Best of
Queer

2004

Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde


Alexis De Veaux - 2004
    Drawing from the private archives of the poet's estate and numerous interviews, Alexis De Veaux demystifies Lorde's iconic status, charting her conservative childhood in Harlem; her early marriage to a white, gay man with whom she had two children; her emergence as an outspoken black feminist lesbian; and her canonization as a seminal poet of American literature.

Undoing Gender


Judith Butler - 2004
    In terms that draw from feminist and queer theory, Butler considers the norms that govern and fail to govern gender and sexuality as they relate to the constraints on recognizable personhood. The book constitutes a reconsideration of her earlier view on gender performativity from Gender Trouble. In this work, the critique of gender norms is clearly situated within the framework of human persistence and survival. And to "do" one's gender in certain ways sometimes implies "undoing" dominant notions of personhood. She writes about the "New Gender Politics" that has emerged in recent years, a combination of movements concerned with transgender, transsexuality, intersex, and their complex relations to feminist and queer theory.

Strangers in Paradise: Pocket Book 1


Terry Moore - 2004
    She's smart, independent and very much in love with her best friend, Francine. Then Katchoo meets David, a gentle but persistent young man who is determined to win Katchoo's heart. The resulting love triangle is a touching comedy of romantic errors until Katchoo's former employer comes looking for her and $850,000 in missing mob money. As her idyllic life begins to fall apart, Katchoo discovers no one can be trusted and that the past she thought she left behind now threatens to destroy her and everything she loves, including Francine.

Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class


Michelle TeaLis Goldschmidt - 2004
    It was these concerns that prompted indie icon Michelle Tea--whose memoir The Chelsea Whistle details her own working-class roots in gritty Chelsea, Massachusetts--to collect these fierce, honest, tender essays written by women who can’t go home to the suburbs when their assignment is over. These wide-ranging essays cover everything from stealing and selling blood to make ends meet, to "jumping" class, how if time equals money then being poor means waiting, surviving and returning to the ghetto and how feminine identity is shaped by poverty. Contributors include Dorothy Allison, Diane Di Prima, Terri Griffith, Daisy Hernández, Frances Varian, Tara Hardy, Shawna Kenney, Siobhan Brooks, Terri Ryan, and more.

Almost Like Being in Love


Steve Kluger - 2004
    They keep in touch at first, but then slowly drift apart.Flash forward twenty years.Travis and Craig both have great lives, careers, and loves. But something is missing .... Travis is the first to figure it out. He's still in love with Craig, and come what may, he's going after the boy who captured his heart, even if it means forsaking his job, making a fool of himself, and entering the great unknown. Told in narrative, letters, checklists, and more, this is the must-read novel for anyone who's wondered what ever happened to that first great love.

Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition


Steven Greenberg - 2004
    Employing traditional rabbinic resources, Greenberg presents readers with surprising biblical interpretations of the creation story, the love of David and Jonathan, the destruction of Sodom, and the condemning verses of Leviticus. But Greenberg goes beyond the question of whether homosexuality is biblically acceptable to ask how such relationships can be sacred. In so doing, he draws on a wide array of nonscriptural texts to introduce readers to occasions of same-sex love in Talmudic narratives, medieval Jewish poetry and prose, and traditional Jewish case law literature. Ultimately, Greenberg argues that Orthodox communities must open up debate, dialogue, and discussion-precisely the foundation upon which Jewish law rests-to truly deal with the issue of homosexual love. This book will appeal to all people of faith struggling to merge their belief in the scriptures with a desire to make their communities more open and accepting to gay and lesbian members.

That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation


Mattilda Bernstein SycamoreBenjamin Shepard - 2004
    This timely collection of essays by writers such as Patrick Califia, Kate Bornstein, Carol Queen, Charlie Anders, Benjamin Shepard, and others shows what the new queer resistance looks like. Intended as a fistful of rocks to throw at the glass house of Gaylandia, the book challenges the commercialized, commoditized, and hyper objectified view of gay/queer identity projected by the mainstream (straight and gay) media by exploring queer struggles to transform gender, revolutionize sexuality, and build community/family outside of traditional models. Essays include "Dr. Laura, Sit on My Face," "Gay Art Guerrillas," "Legalized Sodomy Is Political Foreplay," and "Queer Parents: An Oxymoron or Just Plain Moronic?"

