A Brief History of LGBTQ+ Rights and the Politics of Gender Identity

In 2014, a cover of Time magazine boldly proclaimed the arrival of the “transgender tipping point” featuring up-and-coming trans actress Laverne Cox. The following year, the US Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was legal across the country in Obergefell v. Hodges. Since the mid-2010s, however, the forward momentum of LGBTQ rights has been stalled or even reversed. Moves to limit access to bathrooms, sports, identification, and more for trans people have been dominant in elections and legislation since, as have efforts to ban books featuring gay or trans characters in schools and libraries. How did sexual orientation and gender identity become central to political and popular debates, and why are transgender people the center of the newest wave of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric? This two-part series will explore the histories of sexual and gender diversity to trace the paths that led to our current moment, starting with the development of modern narratives about gender and sexuality in the late 19th century and following developments to the present.

Dates:

• Part 1: Wednesday, June 24, 2026 10:00 am - 11:30am ET (Zoom)
• Part 2: Thursday, July 9, 2026, 10:00 am -11:30am (Zoom)

Members may attend one or both lectures. These lectures are included with an active membership.

Presenter bio: Todd G. Nordgren is the director of LGBTQ+ Programs & Services at Wellesley College, and teaches courses in gender and sexuality studies, twentieth and twenty-first century literature and film, and life writing. He holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from Northwestern University, and has publications appearing in Modernism/modernity, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literary Theory, The Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature, and Contemporary Queer Modernism.