Drawn from the secret, never-before-seen diaries, journals, and sexual records of the novelist, poet, and university professor Samuel M. Steward, Secret Historian is a sensational reconstruction of one of the more extraordinary hidden lives of the twentieth century. An intimate friend of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Thornton Wilder, Steward maintained a secret sex life from childhood on, and documented these experiences in brilliantly vivid (and often very funny) detail.After leaving the world of academe to become Phil Sparrow, a tattoo artist on Chicago’s notorious South State Street, Steward worked closely with Alfred Kinsey on his landmark sex research. During the early 1960s, Steward changed his name and identity once again, this time to write exceptionally literate, upbeat pro-homosexual pornography under the name of Phil Andros.Until today he has been known only as Phil Sparrow—but an extraordinary archive of his papers, lost since his death in 1993, has provided Justin Spring with the material for an exceptionally compassionate and brilliantly illuminating life-and-times biography. More than merely the story of one remarkable man, Secret Historian is a moving portrait of homosexual life long before Stonewall and gay liberation.Secret Historian is a 2010 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.

February House is the uncovered story of an extraordinary experiment in communal living, one involving young but already iconic writers -- and the country's best-known burlesque performer -- in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn during 1940 and 1941. It was a fevered yearlong party fueled by the appetites of youth and by the shared sense of urgency to take action as artists in the months before America entered the war.In spite of the sheer intensity of life at 7 Middagh, the house was for its residents a creative crucible. Carson McCullers's two masterpieces, The Member of the Wedding and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, were born, bibulously, in Brooklyn. Gypsy Rose Lee, workmanlike by day, party girl by night, wrote her book The G-String Murders in her Middagh Street bedroom. Auden -- who along with Britten was being excoriated at home in England for absenting himself from the war -- presided over the house like a peevish auntie, collecting rent money and dispensing romantic advice. And yet all the while he was composing some of the most important work of his career.Sherill Tippins's February House, enlivened by primary sources and an unforgettable story, masterfully recreates daily life at the most fertile and improbable live-in salon of the twentieth century.

It is the year 4022; all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under many feet of detritus from a catastrophe that occurred back in 1985. Imagine, then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best, experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber. Carson's incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one of then on a ceremonial bed facing an altar that appeared to be a means of communicating with the Gods and the other lying in a porcelain sarcophagus in the Inner Chamber, permitted him to piece together the whole fabric of that extraordinary civilization.

"The ultimate lesbian love novel."—The Lesbian News "A masterpiece of lesbian love."—The Sacramento Star The intimacy of a cabin at Lake Tahoe provides the combustible setting that brings Diana Holland and Lane Christianson together in this passionate novel of first discovery. Candid in its eroticism, intensely romantic, and remarkably beautiful, Curious Wine is a love story that will remain in your memory. Katherine Forrest is the author of 12 books, including the groundbreaking science-fiction novel Daughters of a Coral Dawn and the enduringly popular Kate Delafield Mysteries. She lives in San Francisco.

Written by a social worker, popular educator, and member of the transgender community, this well-rounded resource combines an accessible portrait of transgenderism with a rich history of transgender life and its unique experiences of discrimination. Chapters introduce transgenderism and its psychological, physical, and social processes. They describe the coming out process and its effect on family and friends, the relationship between sexual orientation, and gender and the differences between transsexualism and lesser-known types of transgenderism. The volume covers the characteristics of Gender Identity Disorder/Gender Dysphoria and the development of the transgender movement. Each chapter explains how transgender individuals handle their gender identity, how others view it within the context of non-transgender society, and how the transitioning of genders is made possible. Featuring men who become women, women who become men, and those who live in between and beyond traditional classifications, this book is written for students, professionals, friends, and family members.

In the years following World War II, a small group of gay writers established themselves as literary power players, fueling cultural changes that would resonate for decades to come, and transforming the American literary landscape forever.In EMINENT OUTLAWS, novelist Christopher Bram brilliantly chronicles the rise of gay consciousness in American writing. Beginning with a first wave of major gay literary figures-Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Allen Ginsberg, and James Baldwin-he shows how (despite criticism and occasional setbacks) these pioneers set the stage for new generations of gay writers to build on what they had begun: Armistead Maupin, Edmund White, Tony Kushner, and Edward Albee among them.Weaving together the crosscurrents, feuds, and subversive energies that provoked these writers to greatness, EMINENT OUTLAWS is a rich and essential work. With keen insights, it takes readers through fifty years of momentous change: from a time when being a homosexual was a crime in forty-nine states and into an age of same-sex marriage and the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The Picture of Dorian Gray altered the way Victorians understood the world they inhabited. It heralded the end of a repressive Victorianism, and after its publication, literature had—in the words of biographer Richard Ellmann—“a different look.” Yet the Dorian Gray that Victorians never knew was even more daring than the novel the British press condemned as “vulgar,” “unclean,” “poisonous,” “discreditable,” and “a sham.” Now, more than 120 years after Wilde handed it over to his publisher, J. B. Lippincott&Company, Wilde’s uncensored typescript is published for the first time, in an annotated, extensively illustrated edition.The novel’s first editor, J. M. Stoddart, excised material—especially homosexual content—he thought would offend his readers’ sensibilities. When Wilde enlarged the novel for the 1891 edition, he responded to his critics by further toning down its “immoral” elements. The differences between the text Wilde submitted to Lippincott and published versions of the novel have until now been evident to only the handful of scholars who have examined Wilde's typescript.Wilde famously said that Dorian Gray “contains much of me”: Basil Hallward is “what I think I am,” Lord Henry “what the world thinks me,” and “Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.” Wilde’s comment suggests a backward glance to a Greek or Dorian Age, but also a forward-looking view to a more permissive time than his own, which saw Wilde sentenced to two years’ hard labor for gross indecency. The appearance of Wilde’s uncensored text is cause for celebration. (20110323)

