Jan Gay

[1] She is known for her pioneering research on the realities of gays and lesbians in 1930s Europe and the US, conducted as part of the Committee for the Study of Sex Variants.

[3] Her story gained prominence after the publication of the investigative novel Blackouts (2023) by Justin Torres, the winner of the 2024 National Book Award.

[7] It was also around this time that she met Eleanor Byrnes (her partner of many years who later changed her name to Zhenya Gay), and together the two wrote and published a set of children’s books called The Shire Colt.

[9] His work exploring and studying homosexual cases without the commonly held disdain for it could have intrigued Gay and influenced her choice to collaborate with him.

[4] He not only agreed to launch a "large-scale medical investigation of homosexuality", therefore certifying Gay's work for publishing, but also gave her money to start it.

[4] In the process of recruiting members for the committee, psychiatrist George W. Henry was eventually assigned as Gay's research director.

[4] The interviews included questions about participants’ personal lives, work experiences, sexual habits, and perspectives on homosexuality.

[4] The participants' narratives revealed shared experiences and struggles with being gay which were previously hidden in the medical field.

"[4] In addition to interviews, Henry also conducted medical examinations on the participants to assess their physical masculine and feminine traits.

Blackouts tells the story of an older man named Juan Gay who discovers a copy of Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns.

Distressed that Jan Gay's contributions to the study have been largely sidelined, Juan enlists an unnamed narrator to complete her work.

Torres's novel acknowledges and attempts to correct how Gay's work has long been erased from modern understandings of queer history.