This indispensable book debunks common myths and misconceptions about the LGBTQ community while providing accurate information about LGBTQ people, their successes and shared history, and the current challenges they face in American society. This book provides readers with a clear and unbiased understanding of what it means to be LGBTQ in the United States in the 2020s. Beginning with the origins of LGBTQ identity and history, the book addresses the current status of the LGBTQ community; gender expectations and performance in American culture; transgender and non-binary identity; behaviors and outcomes associated with LGBTQ people; and, finally, diversity within the LGBTQ community. Utilizing authoritative sources and lay-friendly definitions and explanations, this work punctures myths, misconceptions, and incorrect assumptions about sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expectations and norms. In addition, it provides an illuminating record of the history of discrimination and mistreatment to which LGBTQ people have historically been subjected in the U.S. At a time when information itself is increasingly fraught in American political discourse, this book provides facts and context for the most important questions facing LGBTQ Americans, past, present, and future. Provides readers with factual, easy-to-understand information about sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity Confronts falsehoods, half-truths, and misconceptions about LGBTQ identity and life in the U.S. Bridges the divide between disparate sources of information about LGBTQ identity and rights in the U.S. Paints a broad narrative about sociopolitical change surrounding LGBTQ people and rights over time

The unseen issues of grief and discriminationlesbians becoming widows The death of a life partner poses unique challenges for lesbians. Lesbian Widows: Invisible Grief reveals the touching and very personal stories of twenty-five women, including the author, who were widowed at a young age and forced to create a new life without their life partners. The book follows the widows from the time the couple met, to the time when one of the partners died, and beyond, to show how the surviving partner coped with her loss. Many lesbians feel that the intimacy felt between two women in love goes deeper than what can be experienced by heterosexual partners. Lesbian Widows: Invisible Grief reveals themes common to all these women's experiences while offering practical advice about coping techniques and resources for support. The widows discuss their efforts to create funerals and memorial services, give their accounts of the overwhelming grief throughout the first two years, and explain the legal and financial discrimination they encountered. The author provides a chapter specifically for caring family and friends, another chapter for professionals working with this sensitive population, and a bibliography of helpful coping resources. Lesbian Widows: Invisible Grief explores the topics of: caregivers/caretaking death and dying grief journeys the similarities and differences between lesbian and married widows the lack of support services for lesbian widows the legal and financial discrimination against lesbian widows the effect of being in or out on grief recovery the issues faced by widows in starting new relationships spirituality gay marriage Lesbian Widows: Invisible Grief provides an insightful look into the grieving and recovery process, inspiring hope with the knowledge that others have survived this tragedy. This moving book is an essential resource for lesbians, friends and family of lesbians, mental health professionals, medical professionals, psychiatrists, LGBT health providers, feminist and lesbian organizations, and anyone involved with grief training programs such as hospice.

We have earned a certain place in each other's lives, and in the best of times we can rest on what we have made together. Lesbian Ex-Lovers: The Really Long-Term Relationships examines the need for the development of better understanding and more critical analysis of lesbian ex-lover relationships. This eye-opening look into the minds and hearts of women offers personal insight into the possibilities for and potential pitfalls of lesbian ex-lover relations. This book contains personal stories, fictional accounts, poetry, and theoretical analyses of the frequency and significance of ex-lovers at different stages in a relationship. Topics of interest in Lesbian Ex-Lovers include: the roles ex-lovers play in our lives ex-lovers as contexts for change and development how we continue to be influenced by ex-lovers letting go and moving on ex-lovers as current friends and family themes of betrayal and loss of faith reconstructing friendships and community the mystique of the ex-lover friend/family connections among lesbian ex-lovers Rather than totally scrap a relationship, we recycle itfrom lover to ex-lover to friend in a relatively short half-life. Lesbian Ex-Lovers is the only book in print that explores how a lesbian's ex-lovers impact her subsequent romances and lifestyle. This special collection adds a new dynamic to the current literature for and about the lesbian community. Lesbian Ex-Lovers offers advice, anecdotes, and interpretations from such authors, poetesses, and artists as: Michelle Gibson, PhDeducator and editor of Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go who says goodbye to her lover in a sad, passionate elegy Marny HallPsychotherapist, editor of the anthology Sexualities, and author of several books, including The Lavender Couch: A Consumer's Guide to Psychotherapy for Lesbians and Gay Menwho muses on the unique bonding between lesbians and their ex-lovers, lending a mystique that surrounds the lesbian lifestyle Alison Bechdelcreator of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out Forwho presents a humorous comic strip thanking her former lovers for teaching her about herself Jane Futchernewspaper reporter and author of three novelswho uses a chapter in her novel to illustrate the tensions that can occur when ex-lovers choose to remain friends, especially when those bonds provoke jealousy in both current and ex-lovers Renny Christophereducator and award-winning poetesswho expresses her love, loss, and regret in three poems about her ex-lover and much more!

