LGBTQ archives

Regarding “Living room talk birthed archive of gay history” ( June 22): In the name of celebrating LGBTQ history, the piece on the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center inadvertently erased huge chunks of it. There was nothing remotely “radical” 25 years ago about establishing an LGBTQ archive. Back in 1980, I attended political meetings at the International Gay and Lesbian Archive in Hollywood — an institution that had already existed for many years, with a collection large enough to fill several rooms. Putting such an archive in a public library indeed marked a major step, but it was a step on a road pioneered decades earlier by heroic activist-historians like the late Jim Kepner. Let’s not forget the work of these brave men and women, the true pioneers who worked in society’s shadows, at great personal and financial risk. Those who founded the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center stand on their shoulders.

Bruce Mirken, San Francisco