Sexuality & Culture (2020) 24:1522–1543

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-020-09710-y

ORIGINAL PAPER

Collective Trauma in Queer Communities

Maura Kelly1   · Amy Lubitow1 · Matthew Town2 · Amanda Mercier1

Published online: 25 February 2020

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract
Building on previous scholarship theorizing collective trauma in communities of
color, we assess experiences of collective trauma in queer communities, drawing on
qualitative interviews with 80 queer people in Portland, Oregon. Most common in
participant narratives were discussions of external trauma inflicted upon the queer
community, such as trauma from political battles over queer rights, hate crimes, and
cissexism. Yet, participants also mentioned trauma that originated from within the
community, such as racism in the queer community, as having a significant impact
on their lived experiences. Collective trauma in queer communities differs from
trauma in communities of color in a variety of ways; most notable is the lack of
intergenerational transmission of community history in queer communities.

Keywords  Queer · Sexual minorities · Gender minorities · Transgender ·

Community · Trauma · Collective trauma

Existing literature has established the notion of collective trauma to characterize

how traumatic events such as legal attacks, violence, disasters, and racism can have
lasting impacts on communities (e.g. Alexander et al. 2004); however, less is known
about trauma in queer communities. While we understand how heterosexism (dis-
crimination against queer people), and cissexism (discrimination against transgender
people) have impacted individual queer and transgender people (e.g. Nadal 2019),

* Maura Kelly
maura@pdx.edu
http://www.pdx.edu/sociology/maura-kelly
Amy Lubitow
alubitow@pdx.edu
Matthew Town
mtown@pacificu.edu
Amanda Mercier
anmpdx@gmail.com
1
Department of Sociology, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
2
Department of Public Health, Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR, USA

1Vol:.(1234567890)
3
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1523

yet to be examined is how these factors may serve as sources of collective trauma
to queer communities. We seek to understand how collective trauma can be inflicted
not only from actors external to a community, but how the source of a collective
trauma may be situated within the group itself.
This paper draws on interviews with 80 queer individuals living in the Portland,
Oregon metro area to articulate how traumas may manifest at the collective level.
Here, we use “queer” as an umbrella term for describing both queer people (e.g.
lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual) and trans people (e.g. transgender, non-binary).
We focus on examples of external trauma: legal recognition, hate crimes, and cis-
sexism; we also find evidence of within-group trauma linked to racism. We argue
that for queer communities, collective trauma is complex and multi-faceted and that
identifying intragroup traumas may be highly relevant to more fully understanding
community dynamics.
It is important to note that the interviews used in this analysis were conducted
in 2013; since then, same-gender marriage became legal in all U.S. states but new
regressive policies have been enacted (e.g. religious exemptions to anti-discrimina-
tion laws, “bathroom bills” impacting transgender people’s ability to access public
space, a ban on transgender troops from the military) and we have seen an increase
in hate crimes against queer and trans people (FBI 2018). It is as important as ever to
understand the sources of trauma to queer communities to inform future discussions
of how to address these problems and promote resilience within queer communities.

Literature Review

Conceptualizing Queer Collective Trauma

Historical trauma in U.S. communities of color has been theorized by numerous

scholars who have written about the American Indian genocide and forced removal
from tribal homelands (e.g. Evans-Campbell 2008; Gone 2007), hundreds of years
of enslavement and second-class citizenship experienced by African Americans
(e.g. Eyerman 2004), and the internment of Japanese Americans in the U.S. (e.g.
Nagata and Cheng 2003). Evans-Campbell (2008), draws from the work of Brave
Heart (1999, 2000) to offer this definition of historical trauma:
The concept of historical trauma has served as both a description of trauma
responses among oppressed peoples and a causal explanation for them. Asso-
ciated historical events tend to be profoundly destructive at a physical and/or
emotional level and are generally experienced by many people in a community.
Eyerman (2004) posits that the very identity of “African American” emerged as a
collective cultural response to the communal memory of slavery, while Fullilove
notes that more recent racial segregation, redlining, and displacement of African
Americans in urban spaces generated a more recent form of collective trauma that
“produced a rupture in the historical trajectory of African American urban commu-
nities” (2001, 78). Existing scholarship on trauma at the collective level considers
how social injustices on the macro-scale can have more interpersonal and subjective

13
 1524 M. Kelly et al.

implications (Evans-Campbell 2008). Thus, many scholars have explored the

impacts that collective traumas have on mental health and well-being (Gone 2007,
2013).
Research has also assessed how collective trauma works at national and local lev-
els, such as the 9/11 attack (Smelser 2004; Holman and Silver 2011) and the 1989
Exxon Valdez oil spill (Ritchie 2012). Alexander et al. (2004) developed the concept
of cultural trauma to describe certain kinds of collective trauma. Alexander writes:
“cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been sub-
jected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group conscious-
ness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in funda-
mental and irrevocable ways” (2004, 1). Cultural trauma has three characteristics:
the memory of the event or occurrence has negative effects, the event threatens the
community’s existence or otherwise violates fundamental ideals that the community
holds, and third is the memory is indelible or lasting. For cultural trauma to be indel-
ible, the significance of the event must be transmitted intergenerationally. Cultural
trauma has the potential to both disrupt and solidify a collective identity depending
on the context of the trauma and the coping mechanisms (Alexander 2004).
We build on discussions of both historical trauma and cultural trauma to assess
collective trauma in one queer community. We define a queer community as a col-
lective of individuals who hold a shared status related to gender and sexual identities
and shared experience of living in the same place and time. We conceptualize this as
a collective identity; however, our participants have varying levels of attachment to
the queer Portland community.

Trauma External to Queer Communities

The position of queer people as a minority, and particularly the locations of trans
people and queer people of color as a minority within a minority, places them at
greater risk for harm from external actors. Since the 1970s, political activity seek-
ing to restrict the rights of queer people at the state and local level has been nearly
constant. From efforts to ban same-gender marriages to wider efforts to legalize dis-
crimination against queer individuals, the political landscape has featured near-con-
stant anti-queer rhetoric. Organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
have tracked the ongoing attacks on the rights of queer people in the U.S.; the
HRC reported that in 2013 (the year interviews for this research were conducted),
187 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures, although only 11 passed
(HRC 2014).
Queer people are more likely than heterosexual people to experience vic-
timization in the form of discrimination and violence, with one study finding
that 56% of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in the US have experienced verbal
harassment, 50% experienced sexual harassment, and 44% reported experiences
of discrimination (Katz-Wise and Hyde 2012). A study by Herek (2009) found
that about 20% of sexual minorities have experienced a hate crime; or “an ille-
gal act involving intentional selection of a victim based on a perpetrator’s bias
or prejudice against the actual or perceived status of the victim” (Craig 2002:

