Jesper Verhoef (Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, now
working for the University of Groningen) studies hundreds of LGBTI+ websites from
the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library). These websites are a rich source of information. But until now they were hardly studied. By analyzing hyperlinks Verhoef sheds new light on the fascinating history of the queer community.
What do coc.nl, christenqueer.nl and pride.amsterdam all have in common? They’re all websites aimed at people in the LGBTI+ community. Jesper Verhoef dived into the web archive of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and studied 200 Dutch queer websites. He mapped how these pages link to each other and to other websites. Web archives offer an interesting glimpse into the recent past, according to the historian. “These days, we spend hours per day online. So the web plays a big role in our life and is especially important for minorities, such as LGBT+ individuals.”
Still, little research has been done on Internet archives. This comes as a surprise to Verhoef: “The Internet gives us a lot of insights. Think of information available to, for example gay men or transgender people, but also the mutual support that people find online. By looking at how websites refer to each other, you gain insight into how groups relate to each other. I do that by analyzing hyperlinks and mapping how websites are connected.”
Insight into the vibrant life of associations
According to Verhoef, no other country in the world has so many websites with a focus on queer groups. This is possibly related to the strong culture of associations in the Netherlands. “For example, there are dozens of gay men's choirs that have their own websites. In addition, there are numerous queer sports associations, such as pink tennis clubs and hiking clubs aimed at lesbians.”
"Chat functions were very popular twenty years ago. That's where people offered each other support, for example, when coming out of the closet."
Studying web archives also shows us how organizations are changing. The website of the COC turns out to be a “hub”: out of 200 websites, as many as 81 refer to it. The organization once began as a gay advocacy organization. But by now it has expanded its focus to other queer groups as well. Verhoef notices that this is confirmed in the annual reports of the organization, which he studies as part of another project. Simultaneously, he sees that the role of the Internet has changed: “Forums used to be much larger, and chat functions were very popular about twenty years ago. There, people offered each other a lot of support, for example during the process of coming out of the closet.”
Religious queer websites
Another notable category are religious queer websites, which focus on Christians and, to a lesser extent, Muslims. “That in itself is an area of tension, because within many religions, gender and sexual diversity are, to put it mildly, sensitive issues. Interestingly, Catholic and Protestant websites have strong ties. I find that interesting. In the village where I’m from, these movements were often at odds. But as a minority within a minority, they join hands.”
There are also many websites (about forty) that focus on transgender individuals, and these
form a strong cluster. According to the researcher, this makes sense: where other groups
deviate from the norm in terms of their sexual orientation, the primary point of focus for transgender individuals is their gender identity. One group he believes is being forgotten is the bi+ category (formerly usually referred to as bisexuals). “Of the 2.7 million LGBTI+ persons in the Netherlands, according to CBS (National statistics institute), 1.7 million persons are attracted to more than one gender. But that group gets the short end of the stick,” Verhoef observes.
Not a single queer community
For Verhoef, the research shows that the integration of queer groups is still in full swing. For gays and lesbians, that integration is much more advanced. Their websites show fewer strong clusters online, from which one can conclude that these groups feel less of a need to unite. Moreover, there is no single rainbow community, as the study shows. “Ultimately, the individual 'letters' of the acronym LGBT are different groups with sometimes different concerns. They certainly do not automatically align with each other, except that they are all relatively often discriminated against and suffer from being different from the norm.”
Verhoef is pleased that the Koninklijke Bibliotheek archives hundreds of queer websites each year. He sees these websites as important cultural heritage and vital to humanities research. Without archiving, a wealth of information is lost when a website goes offline, like when a forum is shut down. “Newspapers are all preserved. If you want to retrieve a Telegraaf (the largest newspaper in the Netherlands) from 20 years ago and it turns out to have been lost, you rightfully get angry. The exact same thing should apply to websites.”
