Last Call: The Rise and Decline of Lesbian Bars in Salt Lake City
Drawing on oral histories, local newspapers, and archival research, this presentation will reconstruct the history of Salt Lake City's lesbian bars. It explores how a small and interconnected lesbian population, unity between gay men and women in mixed bars, expanding alternative community spaces, and Utah's restrictive liquor laws shaped both the development and decline of lesbian nightlife.
Sun Tavern Historical Historical Marker Unveiling
Sun Tavern Historical Marker Unveiling
Join the Mildred Berryman Institute and community partners for the unveiling and dedication of a new historical marker commemorating the Sun Tavern and its important place in Utah’s LGBTQ+ history.
Opened by Joe Redburn in 1973, the Sun Tavern quickly became more than a neighborhood bar. It served as an important gathering place and de facto community center for Salt Lake City’s Gay community, providing a space where people could meet, build friendships, organize, and find community at a time when openly LGBTQ+ spaces were limited. Redburn also helped organize Utah’s first public Gay and Lesbian event in 1974, laying important groundwork for the Pride celebrations and LGBTQ+ activism that followed.
The dedication will bring together members of Utah’s LGBTQ+ community, historians, advocates, and others to recognize the people and places that shaped this history. The event will include the unveiling of the historical marker and reflections on the Sun Tavern, Joe Redburn, and the community that made the space meaningful.
Additional program details will be announced as they are finalized.
📍Meet at approximately 41 S 400 W, the northwest corner of the Recursion building.
"I Have Never Really Quite Gotten Over Spence" A Lecture and Reading by Julian Hendrix
🪧 About the Event: On 23 October 1966—exactly sixty years ago—Spence Mendenhall was found shot to death in his Salt Lake City home in the Avenues. His murder remains unsolved. Spence was a Gay man who was secretly out to some people but largely lived a closeted life, and his death has since been recognized as a hate crime.
Drawing from their own research and personal reflections, Julian Hendrix will explore Spence’s life, death, and legacy. As Spence’s great-nephew, Julian brings a unique perspective to the story of a family member they never had the opportunity to meet. Through research, memory, and family history, Julian will reflect on the remarkable connection they share with Spence across time and space—and what it means to uncover and remember the life of someone whose story might otherwise have been forgotten.
🎙️ About the Speaker:
💻 Remote Attendance
Zoom link: https://utah.zoom.us/j/82528976167
Meeting ID: 825 2897 6167
Passcode: 185309
📚 Special thanks to Signature Books for allowing us to host this event in their space!
🌈 Past lectures can be accessed on our YouTube channel or on the Berryman Lecture Series page.
2026 Queer Ancestor Memorial: Spence Mendenhall
Fifth Anual Queer Ancestor Memorial
Join the Mildred Berryman Institute for our Fifth Queer Ancestor Memorial, as we gather to honor Spence Mendenhall (1911–1966). Spence was murdered likely because of his sexuality and his case remains unsolved.
Since 2022, local LGBTIQ+ historians have gathered in a local cemetery to honor an LGBTIQ+ Utahn of the past. We honor and remember them with spoken word, music, thought, flowers, and—of course-rainbows.
This year’s memorial will be held at Spence’s gravesite and will include music, singing, poetry, a short lecture, and a community ceremony of remembrance. Together, we will lay flowers and offerings on his grave, honoring his life and legacy while celebrating the lives and stories that continue to shape our community.
This memorial is a moment to reflect, to connect, and to pay tribute to those who came before us. We invite you to stand with us in gratitude and remembrance.
🗺️ Important: Look for white tent and people gathering near 330 North (N Olive Street) and 1020 East in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.
What To Expect At This Event:
An historical overview of the life and legacy of Spence Mendenhall
An historical overview of crime & policing in the Queer community in the 1960s
Music, poetry, and quiet reflection
Decorating Mendenhall’s gravesite with flowers and rainbow items. If you are unable to purchase flowers or offerings, we will have some provided. If you are unable to purchase flowers or offerings, we will have some provided.
"Creature: The Life and Loves of May Swenson": A Conversation with Author Stephen Carter
An interview with the author, Stephen Carter!
