A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF SEXUALITY, HISTORY AND CURRENT EVENTS

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Gillian Frank and Lauren Gutterman, "How the 'Girl Watching' Fad of the 1960s Taught Men to Harass Women"
”The girl watching phenomenon gained steam in the 1950s and 1960s at a moment when men openly embraced “picking up” women for casual sex before marriage. Over time, girl watching became a staple of mainstream and adult men’s magazines. Girl watching guides and girl watching clubs of the midcentury (alongside cartoons and advertisements) taught American men how to sexualize and harass women on the street, among other public places.”

Eliza Relman, "Amy Coney Barrett Uses the Offensive Term 'Sexual Preference' to Refer to LGBTQ People"
"At her Senate confirmation hearing, the Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett used the widely denounced term "sexual preference" to refer to LGBTQ Americans' sexual orientations. Barrett refused to say whether she agreed with the landmark 2015 Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriage is a constitutionally protected right.”

Kate Sosin, “Amy Coney Barrett Has Ties To an Anti-LGBTQ Hate Group"
”Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is being asked to answer for her ties to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a far-right legal organization that has been at the forefront of the fight against legal cases for LGBTQ+ equality in the United States.”

Adam Liptak, “Justices Thomas and Alito Question Same-Sex Marriage Precedent"
”Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who dissented from the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision establishing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, urged the court on 5 October to reconsider the ruling”

James Esseks, "The Next Big Case on LGBTQ Rights is Already Before the Supreme Court"
”In Fulton v. Philadelphia, the court could create a precedent that allows discrimination against LGBTQ families. More specifically, private agencies that receive taxpayer funding to provide government services — such as foster care agencies, food banks and homeless shelters — could be given a constitutional right to deny services not just to people who are LGBTQ, but even to religious groups, such as Jews, Muslims or Mormons.”

Oleksiy Kuzmenk, Michael Colborne, and Aiganysh Aidarbekova, “How American Religious Conservatives Fought LGBT Rights in Ukraine"
”An investigation by “Bellingcat Anti-Equality Monitoring” suggests that Steve Weber, longtime head of the Ukrainian branch of the Christian Broadcasting Network, a US media juggernaut, initiated the creation of the “Alliance Ukraine for Family”, a “pro-family” umbrella organisation whose members run nationwide anti-LGBT campaigns and oppose anti-discriminatory changes to laws.”

Clea Simon, “A Global Look at How COVID-19 Has Affected LGBTQ Activism"
”The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted virtually every aspect of life, including global social movements such as the struggle for LGBTQ rights."

Suyin Haynes, "Why a Children's Book is Becoming a Symbol of Resistance in Hungary’s Fight Over LGBT Rights"
”Published on 21 September 2020, Meseorszag mindenkie, or A Fairy Tale for Everyone, is an anthology of retellings of traditional fairy tales, updated with more diverse, inclusive and LGBTQ characters in contemporary settings. Shortly after its release, A Fairy Tale for Everyone became the target of homophobic attacks by politicians, including the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and is facing a public boycott.”

Article Spotlight

Rosalind Eyben, ‘The Moustache Makes Him More of a Man’: Waiters’ Masculinity Struggles, 1890–1910, History Workshop Journal, Volume 87, Spring 2019, Pages 188–210, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbz008

When moustaches were at the height of European fashion among men of all classes, why did luxury restaurants require their waiters to be clean-shaven and why did some waiters object? The article draws primarily on the contemporary press to examine the ambivalent gender and class position of waiters who did a ‘woman’s job’ and dressed like a gentleman to perform extreme subservience for rich men’s enjoyment. The moustache ban was an exercise of power over the waiter beyond the workplace into other domains. It embodied the innate subservience of the domestic servant and reinforced the perception of the public, including fellow trade unionists, that waiters were emasculated feudal retainers rather than manly men earning their living in the modern market place. Waiters were the butt of jokes. In Britain, the Trades Union Congress laughed at their union’s claims to the moustache and finally in 1899 told them to stay away. Waiters’ servile direct dependence on the wealthy was a threat to a working-class masculinity of independence and hard physical work. As the waiters’ leader well understood, their lack of moustache served to confirm the general perception that waiters were neither real workers nor real men.

Episode Spotlight

In the 1980s and 1990s, the San Francisco Metropolitan Community Church wrestled with profound questions: What does it mean to minister a gay church when so many in the congregation are dying from AIDS-related complications and grieving the recently dead? How do you have faith during an epidemic? And what does it mean to participate in communion in a community ravaged by a plague?

For more, listen here.

Books

Upcoming Events

Contagions of Empire: A Conversation With Professor Khary Polk, 8 November 2020
"An author discussion with Professor Khary Polk about his recently published book, Contagions of Empire.

Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898-1948 (University of North Carolina Press, June 2020) examines how the movement of Black soldiers and nurses around the world in the early-to-mid twentieth century challenged U.S. military ideals of race, nation, and honor.”

Rachel Hope Cleves in Conversation with Alexis Coe, 17 November 2020
”Rachel Hope Cleves, author of Unspeakable: A Life beyond Sexual Morality, in conversation with Alexis Coe, author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington.

Unspeakable is the clear-eyed biography of Norman Douglas, a once beloved, now largely forgotten author—and an unrepentant and uncloseted pederast. Rachel Hope Cleves’s careful study of Douglas’s life opens a window onto the social history of intergenerational sex in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, revealing how charisma, celebrity, and contemporary standards protected Douglas from punishment—until they didn’t.”

Race, Sex, and Disease in the Early Caribbean: Yaws and Syphillis, UCL Institute of the Americas, 18 November 2020
”Dr Katherine Paugh of Oxford University will discuss the story of syphilis in the early Caribbean, focusing on how Britons and West Africans who were caught up in the Atlantic slave trade and new world slavery understood syphilis. ”

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A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF SEXUALITY, HISTORY AND CURRENT EVENTS

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Katelyn Burns, "How Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court Could Affect LGBTQ Rights"
”President Donald Trump nominated federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court on Saturday, 26 September, a choice LGBTQ rights groups are concerned could lead to a reduction in the rights of LGBTQ Americans.”

Chris Johnson, "Trump selects Amy Coney Barrett as Pick for Supreme Court"
"President Trump has selected Amy Coney Barrett, a federal appellate judge and a favorite among religious conservatives, as his choice to replace progressive champion Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.”

Kate Sosin, “A More Conservative Supreme Court Could Bring Drastic Changes for LGBTQ+ Americans"
”Across the nation, queer people are debating fast-tracking major life changes, expecting that rights they now have could be stripped away.”

Laura Vozzella, “Wedding Photographer, Ministries Challenge Virginia’s New LGBT Rights Law"
”A wedding photographer and a group of Christian ministries have filed separate lawsuits against a new Virginia law that bans discrimination against lesbian, gay and transgender people — and, the plaintiffs say, forces them to violate their "core convictions."”

Kate Sosin, "Trump has Gutted LGBTQ+ Rights. Could a Biden Presidency Undo the Damage?"
”Biden has promised action on LGBTQ+ issues starting on day one. But undoing four years of anti-LGBTQ+ policy may take decades.”

Frances Robles, “Soraya Santiago Solla, Transgender Trailblazer, Dies at 72"
”She was the first in Puerto Rico to change a gender designation on a birth certificate and the first there to reveal that she’d had sex-reassignment surgery.”

“Poland LGBT: Diplomats from 50 Countries Call for End to Discrimination"
”Ambassadors from around the world have called for the rights of gay and transgender people to be respected in Poland, where many towns have declared themselves free of "LGBT ideology".

Simon Murphy and Libby Brooks, "UK Government Drops Gender Self-Identification Plan for Trans People"
”Plans to allow people to officially change gender without a medical diagnosis are not being adopted by Downing Street, which is instead cutting the cost of applying for a gender recognition certificate as part of moves to revamp the process.”

Article Spotlight

David Minto; “Perversion by Penumbras: Wolfenden, Griswold, and the Transatlantic Trajectory of Sexual Privacy.” The American Historical Review, Volume 123 (4), October 2018: 1093–1121 doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhy027.

This article provides a queer, transnational account of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1965 articulation, in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), of a constitutional right to privacy. The right in question trumped a Connecticut statute prohibiting contraceptive use even by married couples. But historians emphasizing its emergence from tort privacy and criminal procedure law have neglected an alternative source of its articulation beyond obvious jurisdictional and sexual borders: Britain’s 1957 Wolfenden Report on homosexual offenses and prostitution. The government-commissioned report famously recommended the decriminalization of gay sex on the basis of “a realm of private morality and immorality which is . . . not the law’s business.” In doing so, it not only captured the attention of U.S. homophiles and advocates, who had particular interests in overturning state sodomy laws, but also inspired transatlantic reportage and legal debate that helped to make a sexual privacy right conceptually legible and politically realizable. Elaborating the connection between Wolfenden and Griswold, this article probes the resonance between the Supreme Court’s attention to “penumbras” and the insights of queer history.

Episode Spotlight

Chances are you’ve never heard of Ruth Wallis, one of the greatest singers, comedians, and performers of sexually suggestive lyrics in the postwar United States. Most of her catalogue remains on vinyl and historians have forgotten her. But from the 1940s until the early 1970s, Ruth Wallis was a bestselling performer and a mainstay at supper clubs and hotels. At a time when it was legally risky for entertainers to sing about sexuality for profit and pleasure, Ruth sold millions of records that used innuendo to playfully hint at a variety of straight and queer sexual pleasures.

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A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF SEXUALITY, HISTORY AND CURRENT EVENTS

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Alisha Haridasani Gupta, "Ice Detainees Faced Medical Neglect and Hysterectomies, Whistleblower Alleges"
”Immigrants in a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center in Georgia are being subjected to horrific conditions and treatment, including “jarring medical neglect” and a high rate of hysterectomies among women, according to a whistleblower complaint filed by several legal advocacy groups on behalf of a nurse who works there.”

Britni De La Cretaz, "It’s Not Just Hysterectomies: The U.S. Has A Long, Shameful History Of Forced Sterilizations"
"From eugenics campaigns a century ago to the current-day hysterectomies being performed in ICE facilities, attacks on the reproductive freedom of marginalized people are baked into the history of the U.S.”

Jonathan Blitzer, “The Private Georgia Immigration-Detention Facility at the Center of a Whistle-Blower's Complaint"
”Roughly seventy per cent of all immigration jails in this country are run by private corporations, and longstanding calls for accountability at these centers have done relatively little to change systematic patterns of abuse.”

Chris Johnson, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Champion of LGBTQ Rights on the Bench, Dies at Age 87"
”U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of LGBTQ rights, died on Friday, 18 September in Washington D.C. at 87.”

Neil J. Young, "The Long History Behind Donald Trump’s Outreach to LGBTQ Voters"
”Hoping to attract electoral support, Trump is aggressively reaching out to LGBTQ voters. In addition, the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s largest LGBTQ Republican organization, has launched OUTspoken, a multimedia platform to produce pro-Trump content. Trump’s rhetoric may be new, but the policies he supports and the role of LGBTQ Republicans are not.”

Joshua Mcdonald, “LGBT Community Targeted by Police in Indonesia"
”Homosexuality is legal in Indonesia, apart from in the conservative province of Aceh, but attacks on the community from politicians, police, conservative think tanks, and Islamist and other religious groups have been on the rise in recent years.”

Patrick Kelleher, “Northern Ireland Just Committed to Banning Traumatising Conversion Therapy in a Groundbreaking Move"
”Conversion therapy is defined as the effort to change a person’s sexuality or gender identity. It has been condemned by most major psychiatric bodies and has been described by the United Nations as a form of torture. Despite this, it is still legal in the UK – but plans are now underway to outlaw the harmful practice in Northern Ireland.”

Luke Broadwater and Erica L. Green, "DeVos Vows to Withhold Desegregation Aid to Schools Over Transgender Athletes"
”The Education Department has told Connecticut schools that desegregation grants will be cut off Oct. 1 if they continue to allow transgender students to choose the teams they compete on.”

Julian Borger, “US Reframing of Human Rights Harms Women and LGBT People, Advocates Say”
”Mike Pompeo has stepped up his campaign to change the US approach to human rights, reframing them as “unalienable rights” rooted in American traditions, with a particular emphasis on religious freedom.”

Article Spotlight

Gabriel Rosenberg; “How Meat Changed Sex: The Law of Interspecies Intimacy after Industrial Reproduction.” GLQ  October 2017; 23 (4): 473–507. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-4157487.

