In Time is an international oral history initiative dedicated to recording, preserving, and amplifying the voices of lesbian elders.

I’ve spent years using storytelling as a tool for social impact and narrative change, working globally as a human rights strategist. As a doula, I also support individuals and families through grief and legacy work—often through oral histories and legacy books projects that honor and preserve memory.

In Time is shaped by these experiences and by my lived identity as a lesbian and someone who values intergenerational relationships and the importance of listening to and learning from our foremothers.

To explore past collections of oral history work I’ve led with queer older adults, visit The Global Story Archive.

Lesbians* aged 50 and over are warmly encouraged to participate. Those coming from countries in the Global South are particularly encouraged to reach out.

** For the purpose of this project, the term “lesbian” is used inclusively to embrace a wide range of identities, including queer and bisexual individuals, cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary people who have emotional, romantic, or sexual relationships with women.

Across the globe, the lives and contributions of lesbian elders have been overlooked or erased, not only by mainstream society but often within broader LGBTQ+ histories as well. Despite this, lesbian elders possess a powerful legacy of resilience. Many were early architects of queer and feminist movements, building collective structures for care, safety, and liberation when mainstream society offered none. They organized around housing, reproductive rights, anti-racist solidarity, HIV/AIDS caregiving, and anti-violence initiatives. They created zines, bookstores, communes, and crisis hotlines. They sustained entire communities, often invisibly, and with few resources.

As this generation of lesbian elders age, their stories are at risk of disappearing. In Time responds to this urgency by conducting recorded interviews, producing written transcripts, and engaging communities in conversations around these narratives. The project affirms lesbian elders as vital sources of knowledge and memory, and centers their lived experiences as essential to understanding the full depth and diversity of our shared human history.

While LGBTQ+ oral history has gained momentum in recent years, many projects have focused on prominent public figures or have been limited by national or regional scopes. Initiatives such as the Lesbian Herstory Archives, the HIV/AIDS Caregivers Oral History Project, and the Invisible Histories Project in the American South, for example, have made vital contributions by documenting community histories of LGBTQ+ individuals, primarily within the United States. 

In Time builds on this foundational work but takes a deliberately international and inclusive approach. It rejects the notion that queerness, and lesbian identity in particular, can be confined to national narratives. By gathering stories from lesbian elders across cultural, linguistic, political, and geographic contexts, the project highlights how lesbian lives are connected globally through shared experiences of resistance, kinship, love, discrimination, and belonging.

The In Time archive will be shared here in 2026.