Tell Your Story

By David Duffield

A common refrain among LGBT Boomers is “I didn’t have the words to describe how I felt” growing up.

Often these folks went to a public library, looked up the word homosexual and found “pervert, psychopath, degenerate, molester, criminal” and “doomed to unhappiness” to describe how they felt. It wasn’t until they reached adulthood that LGBT people realized they weren’t alone and found communities of like-hearted people, as well as spaces to be themselves.

To this day many Americans don’t learn about LGBT people or history until adulthood. LGBT people often lack the words to describe their own history. We can be trapped, invisible, in the historical closet, forever repeating the past.

To help break down those barriers, the Colorado LGBT History Project is a program of the GLBT Center of Colorado that is telling those stories that need to be heard. It was established to give the LGBT community a chance to preserve its own history by building an oral history within the LGBT community – to ensure no kid grows up with ignorance of our past.

In addition, the Colorado LGBT History Project ensures LGBT people have a presence in every library, school and classroom. Most importantly, the Colorado LGBT History project helps break the historical silence with our own voices and end generations of ignorance with generational storytelling.

After all, our elders are the libraries of humanity. The passage of experience from one generation to the next is hard-wired. All of our suffering, success, triumph and tribulation rests upon the idea that later generations can learn from our experience. History is made of the words we pass on, both written and spoken, as well as the dollars and work we donate to that end. Historical legacy is the certainty that the words of elders make a difference in the lives of others.

Imagine a story greater than yourself. Imagine a world in which marginalized peoples are forever taught only about the powerful, rich, and privileged. Imagine a world where generations of people are invisible to themselves. Now imagine a world where simply telling your story changes the life of another.

As the coordinator and co-founder of the Colorado LGBT History Project, I know the work itself is undeniably challenging, time consuming and often uncertain.  Yet, the rewards are beyond belief and startling real. I would never, in my wildest dreams, believed that we would make history by simply talking about it.

Get involved by telling your story. Your history is legacy.

Visit history@glbtcolorado.org or call 303-733-7743.*

*Please note any information you provide to the host organization will be governed by its privacy policy.