From struggling with sensory processing, managing socially demanding situations and learning social cues and feminine presentation, through to coming out as trans during an autistic meltdown, Laura draws on her personal experiences from life prior to transition and diagnosis, and moving on to the years of self-discovery, to give a unique insight into the nuances of sexuality, gender and autism, and how they intersect.Charting the ups and downs of being autistic and on the LGBT spectrum with searing honesty and humour, this is an empowering, life-affirming read for anyone who's felt they don't fit in.

    (To date, it has won no fewer than 31 Emmys.) Seriously... I'm Kidding, Degeneres' first book in eight years, brings us up to date about the life of a kindhearted woman who bowed out of American Idol because she didn't want to be mean. Lively; hilarious; often sweetly poignant.

    While young gay men often come out more readily, even those from the most progressive of backgrounds still struggle with the legacy of early-life stigma and a deficit of self-acceptance, which can fuel doubt, regret, and, at worst, self-loathing. And this is to say nothing of the ongoing trauma wrought by AIDS, which is all too often relegated to history. Drawing on his work as a clinical psychologist during and in the aftermath of the epidemic, Walt Odets reflects on what it means to survive and figure out a way to live in a new, uncompromising future, both for the men who endured the upheaval of those years and for the younger men who have come of age since then, at a time when an HIV epidemic is still ravaging the gay community, especially among the most marginalized.Through moving stories—of friends and patients, and his own—Odets considers how experiences early in life launch men on trajectories aimed at futures that are not authentically theirs. He writes to help reconstruct how we think about gay life by considering everything from the misleading idea of “the homosexual,” to the diversity and richness of gay relationships, to the historical role of stigma and shame and the significance of youth and of aging. Crawling out from under the trauma of destructive early-life experience and the two epidemics, and into a century of shifting social values, provides an opportunity to explore possibilities rather than live with limitations imposed by others. Though it is drawn from decades of private practice, activism, and life in the gay community, Odets’s work achieves remarkable universality. At its core, Out of the Shadows is driven by his belief that it is time that we act based on who we are and not who others are or who they would want us to be. We—particularly the young—must construct our own paths through life. Out of the Shadows is a necessary, impassioned argument for how and why we must all take hold of our futures.

    Emma Donoghue brings to bear all her knowledge and grasp to examine how desire between women in English literature has been portrayed, from schoolgirls and vampires to runaway wives, from cross-dressing knights to contemporary murder stories. Donoghue looks at the work of those writers who have addressed the “unspeakable subject,” examining whether such desire between women is freakish or omnipresent, holy or evil, heartwarming or ridiculous as she excavates a long-obscured tradition of (inseparable) friendship between women, one that is surprisingly central to our cultural history.Donoghue writes about the half-dozen contrasting girl-girl plots that have been told and retold over the centuries, metamorphosing from generation to generation. What interests the author are the twists and turns of the plots themselves and how these stories have changed—or haven’t—over the centuries, rather than how they reflect their time and society. Donoghue explores the writing of Sade, Diderot, Balzac, Thomas Hardy, H. Rider Haggard, Elizabeth Bowen, and others and the ways in which the woman who desires women has been cast as not quite human, as ghost or vampire.She writes about the ever-present triangle, found in novels and plays from the last three centuries, in which a woman and man compete for the heroine’s love . . . about how—and why—same-sex attraction is surprisingly ubiquitous in crime fiction, from the work of Wilkie Collins and Dorothy L. Sayers to P. D. James.Finally, Donoghue looks at the plotline that has dominated writings about desire between women since the late nineteenth century: how a woman’s life is turned upside down by the realization that she desires another woman, whether she comes to terms with this discovery privately, “comes out of the closet,” or is publicly “outed.”She shows how this narrative pattern has remained popular and how it has taken many forms, in the works of George Moore, Radclyffe Hall, Patricia Highsmith, and Rita Mae Brown, from case-history-style stories and dramas, in and out of the courtroom, to schoolgirl love stories and rebellious picaresques. A revelation of a centuries-old literary tradition—brilliant, amusing, and until now, deliberately overlooked.

    Florence may have been a disappointment to her Granny, whose dream of rearing a Perfect Southern Lady would never be quite fulfilled. But after all, as Florence reminds us, no matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street.

