I’m Lauren Gulbrandsen and I’m from Brooklyn, New York, originally.

I never really felt like being gay was so political until I went to the Archives — the Lesbian HerStory Archives — for the first time. It’s just like a magical kind of place. It’s an archive, it’s like a library of all lesbian-specific books and articles and pictures and videos and just going through all that stuff and realizing the shoulders that I’m standing on, and all the work that people did so I can be where I am and gay youth can be where they are.

When I first went there, I walked in and I was like, first of all, how did I not know this existed and secondly I didn’t even know where to begin because you walk in and it’s like books, and you’re like, “Okay, books…” and you don’t really realize that there’s so much more than just books there.

The first box that I opened was probably the Lesbian Avengers box, which is like this fierce, radical dyke activist group. And being able to actually touch their banners and listen to the tape from the answering machine — like hateful shit on the answering machine. So I’d just read an article, I mean, that’s cool too, reading an article about an organization but actually being able to hold the stuff they held, you know, feel the shirts that they wore, things like that I really like. And you’re able to do that there, so it’s just really inspiring to keep that momentum going and keep fighting the good fight for gay rights and lesbian rights and queer rights in general. And through that I kind of got involved with the Dyke March, also which happens every year which happens the last Saturday every June. And being part of the Dyke March is also how I keep in touch with my political queer side and marching with all those women down 5th Avenue is just the most amazing feeling to me.

I think there was this moment, actually, there was this moment at the Dyke March, I was standing on this rock right near my favorite building in New York which is the Flatiron Building and I was just watching this sea of women and I was helping to lead this sea of women that were just fierce and screaming and rambunctious and all that good stuff, just leading them in just trying to find where all the marshals were and taking care of everyone there who was involved. It was just really rewarding to me to start and finish with this amazing march.

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