Join the Mildred Berryman Institute and Signature Books for a conversation with author Stephen Carter about his new book, Creature, a biography of queer Utah poet May Swenson—available to order here or to purchase at the event. Mildred Berryman Institute co-founder and board member Megan Weiss will interview Carter about Swenson’s life, work, sexuality, and complicated relationship with her Utah roots.
One of the most celebrated American poets of the twentieth century, May Swenson was born in Logan, Utah, in 1919 and went on to build a distinguished literary career in New York. Her poetry explored desire, identity, the body, nature, and the complexities of human relationships, while her personal life included relationships with women that have become an increasingly important part of how her work is understood.
Drawing on Creature, Carter and Weiss will explore Swenson’s life and legacy, her connection to Utah, and the place of queer experience in her poetry and biography. The conversation will offer an opportunity to consider a remarkable Utah-born writer whose life and work have much to tell us about the history of Queer life, creativity, and identity in the state.
About Creature and May Swenson: Creature, by Stephen Carter, examines the life and work of May Swenson, the acclaimed twentieth-century American poet born in Logan, Utah, in 1919. Swenson became known for her inventive and sensuous poetry and spent much of her adult life in New York, where she developed relationships with women and participated in literary circles that shaped her career. Her work frequently explored desire, the body, gender, and the natural world, making her an important figure in the history of American poetry and a compelling subject for the study of Utah’s Queer history.
💻 Remote Attendance
Zoom link:
Meeting ID:
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The World War II Homefront and LGBTQ Community Formation
🪧 About the Event: While Stonewall understandably gets the headlines, World War II was immensely important to LGBTQ community formation. Join us to learn about how queer Americans from across the U.S. found and supported each other at military bases, defense plants, and bars and how wartime drag culture reveals a more complex and fascinating portrait of the Greatest Generation.
🎙️ About the Speaker: Matt Basso is a professor of history and ethnic, gender, and disability studies at the University of Utah. A Presidential Societal Impact Scholar, he specializes in public history and in the relationship between war and society, labor history, and the history of masculinity.
💻 Remote Attendance
Zoom link: https://utah.zoom.us/j/89227045466
Meeting ID: 892 2704 5466
📚 Special thanks to Signature Books for allowing us to host this event in their space!
🌈 Past lectures can be accessed on our YouTube channel or on the Berryman Lecture Series page.
Conversation "Forced into the Closet to Survive at BYU in the 60s: The Life of Bill Blevins"
🪧 About the Event: Join us for this moderated conversation "Forced into the Closet to Survive at BYU in the 60s: The Very True but Really Wild Life of Bill Blevins" at the Mildred Berryman Institute for LGBTQIA2S+ Utah History
🎙️ About the Speaker: Bill Blevins was born in the central valley of CA in 1946. He entered BYU in 1964 as a non-LDS student, joining the International Folk Dancers, and the Cougar Band as a talented baton-twirler. Kicked out on suspicion of being Gay, he spoke with Apostle Spencer W. Kimball, confessed his past sexual escapades, and promised to get baptized in order to be readmitted to the school. A mission to Central America followed and then he met his future wife at a BYU summer program in Mexico. A marriage and four children later, his wife divorced him and Bill was excommunicated, leaving him free to embrace the LGBT community here, becoming a founding member of the Salt Lake Men’s Choir. He retired after working 36 years at the Marriott Library, University of Utah. Bill just turned 80 and has been reunited with his children after a long estrangement.
💻 Remote Attendance
Zoom link: https://utah.zoom.us/j/86061269049
Passcode: 464036
📚 Special thanks to Signature Books for allowing us to host this event in their space!
🌈 Past lectures can be accessed on our YouTube channel or on the Berryman Lecture Series page.
Ruth Harwood: Utah’s Spiritualist Prodigy
🪧 About the Event: Discover the life and work of Ruth Harwood, a Utah-born poet and artist whose spiritualist beliefs shaped a distinctive creative vision. Born in 1896 to artist James Taylor Harwood, she emerged from a non-Mormon household rooted in Utah’s pioneer past to build a career as both a commercial artist and an acclaimed poet.
