Locating Queer Culture

Title: Locating Queer Culture
Description: This collection includes oral histories created through the Gender and Women's Studies course "GWS 467: Locating Queer Culture," taught by Siobhan Somerville. Students conducted interviews and created transcripts as part of their coursework.
Date: 2024-
Thumbnail Image Source: Queer BIPOC Project Thumbnail

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Beth Watkins
Beth Watkins, manager of exhibition, interpretation, and visitor experience at the Spurlock Museum, discusses several exhibits relating to the Champaign-Urbana LGBTQ+ community. The first exhibit, In Her Closet, focused on drag costuming and highlighted local drag queens. One national queen who provided her outfits was Sasha Velour, a CU local and previous winner of RuPaul's Drag Race. The next exhibit discussed was Sewn in Memory, which displayed AIDS quilt panels from Central Illinois.
Christopher Jones
Christopher Jones, a graduate of the studio art MFA program and research professor in the College of Fine and Applied Arts, discusses the intersection of queer and disabled communities. He cofounded the Cripistemology and the Arts creative research lab, which serves as a gathering place for disabled students.
Elias Jackson
Elias Jackson (he/they), a transmasculine nonbinary individual, discusses his experience of participating in the Shire of Caer Gwyn, a local Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) branch. They discussed what it meant to be a part of a community like the Shire and how the Shire's culture differed from other SCA branches and events. This interview also covers the history of the Shire, as Elias holds documents and artifacts from the branch established before the Shire, as well as its transformation into an LGBTQ+ space.
Ezra
Ezra discusses the logistics, struggles, and successes of running a queer soup night in Champaign-Urbana. Ezra created this event after noticing a lack of spaces for queer people of all ages to relax and be in community. The event is meant for people of all ages, including teenagers, college students, and adults. Also discussed are accessibility and other local queer events and organizations.
Georgia King
Georgia King, President of the Greater Community AIDS Project and a GCAP volunteer for almost 40 years, chronicles the organization’s founding—when it was still known as the Gay Community AIDS Project—and provides insight into the sort of urgency and stigma that resulted in GCAP’s founding during the 1980s. From there, King centers GCAP’s narrative in the realm of local AIDS activism through her discussion of their collaboration with organizations like the Prairie AIDS Foundation and the support of local volunteers to construct the GCAP boarding house. This boarding house, which has been in use for over 30 years, provides housing and food assistance to those living with AIDS.
Hannah Gallivan
Hannah Gallivan, a sophomore in Media and Cinema Studies with a minor in Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois, offers her unique perspective on campus life and culture as a queer disabled woman. She discusses her experience growing up in Vermont, what it was like coming to the University of Illinois, and the places she likes to frequent in the campus area. Hannah is very involved in the University’s oldest theatre Registered Student Organization, Penny Dreadful Players, and talks about her role in the club, as well as the club’s presence as an unlabeled safe space for queer people on campus. Hannah also shares the story of how her service dog, Gabby, came into her life, and what it means to be “interdependent” as a disabled person. Hannah has been involved outside of the University in several events and programs dedicated to advocacy for those living with disabilities, such as speaking on podcasts, doing an event with New York Fashion Week, and advocating for a more accessible Broadway.
Kev Murphy
Kev Murphy discusses queer campus life at the University of Illinois. Kev and their roommates and friends founded GayBar, a house show venue on the Urbana side of campus, to establish a safe space for LGBTQ+ students to go out and meet each other. They hosted DJ events and community parties, like sapphic night and drag night. The venue was very popular on campus, as lines wrapped around the street and capacity was frequently reached. The venue ran as a house show from 2023 until 2025. Kev is still involved in the community and continues GayBar as a traveling queer space, partnering with Gallery Art Bar in Urbana and Amy’s Place in Champaign. Kev also talks about their experience with RSOs on campus, their interest in the house show scene, and their work as a community member.
Laura Haber
To access this interview, please contact the Student Life and Culture Archives at illiarch@illinois.edu Chicago native Laura Haber spent more than 40 years in Champaign-Urbana. She first arrived as a political science undergraduate in 1985, continued through graduate school, and later worked with the Unit One program at Allen Hall for more than two decades. Known on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus as a “queer dorm” and important hub for the campus queer culture, Allen Hall has long supported LGBTQ students and progressive activism through its distinctive living learning community, Unit One. This oral history interview explores how queer culture and student activism became intertwined in the development of Allen Hall’s unique community. Haber reflects on her student life in the 1980s, her role in building programs such as the Guest-in-Residence initiative, the expansion of all-gender housing, and her memories of working with students over many years.