Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Ohio University

10/09/2026

LGBTQ+ History Month Week | October 11–16 in Athens

October is LGBTQ+ History Month. It began in 1994, when Missouri high school teacher Rodney Wilson proposed a month to recognize LGBTQ+ histories that are often missing from classrooms and official records. This year in Athens, the Survivor Advocacy Outreach Program (SAOP) and the Athens County Foundation are marking it with a week of community events. The week opens on October 11, National Coming Out Day.

📅 Schedule

Sun, Oct 11: GAYme Night Social at Star Chamber Arcade (5:00–7:00 pm)
Mon, Oct 12: Collaging with Chris Lewis at Burtch House, 35 Park Place Common Room (5:30–7:00 pm)
Tue, Oct 13: Pride in the Archives at Alden Library, 5th Floor, Archives & Special Collections (4:00–6:00 pm)
Wed, Oct 14: LGBTQ+ History Trivia Night with Carter Rice & Lacey Rogers at Jackie O’s Taproom (6:30–8:00 pm)
Thu, Oct 15: It’s Your Time! An interactive workshop on self-care in advocacy work with Nancy Baur & Bethany Fulton at SAOP, 145 Columbus Road, Suite 101 (5:30–7:00 pm)
Fri, Oct 16: Threads of Change: LGBTQIA+ Trailblazers, Turning Points & Connections with Micah McCarey at SAOP, 145 Columbus Road, Suite 101 (11:00 am–12:30 pm)

In Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, we know that who gets remembered is never neutral. Visiting an archive, learning about trailblazers, or making art together all help bring q***r and trans histories back into view. Advocacy also takes care: the people doing this work need sustaining spaces too.

We hope to see students, faculty, staff, and community members there.

ℹ️ For more information, contact Lacey Rogers at [email protected] or see the Facebook event: [link]

10/07/2026

September gave us four important dates. The questions they raise are still open.

Sept. 5 was the first International Day of the World's Indigenous Women and Girls recognized by the United Nations, building on a date Indigenous women's movements have marked since 1983 in honor of Aymara leader Bartolina Sisa.

Sept. 18, International Equal Pay Day, reminds us that pay gaps persist and grow wider along lines of race, migration status, and motherhood.

Sept. 21, the International Day of Peace, invites us to ask who takes part in building peace — a question at the center of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

Sept. 23, the International Day of Sign Languages, centers language access and Deaf communities' rights.

In WGSS, a date is an entry point. Which of these conversations should we carry forward first?

10/07/2026

Late September is a remarkable week in feminist intellectual history. Between Sept. 25 and 28, six thinkers were born whose work still shapes how we study gender, sexuality, race, religion, language, and knowledge.

bell hooks, Cherríe Moraga, and amina wadud were all born on Sept. 25, 1952. Gloria Anzaldúa followed on Sept. 26, Fatema Mernissi on Sept. 27, and Rosi Braidotti on Sept. 28.

They come from different traditions: Black feminism, Chicana and q***r women-of-color feminism, Islamic feminist interpretation, Moroccan sociology, and European feminist philosophy. They do not always agree, and that is the point. Feminism has many traditions, methods, and debates.

Swipe for one key idea and one reading from each, then save this list for later. Which one will you read first?

10/04/2026

Every day, students walk past Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. Who were the two people it honors?

On September 17, 1828, John Newton Templeton, born into slavery in South Carolina, became Ohio University's first Black graduate. He went on to a life in education and abolitionist activism in Chillicothe and Pittsburgh.

In 1916, Martha Jane Hunley Blackburn graduated summa cm laude in English, becoming the first Black woman to graduate from OHIO. She spent her career teaching, including 25 years at Booker T. Washington High School in West Virginia.

Notice the dates. OHIO's first Black graduate finished in 1828, and its first woman graduate, Margaret Boyd, in 1873. But a Black woman would not graduate until 1916. Their stories show why WGSS looks at race and gender together: access to education was shaped by both at once.

Swipe through, and share this with someone who walks past Templeton-Blackburn every day.

10/03/2026

Before it was WGSS, it was Women's Studies.

In 1979, the first Women's Studies classes were taught at Ohio University. A year later, Women's Studies became one of OHIO's first undergraduate certificate programs. A bachelor's degree followed in 2004.

Our name has changed twice since then: to Women's and Gender Studies in 2009, and to Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in 2014, when we also added the LGBTQ Studies certificate. In 2025, the Margaret Boyd Scholars Program became part of WGSS.

These changes are more than labels. They trace how the field's questions have grown, from recovering women's lives and histories, to analyzing gender as a system of power, to treating sexuality as a central category of analysis.

Were you part of this history? We'd love to hear from you.

10/03/2026

Welcome to Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Ohio University. Since the first Women's Studies classes were taught at OHIO in 1979, our program has grown into an interdisciplinary community that studies gender and sexuality alongside race, ethnicity, class, and more.

This page is an extension of our classrooms. Here you'll find our history, the people and events that make WGSS a community today, short explainers on key ideas and current questions, feminist thinkers and dates worth knowing, and conversations with other fields across the university.

Follow along, share with a classmate, and tell us: what would you like us to explore?

10/03/2026

Welcome to the WGSS community! 💜
A space to connect, exchange ideas, ask questions,
and grow together. We’re excited to share upcoming
events, opportunities, conversations, and diverse
perspectives with you.

Stay curious, join the conversation, and follow along to
see what’s coming next! ✨

06/17/2026

06/16/2026

06/15/2026