The article explores the history and structure of American laws criminalizing sexual contact between humans and animals to demonstrate how the ecological conditions of late capitalism are remaking sexual taxonomies, practices, and identities. It notes that the majority of these statutes have been enacted within the past three decades and most contain language that explicitly exempts animal husbandry and veterinary medicine from prosecution. The article explores the legislative politics that produce these exemptions and exposes an underlying ambiguity: in the age of industrial reproduction, the “accepted practices” of animal husbandry can be distinguished from bestiality only through legal fiat. The structure of the laws exempts human sexual contact with animals when it reproduces biocapital and produces “perverse” bestialists and “normal” farmers as mirrored categories, distinguished not by their relations to animals but by their relations to capital. Finally, the article reads this insight against the biopolitical theorist Giorgio Agamben's concept of anthropogenesis and notes that such exemptions reveal a limitation in his theory. In place of the timeless ritualism of Agamben's “anthropological machine,” the article argues for an account of speciation that recognizes strategic gradations of pain and pleasure, the critical role of sexual violence and reproduction, and processes of trans-speciative procreation.

Episode Spotlight

For a short time in the 1970s, Canary Conn was everywhere. She was on television. On the radio. And on bookshelves. Her story, that of a Texas-born recording artist, husband and father who transitioned into a woman whom the media described as “young,” “lithe” and “with flowing blonde hair,” captured national attention. Although some newspaper interviews with Canary have been preserved, there are very few accessible recordings of Canary’s many public performances, or her radio and television interviews. What’s more, the trail of evidence disappears after 1980, when Canary inexplicably left the public spotlight and returned to private life. In this episode we introduce and then play a rare extended audio interview with Canary that she recorded with the magazine Psychology Today in 1977. The interview profiles Canary’s childhood, her transition, her sexuality, and her gender identity.

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A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF SEXUALITY, HISTORY AND CURRENT EVENTS

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Alisha Haridasani Gupta, "Transgender People Face New Legal Fight After Supreme Court Victory"
”Though the Supreme Court embraced a broad definition of sex in June, the Department of Health and Human Services pressed ahead with changes that narrowed the definition of sex in the Affordable Care Act.”

Hailey Branson-Potts, "Pride producer names Black transgender woman as president"
"For the first time in its 50-year history, Christopher Street West, the nonprofit organization that produces LA Pride, has named a Black transgender woman as president of its board.”

Trudy Ring, “Log Cabin Again Licks Trump's Boots But Ignores His True LGBTQ+ Record"
”In a USA Today op-ed, endorsing Trump for president, the Log Cabin Republicans have glossed over the Trump administration's plethora of anti-LGBTQ+ actions.”

Chris Johnson, “Facing Trump’s LGBTQ outreach, advocates hold firm on plan to show his record"
”Faced with the Trump campaign’s attempt at LGBTQ outreach — an unprecedented effort from a Republican presidential nominee, especially from an incumbent who has built an anti-LGBTQ record — LGBTQ advocacy groups say they’re staying the course in their efforts to expose the real President Trump.”

"Croatia gets first gay foster parents"
”A Croatian gay couple fostered two children after a legal battle, becoming the first same-sex couple to be granted the right in the largely Catholic country.”

Maggie Haberman, “After Three Years of Attacking L.G.B.T.Q. Rights, Trump Suddenly Tries Outreach""
”L.G.B.T.Q. advocates say the president has tried to divide their coalition by targeting transgender people in policy rollbacks. Going forward, Trump officials are turning to Richard Grenell, the openly gay former U.S. ambassador to Germany who served for three months as the acting director of national intelligence, to sell the president, and to attack Mr. Biden.”

Michael Stratford, “Court rules 'resoundingly yes' for transgender rights in Gavin Grimm bathroom access battle.”
”I late August, Aa federal appeals court dealt a major victory for proponents of transgender rights, ruling that it is unconstitutional and a violation of Title IX for schools to bar students from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity.”

"Georgia church splits from Methodists over LGBT dispute"
”On 3 September, a Georgia congregation finalized its split from the United Methodist Church after the denomination’s divisive vote last year to strengthen bans on same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBTQ pastors.”

Oscar Lopez, “LGBT+ Americans bear brunt of pandemic's economic crash”
”Economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is having a harsher impact on LGBT+ Americans than on the general population, according to a survey released on 4 September showing that gay and trans people are 30% more likely to have lost their jobs since May”

Article Spotlight

Nic John Ramos; “Poor Influences and Criminal Locations:Los Angeles’s Skid Row, Multicultural Identities, and Normal Homosexuality.” American Quarterly 71, no. 2 (2019): 541-567. doi:10.1353/aq.2019.0042.

In 1984 the City of Los Angeles implemented a new policing ordinance called the “containment and mitigation policy,” which did not target subjects for prison arrest but sought to achieve their open-air capture in a redesigned “homeless district” called skid row. The policy was devised by Mayor Tom Bradley and his black and gay allies as a solution that balanced the pressures of deinstitutionalization and deindustrialization with the objectives of the community mental health movement and black, gay, and downtown community redevelopment programs. Looking to archival material related to architectural landscapes oriented to normalizing race and homosexuality built by Bradley, community mental health professionals, and neighborhood activists in inner-city districts, this essay demonstrates that new discourses of racial and sexual liberalism, coded as “multiculturalism” and expressed as black and gay community pride campaigns, substantiated new forms of surveillance and policing that renewed violence on queer, homeless, trans, and disabled people of color that resulted in their spatial segregation in skid row. Rather than forward social justice, I argue that the city’s cultivation of multiculturalism obscured the processes of racial capitalism that underwrite the enlargement of carceral spaces and normalize surveillance and policing as a common good.

Episode Spotlight

The story of African American midwifery is part of a larger history of Black women’s struggles to protect their own lives, as well as the lives of other Black women and their children. This episode explores the long history of African American midwives, doulas, and birth attendants who have labored to ensure the safety and dignity of Black mothers and their children in and beyond the maternity ward. These Black women have worked to provide emotional support and medical advocacy for other pregnant and laboring women. Their reproductive advocacy makes clear that the delivery room has become an important site to ensure that Black Lives Matter.

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A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF SEXUALITY, HISTORY AND CURRENT EVENTS

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"Amid growing hostility, some in Poland’s LGBTQ community make a difficult choice: Leave"
”While gays and lesbians have never had the legal right to marry or to form civil unions in Poland, as is permitted in much of Europe, many felt confident until not long ago that Polish society was becoming more accepting and that those rights would one day come.

They have instead faced a furious backlash from the Roman Catholic Church and the government under the ruling Law and Justice party.”

John D'Emilio, "Capitalism Made Gay Identity Possible. Now We Must Destroy Capitalism."
"Gay identity became possible thanks to capitalism’s emancipatory side: its liberation of the individual from material dependence on the family. But that sexual freedom wasn’t automatic — it required decades of militant struggle. Today, we need more such struggles to combat the oppressive aspects of capitalism, which keep gay and straight people alike from living fully free lives.”

Kate Sosin, “Kamala Harris is a complicated choice for some LGBTQ+ people"
”She is among the earliest prominent politicians to back marriage equality, but Harris' record on trans rights has led some LGBTQ+ voters to pause.”

Vanessa Gera, “Protesters decry government’s anti-LGBT attitudes in Poland"
”Demonstrators turned out in Warsaw and other Polish cities in early August to protest anti-LGBT attitudes promoted by the government as well as the detention of pro-LGBT protesters. The protests come amid an intensifying standoff in Poland between the LGBT rights movement and the conservative government, which has declared it an alien, dangerous “ideology.””

Jeannie Suk Gersen, "Could the Supreme Court’s Landmark L.G.B.T.-Rights Decision Help Lead to the Dismantling of Affirmative Action?"
”The decision protecting gay and transgender individuals from discrimination may have laid the groundwork for a textualist case against race-conscious school-admissions policies.”

Anne Applebaum, “Poland’s Rulers Made Up a ‘Rainbow Plague’"
”The president and his party ginned up fear of LGBTQ people—and rode that strategy to reelection in July.”

Nick Duffy, “Transgender people nearly left out of historic Supreme Court LGBT+ rights ruling, bombshell leak claims.”
”Transgender people were nearly left out of the US Supreme Court ruling in favour of LGBT+ employment protections, according to a bombshell leak.”

Angela Giuffrida, “‘We’re living in fear’: LGBT people in Italy pin hopes on new law”
”Debate on long-awaited bill that would punish discrimination and hate crimes towards LGBT people opened in late July.”

Gabby Orr, “The Wedge Issue That’s Dividing Trumpworld”
”A group of social conservatives wants the president to embrace anti-transgender issues to reverse his sagging poll numbers. Some Trump advisers think it’s political suicide. A cohort of establishment Republicans, social libertarians and new GOP converts oppose the strategy.”

Article Spotlight

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela; “The Siren Song of Yoga”: Sex, Spirituality, and the Limits of American Countercultures. Pacific Historical Review 3 July 2020; 89 (3):379-401. https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2020.89.3.379

Yoga writ large helps illuminate the nature and the limits of evolving countercultures. Yoga in the 1960s and 1970s United States operated as a crucial vehicle for expressing critiques of patriarchy and sexual repression. Expressive forms of sexuality became pervasive in yoga culture, symptoms of the increased discursive and physical openness of the sexual revolutions. The broad-ranging spirituality associated with yoga often challenged rigid religiosity, frequently by pitting Eastern against Western belief systems, often oversimplifying this duality. The American encounter with yoga has been a vehicle for the rise of a capacious spirituality, often defined as “New Age” and more recently subsumed within the “spiritual-but-not-religious” movement, which today over 30 percent of Americans reportedly embrace. Yoga has been a crucial vehicle for expressing how Americans see themselves as spiritual, sexual, and physical beings, and the 1960s and 1970s represent a period in which these identities were articulated, if not always enacted, as distinctly countercultural. At the same time, this famously experimental era paradoxically corresponded to the incorporation of yoga into a popular mainstream fitness culture. The mainstreaming of yoga at times sapped this spiritual practice of a significant measure of radicalism and at others merely expressed that radicalism differently.

Episode Spotlight

Straight white men’s sexuality is too often imagined as natural, timeless, and unchanging. In “The Pickup Artist,” we showcase the 1970 bestseller, How to Pick Up Girls, in order to explore the cultural forces that have shaped how white men experienced and publicly expressed their desire for women in increasingly casual and aggressive ways.

How to Pick Up Girls by Eric Weber was a mass-marketed book that advised men on how to introduce themselves to and seduce women. The book spawned several sequels and countless imitators. But more importantly, How to Pick Up Girls represented the triumph of a male-dominated sexual revolution that allowed men to demand ever-greater access to any woman’s time, body, and attention.

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A new book by Sexing History co-host Lauren Gutterman! Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire Within Marriage. Order your copy today!

Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire Within Marriage (Politics and Culture in Modern America)

By Lauren Jae Gutterman

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Michael Balsamo, “FBI, Bureau of Prisons ordered to probe LGBTQ discrimination”
”Attorney General William Barr has ordered the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons to investigate allegations of discrimination against LGBTQ employees, he said in a letter released Friday.”

Stephen A. Crockett Jr., “Rep. Ilhan Omar Calls Trump Adviser Stephen Miller a ‘White Nationalist’; Her Critics Accuse Her of Anti-Semitism”
”Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) isn’t here to be liked, she’s here to call it as she sees it, and as such, she’s quickly moving up the “Auntie Maxine reclaiming my time” list of righteous women who don’t have the energy to placate the public.”

Lauren Evans, “Nine Activists Were convicted in Connection with Hong Kong’s Pro-Democracy Protests”
”Nine activists in Hong Kong have been convicted on public nuisance charges stemming from their roles in pro-democracy rallies in 2014; they now face up to seven years in prison.”

Lauren Evans, “Stanford Expels Its First Student Connected to the Admissions Scandal”
”Stanford has officially expelled a female student who, according to Stanford Daily, falsified her application and paid $500,000 via Rick Singer’s sham non-profit to join the sailing team. The paper reports that though the student was accepted through the standard process and not as a recruited athlete, her admission was followed by the contribution to the sailing program through the school’s former sailing coach, John Vandemoer, who last month pleaded guilty on racketeering and conspiracy charges.”

Emma Green, “What Another Round of Netanyahu Will Mean for American Jews”
”The lead-up to Israel’s election has revealed deep fractures between the Israeli prime minister and American Jews.”

