LGBTQIA+ Studies / topics Books

Book SynopsisThe importance of citywide festivals like Mardi Gras and Fiesta for the LGBTQ communityFestivals like Mardi Gras and Fiesta have come to be annual events in which entire cities participate, and LGBTQ people are a visible part of these celebrations. In other words, the party is on, the party is queer, and everyone is invited. In Queer Carnival, Amy Stone takes us inside these colorful, eye-catching, and often raucous events, highlighting their importance to queer life in America's urban South and Southwest. Drawing on five years of research, and over a hundred days at LGBTQ events in cities such as San Antonio, Santa Fe, Baton Rouge, and Mobile, Stone gives readers a front-row seat to festivals, carnivals, and Mardi Gras celebrations, vividly bringing these queer cultural spaces and the people that create and participate in them to life. Stone shows how these events serve a larger fundamental purpose, helping LGBTQ people to cultivate a sense of belonging in cities that may be otherwiseTrade Review"In this fascinating and ground-breaking book, Amy L. Stone takes readers on a journey through the possibilities of festivals in places that are usually overlooked in discussions of LGBTQ lives, loves, and celebrations. Exploring the importance and complexities of the carnivalesque for LGBTQ urban and broader cultures, they augment our current thinking about citizenship in accessible and engaging ways. This book is recommended reading for all interested in LGBTQ studies, festivals, cities, communities, and citizenship." * Kath Browne, co-author of Heteroactivism: Resisting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Rights and Equalities *"Queer Carnival sparkles with extraordinary observations about overlooked parts of the country that receive too little attention but in which most queer people live—and where presidential elections are often decided. Stone convincingly shows that there is indeed ‘something reconciliatory about being desired for one's difference,’ whether this comes from the mayor attending your raunchy drag number or having a nephew escort his butch lesbian aunt to the stage" * Greggor Mattson, author of The Cultural Politics of European Prostitution Reform: Governing Loose Women *

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Book SynopsisVivid narratives, fresh insights, and new theories on where gender theory and research stand today Since scholars began interrogating the meaning of gender and sexuality in society, this field has become essential to the study of sociology. Gender Reckonings aims to map new directions for understanding gender and sexuality within a more pragmatic, dynamic, and socially relevant framework. It shows how gender relations must be understood on a large scale as well as in intimate detail. The contributors return to the basics, questioning how gender patterns change, how we can realize gender equality, and how the structures of gender impact daily life. Gender Reckonings covers not only foundational concepts of gender relations and gender justice, but also explores postcolonial patterns of gender, intersectionality, gender fluidity, transgender practices, neoliberalism, and queer theory. Gender Reckonings combines the insights of gender and sexuality scholars from different generations, fiTrade Review"The publication of Raewyn Connell's Gender and Power in 1987 proclaimed a new sociology of gender, from sex roles to situating gender relations in multiple fields of power. These exciting new essays refer back over three decades of theory and research, and suggest just how germinal that work was in generating new avenues of thinking about gender." -- Michael Kimmel,Author of Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era"A refreshingly up-to-date collection of essays that covers a wide range of theories and debates, Gender Reckonings brings much needed clarity and breadth to the challenges of undoing or re-imagining gender away from its hegemonic moorings. These new essays by seasoned experts in gender and sexuality studies will be of enormous use to scholars and students alike, and are sure to become catalysts for future feminist analyses." -- Suzanna Danuta Walters,Author of The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions are Sabotaging Gay Equality"This collection by eminent scholars with a spectrum of styles and conceptual frameworks contributes immensely to our sociological understanding of gender theory and research. In looking back and moving forward, these authors celebrate, critique, and consider the changes and challenges of the social analysis of gender. This compelling volume demonstrates the diverse ways that contexts matter and the importance of engaging in social research for gender equality and social justice." -- Margaret Abraham,Co-editor of Contours of Citizenship: Women, Diversity, and Practices of Citizenship

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Book SynopsisHow homophobic backlash unexpectedly strengthened mobilization for LGBT political rights in post-communist Europe While LGBT activism has increased worldwide, there has been strong backlash against LGBT people in Eastern Europe. Although Russia is the most prominent anti-gay regime in the region, LGBT individuals in other post-communist countries also suffer from discriminatory laws and prejudiced social institutions. Combining an historical overview with interviews and case studies in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, Conor O'Dwyer analyzes the development and impact of LGBT movements in post-communist Eastern and Central Europe. O'Dwyer argues that backlash against LGBT individuals has had the paradoxical effect of encouraging stronger and more organized activism, significantly impacting the social movement landscape in the region. As these peripheral Eastern and Central European countries vie for inclusion or at least recognition in the increasingly LGBT-frTrade ReviewReaders will learn a great deal about activist groups in those countries, and will understand the role “Europeanization” had on the LGBT movement after the fall of communism … This book will best serve graduate students, faculty, and practitioners in politics. * Choice *This book is an ambitious, mixed-method examination of LGBT activism in postcommunist East-Central Europe that makes the counterintuitive argument that backlash to international pressures can be constructive to a social movement’s development... Coming Out of Communism is a tour de force in comparative analysis, interrogating civil society—which is notoriously difficult to study—and covering issues often ignored by the field. * Perspectives on Politics *In this masterful and timely study, ODwyer shows us how backlash can paradoxically benefit the domestic organizing capacity of LGBT rights advocates. This is a novel and compelling argument, substantiated by meticulously documented contention around those rights in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. In crafting this argument, ODwyer demonstrates the great potential that the often-ignored study of LGBT politics offers for understanding a host of theoretical debates pertinent to political scientists. As unfettered populism and nationalism shake the core of liberal democracies, this book is needed more than ever, because it provides a sliver of hope in times of great peril for the most vulnerable among us. -- Phillip M. Ayoub,Author of When States Come Out: Europe's Sexual Minorities and the Politics of VisibilityWhy has LGBT rights activism flourished in some post-communist states and floundered in others following accession to the European Union? How come joining the EU was, in some places, accompanied by increasingly intolerant public attitudes toward sexual minorities, rather than acceptance? In Coming Out of Communism, Conor ODwyer solves these puzzles, highlighting the role of homophobic backlash in provoking stronger organizing for LGBT rights in the region.Anyone interested in LGBT issues, social movements, or the impact of transnational institutions on domestic politics, will undoubtedly enjoy learning from ODwyers keen analysis and intriguing field research in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. -- Valerie Sperling,Author of Sex, Politics, and Putin: Political Legitimacy in RussiaCompelling and illuminating, especially where O’Dwyer’s local informants, observation, and research blends with synthesis from area-specific scholarship. * Slavic Review *

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Book SynopsisWinner, 2019 Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History, given by the American Society for Theatre ResearchHonorable Mention, 2021 Errol Hill Award, given by the American Society for Theatre ResearchArgues for a conception of black cultural life that exceeds post-blackness and conditions of loss In Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life, cultural critic and historian Tavia Nyong'o surveys the conditions of contemporary black artistic production in the era of post-blackness. Moving fluidly between the insurgent art of the 1960's and the intersectional activism of the present day, Afro-Fabulations challenges genealogies of blackness that ignore its creative capacity to exceed conditions of traumatic loss, social death, and archival erasure.If black survival in an anti-black world often feels like a race against time, Afro-Fabulations looks to the modes of memory and imaTrade ReviewBy foregrounding crucial modes of disappearance, withdrawal, obfuscation, and eclipse found across diverse examples of contemporary art, literature, and performance ... Nyong’o further renegotiates the terms of ongoing debates in literary studies, queer theory, and black thought most broadly. * LA Review of Books *To afro-fabulate is to listen to and know the ongoing history of anti-black racism, but also to rebuke it by telling another story. In showing us how artists and performers engage in this act of telling, Nyongo offers not only a compelling new way to think about works that challenge history, narrative, and truth, but also a method in which we might continue that work. * Brooklyn Rail *The imaginative power of Nyong’o’s words, his push to reimagine chronology and time through the optics of Blackness and his insistence on the intellectual stakes of Afrofabulatory ambivalence stuck with me, reminding me of the importance of the ephemeral, the everyday, and the speculative. * Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal *Tavia Nyong’o provides detailed descriptions of various performances, along with intuitive and counterintuitive insights about their creators. The book uses “interdisciplinary modes of investigation” to “aid this process of critical fabulation in a variety of ways...especially insofar as they bring into co-presence a sense of the incompossible, mingling what was with that might have been” (7). * QED *

