"HIV alters the lives of anyone that it touches, whether they are gay or straight. This book looks at all of the aspects of how HIV/AIDS has altered the lives of those it touches. . . . The titles of the 12 chapters give an excellent overview of what is covered in these extremely well-written reports. . . . This is a must-read book for everyone. It should be in all libraries, including school libraries. Young adolescents who are facing the problem of coming out would benefit from this book." --AIDS Book Review Journal Hit hard by the AIDS epidemic in the United States and in much of Europe, the gay and lesbian community has been forced to examine existing notions of what it means to belong to a community based on sexual orientation. The editors of this second volume in the annual series Psychological Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Issues have collected a perceptive array of chapters that explore sexual behavior, personal identity, and community memberships of gay men and lesbian women. With the exception of a few, the chapters reflect study findings from AIDS-related research and include discussions of AIDS in large urban centers and in less populated settings outside of major AIDS epicenters. Focusing on underconsidered AIDS populations, the contributors explore specific topics concerning the AIDS epidemic among gay and bisexual men of color, lesbian women, and gay and lesbian youth. Accessible and sensitive, the book also examines relevant public policy, volunteerism, and long-term survival as important to AIDS awareness and education. AIDS, Identity, and Community is an appreciable resource for AIDS researchers and caregivers, mental health practitioners, social service professionals, behavioral and social science students, and any reader who seeks deeper insight into the complex and subtle areas of the lesbian and gay community in the AIDS era.

This book connects the invention of masochism by turn-of-the-century sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing and writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch to its contemporary appropriation by gay and lesbian filmmakers. Krafft-Ebing conceived of masochism as a literary perversion and as a gendered affliction. Mennel compares central texts by Sacher-Masoch with Monika Treut's film "Seduction: The Cruel Woman" and Kutlug Ataman's film "Lola and Billy the Kid," negotiating contemporary feminist theory and queer studies organized around gender and sexuality, on the one hand, and the fetish and masquerade, on the other.

New Perspectives on Language and Sexual Identity is a contribution to the growing field of language and sexuality. The authors present new and exciting data from lesbian and gay conversations, narratives, representations of lesbians in film and erotic fiction, and representations of prominent gay men in newspaper reports to exemplify some of the ways in which lesbians and gay men construct identity from among the symbolic resources available within lesbian and gay communities.

"HIV alters the lives of anyone that it touches, whether they are gay or straight. This book looks at all of the aspects of how HIV/AIDS has altered the lives of those it touches. . . . The titles of the 12 chapters give an excellent overview of what is covered in these extremely well-written reports. . . . This is a must-read book for everyone. It should be in all libraries, including school libraries. Young adolescents who are facing the problem of coming out would benefit from this book." --AIDS Book Review Journal Hit hard by the AIDS epidemic in the United States and in much of Europe, the gay and lesbian community has been forced to examine existing notions of what it means to belong to a community based on sexual orientation. The editors of this second volume in the annual series Psychological Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Issues have collected a perceptive array of chapters that explore sexual behavior, personal identity, and community memberships of gay men and lesbian women. With the exception of a few, the chapters reflect study findings from AIDS-related research and include discussions of AIDS in large urban centers and in less populated settings outside of major AIDS epicenters. Focusing on underconsidered AIDS populations, the contributors explore specific topics concerning the AIDS epidemic among gay and bisexual men of color, lesbian women, and gay and lesbian youth. Accessible and sensitive, the book also examines relevant public policy, volunteerism, and long-term survival as important to AIDS awareness and education. AIDS, Identity, and Community is an appreciable resource for AIDS researchers and caregivers, mental health practitioners, social service professionals, behavioral and social science students, and any reader who seeks deeper insight into the complex and subtle areas of the lesbian and gay community in the AIDS era.

This innovative study claims camp as a critical, yet pleasurable strategy for women's engagement with contemporary popular culture as exemplified by 30 Rock or Lady Gaga. In detailed analyses of lesbian cinema, postfeminist TV, and popular music, the book offers a novel take on its subject. It defines camp as a unique mode of detached attachment, which builds on affective intensity and emotional investment, while strongly encouraging a critical edge.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews with 15-22 year old straight and gay male athletes in both the United States and the United Kingdom, this book explores how jocks have redefined heterosexuality, and no longer fear being thought gay for behaviors that constrained men of the previous generation.