Olga Khazan, “Invisible Middlemen Are Slowing Down American Health Care”
”Nurses spend 16 hours on the phone, medications take months to arrive, and patients suffer as they wait.”

David Kushner, “Recruiting Women to Online Dating Was a Challenge”
”Match.com started with questions about weight and explicit sexual preferences. Half the population wasn’t that into it.”

“The Latest: LGBTQ parents’ group applauds Mormon change”
”A group that represents members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with gay and lesbian children says the repeal of 2015 baptism rules is a good first step. But she says pain caused by the policy banning the baptism for kids of gay parents still lingers.”

Nick Martin, “Inside the Fight for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women”
”Indigenous women, be they in a city or on a reservation, have for decades been among the most unprotected members of North American society. In 2016, the National Crime Information Center recorded 5,712 cases of murdered and missing Indigenous women or girls in America; as was highlighted by the Urban Indian Health Institute’s groundbreaking 2018 MMIWG report, just 116 of those were logged in NamUs, the U.S. Department of Justice’s federal missing persons database.”

John McWhorter, “It Wasn’t ‘Verbal Blackface.’ AOC Was Code-Switching.”
”Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been accused of a lot, but the latest charge is especially piquant. Apparently, the new representative of some of the most multiethnic neighborhoods in the United States has engaged in ‘verbal blackface’.”

Dara Sharif, “Taraji P. Henson Tears Up Describing Mental Health in the Black Community as a ‘National Crisis’”
”Taraji P. Henson has been doing the work, the work to end the stigma surrounding mental illness in the black community. The urgency of the issue brought her to tears while she was being honored for her efforts at Variety magazine’s Power of Women New York lunch.”

Alan Taylor, “Rwandans Commemorate 25 Years Since Genocide”
”As the country continues to find ways to deal with the consequences of the mass violence, one path has led to the creation of six “reconciliation villages” in Rwanda, populated by genocide survivors who live side by side with—and offer forgiveness to—perpetrators who have recently been released from prison, who seek to apologize and atone.”

Esther Wang, “Sexual Assault Survivors Are Protesting to Keep Brett Kavanaugh Out of Their Classroom”
”Undergraduate students at George Mason University are calling for university officials to end a contract with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was hired by the university’s notoriously conservative Antonin Scalia Law School to teach a study abroad course this year. The protesting students, many of whom are survivors of sexual assault, believe that the university should not reward a man who has been accused of sexual assault and sexual misconduct with a teaching job, and that the law school’s hiring of Kavanaugh is an example of how the university deprioritizes the issue of sexual assault.”

Article Spotlight

Alan Scot Willis, "Abusing Hugh Davis: Determining the Crime in a Seventeenth-Century American Morality Case," Journal of the History of Sexuality 28, no. 1 (2019): 117-147. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"My goal is to dissect the case and to explain why I find it more likely— though admittedly not definitive—that Hugh Davis’s partner was actually male. I will do this by examining the specific language used by the court, as well as the legal, colonial, and Atlantic contexts in which the case occurred. Finally, I consider the factors that may have led the colony to spare Davis’s life, whether or not he had actually committed sodomy. Considering the possibility that Hugh Davis’s partner might have been male instead of seeing the case as the starting point of antimiscegenation laws provides, I believe, a better reading of the case and its context.”

Episode Spotlight

In August of 1962, Sherri Chessen boarded a flight to Sweden in order to get an abortion after she was unable to obtain one in the United States. Sherri had accidentally taken medicine containing thalidomide, a drug that caused children to be born with internal injuries and shortened limbs. Thalidomide also caused women to miscarry, deliver stillborn babies, or have children who died during their infancy. Her decision to terminate this risky pregnancy and her journey abroad attracted international attention from journalists, politicians, and religious leaders. Sherri’s ordeal made public what countless American women experienced when they sought to terminate their pregnancies. Her widely shared story changed the way many Americans thought about abortion laws and even about abortion itself.

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“Birth Control Gets Caught Up in the Abortion Wars”
”The Trump administration’s cruel new family planning rule threatens access to contraception and other health care for poor women.”

Rachel Browne, “This City Will Start Outing Johns.Sex Workers Think It’s a Terrible Idea”
”Police in London, Ontario say publicizing names of people charged with buying sexual services will curb demand and help prevent sex trafficking.”

Tracy Clark-Flory, “The Sneakily Retro Politics of a ‘Brutally Honest’ Post-Baby Photos”
”A new advertising campaign launched by Mothercare, the UK’s “number one retailer” of baby products, features vivid photos of women’s post-baby bodies. There are stretch marks and scars, alongside the beautiful little bundles of joy who created said stretch marks and scars.”

Tara Copp, “In a first, active duty transgender service members will testify before Congress on policy, potential ban”
”On Wednesday, [Capt. Alivia] Stehlik and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Blake Dremann will be the first active-duty transgender personnel to testify before Congress as part of a panel looking at how President Donald Trump’s transgender policy impacts their ability to serve.”

“Gay priests used as ‘convenient scapegoat’ for Vatican sex abuse: LGBTQ advocate”
”While Vatican leadership have largely denounced the idea that homosexuality is to blame for sex abuse in the church, certain "fringe" elements are keeping the thoroughly debunked notion alive, says an advocate for LGBTQ Catholics.”

Emma Green, “The United Methodist Church is Facing Existential Fracture”
”The mainline denomination voted on Tuesday to toughen its teachings against homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and LGBT clergy. It must now decide whether it will stay together.”

Prachi Gupta, “This Is a Very Bleak Preview of a Reproductive Health Access After the Gag Rule”
”After Texas defunded Planned Parenthood in 2011, the state poured millions of dollars into a network of anti-abortion Christian pregnancy centers—a decision that could offer a glimpse of what’s to come in other states after the Trump administration announced a plan to block federal grant funding for reproductive health organizations that offer abortion services and counseling.”

Tiara Jenkins and Jessica Yarmosky, “Dr. Seuss Books Can Be Racist, But Students Keep Reading Them”
”That tension between Seuss and Seuss-free classrooms is emblematic of a bigger debate playing out across the country — should we continue to teach classic books that may be problematic, or eschew them in favor of works that more positively represent of people of color?”

Mansee Khurana and Jared Peraglia, “Fifty Years After Stonewall, Talk Revisits NUY’s History With the LGBTQ Community”
”In 1970, NYU prevented queer clubs from holding events on campus. Today, they celebrate Stonewall’s 50th anniversary.”

Paul Kramer, “The Black Pastor Whose ‘Turban Trick’ Exposed American Racism”
”Rev. Routté bluffed his way into first-class treatment in the Jim Crow-era south — unmasking the ridiculous hypocrisy of segregation.”

“Pope Francis demanded ‘concrete’ measures against child sex abuse. Where are they?”
”Was the Vatican’s just-completed summit on child sex abuse, convened by Pope Francis amid a crisis of credibility that has crippled the Catholic Church’s moral authority, really intended simply to prepare the way for genuine reforms in the indefinite future?”

Esther Wang, “Mass Detention Has Created a Sexual Violence Crisis for Young Immigrants”
”Recently revealed internal documents from the Department of Health and Human Services show that sexual abuse of immigrant youth in federal detention is rampant. According to the documents, which were provided to Axios, HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement received 4,556 complaints of alleged sexual abuse against unaccompanied minors who were in ORR’s care between October 2014 and July 2018, and the Department of Justice received 1,303.”

Alia Wong, “When Schools Tell Kids They Can’t Use the Bathroom”
”By imposing harsh restrictions on when students can use the restroom, educators are teaching kids to ignore their bladder.”

Article Spotlight

Robert Franco, "“Todos/as somos 41”: The Dance of the Forty-One from Homosexual Reappropriation to Transgender Representation in Mexico, 1945–2001," Journal of the History of Sexuality 28, no. 1 (2019): 66-95. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"The Forty-One’s legacy is, nevertheless, a conflicted one. While stigma surrounding the case made the number a symbol of degeneracy and deviancy, by the end of the century discotecas (nightclubs) in Mexico City were carrying the name “41,” while sexual rights advocates began citing the event as a key moment in Mexican LGBTTTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, travesti, and intersex) history. The scandal’s enduring notoriety, coupled with the diverse appropriations of its memory, thus requires further exploration. Doing so will reveal a history of the Forty-One that is neither solely about stigma and repression nor exclusively tied to male homosexuality. I argue that contestations by elite state and cultural actors and activists from the 1940s through the 1970s to remove the stigma and shame associated with the Forty-One began a process of homosexual identity formation and liberation that eventually enabled the proliferation of new and radical modes of representation and community dialogue by the end of the century. The symbolism and memory of the Forty-One offered an opportunity for the portrayal of sexual desires in magazines and erotica that defied dominant notions of sexual and aesthetic hierarchy. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the memory helped to introduce the notion of healthy bodies and the importance of alternative sexual practices in the aftermath of the HIV/AIDS crisis, while in the late 1990s and early 2000s the Forty-One’s symbolism emphasized the eroticism of transgender bodies and the viewing pleasure of women.”

Episode Spotlight

In August of 1962, Sherri Chessen boarded a flight to Sweden in order to get an abortion after she was unable to obtain one in the United States. Sherri had accidentally taken medicine containing thalidomide, a drug that caused children to be born with internal injuries and shortened limbs. Thalidomide also caused women to miscarry, deliver stillborn babies, or have children who died during their infancy. Her decision to terminate this risky pregnancy and her journey abroad attracted international attention from journalists, politicians, and religious leaders. Sherri’s ordeal made public what countless American women experienced when they sought to terminate their pregnancies. Her widely shared story changed the way many Americans thought about abortion laws and even about abortion itself.

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Amy Bond, “Secret Life of a Mormon Porn Star”
”I thought I could make my double life work, until meeting a fellow Mormon on set forced me to confront my own contradictions.”

“As Angola decriminalizes homosexuality, where does the African continent stand?“
”Angola has done away with criminalizing homosexuality, removing a notorious ‘vices against nature’ provision in its penal code. Other African nations still punish people for same-sex relationships.”

Libby Brooks, “New Scottish census bill conflates sex and gender — report”
”Serious lack of consultation with women’s groups has led to the publication of legislation that is not fit for purpose and conflates sex and gender identity, according to a highly critical report on proposed changes to Scotland’s census.”

Antonia Crane, “Secret Life of a Stripper Who’s Also a Social Worker”
”I’m ‘Candy’ here but my regulars call me ‘The Lady in Red’. Riley and I always work on Tuesdays, waiting for the rare drifter to pop in for a happy hour beer and a quick blast of AC so we can talk him into a twofer and pay our bills.”

Garrett Epps, “A Temporary Win for Abortion Rights”
”Pro-choice advocates shouldn’t get their hopes up after the Supreme Court put a Louisiana statute on hold.”

“Female African coders ‘on the front-line of the battle’ to change gender power relations: UN chief“
”Young female African coders are “on the front-line” of the battle to change traditionally male power relations and bring about a more equitable balance between men and women, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said during his visit to Ethiopia to attend the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.”

Simon Johnson, “Scottish Highland games considering how to include non-binary gender competitors”
”Scotland's Highland games are considering how to encourage competitors with a 'non-binary' gender following demands that traditional men-only events should not receive public funding.”

Jacob Pagano, “The Pirate Radio Broadcaster Who Occupied Alcatraz and Terrified the FBI”
”Fifty years ago, John Trudell overcame tragedy to become the national voice for Native Americans—and a model for a new generation of activists.”

Maria Sherman, “Casey Affleck Says Film Set in a 'Society Without Women' Has Nothing to Do With the Sexual Harassment Allegations Made Against Him“
”Casey Affleck, accused sexual harasser and all around creep, will soon burden the entertainment world with a new film, Light of My Life. The movie—written, directed by, and starring Affleck—just debuted at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival (it does not currently have a U.S. distributor), and according to Indiewire, is an ‘apocalyptic relationship drama...set in a society without women where gender roles have to be renegotiated’.”

