Overview
Schlesinger collections document the lived realities and activism of women, as well as changing societal ideas and laws around sexuality and gender. Since its earliest days the library has actively collected papers documenting lesbian lives, from 19th century diaries of erotically charged female friendships to lesbian political activism and community building in the late 20th century. More recently our collecting focus has encompassed the many expressions of sexuality and gender within the LGBTQ+ communities. In light of this, we want to evaluate and reassess our descriptive practices – both historically and currently -- in order to ensure that how we identify and describe the LGBTQ+ individuals and communities in our collections is both respectful and accurate.
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Item level cataloging of photographs or visual materials can bring up additional questions regarding naming. The photographer Bettye Lane photographed Bruce Jenner in 1977, almost 38 years before Bruce had transitioned to Caitlyn Jenner. Lane's caption on the slide includes Jenner's pre-transition name, "Bruce Jenner 1/10/77." In order to help us determine whether we should retain "Bruce Jenner" in the description for the catalog record, we did research on whether Caitlyn had ever addressed dead naming and her former identity. Since Caitlyn Jenner is a known personality we were able to find online an interview in The Guardian (May 8, 2017) where she states she does not mind being referred to as Bruce, “'I had a life for 65 years. OK?' Besides which, 'I liked Bruce. He was a good person. He did a lot in his life. Oh, ‘he didn’t even exist’. Yes he did exist!...'" Given this information, we kept Lane's caption "Bruce Jenner" and added: "[pre-transition name, as captioned by Bettye Lane in 1977]; 1-10-1977."
When to describe
There are situations where a collection doesn’t contain directly related content about the creator’s sexual or gender identity but the individual does identify under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. For example, The description of the Angela Davis papers does not address her sexuality since the collection does not contain materials directly related to it. Davis has publicly identified as lesbian since 1997. Is identity description always warranted in the creator's biography or in LCSH in order to ensure LGBTQ+ visibility? This is a question we are currently exploring.
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Apply the pronouns that are used by the creator, if clearly known. Possible examples can include She, He, Ze, Hir, they, etc. If the creator uses more than one pronoun or it is unclear what pronoun they identify with consider avoiding the use of a specific pronoun in description in order to prevent preferencing one identity over another. If you do decide to use a pronoun, provide a note in the finding aid describing the creator’s identity and why we made certain pronoun choices. When possible, input by the creator will guide this decision.
Be mindful when describing subjects that are usually gendered female such as menstruation, pregnancy, and parenting (specifically mothers, motherhood, maternal). People of varying genders can menstruate, become pregnant, and be parents, so it is best to not assume someone’s gender based on this information and appropriate terminology should be used, including neutral/ungendered terms when appropriate.
- Understand limitations of controlled vocabulary and go beyond it if necessary.
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