“I realized that what fascinated me went beyond the historic record to the lifelines—indeed, the life stories of those who made and continue to make queer Atlanta.”

I moved to Atlanta from Mississippi in July of 2011 to attend graduate school. In the fall of 2018, I began to teach at nearby Oxford College. My collaborator, Joshua Jacobs, moved to Atlanta in 2020 from his native Iowa to attend Emory University, and I continued teaching queer studies at Oxford College, actions that would bring us into the shared space of the classroom as Jacobs took one of my courses and interned on a research project in an independent study. In the middle of a pandemic, which halted Atlanta Pride festivities and isolated many in our community, including our elders, I began interviewing as many LGBTQIA+-identifying Atlantans as I could, attempting to deepen my understanding of the city’s queer past. As I researched in collaboration with Jacobs on this project, I realized that what fascinated me went beyond the historic record to the lifelines—the life stories of those who made and continue to make queer Atlanta. This roundtable discussion began with my search for the intergenerational and intersectional transmission of knowledge and narrative, an ethic that continues to shape both this published roundtable and my ongoing study of queer Atlanta.