ON FRIDAY, June 9th, Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer delivered remarks and attended the opening of a new exhibit, The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens, at the Queens Museum that documents the LGBTQ movement from the 1990s to today in Queens to mark the 25th anniversary of the Queens Pride Parade. Majority Leader Van Bramer donated personal materials to the collection, including the banner (Photo 1 & Video 1) he marched with in the first Queens Pride Parade with the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Alliance he started as a student at St. John’s University in 1992.
“For far too long, the stories, experiences, trials, and victories of the LGBTQ movement in our country and in Queens have often gone untold,” said Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer. “The history of the LGBTQ movement in Queens is a deeply human story of ordinary people fighting for the right to openly and freely love without fear. I’m thankful and honored for the opportunity to contribute personal pieces to the new Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens exhibit at the Queens Museum, which documents the Queens LGBTQ community from the 1990s to the present. I thank the faculty of the LaGuardia Community College, filmmaker Richard Shpuntoff, and the Queens Museum for their work to document our stories and activism in the fight for equality.”
After touring the exhibit with his father and husband, Majority Leader Van Bramer delivered remarks on his personal experiences growing up in Queens as an openly gay man and on the importance of the exhibit to teach and inspire the next generation of LGBTQ activists. Curated by LaGuardia Community College/CUNY faculty, staff, and students, the exhibition, which opened on June 9th and will continue until July 30th, uses mixed media including photos, flyers, video, and audio to tell the largely untold story of the LGBTQ community’s fight for equality in Queens.
