A Decade of Power: RFD in the 70’s by Regina Futcher
I
n my experience, being able to embrace your sexuality and gender identity are largely influenced by the community you are surrounded in. I grew up primarily in suburban areas in Virginia and Maryland where I knew very few out-and-proud queer people. At first, I only understood the term “gay” as a synonym for stupid and not as a sexuality. Much of my expansive political thought and exposure to other gay people were formed through my use of Tumblr, a blog and social media platform popular in the mid 2000’s. Through Tumblr I began to understand the fight for gender, sexual, and racial equality in the United States and it was the medium through which I developed a political consciousness. I realized gay folks could be fired, kicked out of the military, denied housing, or have their children taken away if their sexuality was found out. Despite Tumblr being a platform for virtual interactions, I primarily utilized the site to educate myself and understand my identity. Because of this, I was exposed to queer ideas and philosophy but not the community itself. Although I have not faced extreme prejudice or hardship for being queer, I never had a queer support network until I came to college at the University of Pittsburgh. My college experience enabled me to engage with the LGBTQ+ community and meet many other like-minded individuals. I am fortunate to have been raised in a white middle-class family that was able to financially provide for my higher education and even more privileged to have attended a college ranked one of the best universities for the LGBTQ+ community. Pitt’s Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies (GSWS) program prioritizes teaching diverse narratives and including feminist and LGBTQ+ pedagogy in their curriculum. My 52 RFD 183 Fall 2020
bachelor’s degree in psychology and GSWS exposed me to a queer history I was completely unaware of and showed me the ways in which folks were able to come together in the face of decades of adversity and oppression. Throughout my undergraduate career, I enthusiastically received a feminist education and engaged in a multitude of research opportunities. I gravitated towards archival research that involved analyzing gay print because gay press publications uplift LGBTQ+ voices, highlight individual experiences, and provide a glimpse into what life was like at different times and locations in history. Archival research is the examination of primary documents such as manuscripts, publications, photographs, or raw data such as census reports. Archival material preserves the history of individuals, institutions, cultures, and society. Studying the archives allows us to explore the ways communities developed political consciousness in the past by providing information that was necessary for their social and physical survival. Many queer publications valued consciousness raising as it was a central aspect in developing not only the gay identity and self-love, but activism, the production of knowledge, survivability, and fostering a community. Engaging with queer archives has allowed me to forge a deep connection with a community that I was isolated from for most of my life and increase my sense of self and identity as a queer person. This connection and awareness of queer history will enable me to engage with the LGBTQ+ community more effectively as a future social worker. Over the last two years, I studied local archives containing materials related to the University of Pittsburgh’s first student-led queer advocacy group First issue of RFD.
