Showing titles in LGBTQ+ Studies

As a young, queer, plus-size person, Essie Dennis has spent a lot of time feeling like they weren't enough—not queer enough, not feminine enough, not perfect enough. When they took to social media to share how they felt, they were overwhelmed by how many others felt the same. Inviting you to challenge accepted beauty standards and the concept of 'the perfect body', Essie takes everything they have learned on their journey to self-acceptance and body satisfaction to help guide you towards loving your queer body. 

Teoría King Kong es uno de los grandes libros de referencia del feminismo y de la teoría de género, un incisivo ensayo en el que Despentes comparte su propia experiencia para hablarnos sin tapujos ni concesiones sobre la prostitución, la violación, la represión del deseo, la maternidad y la pornografía, y para contribuir al derrumbe de los cimientos patriarcales de la sociedad actual.

In December 1935, Zdenek Koubek, one of the most famous sprinters in European women’s sports, declared he was now living as a man. Around the same time, the celebrated British field athlete Mark Weston, also assigned female at birth, announced that he, too, was a man. Periodicals and radio programs across the world carried the news; both became global celebrities. A few decades later, they were all but forgotten. In The Other Olympians, Michael Waters uncovers, for the first time, the gripping true stories of Koubek, Weston, and other pioneering trans and intersex athletes from their era.

Today I sat on a bench facing the sea, the one where I waited for L to be born, and sobbed my heart out. I don't know if I'll ever recover. This note was written on 9th November 2017. As the seagulls squawked overhead and the sun dipped into the sea, Alexandra Heminsley's world was turning inside out. She'd just been told her then-husband was going to transition. The revelation threatened to shatter their brand new, still fragile, family.

A darkly satirical play written at the height of the AIDS crisis. As a young woman is diagnosed with a mysterious new illness, she and her beloved brother flee to Europe in search of a cure...and to escape the pain and uncertainty of the future.

Taking everything they know from more than a decade of working with the queer and trans community, their personal journey of gender exploration, and clinical best practices, licensed therapist, coach and speaker Rae McDaniel created the Gender Freedom Model. A uniquely supportive narrative for gender exploration and transition grounded in queer joy, their nine-pillar model has helped thousands of transgender and nonbinary individuals explore gender through play, pleasure and freedom. And now, it can help you too.

The 21st century has seen very positive movement for LGBT+ rights. In the last few years, the overturning of DOMA, the SCOTUS ruling in favor of the Marriage Equality Act, American transgender politicians elected to office, and landmark moments such as Apple becoming the most valuable company in the world under the leadership of an openly gay CEO have advanced LGBT awareness and understanding. In a world full of LGBT questions, The ABC's of LGBT+ has the answers.

In 1957, Frank Kameny, a rising astronomer working for the US Military in Hawaii, received a summons to report immediately to Washington, DC. The Pentagon had reason to believe he was a homosexual, and after a series of humiliating interviews, Kameny - like gay men and women for generations - was promptly dismissed from the military. Unlike many others, though, Kameny fought back.

In Rebent Sinner, Ivan Coyote takes on the patriarchy and the political, as well as the intimate and the personal in these beguiling and revealing stories of what it means to be trans and non-binary today, at a time in their life when they must carry the burden of heartbreaking history with them, while combatting those who would misgender them or deny their very existence. These stories span thirty years of tackling TERFs, legislators, and bathroom police, sure, but there is joy and pleasure and triumph to be found here, too.

Judith Butler, the groundbreaking thinker whose iconic book Gender Trouble redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on “gender” that have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed “anti-gender ideology movements” that are dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous, perhaps diabolical, threat to families, local cultures, civilization—and even “man” himself. In this book, Butler illuminates the concrete ways that this phantasm of “gender” collects and displaces anxieties and fears of destruction.

Raw and stunningly written, Handrick takes us on a journey through his experiences as a gay working-class man, confronting the toxic narratives and myths that society has built up around masculinity, class, and sexuality. Much more than just a personal story, Handrick's book delves deep into the heart of a crisis facing the gay community today: a mental health epidemic that shows no signs of slowing down. With shocking statistics and hard-hitting research, Handrick reveals the dark reality of what it means to be a gay man in a world that still clings to outdated and harmful stereotypes.

If you are transgendered, the feeling of wanting your body to match the sex you feel you are never goes away. For some, though, especially those who grew up before trans people were widely out and advocating for equality, these feelings were often compartmentalized and rarely acted upon. Now that gender reassignment has become much more commonplace, many of these people may feel increasing pressure to finally undergo the procedures they have always secretly wanted.

In Poor Queer Studies, Matt Brim shifts queer studies away from its familiar sites of elite education toward poor and working-class people, places, and pedagogies. Brim shows how queer studies also takes place beyond the halls of flagship institutions: in night school; after a three-hour commute; in overflowing classrooms at no-name colleges; with no research budget; without access to decent food; with kids in tow; in a state of homelessness.

Being a teenager is difficult enough, but having to go through puberty while realising you're in the wrong body comes with a whole new set of problems: bullying, self-doubt and, in some cases, facing a physical and medical transition. Alex is an ordinary young 20-something: he likes pugs, donuts and retro video games, and he sleeps with his socks on. He's also transgender and was born female. He's been living as a male for the past few years and has recently started his physical transition.

A definitive deep-dive into queer history and culture with hit reality show RuPaul's Drag Race as a touchstone, by the creators of the pop culture blog Tom and Lorenzo NPR's Best Books of the Year 2020 pick A New York Times New & Noteworthy book One of Logo/NewNowNext's "11 Queer Books We Can't...

In Brilliant Imperfection, Eli Clare uses memoir, history, and critical analysis to explore cure—the deeply held belief that body-minds considered broken need to be fixed. Cure serves many purposes. It saves lives, manipulates lives, and prioritizes some lives over others. It provides comfort, makes profits, justifies violence, and promises resolution to body-mind loss. Clare grapples with this knot of contradictions, maintaining that neither an anti-cure politics nor a pro-cure worldview can account for the messy, complex relationships we have with our body-minds.

We live in a world where trans lives are now mainstream and many forms of nonbinary and gender-diverse identities exist. This is also a world in which some people have some very strong views about how other people identify and how those people should be treated. If you happen to be someone who is running - or is thinking of setting up - a group, programme or event for women (or for a specific group of people for whom gender may be a defining feature) then you need to have an understanding of some of these issues so that you can lead with integrity.

Essential, up-to-date guidance on consent and sex for anyone who’s having it—and everyone who wants to do it better. Empowered practices, embodied skills, and frame-changing advice for navigating consent, pursuing pleasure, and building connection in the real world. Part practical guide...

Si può essere persone femministe e cattoliche nello stesso tempo? Michela Murgia, cattolica, pensa di sí. E questo audace pamphlet, colto e popolare, sfida il senso comune, e con lucidità e ironia ci spiega perché. «Vorrei capire, da femminista, se la fede cristiana sia davvero in contraddizione con il nostro desiderio di un mondo inclusivo e non patriarcale, o se invece non si possa mostrare addirittura un’alleata.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, the lesbian feminist movement and the no-fault divorce revolution transformed the lives of wives who desired women. Women could now choose to divorce their husbands in order to lead openly lesbian or bisexual lives; increasingly, however, these women were confronted by hostile state discrimination, typically in legal battles over child custody. Well into the 1980s, many women remained ambivalent about divorce and resistant to labeling themselves as lesbian, therefore complicating a simple interpretation of their lives and relationship choices.