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Will Roscoe

Will Roscoe is an American activist, scholar, and author based in San Francisco, California.

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Will Roscoe
Born (1955-02-08) February 8, 1955
United States
OccupationsActivist, scholar, author

Will Roscoe (February 8, 1955) is an American activist, scholar, and author based in San Francisco, California.

Early life

Will Roscoe was born on February 8, 1955. He grew up in Missoula, Montana.1

Gay activism

Roscoe helped found the Lambda Alliance at the University of Montana, that state's first LGBT organization in 1975.2 He served as an intern at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in 1976, and the following year he formed the Oregon Gay Alliance, a statewide coalition of LGBT groups.3

After relocating to San Francisco in 1978, he organized a successful campaign to obtain United Way membership for the Pacific Center for Human Growth in Berkeley, the first LGBT social service agency in the nation to receive that status. He subsequently worked with Harvey Milk in the "No on 6" campaign against the Briggs Initiative. After attending the first Radical Faerie gathering in Arizona in 1979, he became colleagues with Harry Hay, co-founding Nomenus, which operates an LGBT retreat center in southern Oregon.4 In 1995 he edited and published a selection of writings by Hay, who was also a foundational figure of the gay men's liberation movement. Roscoe also worked closely with the group Gay American Indians (GAI) on issues around the meaning of the term "berdache".5

Career as a writer

Roscoe was awarded the Margaret Mead Award for his first book, The Zuni Man-Woman;6 it also won the Lambda Literary Award for gay men's nonfiction.7

In 2003, he received a Monette-Horwitz Achievement Award for research and scholarship combating homophobia.8

His book Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love received a Lambda Literary Award in 2005.9

Selected publications

Books
  • Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love. San Francisco: Suspect Thoughts Press, 2004.1011
  • Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America. Palgrave/St. Martin's Press, 1998.1213
  • Queer Spirits: A Gay Men's Myth Book. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.1415
  • The Zuni Man-Woman. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991.1617
Edited volumes
References

References

  1. "Will Roscoe | Biography | Research Starters | EBSCO Research". EBSCO. Retrieved 2026-07-02.
  2. Gender Historian Documents Lambda.
  3. "Who is Will Roscoe? Career and Writings Overview". Will Roscoe Queer History Culture Politics. Retrieved 2026-07-02.
  4. Hay, Harry (1997), Roscoe, Will (ed.), Radically Gay, Beacon Press, p. 362, ISBN 0-8070-7081-5
  5. "Will Roscoe papers and Gay American Indians records". www.oac.cdlib.org. Retrieved 2016-05-05.
  6. "Margaret Mead Award Recipients". www.sfaa.net. Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA). Archived from the original on 2018-09-17. Retrieved 2017-03-12.
  7. Team, Edit (14 July 1992). "4th Annual Lambda Literary Awards". Lambda Literary.
  8. "The Awardees of the Monette-Horwitz Trust". www.monettehorwitz.org. Monette-Horwitz Trust.
  9. Cerna, Antonio Gonzalez (9 July 2005). "17th Annual Lambda Literary Awards". Lambda Literary.
  10. Roscoe, Will (2004-12-16). Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love. Suspect Thoughts Press. ISBN 978-0-9746388-3-6.
  11. "Jesus And The Shamanic Tradition Of Same-Sex Love - Will Roscoe: 9780974638836 - AbeBooks". www.abebooks.com. Retrieved 2026-07-02.
  12. Changing Ones.
  13. Roscoe, Will (2000). Changing ones : third and fourth genders in Native North America. Internet Archive. New York, N.Y. : St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 978-0-312-22479-0.
  14. Roscoe, Will (1995). Queer spirits : a gay men's myth book. Internet Archive. Boston : Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-7938-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  15. Roscoe, Will (May 1995). Queer Spirits: A Gay Men's Myth Book. Beacon Press.
  16. Roscoe, Will (1991). The Zuni man-woman. Internet Archive. Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0-8263-1253-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  17. "The Zuni Man-Woman". University of New Mexico Press. Retrieved 2026-07-02.
  18. Murray, Stephen O. (1997). Islamic homosexualities : culture, history, and literature. Internet Archive. New York : New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-7467-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  19. Murray, Stephen O.; Roscoe, Will; Allyn, Eric; Crompton, Louis; Dickemann, Mildred; Khan, Badruddin; Mujtaba, Hasan; Naqvi, Nauman; Wafer, Jim (1997). Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-7468-7.
  20. Hay, Harry.; Roscoe, Will. (1996). Radically gay: gay liberation in the words of its founder. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-7080-2.
  21. Hay, Harry (1996). Radically gay : gay liberation in the words of its founder. Internet Archive. Boston : Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-7080-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  22. Living the spirit : a gay American Indian anthology. Internet Archive. New York : St. Martin's Press. 1988. ISBN 978-0-312-01899-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  23. "Living the spirit: a gay American Indian anthology / compiled by Gay American Indians; Will Roscoe, coordinating editor". search.library.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2026-07-03.
  • Roscoe, Will. (2006, October 8). "Unsolved Mystery," Montana Standard, C1-2. Reprinted as "1917 Union Lynching Still Casts Pall in Butte," Helena Independent Record, October 15, 2006.
  • Mass, Lawrence D. (1990). "On the Future of Lesbian and Gay Studies: A Dialogue with Will Roscoe." In Homosexuality as Behavior and Identity: Vol. 2, Dialogues of the Sexual Revolution, 234-52. New York: Haworth Press, 1990.
External links