Today is the birthday of Lambda Award winning writer and editor and the co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, JOAN NESTLE. In 1972 Nestle co-founded the Gay Academic Union (GAU) which soon began gathering and preserving documents and artifacts related to Gay and Lesbian history.

Her project became the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Nestle retired from Queens College in 1995 due to an illness that was eventual cancer diagnosis. She now lives in Australia with her partner, law professor Diane Otto, and teaches at the University of Melbourne. Her life was the subject of a 2002 documentary by Joyce Warshow entitled Hand on the Pulse.