What happens when an introverted feminist academic tosses off her big black nerd glasses and succumbs to a brutal crush on a hard-rockin' Texas boygirl? Paige Schilt's journey introduces her to Southern belles, singing sperm donors, gay evangelicals, and tattooed sub-cultural kinfolk. A unique tale of family, illness, and resilience, Queer Rock Love reminds us that our trials and tribulations can sometimes become powerful sources of community and connection.
There are areas which can be described as gay space in that they have many lesbians and gays in the population. Queerspace: A History of Urban Sexuality, edited by David Higgs, offers a history of gay space in the major cities form the early modern period to the present. The book focuses on the changing nature of queer experience in London, Amsterdam, Rio de Janiero, San Francisco, Paris, Lisbon and Moscow. This book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of extensive source material, including diaries, poems, legal accounts and journalism. By concentrating the importance of the city and varied meeting places such as parks, river walks, bathing places, the street, bars and even churches, the contributors explore the extent to which gay space existed, the degree of social collectiveness felt by those who used this space and their individual histories.
Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution: An Oral History is the very first comprehensive overview of the movement that defied both the music underground and the LGBT mainstream community—queercore. Through exclusive interviews with protagonists like Bruce LaBruce, G.B. Jones, Jayne County, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, film director and author John Waters, Lynn Breedlove of Tribe 8, Jon Ginoli of Pansy Division, and many more, alongside a treasure trove of never-before-seen photographs and reprinted zines from the time, Queercore traces the history of a scene originally “fabricated” in the bedrooms and coffee shops of Toronto and San Francisco by a few young, queer punks to its emergence as a relevant and real revolution. Queercore gets a down-to-details firsthand account of the movement explored through the people that lived it—from punk’s early queer elements, to the moments Toronto kids decided they needed to create a scene that didn’t exist, to the infiltration of the mainstream by Pansy Division, and the emergence of riot grrrl as a sister movement—as well as the clothes, zines, art, film, and music that made this movement an exciting in-your-face middle finger to complacent gay and straight society. Queercore will stand as both a testament to radically gay politics and culture and an important reference for those who wish to better understand this explosive movement.
“[They] said I couldn’t live as a gay man, but it looks like I’m going to die like one.” Good Midwestern girls did not grow up to be gay men and die from AIDS. Unless they were transgender pioneer Lou Sullivan (1951-1991). In this heart-wrenchingly inspirational biography, Brice D. Smith reclaims one of the most tragically overlooked people in LGBT history. Sullivan marched for Civil Rights, embraced the 1960s counterculture, came of age in the gay liberation movement, transformed medical treatment of trans people, institutionalized trans history, forged an international female-to-male (FTM) transgender community and died from AIDS at the epicenter of the crisis. He overcame tremendous obstacles to be who he was and dedicated his life to helping others do the same. An activist to the end, Sullivan inspired a generation to rethink gender identity, sexual orientation and what it means to be human.
A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies is the first single volume survey of current discussions taking place in this rapidly developing area of study. Recognizing the multidisciplinary nature of the field, the editors gather new essays by an international team of established and emerging scholars Addresses the politics, economics, history, and cultural impact of sexuality Engages the future of queer studies by asking what sexuality stands for, what work it does, and how it continues to structure discussions in various academic disciplines as well as contemporary politics
Queer Cinema: Schoolgirls, Vampires, and Gay Cowboys illustrates queer cinematic aesthetics by highlighting key films that emerged at historical turning points throughout the twentieth century. Barbara Mennel traces the representation of gays and lesbians from the sexual liberation movements of the roaring 1920s in Berlin to the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City and the emergence of queer activism and film in the early 1990s. She explains early tropes of queerness, such as the boarding school or the vampire, and describes the development of camp from 1950s Hollywood to underground art of the late 1960s in New York City. Mennel concludes with an exploration of the contemporary mainstreaming of gay and lesbian films and global queer cinema. Queer Cinema: Schoolgirls, Vampires and Gay Cowboys not only offers an introduction to a gay and lesbian film history, but also contributes to an academic discussion about queer subversion of mainstream film.