Who is the ultimate judge of the world? When God and organized religion stand at bitter odds, which one are we supposed to listen to? The four tales collected in The Great Debate, through the mixed elements of horror, whimsy, and captivating allegory, follow this common theme, exploring both the pain of LGBT people and others who feel rejected by the church and the joy that comes with realizing that God's love is by no means subject to the laws of human society.

This book provides the first full-length study of Jean Genet's homoerotic writing but also makes an important intervention in wider queer criticism. Stephens explores Genet's reflections on the difficulties of writing homoerotically within an inherently heteronormative language to formulate a new theory of queer writing.

"A forgotten yet award-winning playwright, Cal Yeomans was one of the founders of gay theatre whose work was fueled by gay liberation and extinguished by the AIDS epidemic. Exploring both sex and sexuality so candidly, he burst the boundaries of what was considered acceptable. His writings were not only manifestations of the sexual liberation of the times, but were also attempts to overcome what he had been raised to despise. Schanke's examination of Yeomans' life and legacy allows a rare exploration into the pivotal moment of gay American history between the Stonewall riots and the AIDS epidemic"--

A unique introduction to sexual and gender identity and queer studies Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people are becoming more and more visible in all aspects of American culture, from party politics to MTV videos. Despite the recent queer publishing explosion, few texts cover a broad range of topics around sexual and gender identities. Most existing works are high-level theory books, texts focused upon specific disciplines or topics, or practical guides aimed primarily at a heterosexual audience or people just beginning to come out. There has been to date no general, accessible, and inclusive work suitable for use as an introduction to Queer Studies. In this collection, contributors assess the conflict between postmodernism and identity, the concept which typically serves as a linchpin for social and political organizing. Others address queer theory, looking specifically at how we define it, how it informs political activism, and how we can theorize such aspects of sexual performance/behaviors as s/m or butch-femme relationships. The volume contains contributions from both established and newly emerging Queer Studies scholars, including Amber Ault, M. V. Lee Badgett, Warren J. Blumenfeld, Gregory Conerly, Patricia L. Duncan, Ruth Goldman, Lynda Goldstein, Sherrie A. Inness, Christopher James, Amanda Udis-Kessler, JeeYeun Lee, Michele E. Lloyd, Tracy D. Morgan, Ki Namaste, Vernon Rosario II, Paula Rust, and Siobhan Somerville.

This international edited collection contributes to knowledge about the geographies of sexualities experienced and imagined in rural spaces. The book draws attention to the heterogeneity of rural contexts and the diversity of meanings about sexualities within and across these spaces. The collection examines four key themes. First, 'Intimacies and Institutions' focuses on how intimate relationships are governed by societal, discursive and institutional structures, and regulated by social, political and legal frames of citizenship and belonging. The chapters present historical and contemporary case studies of the constitution and management of intimate sexual lives and relationships in rural and non-metropolitan spaces. Second, 'Communities' explores how sexual identities are socially-constructed and relationally-performed in rural communities, scrutinizing the complex interplay of belonging and alienation, inclusion and exclusion, for sexual subjects and communities within rural spaces. Analyzing films, literature and interviews, the chapters examine sexuality and community, and "queer" notions of rural family and community. Third, 'Mobilities' examines movement/migration at different scales. Cross-national data provides insights into similarities and differences in rural migration and homemaking for lesbians, gay men and same-sex families. The chapters consider how movement, coming out and memories of time and place inflect home, identity and belonging for rural lesbians and gay men. Fourth, 'Production and Consumption' investigates the commodification of rural sexualities. The chapters interrogate the management of animal bodies and sexualities in industrial agriculture for consumer pleasure and commercial ends; how heterosexuality and sexual relations are transacted in mining communities; and the global commodification of rural masculine sexualities. This book is timely. It provides important new insights about ruralities and sexualities, filling a gap in theoretical and empirical understandings about how sexualities in diverse rural spaces are given meaning. This collection begins the processes of furthering discussion and knowledge about the inherently dynamic and constantly changing nature of the rural and the multiple, varied and complex sexual subjectivities lived through corporeal experiences and virtual and imagined lives.

