LGBTQ+ History
LGBTQ+ people have been integral to our progress as a Commonwealth and the making of Virginia’s history. While LGBTQ+ people have lived here for centuries, the earliest written records only acknowledge their existence in an effort to criminalize them. Fighting against erasure and invisibility, LGBTQ+ people have also played pivotal roles in the creation of Virginia’s culture leading up to and beyond the gay rights movement of the mid-20th Century. Virginia’s LGBTQ+ history presents unique perspectives on life in the Commonwealth and offers more inclusivity in the recounting of American history.
Content Related to LGBTQ+ History
Virginia Gay Lesbian Bisexual Community Center Flag
The Lewises and Andy Warhol
Curator Conversation: Bringing it Together: Stories Behind “Our Commonwealth”
Curator Conversations: Tomorrow's Treasures Today
Living Queer History: Remembrance and Belonging in a Southern City
Curators at Work: Conversation with Judd Proctor and Brian Burns
Related Store Items
The Story of Virginia: Highlights from the Virginia Museum of History & Culture
The Story of Virginia tells a fascinating story, sharing more than four hundred evocative objects from the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. The Commonwealth is not merely a chapter of U.S. history; it is at the epicenter of its most pivotal moments.
Why They Marched
Looking beyond the national leadership of the suffrage movement, an acclaimed historian gives voice to the thousands of women from different backgrounds, races, and religions whose local passion and protest resounded throughout the land.
The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote
Soon to be a major television event, the nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political battles in American history: the ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote.
Lesbian and Gay Richmond
Authors Beth Marschak and Alex Lord research the history of LGBT people in Richmond, Virginia and uncover a rich but uncelebrated past. From the first recorded sodomy prosecution in America in 1624 to the fight to repeal the "crimes against nature" laws, LGBTs have left their imprint on almost 400 years of history in the Old Dominion's capital.