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Book SynopsisWhy LGBTQ+ people must resist the seduction of dignityIn 2015, when the Supreme Court declared that gay and lesbian couples were entitled to the equal dignity of marriage recognition, the concept of dignity became a cornerstone for gay rights victories. In Disrupting Dignity, Stephen M. Engel and Timothy S. Lyle explore the darker side of dignity, tracing its invocation across public health politics, popular culture, and law from the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis to our current moment. With a compassionate eye, Engel and Lyle detail how politicians, policymakers, media leaders, and even some within LGBTQ+ communities have used the concept of dignity to shame and disempower members of those communities. They convincingly show how dignityand the subsequent chase to be defined by its termsbecame a tool of the state and the marketplace thereby limiting its more radical potential. Ultimately, Engel and Lyle challenge our understanding of dignity as anTrade ReviewThis clever book critically explores the political underbelly of dignity, disrupting the cornerstone of modern LGBT rights and liberties. Creatively weaving legal, political, and cultural narratives into a powerful critique, Engel and Lyle offer a wake-up call to those who have succumbed to the seductive strains of dignity. A must-read for anyone envisioning new parameters for the LGBT movement in the coming political time. -- Susan Burgess, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Ohio UniversityThis pathbreaking book weaves together narratives from public health, popular culture, and constitutional law to understand dignity. In Engel and Lyle’s wide-ranging analysis, dignity is bared, not as an uplifting concept that promotes queer recognition and equality, but rather as a device of neoliberal discipline that divides political subjects into insiders and transgressive outsiders. Provocative and insightful, the book takes readers on a journey through criticism to a reimagination of dignity. -- Julie Novkov, co-author of American by Birth: Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for CitizenshipIn crisscrossing the humanities and social sciences, Engel and Lyle have put together a truly interdisciplinary project that speaks to many different audiences. Disrupting Dignity makes an original argument in demonstrating the rhetorical violence that ‘dignity,’ specifically, does to the queer worldmaking that happens in gay male sexual spaces. -- F. Hollis Griffin, author of Feeling Normal: Sexuality and Media Criticism in the Digital AgeIn undertaking such an ambitious, cross-disciplinary, and sweeping conceptual analysis, Engel and Lyle implicitly claim that dignity’s effects are felt everywhere; it enculturates us to accept neoliberalism’s constraints, adhere to predominant understandings of propriety regarding sexual conduct, and tread lightly within a legal system that responds to a limited range of LGBTQ+ interests. -- Matthew Dean Hindman * Journal of American Political Thought *Disrupting Dignity provides one such peek into what is to be gained by refusing dignity, and my expectation is that it will serve as a valuable resource for future scholarship and political praxis oriented toward that queer world of possibility. * Perspectives on Politics *

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Book SynopsisSexual citizenship has become a key concept in the social sciences. It describes the rights and responsibilities of citizens in sexual and intimate life, including debates over equal marriage and women's human rights, as well as shaping thinking about citizenship more generally. But what does it mean in a continually changing political landscape of gender and sexuality? In this timely intervention, Diane Richardson examines the normative underpinnings and varied critiques of sexual citizenship, asking what they mean for its future conceptual and empirical development, as well as for political activism. Clearly written, the book shows how the field of sexuality and citizenship connects to a range of important areas of debate including understandings of nationalism, identity, neoliberalism, equality, governmentality, individualization, colonialism, human rights, globalization and economic justice. Ultimately this book calls for a critical rethink of sexual citizenship. Illustrating her argument with examples drawn from across the globe, Richardson contends that this is essential if scholars want to understand the sexual politics that made the field of sexuality and citizenship studies what it is today, and to enable future analyses of the sexual inequalities that continue to mark the global order.Trade Review"Diane Richardson has long had a reputation for acute sensitivity to the emergent issues in our complex sexual world. In this comprehensive but compelling book she tackles the central but contested concept of sexual citizenship. In Richardson's steady hands this becomes a lens to explore a range of critical ideas, analyses and experiences. The result is never less than illuminating and challenging, an invaluable guide to our perplexities."Jeffrey Weeks, author of What is Sexual History? "Drawing on literature from geography, gender studies, sociology and political science, Richardson challenges us to think in an interdisciplinary way about the impact of structural differences and marginalizations. As the leading scholar in this field, Diane Richardson offers an insightful engagement with the concept, and political outcomes, of sexual citizenship which is undoubtedly a must read for any contemporary student of the social sciences."Angelia Wilson, University of Manchester "Diane Richardson has given us a powerful resource for understanding the diverse debates and interdisciplinary approaches to sexual citizenship that will enhance our ability to produce rich, in-depth critical analyses of the shifting local, international, and transnational contexts for the co-constitution of sexuality and citizenship."Nancy A. Naples, Gender & Development “The book provides a persuasive and easy to read analysis of the sexual citizenship literature and how it has evolved over time, but also the limitations of sexual citizenship within the Euro-North American historical configuration. The conceptual analysis offers a social, cultural, economic and political exposition on the concept of sexual citizenship and brings forward the complex linkages of undeviating issues relating to sexuality, gender and citizenship.”SociologyTable of Contents1. Making Sexual Citizenship PART ONE: RE-THINKING SEXUAL CITIZENSHIP 2. What is Sexual Citizenship? 3. Limits to Sexual Citizenship 4. Sexualizing Citizenship: Now You See it, Now You Don�t PART TWO: TRANSFORMING CITIZENSHIP? SEXUALITY, GENDER AND CITIZENSHIP STRUGGLES 5. Global Influences on Sexuality and Citizenship 6. Sexuality, the State and Governance 7. Materializing Sexuality

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Book SynopsisThis accessible book introduces the key concepts and theoretical developments of queer criminology and explains what they mean for modern criminal justice frameworks and practitioners. The book sets out experiences of the LGBTQ+ population as victims, offenders and professionals in legal systems in the US and internationally and explores what they mean for elements of those systems including police, courts, corrections and victims’ services. It is both a useful reference point for academics, students and professionals and a guide to how queer criminology can be theoretically applied and practically implemented in the worlds of policing, courts, corrections, and victims' services.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Towards Freedom, Empowerment, and Agency: An Introduction to Queering Criminology in Theory and Praxis: Reimaging Justice in the Criminal Legal System and Beyond – Carrie L. Buist and Lindsay Kahle Semprevivo 1. Gender- and Sexuality-Based Violence Among LGBTQ People: An Empirical Test of Norm-Centered Stigma Theory – Meredith G.F. Worthen 2. Queer Pathways – Michael K. Winters 3. Queer Criminology and the Destabilization of Child Sexual Abuse – Dave McDonald 4. Queer(y)ing the Experiences of LGBTQ Workers in Criminal Processing Systems – Angela Dwyer and Roddrick A. Colvin 5. ‘PREA Is a Joke’: A Case Study of How Trans PREA Standards Are(n’t) Enforced – April Carrillo 6. Queerly Navigating the System: Trans* Experiences Under State Surveillance – Rayna E. Momen 7. Sex-Gender Defining Laws, Birth Certificates, and Identity – Jon Rosenstadt 8. Effects of Intimate Partner Violence in the LGBTQ Community: A. Systematic Review – Illandra Denysschen and Rosalind Evans 9. Health Covariates of Intimate Partner Violence in a National Transgender Sample – Victoria Kurdyla, Adam M. Messinger, and Xavier L. Guadalupe-Diaz 10. Serving Transgender, Gender Nonconforming, and Intersex Youth in Alameda County’s Juvenile Hall – Alexandria Garcia, Naseem Badiey, Laura Agnich Chavez, and Wendy Still 11. Liberating Black Youth Across the Gender Spectrum Through the Deconstruction of the White Femininity/Black Masculinity Duality – Angela Irvine-Baker, Aisha Canfield, and Carolyn Reyes 12. ‘I Thought They Were Supposed to Be on My Side’: What Jane Doe’s Experience Teaches Us About Institutional Harm Against Trans Youth – Vanessa R. Panfil and Aimee Wodda 13. The Role of Adolescent Friendship Networks in Queer Youth’s Delinquency – Nayan G. Ramirez 14. ‘At the Very Least’: Politics and Praxis of Bail Fund Organizers and the Potential for Queer Liberation – Luca Suede Connolly and Rose M. Buckelew 15. A Conspiracy – Lucilla R. Harrell and S. Page Dukes 16. LGBTQ+ Homelessness: Resource Obtainment and Issues With Shelters – Trye Mica Price and Tusty ten Bensel 17. The Color of Queer Theory in Social Work and Criminology Practice: A World Without Empathy – Rebecca S. Katz 18. Camouflaged: Tackling the Invisibility of LGBTQ+ Veterans When Accessing Care – Shanna N. Felix and Chrystina Y. Hoffman 19. Barriers to Reporting, Barriers to Services: Challenges for Transgender Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Victimization – Danielle C. Slakoff and Jaclyn A. Siegel Conclusion: What Does It Mean to Do Justice? Current and Future Directions in Queer Criminological Research and Practice – Lindsay Kahle Semprevivo and Carrie L. Buist

