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Course Descriptions Current Course Offerings Undergraduate Minor Graduate Minor in Gender Studies Educational Programming
Sarah Talks Isom Student Gender Conference Affiliate Research Clusters
University Related Community Organizations Oxford Pride Violence Prevention Office
Events Calendar Howorth Lecture Series Women's History Month Oxford Pride Sarahfest
 

The Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies educates about issues of gender and sexuality, promotes interdisciplinary research, and advocates for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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Announcements
Isom Affiliate Kathryn McKee Named New Director of Center for the Study of Southern Culture
Isom Affiliate Kathryn McKee Named New Director of Center for the Study of Southern Culture

Dr. Kathryn McKee will be the first woman to lead the groundbreaking center’s work

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Events Calendar
Oxford Pride Week
Apr 28
Oxford Pride Week
Featured Feminists
Brenna Paola
Brenna Paola

President, UM Pride Network

"I am passionate about making feminism intersectional and inclusive, because those who are left out of narratives are often the ones who need the most justice," Paola says. "I also want to see shifts in our sex education that lead to a culture better equipped to manage issues surrounding consent, sex-positive language, and healthy relationship dynamics."

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Gloria E. Anzaldúa was a queer Chicana poet, writer, and feminist theorist. In 1981 Anzaldúa co-edited arguably her most famous work, the pathbreaking anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, with fellow Chicana lesbian-feminist Cherrie Moraga. Her poems and essays explore the anger and isolation of occupying the margins of culture and collective identity. Anzaldúa has been awarded the Lambda Lesbian Small Book Press Award, a Sappho Award of Distinction, and an NEA Fiction Award, among others. She is the author of several books of poetry, non-fiction, and children’s fiction. Her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) and her essay, “La Prieta,” are considered to be groundbreaking works in cultural, feminist, and queer theories. Anzaldua passed away in 2004. #UMLGBTQHistory18
Barbara Jordan (First Lesbian Elected to Congress) - Barbara Charline Jordan (February 21, 1936 – January 17, 1996) was an American lawyer, educator and politician who was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction, the first Southern African-American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. She was best known for her eloquent opening statement at the House Judiciary Committee hearings during the impeachment process against Richard Nixon, and as the first African-American as well as both the first woman to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. She was the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery. Jordan retired from politics in 1978, due to health concerns and living with Multiple Sclerosis. After Jordan's death from viral pneumonia in 1996, the Houston Chronicle quietly outed her by running an obituary citing Nancy Earl as her "longtime companion" - common newspaper code for "lover." They had lived together for nearly 30 years after meeting on a camping trip. But Earl steadfastly honored Jordan's desire for privacy. #UMLGBTQHistory18
Pat Parker - Pat Parker was born Patricia Cooks in Houston, Texas, on January 20, 1944. She grew up in poverty and eventually moved to California, where she attended college in Los Angeles. Parker was married and divorced twice before 1966, keeping the name of her second husband. In the late 1960s, Parker began to identify as a lesbian, and she became actively involved in the civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights movements, occasionally reading her poetry at events. She developed a community around lesbian poetry readings on the West Coast. Parker said of this community, “It was like pioneering….We were talking to women about women, and, at the same time, letting women know that the experiences they were having were shared by other people.” Parker was the author of five poetry collections. Parker is known for her unflinching honesty in addressing issues of sex, race, motherhood, alcoholism, and violence. Audre Lorde called Parker’s poetry “clean and sharp without ever being neat.” #UMLGBTQHistory18
Lance Bass ( @lancebass ) — Singer and actor Lance Bass was born in 1979 to a conservative Christian family in Laurel, Mississippi. As a member of the boy band 'N Sync, Bass and his bandmates became heartthrob sensations and sold millions of records. Since the band's breakup in 2002, Bass has pursued work as an actor and producer. Bass used a cover story in People Magazine to officially come out in 2006. In 2014, he married Artist Michael Turchin ( @michaelturchinart ). #umlgbtqhistory18
Wanda and Brenda Henson - Brenda and Wanda Henson set out to create a peaceful place for retreat and education in rural Mississippi at their lesbian-feminist education center, Camp Sister Spirit. The Hensons thought they had found the ideal place, a former pig farm in the tiny town of Ovett near Laurel, Mississippi. Their plan was to share the land with others who sought retreat in an environment that was free of violence, alcohol, illegal drugs and discrimination. They refused to abandon their vision of a safe place for women who faced abuse or discrimination. Although sickness eventually led to the closing of the center, the Henson’s dedication to working on queer and feminist issues in Mississippi remains an inspirational story of bravery and commitment. #umlgbtqhistory18
Bayard Rustin March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. A master strategist and activist, Bayard Rustin was the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, one of the largest nonviolent protests ever held in the United States. At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, which followed Freedom Summer in Mississippi, Rustin became an adviser to the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP); they were trying to gain recognition as the legitimate, non-Jim Crow delegation from their state, where blacks had been officially disenfranchised since the turn of the century (as they were generally throughout the South) and excluded from the official political system. Despite his wide influence and the undeniable impact of his achievements on the Civil Rights Movement, Rustin was silenced, threatened, arrested, beaten, imprisoned and fired from important leadership positions, largely because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. #UMlgbtqhistory18