferred email and send a message to: CLGBTH+subscribe@groups.io
Final Steps of our Name Change Process
We much appreciate the many perspectives already shared and the complexity of undertaking any name change process. Given the extent to which many of us grapple with names, labels, cosmologies, and the nuances of identity, it makes sense that this process has evoked many perspectives and questions about our organization’s engagement and inclusion as well as thoughts on our professional and personal identities. It has been important to us to try to make sure in these hectic times that we allow everyone interested a bit longer to weigh in on the question of the organization’s name change. However, after QHC, we also need to make a final decision so we can move onwards towards other endeavors. While we know as co-chairs it is inevitable, perhaps, that we won’t have a unanimous consensus on a new name, that is perhaps a fitting tension for our field and how it strives to grow. In these deliberations, we are continuing our organization’s historical tradition of evolving through multiple name changes.
To that end, we invite anyone interested to connect with us during and just after QHC with further thoughts on the name change. Then we’ll have one final vote to finalize the name choice. We’d also, of course, love to continue hearing from you on brainstorming other ideas for CLGBTH and its expansion. If you will be attending QHC, consider joining us at lunch on Wednesday, June 12th (look for Jay and I at the table where you’ll pick up lunch). You can also come to our drop-in brainstorming session on Thursday, June 13th, from 130pm-3pm. We know well that not everyone can attend QHC, or you may be attending but are double scheduled at these times. You can certainly connect with us by email at clgbth.cochairs@gmail.com or anonymously via this survey: https://wmsas.qualtrics.com/
Starting on June 20th, we will have our final name change vote. The voting poll will be open from June 20 to June 27 and a link to the poll will be shared with all listserv members. On June 28th, we will select the name with the highest number of votes as our official new name. This voting poll will include the name suggestions from last time and other additions we’ve received since. Presently, as co-chairs, we have the following on our list. Please be in touch if we have overlooked any other names you’d like us to feature on this ballot:2
The Committee on LGBT History (current name)
The Organization for LGBTQ+ History
Queer History Association
Queer and Trans History Association
LGBTQ+ History Association
– Yaari Felber-Seligman and Jay Watkins
Co-Chairs 2024-2026
Reach us at: clgbth.cochairs@gmail.com
Stay Tuned and Please Share Ideas: Summer 2024 Updates Planned for our Website
Our plans include updating the programming and site security as well as adding new content. Please do keep sharing new publications, projects, and syllabi with us! We’ll start adding those to the site after QHC. We are also exploring plans to revive the virtual newsletter and book reviews. Anyone interested in contributing to these endeavors is welcome to reach out. Longer term, we’d also love to hear from you on other suggestions for content or function offered through our website. For the technical site of site updates, we plan to hire someone for website programming, ideally from our membership. If you have the relevant skills, please be in touch so that we can consider you. Reach the co-chairs directly at: clgbth.cochairs@gmail.com
Professional Organization of LGBTQIA+ Historians Denounce Museum of the American Revolution Hosting Extremists Moms for Liberty
The Committee on LGBT History condemns the decision made by the Museum of the American Revolution to rent event space to Moms for Liberty, designated an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Read our full statement here.
2023 CLGBTH Prize Winners
Congratulations to our 2023 prize winners, recently announced at the AHA annual meeting! View this year’s awardees here.
LGBTQ Historical Organizations Commend Colorado for LGBTQ-Inclusive K-12 History Standards
The Committee on LGBT History joins other scholarly U.S. organizations for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history in applauding Colorado’s Board of Education for approving K-12 History-Social Studies Standards that, for the first time, include the contributions of LGBTQ people. Read our full statement here.
Fundraising Campaign: The Estelle Freedman Award
The Committee on LGBT History (CLGBTH) is very proud to announce the launch of a fundraising campaign to support the creation of a research travel award for scholars applying feminist analysis to LBGTQ history, from any historical time period or region.
The prize will be named in honor of Estelle Freedman, a pathbreaking historian in US women’s history and feminist studies. Professor Freedman has taught at Stanford since 1976, where she cofounded the Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her prolific scholarship includes prison reform, lesbian history, and the politics of sexuality.
Please show your support by making a tax-deductible donation. We welcome contributions of any size, but hope you will be as generous as possible. The CLGBTH will match the first $5,000. You can contribute on our fundraising link here.
LGBTQ Historical Organizations Denounce Second Year of “Don’t Say Gay” Bills: Legislation in Multiple States Deepens Threat to Inclusive and Accurate K-12 History
The Committee on LGBT History and the Organization of American Historians Committee on the Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Historians denounce a new wave of “Don’t Say Gay” laws targeting K-12 schools and curriculum as profoundly harmful to accurate, inclusive, and relevant history education. Read the full statement here.
Welcome
Welcome to the homepage of the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History, an affiliated society of the American Historical Association. The Committee on Lesbian and Gay History was founded in 1979 to promote the study of homosexuality in the past and present by facilitating communication among scholars in a variety of disciplines working on a variety of cultures. The name of the committee was changed to Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in January 2009. Since 1982, the Committee has been officially recognized as an affiliate of the American Historical Association and meets annually in conjunction with the AHA conference, where we sponsor sessions on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer history. One need not be a member of the AHA to join the Committee.
Membership:
Join the CLGBTH! If you are a scholar of LGBT/queer history, we need your support. Become part of our community and join our collective endeavor to enrich the historical profession with LGBT perspectives, voices and histories. Together we can ensure that LGBT and queer histories remain powerfully and visibly present in our field, in our educational institutions, and in our society at large.
Membership is available on an annual or lifetime basis. Members receive our twice-yearly newsletters, which include book reviews, conference updates, a co-chairs’ column, and other information about the vibrant field of LGBT history. Membership also grants access to our email list-serv. Membership dues support our status as an affiliate organization of the American Historical Association, whose annual meetings host our own slate of over a dozen queer-themed sessions, medicines. Your support also enables us to offer cash prizes for outstanding books and articles in the field. Finally, if you are committed to our mission, and want to get involved as a member of our governing board, we would love to hear from you. And if you are a former member whose membership has lapsed, we invite you to update now.
Your membership ensures that queer history remains a vibrant part of the broader historical community. Join the CLGBTH NOW!
The CLGBTH supports and similarly adopts the American Historical Association’s Sexual Harassment Policy (2018).