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LGBTQ + Studies: LGBTQIA+ @ at Stanford

This guide emphasizes full-text and online resources. It is designed to help you find books, articles, images, films, as well as reference and primary sources related to research on LGBTQ+ Studies.

LGBTQIA+ @ Stanford

The LGBTQIA+ Community at Stanford University guide is an excellent resource for those seeking information pertaining to the history of queer life at Stanford University. Below is an excerpt from the guide's introduction that gives some context to the guide's structure and resources:

LGBTQIA+ people have been part of the Stanford community since its inception. Over the years, Stanford has been home to many queer faculty, students, and staff, whether or not they were public about their identities. Although there is less documentation of queer life at Stanford than other dominant identities, research by historians and primary source material found in this guide provide evidence that queer life always existed in and around the Stanford community. 

In this guide, you will find collections that are both explicitly and implicitly about queer life at Stanford. For example, looking at the Queer Student Resources records, the Stanford University LGBT alumni oral history interviews, or the Charles H. Durham Diaries, will demonstrate how the LGBTQIA+ community changed over time, depending on politics and broader societal trends and cultural norms. In contrast, collections like the Stanford University video collection and the Stanford Daily archives contain primary sources related to all of Stanford, which includes the LGBTQIA+ community. By searching with community-based terminology, or even in some cases terminology contemporary members of the community might find antiquated or offensive, you will find articles and video programs that document queer life at Stanford. There are also collections that relate to specific LGBTQIA+ individuals and their lives while at Stanford and afterward. 

It is important to note that historically, materials by and about LGBTQIA+ people have not been prioritized for collection in archives and libraries. Although this has changed drastically in the last 30-40 years, there are still absences, gaps, or silences when it comes to representation of LGBTQIA+ life and community in non-subject specific libraries and archives. When doing research about marginalized identity groups like LGBTQIA+ people, it is important to read between the lines, identify sources that may not be explicitly about LGBTQIA+ people, consider the broader context your direct subjects or research questions are part of, and identify the terminology that is used in library systems, which might be different than terminology used within the community. 

Note that while the materials shared here are intended to be representative of Library collections, this guide is not meant to be exhaustive; additional materials may be discovered and accessed via Searchworks, the Online Archive of California (OAC), and Spotlight. For access to physical materials, please refer to guidelines for accessing materials through Special Collections & University Archives on the Stanford Libraries website.