When It Was Ours: A Queer and Trans Counterhistory of the Internet | L&C Gender Symposium 2024

In this talk, Dr. Dame-Griff explores three capsule histories of queer and trans services and communities from the early years of the nascent Internet. Each of these stories represents not only a path not taken but also an alternative model for our “digital world,” one where accessibility, community investment, and shared governance are prioritized over profit. Even with rising outside pressure, their creators and users resisted the capitalistic impulse to see the web as solely a transactional medium focused on usability and hyper-optimization. By the end, we’ll consider how these stories inspire us to rethink why we connect online.
Avery Dame-Griff is a lecturer at Gonzaga University and author of The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet