Gender & Sexuality

Sub-Topics
Abortion
Abortion is defined as either a spontaneous early ending of a pregnancy (a.k.a. miscarriage) or an induced ear...
Act 346 of 2021
Act 346 of 2021, titled “An Act to Prohibit the Performance of a Pelvic Examination on an Unconscious or Ane...
Act 626 of 2021
aka: Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act
aka: HB 1570
Act 626 of 2021 was the first ever bill passed in the United State...
Dorathy N. McDonald Allen (1910–1990)
Dorathy N. McDonald Allen was the first woman to serve in the Arkansas Senate, serving from 1964 to 1974 in th...
American Association of University Women (AAUW)
With its national headquarters in Washington DC, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) is a nonp...
Katharine Susan Anthony (1877–1965)
Katharine Susan Anthony was suffragist, feminist, pacifist, socialist, and author of feminist and psychologica...
Arkansas Association of Colored Women
aka: Arkansas Association of Colored Women’s and Girls Federated Clubs, Inc.
aka: Arkansas Association of Women’s Clubs, Inc.
aka: Arkansas Association of Women, Youth, and Young Adults Clubs, Inc.
The Arkansas Association of Colored Women (AACW) was organized in 1...
Arkansas Married Woman's Property Law
Under the common law that prevailed in all American jurisdictions except Louisiana, once a woman married, all ...
Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA)
aka: Arkansas Equal Suffrage Central Committee (AESCC)
aka: State Woman's Suffragist Association
The post–Civil War era saw the beginnings of major social change ...
Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame
The Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame supports the accomplishments and achievements of Arkansas women through an...
Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching
In 1930, Texas suffragist and civil rights activist Jessie Daniel Ames and a group of white women in the South...
Birth Control Movement
aka: Family Planning Movement
In Arkansas, early marriage and the need for farm labor had long en...
Ruth Coker Burks (1959–)
Ruth Burks is an Arkansas woman who, in the midst of the 1980s AIDS epidemic, provided support for dozens of m...
Hattie Caraway (1878–1950)
Hattie Ophelia Wyatt Caraway was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate, the first woman to preside over t...
Chesser and Holly Marriage Case of 1888
On May 10, 1888, James Chesser purchased a marriage license for himself and Georgeanna Holly from the Sebastia...
Clergy Sexual Abuse
Since 2002, when the public became widely aware of sexual abuse of minors by clergy members, an international ...
Hilda Cornish (1878–1965)
aka: Brunhilde Kahlert Cornish
Brunhilde Kahlert Cornish was the founder of the Arkansas birth con...
Florence Lee Brown Cotnam (1865–1932)
Florence Lee Brown Cotnam was a leader in the women’s suffrage movement in Arkansas, representing the state ...
Alice Sankey Ellington (1880–1970)
Alice Sankey Ellington was a leader in the women’s suffrage movement in Arkansas, an officer of the Southern...
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would guarantee equal r...
Fayetteville Female Seminary
One of the most influential institutions in early Arkansas was the Fayetteville Female Seminary in Fayettevil...
Eliza A. (Lizzie) Dorman Fyler (1850–1885)
Lizzie Dorman Fyler was an activist in Arkansas in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Although she die...
Gay and Lesbian Students Association v. Gohn
Gay and Lesbian Students Association v. Gohn was a 1988 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth C...
Jean Gordon (1926–2024)
Jean Thomas Gordon devoted her long life to education, social justice, women’s rights, environmental protect...
Major Griffin-Gracy (1940s?–)
aka: Miss Major
Major Griffin-Gracy, or Miss Major as she is commonly known, is a t...
Nancy Johnson Hall (1904–1991)
Nancy Pearl Johnson Hall was the first woman to be elected to a constitutional office in Arkansas. A staff mem...
Frances Marion Harrow Hanger (1856–1945)
Frances Marion Harrow Hanger was a clubwoman, civic volunteer, and writer who was central to the cultural and ...
E. Lynn Harris (1955–2009)
aka: Everette Lynn Harris
Everette Lynn Harris was a bestselling author of novels about Afric...
Hopkins v. Jegley
Hopkins v. Jegley is an ongoing legal challenge to four abortion restrictions passed by the Arkansas state leg...
Ralph Allen Hyman (1951–)
Ralph Allen Hyman, an activist on behalf of LGBTQ+ rights, as well as for those with AIDS, was the first openl...
Intrastate Commerce Improvement Act
aka: Act 137 of 2015
In response to the 2014 passage of a broad antidiscrimination ordin...
Jegley v. Picado
Larry Jegley v. Elena Picado, et al. was a 2002 decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court that struck down Arkans...