"Read the words they risked everything for!"
This landmark volume collects more than a hundred years of the most important public rhetoric on gay and lesbian subjects. In the days when homosexuality was mentioned only in whispers, a few brave souls stood up to speak for the rights of sexual minorities. In Speaking for Our Lives: Historic Speeches and Rhetoric for Gay and Lesbian Rights (1892-2000), their stirring words have finally been gathered together, along with the political manifestoes, broadsheets, and performance pieces of the gay and lesbian liberation movement.
Speaking for Our Lives comprises speeches and manifestoes prompted by events ranging from demonstrations to funerals. Scholars and researchers will appreciate the brief commentary introducing each piece, which discusses the author, the occasion, and the political and social contexts in which it first appeared.
You'll find the words of a broad variety of individuals and groups, including: the Victorian humanist and crusader Robert Ingersoll key groups such as the Mattachine Society, Homosexual Law Reform Society, Gay Activists Alliance, and International Gay Association activists and educators Robin Morgan, Joseph Bean, and Dr. Franklin Kameny, artists and journalists of the movement, such as John Eric Larsen, Joan Nestle, Barbara Grier, and Jim Kepner elected officials, including Bella Abzug, Ed Koch, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Gerry Studds, Tammy Baldwin, and Bill Clinton Many of these documents have long been out of print. Speaking for Our Lives makes these noteworthy texts readily available to the broader public they deserve. This book preserves an essential part of twentieth-century history.

Prevent victimization of sexual minority women by raising your awareness level! Trauma, Stress, and Resilience Among Sexual Minority Women: Rising Like the Phoenix is the first resource to examine trauma, violence, and stress as experienced by lesbian and bisexual women. You'll gain a better understanding of the stressors that these women experience, including the cultural/social trauma of living with homophobia and heterosexism as well as the individual traumas of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. This book contains never-before-seen data that investigates the prevalence, impact, and meaning of traumatic experiences in the lives of sexual minority women. In Trauma, Stress, and Resilience Among Sexual Minority Women, top researchers use direct quotes and case examples to illustrate and personalize the emotional strain these women endure. Furthermore, they address constructive individual and community responses that promote resilience and healing. The information and strategies contained in this book will help sexual minority women, as well as the practitioners who serve them, understand and heal from the impact of individual and cultural trauma. This book will increase your knowledge of: developmental issues facing lesbian and bisexual youths the impact of sexual abuse history on the coming out process ethnic/racial differences in trauma among lesbian and bisexual women the prevalence and impact of traumatic experience among HIV+ lesbian and bisexual women the unique stressors facing African-American lesbiansand how they cope organized religion's approaches to homosexuality and how this impacts lesbian and bisexual women Trauma, Stress, and Resilience Among Sexual Minority Women also shows how data on same-sex domestic violence and hate crimes can be gathered and used as a tool for social and political advocacy, bringing about positive changes that can improve the lives of many lesbian and bisexual women. This book is insightful reading for mental health, health, and social service professionals working with lesbian and bisexual clients or patients, and activists and individuals who work for organizations that serve the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender communities.

