In The History of Lesbian Hair, Mary Dugger delivers an unrelentingly hilarious view of the modern world. The redoubtable Ms. D. offers an uproarious array of illustrated essays, diagrams, and short takes covering Life ("The Downside to Lesbian Chic," "Build Your Own Lesbian," "So You Want to Be a Straight Girl," and children—“Pets with Thumbs"), Liberty ("Far Right Trading Cards," the ethics of outing), and The Pursuit of Happiness (the birth of the indomitable alter ego Marie DuGuerre, and her ongoing search for love, romance, and a decent vacation).
When most lesbians had to hide, how did they find one another? Were the bars of the 1940s and 1950s more fun than the bars today? Did Black and white lesbians socialize together? Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold is a ground-breaking account of the growth of the lesbian community in Buffalo, New York from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s Drawing on oral histories collected from 45 women, it is the first comprehensive history of a working-class lesbian community. These poignant and complex stories provide a new look at Black and white working-class lesbians as powerful agents of historical change. Their creativity and resilience under oppressive circumstances constructed a better life for all lesbians and expanded possibilities for all women. Based on 13 years of research, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold ranges over topics including sex, relationships, coming out, butch-fem roles, motherhood, aging, racism, work, oppression, and pride. Kennedy and Davis provide a unique insider's perspective on butch-fem culture and trace the roots of gay and lesbian liberation to the determined resistance of working-class lesbians. The book begins by focusing on the growth and development of community, culture, and consciousness in the bars and open house parties of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. It goes on to explore the code of personal behavior and social imperative in butch-fem culture, centering on dress, mannerisms, and gendered sexuality. Finally the book examines serial monogamy, the social forces which shaped love and break-ups, and the changing nature and content of lesbian identity. Capturing the full complexity of lesbian culture, this outstanding book includes extensive quotes from narrators that make every topic a living document, a composite picture of the lives of real people fighting for respect and for a place that would be safe for their love.
Celebrate Pride every day with the very first picture book to tell of its historic and inspiring role in the gay civil rights movement, from the author of the acclaimed Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag. A powerful and timeless true story that will allow young readers to discover the rich and dynamic history of the Stonewall Inn and its role in the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement--a movement that continues to this very day. In the early-morning hours of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn was raided by police in New York City. Though the inn had been raided before, that night would be different. It would be the night when empowered members of the LGBTQ+ community--in and around the Stonewall Inn--began to protest and demand their equal rights as citizens of the United States. Movingly narrated by the Stonewall Inn itself, and featuring stirring and dynamic illustrations, Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution is an essential and empowering civil rights story that every child deserves to hear.
In Roads Were Not Built for Cars, Carlton Reid reveals the pivotal—and largely unrecognized—role that bicyclists played in the development of modern roadways. Reid introduces readers to cycling personalities, such as Henry Ford, and the cycling advocacy groups that influenced early road improvements, literally paving the way for the motor car. When the bicycle morphed from the vehicle of rich transport progressives in the 1890s to the “poor man’s transport” in the 1920s, some cyclists became ardent motorists and were all too happy to forget their cycling roots. But, Reid explains, many motor pioneers continued cycling, celebrating the shared links between transport modes that are now seen as worlds apart. In this engaging and meticulously researched book, Carlton Reid encourages us all to celebrate those links once again.
A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "an accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (Village Voice), from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Goldfinch. One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality. “A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment . . . Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled.” —The New York Times
This modern classic of LGBT writing includes an introduction from Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties, and a new afterword from Lillian Faderman. Born in 1940, Lillian Faderman is the only child of an uneducated and unmarried Jewish woman who left Latvia to seek a better life in America. Lillian grew up in poverty, but fantasised about becoming an actress. When her dreams led to the dangerous, seductive world of the sex trade and sham-marriages in Hollywood of the fifties, she realised she was attracted to women, and that show-biz is as cruel as they say. Desperately seeking to make her life meaningful, she studied at Berkeley; paying her way by working as a pin-up model and burlesque dancer, hiding her lesbian affairs from the outside world. At last she became a brilliant student and the woman who becomes a loving partner, a devoted mother, an acclaimed writer and ground-breaking pioneer of gay and lesbian scholarship. Told with wrenching immediacy and great power, Naked in the Promised Land is the story of an exceptional woman and her remarkable, unorthodox life.
An anthology of primary documents for high-school and college students who are studying or debating the issues of gay and lesbian rights in America, dating from colonial times to the present.
The first book of its kind, Our Caribbean is an anthology of lesbian and gay writing from across the Antilles. The author and activist Thomas Glave has gathered outstanding fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and poetry by little-known writers together with selections by internationally celebrated figures such as José Alcántara Almánzar, Reinaldo Arenas, Dionne Brand, Michelle Cliff, Audre Lorde, Achy Obejas, and Assotto Saint. The result is an unprecedented literary conversation on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered experiences throughout the Caribbean and its far-flung diaspora. Many selections were originally published in Spanish, Dutch, or creole languages; some are translated into English here for the first time. The thirty-seven authors hail from the Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Puerto Rico, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, Suriname, and Trinidad. Many have lived outside the Caribbean, and their writing depicts histories of voluntary migration as well as exile from repressive governments, communities, and families. Many pieces have a political urgency that reflects their authors' work as activists, teachers, community organizers, and performers. Desire commingles with ostracism and alienation throughout: in the evocative portrayals of same-sex love and longing, and in the selections addressing religion, family, race, and class. From the poem "Saturday Night in San Juan with the Right Sailors" to the poignant narrative "We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?" to an eloquent call for the embrace of difference that appeared in the Nassau Daily Tribune on the eve of an anti-gay protest, Our Caribbean is a brave and necessary book. Contributors: José Alcántara Almánzar, Aldo Alvarez, Reinaldo Arenas, Rane Arroyo, Jesús J. Barquet, Marilyn Bobes, Dionne Brand, Timothy S. Chin, Michelle Cliff, Wesley E. A. Crichlow, Mabel Rodríguez Cuesta, Ochy Curiel, Faizal Deen, Pedro de Jesús, R. Erica Doyle, Thomas Glave, Rosamond S. King, Helen Klonaris, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Audre Lorde, Shani Mootoo, Anton Nimblett, Achy Obejas, Leonardo Padura Fuentes, Virgilio Piñera, Patricia Powell, Kevin Everod Quashie, Juanita Ramos, Colin Robinson, Assotto Saint, Andrew Salkey, Lawrence Scott, Makeda Silvera, H. Nigel Thomas, Rinaldo Walcott, Gloria Wekker, Lawson Williams
A 2018 Over the Rainbow Selection presented by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association LGBT Americans now enjoy the right to marry—but what will we remember about the vibrant cultural spaces that lesbian activists created in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s? Most are vanishing from the calendar—and from recent memory. The Disappearing L explores the rise and fall of the hugely popular women-only concerts, festivals, bookstores, and support spaces built by and for lesbians in the era of woman-identified activism. Through the stories unfolding in these chapters, anyone unfamiliar with the Michigan festival, Olivia Records, or the women's bookstores once dotting the urban landscape will gain a better understanding of the era in which artists and activists first dared to celebrate lesbian lives. This book offers the backstory to the culture we are losing to mainstreaming and assimilation. Through interviews with older activists, it also responds to recent attacks on lesbian feminists who are being made to feel that they've hit their cultural expiration date.
