New York City will be opening the American LGBTQ+ Museum in 2024 and this historical perseveration site will be open to the public. The new museum is aimed to commemorate LGBTQ+ history and culture in America while spotlighting all wide-ranging identities under the queer spectrum.

There will be event programming and exhibitions held that will highlight specific intersectionalities within race, sexuality, and identity in New York City where the Stonewall riots broke out.

Over 3,200 LGBTQ+ activists, historians, and researchers collaborated with the American LGBTQ+ Museum to produce in-depth historical narratives and stories for the oncoming gallery exhibitions. In early 2017, the task force of LGBT+ History & Culture came together to brainstorm the future museum installation in New York.

The New York City Council voted to support planning of the museum, and the New York Historical Society is partnering with the space to bring all the artifacts and exhibitions to life.

The New York Historical Society is the city’s oldest museum that first opened in the early 1800s. The LGBTQ+ art and history collection will be featured in two galleries at the Historical Society, but later will be expanded until its initial opening in 2024.

Excited museum-goers can’t wait until the museum is officially open to the public. In the interim, the LGBTQ+ museum is already conducting virtual events where viewers can view portraiture of trans folk. Dr. Eliza Steinbock and artist Zackary Drucker hosted a conversation that discussed the various ways queer individuals and transgender people are highlighted through artistry. Radical Tenderness was the name of the virtual gallery that features intimate photographs of LGBTQ+ people captured by non-binary and trans photographers.

This is a glimpse of what’s to come with the American LGBTQ+ Museum. The first LGBTQ+ museum is based in San Francisco and the space is called GLBT Historical Society Museum, located in the city’s gay Castro district. These museums are helping normalize the lifestyles of those who have been discriminated against for years and are providing educational resources to bring forth more representation for the LGBTQ+ community.