Palmyre’s Belle Époque Lesbian Bar
By providing sexualized entertainment to tourists, the bar owners of Montmartre made visible and even celebrated the quarter’s queer culture.
Race, Rock, and Breaking Barriers
The rock music industry brought more than a little racism to the radio, but a few artists pushed beyond the boundaries imposed by white audiences.
The Battle over Drag in 1960s San Francisco
The organized struggle for rights has been shaped by debates over the relationship between gender presentation and sexuality.
Bodies of the Titanic: Found and Lost Again
Ideas about economic class informed decisions about which recovered bodies would be preserved for land burial and which would be returned to the icy seas.
The Lesbian As Villain or Victim
In Oregon in the 1960s, the debate over capital punishment hinged on shifting interpretations of the gendered female body.
Juneteenth: A Freedom Celebration Behind Bars
Juneteenth is commemorated by an incarcerated Black woman in a 1975 issue of Sunfighter. What does it mean to celebrate freedom when you have none?
Mad About Nixon
No other personality appeared more often on the cover of Mad during the first fifty years of the satirical magazine’s life.
Mumbai, Where Indian Ocean Diasporas and Cosmopolitanisms Meet
The sacred and emotional geographies of two Indian Ocean diaspora communities intertwine with elements of New Age spirituality in the megacity of Mumbai.
Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech: Annotated
Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.
Can a Woman Be a Genius?
Many Edwardian progressives and utopians put their hopes in the exceptional individual who was able to overcome obstacles with a force of will.