June is LGBTQIA+ Pride Month in the United States, so we’ve collected some of our most popular stories on a range of topics—from pronouns to politics—that highlight the history of the LGBTQIA+ community. As always, links to free JSTOR scholarship are included with each of these.
Lesbians and the Lavender Scare
April 6, 2025
Lesbian relationships among government workers were seen as a threat to national security in the 1950s. But what constituted a lesbian relationship was an open question.
Preserving History at the Digital Transgender Archive with Portico
September 18, 2024
Portico helps preserve underrepresented community content and collections, including the wide-ranging materials of the Digital Transgender Archive.
How LGBTQ+ Activists Got “Homosexuality” out of the DSM
May 26, 2021
The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual deviancies, vaulting heterosexual behavior to an idealized place in American culture.
Putting Gay Men Back Into History
February 18, 2023
In the late nineteenth century, historian John Addington Symonds fought back against his colleagues’ refusal to acknowledge historical same-sex relationships.
“There Was Grit and Talent Galore”
June 18, 2020
Lindsy Van Gelder—author of that famous New York Post article about bra-burning feminists—reflects on the alternative LGBTQ+ press of the 1970s.
The Origins of LGBTQ-Affirming Churches
March 23, 2021
As far back as the 1940s, religious LGBTQ people organized groups and congregations that welcomed them.
Is There an LGBTQ+ Canon?
March 30, 2025
An English professor considers the questions raised about selecting queer works for study and discussion when planning a course on LGBTQ+ literature.
In The Gay Cookbook, Domestic Bliss Was Queer
January 10, 2021
Chef Lou Rand Hogan whipped up well-seasoned wit and served a gay take on home life during the early-1960s craze for camp.
“Let it Go” and “Defying Gravity”: Queer Anthems in Lockstep
January 26, 2025
The leading songs from Wicked and Frozen emphasize the importance of self-determination and being true to oneself.
Julie Enszer: “We Couldn’t Get Them Printed,” So We Learned to Print Them Ourselves
June 19, 2020
The editor of the lesbian feminist magazine Sinister Wisdom talked to us about lesbian print culture, feminist collectives, and revolution.
How Minnesota Became a Queer Hmong Mecca
January 5, 2025
Despite policies meant to scatter immigrants from the same ethnic group across the United States, the Twin Cities area became a refuge for LGBTQ Hmongs.
Defining and Redefining Intersex
August 18, 2024
The transatlantic circulation of ideas between Baltimore and Zurich consolidated and standardized treatments of intersex infants in the 1950s.
Four Flowering Plants That Have Been Decidedly Queered
January 29, 2020
The queer history of the pansy and other flowers.
Gay Radicalism, Made in Kentucky
August 6, 2024
Gay rights activist Lige Clarke embraced non-monogamy, LSD, and unconventional spirituality, tying many of his radical ideas to his upbringing in Kentucky.
Community Care in the AIDS Crisis
January 20, 2021
The Shanti Project’s work in caring for people with AIDS provides valuable lessons in the efficacy of mutual aid in fighting disease.
The Long Shadow of the Jolly Bachelors
June 20, 2024
More than a century ago, Charlotte Cushman presided over a group of queer female artists who supported one another’s creativity and left a pioneering, if overlooked, legacy.
Filmmaker Marlon Riggs: “Notice Is Served”
June 11, 2020
The award-winning Black gay filmmaker, author, and activist Marlon Riggs left a legacy of protest against racism and homophobia.
Searching for Queer Spaces
September 12, 2023
The dominant heteroview of architectural history means we may lose our queer spaces and their histories before we even know they exist.
From the Black Queer South to the World
September 6, 2023
Across its twelve-year lifespan, Atlanta-based Venus magazine brought southern voices to the larger Black queer print media network.
Gay Mass Consumption Before Stonewall
June 29, 2023
In the 1960s, the Mattachine Society had only a few thousand members. But tens of thousands of men subscribed to physique magazines published by gay entrepreneurs.
Coming Out Against The Vietnam War
June 21, 2023
The war radicalized many draft-age men, gay as well as straight. They helped normalize certain expressions of homosexuality while trying to avoid the draft.
Notes on Queer Conception and the Redefinition of Family
January 27, 2021
Feminist scholars refer to the “intensely communal, queer, and playful nature” of DIY LGBTQ conception, but Fertility, Inc. is another story.
Transgender Legal Battles: A Timeline
May 12, 2022
New laws regarding transgender youth are based on the assumption that the gender binary is natural.
How Families with Two Dads Raise Their Kids
June 16, 2019
Research reveals few differences between the parenting of gay men and their straight peers.
How LGBTQ Groups Supported Striking Miners vs. Thatcher
January 6, 2022
During a national miners strike, LGBT activists became unexpected allies, united against the Thatcher government.
The Stonewall Riots Didn’t Start the Gay Rights Movement
June 12, 2019
Giving Stonewall too much credit misses the movement’s growing strength in the 1960s, sociologists note.
Pulp Fiction Helped Define American Lesbianism
August 1, 2019
Between 1950 and 1965, steamy novels about lesbian relationships, marketed to men, inadvertently offered closeted women much-needed representation.
Book Club Made Me Gay
June 21, 2017
Book clubs and reading groups have long been important to marginalized communities.
From Handcuffs to Rainbows: Queer in the Military
June 26, 2023
The US military has done an about face on LGBTQ+ rights in just over a decade.
Lesbianism (!) at the Convent
May 16, 2018
Mother Superior Benedetta Carlini, a visionary nun of Renaissance Italy, was accused of heresy and “female sodomy.”
The Forgotten Gender Nonconformists of the Old West
April 27, 2018
In the Old West, cross-dressing was sometimes a disguise for criminals on the lam. But, one historian argues, in many cases these “cross-dressers” were probably people who we would identify as transgender today.
