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Spanish colonists land in modern day Georgia and builds the community of San Miguel de Guadape. They bring with them enslaved Africans, who are considered to be the first of modern day United States
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In 1952 Rhode Island passes a law abolishing African slavery, declaring that "black mankinde" cannot be indentured for longer than a ten year period of time. This law was not enforced and slavery widely continued.
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In 1691 Virginia passed a law forbidding free black people and white people to intermarry. Maryland directly followed, enacting a similar law in 1692. These were the first laws in American history that restricted access to marriage partners on the basis of race.
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Abigail Adams, future first lady, wrote a letter to her husband, John Adams, and the Continental Congress to "remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
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Vermont became the first colony to ban slavery outright.
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In the 1840's Lucy, Anarcha and countless other enslaved Black women were used as test subjects for the development of gynecology. These women were subjected to life threatening operations without anesthesia causing excruciating pain by James Sims. During and after enslavement physicians such as Sims believed a myth that Black people were less sensitive to pain than white people, this myth continues to lead to mistreatment of Black patients across the globe.
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This was the first women's rights convention to be organized by women, known as the Seneca Falls convention and there were 300 attendees. During this convention, 100 people signed the Declaration of Sentiments, sparking decades of activism and eventually leading to the 19th amendment
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On December 6th, 1865 Congress passed the 13th amendment which abolished slavery in the United States. This amendment was ratified on December 6th.
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The territory of Wyoming passes the u.S's first women's suffrage law, which granted women the right to vote and hold office.
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Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, which coordinated the suffrage movement. This group eventually paired up with the American Woman Suffrage Association and in 1890 the two groups merged to become the National American Woman Suffrage Association
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This act established the rights of women to profit off their labor, control properties, be parties to lawsuits and contracts and to execute wills on their own without a man.
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In 1890 Wyoming became the 44th state in the U.S, making it the first official state in the U.S to allow women the right to vote.
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October 16, 1916 the first birth control clinic in the U.S is opened by Margaret Sanger in Brownsville, Brooklyn. This clinic was still deemed to be illegal under the "Comstock Laws" which forbade birth control.
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Jeannette Rankin of Montana was sworn in as the first woman ever elected to Congress and was a member of the House of Representatives.
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On August 18, 1920 the 19th Amendment was ratified into the U.S Constitution. This Amendment declared "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” This amendment is often referred to as the "Susan B. Anthony Amendment" due to her work on behalf of the women's suffrage movement
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Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which is the precursor for modern day's Planned Parenthood.
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In the early 1900's, American Eugenists argued that the forced sterilization of people with intellectual disabilities was the best way to protect society. A Supreme Court judgement in 1927, Buck vs Bell, unleashed a wav of forced sterilization among those living with disabilities. It is estimated that by 1963 over 60,000 people were sterilized without consent.
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The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was enacted in 1932 and spanned for 40 years. This study is one of the most widely known example of medical racism and abuse within the United States. This experiment was run by the U.S Public Health Service and the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
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On February 16th, 1945 the Alaska Equal Rights Act was signed into law. This act is the first state OR territory anti-discrimination law to be enacted in the United States during the 20th century.
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The Nuremberg Code was a set of research ethics regarding human experimentation. The code was made in response to WWII and require in research voluntary consent and ability to withdrawal at any time, benefit to society, results justify means, avoidance physical and mental suffering of participants, minimize risks, terminate if results are known, proper preparation to protect subjects.
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Thalidomide was a widely used drug treating nausea in pregnant people in the 1950's-60's. It became apparent in the 60's that thalidomide had caused severe birth defects in thousands of children. After the Thalidomide Tragedy, researchers became even more hesitant to include pregnant people in clinical trials.
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On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress from Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. This action helped to launch the American Civil Rights Movement
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On May 9th, 1960 the first commercially produced birth control pill in the world was approved by the FDA.
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On June 10th, 1963 President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law. This act prohibited sex-based wage discrimination for men and women preforming the same job within the same workplace.