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Book SynopsisBringing together a team of international scholars, this volume provides a foundational guide to queer methodologies in the study of political violence and conflict. Contributors provide illuminating discussions on why queer approaches are important, what they entail and how to utilise a queer approach to political violence and conflict. The chapters explore a variety of methodological approaches, including fieldwork, interviews, cultural analysis and archival research. They also engage with broader academic debates, such as how to work with research partners in an ethical manner. Including valuable case studies from around the world, the book demonstrates how these methods can be used in practice. It is the first critical, in-depth discussion on queer methods and methodologies for research on political violence and conflict.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Telling Queer Stories of Conflict – Jamie J. Hagen, Samuel Ritholtz, Andrew Delatolla Part 1: Queer Approaches to Conflict Research 1. The ‘Queer’ in Conflict Research As Subject, Structure, and Method: Initial Epistemological Considerations for the Early Career Researcher – Samuel Ritholtz 2. Queering the Politics of Knowledge in Conflict Research – Jose Fernando Serrano Amaya 3. Workshop As Queer Feminist Praxis: Insights From Colombian Queer and Trans Women Organising for Peace – Jamie J. Hagen Part 2: Queer Methods of Conflict Research 4. The Visual As Queer Method – Dean Cooper-Cunningham 5. Poetry as a Queer Epistemological Method: Disrupting Knowledge of the Lebanese Civil War With Etel Adnan’s the Arab Apocalypse – Andrew Delatolla 6. Queer Tools for the Ruthless Archive: Methodological Notes on Trans and Queer History for Doing Archival Research – Patricio Simonetto Part 3: Queer Experiences of Conflict Research 7. Researching Queer Lives in the Shadow of Northeast Nigeria’s Conflict – Chitra Nagarajan 8. Entangled Intimacies, Queer Attachments: Reflections on Fieldwork With a Diaspora of War – Ahmad Qais Munhazim 9. Doing NGO Research With Diverse Sogiesc Refugees in Lebanon, Syria and Turkey: A Conversation – Zeynep Pınar Erdem, Charbel Maydaa, Henri Myrttinen and Helena Berchtold Conclusion: Thinking (of) Queer Conflict Research – Laura Sjoberg Appendix I: Guide for Good Practices for Researching Queer and Trans Communities in Highly Sensitive Contexts – Cristian González Cabrera, Erin Kilbride, Kyle Knight, Yasemin Smallens, Rasha Younes Appendix II: “The Emotional Work Is Part of the Work”: Strategies To Maintain Researcher Emotional and Psychological Safety During Challenging Fieldwork – Maureen Freed

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Book SynopsisThis book is about ardent Korean female fans of gay representation in the media, their status in contemporary Korean society, their relationship with other groups such as the gay population, and, above all, their contribution to reshaping the Korean media's portrayal of gay people. Jungmin Kwon names the Korean female fandom for gay portrayals as “FANtasy” subculture, and argues that it adds to the present visibility of the gay body in Korean mainstream media, thus helping to change the public's perspective toward sexually marginalized groups.The FANtasy subculture started forming around text-based media, such as yaoi, fan fiction, and U.S. gay-themed dramas (like Will & Grace), and has been influenced by diverse social, political, and economic conditions, such as the democratization of Korea, an open policy toward foreign media products, the diffusion of consumerism, government investment in the culture, the Hollywoodization of the film industry, and the popularity of Korean culture abroad. While much scholarly attention has been paid to female fandom for homoerotic cultural texts in many countries, this book seeks to explore a relatively neglected aspect of the subculture: its location in and influence on Korean society at large.

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Book SynopsisFor decades, amidst the bright lights, studio-audience laughs, and absurdly large apartment sets, the real-life story of American LGBTQ liberation unfolded in plain sight in front of millions of viewers, most of whom were laughing too hard to mind. From flamboyant relatives on Bewitched to closely-guarded secrets on All in the Family, from network-censor fights over Soap to behind-the-scenes activism on the set of The Golden Girls, from Ellen’s culture clash to Modern Family’s primetime power-couple, Hi Honey, I’m Homo! is the story not only of how subversive queer comedy transformed the American sitcom, from its inception through today, but how our favourite sitcoms transformed, and continue to transform, America. Accessible, entertaining, and informative, Hi Honey, I'm Homo! is filled with exclusive commentary and interviews from celebrities, behind-the-scenes creators, and more

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Book SynopsisFor decades, history ignored the Nazi persecution of gay people. Only with the rise of the gay movement in the 1970s did historians finally recognize that gay people, like Jews and others deemed “undesirable,” suffered enormously at the hands of the Nazi regime. Of the few who survived the concentration camps, even fewer ever came forward to tell their stories. This heart wrenchingly vivid account of one man's arrest and imprisonment by the Nazis for the crime of homosexuality, now with a new foreword by Sarah Schulman, remains an essential contribution to gay history and our understanding of historical fascism, as well as a remarkable and complex story of survival and identity.Table of ContentsPreface by Sarah SchulmanIntroduction by Klaus Müller1. Imprisoned as a “Degenerate”2. Arrival at Sachsenhausen3. A Camp of Torture and Toil4. Flossenbürg5. The Polish Boys and the Gypsy Capo6. Commander “Dustbag”7. Burnings and Tortures8. A Pink-Triangled Capo9. A “Cure” for Homosexuality, and Air Raids10. The End, and Home AgainGlossary

