Margaret Louise Cruikshank (born 1940) is an American lesbian feminist writer and academic. She was one of the first American academics to be out during a time when gay rights were an unfamiliar concept. Cruikshank played a central role in establishing the importance of lesbian studies within both women's studies and the academy through the publication of her edited anthologies. Early life and education Margaret Louise Cruikshank was born in Duluth, Minnesota on April 26, 1940. Her parents are George Patrick Cruikshank and Louise Marie Wimmer. Cruikshank attended The College of St. Scholastica, obtaining her Bachelor of Arts in English in 1962. She says she started writing during her college years. In the early 1960s she came out as a lesbian within the Minneapolis lesbian-feminist community. She received her Ph.D in Victorian literature from Loyola University in 1969, writing her dissertation on Thomas B. Macaulay. During the 1970s, Cruikshank played an active role in the explosion of lesbian feminist politics and culture. Career In the early 1970s, Cruikshank taught English at several universities in the Midwest. From 1969-1970, she taught at Loyola University. Then, in 1970-72, at Central College. From 1974-75, she taught at St. John's University in Collegeville, MN. In 1975 she began teaching at Minnesota State University, establishing the first women's studies department at the university, serving as director. Upon her arrival at MSU she was closeted as a lesbian to the public, but by her leave in 1977, she was open to her colleagues. In 1977, Cruikshank moved to San Francisco. She says that being publicly out as a lesbian and moving to California in the mid-70s shaped her writing. Her first publication came in 1973, a book review in the Minneapolis Tribune. She began writing on lesbian topics in 1975, writing under her own name and various pseudonyms. She was published in a wide variety of publications like Gay Community News, Motheroot Journal, The Radical Teacher, Focus, Journal of Homosexuality and The Advocate. Upon moving to San Francisco, Cruikshank worked as resource director for the short-lived Gay National Educational Switchboard; an organization that provided information through a toll-free telephone number. In August 1980 she became head of a small program of the Continuing Education department at the University of San Francisco. She was fired five months after. From 1981-1988 she was an affiliate scholar at the Center for Research on Women at Stanford University. She then