- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Women, Gender, and American History
- Gender Frontiers and Early Encounters
- Manhood and the US Republican Empire
- Women and Conquest in the American West
- Women, Gender, Migration, and Modern US Imperialism
- Women, Unfree Labor, and Slavery in the Atlantic World
- Women, Power, and Families in Early Modern North America
- Women and Slavery in the Nineteenth Century
- Women’s Labors in Industrial and Postindustrial America
- Public and Print Cultures of Sex in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Interracial Sex, Marriage, and the Nation
- Reproduction, Birth Control, and Motherhood in the United States
- Sexual Coercion in America
- Gender, the Body, and Disability
- Transgender Representations, Identities, and Communities
- Women, Trade, and the Roots of Consumer Societies
- Gender and Consumption in the Modern United States
- Women at Play in Popular Culture
- Women, Gender, and Religion in the United States
- Religion, Reform, and Antislavery
- Women’s Rights, Suffrage, and Citizenship, 1789–1920
- Women, Gender, Race, and the Welfare State
- US Feminisms and Their Global Connections
- Sexual Minorities and Sexual Rights
- Women, Gender, and Conservatism in Twentieth-Century America
- Women, War, and Revolution
- Women, the Civil War, and Reconstruction
- Women and World War in Comparative Perspective
- Gender, Civil Rights, and the US Global Cold War
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
The creation of specific terminologies and identities that define people based on their sexual desires can be traced to the late nineteenth century. As researchers and medical experts popularized binary categories in the early decades of the twentieth century, some women who loved other women challenged the norms and began to organize. They made connections between women’s defiance of gender norms and their ability to secure equal rights, including sexual rights. Activists in the mid-twentieth century challenged restrictions on sexual expression and behavior. While LGBTQI movements continue to emphasize the significance of gender nonconformity, activists also insist on the primacy of sexual fluidity and the complex global connections of bodies, genders, and sexualities due to race and ethnicity, language, religion, and age, as well as socioeconomic, carceral, and citizenship statuses.
Keywords: same-sex, gender, nonconforming, lesbian, gay, women, queer, feminist, activism
Marcia M. Gallo is associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is the author of Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement (2006) and “No One Helped”: Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy (2015). As the 2017–18 New York Public Library Martin Duberman Visiting Scholar she is researching the ways in which radical feminism influenced the LGBTQ movements of the late twentieth century.
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- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Women, Gender, and American History
- Gender Frontiers and Early Encounters
- Manhood and the US Republican Empire
- Women and Conquest in the American West
- Women, Gender, Migration, and Modern US Imperialism
- Women, Unfree Labor, and Slavery in the Atlantic World
- Women, Power, and Families in Early Modern North America
- Women and Slavery in the Nineteenth Century
- Women’s Labors in Industrial and Postindustrial America
- Public and Print Cultures of Sex in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Interracial Sex, Marriage, and the Nation
- Reproduction, Birth Control, and Motherhood in the United States
- Sexual Coercion in America
- Gender, the Body, and Disability
- Transgender Representations, Identities, and Communities
- Women, Trade, and the Roots of Consumer Societies
- Gender and Consumption in the Modern United States
- Women at Play in Popular Culture
- Women, Gender, and Religion in the United States
- Religion, Reform, and Antislavery
- Women’s Rights, Suffrage, and Citizenship, 1789–1920
- Women, Gender, Race, and the Welfare State
- US Feminisms and Their Global Connections
- Sexual Minorities and Sexual Rights
- Women, Gender, and Conservatism in Twentieth-Century America
- Women, War, and Revolution
- Women, the Civil War, and Reconstruction
- Women and World War in Comparative Perspective
- Gender, Civil Rights, and the US Global Cold War
- Index