Sinister Wisdom is a queer literary and arts journal that has been making history for 43 years—now, it is expanding and recording that history with a fun and sexy new project.
For young, queer professionals like me looking for the most functional—and gayest—ways to stay organized, Sinister Wisdom’s 2019 calendar is a perfect fit. It brightens my office and reminds me of how far we’ve come, and how far we have yet to go. The sleek and simple wall calendar is detailed with important, and often surprising, moments in queer and lesbian history. Brimming with salient cultural moments in 2018—like Black Lives Matter protests and the March for Our Lives, the Sinister Wisdom calendar makes visible and tangible an investment in uplifting lesser-known and decades-past queer histories of protest, triumph and community.
While I am planning my days, weeks and months, I can now feel empowered by the thoughts and images of queer and feminist icons known and not known well enough—including the Sapphic photography of Tee Corinne and Cathy Cade! Each reminds me why I am proud to be me, and why we must do our part in maintaining the richness of our queer histories.
Right now, a time where violence against our transgender siblings is rampant, I am particularly happy and impressed with Sinister Wisdom’s inclusion of the transgender community. Seeing shout-outs to memoirist Janet Mock and Stonewall legends Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, alongside nods to Sojourner Truth and Judith Butler, was refreshing. I will learn from this calendar everyday. I’m thankful to have incorporate the richness of my own queer history into my everyday life.
“Doubtless, our schedules and years are full and filling up fast,” the calendar notes read. “But the Sinister Wisdom 2019 calendar does more than provide an organizational tool. This calendar is a way to orient our daily lives into a larger, homespun and ongoing lesbian history. It is a way to integrate and re/member our selves into the decades of incendiary achievements and iconic lesbian moments. And on some very busy days, that’s enough to keep us going.”
Queer people have long held complex social and temporal relationships to time, history and memory. Now, we can keep track of them.