The Complete Strangers In Paradise, Volume 3, Part 6


Terry Moore - 2004
    including Katchoo. Will this be the end of a great friendship and a new life for Francine? Will David be there to pick up the pieces for Katchoo? Or will this be a whole new beginning for the SiP gang? This premium hardcover edition also includes the story of David Qin's astonishing past life and how he came to know our girls as well as Freddie's close encounter of the disastrous kind with Katchoo. Strangers in Paradise is the entertaining and poignant look at the relationship of two young women and the twists and turns that life throws at them. Francine and Katchoo are high-school best friends who are reunited when Francine comes back to town after years away from her hometown. David is their new friend entangled in their complicated lives. From creepy ex-boyfriends and insensitive bosses to the reality of AIDS and underworld prostitution, you never know what will come up next - but you can always count on laughing and crying at the same time.

Journey's End


L.J. Maas - 2004
    Slaves and prostitutes had more rights than the average female. What if one woman had the power to change all that? One female warrior, Aedon, known as The Lion to her people, changes history in this alternate look at Ancient Greece.As terrible as she was strong, The Lion soon earned a reputation that caused women and children to cower in fear within her presence. No mortal man could match her in battle. Cursed by the Gods when she was still a teenager, a dark demon controlled the warrior's soul during times of battle to the point where she lost herself entirely. The darkness that fell upon her in battle turned her from honorable warrior, defending her homeland, into the evil Lord Conqueror.That was before Cassandra entered Aedon's life.

Becoming a Visible Man


Jamison Green - 2004
    Jamison Green combines candid autobiography with informed analysis to offer unique insight into the multiple challenges of the female-to-male transsexual experience, ranging from encounters with prejudice and strained relationships with family to the development of an FTM community and the realities of surgical sex reassignment.For more than a decade, Green has provided educational programs on gender-variance issues for corporations, law-enforcement agencies, social-science conferences and classes, continuing legal education, religious education, and medical venues. His comprehensive knowledge of the processes and problems encountered by transgendered and transsexual people--as well as his legal advocacy work to help ensure that gender-variant people have access to the same rights and opportunities as others--enable him to explain the issues as no transsexual author has previously done.Brimming with frank and often poignant recollections of Green's own experiences--including his childhood struggles with identity and his years as a lesbian parent prior to his sex-reassignment surgery--the book examines transsexualism as a human condition, and sex reassignment as one of the choices that some people feel compelled to make in order to manage their gender variance. Relating the FTM psyche and experience to the social and political forces at work in American society, Becoming a Visible Man also speaks consciously of universal principles that concern us all, particularly the need to live one's life honestly, openly, and passionately.

Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People


Joan Roughgarden - 2004
    A distinguished evolutionary biologist, Roughgarden takes on the medical establishment, the Bible, social science—and even Darwin himself. She leads the reader through a fascinating discussion of diversity in gender and sexuality among fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, including primates. Evolution's Rainbow explains how this diversity develops from the action of genes and hormones and how people come to differ from each other in all aspects of body and behavior. Roughgarden reconstructs primary science in light of feminist, gay, and transgender criticism and redefines our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality. Witty, playful, and daring, this book will revolutionize our understanding of sexuality.Roughgarden argues that principal elements of Darwinian sexual selection theory are false and suggests a new theory that emphasizes social inclusion and control of access to resources and mating opportunity. She disputes a range of scientific and medical concepts, including Wilson's genetic determinism of behavior, evolutionary psychology, the existence of a gay gene, the role of parenting in determining gender identity, and Dawkins's "selfish gene" as the driver of natural selection. She dares social science to respect the agency and rationality of diverse people; shows that many cultures across the world and throughout history accommodate people we label today as lesbian, gay, and transgendered; and calls on the Christian religion to acknowledge the Bible's many passages endorsing diversity in gender and sexuality. Evolution's Rainbow concludes with bold recommendations for improving education in biology, psychology, and medicine; for democratizing genetic engineering and medical practice; and for building a public monument to affirm diversity as one of our nation's defining principles.

The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government


David K. Johnson - 2004
    But while the famous question, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" resonated in the halls of Congress, security officials were posing another question at least as frequently, if more discreetly: "Information has come to the attention of the Civil Service Commission that you are a homosexual. What comment do you care to make?"Historian David K. Johnson here relates the frightening, untold story of how, during the Cold War, homosexuals were considered as dangerous a threat to national security as Communists. Charges that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations were havens for homosexuals proved a potent political weapon, sparking a "Lavender Scare" more vehement and long-lasting than McCarthy's Red Scare. Relying on newly declassified documents, years of research in the records of the National Archives and the FBI, and interviews with former civil servants, Johnson recreates the vibrant gay subculture that flourished in New Deal-era Washington and takes us inside the security interrogation rooms where thousands of Americans were questioned about their sex lives. The homosexual purges ended promising careers, ruined lives, and pushed many to suicide. But, as Johnson also shows, the purges brought victims together to protest their treatment, helping launch a new civil rights struggle.The Lavender Scare shatters the myth that homosexuality has only recently become a national political issue, changing the way we think about both the McCarthy era and the origins of the gay rights movement. And perhaps just as importantly, this book is a cautionary tale, reminding us of how acts taken by the government in the name of "national security" during the Cold War resulted in the infringement of the civil liberties of thousands of Americans.