    But this is not how Wilde saw himself. His actions and pretensions did not bring him happiness and fulfillment. This study of Wilde's brilliant and tragic life goes beyond the mistakes that brought him notoriety in order to explore this emotional and spiritual search. Unlike any other biography of Wilde, it strips away these pretensions to show the real man, his aspirations and desires. It uncovers how he was broken by his two-year prison sentence; it probes the deeper thinking behind masterpieces such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Salome, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” and “De Profundis”; and it traces his fascination with Catholicism through to his eleventh-hour conversion. Published on the 150th anniversary of his birth, this biography removes the masks which have confused previous biographers and reveals the real Wilde beneath the surface. Once again, Joseph Pearce has written a profound, wide-ranging study with many original insights on a great literary figure. “The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde is a brilliant interpretive biography of a wit, bon vivant, and literary genius who still delights us a century after his death. In Joseph Pearce’s sympathetic appraisal we never forget that Wilde was not just an entertainer but a soul that found himself only after ignominy, loss, and desolation. I have read many of the other books on Wilde, and this is my favorite.” —Ron Hansen, NYT Bestselling Author of Mariette in Ecstasy “Joseph Pearce has done it again! Chesterton, Belloc, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and now Oscar Wilde have all been coaxed out of their graves for us by this grave-robber named Pearce. Oscar proves to be a very lively ghost.” —Peter Kreeft Author, Love

    Like its predominantly gay male counterpart, the Mattachine Society, DOB was launched in response to the oppressive anti-homosexual climate of the McCarthy era, when lesbian and gay people were arrested, fired from jobs, and had their children taken away simply because of their sexual orientation. It was against this political backdrop that a circle of San Francisco lesbians formed a private club where lesbians could meet others in a safe, affirming setting. The small social group evolved over the next two decades into a national organization that counted more than a dozen chapters, and laid the foundation for today’s lesbian rights movement.Different Daughters chronicles this movement and the women who fought the church and state in order to change not only our nation’s perception of homosexuality but how lesbians see themselves. Marcia Gallo has interviewed dozens of former DOB members, many of whom have never spoken on record. Through its leaders, magazine, and network of local chapters, DOB played a crucial role in creating lesbian identity, visibility, and political strategies in Cold War America.

    Times Two is about two women meeting, falling madly in love, and realizing that they are so crazy about each other that they want to have a family together. The fact that they both get pregnant at the exact same time is where things start to get interesting. Sarah Kate Ellis, a high-powered magazine executive, and Kristen Henderson, a laid-back rock star, decide it’s time to start their family. After determining that Sarah should get pregnant first while Kristen works on her band’s new CD, they head to a fertility doctor to start the process. But after months of drug treatments, miscarriages, and heartbreak, Kristen decides to start trying, too. That’s when the utterly improbable happens: Sarah and Kristen find out that they are both pregnant—and are due three days apart. Overjoyed by the news that they are both expecting, Sarah and Kristen are also overwhelmed by all that lies ahead. Both have successful, demanding careers. Both have large, close-knit families nearby, including two strongly opinionated mothers who immediately want to be involved with everything. And both are completely clueless about the challenges they’re about to face. They soon realize that none of their previous accomplishments has prepared them for the highs and lows of impending motherhood: not Kristen’s stint touring with The Rolling Stones, nor Sarah’s march up the corporate ladder in the world of women’s magazines. They go through everything first-time parents-to-be experience—but twice over. They’re producing double the hormones, double the morning sickness, double the cravings, and have double the ups and downs. From the start, Sarah and Kristen think of their babies as twins, each woman carrying half of a set. But for two women who’ve always finished each other’s sentences, they suddenly find themselves on opposite ends of the mothers-to-be spectrum, with different opinions on almost everything. One wants a drug-free birth, while the other wants an epidural at the first sign of a contraction. One is dying to know the baby’s gender, but the other refuses to find out until she hears the baby’s first cry in the delivery room. The difficulties of having two pregnant women under the same roof are multiplied by the legal and social obstacles of being a gay couple. Told from Kristen and Sarah’s insightful and hilarious she said/she said perspective, this touching, modern family adventure will entertain, enlighten, and resonate with readers of all stripes.

    I want nothingto reveal feeling but feeling--as in freedom,or the knowledge of peace in a realm beyond,or the sound of water poured in a bowl.--from "Gravity and Center" In his sixth collection of poetry, Henri Cole deepens his excavations of autobiography and memory. "I don't want words to sever me from reality," he asserts, and these poems--often hovering within the realm of the sonnet--combine a delight in the senses with the rueful, the elegiac, the harrowing. Many confront the human need for love, the highest function of our species. But whether writing about solitude or the desire for unsanctioned love, animals or flowers, the dissolution of his mother's body or war, Cole maintains a style that is neither confessional nor abstract. And in Blackbird and Wolf, he is always opposing disappointment and difficult truths with innocence and wonder.

