Karen M. Pack is a lecturer in History at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney. Her research examines the intersections of gender, faith, and sexuality.
“Queer Omissions introduces two largely-forgotten Protestant women whose faith led them into public, activist roles that profoundly affected national and international affairs, but flouted church and societal expectations. It asks why these women, household names in their day, have been lost from the history books. And it connects their stories to those of single and gender-non-conforming women in Evangelical and Pentecostal churches today. Queer omissions indeed!” Marion Maddox, PhD, PhD, FAHA Honorary Professor of Politics, Macquarie University, widely-published on religion and politics, including the ground-breaking God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics (2005) “By authentically offering her own positionality alongside the history she is meticulously uncovering, Pack demonstrates poignantly how Protestant Church history has too often been hindered by patriarchal, heteronormative impulses that hamper engagement with marginalised voices. These impulses serve, as Dr Pack argues, to erase key voices from the narrative. Such erasure inevitably echoes into present realities, shaping current discourse and perpetuating vilification and marginalisation of minorities within faith communities. Every Church leader and historian seeking to understand the how and why of centring marginalised voices should read this significant and timely book.” Dr Joel Hollier Author of Religious Trauma, Queer Identities: Mapping the Complexities of Being LGBTQA+ in Evangelical Churches (2023)