* The Old Testament does not prohibit homosexuality as we see it today. Don't believe it? The Torah never forbids homosexuality when examining original language and historical context; the Hebrew word "Toevah" does not in fact mean "abomination" but rather "ritualistic uncleanliness"; and Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing whatsoever to do with homosexuality, but rather with arrogance, idolatry, and a society's blood-thirst for violence. Likewise, all verses in both the Old and New Testaments referring to these two cities consistently state the same...without ever linking homosexuality in any way whatsoever. * The Old Testament speaks of a homosexual affair. The story of David and Jonathan describes this in detail in I Samuel, and climaxes with David saying of Jonathan: "Your love to me was more wonderful than the love of women" in II Samuel 1:26...the chosen Hebrew word for love used herein - "ahabah" - referring almost exclusively to a romantic form of love throughout the Bible. * Christ said that some people were meant to be born gay. Can't believe it? Matthew 19:12 - an important verse that many often miss, ignore, or simply misunderstand - quotes Christ clearly stating that "there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb". He goes on to give three definitions of what a eunuch is, including the above. Furthermore, the Greek word "eunoûchos" was historically used to include homosexual people, and Christ's listeners knew it. * Christ seems to have blessed a gay relationship between a Roman Centurion and his lover. In the Gospels of both Matthew and Luke, a Centurion humbly asks Christ to come and heal his dying "entimos duolos", or "special servant", as translated from the original Greek. It was common in the Roman Empire for some homosexual men to take on a legally-binding relationship to provide rights and legal protection to their same-sex partner. The Gospel writers realised what connotation this phrase carried in reference to a gay relationship, and used it anyway. * Paul never condemned homosexuality. Unbelievable? The Greek term used by Paul - arsenokoit - has consistently meant "trader of homosexual slavery" in both religious and secular texts - not simply "homosexual" as most scholars now agree. Could Paul have actually been defending homosexuals against Greek cult-related slavery? Organised religion has become a hindrance to a genuine personal faith in God due to its often times lack of understanding or overt misuse of scripture. To misuse the Bible by quoting a mere handful of so-called "clobber passages" that do not actually state what they are commonly claimed to say is to lie about what scripture affirms, and to become a stumbling block to millions of homosexual people who yearn to have a personal relationship with Christ with guilt-free assurance, inner peace, and self-acceptance - as He Himself accepts them. Many more issues on how the Bible is accepting of homosexuality are examined herein. The Gay Faith explains - in clear, verifiable, and easy-to-read detail - just how scripture supports homosexuality as a birthright and lifestyle. In order to avoid distraction from the primary concepts within each chapter - cited scripture, recognised scholarly sources, explorations into historical contexts, detailed linguistic analysis to original language, and authoritative sources in respective fields of study cleanly branch off from the main text and into more complex endnotes and cross-references. Heterosexual-related topics such as premarital sex, chastity, and more, are also shown to have likewise been misused by religion to make many stumble in their faith, and are examined in separate appendix sections. Printed version additionally includes exhaustive index.

A pioneer in queer theory and literary studies, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick brings together for the first time in Touching Feeling her most powerful explorations of emotion and expression. In essays that show how her groundbreaking work in queer theory has developed into a deep interest in affect, Sedgwick offers what she calls "tools and techniques for nondualistic thought," in the process touching and transforming such theoretical discourses as psychoanalysis, speech-act theory, Western Buddhism, and the Foucauldian "hermeneutics of suspicion." In prose sometimes somber, often high-spirited, and always accessible and moving, Touching Feeling interrogates—through virtuoso readings of works by Henry James, J. L. Austin, Judith Butler, the psychologist Silvan Tomkins and others—emotion in many forms. What links the work of teaching to the experience of illness? How can shame become an engine for queer politics, performance, and pleasure? Is sexuality more like an affect or a drive? Is paranoia the only realistic epistemology for modern intellectuals? Ultimately, Sedgwick's unfashionable commitment to the truth of happiness propels a book as open-hearted as it is intellectually daring.

Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most influential texts in gender studies, men's studies and gay studies," this book uncovers the homosocial desire between men, from Restoration comedies to Tennyson's Princess.