13
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1525

86). Jolivette emphasizes the intersectional nature of trauma with the concept
of Internal Traumatic Gay Men’s Syndrome, defined as “the inter-generational,
socially-isolating and traumatic life changing experiences that shape risk for
HIV and overall long-term health outcomes for gay Indigenous men of mixed
ancestry.” (2018:44) Other scholars have observed that queer people of color
are vulnerable to negative effects of heterosexism from within their racial/ethnic
communities (Balsam et al. 2011; Harris et al. 2013).
Transgender people are at higher risk of victimization than cisgender people,
including increased risk of hate crimes, particularly for trans women of color
(Grant et al. 2016). A significant literature has also documented the discrimina-
tion that trans people have faced in contexts such as education, employment,
public space, and healthcare systems (Abelson 2019; James et al. 2016; Lubitow
et  al. 2017;  Nordmarken and Kelly 2014; Schilt 2010; Spade 2011). As Grant
et al. state in their report on the 2015 National Transgender Discrimination Sur-
vey: “The findings reveal disturbing patterns of mistreatment and discrimination
and startling disparities between transgender people in the survey and the U.S.
population when it comes to the most basic elements of life, such as finding a
job, having a place to live, accessing medical care, and enjoying the support
of family and community. Survey respondents also experienced harassment and
violence at alarmingly high rates” (2016, 8)
A related line of research has examined the negative consequences of exter-
nal trauma to queer people. Recent scholarship has made explicit the traumatic
nature of anti-queer politics (Bockting et  al. 2019; Kazyak and Woodell 2016;
Russell  and  Richards 2003; Russell et  al. 2011). Researchers have found long-
lasting psychological impacts and that, for some individuals, an enduring sense
of disempowerment remains years after a political battle (Russell and Richards
2003; Russell et al. 2011). Though there are certain “resilience factors” such as
community building or individual empowerment that come from being active in
fighting heterosexist legislation, Russell et al. (2011) find that these benefits are
limited and may not entirely offset the trauma experienced by queer individu-
als during ongoing political battles. Brown (2003) also finds that the normali-
zation of trauma within the queer community is detrimental to mental health
and reduces resiliency—meaning that cumulative exposure to heterosexism can
reduce the capacities of queer individuals to cope with typical life stressors. The
minority stress model suggests that queer peoples’ health disparities can largely
be explained by queer individuals’ routine experience of violence, harassment,
discrimination and victimization (Meyer 2003). Other scholars have suggested
we put additional emphasis on how trauma can bring communities together. For
example, Hilderbrand analyzes documentary footage of ACT UP through the
lens of “intergenerational nostalgia” and argues “Without discounting the deep
personal and cultural devastation AIDS caused, I want to argue against remem-
bering AIDS activism exclusively in terms of trauma.” (Hilderbrand 2006:307).
He goes on to say “my nostalgia is tied less to the people lost than to how I
imagine the queer community was united and politicized by AIDS.” (Hilder-
brand 2006:311).

13
 1526 M. Kelly et al.

Trauma Within Queer Communities

While a queer community is often thought of as a singular cohesive community

of non-heterosexual and non-cisgender people, it is more accurate to think of it as
smaller nodes within a larger network of people with a shared minority status around
gender and sexual identities (Easterbrook et al. 2013). Notably, these smaller nodes
have often centered around racial and class identities, with some of today’s most
well-resourced and mainstream queer organizations growing out of white gay and
lesbian communities (Alimahomed 2010; Ferry 2013). Scholars have recognized
how existing divisions within the queer community can be exacerbated by trends
towards assimilation. Scholars have used concepts such post-gay (Ghaziani 2011),
respectably queer (Ward 2008), and homonormativity (Duggan 2002) to suggest that
assimilation can be problematic as not all queer people can (or want to) assimilate
into the mainstream.
Queer people of color report experiencing racism from within queer communities,
including romantic partners and friends (Balsam et al. 2011; Harris et al. 2013). The
privileging of white identity in setting public agendas for the queer movement has
contributed to the “whitewashing” of queer representations in the media and popular
culture (Sycamore 2008) This racialized exclusion remains visible, despite 40% of
queer adults in the U.S. identifying as Black, Latinx, Asian, or another non-white
racial category (Gates 2017). A range of scholarship has documented the exclusion
of people of color within the queer communities, with consistent findings of racism
within both social movement organizations and interpersonal settings (Alimahomed
2010; Ward 2008). However, some urban spaces allow for queer communities to be
built around both shared sexuality and race/ethnicity (Moore 2011).
Queer communities have also faced challenges regarding the inclusion of gen-
der identity (Beemyn and Eliason 2016). Notable public examples of cissexism
include the banning of trans women from the 1991 National Lesbian Conference
and the longer-term banning of trans women from the annual Michigan Womyn’s
Music Festival (Beemyn and Eliason 2016). In these spaces, the privileging of one
kind of woman’s experience, typically that of cisgender white lesbians, demonstrates
the pervasiveness of cissexism within queer communities and reveals the inherently
unequal power relations between identity groups within queer communities (Koy-
ama 2006; Weiss 2004). Stone (2009) conducted a systematic examination of the
attitudes of gay men and lesbians towards transgender inclusion within the queer
movement; she interviewed lesbian and gay men in the Midwest queer activist scene
and found that lesbians were more likely to express a sense of ambivalence regard-
ing trans inclusion, while gay men were unlikely to express ambivalence, express-
ing either clear support or clear opposition for trans inclusion. This research reveals
that the acceptance of transgender individuals within the queer movement has been
inconsistent at best, and that the legacies of trans exclusion remain salient today.
These internal traumas indicate a lack of solidarity within queer communities,
which exacerbates the marginalization of the most vulnerable members of these
communities. For example, queer activists have failed to fully include gender minor-
ities, as in the decision by the Human Rights Campaign not to oppose the exclusion
of transgender people from early versions of the Employment Non-Discrimination

13
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1527

(Kelly and Lubitow 2015; Vitulli 2010). The formation of nodes within a broader
queer community have both positive and negative effects. These smaller communi-
ties based on intersecting identities of race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and other
identities provide the positive benefits of queer community as well as perceived or
real conflict between the smaller communities (Easterbrook et  al. 2013; Schwalbe
et al. 2000).

Study Context: Portland, Oregon

The city of Portland has one of the highest proportions of queer people in the U.S
and is in a state with both legal protections against discrimination and a high social
acceptance index rating (Burks et  al. 2018; Newport and Gates, 2015; Hasenbush
et  al. 2014). Portland is also a majority white city, and both the city of Portland
and the state of Oregon have long histories of racist policies, the legacies of which
persist today (Bates and Curry-Stevens 2014).1 As Bates and Curry-Stevens wrote
in their report on African Americans in Multnomah Country (where Portland is
located): “Discriminatory policies in employment, education, housing, the criminal
justice system, policing, and in economic development have had the effect of limit-
ing the ways our community has been able to advance and thrive” (2014, 8).
In some cities, queer communities are concentrated in specific neighborhoods
like The Castro in San Francisco. Historically these gay neighborhoods, or “gaybor-
hoods,” developed in urban centers so that queer individuals could freely express
their sexual identities in their day-to-day lives (Chauncey 1994; Ghaziani 2015).
However, in many cities, gay enclaves are becoming less prominent as queer people
are more readily accepted in society (Buchanan 2007; Ghaziani 2015; Spring 2012).
Portland, Oregon is one such city. In the 1960s and 1970s, queer spaces in Portland
emerged, including a “gayborhood” in downtown Portland around Southwest Stark
Street, recently renamed Southwest Harvey Milk Street (although currently only a
handful of bars catering to gay men remain) and a concentration of lesbians in the
Southeast of the city (now largely dissipated). Gentrification and increasing housing
prices have contributed to the movement of queer people across the city. Over time,
there has been a significant decline in the number of queer bars and clubs, theaters,
bathhouses, bookstores, and publications (GLAPN 2015; Rushall 2017).
At the time of our data collection, there remained only a few exclusively queer
public spaces; primarily consisting of bars and bath houses catering to gay men as
well as the Q Center, a community space. More prevalent are queer-focused events
held in not-exclusively-queer spaces. As our participant, Doug, noted “Portland
is big enough that it’s easier for people to find the things they’re particularly into.
Like if you’re into cigars, you hang out with your [gay] cigar group. [Or you go
to] fairy gatherings. Or the gay gardeners.” Notably, these events are often aimed

1
  In the 2010 Census, 71% of the population identified as white (and not Latinx), 9.7% as Latinx, 7.8%
as Asian, 5.7% as Black or African American, 0.8% American Indian or Alaskan Native, 0.6% Native
Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and 5.5% two or more races (Census 2019).

