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Verta Taylor
Verta Taylor was born in 1948 in Jonesboro, Arkansas in the United States. She grew up during the Civil Rights Movement in 1954.

This context did not go unnoticed by Taylor and the overt racism was one of the major reasons why she decided to leave the South. Nevertheless, due to her financial situation and the health problems of her father, she couldn't go to college farther than Indiana State University. There, she began to develop as a social activist. During this period, she became very involved with the antiwar and black student movement, despite the fact that she had white skin.

She is now a Professor of Sociology and Affiliated Professor of Feminist Studies. She won the Sociologist For Women in Society’s Mentoring Award. Her research focuses on social movements, gender, and sexuality.

Some of her books include Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret with Leila J. Rupp in 2003, which resulted winner of the 2005 Outstanding book award from the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) Sex and Gender section; The Marrying Kind:  Debating Same-Sex Marriage within the Lesbian and Gay Movement in 2013, and the Oxford Handbook of U. S. Women’s Social Movement Activism recently in 2017. She has published over 100 articles and chapters on women’s movements, the gay and lesbian movement, social movement theory, feminist methods, drag queens, same-sex marriage, and sexual fluidity. Currently, she’s co-authored with her partner Leila Rupp.

Social Movements in Abeyance
She uses the term “abeyance” from Mizruchi, from the theory of social control. The abeyance structures emerge when there’s a lack of status vacancies in society to integrate surpluses of marginal and dissident people. In this context, these structures have the possibility to attract the dissidence, which are considered to be the potential challengers of order and status quo.

According to Taylor, the organization of such abeyance movements contributes to social change, as they provide a space of continuity for those groups. The particularity of these types of movements is that they succeed in building a support base, but are confronted with a non-receptive political and social environment.