Leading sexuality scholars explore queer lives and cultures in the first full post-war decade through an array of sources and a range of perspectives. Drawing out the particularities of queer cultures from the Finland and New Zealand to the UK and the USA, this collection rethinks preconceptions of the 1950s and pinpoints some of its legacies.

"A vivid analysis of how many Latin Americans have crafted alternative modes of understanding sexuality."
--"Hispanic American Historical Review"

From its sweaty beats to the pulsating music on the streets, Latin/o America is perceived in the United States as the land of heat, the toy store for Western sex. It is the territory of magical fantasy and of revolutionary threat, where topography is the travel guide of desire, directing imperial voyeurs to the exhibition of the flesh.

Jose Quiroga flips the stereotype upside down: he shows how Latin/o American lesbians and gay men have consistently eschewed notions of sexual identity for a politics of intervention. In Tropics of Desire, Quiroga reads hesitant Mexican poets as sex-positive voices, he questions how outing and identity politics can fall prey to the manipulations of the state, and explores how invisibility has been used as a tactical tool in opposition to the universal imperative to come out.

Drawing on diverse cultural examples such as the performance of bolero and salsa, film, literature, and correspondence, and influenced by masters like Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin and a rich tradition of Latin American stylists, Quiroga argues for a politics that denies biological determinism and cannibalizes cultural stereotypes for the sake of political action.

This book covers the scope of current knowledge of cancer in the LGBT community across the entire cancer continuum, from understanding risk and prevention strategies in LGBT groups, across issues of diagnosis and treatment of LGBT patients, to unique aspects of survivorship and death and dying in these communities. Each chapter includes an in depth analysis of the state of the science, discusses the many remaining challenges and unanswered questions and makes recommendations for research, policy and programmatic strategies required to address these. Focus is also placed on the diversity of the LGBT communities. Issues that are unique to cancer in LGBT populations are addressed including the social, economic and cultural factors that affect cancer risk behaviors, barriers to screening, utilization of health care services, and legislation that directly impacts the health care of LGBT patients, healthcare settings that are heterosexist and unique aspects of patient-provider relationships such as disclosure of sexual orientation and the need for inclusion of expanded definition of family to include families of choice. The implications of policy change, its impact on healthcare for LGBT patients are highlighted, as are the remaining challenges that need to be addressed. A roadmap for LGBT cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, survivorship, including treatment and end of life care is offered for future researchers, policy makers, advocates and health care providers.

What constitutes lesbian identity? The term homonormativity describes current prevailing idealized assumptions about lesbian identity. This concept, however, marginalizes subgroups within the greater lesbian population. Challenging Lesbian Norms: Intersex, Transgender, Intersectional, and Queer Perspectives dynamically confronts homonormativity in lesbian communities by presenting expert multidisciplinary discussion about what is a definable lesbian identity. This text sensitively explores difficult issues about gender policing and the viewpoints in lesbian communities that hold that transgender, intersectional, and queer individuals are considered to have 'false consciousness.' Consequences of lesbian normativity, both for lesbian communities and for marginalized groups are examined through literary criticism, lesbian, feminist, and queer theories, corporeal philosophy, film, television, cultural criticism, personal narratives, public health, and field research. The issue of the authenticity of lesbian identity causes rifts between some lesbian communities and the groups that strive to be included, yet are still marginalized. Challenging Lesbian Norms directly exposes practices and beliefs within lesbian communities that lead to the assumption of the prototypical lesbian. The book courageously reveals the similarities of lesbian normative stances with other views such as Christian conservative rhetoric, and reviews the health consequences of being marginalized within the lesbian communities. This text actively challenges the foundational notion within lesbian communities that a stable, immutable lesbian sex exists. Topics in Challenging Lesbian Norms include: human physiology, the flexibility of sexuality, and biologic determinism marginalization within lesbian communities transexualism and Lesbian Theory gender and sexual identity construction, partnering practices, and issues involving queer-identified youth demystification of the gay vibe from a femme queer woman's perspective lesbian feminism, gender policing, and casting butch, FTM, and transgendered subjectivities as false conciousness representations of lesbians in television movies Native-American two-spirit women teaching transgender, and its transformative effect identity modeling inclusion of transgender and intersex individuals within the lesbian communities transgender characters in film Latina lesbians and mental health Challenging Lesbian Norms is stimulating, eye-opening reading that is perfect for activists, educators and students in LGBT and women's studies, and public health professionals.

