KyKy is a digital archive and educational resource for lesbian, queer, gender non conforming, and trans people of the African Diaspora.
Who we are.
Ky-Ky was a derogatory term used within the lesbian community in the 1950’s bar scene to describe someone who did not conform to butch or femme style of presentation. Lesbians who were ky-ky disrupted the order of the bar scene by rejecting gender presentation norms and instead embodying their own diverse gender identities. Instead of separating trans, lesbian, queer, and gender non conforming stories within our history, we aim to bring these identities together and reveal how they intersect and have throughout history.
We first encoutered the term from Black lesbian writers Audre Lorde and Alexis DeVeaux, where they say:
kyky archives featured on It’s Nice That
Click above to check out KyKy Archives featured on It’s Nice That! Learn more about our process and beginnings.
What we do.
We collect, document, and preserve historical records of the Black Lesbian, Queer, Gender non-conforming, and trans community. We aim to create accessible tools for education to enable and empower our communities to invest into the histories that have brought us to our current moment. We plan to foster collective learning through collaborative projects and ongoing dialogue in efforts to reveal the connections between and within lesbian, queer, gender non conforming, and transgender lives and histories; countering the divisive narratives that attempt to keep us separated.
