This Preservation Month, the National Trust for Historic Preservation is celebrating People Saving Places, a national high-five to everyone doing the great work of preserving historic places—in ways big and small—and inspiring others to do the same. Throughout the month we are featuring various organizations and individuals who have been tirelessly doing the work of preservation, particularly in the last two and a half years. We wanted to provide space, a victory lap so to speak, for them to share their successes, challenges, and hopes for the future.

The proliferation of efforts to identify, document and preserve historic places associated with the LGBTQ community has been amazing to witness, particularly in the last few years. The history of the LGBTQ community is rich, varied, and deep, and the related historic places are as well. Not only are historians and preservation professionals presenting amazing scholarship to showcase that history, but they also are working hard to list historic places on landmark registers at local, statewide, and national levels.

It was 1999, when the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village, and the site of multi-day riots in 1969 that mark the most recent iteration of the LGBTQ civil rights movement, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (National Register). That was the first listing on the National Register of an historic site that was known specifically for its LGBTQ history. It was designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 2000, and was designated a National Historic Monument in 2016; these also were first listings for an historic site known specifically for its LGBTQ history.

Of course, there has been an abundance of scholarship on LGBTQ history that has provided those documenting related historic places with a wealth of knowledge. Unfortunately, one of the key challenges that continue to threaten those historic places is the fact that many LGBTQ historic places are located in communities that often experience revitalization.

Historically, those historic places have been allowed to exist in communities that often have been neglected, forgotten, or not considered “desirable.” And, as we know within historic preservation, neighborhood change can visit cities and towns, and that change often comes for those more marginalized communities. There has been a great deal of loss among LGBTQ historic places, and the scholarship that we have often showcases what once was. Yet, one of the best aspects of the scholarship that has been produced is that places that have not been lost will have chances at survival, and possible preservation/adaptive re-use.

The LGBTQ Heritage Theme Study

In an effort to bolster the existing scholarship that had been produced, the National Park Service embarked on an effort to create a document that focused specifically on how the agency could address the lack of LGBTQ listings on its two primary designation lists, and among its historic site and park units. Interestingly, the 2016 designation of Stonewall as a National Historic Monument coincided with the publication of the National Park Service’s LGBTQ Heritage Theme Study. This document is the most comprehensive examination of LGBTQ history and heritage from the federal government.

Forward Momentum

In the wake of the publication of the LGBTQ Heritage Theme Study, there has been a flurry of activity advancing preservation efforts of associated historic places. A number of historic context studies have been completed at the state level (Maryland, Kentucky, and Washington for example), and at the local level (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Washington, DC and New York City, for example).

The cities of Raleigh and Atlanta also have commissioned historic context studies. A variety of communities also have been conducting research to document their LGBTQ history, with the goal of identifying sites that could be considered for designations. It’s great (and needed) to see smaller cities, and regions and cities away from the coasts embrace their LGBTQ histories, and seek to share those stories, and potentially preserve those historic places; those preservation efforts are needed, because there are (and have been) LGBTQ individuals in virtually every community, and contributing to the histories of those communities.

I am confident that there will be continued growth in the number of designated historic places associated with the LGBTQ community in the years to come. The momentum is there.

To show the impact of this I am highlighting four historic sites that have been added to the National Register since the publication of the Theme Study, and that represent the diversity that exists within the LGBTQ community overall:

Darcelle XV, Portland, Oregon (Listed 2021): The eponymously named drag club is one of oldest continuously running clubs with the owner (Walter Cole/Darcelle) still performing. The club opened in 1967.

First Unitary Society of Denver, Denver, Colorado (Listed 2017): The church was the site of the first same sex wedding ceremony in Colorado in 1975. It also was the home, briefly, of the Metropolitan Community Church of the Rockies (a denomination that is affirming of the LGBTQ community).