An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures

Female Masculinity

J. Jack Halberstam · 344 pages

Masculinity without men. In Female Masculinity Jack Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female masculinity has offered a distinct alternative to it for well over two hundred years. Providing the first full-length study on this subject, Halberstam catalogs the diversity of gender expressions among masculine women from nineteenth-century pre-lesbian practi

Bad Feminist

Roxane Gay · 360 pages

A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once l

Undoing Gender

Judith Butler · 278 pages

Butler addresses the regulation of sexuality and gender that takes place in psychology, aesthetics, and social policy. These essays deepen her treatment of issues introduced by earlier work on the relationship between power and the body, the meaning & purpose of the incest taboo, and the problems of kinship. "Undoing Gender constitutes Judith Butler's recent reflections on gender and sexuality,

A Queer History of the United States

Michael Bronski · 287 pages

"A Queer History of the United States is groundbreaking and accessible. It looks at how American culture has shaped the LGBT, or queer, experience, while simultaneously arguing that LGBT people not only shaped but were pivotal in creating our country. Using numerous primary documents and literature, as well as social histories, Bronski's book takes the reader through the centuries--from Columbus'

Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore · 354 pages

Nobody Passes is a collection of essays that confronts and challenges the very notion of belonging. By examining the perilous intersections of identity, categorization, and community, contributors challenge societal mores and countercultural norms. Nobody Passes explores and critiques the various systems of power seen (or not seen) in the act of 2passing.3 In a pass-fail situation, standards for a

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue

Samuel R. Delany · 203 pages

If one street in America can claim to be the most infamous, it is surely Forty-second Street. Once known for its peep shows, street corner hustlers, and movie houses, Forty-second Street has been overwhelmed by the quest for safety - from safe sex and safe neighborhoods to safe cities and safe relationships. Now defined by corporate theme stores and large, neon-lit cafes, Forty-second Street has,

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence

Adrienne Rich · 32 pages

Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer

Riki Anne Wilchins · 176 pages

"In this introduction to the work of postmodern sex and gender theorists, gender activist Riki Wilchins explains the key ideas that have shaped contemporary sex and gender studies. Using straightforward prose and concrete examples from LGBT politics - as well as her own life - Wilchins makes thinkers like Derrida, Foucault, and Judith Butler easily accessible to students, activists, and others who

Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights

Kenji Yoshino · 282 pages

Everyone covers. To cover is to downplay a disfavored trait so as to blend into the mainstream. Because all of us possess stigmatized attributes, we all encounter pressure to cover in our daily lives. Racial minorities are pressed to “act white” by changing their names, languages, or cultural practices. Women are told to “play like men” at work. Gays are asked not to engage in public displays of s

PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality

Carol Queen, Lawrence Schimel · 199 pages

PoMo: short for PostModern; in th earts, a movement following after and in direct reaction to Modernism; culturally, an outlook that acknowledges diverse and complex points of view. PoMoSexual: the queer erotic reality beyond the boundaries of gender, separatism, and essentialist notions of sexual orientation.

The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction

Michel Foucault · 176 pages

Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation

Kate Bornstein, S. Bear Bergman · 302 pages

Today's transgenders and other sex/gender radicals are writing a drastically new world into being. In Gender Outlaws, Bornstein, together with writer, raconteur, and theater artist S. Bear Bergman, collects and contextualizes the work of this generation's trans and genderqueer forward thinkers.

Queer: A Graphic History

Meg-John Barker · 175 pages

Activist-academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Jules Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel. From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding o

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community

Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Madeline D. Davis · 434 pages

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold traces the evolution of the lesbian community in Buffalo, New York from the mid-1930s up to the early 1960s. Drawing upon the oral histories of 45 women, it is the first comprehensive history of a working-class lesbian community. These poignant and complex stories show how black and white working-class lesbians, although living under oppressive circumstances, nev

Not Straight, Not White: Black Gay Men from the March on Washington to the AIDS Crisis

Kevin J. Mumford · 272 pages

This compelling book recounts the history of black gay men from the 1950s to the 1990s, tracing how the major movements of the times—from civil rights to black power to gay liberation to AIDS activism—helped shape the cultural stigmas that surrounded race and homosexuality. In locating the rise of black gay identities in historical context, Kevin Mumford explores how activists, performers, and wri

So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color

Caro De Robertis · 304 pages

The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality

Julie Sondra Decker · 216 pages

"In 'The invisible orientation,' Julie Sondra Decker outlines what asexuality is, counters misconceptions, provides resources, and puts asexual people's experiences in context as they move through a very sexualized world. It includes information for asexual people to help understand their orientation and what it means for their relationships, as well as tips and facts for those who want to undersa

Returning to Reims

Didier Eribon, George Chauncey, Michael Lucey · 255 pages

On thinking the matter through, it doesn't seem exaggerated to assert that my coming out of the sexual closet, my desire to assume and assert my homosexuality, coincided within my personal trajectory with my shutting myself up inside what I might call a class closet. -- from Returning to Reims After his father dies, Didier Eribon returns to his hometown of Reims and rediscovers the working-class w

Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past

Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, George Chauncey · 579 pages

This richly revealing anthology brings together for the first time the vital new scholarly studies now lifting the veil from the gay and lesbian past. Such notable researchers as John Boswell, Shari Benstock, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Jeffrey Weeks and John D’Emilio illuminate gay and lesbian life as it evolved in places as diverse as the Athens of Plato, Renaissance Italy, Victorian London, jazz A

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940

George Chauncey · 496 pages

The award-winning, field-defining history of gay life in New York City in the early to mid-20th century. *Gay New York* brilliantly shatters the myth that before the 1960s gay life existed only in the closet, where gay men were isolated, invisible, and self-hating. Drawing on a rich trove of diaries, legal records, and other unpublished documents, George Chauncey constructs a fascinating portrait

Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School

C.J. Pascoe · 240 pages

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America

Lillian Faderman · 373 pages

Lesbian life in America continues to evolve. As Lillian Faderman writes, there are “no constants with regard to lesbianism,” except that lesbians prefer women. In this book, Faderman reclaims the story of lesbian life in twentieth-century America, tracing the evolution of lesbian identity and subcultures from early networks to today’s diverse lifestyles. Faderman samples from journals, unpublis

Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East

Benjamin Law · 288 pages

Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two

Allan Berube · 377 pages

During World War II, as the United States called on its citizens to serve in unprecedented numbers, the presence of gay Americans in the armed forces increasingly conflicted with the expanding antihomosexual policies and procedures of the military. In Coming Out Under Fire, Allan Bérubé examines in depth and detail these social and political confrontation--not as a story of how the military victim