Kenneth Anger: A Demonic Visionary


Kenneth Anger - 2004
    He has created new genres and techniques in filmmaking: improvisation, pastiche, and through default of lack of funding, the music clip, in films such as Scorpio Rising, 1963, Kustom Kar Kommandos, 1965, and Puce Moment, 1949/70, pioneering the most fertile experimental collaborations with contemporary musicians. Those musicians include Mick Jagger (who created the soundtrack for Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969; Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, and the infamous Bobby Beausoleil who contributed to Lucifer Rising, 1970-80, which also featured Marianne Faithfull. Anger has provided an elegantly subversive alternative to mass cultural representation, and his extraordinary images also serve to some degree as social documentary of the era.

Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and Their Families


Arlene Istar Lev - 2004
    Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and Their Families views assessment and treatment through a nonpathologizing lens that honors human diversity and acknowledges the role of oppression in the developmental process of gender identity formation.Specific sections of Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and Their Families address the needs of gender-variant people as well as transgender children and youth. The issues facing gender-variant populations who have not been the focus of clinical care, such as intersexed people, female-to-male transgendered people, and those who identify as bigendered, are also addressed.The book examines:the six stages of transgender emergencecoming out transgendered as a normative process of gender identity developmentthinking "outside the box" in the deconstruction of sex and genderthe difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as the convergence, overlap, and integration of these parts of the selfthe power of personal narrative in gender identity developmentetiology and typographies of transgenderismtreatment models that emerge from various clinical perspectivesalternative treatment modalities based on gender variance as a normative lifecycle developmental processComplete with fascinating case studies, a critique of diagnostic processes, treatment recommendations, and a helpful glossary of relevant terms, this book is an essential reference for anyone who works with gender-variant people. Handy tables and figures make the information easier to access and understand.Visit the author's Web site at http: //www.choicesconsulting.com

With Her Body


Nicola Griffith - 2004
    Intense stories about hope, joy, the body, mainly joy and the body--feeling the world on our skin, the place where Us and Not-Us meet. Nicola Griffith writes about being as well as doing--about life and love and the fears that keep us from having what we want.The women in these stories live in a world not quite like ours, where the jungle is alive with more than animals, music can be made with the body, and civilization can only end if we all give up...

Helmut Newton: Big Nudes


Karl Lagerfeld - 2004
    Simultaneously, it provided a concentrated image of his aesthetic agenda. Powerful women were presented in all their naked truth without fig leaves or fashion frills. This series of black-and-white photos, produced between 1979 and 1981, also marked a stylistic change in Newton's work. Elaborate layouts full of luxury and decadence gave way to an unambiguously formulated and monumental statement "Here they come!" Dressed only in their indispensable high heels, Newton's amazons selfconfidently paraded on show. They rippled their muscles and marched individually as well as in formation toward the observer. Helmut Newton's classic work was published by us in 1990 for the first time.

Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote


Truman Capote - 2004
    He wrote letters as he spoke: emphatically, spontaneously, and passionately. Spanning more than four decades, his letters are the closest thing we have to a Capote autobiography, showing us the uncannily self-possessed naïf who jumped headlong into the post–World War II New York literary scene; the more mature Capote of the 1950s; the Capote of the early 1960s, immersed in the research and writing of In Cold Blood; and Capote later in life, as things seem to be unraveling. With cameos by a veritable who’s who of twentieth-century glitterati, Too Brief a Treat shines a spotlight on the life and times of an incomparable American writer.

