How do we identify the "queer auteur" and their queer imaginings? Is it possible to account for such a figure when the very terms "queer" and "auteur" invoke aesthetic surprises and disorientations, disconcerting ironies and paradoxes, and biographical deceits and ambiguities? In eighteen eloquent chapters, David A. Gerstner traces a history of ideas that spotlight an ever-shifting terrain associated with auteur theory and, in particular, queer-auteur theory. Engaging with the likes of Oscar Wilde, Walter Benjamin, James Baldwin, Jean Louis Baudry, Linda Nochlin, Jane Gallop, Cael Keegan, Luce Irigaray, and other prominent critical thinkers, Gerstner contemplates how the queer auteur in film theory might open us to the work of desire. Queer Imaginings argues for a queer-auteur in which critical theory is reenabled to reconceptualize the auteur in relation to race, gender, sexuality, and desire. Gerstner succinctly defines the contours of a history and the ongoing discussions that situate queer and auteur theories in film studies. Ultimately, Queer Imaginings is a journey in shared pleasures in which writing for and about cinema makes way for unanticipated cinematic friendships.

Throughout the 1970s the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) initiated an anarchic campaign that permanently changed the face of Britain. Inspired by the Stonewall uprisings in the US, the GLF demanded a 'Absolute Freedom For All' worldwide. Yet half a century on, injustice is rife and LGBT+ inequality remains. Complete LGBT+ liberation means housing rights, universal healthcare, economic freedom and so much more. Although many people believe queers are now free and should behave, assimilate and become palatable - Dan Glass shows that the fight is far from over. United Queerdom evocatively captures over five decades of LGBT+ culture and protest from the GLF to 2020s. Showing how central protest is to queer history and identity this book uncovers the back-breaking hard work as well as the glamorous and raucous stories of those who rebelled against injustice and became founders in the story of queer liberation.

A delicate exploration of the discrimination that gender-diverse people face, this book analyzes the relationship between gender identity and performance in the workplace while considering the emotional and economic survival of those who identify as transgender. The transgender community is more visible now than ever before, but the diversity within this community has remained obscure in the workplace as organizations, corporations, and institutions struggle to keep up with the rate at which transgender communities are gaining visibility. For leaders seeking best practices related to bathroom access, workplace transition, hiring practices, inclusive workplace culture, and more, this book offers guidance and novel policy recommendations designed to ensure the success of transgender employees. Extending the existing theoretical literature on masculinity in the workplace, gender discrimination, and gender performance, the book introduces the new concept of "doing ambiguity." It contains original research complemented by humanizing narratives from transgender people that provide insights into rarely explored non-binary, gender-fluid, and genderless experiences. In addition, it identifies factors that may preclude and minimize discrimination, including strategies pursued by transgender people at the individual level as well as policies employed at the organization level, and outlines a pragmatic set of policy recommendations for employers, community leaders, and others looking to help transgender people thrive in organizational environments. Discusses long-ignored nuances of transgender identity through narratives of non-binary, gender-fluid, and genderless experiences, in the context of workplace discrimination Extends existing theoretical literature on masculinity in the workplace, gender discrimination, and gender performance Identifies factors that may preclude and minimize discrimination Proposes a pragmatic set of policy recommendations for employers, community leaders, and others Provides best practices around such policy items as bathroom access, workplace transition, hiring practices, and inclusive workplace culture

Who are queers and what do they want? Could it be that we are all queers? Beginning with such questions, William B. Turner's lucid and engaging book traces the roots of queer theory to the growing awareness that few of us precisely fit standard categories for sexual and gender identity.

Turner shows how Michel Foucault's work contributed to feminists' investigations into the ways that power relates to identity. In the last decades of the twentieth century, feminists were the first to challenge the assumption that a claim to universal identity -- the white male citizen -- should serve as the foundation of political thought and action. Difference matters. Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality interact, producing a wide array of identities that resist rigid definition and are mutable. By understanding the notion of transhistorical categories -- woman, man, homosexual, and so forth -- feminist and gay male scholars launched queer theoretical work as a new way to think about the politics of gender and sexuality.

A Genealogy of Queer Theory probes the fierce debates among scholars and activists, weighing the charges that queer readings of texts and identity politics do not constitute and might inhibit radical social change. Written by a historian, it considers the implications of queer theory for historical inquiry and the distinction between philosophy and history. As such, the book will interest readers of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender studies, intellectual history, political theory, and the history of gender/sexuality.

