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Posts: 1090
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(@michellelarsen1)
Noble Member     United States of America, Virginia, Front Royal
Joined: 6 years ago

She’s Not There by <span class="a-size-medium">Jennifer Finney Boylan</span>

352 pages. Published by Crown

When she changed genders, she changed the world.  It was the groundbreaking publication of She’s Not There in 2003 that jump-started the transgender revolution. By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Boylan – a cast member on I Am Cait; an advisor to the television series Transparent, and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times -- explores the territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of love and family. 
 
She’s Not There was one of the first works to present trans experience from the perspective of a literary novelist, opening a door to new understanding of love, sex, gender, and identity.  Boylan inspired readers to ask the same questions she asked herself:  What is it that makes us---ourselves?  What does it mean to be a man, or a woman?  How much could my husband, or wife, change—and still be recognizable as the one I love?
 
Boylan’s humorous, wise voice helped make She’s Not There the first bestselling work by a transgender American--and transformed Boylan into a national spokeswoman for LGBTQ people, their families, and the people that love them.  This updated and revised edition also includes a new epilogue from Jenny’s wife Grace; it also contains the original afterward by her friend, novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo.
 
“Love will prevail,” said Boylan’s conservative mother, as she learned about her daughter’s identity. She’s Not There is the story that helped bring about a world in which that change seems almost possible.

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(@michellelarsen1)
Noble Member     United States of America, Virginia, Front Royal
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As a Woman: What I Learned about Power, Sex, and the Patriarchy after I Transitioned by Dr Paula Stone Williams

256 pages. Published by Atria Books

A moving and unforgettable memoir of a transgender pastor’s journey from despair to joy as she transitioned from male to female and learned about gender inequity, at home and in the workplace—perfect for fans of Redefining Realness and There Is Room for You.

As a father of three, married to a wonderful woman, and holding several prominent jobs within the Christian community, Dr. Paula Stone Williams made the life-changing decision to physically transition from male to female at the age of sixty. Almost instantly, her power and influence in the evangelical world disappeared and her family had to grapple with intense feelings of loss and confusion.

Feeling utterly alone and at a loss after being expelled from the evangelical churches she had once spearheaded, Paula struggled to create a new safe space for herself where she could reconcile her faith, her identity, and her desire to be a leader. Much to her surprise, the key to her new career as a woman came with a deeper awareness of the inequities she had overlooked before her transition. Where her opinions were once celebrated and amplified, now she found herself sidelined and ignored. New questions emerged. Why are women’s opinions devalued in favor of men’s? Why does love and intimacy feel so different? And, was it possible to find a new spirituality in her own image?

In As a Woman, Paula pulls back the curtain on her transition journey and sheds light on the gendered landscape that impacts many in the LGBTQ+ community. She urges men to recognize the ways in which the world is tilted in their favor and validates the experiences of women who have been disregarded based solely on their gender, while also acknowledging how she was once like those men who are blind to their privilege. With equal parts humility and confidence, Paula shares her lived experience of both genders and offers a truly unique perspective on the universal struggle to understand what it means to be male, female, and simply, human.

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(@flatlander48)
Noble Member     United States of America, California, Cathedral City
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REDEFINING REALNESS (My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More) by Janet Mock (2014)

263 Pages
Published by ATRIA Paperback

This is a Tell-All book in the sense that she details all phases of her life. This covers childhood, the separation of her parents, relationships with her family members, living at various times in Hawaii, Dallas and Oakland, redefining herself as female in high school, winning a scholarship to attend the University of Hawaii, doing sex work to fund her surgeries, her transition and adult relationships. At first she was reluctant to tell her story in detail but eventually she included just about everything as the story would not ring true otherwise. Nothing was obvious to me that something was missing. What I came away with was a sense of a woman who, against ALL the odds, dealt with and overcame all those elements that would work to throw her off her chosen path.

I actually met Janet when she made an appearance here in Palm Springs. I had the sense that she would just be an interesting person to spend time with; not because of her past, but because of her future...

