Very quickly the Castro government suppressed his writing and persecuted him for his homosexuality until he was finally imprisoned.

    As an Ahmadi Muslim growing up in Pakistan, she faced regular threats from Islamic extremists who believed the small, dynamic sect to be blasphemous. From her parents, she internalized the lesson that revealing her identity could put her in grave danger.When her family came to Canada as refugees, Samra encountered a whole new host of challenges: bullies, racism, the threat of poverty, and an arranged marriage. Backed into a corner, her need for a safe space--in which to grow and nurture her creative, feminist spirit--became dire. The men in her life wanted to police her, the women in her life had only shown her the example of pious obedience, and her body was a problem to be solved.So begins an exploration of faith, art, love, and queer sexuality, a journey that takes her to the far reaches of the globe to uncover a truth that was within her all along. A triumphant memoir of forgiveness and family, both chosen and not, We Have Always Been Here is a rallying cry for anyone who has ever felt out of place and a testament to the power of fearlessly inhabiting one's truest self.

    But when he realized he was gay, those hopes were called into question. The Bible, he’d been taught, condemned gay relationships. Feeling the tension between his understanding of the Bible and the reality of his same-sex orientation, Vines devoted years of intensive research into what the Bible says about homosexuality. With care and precision, Vines asked questions such as: • Do biblical teachings on the marriage covenant preclude same-sex marriage or not? • How should we apply the teachings of Jesus to the gay debate? • What does the story of Sodom and Gomorrah really say about human relationships? • Can celibacy be a calling when it is mandated, not chosen? • What did Paul have in mind when he warned against same-sex relations? Unique in its affirmation of both an orthodox faith and sexual diversity, God and the Gay Christian is likely to spark heated debate, sincere soul searching, even widespread cultural change. Not only is it a compelling interpretation of key biblical texts about same-sex relations, it is also the story of a young man navigating relationships with his family, his hometown church, and the Christian church at large as he expresses what it means to be a faithful gay Christian.

    Colonel Cammermeyer's dismissal from the U.S. Army has stirred debate all the way to the Presidency; now she writes of her decision to challenge official policy on homosexuality. 16-page photo insert.

    Advice on conflict resolution and genuine intimacy. The author doesnt forget to include treatments on couple crises, ruptures, and the mourning of heartbreak as a previous step to be prepared to fall in love again.

    As warm and intelligent as it is ribald and cunning, this collection of Thom Gunn's is his richest yet.

    From Egyptian pharaohs, Catholic popes and Abraham Lincoln to Bishop Gene Robinson, Neil Patrick Harris and Angelina Jolie, Queers in History brings these figures, from their work to their sexuality, to life. The hundreds of people whose stories appear in this book are some of the most intriguing personalities of their times: actors and actresses, writers and musicians, businessmen and politicians, scientists and soldiers. But this irresistibly readable encyclopedia intended for gays and straights alike doesn't just report those details that get left out of the standard biographies; it reveals a fascinating picture of queer society and culture throughout recorded history, from the homosexual shudo tradition practiced by samurai in Japan to the modern struggles for equal rights in America. Sir Ian McKellen offers a foreword.

    In these memoirs, coming out is less important than coming of age and coming to the realization that young gay people experience the world in ways quite unlike straight boys. Whether it is a fascination with soap opera, an intense sensitivity to their own difference, or an obsession with a certain part of the male anatomy, gay kids — or kids who would eventually identify as gay — have an indefinable but unmistakable gay sensibility. Sometimes the result is funny, sometimes it is harrowing, and often it is deeply moving. Essays by lauded young writers like Alex Chee (Edinburgh), Aaron Hamburger (Faith for Beginners), Karl Soehnlein (The World of Normal Boys), Trebor Healy (Through It Came Bright Colors), Tom Dolby (The Trouble Boy), David Bahr, and Austin Bunn, are collected along with those by brilliant, newcomers such as Michael McAllister, Jason Tougaw, Viet Dinh, and the wildly popular blogger, Joe.My.God.

