Hugh Ryan

Freelance writer

The Power of Queer Books

First published on The Daily Beast, August 1, 2014. Read the original, with photos, here. Written with Sassafras Lowrey.
SASSAFRAS LOWREY: When I was seventeen, the adults I lived with went through my bedroom and found the lesbian books I’d secretly checked out from my county library. I kept them stacked between my high [...]

“Where Were You During the Christopher Street Riots?”

First published on The New York Public Library LGBT @ NYPL Blog, June 27, 2014. Read the original here.

The document above was handed out by members of The Mattachine Society, one of the earliest and longest-running homophile organizations in America, in the days following what would eventually become known as the Stonewall [...]

A Bathroom of One’s Own

First published in VICE, May 3, 2014. Read the original, with photos, here.
Twenty-five years ago today, transgender pioneer Christine Jorgensen died of bladder and lung cancer, which she believed was caused by genetics, not the fuck-ton of hormones that rocketed her to stardom as “America’s first transsexual” in the 1950s. In her honor, I made [...]

The Leslie-Lohman Museum Is a Haven for Artists Who Are Too Gay for Art School

First published on Vice.com, March 2, 2014. Read the original, with images, here.
As we unwind the bright red packing tape that joins the two coffee cans together, Hunter O’Hanian, the director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, explains what I’m about to see.
“We think this is his only finished work,” he says, [...]

The Quest to Build a National LGBT Museum

First published in Slate, October 18, 2013. Read the original here.
Someday, somewhere in Washington, D.C.—perhaps on the National Mall, kitty-corner across Maryland Avenue from the sinuous, sandy-colored Museum of the American Indian, or tucked behind the sprawling complex of the Natural History Museum—there may sit a National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Museum. [...]

‘On The (Queer) Waterfront: Brooklyn Histories’: Pop-Up Museum Of Queer History’s Hugh Ryan On New Exhibit

I was interviewed on October 8th, 2013 by the Huffington Post, about the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History’s Brooklyn show. Read the original (with photos) here.
“On the (Queer) Waterfront: Brooklyn Histories” kicked off this weekend, a unique and collaborative art and performance show curated by The Pop-Up Museum Of Queer History. A multifaceted intersection [...]

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