By Jaida Dent
As history continues to be made, it is also changed. Recently, the Presidential Administration has started changing records on federal sites due to changing policies around DEI. In February, the National Park Service website made changes to its site and now describes the Stonewall Uprising as a fight for the “LGB civil rights movement”. While queer history is being threatened, a new organization looks to be a solution for protecting it.
The New York City Trans Archive (NYCTA) is a new institution that will preserve and store the history of transgender individuals, the first of its kind for the city. The archive will also include programming and educational opportunities like lectures and workshops. Recently, the Vanguard had the opportunity to speak with the founders of the archive, Red Washburn and Elvis Bakaitis, about the process of forming the archive and its importance.
Currently, the archive is in the beginning stages, as the plan is to have a physical location in Brooklyn and to be open between the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026. While many archives are available digitally, NYCTA finds it important to have a physical location. Not only can people see the materials in person, but the space creates a life of its own through the community.
“In case something were to happen […] there’s actually someone physically there to kind of be like, ‘Yeah, I’m here’. I’m kind of protecting this with myself, but also at the same time, it infuses it as a home. You know, somebody is actually physically having a life among these materials,” said Bakaitis.
Preservation is one of the biggest reasons for an archive to exist, and the NYCTA is no different. Along with archiving materials and artifacts of people who are currently living, it is important to archive the materials of those who have passed. For NYCTA, this idea arose as a result of the passing of Cecilia Gentili in 2024. Gentili was an advocate for transgender rights and the rights of sex workers.
However, the archival process doesn’t end with a name as large as Gentili’s, but NYCTA looks to archive the work of anyone in the community, including Brooklyn College student Khalifa Mohamed, who passed away this year. Washburn had the opportunity to teach Mohamed this semester, and spoke about possibly archiving Mohamed’s poems.
“Making this balance of these bigger known folks, like Cecilia, or students, or anybody who wanted to donate their stuff to the New York City Trans Archives. So it became a process of really looking for community, looking for our stories, looking for our voices, looking for who we are,” said Washburn.
Outside of securing a physical space to house the archives, NYCTA is also developing programs for the community to take part in. The Trans Studies Institute will provide education around trans history with lectures from trans organizers and scholars. There will also be a youth-centered program, the Trans Imaginations Workshop, which will promote self-expression through creation within trans youth. Participants can explore writing, filmmaking, craftmaking, and more as ways to document their experiences.
“I’m most interested in doing stuff to like support trans youth, like really young kids. Because I think about how many lives would be different if we had access to education, if we had access to services at an earlier age,” said Washburn.
As NYCTA continues to grow, the founders hope to create a relationship between the archive and CUNY. The hope for the future is that students from other CUNYs can contribute to the Trans Archives, as well as volunteer or work with the organization. The archive strives to be a collaborative effort, where anyone can donate to the archives, but also find themselves within the information.
“I imagine the archive is really a site of belongingness,” said Washburn. So not just a place of intellectual inquiry, but a place where people can connect with chosen [family] historically, to imagine what our ancestors were like, where we can see lots of fun queer fashioning, and where we can see people’s words and their stories and their art.”