organization based in San Francisco that existed from 1978 to 1983, and was the first lesbian BDSM group in the United States. In 1984 Rubin cofounded The Outcasts, a social and educational organization for women interested in BDSM with other women, also based in San Francisco. That organization was disbanded in the mid-1990s; its successor organization The Exiles is still active. In 2012, The Exiles in San Francisco received the Small Club of the Year award as part of the Pantheon of Leather Awards. In the field of public history, Rubin was a member of the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project, a private study group founded in 1978 whose members included Allan Berube, Estelle Freedman and Amber Hollibaugh. Rubin also was a founding member of the GLBT Historical Society (originally known as the San Francisco Bay Area Gay and Lesbian Historical Society), established in 1985. Arguing the need for well-maintained historical archives for sexual minorities, Rubin has written that "queer life is full of examples of fabulous explosions that left little or no detectable trace.... Those who fail to secure the transmission of their histories are doomed to forget them". She became the first woman to judge a major national gay male leather title contest in 1991, when she judged the Mr. Drummer contest. This contest was associated with Drummer magazine, which was based in San Francisco. The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley consists of four works of art along Ringold Alley honoring the leather subculture; it opened in 2017. One of the works of art is a black granite stone etched with, among other things, a narrative by Rubin. Rubin was an important member of the community advisory group that was consulted to develop the designs of the works of art. Academic career In 1994, Rubin completed her Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Michigan with a dissertation entitled The valley of kings: Leathermen in San Francisco, 1960–1990. In addition to her appointment at the University of Michigan, she was the 2014 F. O. Matthiessen Visiting Professor of Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University. Rubin serves on the editorial board of the journal Feminist Encounters and on the international advisory board of the feminist journal Signs. Other Rubin is a sex-positive feminist. The 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality is often credited as the moment that signaled the beginning of the feminist sex wars;