“I loved my history classes growing up, but my family wasn’t in them,” said Heidenreich, an associate professor of history at Washington State University.
The work started with an investigation into the life of Gwen Amber Rose Araujo, an American teenager who was murdered in Newark, California in 2002 by four men after they discovered that she was transgender.
“I was like okay; I’m a historian, so let’s go back.
One of the historical figures Heidenreich follows is Jack Bee Garland, a famous newspaper reporter and soldier who was assigned female at birth but lived as a male in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District around the turn of the century.
In the classroom, Heidenreich said the goal of their work is to give young people a broader perspective about the lives and history of LGBTQ people, an area of history which is integral to America’s past and present but is often marginalized.
As WSU prepares for a systemwide celebration of National First-Generation Day on Monday, Nov.