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Book SynopsisChristopher Zyda confronts the long-buried and painful memories of his harrowing fifteen-year journey in The Storm: One Voice from the AIDS Generation, a heart-wrenching love story and coming-of-age tale during the early years of the AIDS crisis in Los Angeles.It all begins in early 1984, when Chris, a twenty-one year old UCLA English Literature major, risks ostracism when he comes out of the closet to his fraternity brothers just as the AIDS pandemic is beginning to explode in gay communities across the United States. Soon afterward, Chris meets and falls in love with Stephen, a graduate of Yale University and Law School, and the two of them build a life together as their friends start to fall sick and die from the spreading storm of AIDS.Stephen begins showing symptoms of AIDS in early 1986, and Chris faces a difficult choice as he is certain that he, too, eventually will be stricken by the disease. He abandons his writing career and attends the UCLA business school so that he can earn enough money to pay for healthcare during Stephen's illness.The Storm is filled with heart, optimism, and love, interspersed with Los Angeles history, gay and lesbian history, AIDS history, and the backdrop of the 1980s and 1990s. It is an unflinching and, at times, raw memoir of perseverance, integrity, forgiveness, the power of love, spiritual growth, Carpe Diem, dreams, and, most of all: survival and ultimate triumph.Trade Review"The Storm achieves something remarkable, managing to tell a painfully disturbing story that ultimately offers an inspiring message of hope. With storytelling bravado, Christopher Zyda demonstrates the virtue of English majors becoming great financial executives, as he takes us on a very dark journey that illuminates the worst and best of the human condition. We witness homophobia on full, vicious display, and we also meet people who stepped up to do the right thing, as I was very pleased to learn was the case with so many of Chris’ colleagues at Disney. This memoir is as important as it is riveting, since it delivers a powerful firsthand perspective on what it was like to be gay in America before and during the storm of AIDS, as well as the devastating toll the epidemic took not just on those who were struck down, but on those who survived."—Michael D. Eisner, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company"Christopher Zyda has the soul of an artist and the razor-sharp mind of a senior corporate executive. He brings these two qualities together to make The Storm a singular, exciting, and very intimate memoir. This is a look at the AIDS crisis and prejudice through a unique point of view—that of a senior executive at one of America’s largest and most important corporations, The Walt Disney Company. At the same time, it is a deeply personal, human, and revelatory look at coming of age in a very different America. Chris has written a book that is both devastating and harrowing, but at the same time joyous, optimistic and hopeful. This is the essence of great literature, and The Storm is an important and very moving memoir."—Peter Chernin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Chernin Group, and former President and Chief Operating Officer of News Corporation"In my career, I’ve been involved with a number of action movies. Well, you might say that The Storm is an action memoir! Christopher Zyda’s epic account of the AIDS crisis is not only incredibly moving, but it moves! This page-turner is emotional, suspenseful, dramatic, and has as many surprising plot twists as the best blockbusters. Because it is a memoir, it is intensely personal and affecting. At the same time, Zyda tells his tale on a vast canvas that encompasses all that was going on in America during that era, giving the book a remarkably epic feel. Most of all, I was deeply touched by this riveting story of suffering and loss, redemption, and ultimate triumph."—Lawrence Gordon, producer of numerous blockbuster films including Die Hard, 48 Hours, and Field of Dreams, and former President and Chief Operating Officer of 20th Century Fox"Christopher Zyda’s compelling memoir is a passion play. He courageously reveals with wit and pathos, the enormous struggle he endured to evolve, against all odds, into a fully formed exceptional human being. Chris’ “coming of age” in the period of AIDS hysteria brings to light a remarkable triumph of the human spirit. He suffered the agony of self-doubt, the loss of a great love, the pain of abandonment, and the cruelty of ignorant and mean-spirited people. Instead of giving into cynicism, he fought for his life and plumbed his natural gifts of intellect, compassion, toughness, and morality to prevent the dark side from winning. Victorious in many of his principled battles, it was ultimately through Chris’ practice of forgiveness that he transformed himself and countless others. He proclaims that we must “accept responsibility to save ourselves.” In seizing a carpe diem mindset—he does just that. He is one of the better angels of our nature."—Elaine P. Wynn, co-founder of Wynn Resorts and Mirage Resorts

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Book SynopsisThis singular history of a prison, and the queer women and trans people held there, is a window into the policing of queerness and radical politics in the twentieth century. The Women’s House of Detention, a landmark that ushered in the modern era of women’s imprisonment, is now largely forgotten. But when it stood in New York City’s Greenwich Village, from 1929 to 1974, it was a nexus for the tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people who inhabited its crowded cells. Some of these inmates—Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin, Afeni Shakur—were famous, but the vast majority were incarcerated for the crimes of being poor and improperly feminine. Today, approximately 40 percent of the people in women’s prisons identify as queer; in earlier decades, that percentage was almost certainly higher. Historian Hugh Ryan explores the roots of this crisis and reconstructs the little-known lives of incarcerated New Yorkers, making a uniquely queer case for prison abolition—and demonstrating that by queering the Village, the House of D helped defined queerness for the rest of America. From the lesbian communities forged through the Women’s House of Detention to the turbulent prison riots that presaged Stonewall, this is the story of one building and much more: the people it caged, the neighborhood it changed, and the resistance it inspired. Winner, 2023 Stonewall Book Award—Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Book AwardCrimeReads, Best True Crime Books of the Year

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Book SynopsisA first-hand account of the victories and the challenges of LGBT activism over a forty year period. Analyzes the changing social and political attitudes towards the LGBT community in Canada from the 1960s to the present.

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Book SynopsisThe relationship between nation and queer sexuality has long been a fraught one, for the sustaining myths of the former are often at odds with the needs of the latter. This collection of essays introduces readers to important historical and cultural figures and moments in queer life, and it addresses some of the urgent questions of queer belonging that face Wales today.Table of ContentsI. The Queer Past Before 1900 Queer Loss: Felicia Hemans, (trans)nationalism, and the Welsh Bard Daniel Hannah ‘Gender difference is nothing’: Cranogwen and Victorian Wales Jane Aaron ‘Please don’t whip me this time’: The Passions of George Powell of Nant-Eos Harry Heuser From Huw Arwystli to Siôn Eirian: Representitive Examples of Cadi/Queer Life from Medieval to Twentieth Century Welsh Literature Mihangel Morgan II. Placing Queer Wales after 1900 ‘A queer kind of fancy’: women, same-sex desire, and nation in Welsh literature Kirsti Bohata ‘Not friends / But fellows in a union that ends’: Associations of Welshness and Non-heteronormativity in Edward Thomas Andrew Webb Fairy Tale Drag and the Transgender Nation in Rhys Davies, Erica Wooff, and Jan Morris. Huw Osborne III. Building Queer Wales Post-Devolution Lesbian Motherhood in the South Wales Valleys: A Narrative Exploration Alys Einion Living in Fear: Homophobic Hate Crime in Wales Matthew Williams and Jasmin Tregidga Heb addysg, heb ddawn (Without education, without gift): LGBTQ Youth in Educational Settings in Wales John Sam Jones IV. Performing Contemporary Queer Wales Omnisexuality and the City: Exploring National and Sexual Identity through BBC Wales’ Torchwood Rebecca Williams and Ruth McElroy Queer/Welsh and Welsh/Queer: Performing Hybrid Wales Stephen Greer

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Book SynopsisThe belief of many in the early sexual liberation movements was that capitalism’s investment in the norms of the heterosexual family meant that any challenge to them was invariably anti-capitalist. In recent years, however, lesbian and gay subcultures have become increasingly mainstream and commercialized — as seen, for example, in corporate backing for pride events — while the initial radicalism of sexual liberation has given way to relatively conservative goals over marriage and adoption rights. Meanwhile, queer theory has critiqued this ‘homonormativity’, or assimilation, as if some act of betrayal had occurred. In Sex, Needs and Queer Culture, David Alderson seeks to account for these shifts in both queer movements and the wider society, and argues powerfully for a distinctive theoretical framework. Through a critical reassessment of the work of Herbert Marcuse, as well as the cultural theorists Raymond Williams and Alan Sinfield, Alderson asks whether capitalism is progressive for queers, evaluates the distinctive radicalism of the counterculture as it has mutated into queer, and distinguishes between avant-garde protest and subcultural development. In doing so, the book offers new directions for thinking about sexuality and its relations to the broader project of human liberation.Trade ReviewAlderson’s overview of queer theory and its relation to resistance, as well as his reading of the work of Marcuse, is thorough, absorbing and readable for an audience beyond queer theory students and academics. * LSE Review of Books *The book is marked by an enduring faith in the positive and subversive potential of subcultures, autonomous collectives and anti-consumerist movements. * Morning Star *Alderson offers a carefully constructed, critical analysis of contemporary notions of sexual freedom in the historical context of a nascent neoliberal capitalism and era of flexible accumulation. * Red Pepper *'Honest, thoughtful and continuously insightful, Alderson’s socialist-humanist perspective and commitment to moving beyond the identity politics of recent times makes this an indispensable book’. * Jonathan Dollimore, author of Sex, Literature, and Censorship and Sexual Dissidence *Erudite, elegantly written and passionately argued, Sex, Needs and Queer Culture offers a timely and urgently needed reassessment of gay liberation. Alderson’s book will be an enriching and invaluable resource for all working in this field. * Michael G. Cronin, Maynooth University *By placing the economic so directly next to the sexual, Sex, Needs and Queer Culture is able to cut through the ideologies of both the academy and the world at large. Alderson's careful eye avoids the excesses of one-sided polemic while remaining firmly critical, and he cleverly and optimistically re-opens the questions of freedom and liberation for an often all-too-cynical age. * Nina Power, author of One Dimensional Woman *With nuance, passion and considerable lucidity, David Alderson deftly examines the myths and realities of the one-dimensional gay. Sex, Needs and Queer Culture is an astute analysis of our contemporary moment, and a potent call to both reclaim and reinvigorate subcultural queer praxis. * Richard Hornsey, University of Nottingham *‘A genuinely distinctive, highly considered, and important book. The writing is beautifully articulate, and it offers an ambitious and original contribution to queer theory. * Stephen Maddison, University of East London *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Transitions 2. Is Capitalism Progressive (For Queers)? 3. Feeling Radical: Versions of Counterculture 4. Subculture and Postgay Dynamics Postscripts

