Lesbian poet, LGBTQ advocate Minnie Bruce Pratt dies at 76
Minnie Bruce Pratt, the highly acclaimed lesbian feminist, poet, essayist, university educator, and LGBTQ rights advocate, died July 2 at her home in Syracuse, N.Y., at the age of 76.
Her two sons, Ben and Ransom Weaver, posted on her website that her passing came after a diagnosis of brain cancer. “She was cared for until the end by a circle of friends and family that made her feel the utmost care and comfort,” the two sons wrote. “We are incredibly grateful for their support and deep love for Minnie Bruce.” Pratt is credited with playing an important role over a period of nearly 50 years in helping to advance the rights of LGBTQ people and poignantly address the issues of economic and racial injustice through her writings of more than 10 books, including eight books of poetry.
Among her notable and widely recognized writings was her 1989 book of poems called “Crime Against Nature,” which was an autobiographical account of her relationship with her two sons as a lesbian mother.
A write-up about Pratt released by her family at the time of her passing says she lost custody of her two young sons in the 1970s after coming out as a lesbian. “[T]hey were raised by their father and Minnie Bruce’s visitation was supervised simply because she was a lesbian and she would not renounce or hide her lesbianism,” the family write-up says. “She turned this traumatic experience into a poetry collection, ‘Crime Against Nature,’ which won the Academy of American Poets’ Lamont Prize in 1989 – just one of many literary awards Minnie Bruce received during her long career,” it says. “Minnie Bruce Pratt was part of the vibrant lesbian-feminist movement that emerged in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s,” the family write-up continues.
