Image
Outside of the Stonewall Inn in New York City, September 1969.

The Stonewall Inn, taken September 1969. The sign in the window reads: “We homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the Village.—Mattachine.”

Visit 50th Anniversary of Stonewall page to learn more.

The David Kirp 1965 Stonewall Prize Fund was established in 1989 and is awarded to one or two students who produce a work of exceptional intellectual or artistic merit pertaining to the queer, bisexual, intersex, gay, lesbian, or transgender experience.

Submissions may take a number of forms including academic essays and creative works, such as poetry, fiction, drama, videos, films, art projects, photography and performance art. A 5-page written analysis of the project's goals, significance, and contributions must accompany creative work. Submissions may be created as part of a classroom assignment or honors project, or they may be original for this competition.

Submission deadline: Monday, April 15, 2024 
 

Please email your submission to the Sexuality, Women's and Gender Studies Department (swags@amherst.edu). If your submission cannot be sent electronically, please contact the SWAGS Department to discuss how to submit.


Past Winners Include

2023: Andres Valenzuela '23 ["Queer Identity Development among Latine Students in Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Amherst College and John Jay College of Criminal Justice"]

2022: Kayla McKeon '22 ["A Problematic Provocation: The role of gender identity on assessments of guilt and criminal culpability in a mock jury decision-making paradigm"] and Lisa Zheutlin '22 ["The Anti-Monogamy Framework: Reimagining Relationality"]

2021: Luke Williamson '21 [“Good Morality is Good Medicine”: Queer Negativity, Ecstasy, and Shame in The Picture of Dorian Gray]

2020: Isabel Meyers '20 ["Something Else You Should Know"] and Theo Peierls '20E ["'Transing' Jewish Gender Roles: The Potentials of Emasculation and Deviance"]

2019: Marvin Bell '19E ["Forgotten, But Not Gone: The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Jackson, Mississippi"]

2018: Shantanu Havaldar '18 [“Favourites” of Fallen Kings: Eunuchs and the Colonial Transition in Northern India, 1556-1856]

2017: Amir Hall '17 ["Who Love You?"]

2016: Robert Neel '16 ["Stretching Hearts: Understanding Sexuality Politics and Institutional Homophobia in the Anglo‐Caribbean"]

2015: Theophilus  Agbi '15 ["MSM and its subversion of the Gay Identity"], Amira Lundy-Harris '16 ["Not To Her Shame But To Theirs: The Policing of Black Feminine Identity in Community"]

2014: Yasmina Martin '14 ["For God, For Volk, and For Self: Deconstructing White Masculinity in South African Literature"]

2013: Dexter Padayachee '13 ["The Question of Homosexual Marriage"] 

2012: Lilia Kilburn '12 ["'Trying to Be a Woman in This World': Revisiting Feminist Responses to Transgender Body Modification"] 

2011: Rachel Tuchman '11 ["You Are Not Real: The Regulation of Transgender Bodies Within Law"] 

2010: Joseph Smeall '10 ["Ask Me a Question"] 

2009: Tierra Aubrianna Allen '09 ["Stop Kiss"], Charles Bradley Tanenbaum '09

2008: Lenore Angela Bell '08, Kathleen Kinlan Boucher '08

2007: Jennifer Drew Cotton '07 ["'Dyke'-otomoy: Individual, Community, and the Twofold Process of Coming Out"] 

2006: Max Rosen '07 ["Spy Game"]

2005: Kate Stayman-London '05 ["Dias de la Gracia (Days of Grace)"]

2004: Vanessa Eve Hettinger '04 ["Effects of Heterosexism and Gender Stereotyping in Constructive Memory"], Sophia Rochmes '04 ["Kara Walker's Silhouette Dramas"]

2003: Christian Miller '03 ["Bawds, Mollies, and Onanists: Popular Depictions of Sexual Deviance in England, 1680-1730"]

2002: Eric Thalasinos '02 ["Gay History of Amherst College"]

2001: David Azoulay '01 ["The Remaking"]