Are you a member of the LGBTQ+ community who has been impacted by employment discrimination by the government? To extend the reach of this important story, the Fellow Travelers tour consortium is partnering with the American LGBTQ+ Museum on the Lavender Names Project, a nationwide, grassroots archival research and community outreach initiative that will share the stories of LGBTQ+ community members who were fired or discriminated against by local and federal governments.
Photos will be included in an ever-growing visual archive that will appear on stage at the end of each performance of Fellow Travelers.
HOW TO SUBMIT A PHOTO
If you or someone in your family—including chosen family—have ever been fired from a federal or local government job for being LGBTQ+, including the United States military, we invite you to share your story—or your loved one’s story—alongside a photo that will be included in our archive and our onstage photo installation. Please note that we will accept any photos, but we encourage high-resolution if possible. We prefer an official government photo, a photo in uniform or a formal portrait.
Submit Here
ABOUT THE Lavender Names Project
The Lavender Names Project is a collaboration between the American LGBTQ+ Museum and Up Until Now Collective, created in tandem with the 10th anniversary tour of the opera Fellow Travelers which launches at Seattle Opera in February 2026 before traveling to more than a dozen U.S. cities.
The Lavender Names Project is a grassroots, nation-wide archival research/community outreach initiative that aims to collect photos and stories of members of the LGBTQ+ community who were systematically discriminated against and fired by federal and local governments in the United States, including the military, from the “Lavender Scare” in the 1950s, to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the 1990s, to today. The photos will become part of an ever-growing visual archive which will appear on stage at the end of each Fellow Travelers opera performance as a living memorial to the many LGBTQ+ people who suffered this decades-long persecution.
ABOUT FELLOW TRAVELERS
Based on Thomas Mallon’s best-selling 2007 novel, the acclaimed opera Fellow Travelers is a gay love story set against the backdrop of a forgotten chapter of LGBTQ+ history known as the “Lavender Scare” — the systematic investigation, persecution and purging of LGBTQ+ Americans from government jobs during the early-1950s McCarthy era. Created by composer Gregory Spears, librettist Greg Pierce, and director Kevin Newbury, Fellow Travelers premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2016 and has been performed in fourteen cities. The upcoming 10th anniversary national tour will bring this vital story to over a dozen cities across the United States.
Fellow Travelers will make its Seattle Opera debut February 21–March 1, 2026 at McCaw Hall.
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