Lesbian and Gay

The time is past when librarians can assume no patron is lesbian or gay, or that there is no interest in gay research, Dan Tsang and Polly Thistlethwaite wrote in the introduction to the \u27Lesbian and Gay\u27 section of Katzes\u27 1989 edition of Magazines for Libraries. This title review of the queer periodicals of the day was intended to serve as a guide and justification for \u27mainstream\u27 libraries\u27 collection building. The number and range of titles in Thistlethwaite and Tsang\u27s collaborative entries (1989, 1992, and 1995) far exceeded any mainstream library collection known to either of the authors who were nevertheless hopeful that libraries would expand their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender periodical holdings to better serve their communities. Lesbian and gay publications form the infrastructure of the communities. Tsang\u27s expertise about the \u27alternative press\u27 grew from his librarianship, his scholarship, his activism, journalism, and his extensive personal collecting; Thistlethwaite came to know the queer press by tending the periodical collection at the Lesbian Herstory Archives. The entry in this edition marked the AIDS epidemic\u27s influence on the rise of PWA literature; the emergence of periodicals by and for \u27lesbian and gay people of color\u27; and the proliferation of lesbian sex magazines