Wesley Phelps is an associate professor of history at the University of North Texas, where he teaches courses on recent US history and LGBTQ history. His research focuses on grassroots democracy and how marginalized groups of people have struggled to participate in the democratic experiment. He is the author of A People's War on Poverty: Urban Politics and Grassroots Activists in Houston (University of Georgia Press, 2014) and Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement (University of Texas Press, 2023). His work has also appeared in the Journal of Southern History and Peace and Change. For the LGBTQ Studies minor, he teaches HIST 3065: US LGBTQ History.

Research interests: queer history, grassroots democracy, social movements