Explore affirmation and coping rituals for lesbian singles, couples, and communities! This pioneering book is a multidisciplinary compilation of scholarship addressing lesbians, the rituals in their lives, and the meaning and impact of those rituals for the women involved and the people and communities around them. It offers a diverse range of perspectives on what it means to be a lesbian, what ritual is, what it means to enact a ritual, and how we can understand lesbian ritual experiences. Lesbian Rites: Symbolic Acts and the Power of Community presents five explorations of ritual that bring forth themes of lesbian-centered social change. In Death's Midwife, Sharon Jaffe creates a narrative that illustrates the power of ritual to reconcile straight and gay, Christian and Pagan, in end-of-life situations. Next, Ruth Barrett's exploration of Dianic traditions provides a brief history of the importance of Goddess-worship to radical lesbian feminists, and uses those traditions to create life-course rituals. Marla Brettschneider's Ritual Encounters of the Queer Kind challenges notions of a static lesbian self and instead reworks Judaism and anarchist politics to propose rituals of continuous becoming. Krista McQueeney then analyzes the paradoxes of a lesbian commitment ceremony held within a gay-affirmative African-American congregation in the southern United States. Elizabeth Suter and editor Ramona Faith Oswald use exploratory survey data to examine how lesbian couples may use name changing as a strategy to claim family status. In addition, Lesbian Rites also includes two chapters that examine how lesbians have been compromised, if not harmed, by the ritualization of heterosexism and homophobia. The first is an insightful analysis of the community response to the feminist retreat known as Camp Sister Spirit. In this chapter, Kate Greene uses Mary Daly's seven patterns of sado-ritual syndrome to show how the people opposed to the camp were organized to uphold heterosexual patriarchy through an obsession with purity that defined the camp as a refuge for immorality. The second chapter on this subject reviews the editor's own experiences of being hidden and devalued at heterosexual family weddings.

This groundbreaking book provides a challenging exploration of psychoanalytic ideas about lesbians and lesbianism. Based on the authors' clinical experience as psychoanalytic psychotherapists, it offers a new and thoughtful framework that does not inevitably pathologise or universalise all lesbianism. A wide range of psychoanalytic ideas are surveyed, from Freud, Deutsch and Jung to Lacan and contemporary object-relations theorists. Questions on sexual identity, sexual desire and gender identity, of transference and countertransference, and also of institutional practices in relation to training, are all critically - and stimunlatingly - addressed.

Explore the broad range of healthy lesbian attitudes and behaviors in love, friendship, self-image, and society!This pioneering book makes a revolutionary assumption: that lesbian and bisexual women are normal, if not average. Instead of focusing on which family or genetic quirks might produce lesbians, these studies turn attention to describing the healthy ways lesbians interact with each other, with heterosexual women, and with society. The result is a significant exploration of uncharted territory.Lesbian Love and Relationships examines the lives of lesbian and bisexual women from adolescence to old age, addressing issues of class and race as well as sexual orientation. It encompasses theory, empirical research, and memoir on such diverse topics as physical appearance, cross-generational friendships, butch-femme issues, and lesbian sexuality. It also looks at such difficult and painful issues as lesbian domestic violence and the impact of homophobia on lesbian couples.Lesbian Love and Relationships asks personal, political, and psychological questions, including: how do young lesbians find each other? what makes successful lesbian relationships last? how does social class affect African-American lesbian relationships? what was it like growing up lesbian in the South during World War II? does "lesbian bed death" exist? This compendium offers exciting original research in a neglected field. Lesbian Love and Relationships is an essential resource for anyone interested in women's lives and sexuality as well as scholars in the field.

Help ease the secret suffering of lesbians in abusive relationships Why is woman-on-woman violence so often ignored or discounted? Intimate Betrayal: Domestic Violence in Lesbian Relationships uncovers the hidden problem of lesbians who hurt the women they love. This long-needed book brings together theory, practice, and research to suggest new and fruitful ways to understand, prevent, and treat this common problem. Intimate Betrayal provides new empirical research into the psychological and sociocultural causes of abuse. As several of the chapter authors demonstrate, neither traditional feminist theories about power nor heterosexist paradigms explain the causes, dynamics, or treatment of this problem. However, the new research presented here suggests helpful diagnostic criteria and effective treatments. Intimate Betrayal analyzes the factors that contribute to lesbian domestic violence, including: heterosexism and homophobia minority stress emotional isolation and lack of community ties revictimization of women who have previously suffered abuse The thorough literature review included reveals the paucity of attention that has been paid to this problem. Intimate Betrayal suggests exciting new models for freeing women from domestic violence, including the use of clinical and community resources and liberation theology. Community activists, counselors, and psychologists will be intrigued by the insightful analysis of the root causes of lesbian-on-lesbian violence and the valuable treatment suggestions. Researchers will welcome the new avenues it opens for additional research.