John Waters: Change Of Life


Lisa Phillips - 2004
    Ever subversive and happy to raise the issues that polite society works hard to suppress, Waters has helped to liberate us from social restrictions and norms. In that process, he has created hilarious and provocative filmed entertainment. And since he picked up a still camera more than ten years ago, he has reinvented himself as a visual artist." "Scrutinizing videotapes of over-the-top Hollywood movies and forgotten art films that had long obsessed, amused, and fascinated him, Waters started to photograph video stills off his television screen. The moments that he captured became the raw material for artworks that Waters began to call his "little movies." In these photographic sequences, Waters continues to skewer cultural symbols and stereotypes, and to elaborate on the cultural and subcultural themes that have been central to all his work: race, sex, sanctimony, glamour, class, family politics, celebrity, religion, the media, and the allure of crime." "John Waters : Change of Life, published on the occasion of Waters's first major exhibition, presents a survey of his still photographic works and stills from his earliest and seldom seen no-budget films: Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, Roman Candles, and Eat Your Makeup. The book also includes images of objects from Water's personal collection that reflect his ongoing fascination with photographic imagery, the mass media, and some of the more outrageous expressions of American popular culture." Accompanying these artworks, film stills, and quirky images are contributions by cultural and art historians that zero in on Waters's cinematic mind and photographic eye, and on surprising artworks that speak for themselves in more subtle and complex ways than might ever be expec

Amy Lowell: Selected Poems


Amy Lowell - 2004
    But in the words of editor Honor Moore, what strikes the contemporary reader is not the sophistication of Lowell's feminist or antiwar stances, but the bald audacity of her eroticism. Her search for an imagist poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite, found its purest expression in sensual love poems that bristle with lyric intensity. This new selection explores Lowell's full formal range, including cadenced verse, polyphonic prose, narrative poetry, and adaptations from the Chinese, and gives a fresh sense of the passion and energy of her work.

Pink Steam


Dodie Bellamy - 2004
    "PINK STEAM is not kitschy, it is a culturally astute document of the real written by a master at the height of her powers"--Jennifer Moxley. The intimate secrets of Dodie Bellamy's life--sex, shoplifting, voyeurism, and writing are illuminated in Bellamy's incredibly tailored latest work where true confession bleeds into high theory into trash cinema. PINK STEAM barges beyond the cliches of gendered experience; unafraid of the personal, unabashed by politics and sex, Bellamy makes confusion her OK Corral. Dodie Bellamy is the author of CUNT-UPS and FEMININE HIJINX, both available at SPD.

Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving


Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore - 2004
    Twenty-six stories illuminate the reality of growing up in fear, struggling to rebuild lives damaged by sexual, physical, and/or emotional abuse. The book explores how abuse turns queer survivors-male, female, and transgendered-into healers, heartbreakers, and homicidal maniacs, presenting brilliant stories that sear and soar. Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving addresses all forms of abuse head-on, representing a cross-section of queer survivors in terms of race, class, ethnicity, education, origin, sexuality, and gender. Contributors use their own life experiences to create a book that takes back control from well-meaning "outsiders," as they recount the daily struggle to overcome the damage done to their minds, bodies, and spirits in a world that denies their gender, sexual, and social identities. From the editor: "Dangerous Families consists entirely of writing by survivors of childhood abuse. That's right-no therapists analyzing our plight, no talk-show hosts exploiting us-just survivors, exploring our complicated, frightening, and fulfilling lives. These stories dispense with the usual technique of carefully massaging the reader's fragile worldview before plunging this unsuspecting innocent into a world of horror. They go right to the horror, the beauty, and the joy, often throwing the reader off-guard, revealing layers of meaning before the reader can step back." Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving is an anthology of 26 true stories of growing up queer in families that magnify the horrors of the outside world instead of offering protection. The book is an essential read for therapists, caseworkers, cultural studies specialists, and anyone struggling to survive childhood

At Ease: Navy Men of World War II


Evan Bachner - 2004
    But, as these stunning photographs attest, ordinary American men in the extraordinary circumstances of World War II were affectionate, winsome, and playful - disarmingly innocent in a time of cataclysmic peril. Led by photography giant Captain Edward J. Steichen, the U.S. Naval Aviation Photographic Unit was organized during the war to record the daily experiences of Navy men all over the world and to provide newspapers and magazines with images to promote the American cause. The unit's photographers, which included Wayne Miller, Horace Bristol, Victor Jorgensen, and Barrett Gallagher, took thousands of pictures of soldiers as they relaxed, trained, prepared for the next battle, and waited. This book brings together more than 150 of those photographs culled from the National Archives, including many that have never before been published. Whereas World War II imagery tends to be dominated by combat photography and monumental depictions of weaponry, these photographs offer a rare, intimate look at the Navy men themselves.

Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is


Abigail Garner - 2004
    Like the millions of children growing up in these families today, she often found herself in the middle of the political and moral debates surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) parenting.Drawing on a decade of community organizing, and interviews with more than fifty grown sons and daughters of LGBT parents, Garner addresses such topics as coming out to children, facing homophobia at school, co-parenting with ex-partners, the impact of AIDS, and the children's own sexuality.Both practical and deeply personal, Families Like Mine provides an invaluable insider's perspective for LGBT parents, their families, and their allies.

