For Project 3, I want to focus on LGBT elected officials in American history. I’m interested in LGBT rights and politics and so I think it would be fascinating to focus on LGBT representation in politics and its effects. The general public has some information about LGBT history in the United States, but I think very few people, including even members of the LGBT community, know about the representation of this community in government, especially in comparison to representation in other areas, like entertainment. With this exhibit, I would hope to better show the representation of LGBT members in U.S. government and hopefully normalize it in some way.

Some items that I would probably include in such a digital exhibit are news articles/videos, bills or proposals suggested by these officials that are relevant to LGBT rights, documents representing public reactions, etc. A specific example would be that there are several scandals that have outed elected officials that likely have a lot of news media surrounding them. In terms of design, it would probably be both image and text based, hopefully including video clips from news sources (or protests potentially). A map might also be beneficial to show representatives from different states.

The purpose of this exhibit would be to educate the general public on the representation of LGBT members in government. I think by showing how these members are similar to other elected officials, it would normalize their presence in government but also, by showing perhaps how they differed in their votes/legislation, it could indicate the importance of this representation.

One thing that might cause me some trouble is that the scandals that outed several officials might shed the overall community in a negative light and I would like to avoid that, since obviously these cases are not representative of the whole, but hopefully that will not be the case.