Post Roe, How to Advance Women’s Rights, LGBTQ Rights

CUNY Graduate Center

Anne Valk, a specialist in women’s history and public history, joins The Thought Project for a Pride Month conversation that touches on the curtailing of LGBTQ rights and of women’s rights by the Supreme Court and state legislators. Valk is a professor of History and director of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the CUNY Graduate Center. As a public historian, Valk focuses on the ways history is preserved and presented to people through monuments, museums, libraries, and more. Also a noted oral historian, she has written about the history of second-wave feminism and of racial segregation in the U.S. Next month, the American Social History Project will host 30 middle and high school teachers for a National Endowment for the Humanities–funded institute on teaching LGBTQ history. Valk takes a long view of the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling, noting that, “Roe has been eroded almost immediately since it was decided.” She adds, “The only way that positive change has happened is because of people pushing for it at all different levels and in lots of different forms.” Valk also talks about LGBTQ rights and the importance of teaching of LGBTQ history in schools, touching on research showing its benefits in boosting students’ mental health and reducing bullying. Listen in for a timely conversation about women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and what the past reveals about both.