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June is LGBTQ Pride Month in the US, 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 LGBTQ community. As always, links to free JSTOR scholarship are included with each of these.

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The DSM in rainbow colors

How LGBTQ+ Activists Got “Homosexuality” out of the DSM

The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual deviancies, vaulting heterosexual behavior to an idealized place in American culture.
Collage of underground publications

“There Was Grit and Talent Galore”

Lindsy Van Gelder—author of that famous New York Post article about bra-burning feminists—reflects on the alternative LGBTQ+ press of the 1970s.
Metropolitan Community Church of Washington DC

The Origins of LGBTQ-Affirming Churches

As far back as the 1940s, religious LGBTQ people organized groups and congregations that welcomed them.
Actors Robert Stephens (1931 - 1995) as a cook and Mary Peach as waitress Monique during rehearsals for the play 'The Kitchen' by Arnold Wesker at the Royal Court Theatre in London, 27th June 1961.

In The Gay Cookbook, Domestic Bliss Was Queer

Chef Lou Rand Hogan whipped up well-seasoned wit and served a gay take on home life during the early-1960s craze for camp.
Julie Enszer and the cover of issue 55 of Sinister Wisdom

Julie Enszer: “We Couldn’t Get Them Printed,” So We Learned to Print Them Ourselves

The editor of the lesbian feminist magazine Sinister Wisdom talked to us about lesbian print culture, feminist collectives, and revolution.
An illustration of Dong Xian and Emperor Ai depicting the story of Passion of the cut sleeve

In Han Dynasty China, Bisexuality Was the Norm

So tender was Emperor Ai’s love for his "male companion" that, when he had to get up, instead of waking his lover, he cut off the sleeve of his robe.
Oscar Wilde with a green carnation

Four Flowering Plants That Have Been Decidedly Queered

The queer history of the pansy and other flowers.
Judi Iranyi

Community Care in the AIDS Crisis

The Shanti Project’s work in caring for people with AIDS provides valuable lessons in the efficacy of mutual aid in fighting disease.
Marlon Riggs, left, and Essex Hemphill in Tongues Untied.

Filmmaker Marlon Riggs: “Notice Is Served”

The award-winning Black gay filmmaker, author, and activist Marlon Riggs left a legacy of protest against racism and homophobia.
Frank Kameny

The Lavender Scare

In 1950, the U.S. State Department fired 91 employees because they were homosexual or suspected of being homosexual.
Kate Moennig in The L Word

What’s Behind the Very Real Butch Quarantine Hair Crisis?

What's a masculine lesbian to do when her hair starts getting too long? Look at history for inspiration.
King (Kabaka) Mwanga from Buganda (1868-1903)

Anthropologists Hid African Same-Sex Relationships

Sex between people of the same gender has existed for millennia. But anthropologists in sub-Saharan Africa often ignored or distorted those relationships.
A woman's hand holding a turkey baster

Notes on Queer Conception and the Redefinition of Family

Feminist scholars refer to the “intensely communal, queer, and playful nature” of DIY LGBTQ conception, but Fertility, Inc. is another story.
Two men and a baby

How Families with Two Dads Raise Their Kids

Research reveals few differences between the parenting of gay men and their straight peers.
Protestors from lesbian, gay and bisexual rights charity Stonewall, carrying a banner reading 'Lesbian & Gay Rights are Human Rights' during the Gay Pride parade in London, England, United Kingdom, 6 July 1996

The Stonewall Riots Didn’t Start the Gay Rights Movement

Giving Stonewall too much credit misses the movement’s growing strength in the 1960s, sociologists note.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cover_of_Strange_Affair_by_Edwin_West_-_Illustration_by_Harry_Schaare_-_Monarch_Book_1962.jpg

Pulp Fiction Helped Define American Lesbianism

Between 1950 and 1965, steamy novels about lesbian relationships, marketed to men, inadvertently offered closeted women much-needed representation.
Giovanni's Room, Philadelphia

Book Club Made Me Gay

Book clubs and reading groups have long been important to marginalized communities.
Queer aging

Queer Time: The Alternative to “Adulting”

What constitutes adulthood has never been self-evident or value-neutral. Queer lives follow their own temporal logic.
Benedetta Carlini

Lesbianism (!) at the Convent

Mother Superior Benedetta Carlini, a visionary nun of Renaissance Italy, was accused of heresy and “female sodomy.”
Old West Crossdressing

The Forgotten Gender Nonconformists of the Old West

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.