Article Spotlight

Harry Oosterhuis, "Albert Moll’s Ambivalence about Homosexuality and His Marginalization as a Sexual Pioneer," Journal of the History of Sexuality 28, no. 1 (2019): 1-43. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"In this article I highlight how Moll’s understanding and changing judgment of homosexuality vacillated between three explanatory frameworks: gender inversion, sexual object choice, and age disparity. Whereas the first one had been typical of new biomedical theories since the late nineteenth century, the second instead pointed to the future, and the third drew on older patterns of thinking about homosexual behavior. Moll’s changing and partly contradictory views of homosexuality were not only intertwined with his ingenious explanations of sexuality in general but also related to the variety of same-sex practices that he witnessed, his professional interests as a private psychotherapist, his antagonistic position vis-à-vis Hirschfeld and Freud, and his mixed feelings about homosexual emancipation and the impact of sexology on society. I will demonstrate how all of these factors throw light on the ambiguities of sexual modernity and may also explain Moll’s eventual marginalization in sexology and sexual history, even though his work now actually seems less outdated than that of some of his colleagues.”

Episode Spotlight

For years, telephone companies had been encouraging customers to “reach out and touch someone.” In the 1980s, phone sex lines and dial-a-porn transformed the intimacy of phone conversations into a multi-million-dollar sexual enterprise. A simple and relatively cheap phone call could connect you with dial-a-porn, a telephone service offering short erotic recordings. Phone sex lines were more expensive, and featured operators, known as fantasy artists, who would act out sexual fantasies for and with you.  Over the course of the 1980s, telephones, credit cards and imaginations brought countless people together to co-create sexual fantasies, and experience new forms of sexual gratification.

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Radio Atlantic’s “Something Rotten in the State of Virginia”
”The staff writers Adam Serwer and Vann Newkirk join Alex Wagner to discuss the news that Virginia’s Democratic governor and attorney general both wore blackface.”

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Neal Broverman, “These Are the LGBTQ Immigrants Trump Has Vilified”
”Donald Trump's cruel and inhumane immigration policies continue unabated — his latest change, which went into effect Friday, forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until their cases are heard by U.S. judges. This is not a minor adjustment, especially for LGBTQ refugees fleeing discrimination and abuse. Many queer asylum-seekers face the same dangers in Mexico that they encountered in central American countries like Guatemala and El Salvador.”

Clio Chang, “The Credibility of ‘Out Boys’”
”While watching Nick Sandmann—the Covington Catholic High School student whose contemptuous gaze and taunting classmates were captured by dozens of cameras over the weekend—on the Today show, saying that he had not intended to be disrespectful to Native American Elder Nathan Phillips, I was reminded of a piece I read recently about the ‘credibility economy’.”

Matt Donnelly, “Oscar Race Most LGBTQ-Inclusive in History, GLAAD Says”
”Five of the eight best picture nominees are inclusive to queer communities, GLAAD found, including ‘A Star is Born’, ‘Green Book’, ‘The Favourite’, ‘Vice’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.”

Gillian Frank, “The Deep Ties Between the Catholic Anti-Abortion Movement and Racial Segregation”
”The modern Catholic anti-abortion movement was born in white enclaves and shaped by the politics of white flight and anti-integration activism. The sight of white Catholic teens wearing clothes emblazoned with Donald Trump’s racially inflammatory brand at the March for Life, marks a vital connection that has shaped modern conservatism and the Republican Party.”

Prachi Gupta, “Infamous Gay Conversion Therapist Comes Out as Gay”
”One of the most prominent gay conversion therapists in the country has come out as gay.”

Karen Loewy and Evan Wolfson, “50 Years After Stonewall, It’s Time to Protect LGBTQ Families”
”Unfortunately, New York’s welcoming leadership still fails to meet the needs of many same-sex couples and LGBT individuals who are looking to raise a family, as our state has some of the most byzantine, inadequate laws in the country for these parents and parents-to-be. ”

Nick Morrow, “HRC Commends NY Gov. Cuomo and Leader Stewart-Cousins on Signing Day of Historic Pro-LGBTQ Laws“
”Today, HRC celebrated New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signing historic pro-LGBTQ legislation in the state. Gov. Cuomo signed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) and legislation protecting LGBTQ youth in the state from the dangerous and debunked practice of so-called “conversion therapy” at a ceremony at the New York City LGBT Community Center.”

Duane Paul Murphy, “Angola Decriminalizes Homosexual Sex and Outlaws LGBTQ Discrimination“
”The southern-central African country of Angola has decriminalized same-sex relations between LGBTQ individuals and outlawed discrimination against the country’s LGBTQ community on Wednesday, January 23. ”

Helen Regan, “Anna Wintour slams Margaret Court, Scott Morrison over LGBTQ rights”
”Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour served up a fierce speech at an Australian Open event Thursday, when she joined calls for the Margaret Court Arena to be renamed because of the tennis legend's views on homosexuality.”

Matthew Rodriguez, “Why Do Abusers Keep Using Homophobia As a Shield?”
”Both Singer and Spacey have used their status as a sword to fight and to debunk allegations and subsequently used their queerness as a shield against their accusers.”

Mikelle Street, “Japan Upholds Law Demanding Sterilization for Trans People“
”Japan’s Supreme Court unanimously upheld a 2003 law requiring all transgender people to be sterilized prior to transitioning, Japan Today reports.”

Brynn Tannehill, “The Supreme Court Just Ended My Military Career”
”On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that the Trump administration could reinstate its policy barring most transgender people from serving in the military while several cases challenging the policy are being decided. The decision was both a devastating blow to me personally, and a disturbing sign of what is to come for transgender people in the United States.”

Article Spotlight

Abram J. Lewis, "‘We Are Certain of Our Own Insanity’: Antipsychiatry and the Gay Liberation Movement, 1968–1980., Journal of the History of Sexuality 25, no. 1 (2016): 83-113. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"This article revisits LGBT organizing with, against, and apart from institutional psychiatry during the 1960s and 1970s, the end of the social movement era. Rather than reviving a triumphant narrative of homosexuality’s emancipation from stigma, I chart a more complicated milieu of queer critiques of and capitulations to discourses on mental health, sanity, and psychiatric authority during this time. As historians have begun to detail, activist challenges to psychiatry during this period were hardly restricted to gay organizing. In fact, the DSM campaign of the early 1970s occurred on the heels of an array of critiques developed by antipsychiatric, antiracist, feminist, and antiwar activists during the 1960s, all of which targeted psychiatric constructions of mental illness. As historian Michael Staub has argued, the social movement era thus bears note as a period in which ‘a significant portion of the populace … believed madness to be a plausible and sane reaction to insane social conditions, and that psychiatrists served principally as agents of repression’.”

Episode Spotlight

The hit television show American Bandstand has shaped how we understand the 1950s and early 1960s. For many, American Bandstand still evokes nostalgic images of white youth culture and sexually innocent teenage romance: a world made up of malt shops, juke joints, sock hops and drive-in movie theaters. If we look closer at how Bandstand was staged, and what was hidden from sight or hiding in plain view, we can see how the show's creators erased blackness and queerness from the show itself and from the official story of youth culture.

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Brothaspeak’s “Dear Black Porn Star …”
”In this Brothaspeak Podcast episode #81 we talk to XL, one of the top black gay adult entertainment film stars of today. XL has had a great career within the industry since 2012 and he candidly airs all the dirty little secrets out about the industry from a black male's point of view.”

Queer as Fact’s “Billy Tipton”
”Today's episode is on Billy Tipton, well-known jazz player and transgender man.  Tune in for a man who could play the piano and the saxophone simultaneously, a nude portrait featuring an erupting volcano, and more dogs than you could possibly wish for!”

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Tonya D. Callaghan, “Homophobia in the hallways: LGBTQ people at risk in Catholic schools“
”Many Canadians may believe that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination. But my research into religiously inspired homophobia and transphobia in Canadian Catholic schools since 2004 shows there are other LGBTQ-identified teachers who suffer similar fates.”

Tim Fitzsimons, “LGBTQ-inclusive bullying laws associated with fewer teen suicide attempts, study says“
”Suicide among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth is an endemic public health issue: LGBTQ youth face more bullying and report higher levels of suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts than their straight peers, according to the National Center for Education Statistics and the Trevor Project.”

Regina Kunzel, “The Power of Queer History”
”This essay explores dynamic new work in the field of LGBT/queer history, most of it focused on the modern U.S., to consider historians’ efforts to render sexuality a “useful category of historical analysis,” illuminating the imbrication of sexuality and power across a broad range of historical narratives and fields.”

Alison Maloney, “Meet the 83-year-old gran who blogs about sex in old age… and says OAPs love sex toys“
”Joyce Williams wants the world to know that wrinklies have sex too”

Julie Moreau, “In two weeks, five states advance LGBTQ rights”
”Through executive orders and state legislatures, five states across the U.S. increased discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people.”

“My life in sex: ‘I used to think HIV was a curse. Now my sex life is better than ever’“
”But while I used to think of HIV as a curse, after years of therapy and the reassurance of an ex-girlfriend, my sex life is better than ever. Before I was diagnosed, I took sex for granted. During my darkest days, I craved intimacy, but had no idea how to achieve it. Now, a new appreciation and humility has dawned on me; I enjoy sex more because I’ve learned its worth.”

Paula Schuck, “Understanding Gender in 2019 is Way Over My Head—But My Teen Girls are Helping Me Get There”
”Kids are now armed with so much more information about sexuality, gender and identity that it’s a completely different experience growing up and becoming a young adult. Which also makes it a different world parenting teens in 2019 than it was in 1985.”

Harriet Sherwood, “Sex education rules could force Haredi Jews into home schooling“
”Ultra-Orthodox Jewish parents and teachers are warning that schools may go underground and children be educated at home if the government presses ahead with guidance on teaching about same-sex relationships and gender reassignment.”

Sophie Tatum, “Rep. Tulsi Gabbard apologizes to LGBTQ community for earlier views“
”Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard issued a video apology to the LGBTQ community on Thursday, after a CNN report revealing that in the early 2000s she had touted working for her father's anti-gay organization.”

Nataliya Vasilyeva, “2 dead, 40 detained since December in alleged LGBTQ purge in Chechnya“
”LGBT activists said Monday that at least two people have died and about 40 people have been detained in what has been described as a new crackdown on gay people in the Russian republic of Chechnya.”

Brandon Voss, “First U.S. National LGBTQ Center for the Arts to Open in San Francisco“
”America’s first National LGBTQ Center for the Arts will open in San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Focusing on performances, public programs, and community partnerships, the Center will also serve as the first permanent home for the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus since its inception more than 40 years ago.”

Ashley Welch, “Most cancer doctors don't know enough about LGBTQ patient care, study finds”
”Cancer cells don't discriminate. But when a patient who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning (LGBTQ) is diagnosed, they may have health needs or concerns their doctors aren't expecting. ”

Article Spotlight

Amy L. Stone, "Crowning King Anchovy: Cold War Gay Visibility in San Antonio’s Urban Festival," Journal of the History of Sexuality 25, no. 2 (2016): 297-322. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"Between 1951 and 1964, gay men in San Antonio organized a mock debutante pageant called Corny-ation during the city’s annual urban festival, Fiesta. Fiestas typically include multiple parades, fairs, theatrical events, and the crowning of festival royalty over a period ranging from ten days to two weeks. Like many festivals in southwestern cities, San Antonio’s event relies on the historical pageantry of the western frontier, a romanticized representation of Spanish history, and stories of racialized conquest. I argue that gay men took advantage of Fiesta organizers’ attempts to broaden the event’s appeal to middle-class publics in the 1950s to position Corny-ation as an event for the common man, for the “little people” of San Antonio. During Fiesta, Corny-ation was attended by a public audience of thousands and reviewed in local newspapers, dramatically increasing gay visibility. Corny-ation designers and organizers brought a camp aesthetic to a public audience that resonated throughout the growing gay and lesbian community in the city’s public sphere and rendered that community visible to some heterosexual observers."

Episode Spotlight

For years, telephone companies had been encouraging customers to “reach out and touch someone.” In the 1980s, phone sex lines and dial-a-porn transformed the intimacy of phone conversations into a multi-million-dollar sexual enterprise. A simple and relatively cheap phone call could connect you with dial-a-porn, a telephone service offering short erotic recordings. Phone sex lines were more expensive, and featured operators, known as fantasy artists, who would act out sexual fantasies for and with you.  Over the course of the 1980s, telephones, credit cards and imaginations brought countless people together to co-create sexual fantasies, and experience new forms of sexual gratification.

Books

Podcasts

American Historical Association’s AHR Interview, “Regina Kunzel on Her Article ‘The Power of Queer History’“
”In this episode we speak with historian Regina Kunzel, whose review essay titled “The Power of Queer History” appears in the December 2018 issue of the AHR.”