When Joel Derfner's boyfriend proposed to him, there was nowhere in America the two could legally marry. That changed quickly, however, and before long the two were on what they expected to be a rollicking journey to married bliss. What they didn't realise was that, along the way, they would confront not just the dilemmas every couple faces on the way to the altar-what kind of ceremony would they have? what would they wear? did they have to invite Great Aunt Sophie?-but also questions about what a relationship can and can't do, the definition of marriage, and, ultimately, what makes a family. Add to the mix a reality show whose director forces them to keep signing and notarising applications for a wedding license until the cameraman gets a shot she likes; a family marriage history that includes adulterers, arms smugglers, and poisoners; and discussions of civil rights, Sophocles, racism, grammar, and homemade Ouija boards-coupled with Derfner's gift for getting in his own way-and what results is a story not just of gay marriage and the American family but of what it means to be human.

A fascinating exploration of how the law--as viewed and decided by the courts--often embodies fear and prejudice against homosexuality, and thereby, becomes the instrument for discrimination. This valuable book covers a wide range of subjects, illustrating the extent to which the lives of gay persons are touched by these laws and providing a highly critical examination of the response by the American judicial system to our claims for equal protection under the law. Leading law professors and practicing lawyers address the important legal issues and court decisions relevant to male and female homosexuality--criminal punishment for gay sex acts, employment discrimination, child custody, gay organizational rights, and more.

The sweeping story of the struggle for gay and lesbian rights based on amazing interviews with politicians, military figures, and members of the entire LGBT community who face these challenges every day The fight for gay and lesbian civil rights, the years of outrageous injustice, the early battles, the heart-breaking defeats and the victories beyond the dreams of the gay rights pioneers is the most important civil rights issue of the present day. Lillian Faderman tells this unfinished story through the dramatic accounts of passionate struggles with sweep, depth and feeling. Against the dark backdrop of the 1950s, a few brave people began to fight back, paving the way for the revolutionary changes of the 1960s and beyond. Faderman discusses the protests in the 1960s; the counter reaction of the 1970s and early eighties; the decimated but united community during the AIDS epidemic; and the current hurdles for the right to marriage equality. The Gay Revolution paints a nuanced portrait of the LGBT civil rights movement. A defining account, this is the most complete and authoritative book of its kind.

Worlding Postcolonial Sexualities demonstrates how late twentieth century postcolonial print cultures initiated a public discourse on sexual activism and contends that postcolonial feminist and queer archives offer alternative histories of sexual precarity, vulnerability, and resistance. The book's comparative focus on India, Jamaica, and South Africa extends the valences of postcolonial feminist and queer studies towards a historical examination of South-South interactions in the theory and praxis of sexual rights. Analyzing the circumstances of production and the contents of English-language and intermittently bilingual magazines and newsletters published between the late 1970s and the late 1990s, these sources offer a way to examine the convergences and divergences between postcolonial feminist, gay, and lesbian activism. It charts a set of concerns common to feminist, gay, and lesbian activist literature: retrogressive colonial-era legislation impacting the status of women and sexual minorities; a marked increase in sexual violence; piecemeal reproductive freedoms and sexual choice under neoliberalism; the emergence and management of the HIV/AIDS crisis; precariousness of lesbian and transgender concerns within feminist and LGBTQ+ movements; and Non-Governmental Organizations as major actors articulating sexual rights as human rights. This methodologically innovative work is based on archival historical research, analyses of national and international policy documents, close readings of activist publications, and conversations with activists and founding editors. This is an important intervention in the field of gender and sexuality studies and is the winner of the 2020 Feminist Futures, Subversive Histories prize in partnership with the NWSA. The book is key reading for scholars and students in gender, sexuality, comparative literature, and postcolonial studies.

This uplifting book, filled with LGBTQ heroes and role models, will appeal to fans of inspirational books like Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls and The Book of Awesome Women.

We’re here, we’re queer, and we make the world a better place. People in the LGBTQ community have made positive contributions throughout history and we continue to improve society today. In We Make It Better, Rosswood and Archambeau share inspirational stories of queer icons in a series of revealing close-ups, first-person accounts, and intimate snapshots of LGBTQ pioneers and heroes. This book is filled with fascinating profiles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer role models that will give you PRIDE in your community and empower generations of LGBTQ youth in the future.

What You’ll Learn Inside This Book:

Did you know that Emma González, one of the leaders in the #NeverAgain movement to end gun violence, identifies as bisexual?

