Did you know that Europe had its own third gender tradition, which arose, flourished, and then disappeared over the span of a few centuries? In the Byzantine Empire, this third gen...

19th-century writers called Lakota women virtually enslaved to their husbands, but were they? Or were they skilled artisans, valued by the community, and empowered within their mar...

If you had to choose between giving up your way of life or facing the death of your people, what would you do? What if it meant having to give up ever feeling like a man, a woman, ...

After hunting bison for centuries, the Lakota suddenly switched to cattle in the late 19th century. Why did they hunt cattle? Why was it crucial to maintaining the gender norms of ...

Today, female toplessness is taboo in Western culture, but did you know that until quite recently indeed, showing nip was normal? Not only was it normal, but it was often the heigh...

What would it be like to live through almost the entire recent history of the transgender movement, from near-complete marginalization in the 1960s to glimmers of mainstream accept...

Were there queer folks in the Wild West? We address comments made by actor Sam Elliot about the "evisceration of the American myth" by the new Western film The Power of the Dog, an...

Is it just me, or does the image of the cowboy feel Whiter than White? Yet, in actual history, 1 out of 4 cowboys was Black. The Wild West was surprisingly welcoming in some ways t...

Calamity Jane, Little Joe Monahan, and Mrs. Nash... What was life like for those who dared to cross-dress in the Wild West? Why were their stories twisted to fit an emerging Americ...