LGBTQIA Studies : Personal narratives

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir about a life’s work to find happiness. It's a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in an north England industrial town now changed beyond recognition; about the Universe as Cosmic Dustbin. It is the story of how a painful past that Jeanette thought she'd written over and repainted rose to haunt her, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory,Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?is a tough-minded search for belonging—for love, identity, home, and a mother.

By age six, Kevin Jennings knew he was going straight to hell. His father, an evangelist preacher, as much as told him so. During the 1960s, Kevin's family moved from one trailer park in the South to another as his dad fought to hold on to a pulpit. Then, on Kevin's eighth birthday, his father suffered a fatal heart attack as Kevin stood, helpless, at his side. When he cried at the funeral, Kevin's older brothers admonished him, "Don't be a faggot." The warning was a key lesson. In school, "faggot" became more familiar to Kevin than his own name. Nobody watching the regular torture of Kevin's schooldays could have anticipated that he would ever want to return to the classroom. Kevin's father may have preached damnation, but his mother showed him the road to salvation.

The unrehearsed and unguarded conversations in this collection reveal Harvey Milk's sense of humor, outrage over injustice, and love of dramatic confrontation. This volume contains the texts of 39 interviews Milk did for newspapers, radio, and television, in which he describes his life, struggles, strategies, and dreams. It includes transcripts from three famous debates between Milk and John Briggs over the notorious Proposition 6 Briggs Initiative. This groundbreaking treasure trove provides insights into how Milk viewed the economic, social, sexual, and political issues that shape our lives today.

New York Magazine's The Year in Books pick. The Millions' A Year in Review pick. The middle American coming-of-age has found new life in Ryan Van Meter's coming-out, made as strange as it is familiar by acknowledging the role played by gender and sexuality. In fourteen linked essays, If You Knew Then What I Know Now reinvents the memoir with all-encompassing empathy--for bully and bullied alike.

Richard Giannone's searingly honest, richly insightful memoir-eloquently captures the author's transformation from a solitary gay academic to a dedicated caregiver as well as a sexually and spiritually committed man. Always alone, always fearful, he initially resisted the duty to look after his dying female relatives. But his mother's fall into dementia changed all that. Her vulnerability opened this middle-aged man to the love of another man, a former priest and Jersey boy like himself. Giannone vividly weaves his reflections on gay life in Greenwich Village and his spiritual journey asa gay man and Catholic into his experience of caring for the women of his family.

Professor Jay Ladin made headlines around the world when, after years of teaching literature at Yeshiva University, he returned to the Orthodox Jewish campus as a woman—Joy Ladin. Ladin’s poignant memoir takes us from the death of living as the man she knew she wasn’t, to the shattering of family and career that accompanied her transition, to the new self, relationships, and love she finds when she opens the door of life. “Wrenching—and liberating. . . .[it] opens up new ways of looking at gender and the place of LGBT Jews in community.”—Greater Phoenix Jewish News

In the midst of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy debate, a gay former soldier offers a firsthand account of his experiences in the Iraq war, capturing the real experience of gay servicemen and servicewomen.

Featuring 4 reports and 25 personal essays from diverse voices—both straight and gay—representing U.S. Marine Corps, Army, Navy, and Air Force veterans and service members, this anthology examines the impact of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and its repeal on 20 September 2011 in order to benefit policy makers, historians, researchers, and general readers. Topics include lessons from foreign militaries,serving while openly gay, women at war, returning to duty, marching forward after repeal, and support for the committed same-sex partners and families of gay service members.