    Away from all the modern conveniences and comforts most take for granted, his tale is one of adversity, building a dream with dogged determination. Battling against considerable and powerful opposition, bureaucracy, severe lack of money, unforgiving nature, loneliness and ultimately his own ill health; only to find the dream fulfilled will almost destroy him. A sometimes spiritual and critical tale of self-discovery where ultimately his growing faith in God literally saves him from a very sorry end in the mountainous wilderness of New Zealand. A story that exposes wilderness living as it truly is, not for the faint hearted. However, Out of the Wild is more than just a candid wilderness survival tale, but includes some very interesting snippets of New Zealand's early pioneer history associated to the Fiordland National Park, the Hollyford Valley, Martins Bay, the beautiful deserted ghost town of Jamestown Bay and even the fabled "lost ruby mine" in the inaccessible Red Hills. For the outdoor and "back to basics" enthusiasts Charlie details his accounts of hunting red deer in the thick Fiordland rainforest around his wilderness home to using the old traditional methods to store his kills, through to trapping introduced predators destroying the special rainforest ecosystems of Fiordland. "Out of the Wild" is a very unique New Zealand wilderness tale which will appeal to the outdoor conservative types.

    Tennessee Williams, author of such indelible masterpieces as The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, is considered by many to be the greatest literary artist of the American theater. Tom is Lyle Leverich's definitive account based on his exclusive access to letters, diaries, unpublished manuscripts, and family documents of Williams's early life and of the events that shaped this most autobiographical of dramatists. It tells the story of the marital traumas of his bullying father and overly protective mother, the mental disorders that institutionalized his beloved sister Rose, his stalled academic career, and his confused sexuality and early successes as a writer; and it leaves Thomas Lanier Williams on the brink of fame with The Glass Menagerie and his transformation into the celebrated persona of "Tennessee."

    Through a string of narrative moments, Tea records a year lived in a world of girls: there's knife-wielding Marta, who introduces Michelle to a new world of radical sex; Willa, Michelle's tormented poet-girlfriend; Iris, the beautiful boy-dyke who ran away from the South in a dust cloud of drama; and Iris's ex, Magdalena Squalor, to whom Michelle turns when Iris breaks her heart. Valencia conveys a blend of youthful urgency and apocalyptic apathy.

    Her mother, whose family perished in the Holocaust, was racked by guilt at having come to America and left them behind; she suffered recurrent psychotic episodes. Her only escape from the brutal labor of her sweatshop job was her fiercely loved daughter, Lilly, whose poignant dream throughout an impoverished childhood was to become a movie star and "rescue" her mother. Lilly grew up to become Lil, outwardly tough, inwardly innocent, hungry for love and success. A beautiful young woman who was learning that her deepest erotic and emotional connections were to women, she found herself in a dangerous but seductive lesbian underworld of addicts, pimps, and prostitutes. Desperately seeking to make her life meaningful and to redeem her mother's suffering, she entered the University of California at Berkeley and worked her way through college as a burlesque stripper. A brilliant student, she ultimately achieved a Ph.D. At last she became Lillian, the woman who in time became a loving partner, a devoted mother, an acclaimed writer, and a charismatic, groundbreaking scholar of gay and lesbian studies. Told with wrenching immediacy and great power, this is an extraordinary memoir: the nakedly honest -- and very American -- story of an exceptional woman and her remarkable, unorthodox life.

    Now on the cusp of turning 30, I'm ready to expose some parts of my life that I haven't shared before. Before, it was all about privacy, process and time. And now the time has come! I’m ready to put myself out there, for you.  I'm a little nervous about all these vulnerable words going into the world, these tales about my love life, the wrestling I’ve done with faith, how I feel about sex and my family and myself. I’ve had a lot of trials, a lot of errors, but also a lot of passion. Here’s the thing--I've always found comfort in the stories shared by others, so I hope my stories, now that I feel ready to tell them, will bring you some comfort too.And when you read this book please remember: Buffering is just the time it takes to process.Enjoy!Love,Hannah

    Here are accounts of revealing one's sexual identity to parents, siblings, friends, co-workers and, in one notable instance, to a stockbroker. Men tell of their first sexual encounters from their preteens to their thirties, with childhood friends who rejected or tenderly embraced them, with professors, with neighbors, with a Broadway star. These are poignant, sometimes unexpectedly funny tales of romance and heartbreak, repression and liberation, rape and first love defining moments that shaped their authors' lives. Arranged chronologically from Manhattan in the Forties to San Francisco in the Nineties, these essays ultimately form a documentary of changing social and sexual mores in the United States--a literary, biographical, sociological and historical tour de force.