ABSTRACT
Canonical formations of Queer Studies and Queer Theory, as well as Trans Studies and Trans Theory, tend to narrate their history as focusing on white experiences, identities, struggles, and modes of resistance, even while the work and activism of queer and trans people of color have always been central to “the field(s).” Queer Studies at Oregon State University is a nested program within Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Collaborative work between a QS professor and an Oregon Multicultural Librarian has resulted in the Oregon State Queer Archives (OSQA). Beginning in 2014, archivist Natalia María Fernandez and faculty member Dr. Bradley Boovy have centered community-based relationships and culled existing multicultural archives to produce an archival project that seeks intersectional lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and allies (LGBTQQIA) stories rather than a hegemonic archive that reifies privileged experiences of queerness.