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Book SynopsisIn this funny, poignant and unflinchingly honest memoir, one of the world’s best-loved storytellers explains how he evolved from a conservative son of the Old South into a gay rights pioneer whose novels inspired millions to claim their own lives. It is a journey that leads him from the racism and misogyny of mid-century North Carolina to a homoerotic Navy initiation ceremony in the jungles of Vietnam to an awkward conversation about girls with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office of the White House. After losing his virginity to another man 'on the very spot where the first shots of the Civil War were fired', Maupin packs his earthly belongings into his Opel GT (including a portrait of a Confederate ancestor) and heads west to that strangest of strange lands: San Francisco in the early 1970’s.Trade ReviewMaster storyteller Armistead Maupin — the man who defined the difference between ‘a biological family’ and ‘a logical family,’ who is both gifted with fearless art and the ability to speak for millions — finally tells his own story. Logical Family is a sweet, filthy peach of a memoir from a cultural explosion of a man -- Caitlin MoranA book for any of us, gay or straight, who have had to find our family. Maupin is one of America’s finest storytellers, and the story of his life is a story as fascinating, as delightful and as compulsive as any of the tales he has made up for us. -- Neil GaimanShould be read by anyone who has ever loved and lost . . . Maupin still has the knack of being able to make you laugh and cry on the same page * Evening Standard *I read Logical Family as slowly as I could, quite as I could never have read any of the Tales volumes all those years ago. The pleasure of its chapters, each a short story focussing on another member of Armistead's extended tribe, was such a heartwarming delight, I couldn't bear to have it pass me by. It was like having the great man visit and sit smoking and gossiping from an armchair at the foot of the bed. -- Patrick Gale[A] highly readable memoir.. .moving and with prize moments. * Observer *

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Book SynopsisThere can be confusion around the appropriate terminology for trans and queer identities, even within the trans community itself. As language is constantly evolving, it can be especially difficult to know what to say. As a thorough A-Z glossary of trans and queer words from 'ace' to 'xe', this dictionary guide will help to dispel the anxiety around using the "wrong" words, while explaining the weight of using certain labels and providing individuals with a vocabulary for personal identification.Having correct and accurate terminology to describe oneself can be empowering, especially with words and phrases that describe gender identity, sexuality, sexual orientation, as well as slang relevant to LGBTQ+ rights and anti-discrimination, queer activism, gender-affirming healthcare and psychology. Written in a traditional A-Z glossary style, this guide will serve as a quick reference for looking up individual words, as well as an in-depth look at trans history and culture.Trade ReviewIn his introduction the author talks of not 'neutralising' queer terms but to 'arm queer youth and newly identified queers with the language which to describe themselves, so that they may articulate their needs, throw this book in the bin, set it on fire and create new words and definitions from the ashes.' My hope is that they don't throw this wonderfully enriching book onto the fire but pass it on to another. Language really, really matters, it always has, but in these times being able to self define and feel confident and present in the words that describe is quite literally often life. -- Juno Roche, writerHolleb deftly transforms vast areas of community knowledge into something compact and accessible enough to leave out on the family's kitchen table in the wake of coming-out conversations. At once an authoritative and yet highly readable book, it covered all bases and uncovered questions I didn't yet know I needed to ask. This book will be immensely useful to the queer community. -- Juno Mac, author of REVOLTING PROSTITUTES; The Fight For Sex Workers' RightsHolleb has produced a lucid, accessible, and engaging snapshot of the ever-evolving terminology used to navigate gender, sexuality, and the shifting relationships between them. This is a book attentive to the power of language, and one which uses words with thoughtfulness and care. It represents a substantial achievement, and looks set to become an invaluable reference text for our time. -- Helen Hester, Associate Professor of Media and Communication, University of West LondonTable of Contents1. Introduction and How to Use this Book. 2. Glossary, A-Z. 3. Index.

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Book Synopsis'Excellent' KATE BORNSTEIN'The compassionate, accessible manual the world has been waiting for' LAURIE PENNYHave you ever questioned your own gender identity? Do you know somebody who is transgender or who identifies as non-binary? Do you ever feel confused when people talk about gender diversity?This down-to-earth guide is for anybody who wants to know more about gender, from its biology, history and sociology, to how it plays a role in our relationships and interactions with family, friends, partners and strangers. It looks at practical ways people can express their own gender, and will help you to understand people whose gender might be different from your own. With activities and points for reflection throughout, this book will help people of all genders engage with gender diversity and explore the ideas in the book in relation to their own lived experiences.Trade ReviewWherever you are on your gender adventure, this book will be helpful to you. Beyond the headlines, gender is a personal journey - and for anyone struggling to find their way, this is the compassionate, accessible manual the world has been waiting for. -- Laurie Penny, journalist, activist and author of Unspeakable ThingsThe authors have made adequate time for Indigenous and Two Spirit identities and people. Talking about decolonizing the gender narrative in a way that traces back to the very roots of the first peoples in a place is something that is crucial in providing understanding, but is often ignored or overlooked. Hands down, I will recommend this book for anybody looking to learn more about gender and sexuality. It's an amazing resource for ALL, regardless of identity, experience or knowledge. I fell head over heels with this book, and I can't wait to shout it from the rooftops! -- Katrina Werchouski, Director of Indigenous Cultures Center, Northland CollegeIf you want to finally discard the narrow confines of gender and sexuality and explore the vast landscapes of gender and sexual imagination, this is your book! -- Jayashree George, Lecturer, School of the Art Institute of ChicagoHow to Understand Your Gender is a thoughtful, intersectional, embodied invitation to reflect on gender. It has something to offer to readers at every stage of their gender journey, and is a valuable tool for educators and clinicians. -- Zena Sharman, PhD, editor of The Remedy: Queer and Trans Voices on Health and Health Care and Persistence: All Ways Butch and FemmeFor anyone who's ever wished they had a smart, kind, friend with whom they could calmly and safely discuss gender issues: this most excellent book is that kind of friend. -- Kate Bornstein, author of Gender OutlawAs a trans masculine person [...] I identified with so much, over and over again. Not only did this validate my own journey but it offered me access to the joys and difficulties of others and I felt less alone. This book will travel with me, it's not a one off read, but a guide I can dip in and out of whenever I feel the need. -- Wenn Lawson, author of Transitioning TogetherHow to Understand Your Gender is a practical entry level guidebook for people who wish to challenge gender binarism, and should contribute to binarism's ongoing evolution. -- Jane Haile * New York Journal of Books *Table of ContentsForeword. Introduction. 1. What is gender? 2. How the world sees gender. 3. Your gender background. 4. Your current experience of gender. 5. Identifying and living your gender. 6. Gender, relationships and sexuality. 7. Gender pioneers and gender warriors. Conclusions. Further support. Acknowledgements.

