Katherine Ott is a historian and the curator of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History's Illegal to Be You: Gay History Beyond Stonewall, an exhibit currently on view that honors the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and other hallmarks in modern LGBTQ+ civil rights.
The show is described as:
There is no unified gay history in America and no one way to be gay. The only thing that all gay people have shared across time are the risks and rewards in being themselves. Gay history is familiar, surprising, heartbreaking, empowering, and fabulous—all at the same time.
The June 1969 uprising against police harassment at The Stonewall Inn, a bar in Lower Manhattan, is probably the most famous moment in U.S. LGBTQ+ history. Fifty years later, the histories of the drag queens, students, homeless youth, and others who were there can be placed within a larger and longer experience of being different."
You can view the show at americanhistory.si.edu/illegal-to-be-you and then head to the a National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Zoom-hosted convo with Ott at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 11.
Ott will be discussing the show and her work curating it.
The convo is free but you must register here: smithsonian.zoom.us.