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Pride Month Virtual Display

June 01, 2020 - 12:00am to June 30, 2020 - 11:45pm
Online

The Pride Month virtual book display honors and highlights the LGBTQIA+ experience. Within the display, CSUN students, staff, and faculty can explore e-titles that encompass a rich LGBTQIA+ history, in addition to many cultural contributions. All of the e-titles within the Library display are accessible from the Library collection.

Note: Summaries and reviews in our book recommendations come from sources on the internet and are not reflective of the views of our Staff, Faculty, or Students.

Scissors, Paper, Rock: A Novel by Fenton Johnson
Scissors on paper under a rock

Along with his siblings, Raphael Hardin left his childhood home in rural Kentucky. Grappling with an AIDS diagnosis, he returns to care for his dying father. Told from the perspectives of Raphael, his family, and their lifelong neighbor, Fenton Johnson's landmark novel reveals the blood struggles and binding loves of a broken family made whole.

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A Cup of Water Under my Bed: A Memoir by Daisy Hernández
A young girl posing in front of cars

It's 1980. Ronald Reagan has been elected president, John Lennon has been shot, and a little girl in New Jersey has been hauled off to English classes. Her teachers and parents and tias are expecting her to become white--like the Italians. This is the opening to A cup of water under my bed, the memoir of one Colombian-Cuban daughter's rebellions and negotiations with the women who raised her and the world that wanted to fit her into a cubbyhole. From language acquisition to coming out as bisexual to arriving as a reporting intern at the New York Times as the paper is rocked by its biggest plagiarism scandal, Daisy Hernandez chronicles what the women in her community taught her about race, sex, money, and love. This is a memoir about the private nexus of sexuality, immigration, race and class issues, but it is ultimately a daughter's cuento of how to take the lessons from home and shape them into a new, queer life.

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Pride Parades and LGBT Movements
A pink book cover

Today, Pride parades are staged in countries and localities across the globe, providing the most visible manifestations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex movements and politics. Pride Parades and LGBT Movements contributes to a better understanding of LGBT protest dynamics through a comparative study of eleven Pride parades in seven European countries – Czech Republic, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK – and Mexico. Peterson, Wahlström and Wennerhag uncover the dynamics producing similarities and differences between Pride parades, using unique data from surveys of Pride participants and qualitative interviews with parade organizers and key LGBT activists. In addition to outlining the histories of Pride in the respective countries, the authors explore how the different political and cultural contexts influence: Who participates, in terms of socio-demographic characteristics and political orientations; what Pride parades mean for their participants; how participants were mobilized; how Pride organizers relate to allies and what strategies they employ for their performances of Pride.

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A Horse Named Sorrow by Trebor Healey
Rainbow threads weaving winding down a road

When troubled twenty-one-year-old Seamus Blake meets the enigmatic Jimmy (just arrived in San Francisco by bicycle from his hometown in Buffalo, New York), he feels his life may finally be taking off. But the ensuing romance proves short-lived as Jimmy dies of an AIDS-related illness. The grieving Seamus is obliged to keep a promise: "Take me back the way I came," Jimmy had asked. And so Seamus sets out by bicycle on a picaresque journey with the ashes, hoping to bring them back to Buffalo. He meets truck drivers, waitresses, Native Americans, college kids, farmers, ranchers, and Marines--each one giving him a new perspective on his own life and on Jimmy's death. When he falls in man whose mother has also recently died, Seamus's grief and his story become universal and redemptive. Award-winning novelist Trebor Healey depicts San Francisco in the 1980s and '90s in poetic prose that is both ribald and poignant, and a crossing into the American West that is dreamy, mythic, mystifying.

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LGBT Youth Issues Today: A Reference Handbook by David E. Newton
Two girls walking across the sand holding hands

This handbook presents historical background on the topic, provides an up-to-date examination of the issues of concern to LGBT youth, and offers in-depth information and resources for further research. This work contains a chapter of essays from informed individuals regarding same-sex relationships among youth, voicing the experiences and opinions of activists, social workers, psychologists, educators, parents of LGBT youth, and LGBT youth themselves.

