Born in Devon, she was educated at St Paul's Girls' School and at Oxford University where she studied English Literature. Wilson worked as a psychiatric social worker before becoming an academic. In 1973 she began teaching in Applied Social Studies at what was then North London Polytecnic.

Elizabeth Wilson wrote Memoirs of an anti-heroine in "Radical Records" in 1988 where she discusses "Style, romance and lesbian identity in the sixties; independence and permissiveness; psychoanalysis; 'hidden' lesbianism; changing lesbian politics." She also wrote A New Romanticism? in the 1983 collection of essays "The Left and The Erotic", and Dyke Style or Lesbians Make an Appearance in the 1994 collection of essays "Stonewall 25".

Elizabeth Wilson is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies, University of North London. Her partner is Angela Mason, the Executive Director of Stonewall, with whom she lives in North London.