In a greying political climate in the USA and beyond, which is increasingly seeing trans people in particular and their rights come under attack, the book serves as an important reminder that LGBTQ+ people have always existed, taken up space, and contributed hugely to the physical spaces that we move around everyday.
“Our country has begun to experience a new wave of anti-LGBTQ+ backlash,” says Zinaman. “When LGBTQ+ rights – especially the rights and lives of trans people – are under attack, one of the first things that gets erased is its history. We’ve already started to see that in instances like our current administration removing references to transgender and queer people from several federal government websites.”
But at the same time, it’s a memento of hope. Within the darker periods of history, the community have found ways to emerge stronger than before. “One of the biggest takeaways from working on this book is seeing just how cyclical queer history can be,” Zinaman says. “For every moment of progress, there’s often been a corresponding backlash, whether it’s through criminalisation, surveillance, censorship or outright violence. The AIDS crisis, for example, decimated entire communities and revealed how quickly queer lives could be devalued by the broader public.
“And yet even in the midst of that devastation, queer people organised, cared for one another, and created new forms of visibility and resistance,” he continues. “So documenting this history isn’t just about preserving the past – it can also be about equipping ourselves for the present. It can remind us that we’ve been through dark times before, and still, we’ve survived, created beauty, found joy, and fought for one another.”
Queer Happened Here: 100 Years of NYC’s Landmark LGBTQ+ Places is published by Prestel.
Subscribe to Marc Zinaman’s Queer Happened Here on Substack and follow him on Instagram.
Isaac Muk is Huck’s digital editor. Follow him on Bluesky.
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