By: Anonymous Editors Note: All names have been changed to protect anonymity. The year was 2013. Same-sex marriage was legal in about 15 states. I was not in one of them. I was done with my Master’s degree, and I was a job-attached park ranger, waiting for the summer season to start again. In the…
Category: Field Experiences
Openly gay in a small ‘machista’ town
by Julio I am a 29-year old gay archaeologist. My first experience in the field was exactly 10 years ago, in 2008. Back then I was a Political Science student interested in the past and traveling. Little did I know that the experience would change my life. I switched majors to Archaeology and have enjoyed…
My Queer Superpower
By: Angela McComb I don’t practice Queer Archaeology, per se. My graduate studies centered on poverty, disaster, and heritage management. I excavated my first site at the tender age of 14, and I have spent the entirety of my professional career doing some form of cultural resources management either for the state or federal government…
No One Noticed? Doing Archaeology for the First Time as Anna
By: Anna Marie Prentiss During transition I had a recurrent dream. I was out in the world fully as me for the first time and no one noticed. I told my therapist and she responded, “you are just normalizing.” I didn’t know what that meant but it didn’t sound too bad. As time passed, the…
Queer in the Field
By: Carla Hernández As an archaeologist, there is nothing I love more than fieldwork. I love everything about it – even the early morning hikes in the cold, the constant feeling that my body needs a break, the lack of internet, Netflix, and all those luxuries that I enjoy back home. I got into archaeology…
Hey, I Have A Question
By: Nathan Klembara *Ding* A Facebook Messenger alert. “Hey, I have a question.” It’s from a relatively new friend I made while working on a project in Spain, I’ll call him “Alberto”. The simple message is a bit confusing in the moment. Alberto and I message each other often, and he’s usually much more direct than this. Facebook Messenger dings again….
Queer Archaeology 