Buffalo-Niagara LGBTQ History Project

A remarkably well done reportage about Madeline Davis and the archive she founded; but also about the building of the gay liberation movement in Western NY and the role Madeline played in this. Amazing job, Robert Hackford

Rooted in Pride: Inside the Buffalo archive preserving gay liberation history and the story behind its namesake Explore the rich history of the early gay liberation movement at The Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of WNY.

You don't want to miss this delightful book club we are doing with out friends at Talking Leaves Books. Also, check out the wonderful merch inspired by our le***an and trans ancestors!

The book club comrades will read the landmark trans, working-class le***an and proletarian novel Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. The meeting is on June 10. To RSVP and see other details, go to page or follow the link: https://tleavesbooks.com/event/2026-06-10/stone-butch-blues-pop-book-club

How does the history of Buffalo’s gay liberation movement overlap with the history of its suburbanization, gentrification, and the construction of its expressways? How did the city police g**s in the 1960-1980s Buffalo and how did the community fight back in courts, the streets, and through community building? Come to our Gay Liberation NOW! history tour and learn the sorties of Buffalo’s q***r trailblazers!

Photos 1, 3 and 6: Ruth Goldman

In 2018, the History Project created the walking tour She Walked Here, inspired and based on the groundbreaking book Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, authored by Liz Kennedy and Madeline Davis. The tour was launched in a huff and puff of community events, but the final event was a workshop with Liz Kennedy on the methods of collecting q***r oral histories. A few days before this, Liz Kennedy and her legendary partner Bobbi Prebis came to Buffalo and took one of the tours with us. Meeting them in this way was enough nervous excitement to cause us not to remember a single word that the brilliant Liz said that evening at Grindhaus.

Last night we heard the news that Liz had passed away (just a few months after Bobbi). Liz was one of the primary inspirations for the work that the History Project does today. She was the head one of the founders of UB's Department of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies (then one of the first Women's Studies departments in the country.) In Liz's time, the program had working class women and especially q***r women without graduate degrees teach undergraduate courses. Needless to say, the department was constantly under the attack of the university's leadership, and both students and faculty were always organized to protest, crowd hallways and fight together. It was during this time that Madeline Davis taught her course in le***an studies (the first in the country), which formed the foundation for their joint monumental project -- Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold.

Boots of Leather was perhaps the first scholarly book to take le***an oral histories seriously, and the first to center a working class le***an history. Liz, Madeline, and their collaborators collected dozens of interviews with pre-Stonewall bar femmes and butches, and it took twenty years to complete the book, which remains a classic. Le****ns and q***r historians the world over have Liz and Madeline to thank for their thorough documentation of butch-femme culture. And we at the History Project owe them for not having to start our work from scratch, but build on the tremendous foundations they had created.

Liz was a brilliant researcher, but never comfortably sat in academic institutions. She continued to fight for what is right at the expense of her own job, and ultimately left Buffalo to chair the University of Arizona's Gender and Women's Studies department.

She is missed by the History Project, her family, and the le***an communities she created in Buffalo and all over the world.

Our friends at heart fire yoga are donating 50% of the proceeds from this affordable class to the History Project!
Help them help preserve local q***r history + do something really nice for yourself!

Celebrate Pride Month with an hour of softness, connection, and care. This 60-minute, beginner-friendly class is a welcoming space for q***r and trans community members to gather, breathe deeply, and move gently together. Intentionally guided by a q***r peer, this practice invites you to hug your insides, settle your nervous system, and unwind through grounding movement and relaxation techniques.

50% of proceeds to benefit . This community class is offered with a $5 minimum contribution.

We can’t wait to celebrate and share space with you.

Link in bio to sign up! 🌈