2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

Lesbian history invites difficult conversations. With a discussion of butch lesbians in the postwar U.S., Alix Genter addresses the controversial relationship between lesbianism and transgender manhood both within and outside the academy. As some butches disavow a desire to transition and transmen grapple with lesbian pasts, scholars of queer women are debating the place of these categories, identities, and people in lesbian history. Cookie Woolner, whose research focuses on black queer women in the early 20^th-century U.S. entertainment industry, will discuss the complexities of researching African American queer women’s history as a white queer woman. How are issues of access and privilege, respectability and dissemblance connected to who carries out work on African American LGBT history? Drawing on her current research on lesbian relationships and parenting practices in Britain and Australia between 1945 and 2000, Rebecca Jennings considers the challenges in examining aspects of the lesbian past that don't fit neatly in traditional queer history frames, such as sentimentality, power inequalities and domestic violence in same-sex relationships and reproduction. She wonders how our political commitment to a 'pro-sex' politic restricts certain avenues of exploration in lesbian history. Amanda Littauer, whose current project focuses on the history of queer youth, explores the difficulty of talking with oral history narrators and writing for other scholars about childhood sexual play, experimentation, and coercion. Littauer questions the sources of discomfort and vulnerability in researching and publishing about queer girls’ sexual lives and argues for the personal, social, and intellectual importance of doing it anyway.