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 and Department Chair of Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies. 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.