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A pile of hand-written zines in colorful designs.

Queer Teenage Feminists on the Printed Page, 1973 to 2023

How lesbian teenagers forged community bonds and found connection through magazines.
by Kera Lovell via Nursing Clio on April 10, 2024
Cosplayers dressed as All the way May and Greta Gill from “A League of Their Own” attend New York Comic-Con on Oct. 6.
partner

‘A League of Their Own’ Chronicles Life for LGBTQ Women in the 1940s

Even at a time of repression, these women found ways to create a culture and life for themselves.
by Lauren Gutterman via Made By History on November 2, 2022
A family poses for a photo outdoors.

Queering Postwar Marriage in the U.S.

In the post-WWII era, American lesbians negotiated lives between straight marriages and homosexual affairs.
by Lauren Gutterman via Not Even Past on February 1, 2020
Parade of women suffragists, holding signs, dressed in white.

When Lesbians Led the Women's Suffrage Movement

In 1911, lesbians led the nation’s largest feminist organization. They promoted a diverse and inclusive women’s rights movement.
by Anya Jabour via The Conversation on January 24, 2020

Pulp Fiction Helped Define American Lesbianism

In the 50s and 60s, steamy novels about lesbian relationships, marketed to men, gave closeted women needed representation.
by Erin Blakemore, Yvonne Keller via JSTOR Daily on August 1, 2019
Portrait of Anne Lister

The 19th Century Lesbian Made for 21st Century Consumption

Jeanna Kadlec considers Anne Lister, the center figure of HBO’s Gentleman Jack, and the influence of other preceding queer women.
by Jeanne Kadlec via Longreads on June 6, 2019
Edythe Eyde

She Risked Jail to Create A Magazine for Lesbians

Decades before "The L Word," Edythe Eyde knew her magazine for lesbians — Vice Versa — was illegal.
by Julia Carpenter via Retropolis on July 12, 2017
Nan Lurie's "Women's House of Detention drawing in Greenwich Village.

How Greenwich Village Became America’s Bohemia

Greenwich Village’s bohemian and queer culture roots lie in its history of incarcerating women, notably via the Women’s Court and House of Detention.
by Hugh Ryan via The Gotham Center on November 20, 2024
Alice Morgan Wright with unknown friend, sitting on a tree stump.

Reconstructing the Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement

Rouse reveals the hidden queer histories of suffragists like Alice Morgan Wright, who balanced activism with private, erased relationships.
by Wendy L. Rouse via Gay And Lesbian Review on September 20, 2024
Drag queen reading book to children.

Censorship Through Centuries

A new book examines battles over drag story hours and book bans through the lens of LGBTQ history.
by Rebecca L. Davis via Literary Hub on September 9, 2024
Greek style illustration of Edith Hamilton and mythical figures.

The Latin School Teacher Who Made Classics Popular

A new biography of Edith Hamilton tells the story of how and why ancient literature became widely read in the United States.
by Emily Wilson via The Nation on October 17, 2023
A banner that reads "HTG: High Tech Gays," surrounded by a crowd of people and balloons.

How Work Has Shaped the LGBTQ Community

And the ways capital took advantage of the state's policing of sexuality.
by Ryan Reft via The Metropole on September 26, 2023
Women at National Organization for Women demonstration

Betty Friedan and the Movement That Outgrew Her

Friedan was indispensable to second-wave feminism. And yet she was difficult to like.
by Moira Donegan via The New Yorker on September 11, 2023
Side-by-side of LGBTQ+ pride flag above fetish shop, and local LGBTQ+ activist Roland Palencia

Searching For Silver Lake: The Radical Neighborhood That Changed Gay America

For decades, these Los Angeles streets have played host to key events in LGBTQ+ history. But gentrification has transformed the area.
by Lois Beckett via The Guardian on July 2, 2023
Octavia E. Butler.

