At its annual meeting in April, the Organization of American Historians awarded the John D’Emilio LGBTQ History Dissertation Award ("given annually for the best PhD dissertation in U.S. LGBTQ
history") to Shay Olmstead (Rochester Institute of Technology) for "‘Refuse to Run Away’: Transsexual Workers Fight for Civil Rights, 1969–1992," University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2024. The citation:
In this timely, innovative, and thoughtfully structured dissertation, Shay Olmstead explores how trans workers harnessed both civil rights and disability law to confront antitrans employment discrimination in the United States from the late 1960s through the early 1990s. Olmstead spotlights the experiences of over thirty claimants who privileged narrow, individual legal action over collective, grassroots organizing and consciously worked to distinguish themselves from others in LGBTQ+ communities. These trans claimants petitioned elected officials, the courts, and various government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to define amorphous legal concepts such as “sex” and “disability,” albeit in “trans-exclusionary ways” that also authorized “the mistreatment of some gay, intersex, and gender-nonconforming cissexual workers.” Olmstead’s dissertation therefore recasts both queer labor and legal history while also intervening in the fields of disability history and studies. The dissertation ultimately offers a cautionary tale with profound implications for our present moment of rampant (legal and extralegal) discrimination.
Congratulations to Professor Olmstead!
-- Karen Tani