When has using the term "lesbian" "not" been considered an anachronistic gesture? This question lies at the heart of this important new collection of essays. "The Lesbian Premodern" engages key scholars in lesbian studies and queer theory in an innovative conversation in print. Transgressing traditional period boundaries, "The Lesbian Premodern" scholars to pay full attention to significant and often overlooked theoretical, empirical, and textual work on female same-sex desire and identity in premodern cultures. This provocative book offers a radical new methodology for writing theories and histories of sexuality.

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Preface.

"Rodriguez furthers her work . . . with an engaging writing style that is poetic, personal, philosophical and theoretical. . . . This book is highly recommended."
-- "Reforma Newsletter" "A fascinating critical approach to the development of the so-called latinidad, i.e., the identity of Latinos in the US. Unlike that in other ethno-queer studies, Rodriguez's data and primary texts of analysis are not literary works. Instead, this refreshing, funny, and daring book takes the reader through unexplored queer Latino communities.... Highly recommended."
-- "Choice"

"It is rare to find as vital and sassy and smart an essayist as Juana RodrA-guez. She takes us through the intersections of culture and theory in ways that compel us to rethink what queer does to Latinidad as much as what Latinidad does to queer. She shows what it means, politically and culturally, to read for the possibility of survival and affirmation. She is careful, attentive, dynamic, disorienting, and exhilarating as she reads political and cultural events, literary and theoretical texts, and the nuances of language use for a complex cultural subject in process. A fabulous read."
--Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor at the University of California at Berkeley

"Mapping slippery subjects outside of fixed identities, this book is always against closure: Queer Latinidad at its best."
--JosA(c) Quiroga, author of "Tropics of Desire: Interventions from Queer Latino America"

According to the 2000 census, Latinos/as have become the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. Images of Latinos and Latinas in mainstream news and in popularculture suggest a Latin Explosion at center stage, yet the topic of queer identity in relation to Latino/a America remains under examined.

Juana MarA-a RodrA-guez attempts to rectify this dearth of scholarship in Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces, by documenting the ways in which identities are transformed by encounters with language, the law, culture, and public policy. She identifies three key areas as the project's case studies: activism, primarily HIV prevention; immigration law; and cyberspace. In each, RodrA-guez theorizes the ways queer Latino/a identities are enabled or constrained, melding several theoretical and methodological approaches to argue that these sites are complex and dynamic social fields.

As she moves the reader from one disciplinary location to the other, RodrA-guez reveals the seams of her own academic engagement with queer latinidad. This deftly crafted work represents a dynamic and innovative approach to the study of identity formation and representation, making a vital contribution to a new reformulation of gender and sexuality studies.

"Sexuality and Its Queer Discontents in Middle English Literature" exposes the ways in which ostensibly normative sexualities depend upon queerness to shore up their claims of privilege. Through readings of such classic texts as "The Canterbury Tales, Pearl, Amis and Amiloun," and "Eger and Grime," Tison Pugh explains how sexual normativity can often be claimed only after queerness has been rejected, no matter how appealing such queerness might remain at the story's end. Masculinity itself is thus revealed to be a queer performance, one which heroic protagonists of medieval narratives embody while nonetheless highlighting its constricting limitations.

Known around the world as a bastion of machismo and Catholicism, Latin America in recent decades has emerged as the undisputed gay rights leader of the Global South. More surprising yet, nations such as Argentina have surpassed more "developed" nations like the United States and many European states in extending civil rights to the homosexual population. Setting aside the role of external factors and conditions in pushing gay rights from the Developed North to the Global South - such as the internationalization of human rights norms and practices, the globalization of gay identities, and the diffusion of policies such as "gay marriage" - Out in the Periphery aims to "decenter" gay rights politics in Latin America by putting the domestic context front and center. The intention is not to show how the "local" has triumphed the "global" in Latin America. Rather the book suggests how the domestic context has interacted with the outside world to make Latin America an unusually receptive environment for the development of gay rights. Omar Encarnacion focuses particularly on the role of local gay rights organizations, a long-neglected social movement in Latin America, in filtering and adapting international gay rights ideas. Inspired by the outside world but firmly embedded in local politics, Latin American gay activists have succeeded in bringing radical change to the law with respect to homosexuality and, in some cases, as in Argentina, in transforming society and the culture at large.

