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, transgender 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 one in the New England Journal of Medicine about historic injustices toward LGBTQ people and one in The New Republic on transgender history as a form of political resistance. 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.