Queer Coalition, Illinois State’s sponsored LGBTQIA+ faculty, staff, and graduate student affinity group, invites the University community to attend a lunchtime presentation on November 19 by Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program Interim Director Jason Whitesel, who will delve into the history and visual representation of Girth & Mirth clubs from their advent in 1970s San Francisco through their last hurrah in the early 2000s. This event, part of Queer Coalition’s ongoing Queer Talks Lunch ‘n’ Learn series, will take place from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. in 401 Stevenson Hall.

Dr. Whitesel’s presentation, titled “Queer Archives: Artistic Representation of Fat-Gay Clubs,” will explore how “anti-fat bias and discrimination have created a social problem in queer communities” and highlight “artwork that tells the story of fat-gay men from Girth & Mirth clubs now underrepresented in LGBTQIA2S+ histories and in gay-rights organizations.”

His research efforts “are intended as a rescue mission to salvage fat-gay men’s historical antecedents and cultural contributions and make them accessible to a broader audience. The goal is to counter subtle and overt fat shaming and negative body talk in contemporary homonormative depictions of gay men—as gym-sculpted Adonises—by exemplifying, through gay men’s own artworks, variety among queer people that makes their existence unique.”

Registration is required by November 12 for the lunch portion of this event (11:30 a.m.-12 p.m.); those who wish to attend the presentation without joining the group for lunch need not register. Illinois State faculty, staff, and graduate students who want to stay up-to-date on all that is queer at the University are welcome to fill out a membership form. Please contact Queer Coalition at LGBTQ@IllinoisState.edu with any accommodation needs.