最新天美传媒

Lesbian History Salon

Lesbian History Salon: Sharing Our Stories

March 26, 2026, 2-4pm
(Speakers: 2:00-3:15pm; Reception with light refreshments: 3:15-4:00pm)
MSC 2707 (Spirit Room)

Join us during Women鈥檚 History Month for a conversation on how LGBTQ+ history is saved, shared, and made relevant for current & future generations.

How do we keep queer stories alive? Why is important to do so? What do we lose if evidence of queer history - the existence and lives of queer people in the past - is lost? Our speakers, Dr. Tatsiana Shchurko, Dr. S.L. Crawley, Dr. David Johnson, and special guest Edie Daly will reflect on these questions, and some of the ways that queer history can be made visible.

As part of this event, self-described 鈥淥ld Lesbian Feminist,鈥� Edie Daly will discuss her life and activism since coming out in 1974, as well as her USF Special Collections donation of materials related to the , a Florida-based publication started in 1983, and more.

We invite you to think about how you, no matter your age, can contribute to the preservation and sharing of queer history.

Speaker Biographies

Edie Daly (b. 1937): As an Old Lesbian Feminist, she arrived at her activism by way of coming out in 1974. She moved back to Florida, her home state, in 1981, opened a women's bookstore on Madeira Beach and within a year co-founded a Lesbian Feminist Organization called Women's Energy Bank, which for 22 years held monthly salons for women. WEB also produced a monthly Feminist publication, Womyn's Words. She is a member of OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change) and Women in Black, a worldwide organization of women standing for peaceful and non-violent conflict resolution. Her activism toward peace in the world has taken her to Bosnia, during that conflict in 1993, and in 1995 on the Peace Train across Europe and Asia to Beijing for the 4th  International Women's Conference. She is a member of SONG (Southerners on New Ground), an organization whose purpose is to build a progressive movement across the South by developing models of organizing that connect the oppressions due to race, class, culture, gender, age, and sexual identity. She raised three sons and is a retired intensive care nurse. She and her life partner, Jackie Mirkin, were together 26 years and were married in 2008. She now lives in Asheville, NC, with her partner, Anne Glover, a retired editor for the Tampa Bay Times. about Edie's life and work.

 

Dr. S. L. Crawley (Ph.D., 2002, University of Florida) is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Women鈥檚 and Gender Studies at the 最新天美传媒. Dr. Crawley鈥檚 areas of interest include embodiment (gender/sexualities/race/class) theories, queer and feminist theories, epistemology and qualitative methods, social psychology and sociology of sport, focusing on productions of identity and social impacts on the physical body. S has published articles in Sociological Theory, Gender & Society, The Sociological Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Journal of Lesbian Studies, Hypatia, Cultural Studies 鈫愨啋 Critical Methodologies, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, The American Sociologist, as well as in several academic handbooks and has co-authored a book, Gendering Bodies (Rowman & Littlefield 2008), which extends existing theories of gender performativity via interactionism to demonstrate the social impacts of gender on physical bodies in such everyday settings as work, sports and sexuality. Some of S鈥檚 work has been translated into Russian and Ukrainian. S鈥檚 current interests involve queer/feminist and comparative epistemological approaches to empirical social science, American pragmatism, New Materialisms, and interventions to traditional methods. Among various other service on editorial boards and for academic organizations, S was recently the Chair (2019-2021) of the American Sociological Association鈥檚 section on Sex & Gender, the largest section of ASA, and the Chair of ASA鈥檚 Jessie Bernard Award Selection Committee, 2021.

 

Dr. Tatsiana Shchurko: I am a queer feminist researcher and activist from Belarus, committed to transnational and intersectional feminist theory and practice. Inspired by bell hooks鈥� idea of pedagogy as a practice of freedom, I see teaching as a way to explore complex social issues and empower students to engage critically across disciplines. My teaching emphasizes collaborative learning and creates a respectful, affirming environment. I draw on my transnational and interdisciplinary background to encourage deep reflection and meaningful dialogue. My research is grounded in anti-colonial feminist theory, examining the complexities of imperialism within and between Europe, Eurasia, and the United States. In 2023, I received an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship to support my book project. This work investigates the critical histories of transnational feminism, focusing on connections between U.S. Black women鈥檚 activism and Eurasian knowledge production. Digital project: . 鈥� 

 

Dr. David K. Johnson is Professor and Chair of the History Department at the 最新天美传媒. He is an award-winning author of two books, including The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians, which was turned into a PBS documentary. A nationally recognized authority on LGBT history, he has appeared on CNN and CBS Sunday Morning and contributed to educational programming for the National Park Service and the Southern Poverty Law Center. He has won both the John Boswell Prize from the Committee of LGBT History of the American Historical Association and the Randy Shilts Award in gay studies. He has enjoyed fellowships from the National Humanities Center, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Social Science Research Council.

A founder of the LGBT archival collection at USF Special Collections, he recently launched a local history project, to highlight how local LGBT folks have been forming community, resisting harassment, and demanding equal treatment for decades. The project itself has become a site of community formation, with accompanying social media sites boasting nearly a thousand members sharing their own stories. With input from the local community, he plans to expand the project into a Tampa Bay LGBT history exhibit.

This event is hosted by USF History; USF Sociology; and USF Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.