KINGSTON, R.I. – Sept. 29, 2026 – Alison Bechdel, an award-winning syndicated cartoonist and prominent LGBTQ+ figure, will hold a discussion at the University of Rhode Island on Friday, Oct. 9. 

Bechdel, who for 25 years authored the syndicated strip “Dykes to Watch Out For,” will deliver the free public talk “Coming Out with Dykes To Watch Out For: A discussion with Alison Bechdel” from 5-6:30 p.m. at Edwards Hall, located at 64 Upper College Road, on the Kingston Campus. The talk’s focus will be how she has illustrated the evolving LGBTQ+ community through DTWOF, and its impact on society. 

Bechdel launched DTWOF in 1983 as one of the earliest ongoing representations of lesbians in popular culture. The syndicated comic strip, which ran until 2008, chronicled the lives, politics, and loves of diverse characters—mostly lesbians—living in a mid-sized U.S. city, featuring soap opera-type storylines and topical commentary. Bechdel will share why she developed her comic strip over four decades ago, its history, its impact, and how it was initially received at a time when the LGBTQ+ community was not as widely accepted as it is now.

Along with answering questions from attendees, Bechdel will also sign her published works, including DTWOF, and her graphic novels “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,” “Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama,” and “The Secret to Superhuman Strength” at the event. A limited number of free copies of DTWOFwill be given to students at the event who register ahead of time. 

“Much of what Alison will discuss is lived experiences that we hope both our students and the general public can relate to, whether they are LGBTQ or not,” said Kathleen McIntyre, chair of URI’s Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. “We want people to come celebrate National Coming Out Day and the vibrant community the day supports, and we are excited to have Alison on the URI campus for Coming Out Week.”

Registration to attend can be made through the event’s portal.

Bechdel’s upcoming discussion is supported by a 2026-27 New England Humanities Consortium Community Collaboration grant that GWS was awarded along with the Wanderground Lesbian Archive/Library in Cranston—an event co-sponsor. NEHC works to promote intellectual collaboration, interdisciplinary exchange, and regional humanities programming. URI’s Center for Humanities is one of 19 higher education institution members affiliated with the NEHC. The grant also offers funding for a URI GWS student to intern at Wanderground Library.

Wanderground Lesbian Archive/Library, which preserves local lesbian history and cultivates a future of thriving lesbian communities, will display Bechdel’s collection prior to her discussion on Oct. 9. In addition to the books, this exhibit will also feature related objects drawn by Bechdel such as greeting cards, a 20th anniversary poster of Amazon Bookstore, a T-shirt with DTWOF characters, buttons, a screen saver, and other memorabilia.

“This collaboration provides an exciting opportunity to not only increase Wanderground’s visibility as a resource/research center, but also to provide younger lesbians with historical perspective and cultural insight into what it was like to live, work, politic, and love in lesbian communities in the 1980s and 1990s,” Wanderground Library Curator Mev Miller said. “I have long admired Dykes to Watch Out For and am excited to finally meet Alison Bechdel in person at her upcoming discussion at URI.”

Bechdel’s visit will also serve as the closing program for the URI Gender and Sexuality Center’s “Coming Out Week,” a weeklong observance taking place Oct. 5-9 in recognition of National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11. The Gender and Sexuality Center will host its National Coming Out Day Resource Fair on the University Quadrangle on Oct. 9, and feature campus departments and community organizations offering resources about the process of coming out. 

Bechdel’s comic strip appeared weekly in several LGBTQ+ publications, as well as in The New Yorker, Slate, McSweeney’s, The New York Times Book Review and Granta. Bechdel also coined the “Bechdel Test,” which asks whether a film or other fictional work features at least two women characters (with names) who have a conversation about something other than a man. DTWOF continues to be re-published in the long-time publication Lesbian Connection. 

Bechdel has earned multiple career awards and accolades, including the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2014 MacArthur Fellowship and the 2023 Golden Crown Literary Society Trailblazer Award. In 2010, Bechdel was inducted into the Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame.

“Through Dykes to Watch Out For and her graphic memoirs, Alison Bechdel has explored LGBTQ+ identity, family, relationships, coming out, and community, contributing to the visibility of LGBTQ+ lives and experiences in American culture,” URI Gender and Sexuality Center Director Manuela Vadis said. “Her visit offers the URI community an opportunity to hear from an artist whose work has helped generations of LGBTQ+ people see their experiences reflected in stories about identity, relationships and community.”

Alison Bechdel’s talk “Coming Out with Dykes To Watch Out For: A discussion with Alison Bechdel” is co-sponsored by URI’s Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, Department of English, Harrington School of Communications and Media, Center for the Humanities, Gender and Sexuality Center, and College of Arts and Sciences, with Wanderground Lesbian Archive/Library. To register to attend the event, visit the event’s webpage. For more information, contact URI GWS Chair Kathleen McIntyre at kamcintyre@uri.edu.