Deadline: February 15, 2011

I am putting together a panel for the 2012 AHA LGBT program that explores the intersection of LGBT identity, medicine, and health. The relationship between sexuality, health, and medicine is complex and includes topics such as AIDS, psychiatry, sex work, and pregnancy to name a few. This panel will examine how medicine shapes identity among sexual minorities over time and conversely, how sexual minorities inform medical practice and understandings of health in the 20th century. Depending on responses, I am open to including papers with a transnational focus.

My own paper analyzes how a community sponsored traveling VD van program and Nurse Wanda Lust, a drag queen performer in the largest bathhouse in the Midwest, made sexual health part of gay social and political discourse in Chicago during gay liberation.

If you are interested in presenting or commenting, please contact me at cbatza1@uic.edu by May 5th. The deadline for LGBT affiliate panel proposals is May 12th and requires that each panelist provide a paper description and brief cv. Thank you!

Katie Batza
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History
University of Illinois at Chicago