I grew up in New Jersey and attended Rutgers University. In high school I engaged in civil rights work and antiwar activism. In 1969 I became involved in the Gay Liberation Movement and since then have worked as an activist and organizer with emphasis on writing, journalism, and publishing. I have been at Harvard, located in WGS, since 2011 where I teach courses on gender, sexuality, popular culture and politics. My Queer History of the United States won the American Library Association award for best Gay/Lesbian Non-Fiction in 2012. A Young Adult version of this book will be published September 2019. Since then I have published, with Kay Whitlock, Considering Hate: Violence, Goodness, and Justice in American Culture and Politics. I am just completing a four volume anthology for Bloomsbury Publishing (London) of the most significant essays of LGBTQ theory and history entitled "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History: Critical Readings" that will be published in June 2019. I am now beginning work on a new book The World Turned Upside Down: The Queerness of Children's Literature.