Did you know that Apple (the largest tech company in the world) is run by Tim Cook, an openly gay man?

Did you know one of the biggest blockbuster sci-fi movie franchises was directed by the Wachowskis, two transgender women who also happen to be siblings?

Did you know that Iceland’s first female prime minister, Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir, was also the world’s first openly gay head of government?

Did you know Eric Fanning was the first openly gay Secretary of the United States Army and the highest-ranking openly LGBTQ official ever employed at the Pentagon?

We set trends in fashion, film, music, art, and technology. We’re Academy Award winners, Grammy Award winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, and Olympic Gold medalists. We’re doctors, lawyers, judges, politicians, and religious leaders. We run businesses and we even run countries. You'll be inspired to take pride in your community as you learn about some of the LGBTQ heroes who have done all of this and more

The life and works of William Faulkner have generated numerous biographical studies exploring how Faulkner understood southern history, race, his relationship to art, and his place in the canons of American and world literature. However, some details on Faulkner's life collected by his early biographers never made it into published form or, when they did, appeared in marginalized stories and cryptic references. The biographical record of William Faulkner's life has yet to come to terms with the life-long friendships he maintained with gay men, the Extent to which he immersed himself into gay communities in Greenwich Village and New Orleans, and how profoundly this part of his life influenced his "apocryphal" creation of Yoknapatawpha County. Gay Faulkner: Uncovering a Homosexual Presence in Yoknapatawpha and Beyond explores the intimate friendships Faulkner maintained with gay men, among them Ben Wasson, William Spratling, and Hubert Creekmore, and places his fiction into established canons of LGBTQ literature, including World War I literature and representations of homosexuality from the Cold War. The book offers a full consideration of his relationship to gay history and identity in the twentieth century, giving rise to a new understanding of this most important of American authors.

In the twentieth century, countless Americans claimed gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender identities, forming a movement to secure social as well as political equality. This collection of essays considers the history as well as the historiography of the queer identities and struggles that developed in the United States in the midst of widespread upheaval and change. Whether the subject is an individual life story, a community study, or an aspect of public policy, these essays illuminate the ways in which individuals in various locales understood the nature of their desires and the possibilities of resisting dominant views of normality and deviance. Theoretically informed, but accessible, the essays shed light too on the difficulties of writing history when documentary evidence is sparse or \u0022coded.\u0022 Taken together these essays suggest that while some individuals and social networks might never emerge from the shadows, the persistent exploration of the past for their traces is an integral part of the on-going struggle for queer rights.

The Masculine Woman in America, 1890-1935 examines how the suffrage movement's efforts to secure social and political independence for women were translated by a fearful society into a movement of unnatural "masculinized" women and dangerous "female sexual inverts".

Scrutinizing depictions of the masculine woman in literature and the popular press, Laura L. Behling explicates the literary, artistic, and rhetorical strategies used to eliminate the "sexually inverted" woman: punishing her by imprisonment or death; "rescuing" her into heterosexuality; subverting her through parody; or removing her from society to some remote or mystical place. Behling also shows how fictional same-sex relationships in the writings of Henry James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Gertrude Stein, and others conformed to and ultimately reaffirmed heterosexual models.

The Masculine Woman in America, 1890-1935 demonstrates that the woman's suffrage movement did not so much suggest alternatives to women's gender and sexual behavior as it offered those afraid of perceived changes a tangible movement on which to blame their fears. A biting commentary on the insubstantial but powerful ghosts stirred up by the media, this study shows how, though legally enfranchised, the "new woman" was systematically disfranchised socially through scientific theory, popular press illustrations, and fictional predictions of impending sociobiological disaster.

The first book to focus on the connections between sexuality, activism, and documentary film.

From film festivals to university campuses, from private homes to first-run theaters, people everywhere are viewing and discussing gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender films and videos. Between the Sheets, In the Streets considers these videos and films, testifying to the unavoidable connections between sexuality (the sheets) and activism (the streets) for all who identify as gay, lesbian, or queer in the 1990s.

Among the topics discussed are representations of young queers on such shows as MTV's The Real World; pre-Stonewall films; portrayals of lesbians and aging; video activism in Oregon and the South; and the works of Derek Jarman, Su Friedrich, Cheryl Dunye, and Sadie Benning. A range of films and videos is examined, including Strangers in Good Company, Paris Is Burning, Juggling Gender, Silverlake Life, and Without You I'm Nothing.