I Am a Red Dress: Incantations on a Grandmother, a Mother, and a Daughter


Anna Camilleri - 2004
    Part memoir, part storytelling, Anna writes with passion and conviction about family and identity, and how the wounds of personal history can be healed through the imagination. Like a flashing red light, these eloquent stories and narratives speak to the heart of three generations of women — Anna, her mother, and her grandmother — as they deal with a cycle of family abuse; in them, the red dress appears as a symbol of defiance and empowerment. Throughout the book, Anna unravels memory that is inextricably tied to culture, class, and tradition, in a strong and beautiful voice that bravely asserts its right to be heard.Combining the political with the intensely personal, Camilleri’s intimate writings are premised on a search for selfhood—strong, queer, female—within and outside of her bonds to other women in her family. She says, “My work is motivated by a deep desire to understand, and in the words of Dorothy Allison, to ‘remake the world.’”Despite the perception that we live in a progressive society, Camilleri is not convinced that we live in a world that is necessarily better for women, indigenous people and people of color, queer people, or the poor and the working class. But she recognizes that the imagination is a powerful force that can lead to better lives, and a better world.Her voice is the sound the status quo makes as it crashes to the ground.Anna Camilleri is a Toronto-based writer and performance poet. She was co-editor of Brazen Femme, shortlisted for a Lambda Award, and co-founded Taste This, with whom she collaborated to publish Boys Like Her, winner of a ForeWord Magazine Literary Award.

The Milk of Human Kindness


Lori L. LakeMarcia Tyson Kolb - 2004
    Forrest, Radclyffe, Karin Kallmaker, Cameron Abbott, Ellen Hart, Lori L. Lake, Caro Clarke, J.M. Redmann, Jennifer Fulton, Gabrielle Goldsby, Lois Hart, Carrie Carr, SX Meagher, Jean Stewart, Cate Swannell, Therese Szymanski, Kelly Zarembski, Georgia Beers, Talaran, Julia Watts, Marie Sheppard Williams, Meghan Brunner, and Marcia Tyson Kolb.Don't miss this unforgettable collection!

For the Boys


Joe Phillips - 2004
    Joe´s style remains the same and draws overrealistic and carefree life situations of gay boys. The drawings captivate with bright colours and often erotic moments. The 64 pages strong book is full of fantasies.

The AIDS Crisis is Ridiculous and Other Writings, 1986-2003


Gregg Bordowitz - 2004
    So total was the burden of illness--mine and others'--that the only viable response, other than to cease making art entirely, was to adjust to the gravity of the predicament by using the crisis as a lens, writes Gregg Bordowitz, a film- and video-maker whose best-known works, Fast Trip Long Drop (1993) and Habit (2001), address AIDS globally and personally. In The AIDS Crisis Is Ridiculous--the title essay is inspired by Charles Ludlam, founder of the Ridiculous Theater Company--Bordowitz follows in the tradition of artist-writers Robert Smithson and Yvonne Rainer by making writing an integral part of an artistic practice.Bordowitz has left his earliest writings for the most part unchanged--to preserve, he says, both the youthful exuberance and the palpable sense of fear created by the early days of the AIDS crisis. After these early essays, the writing becomes more experimental, sometimes mixing fiction and fact; included here is a selection of Bordowitz's columns from the journal Documents, New York Was Yesterday. Finally, in his newest essays he reformulates early themes, and, in My Postmodernism (written for Artforum's fortieth anniversary issue) and More Operative Assumptions (written especially for this book), he reexamines the underlying ideas of his practice and sums up his theoretical concerns.In his mature work, Bordowitz seeks to join the subjective--the experience of having a disease--and the objective--the fact of the disease as a global problem. He believes that this conjunction is necessary for understanding and fighting the crisis. If it can be written, he says, then it can be realized.

In Search of the Pleasure Palace: Disreputable Travels


Marc Almond - 2004
    In this volume, he is an observant guide to a world that he was once master of.

