Local LGBTQ+ History

Jump to

Explore the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community in Santa Cruz County in the Queerstory digital archive and Queer Santa Cruz exhibition.

Digital Archive: Queerstory
Click here to access the archives
Online Exhibition: Queer Santa Cruz
Click here to access the exhibition

Preserving & Promoting the History of the LGBTQ+ Community

Santa Cruz County has been at the forefront of LGBTQ+ activism since the 1960s, blazing a trail for visibility and acceptance that has been emulated by LGBTQ+ movements nationwide. The MAH joins forces with the Diversity Center of Santa Cruz County and other partners to honor, support, and promote LGBTQ+ perspectives past and present through a variety of exhibitions, programming, and initiatives.

Gallery

Queerstory history trunk, photo by Daris Jasper.

Queerstory history trunk, photo by Daris Jasper.

Queer Santa Cruz exhibit

Queerstory history trunk, photo by Daris Jasper.

Queerstory history trunk, photo by Daris Jasper.

Queer Santa Cruz exhibit, photo by Daris Jasper.

Resources

Currently available: Grades 6-8 trunk.
Coming soon: Grades K-5 & Grades 9-12 trunks.

Trunks can be picked up from 12-6pm on Fridays. Check out the calendar here to reserve.

Santa Cruz Pride is the largest LGBTQ+ event on the Central Coast (the third oldest annual Pride Parade and Festival celebrated in California), attracting more than 7,000 participants every year since June 1975.

Santa Cruz Diversity Center creates education outreach programs that develop LGBTQ+ youth leaders, promote tolerance towards local trans communities, reduce sentiments of isolation by connecting seniors, veterans, youth and Latinx groups to one another, and provides learning opportunities about the LGTBQ+ community at large

QueerStory Self-Guided Walking Tour

Queerstory

In celebration of Pride Month, the MAH is excited to announce the launch of our QueerStory Self-Guided Walking Tour!

The walking tour pamphlets are now available for community members to pick up at the museum's front desk. The tour highlights pivotal locations in the history of the local LGBTQIA+ community. The brochure serves as a personal guide through the streets of downtown, offering a flexible and accessible way to engage with these important local narratives at an individual pace.

Thank you to the Diversity Center of Santa Cruz County, Santa Cruz Pride, the County Office of Education, and other community partners that honor, support, and promote LGBTQ+ perspectives. With support from the Fund for the City of New York on behalf of its fiscally sponsored project, the NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project.

Click here to access a digital copy of the Queerstory Walking Tour brochure (Spanish).

Click here to access a digital copy of the Queerstory Walking Tour brochure (English).

MAH Trunk: Queerstory

Queer Story 010924 006 web

In 2022 the MAH received a grant from the California State Library to digitize and archive the LGBTQ+ history in Santa Cruz County. With these funds, we also developed free educational resources for the general public using the collection. We are thrilled to present the MAH Trunks as interactive learning tools that are full of activities for educators to use with students in kindergarten to 12th grade.

With these trunks, our goal is to support educators to help students learn LGBTQ+ history. We believe that students should be able to understand this material instead of learning through negative stereotypes and myths.

As a result, we hope that these resources will create an empathetic, respectful, and inclusive learning environment for everyone.

Click HERE to learn more and reserve a trunk today!

photo credit: Daris Jasper

Continue the Learning

Funders

Funding for Queerstory is made possible through a generous preservation and accessibility grant from the California State Library.