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From the Backlist: LGBTQI Studies in Science and Literature
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The Lives of Transgender People
Genny Beemyn and Susan Rankin
Responding to a critical need for greater perspectives on transgender life in the United States, Genny Beemyn and Susan (Sue) Rankin apply their extensive expertise to a groundbreaking survey—one of the largest ever conducted in the U.S.—on gender development and identity-making among transsexual women, transsexual men, crossdressers, and genderqueer individuals. With nearly 3,500 participants, the survey is remarkably diverse, and with more than 400 follow-up interviews, the data offers limitless opportunities for research and interpretation.
The Violet Hour
The Violet Quill and the Making of Gay Culture
David Bergman
The members of the literary circle known as the Violet Quill—Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, Edmund White, Christopher Cox, Michael Grumley, Robert Ferro, and George Whitmore—collectively represent the aspirations and the achievement of gay writing during and after the gay liberation movement. David Bergman’s social history shows how the works of these authors reflected, advanced, and criticized the values, principles, and prejudices of the culture of gay liberation.
Gay Science
The Ethics of Sexual Orientation Research
Timothy F. Murphy
Pointing to the potential benefits of sexual orientation research as well as acknowledging its potential for harm, Murphy ultimately defends gay science in the name of free scientific inquiry. Gay Science argues that the way to ensure the future of gay people is not through censoring sexual orientation research but through working toward a society which uses reseach as a way of dinstinguishing myth from fact and not as an instrument of discrimination.
Between Men
English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, Thirtieth anniversary edition
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Foreword by Wayne Koestenbaum
First published in 1985, Between Men was a decisive intervention in gender studies, a book that all but singlehandedly dislodged a tradition of literary critique that suppressed queer subjects and subjectivities. With stunning foresight and conceptual power, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s work opened not only literature but also politics, society, and culture to broader investigations of power, sex, and desire, and to new possibilities of critical agency.
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers
A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America
Lillian Faderman
As Lillian Faderman writes, there are “no constants with regard to lesbianism,” except that lesbians prefer women. In this groundbreaking book, she reclaims the history of lesbian life in twentieth-century America, tracing the evolution of lesbian identity and subcultures from early networks to more recent diverse lifestyles. She draws from journals, unpublished manuscripts, songs, media accounts, novels, medical literature, pop culture artifacts, and oral histories by lesbians of all ages and backgrounds, uncovering a narrative of uncommon depth and originality.