13
 1528 M. Kelly et al.

at specific sub-groups of the queer community, such as older lesbians, transgender

men, QTPOC (queer and trans people of color), or kink communities.
With increasing acceptance of sexual and gender minorities, queer people
have also increasingly integrated into non-queer spaces, organizations, and events
throughout the city (Butler 2017; Ghaziani 2015; Rushall 2017). This integration
may be seen as positive sign that queer people were not historically segregated to
one area (Ghaziani 2015). However, the lack of a gayborhood or other queer spaces
inhibits the building of an intergenerational queer community and sharing of history
and knowledge (Alexander 2004; Ghaziani 2015). In sum, Portland in the 2010s was
a place where many queer people lived and thrived, but lacked many aspects of a
cohesive queer community and had notable fractures along lines of race/ethnicity,
gender identity, sexual identity, and age.

Method

Data for this paper is drawn from a larger study of the experiences of 80 lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, and queer workers in Portland. Participants were recruited
through flyers distributed at queer organizations and businesses, announcements
on email lists, and social media postings. Additional participants were recruited
through snowball sampling. Participants were given a $25 gift card for participating.
Interviews occurred between January and May 2013 and were primarily con-
ducted by the first and third authors with additional interviews conducted by the
fourth author and an additional research assistant. The first author (a queer white
cisgender woman) and third author (a Two-Spirit person) identify as part of the
Portland queer community. Including interviewers who shared membership with
participants likely helped facilitated rapport and trust. Interviewers were care-
ful to ask participants to clarify and elaborate on answers to avoid assumptions of
shared knowledge. Interviews lasted an average of 44 min and were conducted in the
researchers’ offices, coffee shops, libraries, and other public places. All interviews
were audiotaped and fully transcribed.
The section of the interview guide related to queer collective trauma began with
the question: When you think about the LGBTQ community as a whole, what sorts
of traumatic events has the community experienced? This could be harassment,
violence, or unequal treatment that happened to individuals or the community as
a whole, but not necessarily yourself. What traumatic events has the community
experienced? Interviewers probed for specific examples of trauma to the commu-
nity. Follow up questions included: When thinking about these events, how did you
react to these events at the time? How do these events impact your life today? How
do you talk about these events with family members, friends, co-workers, and oth-
ers? This line of research was conceived by the third author, a Two-Spirit person,
who was investigating the effects of historical trauma on the health of American
Indian and Alaska Natives. That lead to the collaboration between the third and first
author to explore collective trauma in queer communities. The development of the
questions in this section of the interview guide were led by the third author with
assistance from the first author. While we had initially conceptualized this line of

13
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1529

inquiry as being about external trauma, we found that participants offered examples
of trauma from within the community as well. We were specifically interested in
engaging with participants around the concept of “trauma.” In our analysis, we take
into account that introducing the term “trauma” in the interview question impacted
how participants responded to this question.
The interviews were initially open coded for all types of trauma to all types of
queer communities (local to global), see Table  1. Codes were not mutually exclu-
sive (one example of trauma could be coded as more than one type of trauma). We
then focused on trauma specific to the Portland queer community in order to pro-
vide a consistent local context for the analysis. We also focused on traumas associ-
ated with at least one specific event. Where possible, we identified relevant media
coverage to provide additional details about each of the traumatic events our par-
ticipants described. Ultimately, we examine four types of trauma: political battles,
hate crimes, cissexism, and racism. Examples of political battles and hate crimes
were chosen as they were among the most common forms of trauma described.
Discussions of cissexism and racism were less commonly mentioned; we chose to
focus on these because they are known sources of trauma within queer communities
documented in previous research. Our selected examples illustrate a range of trau-
mas inflicted upon the Portland queer community as well as trauma emerging from
within the community.
Asking questions about trauma requires some additional ethical considerations.
In addition to obtaining standard IRB approval, we took additional precautions.
First, we included the questions on trauma at the end of the interview guide in order
to maximize the development of trust before asking questions about trauma. Second,
we emphasized to participants that we were interested in trauma to the queer com-
munity, not specifically to participants themselves (although some individuals did
offer examples they had personally experienced). We did not observe any partici-
pants having negative responses to the interview.
The sample included 31 cisgender women, 31 cisgender men, 18 participants
who identified as transgender, non-binary, and/or transitioned to a different gender
than the one assigned at birth. Ages ranged from 21 to 70 with an average age of 40.
83% of participants identified as white, European American, Caucasian, or white-
Jewish; 5% as Latinx; 5% as Black or African American; and 8% as another racial/
ethnic minority or as multiracial (this represents an overrepresentation of white par-
ticipants and underrepresentation of Latinx and Asian participants, relative to the
demographics of Portland as a whole). Overall, the sample was highly educated: 8%
had a high school diploma or GED only, 16% had an associate’s degree or some col-
lege, 45% had a bachelor’s degree, 9% had some graduate education, and 23% had a
graduate degree. However, at the time of the interviews, 8% were unemployed and
many others reported being underemployed to varying degrees.

13
 1530

13
Table 1  Participants’ perceptions of external and internal trauma to the queer community
External trauma Internal trauma
N Type Description N Type Description

78 External Any external trauma 21 Internal Any internal trauma

60 Violence Hate crimes, violence against queer people 9 Assimilation Queer assimilation, erosion of queer community, apolitical
queers
49 Harassment Hate speech, prejudice, hatred, bullying, stereotyping, igno- 7 Organization Queer organization leaders not representing community
rance, microaggressions
38 Political Unequal protection under the law; lack of legal relationship 6 Racism Racism within the queer community
recognition; DADT
35 Health HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, mental health, suicide, discrimi- 5 Cissexism Cissexism within the queer community
nation in health systems
24 Cissexism Harassment and discrimination based on trans identity 5 Violence Interpersonal violence in queer relationships
20 Family of origin Heterosexism, cissexism, or estrangement from family of
origin
20 Youth Coming out, bullying, discrimination in schools
19 Economic Workplace discrimination, housing, homelessness, poverty,
lack of services for queer people
15 Racism Harassment and discrimination based on race/ethnicity
12 Religion Discrimination or exclusion by religious communities
M. Kelly et al.
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1531