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Hazel Cills, “When Are Police Officers Going to Stop Underestimating the Link Between Domestic Violence and Murder?”
”Week after week, it feels like another woman is murdered by a current or previous partner. And often these deaths were entirely preventable, with the killers possessing a documented history of domestic violence.”

Jiayun Feng, “Guangzhou Gender And Sexuality Education Center Shuts Down“
”The Guangzhou Gender and Sexuality Education Center (GSEC), a leading non-profit organization in China dedicated to combating sexual violence and promoting gender equality, is shutting down as of today, according to a post published on its official WeChat account.”

HRC Staff, “The Plight of LGBTQ People at Our Borders & Around the Globe Can’t Be Ignored”
”Today is Human Rights Day, marking the historic day in 1948 when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed. On this 70th anniversary, we celebrate the global recognition that every human being is born with basic human rights and dignity that cannot be taken away. Yet, as an LGBTQ community, we still have a long way to go to achieving that goal.”

Shannon Liao, “Tumblr’s adult content ban means the death of unique blogs that explore sexuality”
”This week, Tumblr announced that it would ban all adult content from its platform and said any user who was hurt by the decision could simply migrate to another site. But creators and readers alike don’t believe there’s another website that fosters the same kind of sex-positive spaces that Tumblr has.”

Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court Won’t Hear Planned Parenthood Cases, and 3 Court Conservatives Aren’t Happy”
”The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear two cases arising from efforts by states to bar Planned Parenthood clinics from the Medicaid program, drawing a rebuke from the court’s three most conservative justices and opening a window onto the court’s internal dynamics.”

Osita Nwanevu, “How not to Mourn the WASP Aristocracy”
”It will become more obvious, as the last of the twentieth century’s major political figures pass away, that we are witnessing not only the end of a generation but the slow end of an age.”

Ashley Reese, “Domestic Workers Are Still Fighting for a More Democratic Georgia“
”Voter enthusiasm for any candidate means little if the vote is suppressed, an occurrence that disproportionately affects black voters. And in the aftermath of uncounted votes and purged voter rolls marring the midterm elections cycle, domestic workers and caregivers are at the frontlines in the fight to make sure suppressing the black vote is a thing of the past.”

Madeline Smith, “Historian tries to save fragments of Calgary’s LGBTQ past from being forgotten or destroyed“
”Perhaps the most important staging ground in Calgary’s LGBTQ history is hidden down the stairs of a restaurant, in the basement.”

Esther Wang, “'I'm Begging You, Please': NYPD Officers Caught on Video Violently Taking a One-Year-Old Child From His Mother's Arms [Updated]“
”A truly fucked up and disturbing video of New York Police Department officers ripping a one-year-old child from the arms of his mother and then arresting her has sparked outrage and calls for reform.”

Briana Younger, “Is Rap Finally Ready to Embrace Women?”
“Hip-hop is a mirror, reflecting and often magnifying larger cultural failings. While #MeToo and #TimesUp call for opportunity and accountability, rap doesn’t seem to be fully listening. Support for black women, in particular, remains a perpetual blindspot, and one that especially stings in this moment, as known abusers continue to be rewarded with praise and platforms.“

Article Spotlight

Cheryl D. Hicks, "“Bright and Good Looking Colored Girl”: Black Women’s Sexuality and “Harmful Intimacy” in Early-Twentieth-Century New York," Journal of the History of Sexuality 18, no. 3 (2009): 418-456. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"Young black women—incarcerated primarily for sex-related offenses on charges that included vagrancy, disorderly conduct, and prostitution—usually rejected reformers’ concerns and often believed they were unfairly targeted. Mabel Hampton, for example, contended that her imprisonment at the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills (hereafter Bedford) for solicitation stemmed from a false arrest. Other inmates revealed their own problems with law enforcement and, like Hampton, disagreed with the contention that their social behavior—in New York and especially Harlem—was criminal. One hundred Bedford case files show that between 1917 and 1928 a range of black women—from southern migrants to native-born New Yorkers—negotiated the urban terrain as well as their sexual desire. In particular, forty-nine southern migrants’ experiences showed how they encountered and embraced a social and political freedom unavailable to most black southerners. Yet many young working-class black women, regardless of their regional, religious, or familial background, grappled with the relentless surveillance by police officers, reformers, concerned relatives, and community members."

Episode Spotlight

Chances are you’ve never heard of Ruth Wallis, one of the greatest singers, comedians, and performers of sexually suggestive lyrics in the postwar United States. Most of her catalogue remains on vinyl and historians have forgotten her. But from the 1940s until the early 1970s, Ruth Wallis was a bestselling performer and a mainstay at supper clubs and hotels. At a time when it was legally risky for entertainers to sing about sexuality for profit and pleasure, Ruth sold millions of records that used innuendo to playfully hint at a variety of straight and queer sexual pleasures.

Books

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DIG History’s “Fur Trading and Frontier Life in French Canada“
”This week, we will attempt to uncover the lived experiences of men and women on the French Canadian frontier and think about how the trade in furs shaped their lives in interesting and very gendered ways.”

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Samantha Borek, “The LGBTQ Movement Needs to Revisit Its Radical Past to Thrive“
”In this interview, Ferguson discusses the capitalist motivations for commodifying queerness and how the movement today can combat those motivations to return to a more intersectional movement.”

Mika Doyle, “Discovering My Sexuality After I Was 30 Was Confusing. This Is What I Wish I Knew“
”If there’s one thing I thought was 100 percent true about me, it was that I was straight. So when I started questioning whether I was bisexual in my early 30s, things started to get confusing, fast.”

Lori Fox, “Male Bush Workers Tell Us How They Respond to Sexism in the Industry“
”A number of men responded to a recent VICE article exposing sexual harassment in their line of work.”

Gillian A. Frank and Lauren Gutterman, “How Flight Attendants Organized Against Their Bosses to End 'Swinging Stewardesses' Stereotyping“
”Advertising the bodies of women employees was good for business. Though the ‘Fly Me’ campaign is now displayed on a number of websites, often as a glaring example of outdated sexism, at the time, ‘Fly Me’ reflected the widespread sexualization of flight attendants, which belied the harsh working conditions that these women negotiated while flying unfriendly skies.”

Amy Harmon, “How researchers are hitting back against sexism in science”
”Despite women assuming some of science’s most influential positions in recent years, experience and research has shown that harassment remains widespread – but innovative initiatives are helping.”

Rachel Charlene Lewis, “6 Queer Women and Femmes on the Iconic Outfit That Defined Their Sexuality“
”Many of us can also point to iconic fashion moments that made us feel things. Sexual things. Queer sexual things. In some cases, it just takes one outfit to make you realize you’re not as straight as you thought.”

Amy S. Patterson and Mark Daku, “On World AIDS Day, why the politics of AIDS is so important“
”Over more than a decade, we have interviewed dozens of AIDS advocates, health policymakers and people living with HIV and AIDS in South Africa, Uganda, Swaziland, Ghana, Zambia, Tanzania and the United States.”

Ben Paynter, “What LGBTQ people in the South say life is like for them“
”The LGBTQ Institute’s inaugural Southern Survey gives an insight into the lives of people living in places where government policies are often hostile toward them.”

Juliet Reid, “Black women are more vulnerable to Aids. So why aren’t they being helped?”
”In 2016, 79% of all women accessing HIV care in the UK were from the black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) community. Despite this outrageous reality, black women bear the brunt of funding cuts and are erased from mainstream HIV prevention messaging, leaving us more vulnerable still.”

Maria Sherman, “New Report Suggests Americans Want Gender Equality in the Workplace, Not So Much at Home“
”When it comes to gender equality, it’s unsurprising that two-thirds of Americans and three-quarters of millennials (the only generation to believe women are more equal at home than at work) lean egalitarian, but, as the New York Times points out, many believe ‘women should have the same opportunities as men to work or participate in politics, [but] they should do more homemaking and child-rearing’.”

Sarah Swedberg, “Silence and Noise: What AIDS Activism and Social Memory Can Teach Us“
”Since November 8, the friends I still have from that era who didn’t die or disappear have been reminding each other of our history of AIDS activism. With each new named cabinet appointment and each new tweet, we ask each other: ‘Remember when we changed the world?’ And we tell each other, ‘We didn’t want to do this again, but we can’.”

Stefan Vogler, “LGBTQ caravan migrants may have to ‘prove’ their gender or sexual identity at US border“
”LGBTQ asylum-seekers coming to the U.S. face a dramatically higher risk of violence due to homophobia and transphobia, particularly in immigration detention facilities, where they will likely be sent upon their arrival. A 2013 study by the Government Accountability Office found that transgender detainees account for 1 of every 5 confirmed sexual assaults in ICE custody, even though only 1 out of 500 detainees is trans.”

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, “3 Reasons To Stop Calling Women 'Diverse'“
”Whoever came up with the idea of putting gender issues under the diversity umbrella? How did women, who are 50% of the population, control 60% of global spending, and represent 60% of university graduates, ever accept to be positioned as a ‘diversity’ demographic?”

Article Spotlight

Jeffrey Escoffier, "Sex in the Seventies: Gay Porn Cinema as an Archive for the History of American Sexuality," Journal of the History of Sexuality 26, no. 1 (2017): 88-113. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"The forty years between 1960 and 2000 were among the most tumultuous decades in the history of gay male sexuality. For many gay men who came out in the period after the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969, the seventies were a golden age of sexual freedom. It was an era during which it became possible for American men to openly acknowledge their homosexuality and foster a sense of identity and community, and it also initiated a period of sexual experimentation. The advent of AIDS in 1981 changed all that."

Episode Spotlight

In the 1980s and 1990s, the San Francisco Metropolitan Community Church wrestled with profound questions: What does it mean to minister a gay church when so many in the congregation are dying from AIDS-related complications and grieving the recently dead? How do you have faith during an epidemic? And what does it mean to participate in communion in a community ravaged by a plague?

Books

Podcasts

This American Life’s “Little War on the Prairie”
”Growing up in Mankato, Minnesota, John Biewen says, nobody ever talked about the most important historical event ever to happen there: in 1862, it was the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Thirty-eight Dakota Indians were hanged after a war with white settlers. John went back to Minnesota to figure out what really happened 150 years ago, and why Minnesotans didn’t talk about it much after.”

This American Life’s “But That’s What Happened”
”Stories of women in unsettling situations. When they try to explain what’s wrong, they’re told that they don’t understand—that there’s nothing unsettling about it.”

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Amy Chozick, “For the First Time, a Black Woman Will Lead The Harvard Crimson“
”Now Kristine E. Guillaume will lead The Crimson’s “146th guard,” making her the third black president and first black woman to helm the organization since its founding in 1873.”

Tracy Clark-Flory, “Trolls Impotently Warn They're Reporting Sex Workers to the IRS—and Sex Workers Mostly Ignore Them”
”That post, which now has over a thousand comments, is being credited with launching the charmingly titled #ThotAudit, in which a crew of trolls is giddily calling for folks to tip off the IRS to individual sex workers for not reporting their income from social media.”

Blair Donovan, “Multiple LGBTQ Migrant Caravan Travelers Wed in a Combined Ceremony at the U.S.-Mexico Border“
”Love wins yet again. At least seven LGBTQ couples traveling through Central America as part of the migrant caravan paused to participate in a massive wedding ceremony at the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Dawn Foster, “The gender pain gap is real. Doctors, stop dismissing women’s conditions“
”Each new healthcare scandal shows the medical profession needs to overcome biases in diagnosing and treating women”

Françoise Girard, “Abortion Pills Aren’t Enough to Keep Coat Hangers in the Closet“
”The International Women’s Health Coalition welcomes do-it-yourself abortion pills as the extremely safe, effective and empowering technology they are. But we worry about the many women who will be left behind unless legal restrictions are removed, funding for abortion services is provided and barriers to access are eliminated.”

Hira Humayun and Susannah Cullinane, “Taiwan voters reject same-sex marriage“
”Taiwanese voters rejected same-sex marriage in a referendum Saturday, dealing a blow to the LGBT community and allies who hoped the island would become the first place in Asia to allow same-sex unions.”

Gina Kolata, Sui-Lee Wee, and Pam Belluck, “Chinese Scientist Claims to Use Crispr to Make First Genetically Edited Babies“
”On Monday, a scientist in China announced that he had created the world’s first genetically edited babies, twin girls who were born this month.”

