Hugh Ryan is a historian and non-fiction writer focusing on the

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

history of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He wrote ''The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison'' and ''When Brooklyn Was Queer.'' ''The Women's House of Detention'' focuses on the queer women and transmasculine people who were systematically imprisoned in the New York City institution. The book won the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...

's 2023 Stonewall Book Award for nonfiction and

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

called it "a vital contribution to LGBTQ history."

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

called it a "blistering critique of the country’s ‘criminal legal system’.” ''When Brooklyn Was Queer'' focuses on the LGBT history of the borough's waterfront. The book was a 2019

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Editor's Choice and one of

Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...

's Best LGBTQ books of 2019. It was a finalist for the 2020

Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction The Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation, that awards LGBT-themed nonfiction books whose intended audience is "general readers, as opposed to those targeted primarily to scho ...

References

21st-century American non-fiction writers Historians of LGBT topics American LGBT historians Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers {{US-historian-stub