In this lightning talk, K.J. Rawson and Bri Watson will introduce the Homosaurus: An LGBTQ+ Linked Data Vocabulary. They will share a brief history of the vocabulary, explain how the project is run, and showcase how it can be used to supplement broader thesauri, such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings.

B.M. Watson (@brimwats) is a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar and fourth-year PhD. Candidate at University of British Columbia’s iSchool. Their research focuses on the multiple histories of information and the contemporary practices of equitable cataloging in galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and special collections. Watson is a cofounder and the coordinator for the Trans Metadata Collective (transmetadatacollective.org) and Queer Metadata Collective (queermetadatacollective.org) and serve on the editorial board of Homosaurus (homosaurus.org), an international linked data vocabulary for queer terminology. Watson has authored nearly 20 peer-reviewed publications, including as the editor of the recently-released Ethics in Linked Data (Litwin Books, 2023). Their current project seeks to establish a new field of cultural heritage research by bringing together a diverse group of authors in a collection tentatively titled Towards Special Collections Studies.

K.J. Rawson works at the intersections of the Digital Humanities and Rhetoric, LGBTQ+, and Feminist Studies. Focusing on archives as key sites of cultural power, he studies the rhetorical work of queer and transgender archival collections in brick-and-mortar and digital spaces. Rawson is founder and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, an award-winning collection of trans-related historical materials, and he chairs the editorial board of the Homosaurus, an LGBTQ+ linked data vocabulary.