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On July 2nd, 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. This act banned discriminations based off race, religion, national origin or sex.
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The Family Planning Services and Population Research Act was signed into law in 1970 as a Federal law aimed at providing federal funding for family planning services in low income or uninsured families. Over the six-year period that followed, physicians sterilized 25% of Native American women of childbearing age, and there is evidence suggesting that the numbers were actually higher. Some procedures were performed under pressure or duress, or without the women’s knowledge or understanding.
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On June 23rd, 1972 President Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law. This title states “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."
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On January 22nd, 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution protects a woman's legal right to an abortion.
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The National Research Act was signed into law in response to the Tuskegee Study. This law added the requirement for IRB process and created the National Commission for the Protection of
Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research to oversee human subject research and authorized the NIH & FDA to develop human research regulations. -
This was the first Presidential Commission on bioethics and spanned from 1974-78.
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FDA Administration policy recommended excluding women of childbearing potential from Phase I and early Phase II drug trials.
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The 1978 Federal Sterilization Regulations prohibited sterilization of people younger than 21 and mentally incompetent or institutionalized people. It also required that women wait a minimum length of 72 hours before sterilization.
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The Belmont report was written by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and is a statement of basic ethical principals and guidelines that should be used to assist in resolving ethical problems while conducting research
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On July 7th, 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in by president Ronald Reagan as the first woman to serve on the United State Supreme Court. She served the court for 24 years and retired in 2006.
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Sally Ride became the first American woman to go to space on the Space Shuttle Challenger
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From 1989-1993 the inclusion of women in clinical research was NIH policy but it was not written into law. In 1993 Congress wrote the NIH Inclusion Policy into Federal law. This law can be found in the NIH Revitalization Act and is titled Women and Minorities as Subjects in Clinical Research.
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The WHIS was started in 1993 and is the largest ongoing prospective cohort study of HIV in women living in the U.S.
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The Violence Against Women Act was signed into law on September 13, 1994 by President Clinton.
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The word “transgender” first appears in a major HIV research study protocol (the STEP Vaccine Study).
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July 2012 the FDA approved use of oral Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for women at risk of HIV infection in the United States.
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On January 24th, 2013 the U.S military removed a ban prohibiting women from serving in combat positions.
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BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Inc. is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.
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First HIV cure-related study to enroll entirely women. Results from MOXIE Trial were released in 2022.
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The first study of PrEP use by race and risk group shows that African Americans and Latinos account for the smallest percentage of prescriptions, despite comprisingm two-thirds of people who could potentially benefit from the preventive medicines.
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In 2020 it was found that over 80% of rodent drug studies were conducted with male mice only. An example of this is the sedative Ambien, which was developed using exclusively male rodent subjects. After introduction to humans, it was found that the drug stayed in female bodies significantly longer than male and 21 years after its development the FDA had to issue new guidelines indicating different doses for men and women.
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As of 2020, women made up more 52% of all people living with HIV worldwide and HIV/AIDS was found to be the leading cause of death for women aged 15-44 UNAIDS. Core Epidemiology Slides. Available at: https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/UNAIDS_2017_core-epidemiology-slides_en.pdf. Last accessed February 2020.
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A systematic review finds that cisgender white men comprise about 6% of the global HIV epidemic yet account for 51% of participants in HIV treatment studies. Pepperrell, T., Hill, A., Moorhouse, M., Clayden, P., McCann, K., Sokhela, S., Serenata, C., & Venter, W. (2020). Phase 3 trials of new antiretrovirals are not representative of the global HIV
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June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the original Roe Vs Wade ruling, making abortion no longer a legal right protected by the Constitution.
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This new report makes a compelling case for why we need more equitable participation in clinical trials and clinical research, including an economic analysis on the cost of health disparities in the United States.
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A systematic review finds that transgender people have made up less than 1% of participants in milestone HIV studies since the beginning of the epidemic. Office of HIV/AIDS Network Coordination website (2023). Scorecard for Transgender & Gender-Diverse Inclusion.
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Well over 500 anti-transgender bills introduced in 49 US states.