Elizabeth Giraud will share her research from her 2023 Utah Historical Quarterly article. “Ruth Harwood: Utah's Spiritualist Prodigy” shares how Harwood used her art and writing to inspire others in the pursuit of higher spiritual truth. Though based for much of her life in Berkeley, she remained closely tied to Salt Lake City, teaching in the 1930s at the McCune School of the Arts and through the University of Utah extension program.
Harwood’s story reveals how a non-Mormon lesbian artist in the early twentieth century mobilized her talents to articulate a powerful vision of personal divinity and spiritual transformation.
🎙️ About the Speaker: Elizabeth Giraud has spent her career in historic preservation, working as a planner and architectural historian. She was the planner overseeing the historic districts in Salt Lake City, an architectural historian in the environmental section of the Utah Department of Transportation, and now works on an as-needed basis for a transportation consulting firm. She has a Master’s degree in Historic Preservation Planning from Cornell University and in 2022 finished a second Master’s degree in U.S. History at the University of Utah. She and her husband, Rich Giraud, live in Sugar House and enjoy volunteering at Red Butte Garden.
💻 Remote Attendance
Zoom link: https://utah.zoom.us/j/84739642507
Passcode: 470053
📚 Special thanks to Signature Books for allowing us to host this event in their space!
🌈 Past lectures can be accessed on our YouTube channel or on the Berryman Lecture Series page.
Queer Utah Historians Roundtable
Join three Utah historians, Connell O’Donovan, Randell Hoffman, and Megan Weiss to hear about their recent research for a collaborative Utah history research project. This roundtable will include a discussion of their topics, the importance of LGBTIQ+ perspectives in Utah history, and the challenges of queer Utah history work.
Relevant projects include the history of trans Utahns, queer Utah activism, gender & sexuality in the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the history of the Utah Pride Parades.
Film Screening: Salomé
Natacha Rambova (born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy) was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on 19 January 1897 and died in Pasadena, California 5 June 5 1966.
🎥 About the Film: Salomé is a 1923 American silent drama film directed by Charles Bryant and Alla Nazimova. It is an adaptation of the 1891 Oscar Wilde play of the same name. The play itself is a loose retelling of the biblical story of King Herod and his execution of John the Baptist (here, as in Wilde’s play, called Jokanaan) at the request of Herod’s stepdaughter, Salomé, whom he lusts after.
Salomé is often called one of the first art films to be made in the United States. The highly stylized costumes, exaggerated acting, minimal sets, and absence of all but the most necessary props make for a screen image much more focused on atmosphere and on conveying a sense of the characters’ individual heightened desires than on conventional plot development.
🎙️ Before the film, Mildred Berryman Institute co-founder and chair Connell O’Donovan will speak about Natacha Rambova and the very queer creation of the film Salomé.
🎟️ Please reserve you free ticket through the Utah Film Center website.
🎬 From the Utah Film Center: This colorized 4k version of film is presented in honor of SLC Born sapphic, Natacha Rambova, and features a presentation about her and the legacy of the film by Connell O’Donovan and The Mildred Berryman Institute For LGBTIQ2S+ Utah History.
ADA accommodations are available. If you have additional needs, please visit our Accessibility page to connect with an ADA coordinator.
Queer Nation Utah: Small Actions, Huge Consequences
Connell O’Donovan will give a presentation on the history of Queer Nation Utah’s radical activism here in 1991 and 1992 and discuss the impact it has had on LGBT politics. Connell is one of the co-founders of Queer Nation Utah and currently serves as Chair of the Mildred Berryman Institute
Navajo Storytelling: Understanding the Naglééh and Gender in Creation and Coyote Stories
🐻 About the Event: While Bear sleeps in the winter, spend an evening with Navajo storyteller, Anthony Shirley, to get a broader understanding of how acceptance has shifted for Navajo naglééh, which means “interchanging,” and now refers to Indigiqueer or Two Spirit people. All are welcome to learn about gender roles, status, and cross-dressing in traditional Navajo stories that can shed light on today’s world.
🎙️ About the Speaker: Anthony Shirley is originally from Chinle, Arizona and is from the Many Goats Clan (maternal) and Towering House Clan (paternal). Tony taught Navajo language and culture at the University of Utah for ten years and currently lives in Salt Lake City with his husband, Scott.
