The Ruth Benedict Prize is an award given annually by the American Anthropological Association's "to acknowledge excellence in a scholarly book written from an anthropological perspective about a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender topic". The award was established in 1986 in honor of anthropologist, Ruth Benedict (1887–1948) and is given in two separate categories: a monograph by a single author and an edited volume.[1][2]
| Year | Author | Title | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | Walter L. Williams | The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture | Monograph |
| 1987 | Gilbert Herdt | The Sambia: Ritual and Gender in New Guinea | Monograph |
| 1990 | Serena Nanda | Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India | Monograph |
| 1990 | Kath Weston | Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship | Monograph |
| 1991 | Richard Parker | Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil | Monograph |
| 1992 | Ellen Lewin | Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture | Monograph |
| 1993 | Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis | Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community | Book |
| 1993 | Roger Lancaster | Life is Hard: Machismo, Danger, and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua | Monograph |
| 1994 | Esther Newton | Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in America’s First Gay and Lesbian Town | Monograph |
| 1995 | Joseph Carrier | De Los Otros: Intimacy and Homosexuality Among Mexican Men | Monograph |
| 1996 | Carter Wilson | Hidden in the Blood: A Personal Investigation of AIDS in the Yucatan | Monograph |
| 1996 | William L. Leap | Word’s Out: Gay Men’s English | Monograph |
| 1997 | Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang | Two-spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality | Edited Volume |
| 1997 | Kath Weston | Render Me, Gender Me: Lesbians Talk Sex, Class, Color, Nation, Studmuffins | Monograph |
| 1998 | Jennifer Robertson | Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan | Monograph |
| 1999 | Evelyn Blackwood and Saskia Wieringa | Female Desires: Same Sex Relations and Transgender Practices Across Cultures | Edited Volume |
| 2000 | Barbara L. Voss and Robert A. Schmidt | Archaeologies of Sexuality | Edited Volume |
| 2000 | Stephen O. Murray | Homosexualities | Monograph |
| 2000 | Esther Newton | Margaret Mead Made Me Gay: Personal Essays, Public Ideas | Monograph |
| 2001 | Arlene Stein | The Stranger Next Door: The Story of a Small Community’s Battle over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights | Monograph |
| 2002 | Hector Carrillo | The Night is Young: Sexuality in Mexico in the Time of AIDS | Monograph |
| 2003 | Martin F. Manalansan IV | Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora | Monograph |
| 2004 | Ellen Lewin and William L. Leap | Out in Theory: The Emergence of Lesbian and Gay Anthropology | Edited Volume |
| 2004 | Megan Sinnott | Toms and Dees: Transgender Identity and Female Same-Sex Relationships in Thailand | Monograph |
| 2005 | Tom Boellstorff | The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia | Monograph |
| 2006 | Tanya Erzen | Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement | Monograph |
| 2007 | Saskia Wieringa, Evelyn Blackwood, and Abha Bhaiya | Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia | Edited Volume |
| 2007 | Gloria Wekker | The Politics of Passion: Women’s Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora | Monograph |
| 2007 | David Valentine | Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category | Monograph |
| 2008 | Barbara L. Voss | The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis: Race and Sexuality in Colonial San Francisco | Monograph |
| 2008 | Mark Padilla | Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality, and AIDS in the Dominican Republic | Monograph |
| 2009 | Ellen Lewin and William L. Leap | Out in Public: Reinventing Lesbian/Gay Anthropology in a Globalizing World | Edited Volume |
| 2009 | Mary L. Gray | Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America | Monograph |
| 2009 | Rudolf Pell Gaudio | Allah Made Us: Sexual Outlaws in an Islamic City | Monograph |
| 2010 | David A. B. Murray | Homophobias: Lust and Loathing Across Time and Space | Edited Volume |
| 2010 | Ellen Lewin | Gay Fatherhood: Narratives of Family and Citizenship in America | Monograph |
| 2010 | Deborah Gould | Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight Against AIDS | Monograph |
| 2011 | Peter A. Jackson | Queer Bangkok: 21st Century Markets, Media, and Rights | Edited Volume |
| 2011 | Roger Lancaster | Sex Panic and the Punitive State | Monograph |
| 2011 | Evelyn Blackwood | Falling into the Lesbi World: Desire and Difference in Indonesia | Monograph |
| 2012 | Gayle Rubin | Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader | Edited Volume |
| 2012 | Margot Weiss | Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality | Monograph |
| 2013 | Susan Stryker and Aren Aizura | The Transgender Studies Reader 2 | Edited Volume |
| 2013 | Naisargi Dave | Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics | Monograph |
| 2014 | Lal Zimman, Jenny Davis, and Joshua Raclaw | Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality | Edited Volume |
| 2014 | Noelle M. Stout | After Love: Queer Intimacy and Erotic Economies in Post-Soviety Cuba | Monograph |
| 2015 | Linda Rae Bennett, Sharyn Graham Davies | Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia: Sexual Politics, Health, Diversity and Representations | Edited Volume |
| 2015 | Lucinda Ramberg | Given to the Goddess: South Indian Devadasis and the Sexuality of Religion | Monograph |
| 2016 | Uriel Quesada, Letitia Gomez, Salvador Vidal-Ortiz | Queer Brown Voices: Personal Narratives of Latina/o LGBT Activism | Edited Volume |
| 2016 | David A. B. Murray | Real Queer? Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Refugees in the Canadian Refugee Apparatus | Monograph |
| 2017 | Eric Plemons | The Look of a Woman: Facial Feminization Surgery and the Aims of Trans- Medicine | Monograph |
| 2018 | George Paul Meiu | Ethno-erotic Economies: Sexuality, Money and Belonging in Kenya | Monograph |
| 2019 | Amy Brainer | Queer Kinship and Family Change in Taiwan | Monograph |
| 2020 | Ana-Maurine Lara | Queer Freedom: Black Sovereignty | Monograph |
| 2020 | Sarah Luna | Love in the Drug War: Selling Sex & Finding Jesus on the Mexico US Border | Monograph |
| 2021 | Vaibhav Saria | Hijras, Lovers, Brothers: Surviving Sex and Poverty in Rural India | Monograph |
| 2022 | Serena Owusua Dankwa | Knowing Women: Same-Sex Intimacy, Gender, and Identity in Postcolonial Ghana | Book |