Marc Zinaman is a writer and queer historian based in New York City.
Queer Happened Here
NYC's queer history is everywhere, but rarely is it visibly documented. I grew up not knowing that James Baldwin once lived down my block or that the building I walked by each day once housed the gay bathhouse where Bette Midler got her start. This project is meant to map out and document the oft forgotten LGBTQ history of NYC in an accessible, visual format.
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Recent Writing
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Anita Berber
Though she is more often remembered for the scandals she caused than for her artistry, Anita Berber was nevertheless one of the most daring and innovative performers to emerge from Germany during the early twentieth century. A dancer, choreographer, silent film actress, fashion model, poet, cabaret artist and muse, she used her body and public image to challenge conventional ideas surrounding gender, sexuality, female respectability, and artistic expression.
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Juan José Cabezudo
Widely considered the first openly homosexual figure in Peruvian history, Juan José Cabezudo had, by the early nineteenth century, also become one of the most recognizable public figures in Lima despite their modest social and economic position. An Afro-Peruvian cook, street vendor, and culinary entrepreneur, Cabezudo built a reputation largely through the preparation and sale of tamales, sweets, and other prepared foods that circulated through the city’s busy streets, plazas, and elite social gatherings.
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Kagendo Murungi
A Kenyan feminist, LGBTQ+ rights activist, filmmaker, and producer, Kagendo Murungi consistently returned to a central question throughout both her work and life: who produces images of African people, who controls their circulation, and who is allowed to appear within them? For Murungi, these were not just abstract concerns but urgent political stakes, inseparable from broader struggles over power, representation, and survival.
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