Welcome to the Queer Rhetoric Project! This site is an archive of key texts and speeches dealing with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights.

How to Use This Site

There are several ways to brows the Queer Rhetoric Project archive. First go to the left side menu.

On top is a site search box where you can search for a specific speech, person, topic, or whatever. It will search the full text of every entry in the archive.

Below that is the category list. This is a more structured way to explore based on specific dates, general issues, and important events. While similar to the tag cloud, this is a better way to view texts that significantly or centrally focus on a specific issue or event. Also, this is the best way to view speeches from only a specific date range. Finally, click on the “Meta” category to view recent updates about the Queer Rhetoric Project itself.

Next is the top rated entries list. One of the best features this site allows is the ability to rate entries (out of 5 stars). To help make this a useful feature, please add your own ratings to an entry after you view it. Eventually this should allow new readers an easy ability to find the very best of LGBT speeches and other texts. You can also add your own comments to any entry. Please use this to highlight your favorite section of a speech, an interesting bit of information about its origin, how you used the speech in your classroom, or any other thoughts you’d like to share!

Next is the tag cloud. This contains all the tags attached to each entry. The bigger the word, the more often it appears in the archive. Expect the proportions to fluctuate as I continue to build up the archive for different historical periods.

The last few sidebar items are self-explanatory: recent posts, the site Twitter feed, and links to related sites. The site is always growing, so please offer your suggestions for features and specific speeches you’d like to see here.

Feel free to comment on entries, share your thoughts and reactions. Vulgar or discriminatory comments will be deleted.