Winner of the 2023 Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work Contributions by Michelle Ann Abate, William S. Armour, Alison Bechdel, Jennifer Camper, Tesla Cariani, Matthew Cheney, Hillary Chute, Edmond (Edo) Ernest dit Alban, Ramzi Fawaz, Margaret Galvan, Justin Hall, Alison Halsall, Lara Hedberg, Susanne Hochreiter, Sheena C. Howard, Rebecca Hutton, remus jackson, Keiko Miyajima, Chinmay Murali, Marina Rauchenbacher, Katharina Serles, Sathyaraj Venkatesan, Jonathan Warren, and Lin Young The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader explores the exemplary trove of LGBTQ+ comics that coalesced in the underground and alternative comix scenes of the mid-1960s and in the decades after. Through insightful essays and interviews with leading comics figures, volume contributors illuminate the critical opportunities, current interactions, and future directions of these comics. This heavily illustrated volume engages with the work of preeminent artists across the globe, such as Howard Cruse, Edie Fake, Justin Hall, Jennifer Camper, and Alison Bechdel, whose iconic artwork is reproduced within the volume. Further, it addresses and questions the possibilities of LGBTQ+ comics from various scholarly positions and multiple geographical vantages, covering a range of queer lived experience. Along the way, certain LGBTQ+ touchstones emerge organically and inevitably—pride, coming out, chosen families, sexual health, gender, risk, and liberation. Featuring comics figures across the gamut of the industry, from renowned scholars to emerging creators and webcomics artists, the reader explores a range of approaches to LGBTQ+ comics—queer history, gender and sexuality theory, memory studies, graphic medicine, genre studies, biography, and more—and speaks to the diversity of publishing forms and media that shape queer comics and their reading communities. Chapters trace the connections of LGBTQ+ comics from the panel, strip, comic book, graphic novel, anthology, and graphic memoir to their queer readership, the LGBTQ+ history they make visible, the often still quite fragile LGBTQ+ distribution networks, the coded queer intelligence they deploy, and the community-sustaining energy and optimism they conjure. Above all, The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader highlights the efficacy of LGBTQ+ comics as a kind of common ground for creators and readers.
Queercore is a queer and punk transmedia movement that was instigated in 1980s Toronto via the pages of the underground fanzine ("zine") J.D.s. Authored by G.B. Jones and Bruce LaBruce, J.D.s. declared "civil war" on the punk and gay and lesbian mainstreams, consolidating a subculture of likeminded filmmakers, zinesters, musicans and performers situated in pointed opposition to the homophobia of mainline punk and the lifeless sexual politics and exclusionary tendencies of dominant gay and lesbian society. More than thirty years later, queercore and its troublemaking productions remain under the radar, but still culturally and politically resonant. This book brings renewed attention to queercore, exploring the homology between queer theory/practice and punk theory/practice at the heart of queercore mediamaking. Through analysis of key queercore texts, this book also elucidates the tropes central to queercore’s subcultural distinction: unashamed sexual representation, confrontational politics and "shocking" embodiments, including those related to size, ability and gender variance. An exploration of a specific transmedia subculture grounded in archival research, ethnographic interviews, theoretical argumentation and close analysis, ultimately, Queercore proffers a provocative, and tangible, new answer to the long-debated question, "What does it mean to be queer?"
Aficionados of music, dance, opera, and musical theater will relish this volume featuring over 200 articles showcasing composers, singers, musicians, dancers, and choreographers across eras and styles. Read about Hildegard of Bingen, whose Symphonia expressed both spiritual and physical desire for the Virgin Mary, and George Frideric Handel, who not only created roles for castrati but was behind the Venetian opera's preoccupations with gender ambiguity. Discover Alban Berg’s Lulu, opera’s first openly lesbian character. And don’t forget Kiss Me Kate, the hit 1948 Broadway musical: written by Cole Porter, married though openly gay; directed by John C. Wilson, Noël Coward's ex-lover; and featuring Harold Lang, who had affairs with Leonard Bernstein and Gore Vidal. No single volume has ever achieved the breadth of this scholarly yet eminently readable compendium. It includes overviews of genres as well as fascinating biographical entries on hundreds of figures such as Peter Tchaikovsky, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Diaghilev, Bessie Smith, Aaron Copland, Stephen Sondheim, Alvin Ailey, Rufus Wainwright, and Ani DiFranco.
