Julia Penelope
| Julia Penelope | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Julia Penelope Stanley June 19, 1941 Miami, Florida |
| Died | January 19, 2013 (aged 71) |
| Nationality | United States |
| Occupation | American author, linguist, academic, philosopher; LGBT and feminist activist |
Julia Penelope (June 19, 1941 – January 19, 2013) was an American linguist, author, and philosopher. She was part of an international movement of critical thinkers on lesbian and feminist issues.
Julia Penelope Stanley was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida to Frederick William Stanley and his wife, Frances.
A self-described “white, working-class, fat butch dyke who never passed,” she started what she called “rabble rousing” early. In 1959, she was asked to leave Florida State University in Tallahassee because of her lesbianism. She transferred to the University of Miami, where, eight weeks later, investigations of the Charlie Johns Investigating Committee on Communism and Homosexuality led to her expulsion on the grounds of suspected lesbianism. She went on to receive a BA in English and linguistics from City College of New York in 1966, leaving immediately for graduate work at the University of Texas. Having completed her courses for a doctorate in English Linguistics, she moved to Athens, Georgia in 1968, for her first teaching position.
In 1971, she was awarded her doctoral degree and went on to teach for eleven years at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where she was reportedly passed over for promotions because her research on lesbians was deemed "too narrow".
An activist and an organizer, Penelope attended the first conference of the Gay Academic Union in 1973 at the City College of New York. She was a delegate to the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977, and she participated in the planning meetings that led to the founding of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. She founded several activist groups, including the "Lincoln Legion of Lesbians" and "Lesbians for Lesbians." She was also one of the first scholars to teach women's studies courses, including Twentieth-Century Lesbian Novels and Feminist Literary Criticism.
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