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The Cosmopolitans: A Novel by Sarah Schulman
Patrons in an old cafe

A modern retelling of Balzac's classic Cousin Bette by one of America's most prolific and significant writers. Earl, a black, gay actor working in a meatpacking plant, and Bette, a white secretary, have lived next door to each other in the same Greenwich Village apartment building for thirty years. Shamed and disowned by their families, both found refuge in New York and in their domestic routine. Everything changes when Hortense, a wealthy young actress from Ohio, comes to the city to "make it." Textured with the grit and gloss of midcentury Manhattan, The Cosmopolitans is a lush, inviting read, and the truths it frames about the human need for love and recognition remain long after the book is closed.

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Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing
Posing shirtless action figures against a gradiant background

As the U.S. Latino population grows rapidly, and as the LGBTQ Latino community becomes more visible and a more crucial part of our literary and artistic heritage, there is an increasing demand for literature that successfully highlights these diverse lives. Edited by Lázaro Lima and Felice Picano, Ambientes is a revolutionary collection of fiction featuring stories by established authors as well as emerging voices that present a collective portrait of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender experience in America today. With a preface by Picano and an introduction by Lima that sets the stage for understanding Latino literary and cultural history, this is the first anthology to cross cultural and regional borders by offering a wide variety of urban, rural, East Coast, West Coast, and midwestern perspectives on Latina and Latino queers from different walks of life. Stories range from sensual pieces to comical romances and from inner- city dramas fueled by street language to portraits of gay domesticity, making this a much-needed collection for many different kinds of readers. The stories in this collection reflect a vibrant and creative community and redefine received notions of "gay" and "lesbian."

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Willa Cather, Queering America by Marilee Lindemann
A sepia grade photo of Willa Cather

Although it has been proven posthumously by scholars that Willa Cather had lesbian relationships, she did not openly celebrate lesbian desire, and even today is sometimes described as homophobic and misogynistic. What, then, can a reassessment of this contentious first lady of American letters add to an understanding of the gay identities that have emerged in America over the past century? As Marilee Lindemann shows in this study of the novelist's life and work, Cather's sexual coming-of-age occurred at a time when a cultural transition was recasting love between women as sexual deviance rather than romantic friendship. At the same time, the very identity of "America" was characterized by great instability as the United States emerged as a modern industrial nation and imperial power. Indeed, both terms, "queer" and "America," achieved fresh ideological potency at the turn of the century. Willa Cather: Queering America is an enlightening unpacking of Cather's writings, from her controversial love letters of the 1890s--in which "queer" is employed to denote sexual deviance--to her epic novels, short stories, and critical writings. Lindemann points to the "queer" qualities of Cather's fiction--rebellion against traditional fictional form, with sometimes unlikable characters, lack of emphasis on heroic action, and lack of engagement in the drama of heterosexual desire. An enlightening unpacking of Cather's writings, from her controversial love letters of the 1890s--in which ""queer"" is employed to denote sexual deviance--to her epic novels, short stories, and critical writings.

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LGBT Athletes in the Sports Media
A rainbow-striped shirt and shorts

In recent years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) athletes have received more media attention than ever before. Declining levels of homophobia across the Western world has facilitated a greater acceptance of LGBT athletes among heterosexual teammates, fans, and the sports media. Consequently, academic interest in sport, gender and sexuality has also increased substantially. This edited collection combines studies of gender and sexuality with that of the sports media to provide the first-ever comprehensive academic overview of LGBT athletes in the sports media. It draws upon work from a wide range of international scholars to provide an interdisciplinary analysis of improved media coverage of LGBT athletes, as well as the numerous issues and barriers which continue to exist. LGBT Athletes in the Sports Media will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, media studies, and gender studies.

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LGBT Health: Meeting the Needs of Gender and Sexual Minorities
A rainbow-stitched pattern