Help ease the secret suffering of lesbians in abusive relationships!Why is woman-on-woman violence so often ignored or discounted? Intimate Betrayal: Domestic Violence in Lesbian Relationships uncovers the hidden problem of lesbians who hurt the women they love. This long-needed book brings together theory, practice, and research to suggest new and fruitful ways to understand, prevent, and treat this common problem. Intimate Betrayal provides new empirical research into the psychological and sociocultural causes of abuse. As several of the chapter authors demonstrate, neither traditional feminist theories about power nor heterosexist paradigms explain the causes, dynamics, or treatment of this problem. However, the new research presented here suggests helpful diagnostic criteria and effective treatments. Intimate Betrayal analyzes the factors that contribute to lesbian domestic violence, including: heterosexism and homophobia minority stress emotional isolation and lack of community ties revictimization of women who have previously suffered abuseThe thorough literature review included reveals the paucity of attention that has been paid to this problem. Intimate Betrayal suggests exciting new models for freeing women from domestic violence, including the use of clinical and community resources and liberation theology. Community activists, counselors, and psychologists will be intrigued by the insightful analysis of the root causes of lesbian-on-lesbian violence and the valuable treatment suggestions. Researchers will welcome the new avenues it opens for additional research.

Fight for the human rights of LGBT individuals with strategies from this powerful book From the intimate horror of domestic violence to the institutionalized heterosexism of marriage laws, this volume takes an unsparing look at the interconnections of prejudice and hate crimes in the lives of LGBT individuals. Bringing together original research and solidly grounded theory, From Hate Crimes to Human Rights: A Tribute to Matthew Shepard also offers fresh strategies so you can work effectively for social change. This moving, thoughtful volume begins with a friend's memoir of the murdered Matthew Shepard; this intimate glimpse is powerful testimony that hate crimes affect individuals, not just symbolic martyrs. From Hate Crimes to Human Rights drags hidden homophobia from the closet and examines it with clean, incisive intelligence. It tackles taboo topics, including: what the Bible really says about homosexuality how minority cultures sometimes foster hatred against the LGBT individuals in their midst why child welfare services don't protect LGBT youth from peer violence how internalized LGBT self-hatred can be expressed as domestic violenceHate crimes do not occur in a cultural vacuum. From Hate Crimes to Human Rights searches out the roots of hatred and suggests ways to eradicate them, drawing on economics, theology, and linguistics as well as sociology, history, and political science. Specific suggestions include: how to use language as a social and cultural change strategy what individuals and universities can do to promote human rights how to make use of the intersection of difference and tolerance to prevent hate crimes why equal treatment for LGBT individuals is a human rights issue, not a special-interest advantageFrom Hate Crimes to Human Rights provides powerful explanations of the ways hatred generates hate crimes and proposes positive action you can take to validate human rights. A Statement from the Authors One of the premises of this book is that if we want to progress from hate crimes to human rights, we must learn to respect, honor, and celebrate diversity. The chapter authors exemplify a rainbow of ethnicities, sexual orientations, and gender identities. Each of us is committed to advocate for human rights and to work to end hate crime. Toward those ends, the royalties from the sale of this book will go directly to a memorial fund that has been established at Monmouth University in Matthew Shepard's honor. The proceeds from that fund will be used to support students in their preparation for human rights advocacy.

