Rebecka Taves Sheffield Social justice struggles for rights, equality, and identity Chapter 10 Social justice struggles for rights, equality, and identity The role of lesbian and gay archives 1 Rebecka Taves Sheffield https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0762-2550 Abstract Rebecka Taves Sheffield examines the relationship between archives, shared heritage, social movements, and shifting social norms relating to sexual diversity. She unpacks the practice of archiving as activism in North American LGBTQ+ archives, which not only support social movements but also function in and of themselves as social movement organisations. LGBTQ+ archives, then, can be seen as both products of and actors in social movements. Drawing on her experience at The ArQuives (formerly the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives), Sheffield reflects on how such organisations promote social justice on some fronts while perpetuating injustice and inequality for those marginalised within queer communities. She questions how an activist archive might reckon with its own biases and silences. In the early morning hours of 12 June 2016, about 320 people were enjoying a night out at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, when an armed man approached the building on foot and entered the establishment. Once inside, he began shooting at the mostly Hispanic crowd, killing 49 people and injuring 53 others before he was taken out by police. Washington Post quickly reported that the incident was the deadliest assault on US soil since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 (Swanson 2016). On June 16, just days after describing the shooting as “a devastating attack on all Americans,” US President Barack Obama travelled to Orlando to lay flowers at a memorial to the victims and visit with family members (Garunay 2016). On his executive order, American flags at all federal buildings