Urania (journal)

Urania was a privately circulated feminist gender studies journal, published between 1916 and 1940. Editors included Eva Gore-Booth, Esther Roper, Irene Clyde, Dorothy Cornish, and Jessey Wade. It was published bimonthly from 1916 to 1920, then triannually due to high costs.

Background
Many of the editors of the journal were connected through the Aëthnic Union, a short-lived feminist revolutionary group formed in 1911.

History
Urania's intention was to challenge gender stereotypes and advance the abolishment of the gender binary. each issue was headed with the statement: "There are no 'men' or 'women' in Urania." "Sex is an accident" was a term frequently used in the journal.

It was privately published by D. R. Mitra, Manoranjan Press, Bombay.

The journal remained private for its 24-year history; a distributors' note at the end of each edition stated "Urania is not published, nor offered to the public, but [...] can be had by friends." Urania's editors deliberately fostered an informal network of supporters and sympathisers, encouraging readers to send in their names to a register. The journal claimed to have a circulation of around 250 and was distributed free of charge. University college libraries in Oxford, Cambridge, and America stocked Urania, although some Oxford women’s colleges banned the publication.

Content
Amongst other content, the journal published articles about feminist movements around the world and compiled information about successful gender-reassignment surgeries.

Legacy
The Women's Library at the London School of Economics digitised the run of Urania from 1919 to 1940 and published it online in 2023.