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Book SynopsisIn 2009 Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill became a top global news story. Two years later Hillary Clinton declared “Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights,” but still today there is little consensus on how to advance those rights beyond the U.S. and Europe. The fact is that international LGBT activism and allies have created winners and losers. In Africa those who easily identify with the identities of the global movement find support, funding and care. Those whose sexualities don’t align so neatly don’t. In this faithful and moving investigation, award winning journalist Robbie Corey-Boulet shows that LGBT liberation does not look the same in Africa as it does in the United States or Europe. At a time when there is a groundswell of interest in LGBT life in Africa and attempts at reversing LGBT rights across much of the ‘developed’ world Corey-Boulet lays bare past failures. To the extent that there exists a right way to engage on LGBT issues in Africa—and, indeed, worldwide—Love Falls on Us is for those looking to learn what it is.Trade ReviewAt last, a book with fresh reporting and nuanced insight on the LGBT community in Africa. Corey-Boulet launches the reader into the fight for the rights of queer Africans, with thoughtful attention to the global and local dynamics of activism across cultures. Even better, he gives us more stories of ordinary African lives, animating them with context and charm. This is an important book. * Dayo Olopade, author of The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa *In Africa, gay rights – like most other human rights – exist in a tenuous state, merely tolerated in the best of times, violently repressed in the worst. But beneath the surface, gay lives go on, and unique forms of gay culture thrive even in hostile environments, as Robbie Corey-Boulet writes in this vivid and important book. Their voices are heard in Loves Falls on Us, loudly and irreverently, revealing surprising truths about Africa – and the people who misjudge it from afar. * Andrew Rice, author of The Teeth May Smile But the Heart Does Not Forget *Corey-Boulet offers a rare insight into the lives of queer men and women in three African countries. These moving life stories defy stereotypes of African queer people as passive victims in need of liberation, and show how the geopolitics of LGBTQ rights can inadvertently harm the very people they aim to help. Crafted by a gifted and sensitive writer, Love Falls On Us is a landmark of journalism that illuminates the deep story behind a sensationalistic issue drawing on both long-term investigative journalism and social studies. It will be essential reading for those involved in the global fight to combat homophobia but also to human rights activists, postcolonial scholars, and students of contemporary Africa. * Professor Vinh-Kim Nguyen, Department of Anthropology, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies *Love Falls on Us offers moving accounts of LGBT Africans’ lives and loves, while demystifying the complexity of gender and sexual diversity politics on the continent. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in LGBT rights and activism. * Ashley Currier, author of Politicizing Sex in Contemporary Africa and Out in Africa *This book provides a gripping portrait of queer life in West Africa, and an intimate insight into the resilience, courage and creativity of those who are marginalized, not only by societal norms of gender and sexuality, but also by global narratives of LGBT rights. * Adriaan Van Klinken, Associate Professor of Religion and African Studies, University of Leeds *Robbie is a meticulous researcher with an unparalleled knowledge of LGBT rights in Africa, a deep connection with local activists, and an understanding of the complex relationship between well-intended outside human rights groups and the local activist community. * Corinne Dufka, Human Rights Watch, Associate Director, West Africa *Explores with nuance and sophistication the paradoxical effects of transnational LGBT rights activism. * Graeme Reid, LGBT Programme Director, Human Rights Watch *Robbie is a meticulous researcher with an unparalleled knowledge of LGBT rights in Africa, a deep connection with local activists, and an understanding of the complex relationship between well-intended outside human rights groups and the local activist community. * Corinne Dufka, Human Rights Watch, Associate Director, West Africa *“Love Falls on Us” deepens our understanding of these lives beyond the persecution described in Western media. Corey-Boulet’s work more than rises to the challenge by elevating the extraordinary ordinariness of L.G.B.T.Q. Africans who are trying to live full, peaceful and free lives in the places they call home. * Uzodinma Iweala, The New York Times *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part 1: Cameroon 1. Indomitable Lions 2. Do No Harm 3. More Fear Than Joy 4. Human Rights Feeds on Horror 5. Love Falls On Us Part 2: Côte d’Ivoire 6. Here in the Realm of Art 7. L’Affaire pédophilie 8. A Life for Two 9. Winners and Losers 10. Brahima du jardin Part 3: Liberia 11. Everybody Will Carry Their Own Burden 12. Anti-Liberian, Anti-God 13. Let That Awareness Be Created 14. Grown Woman 15. Finding Our Own Champions

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Book SynopsisQueer studies is now a rapidly expanding field, as scholars from a variety of disciplines seek to address the long-running marginalisation of queer perspectives and experiences. But there has so far been little effort to unify the study of queer communities outside the West, and much of the current writing views these communities through a narrowly Western lens. Building on the work of the annual Queer Asia conference, which the editors helped to establish, this collection represents the most comprehensive work to date on queer studies in an Asian context. Featuring case studies and original research from across the continent, covering the Middle East, South and East Asia, and Asian diasporas, the collection offers a genuinely pan-Asian perspective which places queer Asian identities and movements in dialogue with each other, rather than within a Western framework. By considering how queerness is imagined within plural Asian experiences and contexts, the contributors show a that re-envisioning of ‘queer’ through Asian perspectives has the potential to challenge existing discourses and debates in the wider field of contemporary gender, sexuality, and queer studies.Trade ReviewBoth being queer and being Asian remain alienating experiences today. This sophisticated volume examines their negotiated syncopation in diverse ordinary contexts. The chapters build a timely solidarity across disciplinary, professional, identitarian, and geopolitical lines to de-universalize Western privilege and unleash the power of liminal synergies * Howard H. Chiang, University of California, Davis *Bursting forth online and in various spaces, ‘Queer’ Asia is certainly one of the most energetic and exciting phenomena to emerge in gender and sexuality studies, and queer politics, over recent years. Blending academic research and critical theory with the cultural and the political the ‘Queer’ Asia network has successfully contributed to redefining the landscape and geopolitics of global queer studies * Matthew Waites, University of Glasgow *Table of ContentsForeword – Matthew Waites Introduction - J. Daniel Luther and Jennifer Ung Loh Part I: Negotiations 1. Under Empire and the Modern State: Unravelling ‘Queer Precarities’ Inside Global Assemblages - Ahmad Ibrahim 2. Reimagining HIV in Indonesian online media: a discussion of two recent Indonesian webseries – Ben Murtagh 3. Rich In Desire: Sexualities and Fantasies Deriving from Poverty, Stigmatisation and Oppression – He Xiaopei 4. Mithliyy, mithlak: language and LGBTQ Activism in Lebanon and Palestine - Gabriel Semerene Interview with Alana EISSA: Trans Activism in Malaysia and the UK Asylum Process Part II: Traces and Ambiguities 5. Queer Desires and Satirised Empires: Notes on Aubrey Menen’s A Conspiracy of Women (1965) - David Lunn 6. Queer Objects: An Archive for the Future – Loo Zihan 7. The Isolated Queer Body: Harisu’s Dodo Cosmetics Advertisement - Kate Korroch Interview with Floyd Tiogangco: Filmmaking and Gender Expression in The Philippines Part III: Coalitions and Fractures 8. Intersex Advocacy in Chinese/Sinophone Contexts - A Primer, accompanied by an Interview with Activist Small LUK - Geoffrey Yeung 9. Queer Asia’s Body Without Organs: In the Making of Queer/Decolonial Politics – Po-Han Lee 10. Feminist and Queer Perspectives in West Asia: Complicities and Tensions - Nadje AL-ALI and Ghiwa Sayegh Interview with Alqumit Alhamad: Art and Intersections from Syria to Sweden Epilogue - J. Daniel Luther and Jennifer Ung Loh