LGBT Health: Meeting the Needs of Gender and Sexual Minorities offers a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive view of mental, medical, and public health conditions within the LGBT community. This book examines the health outcomes and risk factors that gender and sexual minority groups face while simultaneously providing evidence-based clinical recommendations and resources for meeting their health needs. Drawing from leading scholars and practitioners of LGBT health, this holistic, centralized text synthesizes epidemiologic, medical, psychological, sociological, and public health research related to the origins of, current state of, and ways to improve LGBT health. The award-winning editors have assembled LGBT health experts who have conducted extensive research into diverse areas of LGBT health. Sections guide the reader through the entire spectrum of LGBT health, from the historical roots of LGBT health research all the way to modern, emerging lines of inquiry to improve health among diverse gender and sexual minority groups. Specific groundbreaking coverage includes such populations as LGBT veterans; reproductive health and parenting; sexual minority persons living with chronic illness and disability, and more. This encompassing volume serves as a go-to reference, a call to action, and a guide for anyone involved in researching and improving the health of LGBT populations. Key Features:Synthesizes research from the psychological, sociological, medical, and public health fields into a comprehensive discussion of LGBT health. Covers the continuum of health from antecedents and sociocultural determinants through specific evidence-based approaches for improving outcomes. Includes specific focus on a wide range of health outcomes, including topics often neglected in the field such as reproductive health and parenting, intimate partner violence, cancer, and other chronic diseases. Specifically investigates a variety of LGBT subgroups and their unique health needs including for LGBT veterans, transgender men and women, and racial and ethnic minorities who are LGBT.

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James Baldwin and the Queer Imagination by Matt Brim
A portrait of James Baldwin

The central figure in black gay literary history, James Baldwin has become a familiar touchstone for queer scholarship in the academy. Matt Brim's James Baldwin and the Queer Imagination draws on the contributions of queer theory and black queer studies to critically engage with and complicate the project of queering Baldwin and his work. Brim argues that Baldwin animates and, in contrast, disrupts both the black gay literary tradition and the queer theoretical enterprise that have claimed him. More paracoxically, even as Baldwin's fiction brilliantly succeeds in imagining queer intersections of race and sexuality, it simultaneously exhibits striking queer failures, whether exploiting gay love or erasing black lesbian desire. Brim thus argues that Baldwin's work is deeply marked by ruptures of the "unqueer" into transcendent queer thought--and that readers must sustain rather than override this paradoxical dynamic within acts of queer imagination.

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LGBTQ Americans in the U.S. Political System: An Encyclopedia of Activists, Voters, Candidates, and Officeholders
A street packed with people during a Pride rally

This sourcebook covers the evolution of LGBTQ engagement in American politics, from the emergence of gay rights as a political issue in the 1970s to the present, when LGBTQ issues figure prominently in politics. Covers individuals, organizations, cultural forces, political issues, and legal decisions that have elevated the role of LGBTQ people at the ballot box, on the campaign trail, in Washington, and in mayors' offices, city councils, and school boards across the country.

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The Beauty of Men Never Dies: An Autobiographical Novel by David Leddick
An older man holding a red apple

Buoyant and entertaining, this melding of memoir and fiction recounts with humor and candid observation a gay man's romances in his seventies, offering insight into the joys (and a few of the sorrows) of loving, living, and aging with grace, style, and a fearless sense of fun. Bouncing between Montevideo, New York, and Paris, the narrator reveals his adventurous life, his many lovers, his varied careers from dance to advertising, and the upbeat outlook that sustains him as he pursues the elusive Fenil, a handsome Uruguayan policeman. David Leddick's short sketches, interspersed with memories, attitudes, and opinions drawn from the past, combine in a vivid tale of a life lived with panache at an age when most people think the adventure has already ended.

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Indecent Advances: A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice before Stonewall by James Polchin
Portraits of men

A skillful hybrid of true crime and social history that examines the relationship between the media and popular culture in the portrayal of crimes against gay men in the decades before Stonewall. Stories of murder have never been just about killers and victims. Instead, crime stories take the shape of their times and reflect cultural notions and prejudices. In Indecent Advances, James Polchin recovers and recounts queer stories from the crime pages--often lurid and euphemistic--that reveal the hidden history of violence against gay men. What was left unsaid in the crime pages provides insight into the figure of the queer man as both criminal and victim, offering readers tales of vice and violence that aligned gender and sexual deviance with tragic, gruesome endings. Victims were often reported as having made "indecent advances," forcing the accused's hands in self-defense and reducing murder charges to manslaughter. Published in time for the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising on June 28, 1969, Indecent Advances investigates how queer men navigated a society that criminalized them and displayed little compassion for the violence they endured. Polchin shows, with masterful insight, how this discrimination was ultimately transformed by activists to help shape the burgeoning gay rights movement in the years leading up to Stonewall.

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