Where Is Gender in the Historiography of LGBTQ+ College Students?

This forum contribution considers the complexities and importance of gender in the historiography of LGBTQ+ college students. After a brief introduction, we focus on four key areas in the existing historiography: women’s romantic relationships in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, higher education leaders’ enforcement of gender norms and purges of LGBTQ+ students through the mid-twentieth century, the gender dynamics within LGBTQ+ student organizations from the 1970s onward, and trans and other LGBTQ+ students’ expansion of gender possibilities, including through the use of drag. In so doing, we argue that gender analysis is important to the historiography of LGBTQ+ students, though most often that analysis has been implicit rather than explicit. Considering both the gaps in our historical knowledge and the rising attacks on LGBTQ+ individuals, we contend that continued gendered analyses are not only warranted but also needed.