Findings

In their narratives, participants described internal and external traumas as constant

threats to the community, punctuated by specific traumatic events that highlighted
these ongoing issues. Below are three representative examples of how our partici-
pants described queer collective trauma in response to the initial question:
I think Portland is a really strange place in a lot of respects because it is
super queer friendly but it’s also really… It seems big in some ways and it
also seems super tiny in some ways… You know there’s not like a gayborhood
it’s just like embedded in the community. In that sense I feel like when issues
come up it does seem like there is a lot of community trauma. Most recently,
the drag performer [in Blackface] at the Eagle sort of uncovered all the racism
embedded in the Portland queer community and I think that that has always
been there. (Amber)
Job discrimination for our trans people is a huge issue. Housing discrimination
for people is a huge issue. Violence in the queer community. Murder rates for
trans women of color. But also, I would say the growing problem of domes-
tic violence in queer relationships. That’s not really being addressed by a lot
of organizations or a lot of shelters [because they] are not able to accommo-
date the needs of trans people [or they] refuse trans people because they don’t
believe in the process of housing them. So there are tons of issues. (Casey)
I’ve known a ton of people that have been gay bashed. I got whistled at by a
carload of guys and then got beat up by two girls and two guys one time. I
remember that one little drag queen; they found her with her throat slit at PDX
[airport]. And then that one drag queen they just dug up her body about four
years ago and she had been dead for ten years. I couldn’t believe when they
finally found her body. (Donald)
Participants reported a wide variety of traumatic events that have affected queer
communities. As shown in Table 1, 78 (of 80) participants mentioned at least one
form of external trauma and 21 participants mentioned at least one form of trauma
internal to the queer community.
The temporal context of the examples of trauma varied significantly; some par-
ticipants recalled more distant past events (e.g. HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, the murder
of Matthew Shepherd in 1998), while most focused on more recent events, such as a
drag queen performing in Blackface at a gay bar (discussed further below). Here we
identify that the degree of intergenerational transmission of collective trauma is a
notable difference between racial/ethnic communities and queer communities: queer
individuals most often do not grow up with queer people in their families of origin
and often lack access to elders within the queer community. Thus, while partici-
pants’ examples represent collective traumas, they are not consistent with previous
articulations of historical trauma (Evans-Campbell 2008) or cultural trauma (Alex-
ander et al. 2004) as they lack the intergenerational component.
In the rest of the analysis, we focus on four types of trauma to the Portland queer
community, each of these were illustrated by specific events described by multiple

13
 1532 M. Kelly et al.

participants: (1) political battles and queer politics in Oregon; (2) hate crimes and
the violent attack of two gay men on the Hawthorne Bridge, and the resulting
response by the queer community; (3) cissexism and exclusion experienced by a
group of transgender women who were asked to not to continue to meet at a local
(straight) bar; and (4) racism within the queer community and a controversy over a
drag queen in Blackface at a local gay bar. These represent both external and inter-
nal forms of trauma; this bifurcation of our findings demonstrates the significance of
traumas internal to the queer community and suggests that within-group violence,
harassment, and discrimination must be taken seriously by scholars of collective
trauma.

Political Battles and Queer Politics in Oregon

In the 1990s in Oregon, an organization called Oregon Citizen’s Alliance pursued a

variety of anti-gay legislation, such as Ballot Measure 9, which would require public
schools to teach that homosexuality was “abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse”
(this ballot measure did not pass). As one participant recalled “And so we had quite
a campaign against [Ballot Measure 9]. We eventually won and that was a turning
point in our movement in Oregon” (Edward). Another pivotal moment in queer poli-
tics in Oregon occurred in Spring of 2004, when Multnomah County (where Port-
land Oregon is located) issued over 3000 marriage licenses to same-gender couples.
They were temporarily stopped by a Multnomah County Court ruling and perma-
nently stopped (with the same-gender marriages annulled) by Ballot Measure 36,
a constitutional amendment defining marriage as limited to one man, one woman.
One of our participants, Daniel, was one of the people who was briefly was mar-
ried in 2004 but had the check for his marriage license returned by the state. As he
recounted “I’m so up on the news, I already was expecting to get that check back
in the mail. If I hadn’t known that it was coming and I just got it, I probably would
have been a lot more surprised.”
While we were conducting the interviews for this project in 2013, Basic Rights
Oregon announced that they would be putting a referendum for same gender mar-
riage on the ballot in 2014. While many participants were excited about the potential
for attaining marriage equality in Oregon, Dylan took a more skeptical view:
Coming up we will have the marriage equality [referendum] and that is the
first one I can remember in my time here that has actually been like pro-active
and not us fighting against people that are trying enshrine some form of dis-
crimination into the constitution [as happened with Ballot Measure 36 and
other anti-gay referendums]. I think that that is going to affect people in an
empowering way, but I also think that when we come back and realize even
that we won, which I have faith that it will pass, but to even realize that it’s
55 to 45 and you look around and you know 45% of your neighbors, maybe
less in Portland, but statewide I think that it really affects you and does have
some traumatizing effect on the community to realize how many people are
still wishing you didn’t exist.

13
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1533

This referendum was not put on the ballot, as a judge overturned the state’s constitu-
tional ban on same-sex marriage in Geiger v. Kitzhaber in May 2014, making same-
gender marriage legal in Oregon. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck
down all state bans on same-gender marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, making same-
gender marriage legal across the U.S. As indicated in the quote above from Dylan,
these political battles may still be traumatizing to the community, particularly when
they are hard fought and narrowly won.
In addition to these specific political struggles, participants discussed more
generally the way in which trauma is caused by queer people having unequal pro-
tections under the law.
Well, I think [one type of collective trauma is] any of the struggles that
we’ve tried to overcome politically, as far as getting our basic rights. I mean,
that’s huge. (Ethan)
I think the political jockeying around gay marriage and, you know, playing
with people’s lives and marriage discrimination and writing things into state
constitutions and DOMA, and all this stuff for political points I think has
been traumatic for gay people. (Michael)
Notably, in these discussions of politics and law, participants were more likely
to use “we” language in reference to the queer community, compared to the dis-
cussion of other types of trauma. This suggests that discussions of legal issues
are something that increases a sense of collective identity. Political traumas were
mentioned by 38 (of 80) participants, making it one of the most common forms of
trauma described by participants (see Table 1).

Violence and the Attack on the Hawthorne Bridge

On a Sunday night in May 2011, Brad Forkner and Christopher Rosevear were
holding hands as they walked over the Hawthorne bridge from downtown Port-
land to the east side of the river. They were attacked by three men. As Forkner
recounted to a journalist after the attack, no one made any attempt to help the
men or call the police: “Not that I expect anyone to jump in and put themselves in
harm’s way, but no one yelled stop, no one else called police… We were standing
under the bridge literally covered in blood” (Kalkstein 2011). Nearly two years
later, when we asked participants in our study to describe events that had been
traumatic to the queer community, a common example was the Hawthorne Bridge
attack. As one participant recalled:
I know that there was an incident… where a couple was holding hands and
they were beaten up by some guys that didn’t like seeing them hold hands…
I was kind of disgusted that there’s still people out there that not only cannot
accept people that are different, but feel like they have the right to take mat-
ters into their own hand. (Michelle)
Another participant noted:

13
 1534 M. Kelly et al.

