About
Jen Manion is a social and cultural historian whose work examines the role of gender and sexuality in American life. Manion is the Winkley Professor of History at Amherst College. Drawing on their expertise in U.S. history, Manion’s writings cover a broad range of topics including the origins of prisons in America, gender history and politics, and the LGBTQ rights movement. Manion has written two award winning books – Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America and Female Husbands: A Trans History – and dozens of essays, including a New England Journal of Medicine article about historic injustices toward LGBTQ people, a reflection on transgender history as a form of resistance in The New Republic, and a celebration of queer possibilities in revolutionary America in Ms. Magazine. Before joining Amherst College, Manion worked for a decade as the founding director of the LGBTQ Center at Connecticut College and faculty member in the department of history.
New Projects
Crime and Punishment in America, is a four-part series directed by Lynn Novick, that tells the story of criminal justice in America from the colonial era to today, and explores how for more than 250 years, Americans have wrestled with the problem of crime, the purpose of punishment and the meaning of justice. Executive produced by Ken Burns and Sam Pollard. Narrated by Keith David. I served as an advisor to this incredible film and I can’t wait for people to see it. Premieres Nov. 16, 2026.
We invited over fifty scholars who have done pathbreaking work in the field to write original essays on a broad range of topics, covering the history of sexuality in the U.S. from the colonial era through the 20th century. This will serve as a valuable reference for specialists and non-specialists alike. Forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in 2027.
Work in progress on the history of medical injustice and LGBTQ people in the U.S. Preliminary findings from this study can be found in our NEJM article.
Commentary
Female Husbands
Scholarship
Digital Resources
THE CARCERAL STATE
Books
(2020)
Some Articles
“A Legacy of Cruelty to Sexual and Gender Minority Groups,” New England Journal of Medicine 2024.
“Queer Methods & Trans Historicism,” Sources and Methods in the History of Sexuality 2024.
“Trans*itions: The Work of Susan Stryker,” A Forum, Journal of Women’s History 2024.
“Trans and Gender Variant Sexualities in History,” Cambridge World History of Sexualities 2024.
“Carceral History in the Era of Mass Incarceration,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History & Biography 2019.
“Transgender Representations, Identities, and Communities,” Oxford Handbook Women’s & Gender History 2018.
“Language, Acts, and Identity in LGBTQ Histories,” The Routledge History of Queer America 2018.
“Prisons Prior to Mass Incarceration,” Western New England Law Review 2017.
“Gender Expression in Antebellum America,” U.S. Women’s History 2017.
“Gendered Ideologies of Violence, Authority, & Racial Difference,” Radical History Review 2016.
“Queer Periods: Attitudes & Experiences with Menstruation,” Culture, Health, Sexuality 2016.
“Transbutch,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 2014.
“The Absence of Context: Gay Politics Without a Past,” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 2014.
“Historic Heteroessentialism and Other Orderings in Early America,” Signs 2009.
Press
Action
