Lesbian singer’s archive captures pre-internet gay life

The archive of lesbian musician Gretchen Phillips, co-founder of the trailblazing band Two Nice Girls, sheds light on what it was like to be gay in the 1980s, and is now a part of Cornell University Library's Human Sexuality Collection. The archive of lesbian musician Gretchen Phillips, co-founder of the trailblazing band Two Nice Girls, sheds light on what it was like to be gay in the 1980s - before the internet helped create communities and at a time when gay lives were rarely visible. Now part of Cornell University Library's Human Sexuality Collection, the video recordings of Phillips' shows, reviews and news articles, fan mail and more that Phillips collected over three decades will be available to researchers interested in everything from late 20th-century music to popular perceptions of sexuality. "Imagine a time long before Ellen DeGeneres came out, when hearing a woman sing a love song using the pronouns 'she'and 'her' was a big deal," said Brenda Marston, curator of the Human Sexuality Collection in the library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. "While many women were looking for subtle clues that lesbians existed, Gretchen and her bandmates were outrageous and emphatic, not coy, about lesbian love. Their lyrics opened doors for people, and their audiences discovered community at their performances." Phillips' archive provides a comprehensive account of her musical career, from her 1981 arrival in Austin's punk scene and her first visit to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival to ongoing work, including an appearance as a zombie lesbian folksinger for Killjoy's Kastle, a lesbian haunted house in Toronto in 2013 and in Los Angeles in 2015.