Drawing on intimate personal experience, A History of My Brief Body is a meditation on grief, joy, love, and sex at the intersection of indigeneity and queerness.Billy-Ray Belcourt’s debut memoir opens with a tender letter to his kokum and memories of his early life in the hamlet of Joussard, Alberta, and on the Driftpile First Nation. Piece by piece, Billy-Ray’s writings invite us to unpack and explore the big and broken world he inhabits every day, in all its complexity and contradiction: a legacy of colonial violence and the joy that flourishes in spite of it; first loves and first loves lost; sexual exploration and intimacy; the act of writing as a survival instinct and a way to grieve.What emerges is not only a profound meditation on memory, gender, anger, shame, and ecstasy, but also the outline of a way forward. With startling honesty, and in a voice distinctly and assuredly his own, Belcourt situates his life experiences within a constellation of seminal queer texts, among which this book is sure to earn its place.Eye-opening, intensely emotional, and excessively quotable, A History of My Brief Body demonstrates over and over again the power of words to both devastate and console us. Lambda Literary Award, Finalist / "A Best Book of 2020" ―Kirkus Reviews, Book Riot, CBC, Globe and Mail, Largehearted Boy."Stunning... Happiness, this beautiful book says, is the ultimate act of resistance." ―Michelle Hart, O, The Oprah Magazine

    But as Rachel Hope Cleves demonstrates in this eye-opening book, same-sex marriage is hardly new.Born in 1777, Charity Bryant was raised in Massachusetts. A brilliant and strong-willed woman with a clear attraction for her own sex, Charity found herself banished from her family home at age twenty. She spent the next decade of her life traveling throughout Massachusetts, working as a teacher, making intimate female friends, and becoming the subject of gossip wherever she lived. At age twenty-nine, still defiantly single, Charity visited friends in Weybridge, Vermont. There she met a pious and studious young woman named Sylvia Drake. The two soon became so inseparable that Charity decided to rent rooms in Weybridge. In 1809, they moved into their own home together, and over the years, came to be recognized, essentially, as a married couple. Revered by their community, Charity and Sylvia operated a tailor shop employing many local women, served as guiding lights within their church, and participated in raising their many nieces and nephews.Charity and Sylvia is the intimate history of their extraordinary forty-four year union. Drawing on an array of original documents including diaries, letters, and poetry, Cleves traces their lives in sharp detail. Providing an illuminating glimpse into a relationship that turns conventional notions of same-sex marriage on their head, and reveals early America to be a place both more diverse and more accommodating than modern society might imagine, Charity and Sylvia is a significant contribution to our limited knowledge of LGBT history in early America.

    Instead she found herself drawn deeply into the pained and powerful group of transgirls she discovered. In Transparent she intro­duces four of them—Christina, Domineque, Foxxjazell, and Ariel—and shows us their world, a dizzying mix of familiar teenage cliques and crushes with far less familiar challenges like how to morph your body on a few dollars a day. Funny, heartbreaking, defiant, and sometimes defeated, the girls form a singular community. But they struggle valiantly to resolve the gap between the way they feel inside and the way the world sees them—a struggle we can all identify with. Beam’s careful reporting, sensitive writing, and intimate relationship with her characters place Transparent in the ranks of the best narrative nonfiction.

    In this boldly original work, Jonathan Ned Katz challenges the common notion that the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality has been a timeless one.  Building on the history of medical terminology, he reveals that as late as 1923, the term “heterosexuality” referred to a "morbid sexual passion," and that its current usage emerged to legitimate men and women having sex for pleasure. Drawing on the works of Sigmund Freud, James Baldwin, Betty Friedan, and Michel Foucault, The Invention of Heterosexuality considers the effects of heterosexuality’s recently forged primacy on both scientific literature and popular culture.  “Lively and provocative.”—Carol Tavris, New York Times Book Review  “A valuable primer . . . misses no significant twists in sexual politics.”—Gary Indiana, Village Voice Literary Supplement  “One of the most important—if not outright subversive—works to emerge from gay and lesbian studies in years.”—Mark Thompson, The Advocate

    His revolutionary new book shows, for the first time, how the amazing process of neuroplastic healing really works. It describes natural, non-invasive avenues into the brain provided by the forms of energy around us—light, sound, vibration, movement—which pass through our senses and our bodies to awaken the brain’s own healing capacities without producing unpleasant side effects. Doidge explores cases where patients alleviated years of chronic pain or recovered from debilitating strokes or accidents; children on the autistic spectrum or with learning disorders normalizing; symptoms of multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and cerebral palsy radically improved, and other near-miracle recoveries. And we learn how to vastly reduce the risk of dementia with simple approaches anyone can use. For centuries it was believed that the brain’s complexity prevented recovery from damage or disease. The Brain’s Way of Healing shows that this very sophistication is the source of a unique kind of healing. As he did so lucidly in The Brain That Changes Itself, Doidge uses stories to present cutting-edge science with practical real-world applications, and principles that everyone can apply to improve their brain’s performance and health.

    So why is it that, like the pay gap, there is an ‘orgasm gap’ between women and men? The Hotbed Collective began life as a podcast with a mission ‘to make life better one orgasm at a time’. Their debut book, More Orgasms Please is an open, honest and at moments hilarious dive into all aspects of sex for women. It covers feminist porn, body image, menopause and much more. Like the podcast that inspired it, More Orgasms Please is like the best sort of chat between friends: punchy and playful, normalising and educating. It is an eye-opening read that puts women’s bodies and our right to pleasure firmly on the map. Think of it as ‘Couch to 5k’ ... for orgasms.

    A great starting point for anyone curious about queer and trans life, and helpful for those already on their own journeys!