Fight for the human rights of LGBT individuals with strategies from this powerful book From the intimate horror of domestic violence to the institutionalized heterosexism of marriage laws, this volume takes an unsparing look at the interconnections of prejudice and hate crimes in the lives of LGBT individuals. Bringing together original research and solidly grounded theory, From Hate Crimes to Human Rights: A Tribute to Matthew Shepard also offers fresh strategies so you can work effectively for social change. This moving, thoughtful volume begins with a friend's memoir of the murdered Matthew Shepard; this intimate glimpse is powerful testimony that hate crimes affect individuals, not just symbolic martyrs. From Hate Crimes to Human Rights drags hidden homophobia from the closet and examines it with clean, incisive intelligence.It tackles taboo topics, including: what the Bible really says about homosexuality how minority cultures sometimes foster hatred against the LGBT individuals in their midst why child welfare services don't protect LGBT youth from peer violence how internalized LGBT self-hatred can be expressed as domestic violence Hate crimes do not occur in a cultural vacuum. From Hate Crimes to Human Rights searches out the roots of hatred and suggests ways to eradicate them, drawing on economics, theology, and linguistics as well as sociology, history, and political science. Specific suggestions include: how to use language as a social and cultural change strategy what individuals and universities can do to promote human rights how to make use of the intersection of difference and tolerance to prevent hate crimes why equal treatment for LGBT individuals is a human rights issue, not a special-interest advantage From Hate Crimes to Human Rights provides powerful explanations of the ways hatred generates hate crimes and proposes positive action you can take to validate human rights.A Statement from the Authors One of the premises of this book is that if we want to progress from hate crimes to human rights, we must learn to respect, honor, and celebrate diversity. The chapter authors exemplify a rainbow of ethnicities, sexual orientations, and gender identities. Each of us is committed to advocate for human rights and to work to end hate crime. Toward those ends, the royalties from the sale of this book will go directly to a memorial fund that has been established at Monmouth University in Matthew Shepard's honor. The proceeds from that fund will be used to support students in their preparation for human rights advocacy.

Violence and Social Injustice Against Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People helps you look past the stereotypical picture of violence against sexual minorities--the public physical assaults on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered youth by hypermasculine male thugs--and directs you toward the many daily acts of quiet violence that go on, unhindered, in the workaday settings of our legal, social, educational, and law-enforcement institutions. You'll learn about the frightening prevelance of complacency, homophobic ignorance, and apathy that pervades our police departments, courts, high schools, and churches. Also, armed with this critical insight and statistical research, you'll be better equipped to wage a non-violent war of fairness and mutual respect against the daily, senseless violence of policy and practice that threatens to render gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people unwelcome and battered citizens in their own communities.You'll find that Violence and Social Injustice Against Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People is ideal for aiding social workers, counselors, teachers, and criminal justice officials in removing the unseen acts of violence from the policies and practices of the public sector. These and other specific areas will give you the information and the fortitude necessary to evoke positive change in your community: legal issues relating to same-sex marriage the connection between social injustice and violence violence against sexual minority youth sexual identity and ethnic minorities practice and policy recommendations As this book shows, violence against sexual minorities can be subtly woven into the very fabric of some of our most long-standing, respected social institutions. For too long, the sexual minorities of color, for example, and the lesbian who suffers physical assault at the hands of a partner, have had little or no help from social workers, law enforcement, or education for fear of receiving either complete negligence or increased antagonism.But now, in Violence and Social Injustice Against Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People, you'll find the facts and tools necessary for turning the ugliness of communal violence into social justice for people of all sexual orientations.

Exploring identity development and gender orientation, Lesbian Epiphanies: Women Coming Out in Later Life contains firsthand information about the experiences and difficulties of women who discover and reveal their newfound lesbian sexuality in later life. Psychologists, social workers, counselors, and professors will find that Lesbian Epiphanies is the first book to extensively quote from interviews of lesbians and bisexuals who had entered into heterosexual marriages. From the analysis of these 24 interviews, the psychological, erotic, and social processes of women who come out as lesbians or bisexuals after a heterosexual marriage are clearly explained so you can better assist your clients throughout this coming-out process. Discussing the personal and societal standards which clouded early self-awareness for these women, Lesbian Epiphanies lifts the veil of confusion to clearly illuminate the issues at hand to assist you in understanding and helping your clients. From the case studies in this important book, you will learn how some women came to realize their same gender attractions and the barriers they faced, including negative attitudes toward lesbian women and the lack of strong role models. Helpful and informative, Lesbian Epiphanies explores the development of sexual identity in women in the Unites States today and provides you with essential information to help you improve your services to lesbian and bisexual clients by: examining how the role of marriage in American culture stifles a woman 's self-awareness of her sexuality in order to help clients avoid the mistake of a heterosexual marriage before husbands and children are involved examining reasons behind the lack of valuable sexual information in America that limits a woman 's general awareness of herself, her body, her sexuality, and her life options understanding the challenges that lesbians and bisexuals experience when attempting to establish their true identities to assist your clients in overcoming these barriers suggesting support groups for clients who are having a difficult time becoming used to the ideas and feelings of some same gender attractionsThis insightful book knocks down the sociological and psychological barriers that keep women from realizing or acknowledging their real sexual orientation by dispelling societal and cultural myths about what it means to be a woman in the United States. Offering you invaluable advice on how to help clients effectively and happily live with their new identities, Lesbian Epiphanies provides solutions to the challenges that women experience in establishing their other-than-heterosexual orientation in a heterosexist society.

