PRIDE

leather vests hang in reverence in an adjoining room.

But among the smut and sex is an important collection of the evolution of American sexuality. The museum’s early pieces chronicle the underground bar scene that characterized much of queer male sexuality in the 50s and 60s before Stonewall. Many of the pieces in its collection of materials from the 1980s are all that’s left of a generation of men who died— from equal parts AIDS and the homophobia that let it run rampant.

“It was this sort of counter act to the gay plague fears that were everywhere,” Wasdin says. “It’s hard for any of us to even think or describe what that would be like, because it’s mind-boggling.”

Wasdin also credits Renslow himself, his business acumen, and his political connections with the early survival of the museum.