Urania was a privately circulated feminist journal published from 1916 to 1940. Its editors included Eva Gore-Booth, Esther Roper, Irene Clyde, Dorothy Cornish and Jessey Wade. The journal was published bimonthly from 1916 to 1920 and later three times a year because of printing costs. It opposed fixed gender categories and printed material on feminism, same-sex relationships, sex reform and gender variance.
Background Several of the journal's editors were connected with the Aethnic Union, a radical feminist group formed in 1911.
History Urania argued against gender stereotypes and the gender binary. Each issue carried the statement, "There are no 'men' or 'women' in Urania." The phrase "sex is an accident" was also used in the journal.
The journal was printed privately by D. R. Mitra at the Manoranjan Press in Bombay. It was not sold publicly. A distributors' note at the end of each issue stated that "Urania is not published, nor offered to the public, but [...] can be had by friends." Alison Oram states that the editors developed an informal network of readers and asked supporters to add their names to a register.
Urania reported a circulation of about 250 and was distributed without charge. It was held by university college libraries in Oxford, Cambridge and the United States, although some Oxford women's colleges banned it.
Content The journal printed material on feminist movements in different countries and collected reports on gender-affirming surgeries.
Digitisation The Women's Library at the London School of Economics digitised issues of Urania from 1919 to 1940 and made them available through the LSE Digital Library in 2023.
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Further reading
External links Urania No. 13 (1919) to No. 142 (1940) at the LSE Digital Library