The first volume to focus exclusively on lesbian performance work, Acts of Passion: Sexuality, Gender, and Performance draws on the experiences and expertise of a wide range of lesbian practitioners and theorists to explore the impact and influences of sexuality and gender on performance. It examines essays, dialogues, and performance texts from theater directors, performers, theorists, playwrights, and performance writers against social and cultural constructs and performance theories to produce a diverse and challenging portrait of lesbian live performance art. The book's penetrating scope covers drag queens, lesbian vampires, representations of lesbian sex, solo artists, the art of collaboration, lesbian aesthetics, and lesbian playwrights writing straight and illustrates why live performance is one of the most dynamic forums in which women can create, control, and produce their work without artistic constraint.Acts of Passion explodes binary definitions of gender and sexuality by destabilizing familiar notions of the 'real'and creating new production values and aesthetics in the process. The relationships between experience and expression, sexuality and cultural placing, context and artistic control, representation and self-representation become clearer as the book discusses: the manner in which women are represented as absent in the signifying system of patriarchal society how questions of purity, 'authenticity,'and self-definition complicate the field of representation the power of lesbian dance performance to make the lesbian body culturally visible several 'new wave'performers--creating work, getting seen, showing flesh, doing politics, and making money the projections, preconceptions, expectations, and general baggage attached to the performing lesbian body what the term 'lesbian playwright'means within contemporary culture 'It's Queer Up North'--a British National Arts Organization the arguments for and against mainstreaming lesbian performanceAnyone interested in theater and performance, cultural studies, gender issues, and the politics of 'positive representation'--whether playwright, performer, director, writer, academic, student, or theatre goer--will find Acts of Passion a powerful step in wrenching the power of representation away from the dominant culture. Defiant, saucy, sexy, and smart, the contributors appropriate their own spaces, identities, crafts, and languages, both within this book and without.

Claudette Kulkarni explores lesbian experience from a Jungian and feminist perspective, through interviews with women who see themselves as lesbians or who are in a lesbian relationship.
Although a feminist treatment of the subject challenges the heterosexism of Jungian theory, the author presents a link between theory and experience that is consistent with both approaches.
She concludes that when a woman finds herself loving another woman she is often responding to a profound psychological instinct to act, in spite of internal conflict or external opposition, and that this is a significant move in the service of personal and collective individuation and a movement toward achieving self-understanding

Classics in Lesbian Studies takes a major step in giving the lesbian experience its own unique voice within scholarship and the larger world society. Thus, it is devoted exclusively to the lesbian experience and serves as a vehicle for the promotion of scholarship and commentary on lesbianism from an international perspective. Not only does it ensure that "classic" pieces are not forgotten by new generations of students and scholars, it also spurs further lesbian research, writing, theory, and scholarship.In Classics in Lesbian Studies, you are introduced to descriptive, theoretical, empirical, applied, and multicultural perspectives in the field of lesbian studies. Interdisciplinary, the book presents pieces from various academic areas in multiple formats, including personal accounts, poetry, editorials, debates, and commentaries. For your convenience, the chapters are organized primarily across four categories: identity, history and literature, physical and social sciences, and "back to lesbian politics." You will find the discussions of the following issues and subjects provocative and insightful: ways black women in the diaspora construct and name their sexual and romantic feelings for other women lesbian identity formation in a changing social environment how lesbians maneuver in the dominant culture and their own subculture lesbianism as a political movement the experiences of lesbian adolescents teaching lesbian studies lesbians and societal institutions, including the work place, the media, the political arena, the legal system, and religion using lesbian-feminist scholarship to reexamine women's lives in the pastStudents, scholars, lesbian feminists, and others interested in lesbian studies will find Classics in Lesbian Studies a vital examination of lesbianism since its grass roots. Not only does it consider the progress made since the initial days of fighting for liberation, it also explores a more distant, repressed past and anticipates future possibilities lying before us. This powerful, insightful collection is sure to become a classic as it grapples with virtually all aspects of lesbianism, from its inception as a political movement to its identity as a lifestyle choice to its implications of community.

