It meant living a closeted life or surviving on the fringes of society. People went to jail, lost jobs, and were disowned by their families for being gay. Most doctors considered homosexuality a mental illness. There were few safe havens. The Stonewall Inn, a Mafia-run, filthy, overpriced bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, was one of them.Police raids on gay bars happened regularly in this era. But one hot June night, when cops pounded on the door of the Stonewall, almost nothing went as planned. Tensions were high. The crowd refused to go away. Anger and frustration boiled over.The raid became a riot.The riot became a catalyst.The catalyst triggered an explosive demand for gay rights.Ann Bausum’s riveting exploration of the Stonewall Riots and the national Gay Rights movement that followed is eye-opening, unflinching, and inspiring.

    I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone. I just miss you...' At a dinner party in 1922, Virginia Woolf met the renowned author, aristocrat - and sapphist - Vita Sackville-West. Virginia wrote in her diary that she didn't think much of Vita's conversation, but she did think very highly of her legs. It was to be the start of almost twenty years of flirtation, friendship, and literary collaboration. Their correspondence ended only with Virginia's tragic death in 1941.Intimate and playful, these selected letters and diary entries allow us to hear these women's constantly changing feelings for each other in their own words. Eavesdrop on the affair that inspired Virginia to write her most fantastical novel, Orlando, and glimpse into their extraordinary lives: from Vita's travels across the globe, to Virginia's parties with the Bloomsbury set; from their shared love of dogs and nature, to their grief at the beginning of the Second World War. Discover a relationship that - even a hundred years later - feels radical and relatable.WITH AN ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION FROM ALISON BECHDEL, AUTHOR OF FUN HOME AND CREATOR OF THE BECHDEL TEST.

    From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community riven by poverty and alcoholism, Chacaby’s story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social, economic, and health legacies of colonialism.As a child, Chacaby learned spiritual and cultural traditions from her Cree grandmother and trapping, hunting, and bush survival skills from her Ojibwa stepfather. She also suffered physical and sexual abuse by different adults, and by her teen years she was alcoholic herself. At twenty, Chacaby moved to Thunder Bay with her children to escape an abusive marriage. Abuse, compounded by racism, continued, but Chacaby found supports to help herself and others. Over the following decades, she achieved sobriety; trained and worked as an alcoholism counselor; raised her children and fostered many others; learned to live with visual impairment; and came out as a lesbian. In 2013, Chacaby led the first gay pride parade in her adopted city, Thunder Bay, Ontario.Ma-Nee Chacaby has emerged from hardship grounded in faith, compassion, humor, and resilience. Her memoir provides unprecedented insights into the challenges still faced by many Indigenous people.

    The suffragists endured hunger strikes, forced feedings, and jail terms. First written in 1920 by Doris Stevens, this version was edited by Carol O’Hare. Includes an introduction by Smithsonian curator Edith Mayo, along with appendices, an index, historic photos, and illustrations.

    Featuring essays by such prominent scholars as Judith Butler, John D'Emilio, Kobena Mercer, Adrienne Rich, Gayle Rubin, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader explores a multitude of sexual, ethnic, racial, and socio-economic experiences.Ranging across disciplines including history, literature, critical theory, cultural studies, African American studies, ethnic studies, sociology, anthropology, psychology, classics, and philosophy, this anthology traces the inscription of sexual meanings in all forms of cultural expression. Representing the best and most significant English language work in the field, The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader addresses topics such as butch-fem roles, the cultural construction of gender, lesbian separatism, feminist theory, AIDS, safe-sex education, colonialism, S/M, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, children's books, black nationalism, popular films, Susan Sontag, the closet, homophobia, Freud, Sappho, the media, the hijras of India, Robert Mapplethorpe, and the politics of representation. It also contains an extensive bibliographical essay which will provide readers with an invaluable guide to further reading.Contributors: Henry Abelove, Tomas Almaguer, Ana Maria Alonso, Michele Barale, Judith Butler, Sue-Ellen Case, Danae Clark, Douglas Crimp, Teresa de Lauretis, John D'Emilio, Jonathan Dollimore, Lee Edelman, Marilyn Frye, Charlotte Furth, Marjorie Garber, Stuart Hall, David Halperin, Phillip Brian Harper, Gloria T. Hull, Maria Teresa Koreck, Audre Lorde, Biddy Martin, Deborah E. McDowell, Kobena Mercer, Richard Meyer, D. A. Miller, Serena Nanda, Esther Newton, Cindy Patton, Adrienne Rich, Gayle Rubin, Joan W. Scott, Daniel L. Selden, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Barbara Smith, Catharine R. Stimpson, Sasha Torres, Martha Vicinus, Simon Watney, Harriet Whitehead, John J. Winkler, Monique Wittig, and Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano

    Carson presents all the extant fragments of Sappho's verse, employing brackets and white space to denote missing text - allowing the reader to imagine the poems as they were written.