Freedom in this Village Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men's Writing


E. Lynn Harris - 2004
    Starting in 1979 with the publication of James Baldwin's final novel, Just Above My Head, then on to the radical writings of the 1980s, the breakthrough successes of the 1990s, and up to today's new works, editor E. Lynn Harris collects 47 sensational stories, poems, novel excerpts, and essays. Authors featured include Samuel R. Delany, Essex Hemphill, Melvin Dixon, Marlon Riggs, Assotto Saint, Larry Duplechan, Reginald Shepherd, Carl Phillips, Keith Boykin, Randall Kenan, Thomas Glave, James Earl Hardy, Darieck Scott, Gary Fisher, Bruce Morrow, John Keene, G. Winston James, Bil Wright, Robert Reid Pharr, Brian Keith Jackson, as well as an array of exciting new and established writers.

Gutterboys


Alvin Orloff - 2004
    Jeremy, a shy 19-year-old, falls madly in love with Colin, a disturbed yet well-read older hustler. Though Colin rejects Jeremy as a lover, he takes him on as a protégé, introducing him to the hilariously depraved world of new wave nightclubs and gay bars in the days before AIDS and the war on drugs. Innocent Jeremy, protected by the guardian spirits of his beloved dead grandmothers - one a fiery Jewish socialist, the other a proper British matron - becomes increasingly unstable under the strain of his unanswered devotion. When Jeremy finally snaps, he reaches an understanding with Colin that he never anticipated.

Why You Should Give A Damn About Gay Marriage


Davina Kotulski - 2004
    While countries such as Canada and Belgium have recently legalized gay marriage, the US seems steadfastly locked in the past. Change, Davina Kotulski argues, will only come through organized activism, but the importance of legalized gay marriage remains unclear to many in the GLBT community. There are no less than 1049 federal rights granted to hetero-sexuals that remain out of reach to gays and lesbians as long as they don’t have the right to marry. This quick and simple read outlines the rights, benefits and protections afforded through marriage, exploring the negative effects of not having these rights through case examples of real couples who have experienced hardships and composite vignettes illustrating how couples can be hurt by lacking access to these protections. Through learning of the great disparity between how same-sex couples are treated compared to heterosexual couples, and of the membership privileges society affords married couples readers of this book will begin to see new possibilities in their lives, and be inspired to join the growing freedom to marry movement.Davina Kotulski, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist with deep roots in the freedom-to-marry movement. She has organized same-sex marriage gay pride contingents throughout Northern California, first with Californian’s for Same-Sex Marriage, and then with Marriage Equality California. She has been active in fighting antigay legislation such as the Knight Initiative, is on the board of Marriage Equality California, and serves on the Education and Religious Outreach Committee of the California Marriage Coalition/Freedom-to-Marry Coalition.

Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View


Chaim Rapoport - 2004
    Rabbi Rapoport combines an unswerving commitment to Jewish Law, teachings and values with a balanced, understanding perspective that has, arguably, been lacking among many in the Orthodox Jewish establishment. This work represents a milestone in understanding an issue at the heart of a great deal of debate, not to mention prejudice and discrimination. It will undoubtedly be a vehicle for future discussion and will serve as a brick in the wall of an increasingly harmonious World Jewish Community. The book combines clearly written prose for instant and easy access with exhaustive endnotes for all those who wish to explore the issue further. Judaism and Homosexuality is the first word on Orthodox attitudes to homosexuality, and will be a 'must have' on the desk of all professionals who find themselves in positions of guidance with the Jewish community.

Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls: A Coloring Book


Jacinta Bunnell - 2004
    32 original illustrations with captions like "Calvin, baking is fun and all, but we can make a rad drum set out of these pots and bowls" and "Don't let gender box you in" offer light-hearted, fun ways to deconstruct gender for both children and adults. The coloring book form is a subversive and playful way to examine how perversive stereotypes about gender are in every aspect of our lives, especially the ones that are so ingrained we don't even notice. Girls Will be Boys Will be Girls pokes fun at the tired constraints of gender normativity, and makes it okay to step outside the lines.

The Test Drive


Avital Ronell - 2004
    Addressed to those who are left stranded by speculative thinking and unhinged by cognitive discourse, The Test Drive, organized around Nietzsche's interpretation of physics, points to a toxic residue of uninterrogated policies associated with scientific probes that continue to underscore an experience of permanent dislocation, break-down, and disruption.

Kurashina Sensei's Passion, Vol. 1


Natsuho Shino - 2004
    When new teacher Reiji Kurashina transfers to the academy right in the middle of the school year, he proves to be the star all of the senior high boys have been waiting for But who has a shot at being the special someone to this cool and beautiful teacher?

