10 Photos Celebrating Stonewall National Museum's HERStory Exhibition

"Where there's history there's HERStory"

As the early gay liberation and the women’s rights movement in the United States gained more and more steam, LGBTQ-identified women realized the movement didn't really support all queer individuals.

Women understood that there was "a need to take ownership of their own struggle for autonomy became explicit," according to the Stonewall National Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., description of the "HERStory." In celebration of these women, the museum has curated an exhibition that examines the legacies of activists, campaigns, policy-makers, and subcultures of queer women.

“The exhibition holds the literal history of both the social and political realms of where the women's movement and the lesbian and trans women movements combine,” Stonewall National Museum's executive director Robert Kesten tells The Advocate.

The exhibition, Kesten says, traces women’s history from the late 1800s to the present, featuring the political and cultural impacts of queer women.

“Our history equals our pride. We can go back 100 years, we can go back to Stonewall and trans women, we're so involved in that riot that created the LGBTQ community,” says Karen Kelly, the chairperson for “HERStory” and a member of the museum's board of directors. “I mean, these are stories that have to be told, so that we can take pride in our history, we can take pride moving forward and become activists to fight the people that are trying to take the rights that we worked so hard for.”

Kelley adds, “If we show the younger generations and the next generations what we've done and what people have done throughout generations and what we've accomplished, it will empower them to want to do the same.”

The Advocate is a lead sponsor for the exhibition and supported an opening event in late June. You can check out the "HERStory" at the museum until September 20.