The Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives to become the Australian Queer Archives

At the ALGA 2020 AGM held on Thursday 3rd December, 2020 members were asked to vote on a special resolution to change the name of the organisation from the ‘Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives’ to the ‘Australian Queer Archives’.

The result from the vote came in at 96% in favour of the name change to ‘Australian Queer Archives’.

“This is a significant achievement after 2 years of consultation and engagement with our members, volunteers, supporters, broader communities and stakeholders and we are all really happy to have arrived at this change. We always thought the time was now”. Angela Bailey, ALGA President

Here is a little bit of history for you about the name:

• In 1978, when the Archives was founded, it was named the Australian Gay Archives.
• In 1991 the name was changed to the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives (ALGA) to be more reflective of the identities within the community.
• In 2020 after 2 years of community consultation the name was changed to Australian Queer Archives.

Over the 2 years the consultation included public surveys, member surveys, one-on-one conversations, discussion forums, workshops, email correspondence and in the last round of a survey to members in April 2020, with a choice of three names up for consideration, ‘Australian Queer Archives’ was voted most popular.

In discussing the name change on the night, Vice President, Tim Jones said: “In its current usage, Queer is a broadly inclusive term for all our communities and the acronym of AQuA pleasingly references the fluidity of gender and sexuality”.

Australian Queer Archives (AQuA)

Collecting, Preserving and Celebrating our LGBTIQ+ Histories

It will take a little period of time to transfer our new name across all our platforms and communications. We are hoping to have this completed by the New Year.

Thanks to everyone who has been involved in the consultation.