I think individuals being harassed for holding hands, that still goes on. That
is definitely traumatic for the couple that gets harassed but it is [also] trau-
matic for the community in that it shows that there’s prejudice against us.
I think in Portland sometimes we live in a little bit of a bubble. And then
when these little incidents pop up, it’s like “oh, this is the reality in America
as a whole.” (Bob)
As Bob clearly articulated, perceptions of the relative safety of queer-friendly
Portland, which Bob and many other participants referred to as the “Portland
bubble,” are challenged by traumatic violent events, such as the bridge attack.
A Portland newspaper reported that in 2011 alone, there were a total of 23 hate
crimes based on perceived queer identity (Mirk 2012). We suggest that the attack
on the Hawthorne Bridge was particularly memorable because this location is
generally regarded as a “safe space” within the Portland bubble, where men such
as Forkner and Rosevear should have be able to safely hold hands. The event was
also particularly memorable because of the community reaction to this attack. In
late May 2011 an action called “Hands Across Hawthorne” took place, in which
participants gathered on the bridge to hold hands in solidarity with the couple
who was attacked. An estimated 4000 people attended the action (Rook 2011). As
one participant recounted:
Was it two years ago or three years ago when the person was beat up on for
being gay, and then we all got together and held hands across Hawthorne
Bridge? That was phenomenal. So unfortunate that something like that has
to happen, so traumatic, for people to pay attention. (Paul)
For some respondents, like Paul, the details of the “Hands across Hawthorne”
action were more memorable than the details of the attack itself. Many of the
participants who began by describing the attack on the bridge as a trauma to the
community (or as an example of the chronic violence that is traumatic to the com-
munity) concluded by discussing how the action in response to the attack served
to bring the community together. As one participant recalled:
If you’re queer, that’s what happens, those are your risks. Somebody’s
gonna hurt you. When the Hawthorne Bridge thing happened, I think I had
more of an understanding that this happens, that it’s wrong, that we should
stand up. And that was a real change in understanding. I loved going to the
event, because it was put together very quickly, and we covered the damn
bridge.… Things like the Hawthorne Bridge made me believe change really
can happen. (Timothy)
Thus, a consequence of trauma can be that it brings the community together and
solidifies a collective queer identity.
The violence that occurred on the Hawthorne Bridge was also traumatic
because it was a very public example of the violence that chronically affects
queer people. In considering our question about trauma to the queer community,
violence was the most common response (see Table 1). Some focused on specific
events in Portland (with the most common specific event being the attack on the

13
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1535

Hawthorne Bridge), others recounted chronic violence in Portland. As Helen said

“We’ve been beaten up a lot in Portland.” A few mentioned violence that had
happened to themselves or their friends. Others spoke about events in other loca-
tions. Several people mentioned high profile murders, such as Matthew Shepard
and Harvey Milk as traumatic events in the queer community. In the examples our
participants gave, they mostly referenced violence towards gay men or transgen-
der people. As Gloria stated “I’m really mad at myself now that I’m not able to
think of a woman who suffered for her gayness.” Also notable is the fact that
most people talked about violence that happened to members of the community
using “they” pronouns; Helen (quoted above) was a rare example of saying “we”
in reference to violence and the broader queer community. Notably, some white
participants commented the role that white privilege and/or class privilege plays
in protects them. The following are quotes from two white participants:
I mean the Matthew Shepard case was hard for me to process… I grew up in
an area where it was totally okay to be gay and my parents had gay friends
and it was really easy for me to be like, “well that would never happen to me.”
But the reality is, that’s not true at all. And yeah, I have a lot of privileges that
make something like that happening to me a lot less likely. (Laura)
I think like as a trans person, I do worry about violence, particularly because
there is so much evidence but I also recognize that I am white and the vast
majority of violence against trans people is not against somebody who’s white,
it’s against trans women of color. So I can recognize that privilege and it
doesn’t quite make me as fearful as it probably should. (Olivia)
Thus, divisions along the lines of gender, race, and class (and the resulting feelings
of being vulnerable to violence or protected from violence) diminish the sense of
collective identity around the issue of violence.

Cissexism and the Transgender Women’s Group at the P‑Club

In August of 2013, a group of transgender women, the “T-Girls,” were banned from
the P-Club Bar and Grill in North Portland. After the group had been patronizing
the establishment weekly for a year, club owner, Chris Penner left the following
message on one of the T-Girl’s voice mails:
Hello, my name is Chris. I’m the owner of P-Club Bar and Grill. Unfortu-
nately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I’m going to have to ask you,
Cass, and your group, not to come back on Friday nights. People think that A)
we’re a tranny bar or B) we’re a gay bar. We are neither. People are not com-
ing in because they just don’t want to be here on a Friday night now (quoted in
Nichols 2013).
Chris Penner was found guilty of discrimination under the 2007 Oregon Equality
Act and was fined $400,000 to be paid to the eleven T-Girls. The incident at the
P-Club represents one example of cissexism and transgender exclusion in Portland
and was specifically recalled by two cisgender lesbians in this study.

13
 1536 M. Kelly et al.

Although cissexism was not one of the most commonly mentioned forms of
trauma (see Table  1), several participants discussed cissexism and trans issues
as one of the most pressing concerns in the Portland queer community. Carol, a
transgender woman, described first-hand experiences of exclusion in the broader
Portland community based on gender identity, stating: “Like if you wanted to get,
say, bras. There was this one special place. She sold the special bras. But you
could only go in there like after work, because she didn’t want her female custom-
ers to have to deal with ‘you creepy [transgender] people.’” Several cisgender
participants agreed that cissexism was a major issue facing the Portland queer
community:
I’d say that some challenges that the community still faces would be trans
acceptability, or tolerance. I hate that word, tolerance. But I’d say trans issues
is a very big one, at the forefront. (Sean).
I have a lot of friends that are trans and I know that they worry for their safety
a lot…Portland, San Francisco, and Brooklyn are the three places that trans
men feel the safest, I hear. I know that here it’s more safe than other places, but
it’s still a hard road. (Kathy)
While cissexism was certainly discussed in interviews as a type of trauma to the
queer community, discussions of trauma to the trans community in Portland tended
to be broader and include a diverse range of examples, representing trauma from
within the queer community as well as trauma inflicted by external actors. For exam-
ple, above, Sean discussed “trans issues” in Portland generally without any mention
of a particular incidence.
While some interviewees clearly cared about trans issues and identified them as a
high priority, several individuals were missing complete information about specific
incidences of trauma experienced by trans people in Portland. This was the case
with several participants describing the P-Club room incident. As Kayla recalled
“Recently there was a venue, and I can’t remember the name of the venue, but the
owner of it told either Basic Rights Oregon or another lesbian or gay group that they
couldn’t hold events there because it was just attracting the trans people. And so
there was an uprising about it and then the guy tried to back pedal and say, “Oh, I
never said that,” when there was a voicemail.” This could possibly point to margin-
alization of the trans community from Portland queer community news resources
and social media, where specific incidences of trans related trauma are possibly not
followed as closely as incidences like the Hawthorne bridge. While discriminatory
exclusion to trans folks certainly informs the collective identity of queer folks in
Portland, a lack of a shared understanding of specific incidences may mediate the
formation of a strong trans inclusive collective identity.
Internal cissexism within the Portland queer community is another possible fac-
tor in the lack of awareness of specific incidences of trauma to the trans community
in Portland. Participants described a type of gender assimilation sentiment present
in the Portland queer community that is congruent with cited incidences of inter-
nal cissexism. One participant described ignorance within queer community toward
trans issues, stating:

13
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1537

But I really feel concerned with the transgender community right now. I think
that’s one area that is—I think because so many more people are coming out
that it’s getting to be an issue because people don’t understand it. … I don’t
think people are prepared for it. I don’t even think within our own community
we’re prepared for it because a lot of people don’t know about it. (Angela)
Megan, a transgender woman, noted that she talked about trauma with her wife,
lovers, and friends, but wondered aloud how she might talk about trans issues to
people outside and within the queer community: “Trying to explain the intricacies
of trans misogyny at lesbian dance parties [or to] to my straight male 40-year-old
coworkers, [it’s] not gonna happen.” As demonstrated here, the growth in vis-
ibility of the trans community has brought both internal cissexism and ignorance
around trans issues from the greater queer community.

