Black queer women have shaped American culture since long before the era of gay liberation. Decades prior to the Stonewall Uprising, in the 1920s and 1930s, Black “lady lovers”—as women who loved women were then called—crafted a queer world. In the cabarets, rent parties, speakeasies, literary salons, and universities of the Jazz Age and Great Depression, communities of Black lady lovers grew, and queer flirtations flourished. Cookie Woolner here uncovers the intimate lives of performers, ...

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade, stripping federal protection for abortion rights and placing control in the hands of individual states. This monumental shift in policy underscores the need for deeper historical perspectives on reproductive rights.The Nursing Clio Reader answers that call, bringing together essays that examine reproductive health through historical research...

An incisive, groundbreaking book that examines how a biological concept of race is a myth that promotes inequality in a supposedly "post-racial" era.Though the Human Genome Project proved that human beings are not naturally divided by race, the emerging fields of personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, genetic genealogy, and DNA databanks are attempting to resuscitate race as a biological category written in our genes.This groundbreaking book by l...

The “monumental” (The Washington Post), field-defining history of gay life in New York City in the early to mid-20th centuryGay New York brilliantly shatters the myth that before the 1960s gay life existed in the closet, where all gay men were isolated, invisible, and ashamed. Based on years of research in diaries, letters, newspaper stories, and police reports, George Chauncey describes the saloons, speakeasies, and streets where queer m...

A must-read investigation of reproductive health under fire in Post-Roe America.I'm Sorry for My Loss delves into the abyss of pregnancy loss, a topic that is misunderstood and full of guilt and shame, written with emotional resonance and humor by authors who have both been through it themselves. Rebecca Little and Colleen Long, childhood friends who grew up to be journalists, enlighten readers on the deep, sometimes mystifying history behind how we view p...

As Lillian Faderman writes, there are "no constants with regard to lesbianism," except that lesbians prefer women. In this groundbreaking book, she reclaims the history of lesbian life in twentieth-century America, tracing the evolution of lesbian identity and subcultures from early networks to more recent diverse lifestyles. She draws from journals, unpublished manuscripts, songs, media accounts, novels, medical literature, pop culture artifacts, and oral histories by lesbians of all ages...

A historian explores the complicated relationship between womanhood and motherhood in this “timely, refreshingly open-hearted study of the choices women make and the cards they’re dealt” (Ada Calhoun, author of Why We Can’t Sleep).In an era of falling births, it’s often said that millennials invented the idea of not having kids. But history is full of women without children: some who chose childless lives, others who wanted children but ne...

A New York Times Book Review Notable BookFrom noted feminist and longtime columnist for The Nation, award-winning author Katha Pollitt's Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights presents a powerful argument for abortion as a moral right and social good. As the Supreme Court is set to overturn the landmark decision that legalized abortion nationwide, this urgent, controversial book reframes abortion as a common part of a woman's reproductive...

Published in 1982, But Some of Us Are Brave was the first-ever Black women's studies reader and a foundational text of contemporary feminism.Featuring writing from eminent scholars, activists, teachers, and writers, such as the Combahee River Collective and Alice Walker, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Bravechallenges the absence of Black feminist thought in women’s studies, confronts racism, and investigates th...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PLUTARCH AWARD FOR BEST BIOGRAPHYWINNER OF THE ASJA AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY/HISTORYA riveting history about the little-known rivalry between Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett that profoundly shaped the fight for reproductive rights in America.In the 1910s, as the American birth control movement was born, two leaders emerged: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett. While Sanger would go on to found Planned Parenthood, Dennett’s name has largely fad...

Why has the African American community remained silent about gender even as race has moved to the forefront of our nation’s consciousness? In this important new book, two of the nation’s leading African American intellectuals offer a resounding and far-reaching answer to a question that has been ignored for far too long. Hard-hitting and brilliant in its analysis of culture and sexual politics, Gender Talk asserts boldly that gender matters are critical to the Black community in t...

The unexpected story of how genetic testing is affecting race in AmericaWe know DNA is a master key that unlocks medical and forensic secrets, but its genealogical life is both revelatory and endlessly fascinating. Tracing genealogy is now the second-most popular hobby amongst Americans, as well as the second-most visited online category. This billion-dollar industry has spawned popular television shows, websites, and Internet communities, and a booming heritage to...