    But now, surprisingly, he has turned his wit and elegant storytelling gifts to a candid memoir of the first forty years of his life. Palimpsest is written from the vantage point of Vidal's library in his villa on the Italian coast. As visitors come and go, his memory ranges back and forth across a rich history. Vidal's childhood was spent in Washington, D.C., in the household of his grandfather, the blind senator from Oklahoma, T. P. Gore, and in the various domestic situations of his complicated and exasperating mother, Nina. Then come schooldays at St. Albans and Exeter; the army; life as a literary wunderkind in New York, London, Rome, and Paris in the forties and fifties; sex in an age of promiscuity; and a campaign for Congress in 1960. Vidal's famous skills as a raconteur, his forthrightness, and his wicked wit are brilliantly at work in these recollections of a difficult family, talented friends, and interesting enemies. The cast includes Tennessee Williams, the Kennedys, Eleanor Roosevelt, Truman Capote, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Christopher Isherwood, Jack Kerouac, Jane and Paul Bowles, Santayana, Anais Nin, Norman Mailer, Leonard Bernstein, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, among others. Beautifully rendered anecdotes are intermixed with meditations on writing, history, acting, and politics. Perhaps most surprising is the leitmotif of a great, lost love. "A memoir is how one remembers one's own life," Vidal says, "while an autobiography is history." Palimpsest is a true story, but also an extraordinary work of literary imagination.

    Johnson's story of AIDS, abuse, and hope received extensive media coverage. Foreword by Paul Monette; Afterword by Fred Rogers, with a new Afterword by the author.

    Since that time, books such as Richard Plant's The Pink Triangle (and Martin Sherman's play Bent) have illuminated this nearly lost history. Heinz Heger's first-person account, The Men with the Pink Triangle, was one of the first books on the topic and remains one of the most important. In 1939, Heger, a Viennese university student, was arrested and sentenced to prison for being a "degenerate." Within weeks he was transported to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp in East Germany, and forced to wear a pink triangle to show that his crime was homosexuality. He remained there, under horrific conditions, until the end of the war in 1945. The power of The Men with the Pink Triangle comes from Heger's sparse prose and his ability to recall--and communicate--the smallest resonant details. The pain and squalor of everyday camp life--the constant filth, the continuous presence of death, and the unimaginable cruelty of those in command--are all here. But Heger's story would be unbearable were it not for the simple courage he and others used to survive and, having survived, that he bore witness. This book is harrowing but necessary reading for everyone concerned about gay history, human rights, or social justice. --Michael Bronski

    Aside from this, though, if there's one area that I'm 100% anecdotally and personally qualified to tackle, it's sexuality. If there is a 'sexuality spectrum', then I've probably existed at every point on it at some stage in my life. This book is my attempt to demystify sexuality by narrating my own, often humiliating adventures in sex, dating, gender identity, etc. and to get everyone to Just. Calm. Down. We'll talk about the pros and cons of labels, and why history contains no stories of gay people living long, happy, successful lives. Also included: sexual fluidity, gay genes, Lady Gaga and bisexual monkeys. My dream is that we get to a point where we don't even need to discuss sexuality at all. Where it's a total non-issue, and everyone's falling in love with everyone all over the place. Seeing as we're not there yet, however, I think it is incredibly important to talk about it. Openly, and without embarrassment. I hope this book is a step in that direction. ENJOY.

    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.

    A budding queer activist escapes to San Francisco, in search of a world more politically charged, sexually saturated, and ethically consistent—this is the person who evolves into Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, infamous radical queer troublemaker, organizer and agitator, community builder, and anti-assimilationist commentator. Here is the tender, provocative, and exuberant story of the formation of one of the contemporary queer movement's most savvy and outrageous writers and spokespersons.Using an unrestrained associative style to move kaleidoscopically between past, present, and future, Sycamore conjures the untidy push and pull of memory, exposing the tensions between idealism and critical engagement, trauma and self-actualization, inspiration and loss. Part memoir, part social history, and part elegy, The End of San Francisco explores and explodes the dream of a radical queer community and the mythical city that was supposed to nurture it.

    Dylan's story—which is, sadly, not that unusual—has already received attention from such shows as 20/20, Dateline, Today, and Leeza. But his memoir, bound to become a classic, tells the story in a funny, ironic, unforgettable voice that "isn't all grim; Scholinski tells [his] story in beautifully evocative prose and mines [his] experiences for every last drop of ironic humor, determined to have the last laugh." (Time Out New York)