THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Minnie Bruce Pratt
September 12, 1946 – July 2, 2023
“Here I am, assigned female sex on my birth certificate, but not considered womanly enough – because I am a lesbian – to retain custody of the children I delivered from my woman’s body.” – Minnie Bruce Pratt, S/He
Poet, educator, LGBTQ+ activist and essayist. Wrote extensively on race, class, gender and sexual theory. Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies, Syracuse University. Helped develop the university’s first LGBT studies program. Helped to found WomanWrites, a Southeastern lesbian writers conference, 1977. Co-founder, LIPS; a Washington, D.C. lesbian affinity group, 1984. Member, editorial collective, Feminary: A Feminist Journal for the South, Emphasizing Lesbian Visions; founded Night Heron Press, 1978. B.A., University of Alabama, 1968. Ph.D., English Literature, University of North Carolina, 1979.
Photo 1. Minnie Bruce Pratt and Leslie Feinberg, Camp Trans, Michigan, 1994. Photo 2. Leslie Feinberg and Minnie Bruce Pratt, June 7, 2003 (Photo by Marilyn Humphries).
More About Minnie:
- Minnie Bruce Pratt website
- Obituary, The New York Times
- When We Say We Love Each Other: Loving the Life and Work of Minnie Bruce Pratt, September 12, 1946 – July 2, 2023, by Julie R. Enszer, Lambda Literary Review
- Minnie Bruce Pratt, Poetry Foundation
- About Minnie Bruce Pratt, Academy of American Poets
- Books by Minnie Bruce Pratt
- An Interview with Minnie Bruce Pratt on the Occasion of Magnified, Her Latest Poetry Collection
- Voices of Feminism: Minnie Bruce Pratt, Sophia Smith Collection
- A Conversation with activist and writer Minnie Bruce Pratt. August 5, 2021
- Celebrating Minnie Bruce Pratt’s New Poetry Collection, Magnified, Poets & Writers
- Minnie Bruce Pratt papers, Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library at Duke University
- Cited in Barbara Love’s Book, Feminists Who Changed America, 1963 – 1975, page 367