29 Sep 2025
This fall I taught Queer American History. Every student in the class wanted to be there, wanted to do the readings, wanted to talk about what they were learning – it created a pretty magical learning environment!
One of the high points was a guest lecture by Dr. Samantha Rosenthal. With the help of the History Department and the Intercultural Center, I invited Dr. Samantha Rosenthal to join us on campus to talk about her book, Living Queer History: Remembrance and Belonging in a Southern City, published by UNC Press in 2021. The talk was wonderful – several students wrote in their senior capstones that they found it inspirational. Follow her substack if you’re not already!
One of the greatest treats as a teacher is when students decide they want to do their senior capstone on something pertaining to what they learned in your class. This year, two of the seniors in my class told me they’re now planning to write on queer history! One is even using the oral histories and digitized archive created by the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project that Dr. Rosenthal helped lead.
Huge thanks to Dr. Rosenthal and to Kathleen, David, and Gail who helped make this course so special!
18 Jul 2025
This past year, I received support from the Ruth Borker Fund for Women’s Studies to develop a new course on Queer History at Randolph College. Named in honor of a former Randolph professor, the Borker Fund supports faculty efforts to integrate “gender-related perspectives into the curriculum.”
When I first arrived at Randolph, I didn’t anticipate teaching Queer History. But over the past three years, I’ve become convinced that such a course is essential. While I wasn’t formally trained in queer theory or LGBTQ history, I am a social historian committed to centering the experiences of underrepresented groups. In that spirit, I’ve worked to incorporate LGBTQIA+ stories into all of my classes. The student response has been powerful. Many have described this as a “secret” history—one that resonates deeply with their lives and experiences. The need for this course has only grown more urgent amid the current wave of erasure of LGBTQ+ history.
With support from the Borker Fund, I traveled to San Francisco this summer to visit key historical sites. The first day, I visited the Tenderloin neighborhood to check out the Tenderloin Museum, the former site of Compton’s Cafeteria, and Glide Memorial Church. I also traveled to Golden Gate Park to walk through the National AIDS Memorial Grove. I spent the next day in the Castro. I visited the GLBT Historical Society Museum — the first stand-alone LGBTQ history museum in the US - and joined an LGBTQ+ history walking tour. As part of the tour, I visited the Castro Camera, Harvey Milk Plaza, Pink Triangle Memorial, Castro Theatre, and the Rainbow Honor Walk. On my final day, I ferried over to Angel Island State Park, where I was reminded of Margot Canaday’s work on how the federal government policed sexual identity through immigration policy.
The trip helped me think more intentionally about how to frame particular units and introduced new sources and stories - such as the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot - that I plan to incorporate into the syllabus. I’m really looking forward to teaching the course this fall!
24 Apr 2025
Who gets to play—and who decides?
These two questions are at the heart of ongoing debates about women’s athletics, from the Olympics all the way to college campuses like Randolph.
Fortunately, for those who want to think critically about these questions, we have one of the foremost scholarly authorities right here in Lynchburg.
I was reminded of this last summer while listening to the podcast Tested, produced by the CBC and NPR, in the lead up to the Summer Olympics in Paris. While listening, I heard a familiar voice – that of Dr. Lindsay Parks Pieper.
I found this very exciting because I knew Dr. Pieper personally – we’d met playing pickleball. She’s tall and a former college athlete… so I’ll casually avoid telling you who usually won.
As I listened, I became increasingly convinced that we needed to invite Dr. Pieper to campus. I initially invited her to speak with my American Women’s History class, but word spread—and her visit turned into a campus-wide event. In the end, about 75 Wildcats showed up for her talk.
Lindsay Pieper is the Associate Professor of Health Sciences & Human Performance and the Chair of the Sport Management Department at the University of Lynchburg. She graduated with her BA from Virginia Tech and later received her Masters and Doctorate from The Ohio State University.
Her book, Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women’s Sport, was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2016. It won several awards including the North American Society for Sport Sociology’s Outstanding Book of the Year, the North American Society for Sport History’s Distinguished Title award, and it was listed as an Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association.
Her talk, “Sport, Sex, and Surveillance: Gender Policing in Women’s Sports,” was timely, thought-provoking, and a resounding success.