The Spectacular Life of Octavia E. Butler

The story of the girl who grew up in Pasadena, took the bus, loved her mom and grandmother, and wrote herself into the world.
by E. Alex Jung via Vulture on November 21, 2022

The Lesbian As Villain or Victim

In Oregon in the 1960s, the debate over capital punishment hinged on shifting interpretations of the gendered female body.
by Matthew Wills, Lauren Gutterman via JSTOR Daily on June 19, 2022
Harvey Milk (left) at Gay Pride, San Jose, California 1978.

Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech

Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.
by Liz Tracey, Harvey Milk via JSTOR Daily on June 13, 2022
Two women stand in front of the Supreme Court building holding a sign that reads, "Keep Abortion Legal."

"The Family Roe" and the Messy Reality of the Abortion “Jane Roe” Didn’t Get

A new book juxtaposes dominant narratives about motherhood, women’s autonomy, and abortion with the weirdness of ordinary lives.
by Lara Freidenfelds via Nursing Clio on April 7, 2022
Combahee River Collective holding sign that reads 3rd World Women: We Cannot Live Without Our Lives

Annotations: The Combahee River Collective Statement

The Black feminist collective's 1977 statement has been a bedrock document for academics, organizers and theorists for 45 years.
by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on March 24, 2022
Illustration of Louise Fitzhugh smiling and holding journal.

The Tragic Misfit Behind “Harriet the Spy”

The girl sleuth, now the star of a TV show, has been eased into the canon. In the process, she’s shed the politics that motivated her creation.
by Rebecca Panovka via The New Yorker on December 9, 2021
The women of the Combahee River Collective.

“If Black Women Were Free”: An Oral History of the Combahee River Collective

“Here we are, a group of Black lesbian feminist anti-imperialist anti-capitalists trying to do the right thing.”
by Marian Moser Jones via The Nation on October 29, 2021
The book cover for Vice Patrol

Vice, Vice, Baby

The history of patrolling sex in public.
by Max Fox via Bookforum on September 7, 2021
Glass with spilled rainbow alcohol

Chasing 'Phantoms of the Past': Gay & Lesbian Bar Archivists on Preserving LGBTQ+ Nightlife History

VinePair interviewed eight LGBTQ+ archivers around the country about documenting America’s gay and lesbian bars while they still can.
by Dave Infante via VinePair on June 15, 2021
Scratched photograph of Don Ward and Robert in the early seventies.

The Untold Story of Queer Foster Families

In the 1970s, social workers in several states placed queer teenagers with queer foster parents, in discrete acts of quiet radicalism.
by Michael Waters via The New Yorker on February 28, 2021
A woman behind a bar.

The Rise and Fall of America's Lesbian Bars

Only 15 nightlife spaces dedicated to queer and gay women remain in the United States
by Sarah Marloff via Smithsonian on January 21, 2021
Harriet the Spy.

Why Harriet the Spy Had to Lie

An elaborate secret life was a necessity for children’s author Louise Fitzhugh.
by Jennifer Wilson via The New Republic on December 8, 2020

Love One Another or Die

During the AIDS crisis, different contingents of the LGBTQ movement set aside their differences to prioritize mutual care.
by Amy Hoffman via Boston Review on April 2, 2020
Photo of Carson McCullers

The Closeting of Carson McCullers

Through her relationships with other women, one can trace the evidence of McCullers’s becoming, as a woman, as a lesbian, and as a writer.
by Jenn Shapland via The Paris Review on February 3, 2020
The author at a Feminary Collective meeting with co-members Eleanor Holland (left) and Helen Langa (center) in Durham. Photo by Elena Freedom.

The Queer South: Where The Past is Not Past, and The Future is Now

Minnie Bruce Pratt shares her own story as a lesbian within the South, and the activism that occurred and the activism still ongoing.
by Minnie Bruce Pratt via Scalawag on January 27, 2020

Before Stonewall, There Was a Bookstore

Networks of activists transformed Stonewall from an isolated event into a turning point in the struggle for gay power.
by Jim Downs via The Atlantic on June 27, 2019
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