Stories
LGBTQ
E.J. Graff’s pathbreaking reporting and commentary began in the 1980s, when she wrote for and edited small feminist and gay newspapers. In the 1990s, she became one of the first openly gay women reporting and commenting on gay issues for such mainstream media outlets as The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and The Boston Globe. By the 2000s, she was exploring the newly emerging transgender movement. She’s kept commenting since.
Let’s Dump the LGBTQ+ Acronym
Those letters accumulated for very good reasons. But today they both erase and overemphasize our differences. So what might be next?
Gay Libbers as Moral Heroes
How did a once-despised minority win full formal equality and become moral heroes to many Americans?
A Manifesto on Gender
This Newsweek cover story was the first time many Americans learned the word “transgender.”
A Queer History
E.J. Graff’s journey from radical to mainstream and married.
A Brief (Mostly Female) History of Coming Out in Sports
A male athlete comes out, and the nation gasps. A female athlete comes out, and there’s a nationwide yawn.
Voting while Trans
A man walks into a polling place. The rolls list him as female. Can he vote?
Marrying Outside the Box
Married or single? For most taxpayers, that’s one of the easy boxes to check on the dreary 1040’s. But for some Massachusetts couples in 2005, deciding how to answer that question was troubling.
When biomoms get mad
As the LGBTQ movement was just winning second-parent adoption, state by state, three crazy child custody battles in state supreme courts threatened to undo those precedents.
The M/F Boxes
E.J. Graff first started examining the new “transgender” identity in 2001, in this oft-anthologized article. We’ve come a long way since then.
Queer Like Us
As the “transgender” identity emerged, Graff traced its history – and argued that the “T” belonged in the rainbow community, a controversial position at the time.