Chitra Ramaswamy, “If judges think women who date online ‘would have sex with anyone’, we’re really in trouble“
”According to the barrister Helena Kennedy, some judges have woefully outdated views. No wonder courts let women down”

John Reed, “Thais celebrate the prospect of same-sex unions as a leap forward“
”In moving towards same-sex unions, Thailand is virtually alone in Asia. Taiwanese voters rejected a referendum measure on gay marriage on Saturday, despite a court order to allow LGBT people to wed.”

Alanna Rizza, “Feds investing $450,000 to improve safety of LGBTQ Canadians“
”The federal government announced Saturday it will invest nearly half a million dollars in improving the safety of Canada's LGBTQ community in the wake of the killings of eight men with ties to Toronto's gay village.”

Andrew Sutherland, “LGBTQ center gives UK students a home away from home for the holidays“
”The Office of Institutional Diversity’s LGBTQ Resource Center has created a solution with its ‘Welcome Home’ program, pairing students with faculty and staff to ensure that no one is left out this holiday season.”

Ola Synowiec, “The third gender of southern Mexico“
”In Oaxaca’s Istmo de Tehuantepec region, the traditional indigenous division of three genders is seen as a natural way of being.”

Craig Takeuchi, “Canadian documentary Picture This takes an honest look at sexuality and disability“
”A Toronto advocate has been raising awareness about sex and disabled people, and a Canadian film about him and his work is now available for online viewing.”

“Thousands join first gay march in Delhi since law change on homosexuality in India”
”Thousands marched through Delhi's main street in the first gay pride parade since homosexuality was decriminalised in India.”

Article Spotlight

Kim Gallon, "“No Tears for Alden”: Black Female Impersonators as “Outsiders Within” in the Baltimore Afro-American," Journal of the History of Sexuality 27, no. 3 (2018): 367-394. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"This article investigates Garrison’s life through the lens of black press coverage about him between 1920 and 1938. Focusing on Lautier’s and Matthews’s coverage, I argue that an examination of the news about Garrison and other female impersonators and gay men in the Afro-American can remap our understanding of traditionally male-centered black institutions such as the Afro-American, Howard University, and Prince Hall Masonic Temple as nodes in a network of locations that sustained gender-nonconforming and homosexual expression, albeit with varying degrees of complexity and resistance. By carefully reconstructing the pieces of Garrison’s life and by revealing how he and other female impersonators negotiated the interstices of race, gender, class, and sexuality from their position as outsiders to both the black community and American society in general, we begin to learn about how black institutions and organizations both incorporated and excluded gender-nonconforming and homosexual expression."

Episode Spotlight

For years, telephone companies had been encouraging customers to “reach out and touch someone.” In the 1980s, phone sex lines and dial-a-porn transformed the intimacy of phone conversations into a multi-million-dollar sexual enterprise. A simple and relatively cheap phone call could connect you with dial-a-porn, a telephone service offering short erotic recordings. Phone sex lines were more expensive, and featured operators, known as fantasy artists, who would act out sexual fantasies for and with you.  Over the course of the 1980s, telephones, credit cards and imaginations brought countless people together to co-create sexual fantasies, and experience new forms of sexual gratification.

Books

Podcasts

Believed’s “The Good Guy”
”How did former Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar sexually abuse hundreds of girls and women for decades? To understand how he got away with it, we have to begin with the doctor in his prime, when everyone thought of him as Larry, the good guy.”

UnErased: The History of Conversion Therapy in America’s “Garrard and the Story of Job“
”This is a modern day story of Job. It starts with Garrard Conley, a young gay kid growing up in rural Arkansas, trying to find a place to stand between a devout father and unforgiving God, and ends in a dramatic escape from an ex-gay camp and the smuggling out of a book that overturns an industry.”

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Robin Baranyai, “Baranyai: LGBTQ community still not safe, despite gains”
”If tragedy has a positive function, it is to unite people in grief and determination. But two decades after Shepard’s death, the political atmosphere has become toxic and divisive.”

Leila Fadel, “Record Number Of LGBTQ Candidates Elected“
”On election night hundreds of LGBTQ candidates ran for office and many made history, including the first openly gay governor in Colorado and the first lesbian Native American congresswoman in Kansas.”

Saniya Lee Ghanoui, “Screening Swedish Sex in the United States, Language of Love (1969)”
”In the autumn of 1969, U.S. Customs seized the recently imported Swedish film Language of Love (Ur kärlekens språk). On October 31, the New York Times put forward its own definition of the film and called it ‘a new, Swedish-made sex education film’. The Times interviewed an attorney for Unicorn Enterprises, the U.S. distributor of the film, who also disputed the government’s claims of obscenity, and maintained that the film was ‘neither obscene nor immoral and is of social and educational value’.”

Caroline Houck, “Muslim women, Native Americans, and LGBTQ candidates had a night of historic wins“
”Tuesday was a historic night for women and minorities in America, with voters sending the first LGBTQ, Native American, and Muslim women to the halls of Congress and governor’s mansions.”

Matt Moore, “Governor-elect of Kansas pledges to reintroduce protections for LGBTQ workers“
”During a press conference on Thursday, Kenny confirmed that she was preparing an executive order to bring back protections for LGBTQ workers. The protections would prevent a company from firing, refusing to hire, or refuse service to someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Jawanna Sawalha, “How Jordan’s First LGBTQ Online Magazine Began“
”After being outed and bullied for being gay, Khalid Abdel-Hadi decided to change the conversation about LGBTQ people in the Arab world.”

Patrick Sawer, “Britain's most senior Catholic faces questions over church's handling of child sex abuse claims“
”England's most senior Catholic clergyman faces embarrassment this week when he appears before an inquiry to answer claims he ignored child sex abuse allegations against his priests, including the son of JRR Tolkien.”

JR Thorpe, “7 Creepy Royal Beliefs About Marriage From History“
”Everybody loves a royal wedding, from the nuptials of Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in England to the beautiful ceremony marrying Princess Ayako and Kei Moriya in Japan. But these modern ceremonies (and the everlasting partnerships they confer) are a far cry from royal marriages from history and the beliefs said royals had about said marriages.”

Chloe Tsang, “Scotland to mandate LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum across all public schools“
”The Scottish Government announced on Thursday that it had accepted all 33 recommendations put forth by the LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group to implement a curriculum that will teach students of different age groups lessons about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex equality, inclusion and history.”

Zing Tsjeng, “Queer Prom: Photos of Couples Living Out Their High School Fantasies“
”For LGBTQ people with unhappy memories of their school dance, a twice-yearly event in Brighton, UK offers a joyously affirming second chance.”

Hilary Weaver, “The Filmmaker Screening His L.G.B.T.Q. Movie Across the Middle East“
”Sam Abbas was born in Egypt and grew up in a conservative New Jersey home. Now, he’s found an under-the-radar way to bring his film, The Wedding, to Middle Eastern audiences.”

Brendan Wetmore, “Half of LGBTQ People Experience Depression“
”’Half of LGBTQ people (52 per cent) said they've experienced depression in the last year’, announced a research study released today by YouGov and Stonewall, the UK's largest LGBTQ advocacy organization.”

Robin Young, “This Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Says His Holiest Moment Was Becoming Public LGBTQ Ally“
”Rabbi Mike Moskowitz is one of the few ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbis who not only support, but actively advocate for, LGBTQ individuals. He tells Here & Now's Robin Young that despite his stand on these issues costing him his congregation and his job at Columbia University, he's proud of the work he now does with New York's Congregation Beit Simchat Torah.”

Article Spotlight

Lucy Bland, "Interracial Relationships and the “Brown Baby Question”: Black GIs, White British Women, and Their Mixed-Race Offspring in World War II," Journal of the History of Sexuality 26, no. 3 (2017): 424-453. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"The British ‘brown babies’ were the result of relationships formed between British women and African American troops stationed in Britain from 1942 in preparation for an invasion of France. From the beginning there was concern in official circles about the consequences of the presence of black GIs. Home Secretary Herbert Morrison, for example, was anxious that ‘the procreation of half-caste children’ would create ‘a difficult social problem’. He and others in the War Cabinet would have preferred that no black GIs be sent at all. However, black troops did indeed arrive, following the Pentagon’s policy that the percentage of black American troops in every theater of war should reflect their percentage in the United States as a whole, namely, 10 percent of the population. By the end of the war, of the nearly three million US soldiers who had passed through Britain, up to three hundred thousand were African American."

Episode Spotlight

For years, telephone companies had been encouraging customers to “reach out and touch someone.” In the 1980s, phone sex lines and dial-a-porn transformed the intimacy of phone conversations into a multi-million-dollar sexual enterprise. A simple and relatively cheap phone call could connect you with dial-a-porn, a telephone service offering short erotic recordings. Phone sex lines were more expensive, and featured operators, known as fantasy artists, who would act out sexual fantasies for and with you.  Over the course of the 1980s, telephones, credit cards and imaginations brought countless people together to co-create sexual fantasies, and experience new forms of sexual gratification.

Books

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Sadiya Ansari, “What it’s like to be LGBTQ at a Canadian Christian university“
”The fight was framed in court as religious freedom versus LGBTQ rights. But the issue looks very different on a campus where some LGBTQ students don’t see their sexuality as being in conflict with their faith. And despite the covenant, Froehlich and others have found real community on campus.”

Lucy Diavolo, “Gender Variance Around the World Over Time“
”As the transgender community continues to fight for civil rights in the U.S., one of the most common arguments against progress is that transgender people are a recent phenomenon. Some regard trans people as a symptom of the postmodern condition, or identity politics on steroids. Many claim that the struggle for transgender rights is difficult because the concept is still new to many Americans.”

Anne Fausto-Sterling, “Why Sex is Not Binary”
”Today, some governments seem to be following the Roman model, if not killing people who do not fit into one of two sex-labeled bins, then at least trying to deny their existence.”

Tim Fitzsimons, “LGBTQ History Month: Transgender and gender-nonconforming pioneers“
”From Sylvia Rivera to Miss Major, meet some of the the country's pioneering trans and gender-nonconforming activists.”

Sara Kettler, “The Complicated Nature of Freddie Mercury's Sexuality“
”The Queen frontman and rock icon was involved with both men and women but never publicly confirmed his sexuality, a decision that may have been prompted by the period he lived in.”

Shannon Liao, “2018 saw record growth in LGBTQ roles on television“
”2018 has been a bad year for the LGBTQ community in politics, but it’s been a record-breaking year in media, according to GLAAD’s annual TV diversity report. LGBTQ representation on television hit a record high this year, with 8.8 percent out of 857 series regulars on broadcast TV openly identified as on the gay, trans, or queer spectrum. And for the first time, LGBTQ people of color outnumbered white LGBTQ characters on-screen by 50 to 49 percent.”

Belinda Luscombe, “Why Are We All Having So Little Sex?“
”The indicators of a falling bonk rate are everywhere. In 2016, 4% fewer condoms were sold than the year before, and they fell a further 3% in 2017. Teen sex, which is monitored by the Centers for Disease Control, is flat and has been on a downward trend since 1985. And the fertility rate—the frequency at which babies are added to the population—is at a level not seen since the Great Depression.”

Angela O’Donnell, “LGBTQ archives provide accessible queer histories“
”The database features around 1.5 million documents with everything from newspaper clippings to personal letters, ACT UP photographs to bathhouse ticket stubs.”

Amy Patton, “Long, Dark History of West Hollywood’s Barney Beanery Against the LGBTQ+ Community“
”The founder of Barney’s Beanery, John “Barney” Anthony installed the sign. It wasn’t until nearly 30 years later when LGBT community leaders such as Rev. Troy Perry and Gay Liberation Front founder Morris Kight pressured the new owner, Irwin Held to take the sign down. But he refused, saying that the sign ‘didn’t mean anything’.”

Sam Stein, “I Grew Up in a Place Where I Felt Safe from Anti-Semitism—It was the United States“
”I was the product of an upper-middle class community in America where I was surrounded by fellow Jews. Anti-Semitism was a concept to me, not a reality. I had been afforded the luxury of being moved by it without ever having to truly experience it, at least not in a way that could remotely compare with what had confronted the Jews of Poland before they were shipped off to the ghettos and, then, Auschwitz-Birkenau.”

Kai Cheng Thom, “The (trans) kids are all right: What gender-affirming health care really means“
”As proponent of gender-affirming trans health care, I think often of the lessons I learned as a teen about the complicated love that exists between parents and trans/gender-nonconforming youth, and the questions that it raises: What is the role of family in a trans person’s journey? And how can health-care institutions help? How can we bring parents and youth together in order to work for the happiness of the whole family?”

