Public Faces, Secret Lives : A Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement

**Restores queer suffragists to their rightful place in the history of the struggle for women’s right to vote** The women’s suffrage movement, much like many other civil rights movements, has an important and often unrecognized queer history. In __Public Faces, Secret Lives__ Wendy L. Rouse reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the suffrage movement included a variety of individuals who represented a range of genders and sexualities. However, owing to the constant pressure to present a “respectable” public image, suffrage leaders publicly conformed to gendered views of ideal womanhood in order to make women’s suffrage more palatable to the public. Rouse argues that queer suffragists did take meaningful action to assert their identities and legacies by challenging traditional concepts of domesticity, family, space, and death in both subtly subversive and radically transformative ways. Queer suffragists also built lasting alliances and developed innovative strategies in order to protect their most intimate relationships, ones that were ultimately crucial to the success of the suffrage movement. __Public Faces, Secret Lives__ is the first work to truly recenter queer figures in the women’s suffrage movement, highlighting their immense contributions as well as their numerous sacrifices. "Over one hundred years ago, women organized to fight for a federal suffrage amendment. But many suffragists were fighting for much more than the vote. The suffrage movement included individuals who represented a wide range of genders and sexualities. It also included a variety of queer relationships. But, suffrage leaders concerned with presenting a respectable public image concealed the queerness of the suffrage movement. This resulted in greater policing of suffragist behavior as suffrage leaders, many of them queer themselves, publicly conformed to gendered views of acceptable appearance and behavior. The problematic effect was to erase the queer history of the movement. Instead suffrage leaders reinforced a patriarchal, heteronormative, cisgender standard of ideal femininity in order to make suffragists and women's suffrage more palatable to the public. The legacy of queer suffragists, however, could not be so easily erased. This book explores how queer women led the suffrage movement while challenging heteronormative concepts of domesticity, family, space, and death in both subtly subversive and radically transformative ways. This book also highlights the alliances that queer suffragists built and the innovative strategies they developed to protect and preserve their most intimate relationships - relationships that were ultimately crucial to the success of the suffrage movement" -- Provided by publisher Honorable Mention for the 2023 Francis Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize 2023 Judy Grahn Award-Publishing Triangle Finalist Restores queer suffragists to their rightful place in the history of the struggle for women's right to vote The women's suffrage movement, much like many other civil rights movements, has an important and often unrecognized queer history. In Public Faces, Secret Lives Wendy L. Rouse reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the suffrage movement included a variety of individuals who represented a range of genders and sexualities. However, owing to the constant pressure to present a "respectable" public image, suffrage leaders publicly conformed to gendered views of ideal womanhood in order to make women's suffrage more palatable to the public. Rouse argues that queer suffragists did take meaningful action to assert their identities and legacies by challenging traditional concepts of domesticity, family, space, and death in both subtly subversive and radically transformative ways. Queer suffragists also built lasting alliances and developed innovative strategies in order to protect their most intimate relationships, ones that were ultimately crucial to the success of the suffrage movement. Public Faces, Secret Lives is the first work to truly recenter queer figures in the women's suffrage movement, highlighting their immense contributions as well as their numerous sacrifices. The women's suffrage movement, much like many other civil rights movements, has an important and often unrecognized queer history. In Public Faces, Secret Lives Wendy L. Rouse reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the suffrage movement included a variety of individuals who represented a range of genders and sexualities. However, owing to the constant pressure to present a "respectable" public image, suffrage leaders publicly conformed to gendered views of ideal womanhood in order to make women's suffrage more palatable to the public.00Rouse argues that queer suffragists did take meaningful action to assert their identities and legacies by challenging traditional concepts of domesticity, family, space, and death in both subtly subversive and radically transformative ways. Queer suffragists also built lasting alliances and developed innovative strategies in order to protect their most intimate relationships, ones that were ultimately crucial to the success of the suffrage movement. Public Faces, Secret Lives is the first work to truly recenter queer figures in the women's suffrage movement, highlighting their immense contributions as well as their numerous sacrifices