Hugh Ryan

Hugh Ryan is an American historian and non-fiction writer focusing on the LGBT history of New York City. He wrote The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison and When Brooklyn Was Queer.

The Women's House of Detention focuses on the queer women and transmasculine people who were systematically imprisoned in the New York City institution. The book won the American Library Association's 2023 Stonewall Book Award for nonfiction and Publishers Weekly called it "a vital contribution to LGBTQ history." Kirkus Reviews called it a "blistering critique of the country’s ‘criminal legal system’.”

When Brooklyn Was Queer focuses on the LGBT history of the borough's waterfront. The book was a 2019 New York Times Editor's Choice and one of Harper's Bazaar's Best LGBTQ books of 2019. It was a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction.