LGBTQ+ Cyber Activism: From Digital Queers to High Tech Gays

qUCL are delighted to welcome author Dr Alex Ketchum (McGill University) to discuss her book 'From Digital Queers to High Tech Gays'.
About this Event

Digital Queers and High Tech Gays: The History of LGBTQ+ Cyber Activism

by Alex Ketchum (MIT Press, April 2027)

qUCL are delighted to welcome author Dr Alex Ketchum (McGill University) to discuss her book 'From Digital Queers to High Tech Gays: The History of LGBTQ+ Cyber Activism', a history of LGBTQ+ cyber activism in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and beyond! Beginning in 1980, these queer cyber activists founded regional, national and international organisations of engineers, scientists and high tech professionals. They formed LGBTQ+ employee resource groups at tech companies. Throughout the 1990s, queer cyber activists collected money, hardware and software to distribute to LGBTQ+ community organisations. They wrote guidebooks, zines and manuals as part of their larger project of information activism. They utilised print, phone lines and the World Wide Web to teach, share and advocate. Queer cyber activists built Internet infrastructures and expanded the idea of who could be an Internet user. Through their work with LGBTQ2S+ archives, queer cyber activists ultimately also created the tools needed to preserve their own history. They engaged in this serious labour while continuing to centre joy; through sharing food, celebrating together and making jokes, queer cyber activists nourished a community that could undertake these technical transformations. From advocating for tech workers’ rights, to equipping LGBTQ+ organisations with the hardware and software needed to do their work, to creating in-person and online spaces where they shared information, socialised and preserved queer histories, LGBTQ+ cyber activists used analogue and digital technologies to transform queer folks’ lives both on the Internet and away from the keyboard. Ultimately this book explores how marginalised groups, particularly LGBTQ+ people, respond to, re-work, build and shape digital technologies. Rather than passive users, marginalised peoples, particularly LGBTQ+ people, have played a role in shaping Internet culture.

Dr Josh Hollands will chair this event.

Dr Alex Ketchum

Associate Professor, Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at McGill University

Dr Alex Ketchum (she/her) is an elected member of the Royal Society of Canada: College of New Scholars and a Lambda Literary Award Finalist. Ketchum is the Director of the Just Feminist Tech and Scholarship Lab. She is the author of several books including Engage in Public Scholarship!: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication, Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses, How to Organize Inclusive Events and Conferences, and the forthcoming Digital Queers, and High Tech Gays: the History of LGBTQ+ Cyber Activism. She is also co-editor of the anthology: Queers at the Table: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food with Recipes. Read more here.

This event has been organised by , a university-wide initiative that brings together UCL staff and students with research and teaching interests in LGBTQ studies, gender and sexuality studies, queer theory and related fields.