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Materials gathered during Fulbright Award study undertaken by Sears of sexuality and community in the Philippines. Portions of this work appeared in A Dangerous Knowing.

Scholarly journals, gay magazines, gay directories and guides from various cities, clippings, and other printed materials gathered as research for various projects. Arranged alphabetically by title or topic. Many other printed items are found throughout the Sears Papers, especially clippings, articles, and newsletters; entire issues of serials are housed in the Oversize Material boxes.

Contains clippings, correspondence, field notes, photographic material, recorded interviews, and printed materials used in Sears' research on sex education curricula in the U.S. Arranged by geographical area of research: Illinois, North Carolina, and South Carolina, with separate files for negatives and photographs. Field notebooks are organized by schools visited. Fifty audiocassettes of interviews have been housed separately in the Audiovisual Material Series.

Assembled by Sears, these materials document homosexuality and the gay movement of the 1970s-1990s in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, and Washington DC. Similar in content to other state files found in the Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones series, formats include clippings, flyers, brochures, organizations' records, publications (newsletters), articles, and some correspondence. One set of folders relates to two national gay rights marches in Washington, D.C. in 1979 and 1987, and contains publicity and correspondence sent to Sears from organizers reminiscing about the earlier march. Other files house an extensive collection of newspapers that chronicle gay rights protests in Durham/Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. Also includes a set of files chronicling the Southeastern Conferences for Lesbians and Gay Men (1976-1990). In original order as received.

Materials covering a wide variety of research topics of interest to Sears, including homosexuality in the United States before 1950, the history of gays in the military, a study on new generations of gays, and international gay movements. Other boxes contain general research materials on gays in the South which informed multiple works by Sears. The individual states of Alabama and Florida have their own boxes of research materials, while materials from Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington D.C. are housed as a group. Formats in the Research Files Subseries are varied, and can include print materials such as clippings, flyers, newsletters, and serial issues; field notes and other research materials; correspondence; photographs and other types of illustrations; and recorded oral histories and interviews. In addition to correspondence and materials deriving from Sears' research, there are significant amounts of primary materials from original sources, especially correspondence and a few diaries. More detailed descriptions follow below.

Signed consent forms from individuals featured chiefly in Lonely Hunters and Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones, giving permission for their image or personal histories and interviews to be published by Sears. Other series in the Sears Papers house additional consent forms for the same or other published works. Researchers wishing to publish information on individuals represented in the Sears Papers must locate the consent forms, or obtain permission from the individuals.

Drafts of published and unpublished writings by other authors, chiefly on gender identity or sexual orientation and teaching, submitted to Sears for review, usually with some correspondence included. Organized alphabetically by author name.

Comprised almost entirely of newspaper and magazine clippings highlighting Nichols' work as a social activist and writer as well as various movements of interest to him. Included in this series are clippings of coverage of gay rights demonstrations, often related to government responses to the AIDS crisis. Several books of clippings (one with photographs) document Nichols' activities as a gay rights organizer in the cities of Washington, New York, and Cocoa Beach, Florida. In addition, clippings and printed materials related to "men's liberation" and related critiques of traditional gender roles can be found in this series. Copies of some writings by Nichols, notably the serialized "Calamus Chronicles" (originally "The Tomcat Chronicles"), as well as some clippings of articles and editorials written for Florida newspapers are housed in this series. Organized alphabetically.

Consists of personal and business correspondence spanning the entirety of Nichols' adult life, with the bulk of the material dated between 1969 and 2000. Correspondence with other major figures in the early gay rights movement, including fellow Washington D.C. Mattachine Society founder Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings, are included. While the political climate and need for action are often discussed in letters in this series, correspondence also covers topics of a more personal nature, including health, jobs, and Nichols' efforts to publish his literary work. Letters to and from friends and lovers, particularly Clarke and Logan Carter, are included as well. Additional major correspondents with Nichols include his mother Mary Finlayson Lund, Leo Skir, Bob Kunst, and James T. Sears. Early correspondence chronicles the work of Nichols and Lige Clarke as editors of the national newspaper Gay; later material documents Nichols' struggles to find agents and publishers for various manuscripts. Nichols' work as editor of the online publication Gay Today can be found in the writing and business correspondence grouping. Also included are a grouping of address and appointment books kept by Nichols. Series is predominantly organized by year, though groups of letters separated by Nichols are organized alphabetically by correspondent.