    The same family appears in Act Two 25 years older and back in London, only now it’s 1979. Cloud 9 is about relationships between women and men, men and men, women and women. It is about sex, work, mothers, Africa, power, children, grandmothers, politics, money, Queen Victoria, and Sex. Cloud 9 premiered in London at the Royal Court Theatre in 1979 and has since been staged all over the world.

    Yet such places did exist, and their histories tell amazing stories of survival and the struggle for acceptance and self-respect. When Ricardo J. Brown died in 1999, he left a compelling memoir of his youth and experiences as a young gay man in St. Paul. After being discharged from the navy for revealing his sexual orientation to a commanding officer in 1945, Brown returned to his hometown with a new self-awareness and a desire to find a group of people like himself. He discovered such a place in Kirmser's.A small neighborhood bar owned by a German immigrant couple in St. Paul's downtown, Kirmser's served working-class customers during daylight hours, but became an unofficial home to the gay men and lesbians who gathered there nightly in the years following World War II. The Evening Crowd at Kirmser's introduces us to often humorous but frequently tragic stories of those who would become the author's friends: Flaming Youth, a homely, sardonic man who carried the nickname from his younger years ironically into middle age; Bud York, the "All-American Boy," who seduced all with his wholesome good looks and confidence; Dickie Grant, a likable, gentle boy who is arrested for writing bad checks and is murdered while in prison; and Dale, the author's best friend, who suddenly loses his job of six years after an anonymous note informed his employer that he is gay.A revealing look at the origins of gay culture in a mid-sized city and among working-class people, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser's is destined to become a rare and unique classic.

    for understanding the basic, early and continuing perspectives of feminists. And for all of us they provide a theoretical framework in which to read the present as well as the past." - WOMEN'S REVIEW OF BOOKS"The style is both scholarly and direct without being ponderous. Frye makes a concerted effort to stimulate discussion, as opposed to arguing unopposed, so that much of the work is novel and candid... An important addition to a complete feminist library." - CHOICE"Only those who wish to remain ignorant of contemporary feminist themes, pursued here by a thinker of an unusual cast of mind, can afford to neglect a careful reading on the essays collected in the present volume." - ETICHS, AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND LEGAL PHILOSOPHY"This is radical feminist theory at its best: clear, careful and critical." - SIGNS

    If it weren’t for us, the world would suffer from a dismal lack of stories," writes Bruce Benderson in this brutally candid memoir.What astonishes and intrigues is Benderson’s way of recounting, in the sweetest possible voice, things that are considered shocking,” wrote Le Monde. What’s so shocking? It’s not just Benderson’s job translating Céline Dion’s saccharine autobiography, which he admits is driving him mad; but his passion for an impoverished Romanian in "cheap club-kid platforms with dollar signs in his squinting eyes,” whom he meets while on a journalism assignment in Eastern Europe.Rather than retreat, Benderson absorbs everything he can about Romanian culture and discovers an uncanny similarity between his own obsession for the Romanian (named Romulus) and the disastrous love affair of King Carol II, the last king of Romania (1893-1953). Throughout, Benderson— "absolutely free of bitterness, nastiness, or any desire to protect himself,” wrote Le Monde—is sustained by little white codeine pills, a poetic self-awareness, a sense of humor, and an unwavering belief in the perfect romance, even as wild dogs chase him down Romanian streets.

    By that time, she had put her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her and developed an independent life—now threatened by the public role she would be forced to play. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press: Lorena Hickok. Over the next thirty years, until Eleanor’s death, the two women carried on an extraordinary relationship: They were, at different points, lovers, confidantes, professional advisors, and caring friends. They couldn't have been more different. Eleanor had been raised in one of the nation’s most powerful political families and was introduced to society as a debutante before marrying her distant cousin, Franklin. Hick, as she was known, had grown up poor in rural South Dakota and worked as a servant girl after she escaped an abusive home, eventually becoming one of the most respected reporters at the AP. Her admiration drew the buttoned-up Eleanor out of her shell, and the two quickly fell in love. For the next thirteen years, Hick had her own room at the White House, next door to the First Lady. These fiercely compassionate women inspired each other to right the wrongs of the turbulent era in which they lived. During the Depression, Hick reported from the nation’s poorest areas for the WPA, and Eleanor used these reports to lobby her husband for New Deal programs. Hick encouraged Eleanor to turn their frequent letters into her popular and long-lasting syndicated column "My Day," and to befriend the female journalists who became her champions. When Eleanor’s tenure as First Lady ended with FDR's death, Hick pushed her to continue to use her popularity for good—advice Eleanor took by leading the UN’s postwar Human Rights Commission. At every turn, the bond these women shared was grounded in their determination to better their troubled world. Deeply researched and told with great warmth, Eleanor and Hick is a vivid portrait of love and a revealing look at how an unlikely romance influenced some of the most consequential years in American history.

