We Will Not Be Erased: Queer Archives, Trans Histories

For over forty years, cultural historian Steven Watson has documented the stories and artwork at the leading edge of artistic and cultural movements, including the movement for queer and trans liberation. Working in collaboration with filmmaker William Markarian-Martin, Steven recently launched Artifacts, making his collection of rare, firsthand accounts from pioneers such as Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Holly Woodlawn, and many others accessible to students, researchers, and anyone interested in connecting to queer and trans history. Watson’s archival collection foregrounds the importance of engaging with and animating trans and queer histories in order to combat the present-day erasure of trans lives.

Watson will be in conversation with trans artist and activist Tourmaline, whose work on narrating, preserving, and celebrating Marsha P. Johnson’s life has drawn extensively on Watson’s Artifacts. Tourmaline’s repertoire of film and book projects on Marsha includes the first full-length biography on her life, MARSHA: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson (Penguin Random House, 2025). This event is part of a series that begins with Tourmaline’s Helen Pond McIntyre ‘48 Lecture at BCRW on November 6th.

For additional information, visit the event page here.

Accessibility

This event is free, open to the public, and will stream online on BCRW's YouTube page. ASL interpretation and live transcription will be provided.

Registration is preferred.

Speakers

A Guggenheim Fellow and TIME100 Honoree, Tourmaline is an artist, filmmaker, and national bestselling author whose work spans high art and pop culture. Tourmaline’s art is in the permanent collections of The Met, MoMA, Tate, and the Whitney, among other museums. Her influence in contemporary art has also been showcased in both the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial. Tourmaline’s award-winning films — including the critically acclaimed Happy Birthday, Marsha!; Salacia; Atlantic is a Sea of Bones; and Mary of Ill Fame — have been widely recognized for their unique blend of historical narrative and speculative futurism. Tourmaline’s commercial film projects have premiered at the MTV Video Music Awards, and she has led the creative for brand campaigns with Fortune 500 companies, such as a film series presented by Unilever on the topic of LGBTQ+ communities in rural America.

Tourmaline’s portfolio also extends to fashion: her trans-inclusive swimwear line with Chromat debuted at New York Fashion Week with glowing praise from Vogue. The latest collection launched in April 2025. Tourmaline’s new book MARSHA (May 2025) is the first definitive biography of the revolutionary Black trans activist Marsha P. Johnson. It was named a National Bestseller, received a Starred Review by Publishers Weekly, and was selected by The New York Times for inclusion in the Nonfiction Spring Book Preview. Her children’s book ONE DAY IN JUNE (May 2025), also inspired by Marsha P. Johnson’s life and activism, received a Starred Review by Publishers Weekly.

The recipient of the BlackStar Luminary Award, Stonewall Visionary Award, HBO Queer Art Prize, and the Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel, Tourmaline crafts worlds across a variety of media that center pleasure, possibility, and transformation. She is a sought-after speaker at institutions like Princeton, Yale, MoMA, The Met, UC Berkeley, Smith College, and Outfest, and has been frequently featured in The New York Times, Vogue, Artforum, and TIME Magazine. A former leader of the Trans Health Campaign at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Tourmaline has built a career rooted in community organizing and trans liberation, and is a transformative voice in movements for racial, economic, and gender justice.

Tourmaline is a graduate of Columbia University and lives in Miami with her partner Cameron and their cat Jean.

Dr. Steven Watson is a cultural historian and documentary filmmaker who is particularly interested in the dynamics of the twentieth century American avant-garde. After studying English at Stanford University and psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he received his Ph.D. in 1976 and worked for nineteen years as the staff psychologist of a community mental health clinic. He simultaneously began writing books about key circles of the twentieth century, and several such books have been published: Strange Bedfellows (Abbeville, 1991), The Harlem Renaissance (Pantheon,1995), The Birth of the Beat Generation (Pantheon, 1995), Prepare for Saints (Random House, 1999), An Eye on the Modern Century (co-editor, Yale University Press, 2001), and Factory Made (Pantheon, 2003). In addition to his books, Watson has organized two exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery. He also published a collaborative artists portfolio, Artifacts at the End of a Decade, and produced and directed Prepare for Saints, a documentary film about the opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, broadcast on PBS. Steven Watson is the founder of Childs Play International, using play, story-telling, and drawing to combat traumatic environments.