Jonathan U, “I came out as trans while in a heterosexual relationship“
”I shared my self-discovery with Ryan. I enjoyed borrowing his clothes a little too much. I spent a little too much time reading the blogs of other trans people. I tried to compromise with gender neutrality, and spent hours researching what that entailed.”

Article Spotlight

Ben Strassfeld, "The Blight of Indecency: Antiporn Politics and the Urban Crisis in Early 1970s Detroit," Journal of the History of Sexuality 27, no. 3 (2018): 420-441. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"This article looks at these issues through a focus on Redford’s campaign against the Adult World Bookstore. Beginning with an examination of the history and demographics of Redford using digital mapping, I argue that the neighborhood was an area perched uneasily between poor black inner city and rich white suburb. I then move to an overview of the letters sent by Redford’s protesting residents, paying close attention to the gender of the letter writers and using maps of the return addresses to speculate about the racial makeup of Redford’s antiporn activists. Turning to a detailed examination of the letters themselves, I investigate recurring themes, particularly the perceived threat of pornography to children, the rampant fears that the Adult World would attract “undesirable” individuals, and the concerns over property values and white flight. Finally, I conclude by looking at the legacy of Redford’s fight against the Adult World. Beyond just providing an example of grassroots antiporn activism during this era, Redford’s campaign helped drive the city of Detroit to pass an innovative new antiporn ordinance in October 1972 that was based on zoning rather than obscenity law. After being affirmed as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court, Detroit’s zoning-based approach to regulating pornography would later be emulated by countless cities across the country. In this way, a letter-writing campaign against one adult bookstore in northwest Detroit inadvertently helped shape antiporn politics for decades to come."

Episode Spotlight

The hit television show American Bandstand has shaped how we understand the 1950s and early 1960s. For many, American Bandstand still evokes nostalgic images of white youth culture and sexually innocent teenage romance: a world made up of malt shops, juke joints, sock hops and drive-in movie theaters. If we look closer at how Bandstand was staged, and what was hidden from sight or hiding in plain view, we can see how the show's creators erased blackness and queerness from the show itself and from the official story of youth culture.

Books

Podcasts

RadioLab’s “In the No Part 3”
”In the final episode of our ‘In The No’ series, we sat down with several different groups of college-age women to talk about their sexual experiences. And we found that despite colleges now being steeped in conversations about consent, there was another conversation in intimate moments that just wasn't happening. In search of a script, we dive into the details of BDSM negotiations and are left wondering if all of this talk about consent is ignoring a larger problem.”

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Samantha Allen, “Trump Wants to Pretend Trans People Don’t Exist. Well, We Do.”
”It’s not clear when, or if, that language will be implemented in HHS or across other agencies. But coming from an administration that has tried to remove transgender troops from the military and rolled back Obama-era restroom guidance for transgender students, the concretizing of this definition would come as no shock.”

Samantha Allen, “Social Media Giants Have a Big LGBT Problem. Can They Solve It?“
”Each individual incident has sparked outrage and generated national headlines, but taken together they paint a picture of an emerging crisis for these companies: When marginalized groups depend on your platform to build community, relying too heavily on algorithms can have unintended—and sometimes hurtful—consequences.”

Anon B, “Gender, Sexuality And Heteronormativity In My Hometown In Haryana“
”Living in a small district of Haryana can be difficult if you’re a girl, especially being closeted. It’s a nightmare!”

Emily Bartlett Hines, “This Novelists Female Heroes and Brazen Polyamory Shocked Victorian England”
”When Caroline Graves met Wilkie Collins, he was in the early stages of what would become a spectacular career. Born in 1824 to an established artistic family, he burst onto England’s literary scene with 1860’s blockbuster The Woman in White, an ambitiously plotted identity-theft thriller in which beautiful heiress Laura Fairlie is imprisoned in a lunatic asylum under the name of a woman who is her exact double.”

Liz Duck-Chong, “‘Rapid-onset gender dysphoria’ is a poisonous lie used to discredit trans people“
”If you were to understand two facts about transgender people, I’d want it to be these: 1) that we have always existed, and 2) that we have always been under attack for existing.”

Whitney Kimball, “Stacey Abrams on Track to Achieve Historic Upheaval of Voter Suppression; Trump Half-Asses a Tweet“
”When Donald Trump fires a sloppy attack tweet at a state politician, it’s usually a sign that Republicans are running another shit candidate in a solidly red state which is now at risk of a Democratic win. He did, and they are, and it is.”

Clark Mindock, “Matthew Shepard murder: 20 years on where do LGBT rights stand in America?“
”On the 20th anniversary of Shepard’s death, here is a look back at what happened, and what has happened since.”

Mary Papenfuss, “Activists Blast White House Plan To Eradicate Transgender From Gender Definition“
”The administration is reportedly planning to restrict the definition of gender as immutable for an individual’s lifetime and that would be based on genitalia at birth, according to a draft memo obtained by The New York Times. Such a definition would essentially be a government declaration that there is no such thing as “transgender.” At least 1.4 million people in the U.S. currently identify as transgender, according to the Times.”

‘“Trump Administration Trying to Define Transgender Out of Existence - Report”
”The Trump administration is attempting to strip transgender people of official recognition by creating a narrow definition of gender as being only male or female and unchangeable once determined at birth, the New York Times reported.”

“Women with disabilities have sex. So why are their sexual health needs often ignored?“
”Jocelyn Maffin remembers the first conversation about her sexual health as one that happened around her, but not with her —  even though she was in the room with her doctor.”

Article Spotlight

David Sprague Neff, "Bitches, Mollies, and Tommies: Byron, Masculinity, and the History of Sexualities," Journal of the History of Sexuality 11, no. 3 (2002): 395-438. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"During much of his adult life, George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), a poet whose actions and writings exerted significant influence on British and European culture throughout the nineteenth century, grappled with issues of class and gender. Byron's struggle was a particularly intense one because in the age in which he lived, the venerated notions of "aristocracy" and "masculinity" were not only exposed to increased public scrutiny but were fiercely contested by those attempting to bring about a profound reorientation of social attitudes."

Episode Spotlight

The hit television show American Bandstand has shaped how we understand the 1950s and early 1960s. For many, American Bandstand still evokes nostalgic images of white youth culture and sexually innocent teenage romance: a world made up of malt shops, juke joints, sock hops and drive-in movie theaters. If we look closer at how Bandstand was staged, and what was hidden from sight or hiding in plain view, we can see how the show's creators erased blackness and queerness from the show itself and from the official story of youth culture.

Books

Podcasts

RadioLab’s “In the No Part 1”
”Kaitlin Prest had a lot of things to say about the word "No." And on her podcast "The Heart," she said them in a way we couldn't shake. Today, we talk to Kaitlin, and hear her story.”

RadioLab’s “In the No Part 2”
”We dive into the gray zone of consent and wrestle with questions of culpability, generational divides, and the utility of fear in changing our culture.”

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Alicia Adamczyk, “What to Do If You Get Turned Away at the Polls“
”While those tactics have been shown to depress voter turnout, particularly among low income, minority and young voters, you do still have recourse if you’re turned away on election day—not having an accepted form of ID is no reason not to head to the polls. Here’s what to know.”

Ginia Bellafante, “Misogyny Is Back. Did It Ever Go Away?“
”[T]he presidential candidacy of Donald J. Trump has revived a national discussion of misogyny, which, as a word, an idea and worldview had long ago fallen out of favor, lost to the 1970s and obscured instead by the cheerfully appointed goal posts of contemporary feminism.”

Helen Coffey, “Virgin Launches UK’s First ‘Pride Flight’ Staffed Entirely by LGBTQ+ Pilots and Cabin Crew“
”The flight is being billed as ‘a true celebration of queer culture 38,000ft above the Atlantic’. During the eight-hour journey, passengers will be entertained with drag queen bingo, a Judy Garland singalong, inter-seat speed dating and an inflight DJ.”

Sadie Collier, “I Was Outed To My Entire Family When I Was 11“
”Growing up in a small, culturally conservative, Christian town in middle Georgia, I felt obligated to convince myself that I was straight, even though I knew that I had an underlying conflict with my sexuality that stemmed from getting caught in a same-sex experiment with a girl in my neighborhood when I was 7.”

Muriel Draaisma, “2 Toronto transgender students file human rights claims against province over sex-ed“
”Two Toronto transgender high school students have filed separate human rights claims against the province because they say the new interim sexual education curriculum discriminates against all LGBT students in Ontario.”

Ariel Fournier, “Conversion therapy ban long overdue, Alberta survivor says“
”A federal ban on conversion therapy is long overdue, says an Edmonton man who subjected himself to four years of treatment within one of the controversial programs.”

Alexis Grenell, “White Women, Come Get Your People“
”These women are gender traitors, to borrow a term from the dystopian TV series ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. They’ve made standing by the patriarchy a full-time job. The women who support them show up at the Capitol wearing ‘Women for Kavanaugh’ T-shirts, but also probably tell their daughters to put on less revealing clothes when they go out.”

Otamere Guobadia, “No Donald Trump, denying visas to unmarried homosexual diplomats doesn’t protect queer rights“
”In a move that will shock none, but will likely enrage and dishearten the LGBTQ community in American and beyond, as of Monday the Trump administration has brought into effect a policy which halts the issuing of visas to same-sex partners of foreign diplomats and UN employees unless they are married.”

“Romania’s anti-gay marriage vote voided over low turnout”
”Just 20% of registered voters had cast their ballot by the time polls closed at 6pm GMT on the second day of the referendum – well below the 30% threshold needed for the result to be valid. Final results are expected Monday.”

Shelley Silas, “Why I won’t be raising a glass to mixed-sex civil partnerships“
”On Tuesday, the government confirmed that the wait was over. Social media has been bursting with congratulatory tweets (‘will you not marry me?’) and couples are arranging dates and parties and crying with happiness because, finally, they can have what they want. So why do I find myself feeling grizzly and angry?”

“The Supreme Court got it wrong – refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding should count as discrimination“
”the Supreme Court had an extremely serious task to undertake: an awesome question of balance and equal rights. On the one hand there is the claim by the bakers that they should be allowed to exercise their ‘sincerely held beliefs’.”

Esther Wang, “Shitty Media Man Sues Creator of Shitty Media Men List “
”On Wednesday, Stephen Elliott filed a lawsuit against Moira Donegan, the creator of the Shitty Media Men list, in which he asks for $1,500,000 in damages, alleging that his inclusion on the list and ‘[t]he wholly unsubstantiated allegations published in the List’ …”

Curtis M. Wong, “Here's How 'Designing Women' Broke Fresh Ground For Queer TV Characters In 1990“
”At the time of their debuts, shows like ‘Will & Grace’ and ‘The L Word’ made television history for their portrayals of gay and lesbian characters. However, a less-heralded depiction of LGBTQ people on a similarly beloved series not only helped pave the way for those later shows, but depicted how a different demographic viewed the struggle for queer equality. ”

Article Spotlight

Gillian Frank, "‘The Civil Rights of Parents’: Race and Conservative Politics in Anita Bryant’s Campaign against Gay Rights in 1970s Florida," Journal of the History of Sexuality 22, no. 1 (2013): 126-160. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"On 18 January 1977, at a public hearing in Miami before the Board of Commissioners of Dade County, Florida, opponents and proponents of an ordinance that would prohibit discrimination against lesbians and gay men in the areas of housing, public accommodations, and employment squared off. The small contingent of gay rights activists supporting the ordinance was vastly outnumbered by hundreds of Baptists who arrived on buses chartered by two local churches. Bearing signs such as “God Says No. Who Are You to Be Different?” and “Protect Our Children, Don’t Legislate Immorality for Dade County,” these activists packed the Dade County Courthouse Commission chambers and filled the hallway outside, loudly jeering at those with whom they disagreed. Both the conservative evangelical Christians and the gay rights advocates were in agreement about one thing: the consequence of the antidiscrimination ordinance would shape the ability of gay men and lesbians to be integrated into public life—and thus, the very definition of citizenship was at stake."

