Lesbian Community and Activism in Britain 1940s-1970s: An Interview with Cynthia Reid.

In this article, I provide a micro(oral)history of Cynthia Reid, one of only five women who founded the Minorities Research group-the first known lesbian organization in Britain, in 1963. Such activism paved the way for further lesbian liberatory action and the group did a great deal to combat the isolation experienced by many queer women across the country. They provided social opportunities as well as advice, and made more public calls for greater social acceptance. The group has been central to the interests of 20th-century queer historians, especially as the Minorities Research Group also produced the first lesbian magazine in Britain Arena Three. As a microhistory Cynthia's story informs many threads within queer history, including conceptualizations of masculinities, community, and change; while also challenging dominant notions that families and medical professionals were consistently unsupportive of queer people in the 1940s-1970s. In doing so, this article amplifies Cynthia's story in a way that means not only does it contribute nuance as a micro(oral)history to the broader field of queer scholarship but it also acts as a resource to stimulate further research.

Queer Pilgrimage: Anne Lister, Gentleman Jack, and Locating Community.

Queer pilgrimage is a journey made by an individual or a group to a location, permanent or transitory, which bears relevance to the lives, cultures, and politics of queer people. It is undertaken for the pilgrim/s to feel an affinity with the space itself through emotional and/or physical proximity. Since Gentleman Jack first aired in 2019, acts of queer pilgrimage have increased substantially to key sites associated with Lister, including to Shibden Hall (her ancestral home), Halifax, York, and beyond. In this article I draw upon two forms of queer pilgrimage in relation to Anne Lister. The first is this substantial increase in tourism and attraction to sites associated with Lister. The second is the queer pilgrimage Lister herself undertook in 1822 to the Ladies of Llangollen at their home, Plas Newydd.In drawing out these two comparatively, I propose that historical and contemporary forms of queer pilgrimage have more in common than may initially be apparent, namely a commonality between the queer pilgrims of the 19th and 21st centuries around a desire for community.

Is this what a lesbian looks like? Lesbian fashion and the fashionable lesbian in the United States press, 1960s to 2010s.

We explored articulations of lesbian styles, fashions, and ways of dressing in mainstream fashion and media outlets within the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Based upon our findings, we propose that there was trending ambivalence and multiple assemblages across space and time where the mainstream media did not necessarily perpetuate a single stereotypical or essentialist way of conceptualizing fashionable lesbians or lesbian fashions. However, we also noted across time a divide between representations of celebrity lesbians and the contemporary lived experience of ordinary lesbians. Though the press acknowledged this divide on occasion, they also established, circulated, and reinforced this difference. According to the press, while lesbians have been 'chic' since the 1990s-whether they embraced a butch or femme esthetic-the best way to be lesbian was to be rich, white, and fashionably dressed.

Love and loss in wartime: An unpublished narrative by Pamela Frankau (1908-67).

This article discusses an unpublished book by the popular and prolific novelist Pamela Frankau (1908-67), which was rejected by her publishers in 1946 as "almost too personal for publication," and which for many years was believed lost. The work is addressed to Frankau's dead lover, Marjorie Vernon Whitefoord (1907-44), a fellow officer in the women's Auxiliary Territorial Service, and takes the form of a letter to Vernon. The article examines what Frankau's unpublished narrative of love and loss in wartime reveals about her life and later novels, and its implications for the official record of her life and writing.

"I am not a friend to men": Embodiment and desire in Magnus Hirschfeld's Transvestites case studies.

This article reads sexological case studies of the fin-de siècle that contain accounts of trans women's lives in the period. It argues that these sources contradict the diagnostic criteria that doctors determine as the factors that define trans feminine identity in the period: desire for men, social isolation, and tortured bodily dissatisfaction. Chief among these contradictions is the prevalence of the expression of trans women's desire for women and easy participation in women's social and kinship networks. Therefore, this article considers these narratives to be a crucial and overlooked resource for considering the breadth of lesbian identity and sociality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Voicing Gay Women's Liberation: Judy Grahn and the Shaping of Lesbian Feminism.

A closer look at the rich world of California feminisms demonstrates how Judy Grahn served as a central figure in bay area feminism, working to establish and support lesbian activist organizations, feminist publications, women's cultural events, and more. Two of Grahn's early political writings consider how lesbians sat at the nexus of homophobia and sexism. These writings demonstrate the formative role played by San Francisco lesbians in reframing ideas about "women-loving women" and the intersections of gender and sexuality in creating the oppressions faced by all women.

An astounding masquerade.

SUMMARY This paper considers the contribution of historical accounts and case studies to the development of lesbian historical knowledge and the amplification of lesbian experience. The author suggests that historical endeavours need to position such accounts and assert lesbian experience so that,Increasingly, public space is occupied by lesbian knowledge and lesbian concerns. The paper discusses a 1945 case of a New Zealand woman, known only as Mr. X, who dressed and acted as a man for over ten years, even having her breasts removed. She was criminally charged when legal authorities discovered she had fraudulently married another woman. The pattern of regulatory responses by the dominant hetero-culture is discussed in relation to this case and other similar cases and categorised into three strategies-einforcement, containment, and leverage.