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Posts: 1090
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(@michellelarsen1)
Noble Member     United States of America, Virginia, Front Royal
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Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color

256 pages. Published by Chicago Review Press

In 1978, Harvey Milk asked Gilbert Baker to create a unifying symbol for the growing gay rights movement, and on June 25 of that year, Baker’s Rainbow Flag debuted at San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade. Baker had no idea his creation would become an international emblem of liberation, forever cementing his pivotal role in helping to define the modern LGBTQ movement. Rainbow Warrior is Baker’s passionate personal chronicle, from a repressive childhood in 1950s Kansas to a harrowing stint in the US Army, and finally his arrival in San Francisco, where he bloomed as both a visual artist and social justice activist. His fascinating story weaves through the early years of the struggle for LGBTQ rights, when he worked closely with Milk, Cleve Jones, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Baker continued his flag-making, street theater and activism through the Reagan years and the AIDS crisis. And in 1994, Baker spearheaded the effort to fabricate a mile-long Rainbow Flag—at the time, the world’s longest—to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in New York City. Gilbert and parade organizers battled with Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the right to carry it up Fifth Avenue, past St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Today, the Rainbow Flag has become a worldwide symbol of LGBTQ diversity and inclusiveness, and its colorful hues have illuminated landmarks from the White House to the Eiffel Tower to the Sydney Opera House. Gilbert Baker often called himself the “Gay Betsy Ross,” and readers of his colorful, irreverent, and deeply personal memoir will find it difficult to disagree.

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Posts: 1090
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(@michellelarsen1)
Noble Member     United States of America, Virginia, Front Royal
Joined: 6 years ago

Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past

592 pages. Published by Plume

This richly revealing anthology brings together for the first time the vital new scholarly studies now lifting the veil from the gay and lesbian past. Such notable researchers as John Boswell, Shari Benstock, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Jeffrey Weeks and John D’Emilio illuminate gay and lesbian life as it evolved in places as diverse as the Athens of Plato, Renaissance Italy, Victorian London, jazz Age Harlem, Revolutionary Russia, Nazi Germany, Castro’s Cuba, post-World War II San Francisco—and peoples as varied as South African black miners, American Indians, Chinese courtiers, Japanese samurai, English schoolboys and girls, and urban working women. Gender and sexuality, repression and resistance, deviance and acceptance, identity and community—all are given a context in this fascinating work.

"A landmark of a book and a landmark of ideas that will shatter ignorance and delusion."—Catharine Stimpson, University Professor and Dean Emerita of the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University

“Ground-breaking.”—Publishers Weekly

“The juxtaposition of diverse perspectives and research crossing boundaries of race, gender, culture, and time encourages a lively dialogue. Highly recommended for history collections, and especially gay studies.”—Library Journal

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Posts: 1090
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Topic starter
(@michellelarsen1)
Noble Member     United States of America, Virginia, Front Royal
Joined: 6 years ago

Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising that Changed America

432 pages. Published by Plume

The definitive account of the Stonewall Riots, the first gay rights march, and the LGBTQ activists at the center of the movement.

“Martin Duberman is a national treasure.”—Masha Gessen, The New Yorker

On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, was raided by police. But instead of responding with the typical compliance the NYPD expected, patrons and a growing crowd decided to fight back. The five days of rioting that ensued changed forever the face of gay and lesbian life.

In Stonewall, renowned historian and activist Martin Duberman tells the full story of this pivotal moment in history. With riveting narrative skill, he re-creates those revolutionary, sweltering nights in vivid detail through the lives of six people who were drawn into the struggle for LGBTQ rights. Their stories combine to form an unforgettable portrait of the repression that led up to the riots, which culminates when they triumphantly participate in the first gay rights march of 1970, the roots of today's pride marches.

Fifty years after the riots, Stonewall remains a rare work that evokes with a human touch an event in history that still profoundly affects life today.

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Posts: 1090
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Topic starter
(@michellelarsen1)
Noble Member     United States of America, Virginia, Front Royal
Joined: 6 years ago

Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Fiction by African-American Writers

384 pages. Published by Henry Holt & Co

Thirty-two stories look at the presence and place of lesbians and gays in the history of African American Literature.

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Posts: 1090
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(@michellelarsen1)
Noble Member     United States of America, Virginia, Front Royal
Joined: 6 years ago

My Story

225 pages. Published by Faber & Faber

In 1989 Caroline Cossey, who was born male, made an appeal to the European Commission of Human Rights. She was fighting for the legal right to marry as a woman. The author tells of her childhood in Norfolk, the operations that liberated her sexually and her persecution by the tabloid press.

Additional read: https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/03/26/this-is-the-worlds-first-trans-supermodel-that-didnt-get-her-moment/

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