Racism in the Queer Community and Blackface at the Eagle

In February 2013, The Eagle, a local gay bar announced an event featuring Chuck
Knipp, a white drag queen who performed a variety of characters, including one
named “Shirley Q. Liquor.” This character was performed in Blackface and is a
caricature of an African American “welfare queen.” This announcement led to a
heated discussion, which occurred largely on Facebook. As one white participant
described:
A lot of [people], who appeared to be gay white men, said, “This is just a
performance; this is art even. It’s not racist.” A lot of queer people of color in
Portland said, “How the hell can you not see that this is super racist?” I think
that there were some great moments for maybe some white allies who may or
may not be queer identified and sort of pushed back against that but there was
still a pretty significant portion of folks that didn’t seem to think there was any
problem with that. (Amber).
In reflecting on the Eagle event, Timothy, a white person, said “And I think that’s
a traumatic event in the community, even though it’s an event from the inside. And
maybe those are at least as important. Right now we’re not serving everybody in the
community if we’re divided along color lines.”
In response to these debates, the Q Center, a queer community center, organized
an event to have a dialog about the issue called “Race, Racism and the LGBTQ
Community.” The event was immediately criticized for the lack of inclusion of peo-
ple of color in its organization and the way in which the dialog was framed. Rather
than explicitly identifying the Eagle event as racist, the description of the Q Center
event implied that the dialog would include a discussion about whether or not the
performance was racist. As the description of the event stated:
The event [at the Eagle] has been cancelled but we are left with agony, ques-
tions, feelings, yearnings, dreams, as the conversation continues. Is the per-
former racist? Is the club racist? Is the Portland Gay community racist? Is the

13
 1538 M. Kelly et al.

constitutional right for freedom of speech being infringed upon? Who was the
constitution written by and for whom? Is our political correctness preventing
us from an important opportunity for reflection? What about Art and Drag?
Whose LGBTQ community is this? Can the experience of marginality bring us
across the divide of race? What do we do with the agony, the history, and the
ignorance, the fear, the outrage? (Rook 2013)
As Amber (quoted above) elaborated “I mean in the description of the [Q Center]
event [it asked] ‘Was this racist’ without really acknowledging that this was rac-
ist, period, amen.” She noted other ways that this issue could have been addressed
“Like, let’s maybe do a listening session where people of color can really educate
us about how they experienced this event or let’s have a community action session
where we discuss, ‘This is how we’re going to respond in the future as a united com-
munity against racism’” (Amber). The event at the Q Center was “postponed.” Later,
in April 2013, the Q Center held an event titled “Race & Ethnicity: Let’s Talk About
It,” which feature four panelists of color (Q Center 2013) The panel organizer, Kath-
leen Saadat, wrote in the event description: “The event, it is not intended as a debate
about whether or not there is racism (or sexism or…..) within our LGBT communi-
ties and movement, it is about telling our stories and sharing a dialogue about race/
racism that serves as a catalyst for change, a foundation for building stronger coali-
tions” (Q Center 2013).
The controversy over the performance at the Eagle stirred up a larger discussion
about race and racism within the queer community. As Timothy articulated:
I don’t completely understand white queer and people of color queer relation-
ships in Portland, but I think there’s a problem. Just thinking. I think there’s a
problem, and I don’t understand not addressing it. I think that that was a trau-
matic event. I think from talking to a few people of color who are trans, they
don’t always feel welcome and supported in the community. They feel maybe
not overt racism, but definitely lots of white folks that don’t necessarily get it,
and who are unintentionally patronizing, and I don’t understand why we as a
community would find that acceptable.
Martin, a man of color, also noted: “What I notice is that [with] the regular gay
white people, there is kind of a polite, not polite, but it’s a very discreet way of how
they portray discrimination by not talking to me or ignoring me. I mean, without
saying anything, but I notice that the attention goes away, like I don’t matter in the
group.”
As noted in Table 1, only six participants described racism within the queer com-
munity as a source of trauma; of these, only one was a person of color (Martin,
quoted above). Here we view the absence of discussions of race as important as what
was actually said. This instance at the Eagle, as well as the ongoing racism within
the Portland queer community, highlight one of several fissures in the Portland queer
community. These internal traumas may be particularly harmful to the queer com-
munity because they are perpetrated by others in the queer community, challenging
the ideal of the Portland queer community as a safe place for all queers.

13
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1539

Discussion

Our findings about trauma to the Portland queer community confirm existing
research on collective trauma that has shown that external traumas, involving vio-
lence and discrimination, have the potential to create lasting impacts on communi-
ties (e.g. Alexander et al. 2004). This paper has also sought to contribute to exist-
ing scholarship on collective trauma by suggesting that traumas that emerge from
actors within a particular social group can and should also be understood as hav-
ing the potential to generate ongoing, long term impacts for communities and their
members. This study of Portland, Oregon in 2013 represents a specific local context,
notable for both the overall support for queer people within the “Portland bubble” as
well as racial dynamics of a majority white city. We suggest that our findings about
the sources of external and internal trauma will be relevant across many queer com-
munities, although different communities will have nuanced understanding about
sources of trauma and their consequences.
The examples of trauma to the Portland queer community provided by our par-
ticipants are consistent in several ways with conceptualization of historical trauma
and cultural trauma: the events and actions described were reported by partici-
pants to have negative impacts; these events contributed to tension and disruption
within the queer community, ultimately threatening the cohesion of the collective
sense of community; and the memory and impact of these events have endured over
time. Notably, discussions of trauma by our queer participants were most likely to
include events that had happened in the participants’ lifetimes, rather than memories
of events that have been passed down intergenerationally. As noted in our analysis,
there are several reasons for this: queer people do not often have other queer peo-
ple in their families of origin; there is a lack of access to intergenerational relation-
ships; and there is a lack of queer spaces. This difference in the temporal element
and intergenerational transmission of memories of trauma marks a significant differ-
ence from how collective trauma has been observed in communities of color. While
we draw on key insights from the scholarship based on communities of color, we
emphasize that there are also significant differences in the histories of these commu-
nities that make exact comparisons inappropriate. Further, in considering the experi-
ences of queer people of color in Portland, a majority white city, collective trauma
to both communities of color and queer communities must be considered. Our par-
ticipants’ narratives offered some insight into the intersection of queer identities and
racial identities, for example, identifying the Blackface incident at the Eagle and
in acknowledging how trans women of color are the most likely to be impacted by
violence. Our findings suggest that further research on queer communities of color
is needed.
As Alexander (2004) noted, traumas to communities can potentially disrupt or
solidify these communities, depending on how the traumas are addressed. In the
four examples from Portland discussed here, we find that each trauma resulted in
some sort of positive response by the community: trauma from a lack of legal rec-
ognition encouraged ongoing activism in Portland around marriage equality, which
continued until marriage was legally recognized; the attack on the Hawthorne

13
 1540 M. Kelly et al.

