Jen Manion is a social and cultural historian whose work examines the role of gender and sexuality in American life. Drawing on their expertise in U.S. history and LGBTQ+ history and politics, Manion’s writings cover a broad range of topics including transgender history and politics, the LGBTQ+ rights movement, and popular culture representation. Manion has written dozens of essays, including a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine about historic injustices toward LGBTQ+ people.

Manion is author of Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America (Penn, 2015) winner of the Mary Kelley Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic and Female Husbands: A Trans History (Cambridge, 2020) winner of he British Association of Victorian Studies best book prize and finalist for the OAH Lawrence Levine Award. Jen is co-editor with Nicholas Syrett of a forthcoming two volume series, The Cambridge History of Sexuality in the United States, Vol. I: Early America and Vol. II: Modern America (expected 2026) and co-editor with Jim Downs of Taking Back the Academy: History of Activism, History as Activism (2004).