The month of October is LGBT History Month, an annual month-long observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer history, and the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements. During this month, Michigan State University is shining a spotlight on Intersections magazine, the Center for Gender in Global Context’s yearly publication, which highlights the students, faculty, stories, and history of the topics the center researches and teaches about.

Pat Arnold, Assistant Director for Academics in the Center for Gender in Global Context (GenCen) and an Academic Advisor and Instructor in the Women’s and Gender Studies and LGBTQ+ Studies programs in the College of Arts & Letters, believes it’s important to understand the broader context of the field and the intersectionality within it to fully grasp the purpose and power of the magazine.

“We’re never dealing with singular issues or topics,” Arnold said. “One of the core insights, not only of the fields of feminist studies and legal studies, but of our center, is that of intersectionality, which really highlights how, for one, identities don’t exist in a vacuum by themselves.”

The idea of Intersections magazine was first proposed in 2017 to reach a broader audience. Then co-directors Stephanie Nawyn and Amy Jamison began exploring ways to bolster support, building a donor network, and sharing the center’s projects and research more widely.

“We wanted to create a publication that would engage MSU administrators and GenCen supporters external to MSU, such as alumni, former faculty, and others who believed in our mission,” Nawyn said. “We wanted to tell the story of GenCen’s important work and to highlight all the great work around gender, sexuality, and feminist research, teaching, and outreach happening at MSU.”

“One of the core insights, not only of the fields of feminist studies and legal studies, but of our center, is that of intersectionality, which really highlights how, for one, identities don’t exist in a vacuum by themselves.”

Pat Arnold, Assistant Director for Academics in the Center for Gender in Global Context and College of Art & Letters faculty member

The first edition of Intersections magazine, published in October 2018, focused on the history of the center and Michigan State University over the previous decade. Arnold specifically pointed out their support for different communities globally, an angle that sets MSU apart from other programs in gender and sexuality studies around the country. They also wanted to showcase interventions against domestic violence through grassroots efforts led by women in Gujarat, India, which is the current research focus of GenCen Co-Director of Global Research, Outreach and Engagement Soma Chaudhuri.

“The inaugural magazine was also like an act of archival and historical reflection,” Arnold said. “When you start a project like this, you often start by looking back.”

The magazine’s second edition featured “Wearing LGBTQ+ History,” which highlighted the work of Tim Retzloff, one of the most active and historically involved historians who has recorded LGBTQ history in Michigan. Retzloff’s students conducted archival research to record classic images of LGBTQ history and printed them on T-shirts, making that history wearable. The images were symbolic of how communities throughout Michigan were capturing their values, goals, and sense of community.

“LGBTQ History Month itself is both an act of remembering in terms of recovering where its history is lost and how we remain members of those communities and active in their values and missions by recovering what has been forgotten,” Arnold said.

The magazine strikes a balance between promoting accomplishments, awards, and funding, while also reflecting on the work that has been done and continuing to evolve what it means to do this work.

“This publication is just one broader piece of that practice of recovering the past and preserving it, not as this irrelevant, fixed, static thing,” Arnold said, “but something that continues to have meaning and continues to be remade politically and existentially today.”

By Annabelle Julien and originally published by MSU Today