Fatal Women


Tanith Lee - 2004
    The stories' heroes and villains are women. Men, however pleasant - or atrocious - are peripheral to Garber's world. Mothers, grandmothers, peculiar aunts - and female lovers, always live out their lives centre stage. Erotic and sophisticatedly explicit, the motivation behind the histories draws from the psychology of women. But is driven by the reasonless logic of the obsessive heart. About Fatal Women In the Paris of 1900, Phhdre is an assassin. She assists female acquaintances suffering from specific male abuse - by 'removing' the abuser. Phhdre is sexually predatory but emotionally cool. Until she meets Rherlotte de Gillan in the Cemetery of St. Luc. Rherlotte's red-haired beauty and enigmatic, dignified sweetness soak relentlessly through Phhdre's shell, like honey. And soon the two women are joined in a dangerous game that is both courtship and duel. Elsewhere, in the late 1800s, the provincial town of Bois-la-Diane begins to be haunted by the dark, phantasmal creature - Virgile, the professional widow. Laure, bored with rural life, her childhood girlfriend and the disappointing 'ladies club' that holds its scandalous sessions in an old chateau, is instantly hypnotised by Virgile. But Virgile's fee is always death, and not only Laure's, but that of another. Each of the eponymous heroines who people Fatal Women has her own secret - one poisonous and potentially lethal, one bittersweet, and one that concerns perhaps the most priceless painting on earth.

We Do: A Celebration of Gay and Lesbian Marriage


Gavin Newsom - 2004
    But when San Francisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, ordered City Hall to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on February 12th, thousands of gays and lesbians from around the world lined up to take their vows, inspiring other cities to follow suit. As intense public debate continues, We Do is an intimate portrait of these history-making weddings. A many-splendored thing, love is captured here in all its joy and diversity. Drawing on ceremonies from around the country, here are weddings both traditional and unconventional, whether the brides and grooms are in flowing white gowns, business suits, or blue jeans. The result is a touching album of happy couples, from the two lesbians who've been together 51 years to dads with babes in arms. A joyful celebration, We Do stands witness to the fact that we are all created equal in love.

Praying Like a Woman


Nicola Slee - 2004
    It is both intensely personal, and also appealing and relevant to all women. 'My hope is that whoever picks up this book may be encouraged -- to pray as and who they are, towards who they may yet become.' -Nicola Slee The collection contains prayers, poems, songs, psalms, canticles, litanies, laments and creeds, as well as personal reflections. The areas covered include traditional areas for prayer, but also diverge into more specific themes, particularly relevant for women - such as the body and health. Praying Like A Woman is ideal for women who want to explore and develop their faith. The author hopes it will help other women to live into the experience of being a woman, in the particular time and place in which they find themselves, in the eyes of others and of God. "[The] poems and prayers bear witness to a faith of considerable depth and raw honesty, as she holds her God to account for her own sufferings and those of women throughout the world and across time. And then comes joy -- exuberant as the spring, and as unexpected as the resurrection." -Janet Morley (author of All Desires Known)

Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry


Evan Wolfson - 2004
    It is the work of one of the most influential attorneys in America, who has dedicated his life to the protection of individuals' rights and our Constitution's commitment to equal justice under the law. Above all, it is a clear, straightforward book that brings into sharp focus the very human significance of the right to marry in America—not just for some couples, but for all. Why is the word marriage so important? Will marriage for same-sex couples hurt the "sanctity" of the institution? How can people of different faiths reconcile their beliefs with the idea of marriage for same-sex couples? How will allowing gay couples to marry affect children? In this quietly powerful volume, the most authoritative and fairly articulated book on the subject, Wolfson demonstrates why the right to marry is important—indeed necessary—for all couples and for America's promise of equality.

Ultimate Gay Sex


Michael Thomas Ford - 2004
    Although the author never shies away from tough issues in gay life, he focuses on all the delightful permutations of good sex, including a range of exciting positions, many of them photographed for the first time.

Born to be Gay: A History of Homosexuality


William G. Naphy - 2004
    This has never been the case. Many ancient cultures actively promoted same-sex relationships as an integral part of adolescence or even worship. The rise of Judeo-Christian views forced homosexuality “underground,” leading to Henry VIII’s 1533 ban on homosexuals and Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment for sodomy. Born to be Gay takes a radical look at the history of homosexuality, from Bacchanalian orgies to Gay Pride.

The Queer Movie Poster Book


Jenni Olson - 2004
    In the first overview of its kind, The Queer Movie Poster Book traces the history of gay film through its posters and promotional art. Sometimes alluring, sometimes lurid, often coded, the posters speak volumes about the social mores of the times and the struggle for queer identity. Historian Jenni Olson includes over 150 posters -- from Wallace Beery drag follies to the latest indy productions -- which showcase the varied spectrum of queer cinema. Fascinating sidebars discuss dykesploitation films (typically made by straight men for straight men), gay porn (an overlooked means to social liberation in its own right), and films with transgender themes (studded with pulled-from-the-headlines movies). From the earnest to the campy, The Queer Movie Poster Book constitutes a vibrant feast of popular art and a valuable document of gay film culture.

