Simon Fisher, “Writing Pauli Murray History in the Twenty-First Century: The Impact of Transgender Studies"

Focusing on primary documents in Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray "PM Medical" archival folder, Dr. Simon Fisher will explore how transgender historiography sheds new light on these documents within the context of several intersecting histories: African American history, history of medicine, feminist history, and queer and transgender history. He will discuss the narrative arc of the presence of transgender identity within Pauli Murray historical studies from the turn of the twenty-first century to the present, and highlight the current federal efforts to erase Murray's Black, queer, and transgender activist histories from the nation's public memory.

Dr. Simon Fisher teaches United States history at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. His research on Pauli Murray has appeared in the Journal of African American History, Transgender Studies Quarterly, the SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies, and was featured on the podcast BackStory.