💻 Remote Attendance
Zoom link: https://utah.zoom.us/j/89327730028
Passcode: 244663
📚 Special thanks to Signature Books for allowing us to host this event in their space!
🌈 Past lectures can be accessed on our YouTube channel or on the Berryman Lecture Series page.
Two Spirit + IndigiQueer Gathering
This Two Spirit and IndigeQueer Gathering will be a special event exploring the rich and complex intersections of Queer and Native histories and identities. The event will begin with a keynote by Clyde Hall, a distinguished activist, advocate, and founding figure of the contemporary Two Spirit movement. Hall will share insights from his decades of advocacy, including his involvement with Gay American Indians and his lifelong work uplifting Indigenous LGBTQIA2S+ voices.
Following the keynote, a panel of local Queer and Two Spirit Native leaders and thinkers will engage in a thoughtful discussion on how to approach and understand Queer Indigenous history, moderated by the one and only Dr. Roni Jo Draper (Yurok). Topics will include the evolution of language and terminology, personal journeys, cultural continuities, and community advocacy.
This gathering honors the depth, resilience, and vibrancy of past, present, and future “IndigiQueer” and Two Spirit experiences.
2025 Queer Ancestor Memorial: Mildred J. Berryman
Join the Mildred Berryman Institute for our Fourth Queer Ancestor Memorial, as we gather to honor our namesake, Mildred Jessie Berryman (1901–1972)—a pioneering voice in Utah’s queer history.
This year’s memorial will be held at her gravesite and will include music, singing, poetry, a short lecture, and a community ceremony of remembrance. Together, we will lay flowers and offerings on Mildred’s grave, honoring her courage and legacy while celebrating the lives and stories that continue to shape our community.
Joseph Willis Redburn: Forgotten Leader and Father of LGBTQ+ Utah
In the wake of Stonewall, as LGBTQ+ communities across the country began to emerge from the shadows, one man became the unlikely architect of Utah’s queer public life. Forgotten Leader: Joe Redburn and the Rise of LGBTQ+ Utah tells the story of Joseph Willis Redburn—a pioneering radio host, political firebrand, and the founder of Salt Lake City’s legendary Sun Tavern. Known as the "father of LGBTQ+ Utah," Redburn helped build the early infrastructure of queer community in one of America’s most conservative states.
Through a deep dive into Redburn’s activism, broadcasting career, and audacious creation of queer spaces in the 1970s and ’80s, this lecture not only uncovers the triumphs and heartbreaks of a radical trailblazer but also reveals the fragility of queer institutions and the forgotten fates of our elders. Join us for a powerful conversation about memory, marginalization, and the legacy of those who built our movements—only to be left behind by them.
FREE! LGBTQ+ History Walking Tour: Downtown SLC
Register for this FREE LGBTQ+ History Walking Tour of Downtown Salt Lake City presented as a fundraiser for the Mildred Berryman Institute. Register at EventBrite!
The Life Cycle of a Queer Professor: How a Queer Child Became a Queer Scholar at the Dawn of Queer Theory
With humorous and challenging biographical stories—being a “gay” child and a “trans” child—becoming in her teens an Evangelical Christian to embrace her queerness—Stockton will tell how she came to Utah in 1987 and immediately led a curriculum revolution in the Women’s Studies Program, before becoming among the first scholars in the country to teach a course in “queer theory” (here, of all places). Prepare to learn what queer theory is; why time in divinity school laid her ground for it; why a theorist would ever consent to being a dean and a vice president; and why we might make seductive kindness the face of our very rational anger.
Gay at BYU in the 1970s: A Conversation with Loreen Major & Dale Miller
Both graduates of Brigham Young University in the mid and late 1970s, Loreen Major and Dale Miller will share their powerful stories in a structured conversation led by historian and Mildred Berryman Institute Chair, Connell O’Donovan.
Together, Loreen and Dale will reflect on navigating BYU’s academic, religious, and social pressures as queer students, and how they survived an era of institutionalized shame and repression. This event shines a light on lived history often left unspoken, contributing to a fuller understanding of Utah’s not-so-distant LGBTIQ+ past.