Unpacking Queer Politics: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective


Sheila Jeffreys - 2002
     The new politics repudiated lesbian feminist ideas and celebrated 'manhood' as a goal for gay men. Practices which construct this 'manhood', such as sadomasochism, cutting and piercing, female-to-male transsexual surgery, and which are promoted in queer politics, need to be understood as forms of self-harm which result from the oppression of lesbians and gay men. The political agenda of queer politics is damaging to the interests of lesbians, women in general, and to marginalized and vulnerable constituencies of gay men. The book concludes by arguing that precisely the commitment to equality in relationships and sex that has been so important to lesbian feminists, and so excoriated in much of queer theory, should form the basis of a social transformation. In this way lesbians should be seen as the vanguard of social change.

Seeing Gender: An Illustrated Guide to Identity and Expression


Iris Gottlieb - 2019
    Deeply researched and fully illustrated, this book demystifies an intensely personal—yet universal—facet of humanity. Illustrating a different concept on each spread, queer author and artist Iris Gottlieb touches on history, science, sociology, and her own experience. This book is an essential tool for understanding and contributing to a necessary cultural conversation, bringing clarity and reassurance to the sometimes confusing process of navigating ones' identity. Whether LGBTQ+, cisgender, or nonbinary, Seeing Gender is a must-read for intelligent, curious, want-to-be woke people who care about how we see and talk about gender and sexuality in the 21st century.

The Fate of Gender: Nature, Nurture, and the Human Future


Frank Browning - 2016
    Frank Browning takes us into human gender geographies around the world, from gender-neutral kinde....

Queers in History


Keith Stern - 2006
    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.

We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir


Samra Habib - 2019
    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.

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century


Charles King - 2019
    But one rogue researcher looked at the data and decided everyone was wrong. Franz Boas was the very image of a mad scientist: a wild-haired immigrant with a thick German accent. By the 1920s he was also the foundational thinker and public face of a new school of thought at Columbia University called cultural anthropology. He proposed that cultures did not exist on a continuum from primitive to advanced. Instead, every society solves the same basic problems--from childrearing to how to live well--with its own set of rules, beliefs, and taboos.Boas's students were some of the century's intellectual stars: Margaret Mead, the outspoken field researcher whose Coming of Age in Samoa is one of the most widely read works of social science of all time; Ruth Benedict, the great love of Mead's life, whose research shaped post-Second World War Japan; Ella Deloria, the Dakota Sioux activist who preserved the traditions of Native Americans of the Great Plains; and Zora Neale Hurston, whose studies under Boas fed directly into her now-classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Together, they mapped vanishing civilizations from the Arctic to the South Pacific and overturned the relationship between biology and behavior. Their work reshaped how we think of women and men, normalcy and deviance, and re-created our place in a world of many cultures and value systems. Gods of the Upper Air is a page-turning narrative of radical ideas and adventurous lives, a history rich in scandal, romance, and rivalry, and a genesis story of the fluid conceptions of identity that define our present moment.

Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology


Barbara SmithMichelle Cliff - 1983
    Since its initial publication in 1983, it has become an essential text on Black women's lives and writings. This edition features an updated lists of contributor biographies and an all-new preface that provides a fresh assessment of how Black women's lives have changed- or not- since the book was first published.Includes:For a godchild, Regina, on the occasion of her first love by Toi DerricotteThe damned by Toi DerricotteHester's song by Toi DerricotteThe sisters by Alexis De VeauxDebra by Michelle T. ClintonIf I could write this in fire, I would write this in fire by Michelle CliffThe blood - yes, the blood: a conversation by Cenen and Barbara SmithSomething Latino was up with us by Spring ReddI used to think by Chirlane McCrayThe black back-ups by Kate RushinHome by Barbara SmithUnder the days: the buried life and poetry of Angelina Weld Grimké by Akasha (Gloria) HullThe black lesbian in American literature: an overview by Ann Allen ShockleyArtists without art form by Renita WeemsI've been thinking of Diana Sands by Patricia JonesA cultural legacy denied and discovered : black lesbians in fiction by women by Jewelle L. GomezWhat it is I think she's doing anyhow: a reading of Toni Cade Bambara's The salt eaters by Akasha (Gloria) HullTar beach by Audre LordeBefore I dress and soar again by Donna AllegraLeRoy's birthday by Raymina Y. MaysThe wedding by Beverly SmithMaria de las Rosas by Becky BirthaMiss Esther's land by Barbara A. BanksThe failure to transform: homophobia in the black community by Cheryl ClarkeWhere will you be? by Pat ParkerAmong the things that use to be by Willie M. ColemanFrom sea to shining sea by June JordanWomen of summer by Cheryl ClarkeThe tired poem: last letter from a typical unemployed black professional woman by Kate RushinShoes are made for walking by Shirley O. SteeleBilly de Lye by Deidre McCallaThe Combahee River Collective statement by Combahee River CollectiveBlack macho and black feminism by Linda C. PowellBlack lesbianbyfeminist organizing: a conversation by Tania Abdulahad ... [et al.]For strong women by Michelle T. ClintonThe black goddess by Kate RushinWomen's spirituality: a household act by Luisah TeishOnly justice can stop a curse by Alice WalkerCoalition politics: turning the century by Bernice Johnson Reagon

Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present


Neil Miller - 1995
    Miller accompanies his narrative with essays and excerpts from contemporary and historical writings, and the text is illustrated with photos and line drawings.Neil Miller is the author of Sex-Crime Panic and winner of the 2003 Randy Shilts Award for nonfiction and an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. He is also the author of In Search of Gay America, winner of the 1990 American Library Association prize for gay and lesbian literature. He teaches journalism and nonfiction writing at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed


Judy Shepard - 2009
    For the first time in book form, Judy Shepard speaks about her loss, sharing memories of Matthew, their life as a typical American family, and the pivotal event in the small college town that changed everything.The Meaning of Matthew follows the Shepard family in the days immediately after the crime, when Judy and her husband traveled to see their incapacitated son, kept alive by life support machines; how the Shepards learned of the incredible response from strangers all across America who held candlelit vigils and memorial services for their child; and finally, how they struggled to navigate the legal system as Matthew's murderers were on trial. Heart-wrenchingly honest, Judy Shepard confides with readers about how she handled the crippling loss of her child, why she became a gay rights activist, and the challenges and rewards of raising a gay child in America today.The Meaning of Matthew not only captures the historical significance and complicated civil rights issues surrounding one young man's life and death, but it also chronicles one ordinary woman's struggle to cope with the unthinkable.

The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction


Michel Foucault - 1976
    Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.

The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present


Robert F. Berkhofer Jr. - 1979
    But that name and, more importantly, the images it has come to suggest have endured for five centuries, not only obscuring the true identity of the original Americans but serving as an idealogical weapon in their subjugation. Now, in this brilliant and deeply disturbing reinterpretation of the American past, Robert Berkhofer has written an impressively documented account of the self-serving stereotypes Europeans and white Americans have concocted about the "Indian": Noble Savage or bloodthirsty redskin, he was deemed inferior in the light of western, Christian civilization and manipulated to its benefit. A thought-provoking and revelatory study of the absolute, seemingly ineradicable pervasiveness of white racism, The White Man's Indian is a truly important book which penetrates to the very heart of our understanding of ourselves."A splendid inquiry into, and analysis of, the process whereby white adventurers and the white middle class fabricated the Indian to their own advantage. It deserves a wide and thoughtful readership."—Chronicle of Higher Education"A compelling and definitive history...of racist preconceptions in white behavior toward native Americans."—Leo Marx, The New York Times Book Review

Modern HERstory: Stories of Women and Nonbinary People Rewriting History


Blair Imani - 2018
    Despite making huge contributions to the liberation movements of the last century and today, all of these trailblazers come from backgrounds and communities that are traditionally overlooked and under-celebrated: not just women, but people of color, queer people, trans people, disabled people, young people, and people of faith. Authored by rising star activist Blair Imani, Modern HERstory tells the important stories of the leaders and movements that are changing the world right here and right now--and will inspire you to do the same.

Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution


Laurie Penny - 2014
    Unspeakable Things is a book that is eye-opening not only in the critique it provides, but also in the revolutionary alternatives it imagines.

Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes


Gerald N. Callahan - 2009
    Curiously, though, no one filled out a birth certificate that day. When the certificate was finally filed on November 5, the name on it was Rudolph Andrew Alaniz. Within less than one month after her birth, this girl became a boy.” Every year in the United States, more than two thousand children are born with an intersex condition or disorder of sex development. What makes someone a boy or a girl? Is it external genitalia, chromosomes, DNA, environment, or some combination of these factors? Not even doctors or scientists are entirely clear. What is clear is that sex is not an either-or proposition: not girl/boy, XX/XY, switching between two poles like an on-off switch on a radio. Rather, sex is like the bass and treble knobs on that radio. Between XX and XY provides a fascinating look at the science of sex and what makes people male or female. There are people born XXY, XXXY, or XXXXY, or with any number of variations in X or Y chromosomes, but those who do not fit into society’s preconceived notions about sex often face a difficult path in life. Dr. Callahan explores why humans are so attached to the idea of two sexes, and examines our obsession with sex and sexual intercourse through the ages.

Homosexuality in Islam: Critical Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims


Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle - 2010
    The first English-language book length treatment to offer a detailed analysis of how Islamic scripture, jurisprudence, and hadith can accommodate homosexuality and transgenderism.