American academic and writer Terry Castle was BOTD in 1953. Born in San Diego to English parents, she was raised in England and California, and studied at the University of Puget Sound and the University of Minnesota. She became a professor of 18th century English Literature at Stanford University, contributing to the growing industry of lesbian and gay studies with The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture and The Literature of Lesbianism. She is best known for her 2010 essay collection The Professor: A Sentimental Education, featuring her account of an affair with her female college professor, and a devastatingly funny take-down of her “intellectual diva” frenemy Susan Sontag. Her other publications include the dual biography Noël Coward and Radclyffe Hall: Kindred Spirits, and Boss Ladies, Watch Out! Essays on Women, Sex, and Writing. A regular contributor to the London Review of Books, her 2016 article Shaking Hands with the Hilldebeest hilariously recounted a meeting with US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at a political fundraiser. A long-time resident of San Francisco, she is married to fellow Stanford professor Blakey Vermeule.