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Book SynopsisThe twenty-first century has seen LGBTQ+ rights emerge at the forefront of public discourse and national politics in ways that would once have been hard to imagine. This book offers a unique and layered account of the complex dynamics in the modern moment of social change, drawing together critical, social and cultural theory as well as empirical research, which includes interviews and multi-platform media analyses. This original new study puts forward a much-needed analysis of twenty-first century television and lesbian visibility. Books addressing the representation of lesbians have tended to focus on film; analysis of queer characters on television has usually focused on representations of gay males. Other recent books have attempted to address lesbian, gay and trans representation together, with the result that none are examined in sufficient detail – here, the exclusive focus on lesbian representation allows a fuller discussion. Until now, much of the research on lesbian and gay representation has tended to employ only textual analysis. The combination of audience research with analysis in this book brings a new angle to the debates, as does the critical review of the tropes of lesbian representation. The earlier stereotypes of pathological monsters and predators are discussed alongside the more recent trends of ‘lesbian chic’ and ‘lesbianism as a phase’. Trade Review'Lesbians on Television provides a nuanced look at the gender and racial politics which underpin a number of relevant queer televisual works, interrogating and illuminating the often-contradictory ideologies which pervade them. McNicholas Smith’s notion of ‘the lesbian normal’ is also useful to other researchers examining contemporary queer representation, as it emphasizes the postfeminist and homonormative discourses which are often found in queer media works. As such, Lesbians on Television is a welcome contribution to the study of how lesbians are depicted in contemporary representation. As McNicholas Smith writes in the book’s conclusion, contemporary lesbian representation has given us cause for both optimism and concern, with her monograph serving as a detailed account of precisely the discursive tension inherent in many queer televisual works.' -- Anamarija Horvat, Journal of Popular Television'McNicholas Smith analyses the consistent repetition of lesbian stereotypes which are detrimental to the positive progress of their representation, including, for instance, what she identifies as ‘the temporary lesbian’, ‘the dead lesbian’, and ‘the evil lesbian’. Each example is diligently examined by McNicholas Smith in her consideration of the development of lesbian visibility over time, and the extent to which progress has been made, with arguments that remain clear, engaging and accessible throughout. Whilst the scope of analysis may be limited somewhat through its primary focus on examining case studies of teenage lesbians who are both white and cis-gendered, McNicholas Smith’s research provides an overview of the current state of lesbian representation, introducing the subject to researchers interested in queer studies or, more specifically, lesbian representation and becoming a useful foundation for further research.' -- Jade Evans, Critical Studies on Television'The book takes a nuanced look at the gender and racial politics which underpin a selection of relevant lesbian televisual works, interrogating and illuminating the often-contradictory ideologies which pervade them. [McNicholas Smith] emphasizes the postfeminist and homonormative discourses which have been found in these selected queer media works. As such, Lesbians on Television is a welcome contribution to the exclusive and detailed study of how lesbians are depicted in contemporary representation. [...] Such a well-researched book as Lesbians on Television is an invitation for researchers to do an analysis of queer folk in the media in the global South.' -- Dolar Vasani, AwaaZ MagazineTable of Contents Introduction 'Previously…': Queer women on screen ‘The way that we live and love’: The L Word and the tensions of visibility ‘Homophobia is so old fashioned’: Skins and the lesbian normal ‘Skins’ truest legacy’: The counterpublics of the Naomily fandom ‘The nation’s favourite lesbian’: Coronation Street and the ‘everyday’ soap lesbian ‘New Directions’: Glee, new queer visibility and post-queer popular culture ‘A new kind of family’: The Fosters and the radical potential of the lesbian normal Afterword: Reflections on the limits and possibilities of new queer visibility and the lesbian normal

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Book SynopsisWhen Rob was twelve, they attempted a full-blown Disney parade in their house for their Grandma. As Rob donned wigs and played Mary Poppins, Ariel, Mickey Mouse and Belle, their Dad doubled as Stage Manager, Sound Technician and Goofy. Unfortunately, Dad missed all his cues and pushed all the floats in the wrong direction. Mum mistook Aladdin for Ursula. The costumes went awry. And Ariel's bubble gun didn't work properly. Grandma had a nice time, though. My Son's a Queer (But What Can You Do?) is the joyous, chaotic, autobiographical story of actor, writer and social-media sensation Rob Madge as they set out to recreate that parade – and this time, nobody, no, nobody is gonna rain on it. It was first performed at London's Turbine Theatre in June 2021, directed by Luke Sheppard, with music by Pippa Cleary – and starring Rob Madge as Rob Madge. It was a critical and commercial hit at the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and later that year transferred to the Garrick Theatre in London, to make the West End that little bit more queer. The play won Best Off-West End Production at the 2022 WhatsOnStage Awards, the Theatre Award at the 2023 Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards and was nominated for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play at the 2023 Olivier Awards. Rob Madge was joint winner of Best Creative West End Debut at the 2023 Stage Debut Awards. This revised edition features the complete text of the play as performed in Edinburgh and the West End, including links to and transcriptions of the video footage, colour photographs and extra bonus content from the RDM* Productions Archive. It concludes with an afterword by Mum and Dad about the joys to be found in championing the creativity of children – and why playing Tinker Bell, with a smile, might be the best thing you can do for your kids, and for yourselves. * Robert Dennis MadgeTrade Review'A gorgeous celebration of what it's like to grow up queer with a supportive family... It will have you laugh, shed a tear and make you remember the magic that once took place in your childhood living room' * Whatsonstage *'Richly comical and very moving... My Son's a Queer offers something for everyone. A coming-of-age gay narrative... A pop culture love-in for fairytale fanboy/girls and everyone in between... And, most compellingly of all, a cri de coeur for parenting that, rather than splicing children into preordained pinks and blues, embraces them in their infinite expressive variety' * Guardian *'An affectionate, uplifting story with a strong, surprisingly universal message about pride, self-esteem and acceptance... a hilarious and deeply moving love-letter to the parents who embraced [Madge's] choices from an early age and encouraged them to soar' * The Stage *'Magical... will leave even the dourest Disney-phobic pessimist having a Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah sort of day' * Reviews Hub *'A blast of daft joy... carnivalesque, fantastical, theatrical, over-the-top and down the other side with a splash' * TheatreCat *'Equal parts joyful and profound... a five-star production packed with heart' * Broadway World *

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Book SynopsisFlaming challenges to masculinity, objectification and the desire to conform.

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Costa 2019 Poetry Award. . Winner of the 2020 Hawthornden Prize. Surreal, joyful, political and queer, Reckless Paper Birds is a collection to treasure by Polari Prize-winning poet John McCullough. These exuberant poems welcome you into a psychedelic, parallel world of 'vomit and blossom' where Kate Bush mingles with a weeping Lady Gaga, a 'fractal coast' full of see-through things: water, mirrors, glass pebbles. With a magpie's eye for hidden charms, McCullough ranges across birdlife, Grindr and My Little Pony while also addressing social issues from homelessness to homophobia.Trade ReviewJohn McCullough has a reputation for crafting lyric poems of the everyday with a surreal twist. In Reckless Paper Birds, the familiar yet strange is rarely more than a stanza away. As if Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems jumped headlong into our 21st century, McCullough's lines sing of Lady Gaga, Instagram and house music.; Ben Wilkinson, The Guardian; A celebration of abundace ... a secular litany of life in its fullness and fragility.; Rob Mackenzie, Poetry London; The vitality of the poems, their nimbleness, their wit and their music combine to mark Reckless Paper Birds as a rare literary phenomenon. The book, for all its undercurrents and complexities, is a frank and militant declaration of joy – gay in a double sense of the word – and should be taken very seriously.; Christopher Reid, Judge of the 2020 Hawthornden Prize

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Book SynopsisThe movement for LGBT rights has greatly expanded sexual freedom, but many challenges confront this struggle for equality. Sherry Wolf offers a Marxist analysis that links today's struggles for equal rights to a future based on genuine liberation.

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Book SynopsisThis riveting debut from poet Faylita Hicks is a reclamation of power for black women and nonbinary people whose bodies have become the very weapons used against them. HoodWitch tells the story of a young person who discovers that they are “something that can & will survive / a whole century of hunt.” Through a series of poems based on childhood photographs, Hicks invokes the spirits of mothers and daughters, sex workers and widows, to conjure an alternative to their own early deaths and the deaths of those whom they have already lost. In this collection about resilience, Hicks speaks about giving her child up for adoption, mourning the death of her fiancé, and embracing the nonbinary femme body—persevering in the face of medical malpractice, domestic abuse, and police violence. The poems find people transformed, “remade out of smoke & iron” into cyborgs and wolves, machines and witches—beings capable of seeking justice in a world that refuses them the option. Exploring the intersections of Christianity, modern mysticism, and Afrofuturism in a sometimes urban, sometimes natural setting, Hicks finds a place where “everyone everywhere is hands in the air,” where “you know they gonna push & pull it together. / Just like they learned to.” It is a place of natural magick—where someone like Hicks can have more than one name: where they can be both dead and alive, both a mortal and a god.

