Joanna Wuest Wins Prestigious American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship

Joanna Wuest, an assistant professor in the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS), has received an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellowship to work on her next book project, After Equality: American Capitalism and the Crisis of LGBTQ Liberalism.

Wuest was among a group of awardees selected from a pool of more than 2,000 applicants through a multi-stage peer review process and representing a broad range of institutions, fields and career stages.

"I'm incredibly grateful to have been awarded this fellowship, because it's going to give me the time and resources to write my second book project," said Wuest, a political scientist who researches sexuality and gender politics and law, ideology and political economy.

She first started researching business power and LGBTQ politics in 2021. Her first book, Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement (University of Chicago Press, 2023) explores how scientific and medical experts were used to fight for trans rights.

"I was watching some of these fights unfold from a very different perspective," she said. "But along the way I saw that there was corporate activism in those same fights. So I started to reorient my focus to try to understand why businesses get involved at all."

She began researching how business power has shaped LGBTQ rights, especially since the marriage equality decision in 2015.

"I'm very interested in, for example, why corporations boycotted states like North Carolina when they introduced a pioneering anti-trans bathroom law," said Wuest. "And then how we came to this place today where it's flipped and some of those same corporations are being sued by the Trump administration and shareholders for engaging in what they call 'LGBTQ activism.'"

Wuest cites an example from 2016 when then-governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, refused to sign a variety of anti-trans bills because of business pressure.

"We saw politicians from the furthest right wing of the Republican Party totally cowed by business pressure," said Wuest. "Things started to change around 2021 and that's when I really started paying attention, because I wanted to understand what led to that massive surge in support, and then why it all seemed to crumble."

Wuest said that many corporations get involved on either side of these fights as a perceived value proposition for their corporation. Depending on the political winds, that can mean either supporting or shunning the LGBTQ+ community.

"The Trump administration is investigating many of these corporations for their DEI and hiring policies that touch on LGBTQ rights issues, and some of these corporations have incurred conservative boycotts which can undercut their value," said Wuest. "I think that's why these corporations can be very quick to pick up their support for trans rights and then very quick to abandon that support for trans rights when it becomes a cost instead of a benefit."

Wuest has also been awarded a 2026-2027 Louisville Institute Research Grant that will enable her to conduct research on the book and present her work in progress.

"Congratulations to Assistant Professor Joanna Wuest on receiving the highly prestigious ACLS Fellowship and for bravely taking on one of the most important issues of our time in After Equality: American Capitalism and the Crisis of LGBTQ Liberalism," said David Wrobel, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "This honor comes at a pivotal moment when recognition of research in the humanities and social sciences is more important than ever."

"I'm so pleased to see Joanna receive this fellowship to support her scholarship," added Stony Brook executive vice president and provost Carl Lejuez. "Joanna's research explores the intersections of sexuality and gender politics with law, ideology and political economy, and helps us better understand how these communities experience society and politics. This recognition is a testament to the impact of her work, and further underscores the critical scholarship that takes place broadly across our faculty in arts, humanities and social science fields."

Victoria Hesford, associate professor and chair of the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, called out the influence of Wuest's work and her contributions to WGSS.

"Joanna's first book is already a highly influential and cited study of U.S. LGBTQ+ movements, medicine and law, and her next project, After Equality: The Crisis of LGBTQ+ Liberalism and American Capitalism, promises to be just as impactful, as the awarding of her prestigious fellowships attests," said Hesford. "She is also a wonderful colleague, a generous and supportive mentor to our Ph.D. students, and a great teacher. WGSS is immensely proud and we are very fortunate to call her a colleague."

The ACLS Fellowship Program stands as its longest-running program, recognizing outstanding scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. In 2026, the program awarded more than $3.5 million to 63 scholars who are working to make original and significant contributions to their field.

During the fellowship period, Wuest will also be a Mid-Career Fellow at the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the University at Buffalo School of Law in the spring of 2027, where she'll be working with other socio-legal study scholars who are examining similar legal issues and corporate politics.

"This is a huge honor and I feel incredibly lucky, especially knowing how difficult it is for so many scholars to get funding to study LGBTQ rights issues right now," she said. "This Fellowship will allow me to write and publish my second book, and will let me bring that information to the classes that I teach on sexuality and gender politics in the law here at Stony Brook."

- Robert Emproto