Far from the coastal centers of culture and politics, Kansas stands at the very center of American stereotypes about red states. In the American imagination, it is a place LGBT people leave. No Place Like Home is about why they stay. The book tells the epic story of how a few disorganized and politically naive Kansans, realizing they were unfairly under attack, rolled up their sleeves, went looking for fights, and ended up making friends in one of the country's most hostile states. The LGBT civil rights movement's history in California and in big cities such as New York and Washington, DC, has been well documented. But what is it like for LGBT activists in a place like Kansas, where they face much stiffer headwinds? How do they win hearts and minds in the shadow of the Westboro Baptist Church ( Christian" motto: "God Hates Fags")? Traveling the state in search of answers-from city to suburb to farm-journalist C. J. Janovy encounters LGBT activists who have fought, in ways big and small, for the acceptance and respect of their neighbors, their communities, and their government. Her book tells the story of these twenty-first-century citizen activists-the issues that unite them, the actions they take, and the personal and larger consequences of their efforts, however successful they might be. With its close-up view of the lives and work behind LGBT activism in Kansas, No Place Like Home fills a prairie-sized gap in the narrative of civil rights in America. The book also looks forward, as an inspiring guide for progressives concerned about the future of any vilified minority in an increasingly polarized nation.

The Kamasutra is best known in the West for its scandalous celebration of unbridled sensuality. Yet, there is much, much more to it; embedded in the text is a vision of the city founded on art and aesthetic pleasure. In Foucault and the "Kamasutra", Sanjay K. Gautam lays out the nature and origin of this iconic Indian text and engages in the first serious reading of its relationship with Foucault. Gautam shows how closely intertwined the history of erotics in Indian culture is with the history of theater-aesthetics grounded in the discourse of love, and Foucault provides the framework for opening up an intellectual horizon of Indian thought. To do this, Gautam looks to the history of three inglorious characters in classical India: the courtesan and her two closest male companions--her patron, the dandy consort; and her teacher and advisor, the dandy guru. Foucault's distinction between erotic arts and the science of sexuality drives Gautam's exploration of the courtesan as a symbol of both sexual-erotic and aesthetic pleasure. In the end, by entwining together Foucault's works on the history of sexuality in the West and the classical Indian texts on eros, Gautam transforms our understanding of both, even as he opens up new ways of investigating erotics, aesthetics, gender relations, and subjectivity.

What queer lives, loves and possibilities teem within suburbia's little boxes? Moving beyond the imbedded urban/rural binary, "Relocations" offers the first major queer cultural study of sexuality, race and representation in the suburbs. Focusing on the region humorists have referred to as "Lesser Los Angeles"--a global prototype for sprawl--Karen Tongson weaves through suburbia's "nowhere"spaces to survey our spatial imaginaries: the aesthetic, creative and popular materials of the new suburbia.

Across southern California's freeways, beneath its overpasses and just beyond its winding cloverleaf interchanges, Tongson explores the improvisational archives of queer suburban sociability, from multimedia artist Lynne Chan's JJ Chinois projects and the amusement park night-clubs of 1980s Orange County to the imperial legacies of the region known as the Inland Empire. By taking a hard look at the cosmopolitanism historically considered de rigeur for queer subjects, while engaging with the so-called "New Suburbanism" that has captivated the national imaginary in everything from lifestyle trends to electoral politics, "Relocations" radically revises our sense of where to see and feel queer of color sociability, politics and desire.

Engaging with fears of lesbian death to explore the value of lesbian beyond identity The loss of lesbian spaces, as well as ideas of the lesbian as anachronistic has called into question the place of lesbian identity within our current culture. In Lesbian Death, Mairead Sullivan probes the perception that lesbian status is in retreat, exploring the political promises-and especially the failures-of lesbian feminism and its usefulness today. Lesbian Death reads how lesbian is conceptualized in relation to death from the 1970s onward to argue that lesbian offers disruptive potential. Lesbian Death examines the rise of lesbian breast cancer activism in San Francisco in conversation with ACT UP, the lesbian separatist manifestos "The C.L.I.T. Papers," the enduring specter of lesbian bed death, and the weaponization of lesbian identity against trans lives. By situating the lesbian as a border figure between feminist and queer, Lesbian Death offers a fresh perspective on the value of lesbian for both feminist and queer projects, even if her value is her death.