Bridge spurred a solidarity event that brought queers together; the discrimination at
the P-Club resulted in both a response from a public agency (which resulted in fines
and the closing of the bar) as well as some increased visibility of cissexism in Port-
land; and the incident at the Eagle led to a community forum on racism in the queer
community (albeit after a false start). Thus, our findings suggest that both external
and internal trauma may serve to both disrupt and solidify communities; however,
we are cautious not to overestimate the positive impact of these traumas.
The implications of these findings suggest that it will be critical for queer com-
munities to systematically defend against all the types of trauma that our participants
identified. In the current political climate, we are seeing reinvigoration of attacks
against queer people and communities. Countering increased political attacks and
hate crimes will be critical for queer communities to survive and thrive. These find-
ings further suggest that the queer movement ought to provide additional attention
to resolving internal traumas, in addition to continuing to address external traumas.
A failure to acknowledge and address how existing forms of cissexism and racism
persist within queer communities has the potential to amplify the harmful impacts of
external traumas; exclusion within queer communities can mean that the protective
factors that community connection and engagement may provide are less available to
some individuals than others. Thus, specific urban spaces, as well as larger national
organizations and groups that represent queer interests, must make anti-racist and
anti-cissexist education, training, and outreach into routine practice. Specific efforts
that acknowledge historical forms of oppression, provide tools for recognizing and
interrupting oppression, and language and outreach that is inclusive of the range of
diverse identities that make up queer communities  are essential.

Funding  This project was supported by a Faculty Enhancement Grant from Office of Research and Stra-
tegic Partnership at Portland State University.

Compliance with Ethical Standards 

Conflict of interest  The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval  All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance
with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Hel-
sinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent  Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

References
Abelson, M. J. (2019). Men in place: Trans masculinity, race, and sexuality in America. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Alexander, J. (2004). Towards a theory of cultural trauma. In J. C. Alexander, R. Eyerman, B. Giesen, N.
J. Smelser, & P. Sztompka (Eds.), Cultural trauma and collective identity (pp. 1–30). Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.

13
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1541

Alexander, J., Eyerman, R., Giessen, B., Smelser, N. J., & Sztompka, P. (2004). Cultural trauma and col-
lective identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Alimahomed, S. (2010). Thinking outside the rainbow: Women of color redefining queer politics and
identity. Social Identities, 16(2), 151–168.
Balsam, K. F., Molina, Y., Beadnell, B., Simoni, J., & Walter, K. (2011). Measuring multiple minority
stress: The LGBTQ people of color microaggressions scale. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority
Psychology, 17(2), 163–174.
Bates, L., Curry-Stevens, A., & Coalition of Communities of Color. (2014). The African-American Com-
munity in multnomah county: An unsettling profile. Portland, OR: Portland State University.
Beemyn, G., & Eliason, M. (2016). The intersections of trans women and lesbian identities, communities,
and movements: An introduction. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 20(1), 1–7.
Bockting, W., Barucco, R., LeBlanc, A., Singh, A., Mellman, W., Dolezal, C., et al. (2019). Sociopolitical
change and transgender people’s perceptions of vulnerability and resilience. Sexuality Research and
Social Policy, 17, 162–174.
Brave Heart, M. Y. H. (1999). Oyate ptayela: Rebuilding the Lakota nation through addressing histori-
cal trauma among Lakota parents. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 2(1–2),
109–126.
Brave Heart, M. Y. H. (2000). Wakiksuyapi: Carrying the historical trauma of the Lakota. Tulane Studies
in Social Welfare, 21(22), 245–266.
Brown, Laura. S. (2003). Sexuality, lies, and loss. Journal of Trauma Practice, 2(2), 55–68.
Buchanan, W. (2007). S.F.’s Castro district faces an identity crisis/as straights move in, some fear loss
of the area’s character. SF Gate. http://www.sfgat​e.com/news/artic​le/S-F-s-Castr​o-distr​ict-faces​-an-
ident​ity-crisi​s-26154​23.php. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Burks, A. C., Cramer, R. J., Henderson, C. E., Stroud, C. H., Crosby, J. W., & Graham, J. (2018). Fre-
quency, nature, and correlates of hate crime victimization experiences in an urban sample of lesbian,
gay, and bisexual community members. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 33(3), 402–420.
Butler, G. (2017). Rainbow flags, drag queens, family ties: A visual history of Portland’s Pride Parade.
The Oregonian/Oregon Live. http://www.orego​nlive​.com/trend​ing/2017/06/rainb​ow_flags​_drag_
queen​s_prou.html. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Census. (2019). Quick facts. https​://www.censu​s.gov/quick​facts​/fact/table​/portl​andci​tyore​gon/POP01​
0210. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Chauncey, G. (1994). Gay New York: Gender, urban culture, and the making of the gay male world,
1890–1940. New York: Basic Books.
Craig, K. (2002). Examining hate-motivated aggression: A review of the social psychological literature
on hate crimes as a distinct form of aggression. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 7(1), 85–101.
Duggan, L. (2002). The new homonormativity: The sexual politics of neoliberalism. In R. Castronovo &
D. D. Nelson (Eds.), Materializing democracy: Toward a revitalized cultural politics (pp. 175–194).
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Easterbrook, A., Carpiano, R. M., Kelly, B. C., & Parsons, J. T. (2013). The personal experience of com-
munity among urban gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals: Melting pot or mosaic? Social Science Quar-
terly, 95(3), 682–700.
Evans-Campbell, T. (2008). Historical trauma in American Indian/Native Alaska communities: A multi-
level framework for exploring impacts on individuals, families, and communities. Journal of Inter-
personal Violence, 23(3), 316–338.
Eyerman, R. (2004). Cultural trauma: Slavery and the formation of African American identity. In J. C.
Alexander, R. Eyerman, B. Giesen, N. J. Smelser, & P. Sztompka (Eds.), Cultural trauma and col-
lective identity (pp. 60–111). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
FBI. (2018). 2017 Hate crime statistics. https​://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime​/2017/hate-crime​. Accessed 21 Feb
2020.
Ferry, N. C. (2013). Rethinking the mainstream gay and lesbian movement beyond the classroom: Exclu-
sionary results from inclusion-based assimilation politics. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 28(2),
104–117.
Fullilove, M. T. (2001). Root shock: The consequences of African American dispossession. Journal of
Urban Health, 78(1), 72–80.
Gates, G. J. (2017). In U.S., more adults identifying at LGBT. Gallup. http://news.gallu​p.com/poll/20173​
1/lgbt-ident​ifica​tion-rises​.aspx. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Ghaziani, A. (2011). Post-gay collective identity construction. Social Problems, 58(1), 99–125.

13
 1542 M. Kelly et al.

