The 2025 HistoryMaker Awards
Honoring QHB’s Founders + Kimm Topping
The 2025 HistoryMaker Awards
✨ Presented by Queer History Boston
QHB invites you to the 2025 HistoryMaker Awards, an annual celebration of the LGBTQ+ individuals and organizations who shape our region’s past, present, and future. This year, we are presenting the 2025 HistoryMaker Award to QHB's Founders and giving the Lavender Rhino Award to Kimm Topping.
📅 Tuesday, September 30, 2025
🕕 Reception begins at 6:00 PM ET | 🏛️ Program at 7:30 PM
📍 St. Botolph Club, 199 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA
2025 HistoryMaker: QHB's Founders, Represented by Pat Gozemba
🎉 This year is extra special: We’re honoring 45 years of Queer History Boston by paying tribute to our founders! At a time when the federal government is attempting to erase and rewrite queer and trans lives, it is all the more vital to recognize the historians, archivists, and activists who have documented, preserved, and shared Boston's LGBTQ+ history.
Marla Allisan, Kathy Asthon, Liana Borghi*, Libby Bouvier, Chris Czernik, Pat Gozemba, Steve Harrington*, Marilyn Humphries, Joe Interrante, Jam Lambertz, Mark MacKay, Linda Moody, Bob Skiba, Abby Solomon*, and Chris Waters
Representing the early members of QHB is Pat Gozemba; a Massachusetts-based academic, activist, and historian whose work bridges feminism, LGBTQ rights, and environmental justice. A pioneer in women’s studies at Salem State University, she helped establish its first program and later co-authored Courting Equality, a landmark history of Massachusetts’ struggle for marriage equality. A longtime organizer in Boston’s lesbian and gay history movement, she has also been a leader in the Salem Alliance for the Environment, continuing her lifelong commitment to social change.
* Rest in Power Liana, Steve, and Abby.
2025 Lavender Rhino: Kimm Topping
Kimm Topping is a trans/queer artist-educator, writer, and historian dedicated to preserving LGBTQIA+ history. They are the author of Generation Queer, a nonfiction YA book highlighting LGBTQIA+ youth activists, and the founder of Lavender Education, a national program celebrating queer history through arts and education.