The Gay & Lesbian Atlas


Gary J. Gates - 2004
    Drawing on the most recent data from the U.S. Census, this groundbreaking work offers a detailed geographic and demographic portrait of gay and lesbian families in all 50 states plus the top 25 U.S. metropolitan areas. These results, presented in more than 250 full-color maps and charts, will both confirm and challenge anecdotal information about the spatial distribution and demographic characteristics of this community. It is probably no surprise that San Francisco, Key West, and western Massachusetts all host large gay and lesbian populations, but it might surprise some that Houston, Texas, contains one of the ten "gayest" neighborhoods in the country, or that Alaska and New Mexico have high concentrations of gay and lesbian couples in their senior populations. The Atlas is a unique and important resource for the political and public policy communities, public health officials, social scientists, and anyone interested in gay and lesbian issues

Toybag Guide to Dungeon Emergencies


Jay Wiseman - 2004
    An essential quick reference guide to minor and major emergencies that can take place during play--from scrapes to freakouts to fires--plus how to set up a cost-effective first aid kit and other emergency supplies for the sexually adventurous.

Cherry


Chandra Mayor - 2004
    Mayor deftly employs the technique of pastiche to craft her story: newspaper articles, notes, photographs, letters, and even appointment slips are used to signify the multi-layered nature of her narrative. Cherry is a punk rock bricolage, a poetic novel, a loss of innocence story, and an ode to the city of Winnipeg.

The Hungry Heart


Zoe Nicholson - 2004
    Joining with 7 women, traveling to Springfield, Illinois, living on water only; Zoe sat in the eye of the political storm and searched for spiritual insight. She wrote about it all from Phyllis Shlafly to Governor James Thompson, Mahatma Gandhi to Dick Gregory. Historical and inspiring, she writes from the heart with intimacy and humor.

Red Threads: The South Asian Queer Connection in Photographs


Poulomi Desai - 2004
    The photographs in this book have appeared everywhere from Calcutta to New York, from fetish parties to the pristine whitewashed Photographer's Gallery, printed on posters promoting safe sex and projected onto walls. In full colour throughout, they show people who don't fit into any traditional social boxes: queer Asian Brits, queens in Bollywood drag, women in men's suits or naked on the streets of Britain.

The Queer Composition of America's Sound: Gay Modernists, American Music, and National Identity


Nadine Hubbs - 2004
    Focusing on a talented circle that included Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Paul Bowles, David Diamond, and Ned Rorem, The Queer Composition of America's Sound homes in on the role of these artists' self-identification—especially with tonal music, French culture, and homosexuality—in the creation of a musical idiom that even today signifies "America" in commercials, movies, radio and television, and the concert hall.

Greenzine


Cristy C. Road - 2004
    This new issue is more of the same with some reflection of Cristy's various homes between Miami and Philadelphia, racism in her communities, the strength of her friends, coming to terms with assault, gender, sexuality, and identity, and much more. The words are powerful, the stories make you feel like anything can be accomplished, and the artwork adds another strong element. Once a true fanzine devoted to Green Day, this zine has now evolved into literary prose devoted to the strengths of our communities.

Uproar's Your Only Music: New Poems/Memoir


Brian Brett - 2004
    The two sections of this collection retrace the author's androgynous childhood and beyond, unearthing both laughter and wounds while travelling from the hills of Italy and the back country of China to the magical landscape of the Gulf Islands.

Pink Flamingos: 10 Siberian Interviews


Sonja Franeta - 2004
    The book is named after the Siberian queer film festival that took place in Tomsk in in 1996. Sonja Franeta, the interviewer, writer and translator, traveled extensively throughout Russia, from Khabarovsk to Moscow along the Trans-Siberian Railway, stopping in several Siberian cities to meet LGBT people and talk to them about their lives. Some interviewees spoke about their experiences as sexual minorities for the first time. People from Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Tomsk discussed how they were able to survive the secrecy and stigma of being queer. Men were put in prison camps and women institutionalized in psychiatric institutions during the Stalin years and after. Interviewees also talked about family backgrounds and changes in politics. This is the first book of its kind in Russia, documenting gay and lesbian and transgender stories in the voices of the people themselves.