    Anyone will tell you that! But for all the rosy sentiments surrounding friendship, most people don’t talk much about what it really takes to stay close for the long haul.Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their equally messy and life-affirming Big Friendship in this honest and hilarious book that chronicles their first decade in one another’s lives. As the hosts of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend, they’ve become known for frank and intimate conversations. In this book, they bring that energy to their own friendship—its joys and its pitfalls. An inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of society’s most underappreciated relationship, Big Friendship will invite you to think about how your own bonds are formed, challenged, and preserved. It is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity. Actively choose them. And, sometimes, fight for them.

    It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is.

    Undeniably celebratory and deeply troubling, this sharp-edged collection (of fiction, prose poetry, personal essay, photographs, and illustration) figures the un-hyphenated femme experience emerging in performance, betrayal, violence, humor and survival.Brazen Femme recognizes femme as an identity in flux and in motion, as constantly being reinvented. This mutability sets the stage for creative and thoughtful representation featuring critically acclaimed writers including Michelle Tea, Camilla Gibb, Sky Gilbert, Amber Hollibaugh and Anurima Banerji. The collection includes the entertaining and challenging work of writers and artists whose stories are missing from existing explorations of femme that exclude experiences of men, transsexual women, and sex workers.Whether by choice or necessity, these frenzied femmes each explore their desires to make (and remake) femininity fit their own queer frames. Darlings, drag queens, whores and action heroes . . . a femme by any other name is spectacular.With writings by Debra Anderson, Anurima Banerji, T.J. Bryan, Anna Camilleri, Daniel Collins, Lisa Duggan and Kathleen McHugh, Camilla Gibb, Sky Gilbert, Tara Hardy, Amber Hollibaugh, Suzann Kole, Heather Mc-Callister, Elaine Miller, Kathryn Payne, Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha, Elizabeth Ruth, Trish Salah, Abi Slone and Allyson Mitchell, Michelle Tea, Zoe Whittal and Karin Wolf.With photographs by Chloë Brushwood Rose, and Daniel Collins, and illustrations by comic artists Sandi Rapini, Suzy Malik and Allyson Mitchell.Chloë Brushwood Rose and Anna Camilleri have been collaborating in Toronto as curators, editors and art-makers for the past four years. Anna co-founded the interdisciplinary performance troupe Taste This, who collaborated on the acclaimed Boys Like Her.

    Jared Yates Sexton alternates between an examination of his working class upbringing and historical, psychological, and sociological sources that examine the genesis of toxic masculinity and its consequences for society.As progressivism changes American society, and globalism shifts labor away from traditional manufacturing, the roles that have been prescribed to men since the Industrial Revolution have been rendered as obsolete. Donald Trump's campaign successfully leveraged male resentment and entitlement, and now, with Trump as president and the rise of the #MeToo movement, it’s clearer than ever what a problem performative masculinity is.Deeply personal and thoroughly researched, The Man They Wanted Me to Be examines how we teach boys what’s expected of men in America, and the long term effects of that socialization—which include depression, suicide, misogyny, and, ultimately, shorter lives. Sexton turns his keen eye to the establishment of the racist patriarchal structure which has favored white men, and investigates the personal and societal dangers of such outdated definitions of manhood.

    A deliciously sexy how-to guide, it gives curious straight women the complete inside scoop on girl-on-girl action -- from pickup lines and virgin jitters to threesomes, techniques, and toys. Drawing on personal experience and hundreds of interviews with straight girls who've slept with lesbians, straight girls who've slept with straight girls, lesbians who've slept with straight girls, and straight girls who've done both or neither, Sincero covers the A to Z of the experience including: · Obtaining a visitor's pass to the girls-only club · The super-huge importance of sticking your hand down your pants · The straight girl's starter kit -- from nail clippers to cocktails to get her in the mood · "Gettin' Some 101" -- positions, techniques, and instructional photos · "And Boy Makes Three!" -- how to have a threesome that's fun for all · Suggestions for further viewing and reading and much, much more Packed with expertly toned advice that is at once laugh-out-loud hilarious and fundamentally practical, The Straight Girl's Guide to Sleeping with Chicks is ideal for any woman looking to spice things up with a boyfriend, break the ice with a best friend, or simply add a few just-in-case items to her sexual menu.

    When do you decide to come out? To whom? Will your friends accept you? And how on earth do you meet people to date?Queer is a humorous, engaging, and honest guide that helps LGBT teens come out to friends and family, navigate their new LGBT social life, figure out if a crush is also queer, and rise up against bigotry and homophobia.Queer also includes personal stories from the authors and sidebars on queer history. It’s a must-read for any teen who thinks they might be queer—or knows someone who is.

    The American Midwest is a place beyond definition, whose very boundaries are a question. It’s a place of rolling prairies and towering pines, where guns in bars and trucks on blocks are as much a part of the landscape as rivers and lakes and farms. Where girls are girls and boys are boys, where women are mothers and wives, where one is taught to work hard and live between the lines. But what happens when those lines become increasingly unclear? When a girl, like the land that raised her, finds herself neither here nor there?In this intrepid collection of essays, Melissa Faliveno traverses the liminal spaces of her childhood in working-class Wisconsin and the paths she’s traveled since, compelled by questions of girlhood and womanhood, queerness and class, and how the lands of our upbringing both define and complicate us even long after we’ve left. Part personal narrative, part cultural reportage, Tomboyland navigates midwestern traditions, mythologies, landscapes, and lives to explore the intersections of identity and place. From F5 tornadoes and fast-pitch softball to gun culture, strange glacial terrains, kink party potlucks, and the question of motherhood, Faliveno asks curious, honest, and often darkly funny questions about belonging and the body, isolation and community, and what we mean when we use words like woman, family, and home.

    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.