Member-only story
Since 2015, we have been collecting stories from LGBTQ folks with ties to Western Pennsylvania. Some live here now, others grew up in this region. Others still attended college or had a job that brought them here or spent summers with their grandparents in an outlying community.
Here includes 26 counties in Western Pennsylvania, from Greene in the Southwest up to Erie in the Northwest tip, then east to McKean and down south to Bedford. The region includes Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Sharon, Oil City, and St. Mary’s. These are predominantly rural communities with small towns clustered around some urban pockets, college towns, and industrial spots.
The region is very queer.
Queer and trans and bi and lesbian and gay and more — the legacies of people who do not fit under the cisgender, heterosexual umbrella run deep throughout the entire region. Our archive reaches back to the Kennedy Administration and paints a broad portrait of LGBTQ life in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s and through today.
Contributors describe the many intersecting identities that create their life stories, a rich array of gender, sexual orientation, race, age, ethnicity, religion, and more. Many of them are from the small towns and rural communities, some others are still living discrete…
