Christophersen is co-founder of Women & Children First Bookstore and a critical volunteer and supporter of LGBT and feminist causes.

She and her business partner, Linda Bubon, opened the bookstore in 1979 as a way to contribute to the international feminist movement and to join with and support those in Chicago working to further the rights and well-being of women & children.

Besides her work at Women & Children First, Ann has been active in a number of organizations in Chicago. She was a member, and later president, of the city’s first Advisory Council on Gay and Lesbian Issues, appointed by Mayor Harold Washington. She served for eight years on the board of the Crossroads Fund, a public foundation that funds a broad range of social-change community organizing across the city. She also served as the vice-president of IMPACT, a lesbian and gay political action committee, and as a board member of Gerber/Hart Library.

On the national level, Ann served for six years on the board of the American Booksellers Association, two years as its vice-president and two years as president. For many years she wrote for a national feminist publication, the Feminist Bookstore News, and presently contributes book reviews to the national online review, More Books for Women.

For her work over the years she has been honored with the Alongi Award for lesbian and gay rights advocacy, the Ron Sable Activism Award for social justice work in the broader Chicago community, her induction in 1991 into Chicago’s Lesbian & Gay Hall of Fame, and by her inclusion in The Full Circle Monuments to Women.

In addition to her individual awards, Women & Children First has been honored with awards from Chicago Now, the ACLU’s Roger Baldwin Foundation, Bailiwick Reportory Theatre, and The Lesbian Community Cancer Project, among others. In 2004, the Chicago Sun-Times named Ann and Women & Children First co-owner, Linda Bubon, among the city’s 100 most powerful women.