It is Pride month, which is celebrated every June as a tribute to those who were involved in the Stonewall Riots. It is fitting therefore to share with you the American podcast series ‘Making Gay History’, founded and hosted by Eric Marcus, with a focus on US queer history. Eric narrates the fight for equality through extensive archive conversations with those at the centre of it. For centuries global legislation, religious and cultural philosophies, medicine and public opinion amongst other powerful influencers meant that the majority of LGBT+ people were either accepted and silenced, or persecuted. We know that LGBT+ individuals have always lived and walked this earth, as they are often degraded in the earliest versions of text. Centuries of stigma has meant that an accurate record and contextualisation of historical events and LGBT+ societies have been denied, redacted or destroyed from records. If the LGBT+ history could be described as a library, it would be the Library of Alexandria. In this powerful podcast series, Eric is bringing 20th Century LGBT+ stories to life, providing a platform in which to share the voices of the LGBT+ trailblazers who lived the 20^th Century. Most importantly, Eric is creating an archive and history in the making. Each episode is approximately 15 minutes long and available for free, I hope you find the series as inspiring as I have. Furthermore, it is important to note that the basic human rights for many LGBT+ people and other marginalised groups don’t exist in many countries, by documenting historical events, it sets a framework to inspire peoples of the future.

Written by Adam Thompson