Call for Papers

Suffrage at 100: Women and American Politics Since 1920
Submission Deadline: October 16, 2018

"This collection will map out the last 100 years of this lengthy struggle, focusing on efforts to recognize, appreciate, and cultivate women’s civic engagement since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Our purpose is not celebratory. Instead, we seek to trace the uneven road to suffrage and public office women of different backgrounds and means experienced after 1920. We also intend to expose the institutional barriers and masculinist conceptions of leadership that women in politics have faced and continue to tackle. Women have exhibited considerable democratic imagination within and outside the traditional channels of electoral politics. Melding gender, social, cultural, and political history, this collection seeks to capture examples of women acting together and on their own within and outside electoral and governmental channels to claim a political presence, enlist state action, and create alternative services and solutions. In doing so, we use this historic centennial to make visible the determined presence of women in politics since 1920, while also calling attention to the ways these women have and continue to be written out of history"

Please send article abstracts of 500 words and a CV by October 16th, 2018 to: Stacie at staranto@ramapo.edu or Leandra at lrzarnow@central.uh.edu. We also welcome questions and comments at those email addresses.

Episode Spotlight

The hit television show American Bandstand has shaped how we understand the 1950s and early 1960s. For many, American Bandstand still evokes nostalgic images of white youth culture and sexually innocent teenage romance: a world made up of malt shops, juke joints, sock hops and drive-in movie theaters. If we look closer at how Bandstand was staged, and what was hidden from sight or hiding in plain view, we can see how the show's creators erased blackness and queerness from the show itself and from the official story of youth culture.

Books

Podcasts

Fresh Air’s “How Notions Of Sex, Power And Consent Are Changing On College Campuses“
”Blurred Lines author Vanessa Grigoriadis says female college students were once told to protect themselves from sexual assault by learning self defense. Now, the focus is on changing men's behavior.”

Small Changes’ “Fighting for LGBT rights in a country where lesbians are caned“
”Criminalised by the state and targeted by vigilantes, Malaysia’s LGBT community faces rampant persecution. Thi Laga, a co-founder of rights group Justice for Sisters, has become a leading figure in the fightback”

Sexing History Swag

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A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF SEXUALITY, HISTORY AND CURRENT EVENTS

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Eliana Dockterman, “Survivors Used #MeToo to Speak Up. A Year Later, They're Still Fighting for Meaningful Change“
”In the glorious first moments of a revolution, shots ring out, tyrants fall, and visionaries rally the exploited. Last year, that rallying cry was #MeToo, and as the hashtag went viral, with survivors sharing their stories of sexual assault and harassment, hundreds of alleged abusers lost their positions of power.”

Maureen Dowd, “Sick to Your Stomach? #MeToo”
”It was wrenching to watch the futile Iraq war unfold, with its tragic echoes of Vietnam. It is jarring to think I could live through three sagas of impeachment. But I most dread the rhyming history we are plunged into now: the merciless pummeling of a woman who dares to obstruct the glide path of a conservative Supreme Court nominee.”

Marcela Howell and Linda Goler Blount, “We must address America’s black maternal health crisis“
”While access to health care and structural racism in the health care system are part of the problem, black women’s maternal health also is impacted by the societal stress of ongoing racial discrimination in all aspects of our lives. That’s why even black women who have the resources to get top-notch health care are at risk.”

Susan Kemp, “Should Shows Like Sesame Street Provide Children a Head Start on Topics Like Sexuality?“
”On Tuesday, Twitter was ablaze after long-time Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman told Queerty that he, personally, always wrote Bert and Ernie as if they were gay. Saltzman is a gay man himself and used his own relationship with acclaimed editor Arnold Glassman as inspiration. Cool.”

Whitney Kimball, “Bill Cosby's Lawyers to Fight Designation as a 'Sexually Violent Predator'“
”As part of his sentencing hearing set to begin on Monday, Bill Cosby’s lawyers plan to fight a classification as a “sexually violent predator,” the Associated Press reports. ”

Mariah MacCarthy, “I’m Nonbinary. I Loved Being Pregnant. It’s Complicated.“
”During my unplanned pregnancy, I reveled in my new body and the pleasures it brought, while hiding from the pain I knew would come when I gave my child away.”

Alex Press, “What’s next for #MeToo? The McDonald’s strikes have an answer“
”The strikes are an escalation after 10 McDonald’s employees filed sexual harassment complaints with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in May. The employees say McDonald’s ignored complaints about workplace sexual harassment, which including groping, propositions for sex, and lewd comments.”

Terrell Jermaine Starr, “Newseum Honors Alice Allison Dunnigan, The First Black Woman to Serve as a White House Reporter“
”The first black woman accredited to cover the White House was honored with her own life-sized statue at the Newseum Friday, in Washington, D.C., the Associated Press reports.”

Nicole Thompson, “Ontario students walk out of class to protest sex-ed curriculum changes“
”The walkouts — called ‘We the students do not consent’ — took place in schools from Niagara Falls to Ottawa and saw students gather outdoors, hoist handwritten signs and chant about the need for relevant sexual education.”

Ethelene Whitmire, “The Gay Black American Who Stared Down Nazis in the Name of Love“
”One of the most brilliant minds of the Harvard class of ’35, Reed Edwin Peggram met his soulmate on the eve of World War II and risked everything to stay by his side.”

Article Spotlight

Matt Cook, "AIDS, Mass Observation, and the Fate of the Permissive Turn," Journal of the History of Sexuality 26, no. 2 (2017): 239-272. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

"I look at the ways in which nominally heterosexual MOers responded to and negotiated this repositioning and the moral fracture it seemed to represent. I explore four shades of opinion on the crisis that emerge in the testimonies and consider what they might tell us about the mythologized generational divide between those growing up before and then during and after the supposedly revolutionary 1960s."

Call for Papers

Suffrage at 100: Women and American Politics Since 1920
Submission Deadline: October 16, 2018

"This collection will map out the last 100 years of this lengthy struggle, focusing on efforts to recognize, appreciate, and cultivate women’s civic engagement since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Our purpose is not celebratory. Instead, we seek to trace the uneven road to suffrage and public office women of different backgrounds and means experienced after 1920. We also intend to expose the institutional barriers and masculinist conceptions of leadership that women in politics have faced and continue to tackle. Women have exhibited considerable democratic imagination within and outside the traditional channels of electoral politics. Melding gender, social, cultural, and political history, this collection seeks to capture examples of women acting together and on their own within and outside electoral and governmental channels to claim a political presence, enlist state action, and create alternative services and solutions. In doing so, we use this historic centennial to make visible the determined presence of women in politics since 1920, while also calling attention to the ways these women have and continue to be written out of history"

Please send article abstracts of 500 words and a CV by September 15, 2018 to: Stacie at staranto@ramapo.edu or Leandra at lrzarnow@central.uh.edu. We also welcome questions and comments at those email addresses.

Episode Spotlight

The hit television show American Bandstand has shaped how we understand the 1950s and early 1960s. For many, American Bandstand still evokes nostalgic images of white youth culture and sexually innocent teenage romance: a world made up of malt shops, juke joints, sock hops and drive-in movie theaters. If we look closer at how Bandstand was staged, and what was hidden from sight or hiding in plain view, we can see how the show's creators erased blackness and queerness from the show itself and from the official story of youth culture.

Books

Sexing History Swag

Coffee Mug

$16.00

Button

$5.00

Tote Bag

$25.00

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF SEXUALITY, HISTORY AND CURRENT EVENTS

Print
 

Samantha Allen “Texas’ Anti-Trans ‘Bathroom Bill’ Died Last Year. It May Come Back to Life.“
”Republican lawmakers, including state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, who sponsored last year’s failed anti-trans ‘bathroom bill,’ plan on trying to pass a raft of anti-LGBT legislation.”

Kasandra Brabaw and Nicolas Bloise, “For 13 Drag Queens, Performance Is Their Outlet & Refuge“
”[W]e talk with 13 drag queens who attended Bushwig about the true meaning of safe spaces, and why it's so important to be able to express themselves without judgment.”

Devlina Datta, “Siddharth Gautam: One Of India's First LGBT Activists To Fight For LGBT Rights In The 90s“
”Over the years, prominent names of LGBT activists such as Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, Harish Iyer et al. have become common knowledge, but there is one name that remained little-known, and that is of Siddharth Gautam, who became the face of India's first collective activism for LGBT rights, powered by AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA).”

Estrella Jaramillo, “The Startup Founder Bringing Honest And Inclusive Sex Education To Young Adults“
”Frustration and despair with their own health conditions is a common starting point in startup founders’ mission stories. Mia Davis spent over a year Googling her symptoms before she realized that she had a pelvic floor condition called vaginismus.”

Whitney Kimball, “Go Forth and Breast Pump“
”On Friday, model Valeria Garcia rocked a breast pump-and-black lace bra on the runway at Marta Jakubowski’s London fashion show”

Claire Cain Miller, “Many Ways to Be a Girl, but One Way to Be a Boy: The New Gender Rules“
”In a new poll, girls say they feel empowered, except when it comes to being judged on how they look. Boys still feel they have to be strong, athletic and stoic.”

Katharine Murphy, “Human Rights Commission finds 71% of Australians have been sexually harassed“
”More than 85% of women and 56% of men report being sexually harassed at some time, but reporting rates are dropping”

Thomson Reuters, “Romania moves closer to ruling out same-sex marriage“
”Romanian senators have approved a law that would pave the way for the constitution to be changed to explicitly state that marriage is a union of a man and a woman.”

Maya Salam, “Serena’s Not Alone. Women Are Penalized for Anger at Work, Especially Black Women.“
”It was a microcosm, in so many ways, of what women face at work daily: penalized for expressing emotion (Serena), and apologizing for their success (Naomi). In Ms. Williams’s case, it’s what researchers call “double jeopardy” — a lose-lose situation in which she’s up against both gender and racial stereotypes.”

“U.K. proposes ‘no-fault’ divorces to make it easier for married couples to separate”
”It would no longer be necessary to prove misconduct such as adultery or to live apart for a certain number of years before a couple could divorce”

Ben Westcott, “The homophobic legacy of the British Empire“
”Of the 71 countries around the world in which same-sex sexual relations are illegal, it's no coincidence that more than half are former British colonies or protectorates, according to research provided by the International LGBTI Association.”

Article Spotlight

Michelle Arrow, ""These Are Just a Few Examples of Our Daily Oppressions": Speaking and Listening to Homosexuality in Australia's Royal Commission on Human Relationships, 1974–1977," Journal of the History of Sexuality 27, no. 2 (2018): 234-263. https://muse.jhu.edu/

"This article examines the ways that lesbians and gay men made citizenship claims upon the state in mid-1970s Australia through the case study of the Royal Commission on Human Relationships. Seeking rights and protections from a newly receptive social liberal state, gay men and lesbians framed their experiences through narratives of suffering, exclusion, and citizenship. The Royal Commission on Human Relationships facilitated and legitimated a kind of sexual citizenship for homosexuals, challenging the heteronormative model of citizenship, which had long dominated Australian political life."

Call for Papers

Suffrage at 100: Women and American Politics Since 1920
Submission Deadline: October 16, 2018

"This collection will map out the last 100 years of this lengthy struggle, focusing on efforts to recognize, appreciate, and cultivate women’s civic engagement since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Our purpose is not celebratory. Instead, we seek to trace the uneven road to suffrage and public office women of different backgrounds and means experienced after 1920. We also intend to expose the institutional barriers and masculinist conceptions of leadership that women in politics have faced and continue to tackle. Women have exhibited considerable democratic imagination within and outside the traditional channels of electoral politics. Melding gender, social, cultural, and political history, this collection seeks to capture examples of women acting together and on their own within and outside electoral and governmental channels to claim a political presence, enlist state action, and create alternative services and solutions. In doing so, we use this historic centennial to make visible the determined presence of women in politics since 1920, while also calling attention to the ways these women have and continue to be written out of history"

Please send article abstracts of 500 words and a CV by September 15, 2018 to: Stacie at staranto@ramapo.edu or Leandra at lrzarnow@central.uh.edu. We also welcome questions and comments at those email addresses.

Episode Spotlight

The hit television show American Bandstand has shaped how we understand the 1950s and early 1960s. For many, American Bandstand still evokes nostalgic images of white youth culture and sexually innocent teenage romance: a world made up of malt shops, juke joints, sock hops and drive-in movie theaters. If we look closer at how Bandstand was staged, and what was hidden from sight or hiding in plain view, we can see how the show's creators erased blackness and queerness from the show itself and from the official story of youth culture.

Books

Sexing History Swag

Coffee Mug

$16.00

Button

$5.00

Tote Bag

$25.00