    A rich and sweeping photographic history of the queer liberation movement from the creators of the massively popular Instagram account @lgbt_history, released in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Through the lens of protest, power, and pride, We Are Everywhere is an essential introduction–told through stunning photographs and thoroughly researched narrative–to the history of the modern queer liberation movement. Tracing queer activism from its late nineteenth century European roots to the homophiles who made Stonewall possible and the gender warriors who continue the struggle today, this beautifully packaged book contains hundreds of photos and pieces of ephemera that allow the reader to see history as they read. With photography from some of the best-known queer photographers alongside the work of unknown activists, the vintage and contemporary images cover every aspect of queer life and liberation, including marches, protests, family life, personal snapshots, celebrations, reactions to important legal decisions, and Pride.

    This landmark work of scholarship offers an enlightening review of the shifting concept of "lesbian literature," followed by examples of six different genres: Romantic Friendship, Sexual Inversion, Exotic and Evil Lesbians, Lesbian Encoding, Lesbian Feminism, and Post-Lesbian Feminism.Faderman examines works as diverse as Willa Cather's My Antonia and Virginia Woolf's Orlando; poetry by Gertrude Stein and Amy Lowell; fiction by Carson McCullers, Helen Hull, and Alice Walker. In addition, Chloe Plus Olivia contains writing by men who focused on women's relationships. These writings are included in the early section of the book and were, in various ways, important to the development of lesbian literature, since men were far more likely than women to achieve publication in other centuries.It would be impossible to identify a single "great tradition" of lesbian writing, since it is in constant metamorphosis, reflecting changing social attitudes and women's voices. Chloe Plus Olivia, with its historical scope enhanced by Faderman's own personal search for a definition of lesbian literature, makes this the first book of its kind; it is certain to become the point of reference from which all subsequent studies of lesbian literature will begin.

    Dante Gabriel Rossetti exhumed his dead wife to pry his only copy of a manuscript of his poems from her coffin. Legendary explorer Richard Burton wrote how-to manuals on sex positions and livened up the drawing room with stories of eroticism in the Middle East. Algernon Charles Swinburne visited flagellation brothels and wrote pornography amid his poetry. By embracing and exploring the taboo, these iconoclasts produced some of the most captivating art, literature, and ideas of their day. As thought-provoking as it is electric, Pleasure Bound unearths the desires of the men and women who challenged buttoned-up Victorian mores to promote erotic freedom. These bohemians formed two loosely overlapping societies—the Cannibal Club and the Aesthetes—to explore their fascinations with sexual taboo, from homosexuality to the eroticization of death. Known as much for their flamboyant personal lives as for their controversial masterpieces, they created a scandal-provoking counterculture that paved the way for such later figures as Gustav Klimt, Virginia Woolf, and Jean Genet. In this stunning exposé of the Victorian London we thought we knew, Deborah Lutz takes us beyond the eyebrow-raising practices of these sex rebels, revealing how they uncovered troubles that ran beneath the surface of the larger social fabric: the struggle for women’s emancipation, the dissolution of formal religions, and the pressing need for new forms of sexual expression. 8 pages four-color and 5 black-and-white illustrations

    *Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2019*Jay Bernard’s extraordinary debut is a fearlessly original exploration of the black British archive: an enquiry into the New Cross Fire of 1981, a house fire at a birthday party in south London in which thirteen young black people were killed.Dubbed the ‘New Cross Massacre’, the fire was initially believed to be a racist attack, and the indifference with which the tragedy was met by the state triggered a new era of race relations in Britain.Tracing a line from New Cross to the ‘towers of blood’ of the Grenfell fire, this urgent collection speaks with, in and of the voices of the past, brought back by the incantation of dancehall rhythms and the music of Jamaican patois, to form a living presence in the absence of justice.A ground-breaking work of excavation, memory and activism – both political and personal, witness and documentary – Surge shines a much-needed light on an unacknowledged chapter in British history, one that powerfully resonates in our present moment.