Emily Skidmore

Emily Skidmore is an associate professor, a researcher and the author of True Sex. She is currently a history professor at Texas Tech University where she is also the director of graduate studies.

Biography For her award-winning book True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Skidmore gathered historical evidence of trans men in the United States from the 1876 to 1936 using newspapers and census and court documents. Some of the trans men documented included Joseph Lobdell and Ralph Kerwineo. True Sex marks a historical deviation from the normative argument of that queer folks generally move to cities. Skidmore argues that the history of queer America may look different than the stories that currently predominate. The book has been extensively reviewed with commentary supporting the possibility of reframing the history of queer people in the United States.

Skidmore's works center on LGBTQ2+ issues, with a focus of transgender history. Some of Skidmore's works have an intersectional approach and she has had twelve articles been published in ten journals. Skidmore's work has been included in A Companion to American Women's History and her historical perspective has also been interviewed and quoted regarding the origins of the American women's suffrage movement. She has contributed to the creation of the Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, as an editor.

Skidmore's 2004 B.A. from Macalester College and 2011 Ph.D. from University of Illinois were both in history. and Backstory. Editor, Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, 1st Edition Skidmore, E (2011). Exceptional queerness: defining the boundaries of normative U.S. citizenship, 1876-1936 (Thesis). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Online works Troubling Terms: The Label Problem in Transgender History, Notches, November 28, 2017. Life as a Trans Man in Turn-of-the-Century America, Literary Hub, September 22, 2017.

Awards 2019, President's Faculty Book Award from Texas Tech University 2018, U.S. History PROSE Award winner for True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. .