WITH the skyrocketing growth of our digital world and the ever-accelerating rate at which news and information are disseminated, many people, especially the young, may have little knowledge of the early LGBT struggle or the trailblazers who fought for equal rights, respect, and dignity. A national LGBT museum would be a place of remembrance for our struggles to overcome injustices and of celebration for our successes in surmounting them.
The accomplishments are well known—legal recognition, HIV health care, marriage equality, military service, and so on. But most of us are fuzzy about the critical details. A national LGBT museum could immerse visitors in the fears that darkened our daily lives when police and government officials would haul us away to prison for being our authentic selves. It could also place them on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on the joyful day that marriage equality became the law of the land.
Justin Estoque, a museum professional for thirty years, managed the planning, design, construction, and opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
