LGBTQ History and Culture: Resources in Special Collections: LGBTQ communities

A sampling of important titles:

• Bob Damron's Address Book. Bob Damron Enterprises. MSU has 1988-1992.
• Cruise Weekly (Detroit, MI) MSU has issues from 1981.
• Metra Magazine (Ferndale, MI) MSU has issues from 1980s to 2010s.
• Rapping Paper (Toledo, OH) MSU has issues from 1975-1977.

Search for the subject heading Gay bars.

Important early periodicals:

• Anything that Moves: Beyond the Myths of Bisexuality. San Francisco: Bay Area Bisexual Network. MSU has issues from 1991-2001.
• BiFocus. Philadelphia: BiFocus. MSU has issue(s) from the 1990s.
• North Bi Northwest. Seattle Bisexual Women's Network. MSU has sample issue from 1994.

Search for subject headings: Bisexuals or Bisexuality.

You can search leather lifestyle as a Library of Congress subject heading!

Also do a keyword search for gay and leather.

Drummer is the premier leather publication; MSU has issues from 1975 to 1998.

Box 3 of the Gay Magazine Collection (MSS 412) has several leather publications.

The Ladder, the first lesbian periodical to circulate nationally. Published 1956-1970.

Lesbian Connection, a "free worldwide forum of news & ideas for, by and about lesbians" published here in Lansing since 1974.

We have many newsletters and publications by and about LGBTQ people of color. Construct a keyword search, such as asian american and bisexuals:

The first known LGBTQ publication in the Lansing area is Sunflower, published in 1972.

Bachelor. Philadelphia: The Bachelor Inc. MSU has issues from 1937.

Advocate Classifieds. Los Angeles: Liberation Publications. MSU has issues from the mid-1990s.

Unzipped. Los Angeles: SLI. Continues Advocate Classifieds. MSU has issues from 1997 to 2002.

Gay Truckers Classifieds. Houston: LeDucq. MSU has issues from 2004-2007.

Lesbian Connection. Lansing, MI: Ambitious Amazons. MSU has issues from 1974-present.

Drummer. San Francisco: Desmodus Inc. MSU has issues from 1975-1998.

We have a growing collection of zines, a form of independent media.

Search for LGBTQ zines with a keyword search.

We have many examples of the work of "Tom of Finland" (Touko Laadsonen), a noted illustrator of homoerotica.

• Search Tom of Finland as a subject to find exhibit catalogs, histories and collections of his work.
• Search Tom of Finland as an author to find books and magazines where his work originally appeared.

Early transgender titles in our collection:

• Transvestia. Los Angeles: Chevalier Publications. MSU has issues from 1962-1979.
• The Tri-Esse Femme Mirror: The Official Publication of the Society for the Second Self, Inc. Tulare, CA: the society. MSU has issues from 1989 to 2001.
• The Mirror. Houston: The Society for the Second Self, Inc. MSU has issues from 2000-2009.
• The Transexual Voice. Atlanta: P. Smith. MSU has single issue from 1994.
• Tapestry Journal. Waltham, MA: IFGE. MSU has issues from 1991-1995. Continued by Transgender Tapestry.
• Transgender Tapestry. Waltham, MA: IFGE. MSU has issues from 1995-2008. Continues Tapestry Journal.

See the resource guide Transgender Voices in Special Collections for a more thorough exploration of our holdings.