What

A cross between a once-a-day calendar and an archive, The Queer-A-Day Project is updated daily with a short biography of a figure from queer history, whether living, dead, or wholly imaginary.

Why

Only a handful of us make it into high school history books and front page news articles, our significance forgotten or our difference omitted in a lie by default. We are told that we are worthless as a community because none of those people have contributed anything important to the world. The Project seeks to correct those erasures and disprove those allegations.

How

Each entry includes a photograph or other portrait (if available); a short biography; convenient links to the source material embedded in the text; and a set of tags establishing their geographic location, century, profession, and queer identity.

Most QAD entries are as above: A short biography so readers can dip their toes into the ocean of queer history. However, posts tagged “Historiography Saturday” and “Sodom by the Sea” follow different formats. Historiography Saturdays are a weekly feature that delves into more depth on how queer identities are constructed over time, along with the limits of historical research for uncovering and categorizing those identities. Sodom by the Sea posts are derived from original interviews conducted by QAD around the San Francisco Bay Area. If you know someone in the Bay with an interesting story to tell, you can contact QAD at queeraday@gmail.com.

Who(‘s that handsome unicorn)?

The fella at the top of the page goes by Randy, after Randy Shilts, the hard-hitting gay journalist who covered (among other things) the first years of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the US. He was sketched out especially for this blog by Claire Quigley, who you can find – and commission your own work from – here.

Entry suggestions are always welcome, and can be submitted to queeraday@gmail.com.