“Shoulders to Stand On”
What I was shocked to learn about was the way that the University of Rochester was so central to the gay liberation front. It made sense hearing about the ways that the city of Rochester was instrumental to the movement, but I did not expect that our university made a notable contribution to the crusade. I was also shocked to hear that the buildings I frequent actually held historical significance, and played roles in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer liberation movement. From the meetings held in Todd Union to the Gay Festival and Dance in Frederick Douglass, the campus of the University of Rochester helped the movement grow and spread.
“Perversity to Diversity”
The first thing I did was google search “perversity to diversity the university of rochester”, and while my search turned up texts referencing the exhibit and the reactions from the public to the exhibit, I could not find the date of the article. I also tried googling the name of the author of the article, Susan Jordan, but nothing turned up. I then went to the University of Rochester library page, “River Campus Libraries”, and searched up the first line from the article by Michele Moore. I looked up “In late March my friend Ann Burlingham and I went to see the exhibit of gay and lesbian graphics” in the search bar, and I was faced with two articles, one from November 1995 and another from April 1991. Both articles were archived copies of the newspaper, Empty Closet. Empty Closet is a gay newspaper that originated at the University of Rochester. I clicked on the first article and searched for “perversity”, which is when I came upon the article. The copy of the article that we were given in class was published in April 1991.
https://digitalcollections.lib.rochester.edu/islandora/object/ur:5632
This is the link to the newspaper.
-ML