Beth Kelly

Last updated

Beth Kelly is an American political theorist and feminist. Kelly is a professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Irish Studies [1] at DePaul University. [2] [3] From 1997 to 2003, Kelly served as director of the department of Women's and Gender Studies at DePaul, and was a founder of DePaul's LGBT studies program. Since March 2010, Kelly has been chairperson of the Advisory Council on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues, one of eight advisory councils to the Commission on Human Relations for the City of Chicago. [4] Kelly received her PhD from Rutgers University. [5]

Contents

Writings and views

Kelly is openly lesbian. Regarding her academic career, Kelly says, "If someone had told me 30 years ago that in 2010 I would be tenured and promoted to a professor as a publicly professed Lesbian at the country's largest Catholic university, I would not have believed them. I love the university and I think I have given back a great deal of my time and effort as a result." [6]

Among her research interests, Kelly lists feminist theory, LGBT politics, and queer theory.

In 2005, Kelly published the collective memoir Telling Our Lives: Conversations on Solidarity and Difference with Frida Kerner Furman and Linda Williamson Nelson.

Political career and LGBT activism

In March 2010, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley named Kelly head of the city's LGBT advisory council for a three-year term. The council serves as a liaison for the gay community to the city government and is responsible for identifying areas of prejudice or discrimination impacting the gay community in relation to housing and human rights issues. [4]

Controversy

In 1979, Beth Kelly published an article and autobiographical account titled "On 'Woman/Girl Love'—Or, Lesbians Do 'Do It.'" Kelly recounted a sexual relationship she experienced, beginning when she was 8 years old, with a grandaunt who was at least 40–50 years older, and described her personal involvement in similar relationships both "as a girl and as a woman." The article, which presents a positive description of pederasty, has been reprinted by pro-pederasty organizations such as NAMBLA. [7]

Major publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Tunney</span> Entrepreneur and politician from Chicago, Illinois

Thomas M. Tunney is an American politician and entrepreneur from Chicago, Illinois. From 2003 to 2023, he served as an alderman on the Chicago City Council. He represented the 44th Ward of the city, which includes major tourist destinations, Northalsted and Wrigleyville neighborhoods. He was also vice mayor from 2019 to 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cherríe Moraga</span> American writer and activist (born 1952)

Cherríe Moraga is a Xicana feminist, writer, activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English since 2017, and in 2022 became a distinguished professor. Moraga is also a founding member of the social justice activist group La Red Xicana Indígena, which is network fighting for education, culture rights, and Indigenous Rights. In 2017, she co-founded, with Celia Herrera Rodríguez, Las Maestras Center for Xicana Indigenous Thought, Art, and Social Practice, located on the campus of UC Santa Barbara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Schulman</span> American writer (born 1958)

Sarah Miriam Schulman is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She holds an endowed chair in nonfiction at Northwestern University and is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award and the Lambda Literary Award.

David Thorstad was an American political activist who co-founded or ran a number of homosexual rights groups following the Stonewall riots in 1969, including as a former president of New York's Gay Activists Alliance. He later engaged in pedophilia and pederasty activism with the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), of which he was a founding member.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gayle Rubin</span> American cultural anthropologist, activist, and feminist

Gayle S. Rubin is an American cultural anthropologist, theorist and activist, best known for her pioneering work in feminist theory and queer studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bisexual erasure</span> Dismissing or misrepresenting bisexuals in the public perception

Bisexual erasure, also called bisexual invisibility, is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of lesbianism in the United States</span>

This article addresses the history of lesbianism in the United States. Unless otherwise noted, the members of same-sex female couples discussed here are not known to be lesbian, but they are mentioned as part of discussing the practice of lesbianism—that is, same-sex female sexual and romantic behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valerie Taylor (novelist)</span> American lesbian pulp fiction author

Valerie Taylor was an American author of books published in the lesbian pulp fiction genre, as well as poetry and novels after the "golden age" of lesbian pulp fiction. She also published as Nacella Young, Francine Davenport, and Velma Tate. Her publishers included Naiad Press, Banned Books, Universal, Gold Medal Books, Womanpress, Ace and Midwood-Tower.

