Campus
- Downtown Toronto (St. George)
Fields of Study
- Canada
- Gender, Sex, and Sexualities
- Social
- United States
Biography
Aino Pihlak is a SSHRC-funded PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, and social historian of trans femininity. She is a historian of twentieth-century, Anglophone trans feminine subcultures, erotica, and sex-work. Her award-winning work can be found in the Journal of the History of Sexuality, Xtra, Gender & History, Intersections, The Abusable Past, and Sexualities. Her accolades include being shortlisted for the 2026 Lambada Literary Award in ‘LGBTQ+ Anthology,’ and the University of Victoria’s 2024 Gold Medal for Outstanding Master’s Thesis. She is a 2026-2027 William P. Heidrich Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Michigan, and 2024-2026 Graduate Student Representative for the Canadian Historical Association.
Aino is currently completing a dissertation titled Delicate Networks of Sisterhood/Durable Bonds of Identity: A People’s History of Transgender under the supervision of Professor Elspeth Brown.
Awards
- 2028 Jeanne Armour Graduate Scholarship in Canadian History University of Toronto
- 2026 Canada Graduate Scholarship Social Sciences And Humanities Research Council Of Canada
- 2024 Gold Medal for Outstanding Master’s Thesis or Project in the Humanities University of Victoria Faculty of Humanities
- 2022 William Petrie Graduate Student Library Scholarship University of Victoria
- 2021 Canada Graduate Scholarships – Master’s Program Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Publications
- Putting the Femme in Feminist: Trans Feminism and the ‘Male Lesbian’ in the American Second Wave (Wiley : 2025)
- Kids on the Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco’s Tenderloin by Joseph Plaster (review) (University of Texas Press : 2025)
- "Trans Histories by Trans Historians: Special Issue Editor’s Introduction" ( : 2023)
- "A Movable Closet: Constructions of Femininity Among Twentieth Century Transfeminine Periodical Communities" ( : 2023)
- Special Issue Editors' Introduction: Trans Histories by Trans Historians (University of Victoria : 2023)
- “How Transgressive a Transsexual? The Contradictions in Transgression and Conformity Within Transfeminine Print Erotica” ( : 2022)
- How Transgressive a Transsexual? The Contradictions in Transgression and Conformity Within Transfeminine Print Erotica (University of Victoria : 2022)