Is the United States a heterosexual regime? If it is, how may we understand the political position of those who cannot or will not align themselves with heterosexuality? With these provocative questions, Shane Phelan raises the issue of whether lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people can be seen as citizens at all. Can citizenship be made queer? Or does citizenship require the exclusion of those who are regarded as queer to preserve the i??equalityi??' that it promises? In i??Sexual Strangersi??, Shane Phelan argues that, in the United States, queers are strangers - not exactly the enemy, since they are not excluded from all rights of citizenship, but not quite members. Rather, they are ambiguous figures who trouble the border between i??usi??' and i??themi??', a border just as central to liberal regimes as to other states. Life on this border structures both the exclusion of sexual minorities and their ambivalence about becoming part of the i??mainstreami??'. i??Sexual Strangersi?? addresses questions of long-standing importance to minority group politics: the meaning and terms of inclusion, respect, and resistance. Phelan looks at citizenship as including not only equal protection and equal rights to such institutions as marriage and military service, but also political and cultural visibility, as inclusion in the national imaginary. She discusses the continuing stigmatization of bisexuals and transgendered people within lesbian and gay communities as a result of the attempt to flee from strangeness, a flight that inevitably produces new strangers. Her goal is to convince students of politics, both academic and activist, to embrace the rewards of strangeness as a means of achieving inclusive citizenship, rather than a citizenship that defines itself by what it will not accept. Author note: Shane Phelan is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. She is the author or editor of several books on lesbian and gay politics, most recently i??Playing with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theoriesi??. She is the chair of the American Political Science Association's Committee on the Status of Lesbians and Gays in the Profession.

Psychology and Sexual Orientation strives to "come to terms" with lesbian, gay and bisexual life and with the controversial scientific and sociocultural theories and arguments on the origin and meaning of homosexuality and queer life in the US. Janis M. Bohan disrupts conventional psychological perspectives on queer life and identity and animates the ongoing debate between essentialism and constructionism. Bohan discusses the meaning of sexual orientation; lesbian, gay and bisexual identity development and stigma management; diversity in experiences; partners and parenting; and lesbian, gay and bisexual communities.

A simple man from the provinces, Friedrich Radszuweit merged popular culture, consumerism, and politics as the leader of the League for Human Rights, Germany's first mass homosexual organization. The Seduction of Youth is the first study to focus on the League and its leader, using his position at the centre of the Weimar-era gay rights movement to tease out the diverging political strategies and contradictory tactics that distinguished the movement. By examining news articles and opinion pieces, as well as literary texts and photographs in the League's numerous pulp magazines for homosexuals, Javier Samper Vendrell reconstructs forgotten aspects of the history of same-sex desire and subjectivity. While recognizing the possibilities of liberal rights for sexual freedom during the Weimar Republic, the League's "respectability politics" failed in part because Radszuweit's own publications contributed to the idea that homosexual men were considered a threat to youth, doing little to change the views of the many people who believed in homosexual seduction - a homophobic trope that endured well into the twentieth century.

The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Transgender Studies is a comprehensive yet concise overview of the important issues, themes, and research on transgender people and populations. Coupling both their expertise along with their lived experiences, the authors in this contributed volume tackle topics including, but not limited to, medical care, education, coming out, the creation of families, and bathroom and military politics and possibilities. The volume opens with an introduction from the editor who outlines her own journey and experience searching for information on "transgender studies" when the term was first introduced to her in 2014. Since then, the field has risen in prominence and is one of the fastest growingareas of research in gender studies. Scholars and students alike will find this to be an accessible primer to the societal forces that impact and shape the lives of transgender people.

An independent bookshop in Glasgow. An ice cream parlour in Havana, where strawberry is the queerest choice. A cathedral in ruins in Managua, occupied by the underground LGBTQIA+ community. Queer people have always found ways to exist and be together, and there will always be a need for queer spaces. In this lavishly illustrated volume, Adam Nathaniel Furman and Joshua Mardell have gathered together a community of contributors to share stories of spaces that range from the educational to the institutional to the re-appropriated, and many more besides. With historic, contemporary and speculative examples from around the world, Queer Spaces recognises LGBTQIA+ life past and present as strong, vibrant, vigorous, and worthy of its own place in history. Looking forward, it suggests visions of what form these spaces may take in the future to continue uplifting queer lives. Featured spaces include: Black Lesbian and Gay Centre, London Category Is Books, Glasgow Christopher Street, New York Coppelia, Havana New Sazae, Tokyo ONE Institute for Homophile Studies, Los Angeles Pop-Up spaces, Dhaka Queer House Party, Online Santiago Apostol Cathedral, Managua Trans Memory Archive, Buenos Aires Victorian Pride Centre, Melbourne