The work of the late Wendi Miller, a transgender woman and prominent figure in Pittsburgh’s queer history, as an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights is being celebrated in her studio, Miller Frame in East Liberty, with Wendi’s Birthday Exhibit. The exhibit, which will run from July 13 through July 17, is sponsored by the Wendi Miller Legacy Project. The project seeks to archive, contextualize, and celebrate Wendi Miller’s life and work as an artist and activist who ran the frame shop for 50 years.
Miller turned her shop into a safe and supportive space for herself and for the Rust Belt transgender diaspora in the 1990s, housing many trans women in the space above her shop.
Wendi Miller was the president of a support group for local trans people, TransPitt, where she amplified discussions about gender and identity across the Pittsburgh community in the 1990s, and was a co-founder of the Pittsburgh Transsexual Support Group in 1995. She advocated for trans and genderqueer inclusion in nondiscrimination policies on both federal and local levels.
In 1995, she collaborated with an ad hoc committee of the Pittsburgh Human Relations Commission to modify legislation to protect transgender and gender variant persons from discrimination in housing and employment. It was in the print shop that the wording was created to expand protections in discrimination law, written as “the gender of a person, as perceived, presumed or assumed by others, including those who are changing or have changed their gender identification.”
Cooper Miller, Wendi’s son and the creative director and administrator on the Wendi Miller Legacy Project, said, “In trying to solve her own problems, she helped solve problems for others. She was creating her own precedent.”
After the ordinance was enacted, Miller appeared on “The Ricki Lake Show” to discuss transgender rights. Miller also ran an international hotline on transgender rights from her print shop.
While Wendi earned a BFA in Sculpture from Carnegie Mellon University in 1972, Cooper Miller said, “Wendi was an autodidact who taught herself deep-sea photography, cave diving, blacksmithing, and hang gliding. She was also an avid poker player.”
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Wendi Miller helped found Poker Night at 5801, which is still going strong.
While researching Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ+ history, Al Preston, a public historian and scholar of queer history, became aware of the Wendi Miller Legacy Project. Preston said, “I have been documenting oral histories and ran into so many people who knew Wendi.”
Preston now serves as the Exhibit Curator on the project.
Preston said, “Wendi Miller has made a significant impact on the trans community in Pittsburgh and beyond. There is magic in telling the story of someone who wouldn’t want to tell the story themselves.”
Cooper Miller said, “The Wendi Miller Legacy Project is about creating a space that rejects the rise of authoritarianism that marginalizes transgender people. Transgender people aren’t the enemies. We don’t want them to hide, but to share their history.”
The project has had many helping hands. Claire Moclock is serving as lead archivist on the project, and includes academic supporters such as Harrison Apple, Dr. Susan Stryker, Cameron Lucas, Carly T. Lough, Chelsea Morning Gunn, and Dr. Irene Frieze.
In society’s current climate, Cooper Miller wanted to shine a light on Wendi’s work. Cooper Miller said, “I was raised around the trans community. I was a kid when people were coming to the shop, staying at the shop. A lot of them lost their family when they got kicked out of their homes and had to come to Wendi. I became a surrogate son, nephew, or little brother to a lot of these people. The trans community has been particularly important to me.”
The Wendi Miller Legacy Project’s Wendi’s Birthday Exhibit will give people a chance to see the archival material Miller collected for decades in her print shop. At the free exhibition this week, stories about Wendi will be told.
Cooper Miller said of the Wendi Miller Legacy Project, “It’s a way to keep Wendi with us.”
The event is free, but registration is required.