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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The Civil Rights lawyer and Episcopal priest Pauli Murray (1910-1985) was gender non-conforming and favored a masculine presentation. Some scholars have defined Murray's gender identity as transgender although many acknowledge that it can be problematic to apply a contemporary term to an historical figure if it was not available to them. Other scholars openly identify Murray as transgender in that they believe Murray would have probably embraced the term if it was available at the time. From what we know from the collection, Murray did not self-identify. The Pauli Murray Papers were processed in 1992, and the finding aid does not address Murray’s gender nonconformity or Murray's early experiences with gender identity. It is time to reassess this lack of description in the Murray finding aid as part of a general reassessment of legacy finding aids. We should try not to make assumptions about identity but can still explore descriptive options to help researchers better understand creators and their collections.
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In late 19th and early 20th century New England, it was not uncommon for two women to create a household together. These women were often well-educated and from wealthy families; they did not need to marry men for financial support. Many had careers and were active in social reform movements. Some of these relationships developed into romantic and sexual relationships. These relationships are often referred to as “Boston marriages.” The Schlesinger holds papers documenting these types of relationship, many collected relatively early on in Schlesinger’s history because of the women’s political activism or work in social reform.
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In the Louise Marion Bosworth Papers finding aid , the archivist used the LCSH term Women—Sexual behavior; describes a “friendship” breaking up; and also mentions Bosworth’s description in a diary of her “sexuality.” In the Mary Ellicott Arnold Papers finding aid, users discover in the biographical note , that at a young age, Arnold moved to Somerville, New Jersey, where she began a friendship with Mabel Reed (1876-1962), who would become her lifelong companion and colleague. There are no relevant LCSH terms or additional description about their relationship.
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The Papers of J. Ari Kane-DeMaios is an example where pronoun choice in the finding aid could be better explained or clarifiedchanged. Ari Kane is a transgender activist, counselor, and former executive director of the Outreach Institute of Gender Studies. Kane uses both “he” and “she” pronouns and identifies with both genders.
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The Ari Kane collection at the Schlesinger was processed in 2010. At the time the archivist chose the “he” pronoun to refer to Kane. This was the pronoun choice on Kane’s website at the time and . Kane was also provided with a copy of the finding aid for final review . The before publishing. That being said, the finding aid would benefit from either a more detailed explanation of why certain choices were made related to pronoun use or a reassessment of how to approach description when both pronouns could be relevant.
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Joey Soloway’s use of “they” pronouns coincided with their name change in 2020 (see belownext section). The finding aid was updated to include a specific reference to their pronoun, and all description warranting a pronoun usage was minimized.
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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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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 . Appropriate terminology should be used , including neutral/ungendered terms when appropriatenecessary.
- Understand limitations of controlled vocabulary and go beyond it if necessary.
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