Season 2 Episode 3: Sherri

Sexing History by Gillian Frank & Lauren Gutterman

Feb 25, 201949:01Society & Culture

In August of 1962, Sherri Chessen boarded a flight to Sweden in order to get an abortion after she was unable to obtain one in the United States. Sherri had accidentally taken medicine containing thalidomide, a drug that...

Related Episodes

Continue listening to more episodes from Sexing History.

Season 4, Episode 2: Topless Roanoke

Jan 6, 2023

In the 1960s, Papa Joe’s in Roanoke, Virginia, became the very first club in the state and among the earl...

Season 4, Episode 1: A Sacred Calling

Dec 20, 2022

For nearly half a century, Curtis Boyd and Glenna Halverson Boyd have devoted their lives to providing sa...

Season 3, Episode 4: Come All Ye Faithful

Dec 22, 2020

In this episode, we’ll be taking a cue from Santa Claus and sketching a naughty and nice history of festi...

Season 3, Episode 3: The Stained Glass Closet

Dec 2, 2020

How do you come out in a religious community that loves you conditionally? What do you tell yourself abou...

Season 3, Episode 2: The Pickup Artist

Jul 25, 2020

Straight white men’s sexuality is too often imagined as natural, timeless, and unchanging. In “The Pickup...

Season 3, Episode 1: Love and Labor

May 21, 2020

The story of African American midwifery is part of a larger history of Black women’s struggles to protect...

Season 2, Bonus Episode 2: Marabel Morgan

Nov 21, 2019 - 00:63:03

Welcome to a bonus track from Sexing History. This track features an extended version of Gillian Frank’s...

Season 2, Episode 6: Against Our Will

Nov 15, 2019 - 41:40

In the 1960s and early 1970s many Americans believed that rape was a rare and violent act perpetrated by...