As a folk archivist and historian, I am sharing my transcription of the “Collecting Queer & Trans” panel discussion at the California International Book Fair, which was organized by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America in February 2026. When moderator Tony Bravo, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, asked the panelists to reflect on the moment we are facing—a period marked by suppression and attempts to erase our identities—Joey Cain, Gerard Koskovich, and Ms Bob Davis responded with clarity and historical perspective. What emerged was not only a warning, but a framework for resisting erasure and preserving our collective history.

Archives are not passive repositories. They are active instruments in the preservation of collective memory. The panelists drew parallels to earlier authoritarian movements that targeted libraries, research centers, and independent knowledge production as preliminary acts of suppression. Erasure is rarely accidental; it is deliberate, and it often begins with the dismantling of records.

In that context, LGBTQ+ collections—particularly those built outside archival institutions—assume heightened significance. Folk archives, personal collections, rescued ephemera, correspondence, and photographs are not nostalgic artifacts. They are mechanisms of knowledge production. They allow communities to narrate themselves rather than be narrated by hostile forces.

Archives tell us who we have been. In doing so, they help shape who we are and help us imagine the communities and cultures we hope to create in the future. Archives are political tools. That is why they matter.