Ghaziani, A. (2015). Gay enclaves face prospect of being passé: How assimilation affects the spa-
tial expressions of sexuality in the United States. International Journal of Urban and Regional
Research, 39(4), 756–771.
GLAPN. (2015). 1999 Portland gay history walking tour. https​://www.glapn​.org/6045w​alkin​gtour​.html.
Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Gone, J. P. (2007). “We never was happy living like a Whiteman”: Mental health disparities and the post-
colonial predicament in American Indian communities. American Journal of Community Psychol-
ogy, 40(3–4), 290–300.
Gone, J. P. (2013). Redressing first nations historical trauma: Theorizing mechanisms for indigenous cul-
ture as mental health treatment. Transcultural Psychiatry, 50(5), 683–706.
Grant, J. M., Mottet, L. A., Tanis, J., Harrison, J., Herman, J. L., & Keisling, M. (2016). Injustice at every
turn: A report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Washington, DC: 2011.
Harris, A., Battle, J., Pastrana, A., & Daniels, J. (2013). The sociopolitical involvement of Black, Latino,
and Asian/Pacific Islander gay and bisexual men. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 21(3), 236–254.
Hasenbush, A., Flores, A. R., Kastanis, A., Sears, B. & Gates, G. J. (2014). The LGBTQ divide: A
data portrait of LGBTQ people in the Midwestern, Mountain, and Southern states. The Williams
Institute. https​://willi​amsin​stitu​te.law.ucla.edu/wp-conte​nt/uploa​ds/LGBT-divid​e-Dec-2014.pdf.
Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Herek, G. M. (2009). Hate crimes and stigma-related experiences among sexual minority adults in the
United States: Prevalence estimates from a national probability sample. Journal of Interpersonal
Violence, 24(1), 54–74.
Hilderbrand, L. (2006). Retroactivism. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 12(2), 303–317.
Holman, E. A., & Silver, R. C. (2011). Health status and health care utilization following collective
trauma: A 3-year national study of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Social Science and
Medicine, 73(4), 483–490.
HRC. (2014). Equality from state to state. https​://www.hrc.org/resou​rces/equal​ity-from-state​-to-state​.
Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
James, S. E., Herman, J. L., Rankin, S., Keisling, M., Mottet, L., & Anafi, M. (2016). The report of the
2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality. https​://
trans​equal​ity.org/sites​/defau​lt/files​/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Repor​t-Dec17​.pdf. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Jolivette, A. (2018). Examining Internal Traumatic Gay Men’s Syndrome (ITGMS) and queer indigenous
citizenship. Social Alternatives, 37(4), 44.
Kalkstein, M. (2011). We were attacked because we were holding hands. KATU https​://katu.com/news/
local​/we-were-attac​ked-becau​se-we-were-holdi​ng-hands​-11-19-2015. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Katz-Wise, S., & Hyde, J. (2012). Victimization experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals: A
meta-analysis. Journal of Sex Research, 49(2–3), 142–167.
Kazyak, E., & Woodell, B. (2016). Law and LGBQ-parent families. Sexuality and Culture, 20(3),
749–768.
Kelly, M. & Lubitow. A. (2015). “Pride at work: Organizing at the intersection of the labor and LGBT
movements.” Labor Studies Journal, 39(4), 257–277.
Koyama, E. (2006). Whose feminism is it anyway? The unspoken racism of the trans inclusion debate. In
S. Stryker & S. Whittle (Eds.), The transgender reader. New York, NY: Routledge.
Lubitow, A., Carathers, J., Kelly, M., & Abelson, M. (2017). Transmobilities: mobility, harassment, and
violence experienced by transgender and gender nonconforming public transit riders in Portland,
Oregon. Gender, Place & Culture, 24(10), 1398–1418.
Meyer, I. H. (2003). Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations:
Conceptual issues and research evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 129(5), 674–697.
Mirk, S. (2012). Good news: Reported hate crimes are down in Portland. Portland Mercury. https​://www.
portl​andme​rcury​.com/Blogt​ownPD​X/archi​ves/2012/07/09/good-news-repor​ted-hate-crime​s-are-
down-in-portl​and. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Moore, M. (2011). Invisible families: Gay identities, relationships, and motherhood among Black women.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Nadal, K. L. (2019). A decade of microaggression research and LGBTQ communities: An introduction to
the special issue. Journal of Homosexuality, 66(10), 1309–1316.
Nagata, D. K., & Cheng, W. J. Y. (2003). Intergenerational communication of race-related trauma by
Japanese American former internees. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 73(3), 266–278.

13
Collective Trauma in Queer Communities 1543

Newport, F. & Gates, G. J. (2015). San Francisco metro area ranks highest in LGBTQ percentage. Gal-
lup. http://news.gallu​p.com/poll/18205​1/san-franc​isco-metro​-area-ranks​-highe​st-lgbt-perce​ntage​
.aspx. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Nichols, J. M. (2013). The Twilight Room Annex, Oregon bar, fined $400,000 for transgender discrimi-
nation. https​://www.huffi​ngton​post.com/2013/08/30/portl​and-bar-trans​gende​r-discr​imina​tion-
_n_38454​52.html. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Nordmarken, S., & Kelly, R. (2014). Limiting transgender health: Administrative violence and microag-
gressions in health care systems. In V. L. Harvey & T. Heinz Housel (Eds.), Health care disparities
and the LGBT population (pp. 143–169). New York: Lexington.
Q Center. (2013). "Our Voices - Race & Ethnicity: Let’s Talk About It" Facebook. https​://www.faceb​ook.
com/event​s/31359​35954​36944​/. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Ritchie, L. A. (2012). Individual stress, collective trauma, and social capital in the wake of the Exxon
Valdez oil spill. Sociological Inquiry, 82(2), 187–211.
Rook, E. (2011). Thousands hold hands across Hawthorne Bridge to protest anti-LGBT violence. Just
Out. https​://web.archi​ve.org/web/20110​60123​3421/http://blogo​ut.justo​ut.com/?p=33830​. Accessed
21 Feb 2020.
Rook, E. (2013). "Q Center postpones forum to discuss racism following criticism" PQ Monthly. https​
://proud​queer​.com/pqmon​thly/pqmon​thly-febru​ary-2013/q-cente​r-postp​ones-forum​-to-discu​ss-racis​
m-follo​wing-criti​cism. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Rushall, J. (2017). Why Portland can’t have a gayborhood. Willamette Week. https​://www.wweek​.com/
cultu​re/2017/03/07/why-portl​and-cant-have-a-gaybo​rhood​/. Accessed 21 Feb 2020.
Russell, G. M., Bohan, J. S., McCarroll, M. C., & Smith, N. G. (2011). Trauma, recovery, and commu-
nity: Perspectives on the long-term impact of anti-LGBT politics. Traumatology, 17(2), 14–23.
Russell, G. M., & Richards, J. A. (2003). Stressor and resilience factors for lesbians, gay men, and bisex-
uals confronting antigay politics. American Journal of Community Psychology, 31, 313–328.
Schilt, K. (2010). Just one of the guys? Transgender men and the persistence of gender inequality. Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press.
Schwalbe, M., Godwin, S., Holden, D., Schrock, D., Thompson, S., & Wolkomir, M. (2000). Generic pro-
cesses in the reproduction of inequality: An interactionist analysis. Social Forces, 79(2), 419–452.
Smelser, N. (2004). September 11, 2001, as cultural traua. In J. C. Alexander, R. Eyerman, B. Giesen, N.
J. Smelser, & P. Sztompka (Eds.), Cultural trauma and collective identity (pp. 264–282). Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.
Spade, D. (2011). Some very basic tips for making higher education more accessible to trans students and
rethinking how we talk about gendered bodies. Radical Teacher, 92, 57–62.
Spring, A. L. (2012). Declining segregation of same-sex partners: Evidence from Census 2000 to 2010.
Population Research Policy Review, 32, 687–716.
Stone, A. L. (2009). More than adding a T: American lesbian and gay activists’ attitudes towards
transgender inclusion. Sexualities, 12(3), 334–354.
Sycamore, M. B. (Ed.). (2008). There’s more to life than platinum: Challenging the tyranny of sweat-
shop-produced rainbow flags and participatory patriarchy. In That’s revolting: Queer strategies for
resisting assimilation (pp. 1–10).
Vitulli, E. (2010). A defining moment in civil rights history? The employment non-discrimination act,
trans-inclusion, and homonormativity. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 7(3), 155–167.
Ward, J. (2008). Respectably queer: Diversity culture in LGBT activist organizations. Nashville: Vander-
bilt University Press.
Weiss, J. T. (2004). GL vs. BT: The archaeology of biphobia and transphobia within the US gay and les-
bian community. Journal of bisexuality, 3(3–4), 25–55.

Publisher’s Note  Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.

13
Sexuality & Culture is a copyright of Springer, 2020. All Rights Reserved.