Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Materials in Special Collections

Over 800 serial titles represent magazines, entertainment guides, newspapers, newsletters, catalogs and pride guides from all areas of the United States and from some other countries. Special effort is made to collect newspapers and newsletters from Michigan GLBT organizations. Popular fiction from the 1950's through the 1970's, known as "pulp paperbacks," is represented in both gay and lesbian, and a few bisexual titles. Popular transvestite and transsexual fiction is also held from the 1980's and 1990's. Gay and lesbian fiction post-Stonewall is represented by titles from publishers such as Naiad, Alyson, High Risk, Masquerade, Seal, Firebrand, and Gay Sunshine Press. A variety of genres may be found in the fiction collections: children's books, science fiction, romance, westerns and gothics are all represented.

One of the world's finest collections of comic art includes significant amounts of the works of gay and lesbian artists; among them are Howard Cruse, Olivia Clavel, Tom of Finland, Alison Bechdel, Ralf König, and Diane DiMassa. Among the American Radicalism collections in Special Collections are many historic pamphlets, leaflets, manifestos, and other documents of the early gay and lesbian liberation movements. A growing and significant collection of transsexual and other transgender materials is present in pamphlets, magazines, newsletters and fiction from the 1960's to the present. The Changing Men Collection includes newsletters and other documents relevant to gay men, especially the radical faery movements. Gay male photography magazines and collections by individual photographers present the finest visual work of contemporary artists. These are supplemented by an interesting group of earlier gay "muscle magazines" from the 1950's and 1960's, with some related correspondence.

Since the 1970's, the Special Collections department has documented social change movements and popular trends in a collection of over 2,000 vertical files filled with clippings, pamphlets and miscellanea. Many of these contain material devoted to the GLBT movements and communities. Especially strong subject areas include the Gay Liberation Movement, AIDS, Gay and Lesbian Marriage and Domestic Partnerships, Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights, Homophobia, Hate Crimes, and the Ex-Gay Movement.

Archival collections, customarily donated by persons or organizations active in our community, include papers of the MSU Task Force on Lesbian & Gay Issues, early papers from the MSU Gay Liberation Movement, the Clothesline Project, GLFSA, and a large collection relating to Dignity, the gay Catholic organization.

In addition to the above categories, the rare book collections include first editions of eminent gay and lesbian writers of the past such as Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, and William Burroughs, as well as an excellent collection of small press poetry from the 1960's and 1970's, including key works of gay and lesbian American poets. Contemporary poetry appears in an expanding collection of "queer zines," or little magazines.