In and Out: Being LGBTQ on Vashon Island

IN AND OUT: Being LGBTQ on Vashon Island is an interactive, collaborative exhibit and series of programs that examine and celebrate the long, quiet history of LGBTQ+ people on Vashon-Maury Island. Please give to this extended GoFundMe campaign to help us keep the exhibit open at the Vashon Heritage Museum through March of 2021. In addition, funds will help document the exhibit, support programs during the exhibit, and integrate this special exhibit and its innovations into the Museum's permanent exhibit.  The exhibit opened June 7, 2019 as part of the island celebration of Pride Month with an enthusiastic crowd of 650 people.

You can see beginning documentation of the exhibit at vashonpride.com. You can see a dramatic 12 minute video about the exhibit at https://youtu.be/AfG1qbRVmPU 

Since the 2000 census, Vashon Island has had the largest per capita concentration of Gays and Lesbians in Washington State. We feel there is a crucial need for this kind of exhibit in small towns across America; despite the importance and prevalence of the LGBTQ+ community on Vashon, no acknowledgement, book, or educational piece had been created before this to put the community in context. There is not really a formally or informally organized LGBTQ+ community on Vashon -- more a spread of disparate individuals who, while they may know each other, have never witnessed themselves represented publicly as an identified community. This exhibit has already strengthened Vashon’s LGBTQ community, and can be a model for other communities. Help us keep honoring and celebrating Vashon Pride.