Are the Kids All Right? by B.J. Epstein is the first survey of English-language children's literature that features lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or otherwise queer characters. It explores how LGBTQ characters are portrayed and what this says about contemporary society and it covers picture books, middle-grade books, and young adult fiction. Epstein explores why sex, sexuality and gender non-conformity is something that many writers and publishers of children's and young adult lit appear to shy away from. She passionately demonstrates that the information children get from literature matters, and that so called 'difficult' topics can be communicated in entertaining and informative ways. Are the Kids All Right? uses ideas from queer theory and other research to interrogate the ways LGBTQ characters are portrayed in books for children and young people, and to analyse what messages readers of such books might receive. This book brings together literary studies, sociology, queer studies, and other academic fields in an accessible manner, where the research supports the detailed analyses of over fifty books for children and young adults. In Are the Kids All Right?, Epstein looks at a range of topics, such as the lack of diversity in many of these works, how same-sex marriage is portrayed, the relative absence of bisexual and transgender characters, the way that many of these books are marketed and intended as "issue books," and more. Are the Kids All Right? is a practical and informative book that will inspire writers and publishers to produce better LGBTQ literature for young readers. About the author: B.J. Epstein is the author of over 150 articles, book reviews, personal essays, and short stories. She is lecturer in Literature and Public Engagement at the University of East Anglia, and she is also a translator from the Scandinavian languages to English.

"Queer Popular Culture "is an exciting new collection that brings together work from several disciplines that address queer representation in multiple contexts. The articles cover many aspects of contemporary U.S. and international queer culture, including the rise of the queer cowboy, the emergence of lesbian chic, and the expansion of representations of blackness, and work on queer, Taiwanese, online communities. Other essays address queer representations from soap operas to gangster films. The book also includes a pedagogical section that addresses the use of queer concepts in the classroom

This book critically interrogates three sets of distortions that emanate from the messianic core of 21st century public discourse on LGBT+ rights in the United States. The first relates to the critique of pinkwashing, often advanced by scholars who claim to be committed to an emancipatory politics. The second concerns a recent US Supreme Court decision, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), a judgment that established marriage equality across the 50 states. The third distortion occurs in Kenji Yoshino's theorization of the concept of gay covering. Each distortion produces its own injunction to assimilate, sometimes into the dominant mainstream and, at other times, into the fold of what is axiomatically taken to be the category of the radical. Using a queer theoretic analysis, De-Moralizing Gay Rights argues for the dismantling of each of these three sets of assimilationist injunctions.

Vivacious, unconventional, candid, and straight, Helen Branson operated a gay bar in Los Angeles in the 1950s--America's most anti-gay decade. After years of fending off drunken passes as an entertainer in cocktail bars, this divorced grandmother preferred the wit, variety, and fun she found among homosexual men. Enjoying their companionship and deploring their plight, she gave her gay friends a place to socialize. Though at the time California statutes prohibited homosexuals from gathering in bars, Helen's place was relaxed, suave, and remarkably safe from police raids and other anti-homosexual hazards. In 1957 she published her extraordinary memoir "Gay Bar," the first book by a heterosexual to depict the lives of homosexuals with admiration, respect, and love.
In this new edition of "Gay Bar," Will Fellows interweaves Branson's chapters with historical perspective provided through his own insightful commentary and excerpts gleaned from letters and essays appearing in gay publications of the period. Also included is the original introduction to the book by maverick 1950s psychiatrist Blanche Baker. The eclectic selection of voices gives the flavor of American life in that extraordinary age of anxiety, revealing how gay men saw themselves and their circumstances, and how others perceived them.

Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Association

Best Books for High Schools, selected by the American Association of School Libraries