We Are Kind of More: Gen Z Reframes Gender and Sexuality was conceived as part of an initiative by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives to center the voices of LGBTQ students at LaGuardia Community College, a CUNY school located in Long Island City, Queens. Through photographic portraiture and oral histories, these students share their intimate stories of religion, family, personal identities and communities they have found in this richly diverse part of NYC. Originally titled Shades of the Rainbow: Gen Z Reframes Gender and Sexuality, the exhibition opened at LaGuardia in June of 2019 during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

Inspired by the 2016 donation of the Papers of Daniel Dromm documenting the history of Queens Pride since the early 1990s, a conversation emerged at LaGuardia and Wagner Archives about the overlooked queer histories of the borough. Curators Stephen Petrus (Historian at the Archives) and Thierry Gourjon (Professor of Photography) began the initiative to archive these histories within the LaGuardia campus community. Students of LaGuardia’s Straight and Gay Alliance (SAGA) volunteered to share their stories through formal interviews, conducted by Petrus. Guided by Gourjon, student photographers captured the images of their peers.

With the support of the office of City Councilperson Danny Dromm, and in collaboration with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, these photographs and narratives can now be experienced online. To add context to the original project, we have included snapshots of the work and practices of photographers Jess T. Dugan and Vanessa Rondon, whose practices and methodologies are informed by their own experiences of queer community.

Read more about the original project here.