Collects for the first time major lesbian plays from controversial cultural perspectives spanning more than a generation of work in varied theatrical styles representing an amazing gamut of lesbian politics from all over America. Includes: The Quintessential Image (Jane Chambers) * The Postcard (Gloria Joyce Dickler) * A Lady and a Woman (Shirlene Holmes) * Nasty Rumors and Final Remarks (Susan Miller) * Desdemona (Paula Vogel) * and more!

Drawing on fieldwork conducted at eight women's music festivals, Eileen M. Hayes shows how studying these festivals--attended by predominately white lesbians--provides critical insight into the role of music and lesbian community formation. She argues that the women's music festival is a significant institutional site for the emergence of black feminist consciousness in the contemporary period. Hayes also offers sage perspectives on black women's involvement in the women's music festival scene, the ramifications of their performances as drag kings in those environments, and the challenges and joys of a black lesbian retreat based on the feminist festival model. With acuity and candor, longtime feminist activist Hayes elucidates why this music scene matters. Veteran vocalist, percussionist, producer, and cultural historian Linda Tillery provides a foreword.

This book provides chemical dependency clinicians a sampling of the work being done in the fields of gay and lesbian chemical dependency to enable clinicians to provide better care for their gay and lesbian clients.After an overview of 7 research studies which examine the incidence of alcoholism and/or chemical dependency in gay and lesbian persons, the contributing authors explore the special concerns of recovering gay and lesbian addicts.Chapters focus not only on issues in the fields of gay and lesbian chemical dependency but how clinicians can use this knowledge to better care for their gay and lesbian clients. Readers will find new information on: working with HIV positive persons homophobia as a critical root in chemically dependent gays and lesbians positive changes for dysfunctional relationships common with gays and lesbians spirituality in gay and lesbian communities the special needs of the rural gay/lesbian client gay men's groups in AA a retrospective of NALGAP resources and referrals for chemically dependent gay and lesbian personsAddiction and Recovery in Gay and Lesbian Persons assists social workers and other helping professionals working with chemically dependent clients learn more about how to adequately treat them. Gay and lesbian persons recovering from a chemical addiction will also find this book enlightening.

This book provides chemical dependency clinicians a sampling of the work being done in the fields of gay and lesbian chemical dependency to enable clinicians to provide better care for their gay and lesbian clients.After an overview of 7 research studies which examine the incidence of alcoholism and/or chemical dependency in gay and lesbian persons, the contributing authors explore the special concerns of recovering gay and lesbian addicts.Chapters focus not only on issues in the fields of gay and lesbian chemical dependency but how clinicians can use this knowledge to better care for their gay and lesbian clients. Readers will find new information on: working with HIV positive persons homophobia as a critical root in chemically dependent gays and lesbians positive changes for dysfunctional relationships common with gays and lesbians spirituality in gay and lesbian communities the special needs of the rural gay/lesbian client gay men's groups in AA a retrospective of NALGAP resources and referrals for chemically dependent gay and lesbian personsAddiction and Recovery in Gay and Lesbian Persons assists social workers and other helping professionals working with chemically dependent clients learn more about how to adequately treat them. Gay and lesbian persons recovering from a chemical addiction will also find this book enlightening.

A comprehensive bibliography of lesbian studies articles published in nationally and internationally distributed periodicals, comprising some 3,500 entries by and about lesbians. Citations are cross-referenced and multiply -listed in over 100 categories, including traditional topics in the humaniti

First Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.