University of Montana faculty, students, staff, and alumni are collaborating with community organizations including the Western Montana LGBTQ+ Community Center, the Montana Two Spirit Society, TransVisible Montana, the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, the Montana Historical Society, and Humanities Montana to launch the “Queer In and Out of Montana Community History Project.” The initiative includes an ongoing oral history project documenting the lives of LGBTIQ2S+ Montanans, a workshop on queer history at the state’s history conference, and a pop-up exhibit on gender diversity in Montana–has attracted media attention and widespread support, garnering a grant from Humanities Montana; institutional support from the Montana Historical Society and from the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula; interdisciplinary faculty, staff, student, and alumni participation from UM’s History Department, Psychology Department, Mansfield Library’s Archives & Special Collections, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program; and community participation throughout Montana and beyond the state’s borders. 

This initiative began with the Queer In and Out of Montana Oral History Project, which sought to document the lives of LGBTIQ2S+ people both inside and outside of the state. University of Montana (UM) faculty, students, and alumni from across campus collaborated with community members and local organizations to launch this project in 2024. At its inception, the project aimed to capture the perspectives and experiences of LGBTIQ+ people leaving Montana, or contemplating doing so, in response to the state’s hostile political climate. Initial interviews conducted reinforced the urgency of continuing and expanding the project. A community discussion of the initial project was held in April 2025 at the Western Montana LGBTQ+ Community Center.

The initiative has included other public presentations as well.

In the summer of 2025, the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula hosted the “Crossings” Exhibit. Designed by Caspen Black, the Ludvig G. Browman Intern in Museum Studies at the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, with assistance from UM student Sierra Kirk and UM alumnus River Watson, the pop-up exhibit covered 200 years of gender and sexual diversity in Montana, highlighting the lives of remarkable individuals like Osh-Tisch, the Crow bade whose position was so important she caused an Indian Agent to be expelled from the reservation for trying to force her to assimilate, and Dr. Alan Hart, a physician who saved countless lives by standardizing tuberculosis testing and also underwent one of the earliest sex reassignment surgeries. The exhibit was also displayed at Missoula’s Pride celebration in June 2025 and at the University of Montana Mansfield Library in October 2025.

In September 2025, the oral history project was presented as part of a roundtable at the annual meeting of the Montana Historical Society. Veteran Montana politician Diane Sands, Montana Two-Spirit Society co-founder Steven Barrios, UM student Erin Heaton, longtime LGBTQ+ rights activist Lindy Gryczan, and UM alumnus River Watson participated in a panel discussion titled “Queer Montana: A Panel Discussion on Preserving and Promoting LGBTIQ2S+ History.” The panelists discussed the importance of queer history, what research material is available, and ongoing efforts to advance our understanding and document the history of gender diversity in Montana.

The oral history project is on-going, and has expanded to include the life stories of Two-Spirit and LGBTIQ+ persons and interviews with people who interface with members of the queer community, such as educators, lawmakers, medical providers, and family members. The goal is to create a rich collection of interviews that capture diverse experiences and varied perspectives on queer life throughout the state. The collection will be permanently archived and made publicly accessible through UM’s Mansfield Library.