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Book SynopsisHardcore pornographic films combine fantasy and real sex to create a unique genre of entertainment. Pornographic films are also historical documents that give us access to the sexual behavior and eroticism of different historical periods. This book shows how the making of pornographic films is a social process that draws on the fantasies, sexual scripts, and sexual identities of performers, writers, directors, and editors to produce sexually exciting videos and movies. Yet hardcore pornographic films have also created a body of knowledge that constitutes, in this digital age, an enormous archive of sexual fantasies that serve as both a form of sex education and self-help guides. Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography focuses on sex and what can be learned about it from pornographic representations.Trade Review“With Bigger than Life Jeffrey Escoffier had already proved himself the most informative and lively chronicler of the history of gay pornography. Now, against the background of this history, he turns his attention to the making of gay sexual fantasies to convincingly explain how the unfaked realities of sexual acts work to connect with fantasmatic sexual scripts to sell alluring performances.” -- Linda Williams * author of Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the "Frenzy of the Visible" *"Jeffrey Escoffier brilliantly lays bare what really drives pornography: less the pumping bodies than the underlying sexual scripts, which draw on historical conditions to shape individual desires. No scholar has tracked this process so comprehensively, from the labor arrangements of production to the evolving sites of consumption. Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography offers pointed observations on everything from 1970s 'homo-realism' to contemporary gay-for-pay performance, as well as comprehensive theorization that reshapes porn studies." -- Whitney Strub * author of Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right *"Escoffier returns to the topic of gay pornography that made his previous book Bigger Than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema From Beefcake To Hardcore so notable. This one examines how the sexual imagination and identifies of the performers, writers, directors and editors have shaped the contours of gay porn." * DNA Magazine *"The study investigates several aspects of the porn industry, including straight and, later, transgender porn, focusing on pay disparity (men get less than women) the rise and fall of 'narrative' stories in features, the persistence of the fictive 'story' told via sex acts, and even a chapter on 'gay-for-pay' among the likes of Jeff Stryker and Ryan Idol. With a focus primarily on the rise and fall of studio porn and its related scenarios and economics, toward the end, Escoffier touches on other forms of porn; actors' cam-shows, nightclub appearances, strip acts and escorting." * Bay Area Reporter *"Published as a collection in February, Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography reflects some 25 years’ worth of interviewing on-and behind-camera talent." * BLOOP *"Escoffier covers porn’s relation to the sexual revolution, he movement from softcore to hardcore porn, the emergence of gay porn, identity through porn, porn screenplays, gay for pay, female actors in straight porn, porn stars, trans porn and porn and the technological revolution." * Reviews by Amos Lassen *"Enlightening and even affordable." * Lambda Literary *"While many might think of pornography as only a minor aspect, Escoffier offers a strong argument that hardcore pornography has been integral to the recent historical developments of sex and sexuality. Hardcore, it is claimed, is an archive of desires and the structural conditions that both propagate and constrain them." * Gotham Center for New York City History *"Constructing the Pornographic Object of Knowledge: A Conversation between Whitney Strub and Jeffrey Escoffier" * NOTCHES *"A key point for Escoffier...is that porn’s supply creates its own demand, restructuring and expanding viewers’ desires: someone might not be into or even know about a particular kink until they see it. And porn is obliged to endlessly introduce new content since viewers bore easily." * Boston Review *"The GLR talks with the author of Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography: 'In porn there are scripts at various levels.'" * Gay & Lesbian Review *"Engaging and accessible. This volume can serve as an excellent introduction both to Escoffier's work and the broader scholarship on pornography (gay, straight, and trans)." * Gay & Lesbian Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Pornography and the History of Sexuality Chapter One - Pornography, Perversity and Sexual Revolution Chapter Two - Beefcake to Hardcore: Gay Pornography and Sexual Revolution Chapter Three - Sex in the Seventies: Gay Porn Cinema as an Archive for the History of Sexuality Chapter Four - Porn's Historical Unconscious: Sex, Identity and Everyday Life in the Films of Jack Deveau and Joe Gage Part II: Producing Sex: Sexual Scripts, Work and the Making of Pornography Chapter Five - Scripting the Sex: Fantasy, Narrative and Sexual Scripts in Pornographic Films Chapter Six - Gay-for-Pay: Straight Men and the Making of Gay Pornography Chapter Seven - The Wages for Wood: Do Female Performers in the Adult Film Industry Earn More than Male Performers Chapter Eight - Porn Star/Stripper/Escort: Economic and Sexual Dynamics in a Sex Work Career Chapter Nine - Trans Porn, Heterosexuality and Sexual Identity Epilogue: From the Secret Museum to the Digital Archives: Constructing the Sexual Imaginary Acknowledgements About the Author

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Book SynopsisThis book examines how heteronormativity in higher education can be interrupted and resisted. Located within the theoretical framework of queer and critical pedagogy and based on extensive empirical research, the author explores the dynamics of heteronormativity and its interruption on professional courses in a range of higher education institutions. Reactions to attempt to interrupt it were nuanced: while strategies of contested engagement, avoidance and retreat were expressed, heterosexualities were largely un-examined and un-articulated. ‘Coming out’ needs to be a pedagogical act, carried out concurrently with the interruptions of other social constructions and binary oppositions. The author calls for co-created and co-held meta-reflexive and liminal spaces that emphasise inter-subjectivity, encounters, and working in the moment. These spaces must de-construct and reconstruct pedagogical power and knowledge to promote collective intersubjective consciousnesses, and widen the vision of the reflective practitioner to that of the pedagogical practitioner. This pioneering book is a call to action to all those concerned with interrupting and problematising presumed binary categories of sexuality within the heterosexual matrix.Table of ContentsChapter 1. Introduction: Heteronormativity and its interruptions in universities: 'to teach is to be watched'SECTION I: Framework and contextChapter 2. Heteronormativity in Higher Education: Terminology, Context and Empirical WorkChapter 3. Pedagogic framework for interrupting heteronormativityChapter 4. Theoretical framework and key conceptsSECTION II. Dynamics of heteronormativity within educational settingsChapter 5. A Case Study of Institutional Heteronormativity in Higher Education InstitutionsChapter 6. Dynamics of inter-subjective heteronormativity amongst students in higher educationChapter 7. The absent majority? Constructions of heterosexuality within educational settingsChapter 8. The present minority: Homonormativity within educational settingsSECTION III. Interrupting heteronormativity and constructing transgressive and transformative sexualitiesChapter 9. Coming out: the personal, the political and the pedagogicChapter 10. The coming out imperative: self-revelation as pedagogyChapter 11. Transgressive sexualities and public pedagogiesChapter 12. A whole course intersectional team approach to interrupting heteronormativityChapter 13. Educating the Pedagogical Practitioner: The Liminal Spaces of a Queer and Critical PedagogyChapter 14. Conclusion: Interrupting Heteronormativity in Higher Education—Next Steps

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Book SynopsisDavid Evans Frantz is a curator based in Los Angeles. Christina Linden is an arts educator and curator based in San Francisco. Chris E. Vargas is the founder of MOTHA and an interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles and Bellingham, WA.

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Book Synopsis'The freedom Hart has felt while working on the book has been one of its joys, and it’s shown him what he wants his photography to be: an exploration of the juxtaposition of power and vulnerability.' - Creative Review When I Think About Power is a black and white photo series showcasing over 70 portraits focusing on the notion of power as it relates to the Black queer experience. Started in 2019, this project investigates and nourishes modern-day’s reimagining of man through themed chapters questioning the conflicting dynamics of the Black queer man’s power. Hart's approach to this work is rooted in an examination of his own journey towards self-acceptance growing up in Macon, Georgia, as he states in the coinciding text, every day of my life I have been called my father. Through the process of visually exploring the differences and similarities between himself and the men who surround him, studying the words of Black queer icons, and even researching the visibility of power throughout history in societies like the Ming dynasty or ancient Egypt, Hart has created a poetically driven collection of images that unravel a power that plenty of queer individuals seek to find at some point in their life while simultaneously depicting the struggle that can often align itself with this power. From queerness, dress, to heritage, this series documents the journey of discovering the power within.

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Book SynopsisIs there an option to oppose without automatically participating in the opposed? This volume explores different perspectives on dissent, understanding practices, cultures, and theories of resistance, dispute, and opposition as inherently participative. It discusses aspects of the body as a political instance, the identity and subjectivity building of individuals and groups, (micro-)practices of dissent, and theories of critique from different disciplinary perspectives. This collection thus touches upon contemporary issues, recent protests and movements, artistic subversion and dissent, online activism as well as historic developments and elemental theories of dissent.

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Book Synopsis

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