The Front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire (FHAR) was a loose Parisian movement founded in 1971, resulting from an alliance between lesbian feminists and gay male activists. The movement had no official leaders, but Guy Hocquenghem and Françoise d'Eaubonne were among its most prominent representatives, while other members included Christine Delphy, Daniel Guérin, and Laurent Dispot. It had disappeared by 1976. Surviving early activists also include painter and surrealist photographer Yves Hernot, now living in Sydney, Australia.

<i>GLQ</i> (journal) Academic journal

GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal based published by Duke University Press. It was co-founded by David M. Halperin and Carolyn Dinshaw in the early 1990s. In its mission, the journal seeks "to offer queer perspectives on all issues touching on sex and sexuality." It covers religion, science studies, politics, law, and literary studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharon Kleinbaum</span> American rabbi

Sharon Kleinbaum is an American rabbi who served as spiritual leader of New York City's Congregation Beit Simchat Torah for 32 years. She is now the synagogue's first Senior Rabbi Emerita. She has been an active campaigner for human rights and civil marriage for gay couples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Stryker</span> American professor, historian, author, and filmmaker

Susan O'Neal Stryker is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona, and is currently on leave while holding an appointment as Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership at Mills College. Stryker serves on the Advisory Council of METI and the Advisory Board of the Digital Transgender Archive. Stryker, who is a transgender woman, is the author of several books about LGBT history and culture. She is a leading scholar of transgender history.

The modern South Korean LGBT rights movement arose in the 1990s, with several small organizations seeking to combat sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination.

Racism is a concern for many in the Western lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) communities, with members of racial, ethnic, and national minorities reporting having faced discrimination from other LGBT people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBTQ culture in Paris</span>

Paris, the capital of France, has an active LGBTQ community. In the 1990s, 46% of the country's gay men lived in the city. As of 2004, Paris had 140 LGBT bars, clubs, hotels, restaurants, shops, and other commercial businesses. Florence Tamagne, author of "Paris: 'Resting on its Laurels'?", wrote that there is a "Gaité parisienne"; she added that Paris "competes with Berlin for the title of LGBT capital of Europe, and ranks only second behind New York for the title of LGBT capital of the world." It has France's only gayborhoods that are officially organized.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American LGBTQ community</span> African-American population within the LGBT community

The African-American LGBT community, otherwise referred to as the Black American LGBT community, is part of the overall LGBTQ culture and overall African-American culture. The initialism LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.

William B. Kelley was a gay activist and lawyer from Chicago, Illinois. Many laud him as an important figure in gaining rights for gay people in the United States, as he was actively involved in gay activism for 50 years.

Adrienne J. Smith (1934–1992) was an American psychologist. She came out as a lesbian in 1973 and became one of the first openly out lesbian psychologists in the American Psychological Association (APA). She worked for reforms in the APA and spoke on LGBT rights across the country.

References

  1. "Faculty | Irish Studies | Academics | College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences | DePaul University, Chicago" . Retrieved Apr 2, 2020.
  2. "DePaul University College of LAS: Beth Kelly, Ph.D". Las.depaul.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-10-04. Retrieved 2013-11-01.
  3. "Internal Information Infrastructure - Department Directory". Directory.depaul.edu. Retrieved 2013-11-01.
  4. 1 2 "Daley appoints new chair to Chicago's LGBT advisory council". Chicagogopride.com. Archived from the original on 2012-07-20. Retrieved 2012-12-07.
  5. "DePaul University Course Catalog" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-14. Retrieved 2013-11-01.
  6. "Outing DePaul". The DePaulia. Archived from the original on 2013-01-21. Retrieved 2012-12-07.
  7. David Thorstad, "Man/Boy Love and the American Gay Movement," in Male Intergenerational Intimacy: Historical, Socio-Psychological, and Legal Perspectives, p. 255, 1991, ISBN   1560240008