Gender and Sexual Diversity

The Everyday Lives of Gay Men draws on the expertise of 12 contributors from different countries and fields, writing from an autoethnographic first-person approach. Putting the power of personal stories at the centre of the construction of sophisticated narratives of gay men's lives, the accounts draw attention to the limits of traditional perspectives on gay men's studies that look at gayness through a sexualized lens and explore how gay men make sense of their identity in their everyday lives. Together they present a complex, nuanced understanding of gayness and challenge the conception of 'being gay' as a sexual orientation because it describes in sexual terms an identity that is not only, not always, and not predominantly sexual. The authors come from various fields, including counselling studies and sociology, to communication, religion, and education. ...

This compelling book recounts the history of black gay men from the 1950s to the 1990s, tracing how the major movements of the times--from civil rights to black power to gay liberation to AIDS activism--helped shape the cultural stigmas that surrounded race and homosexuality. In locating the rise of black gay identities in a historical context, Kevin Mumford explores how activists, performers, and writers rebutted negative stereotypes and refused sexual objectification. Examining the lives of both famous and little-known black gay activists--from James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin to Joseph Beam and Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald--Mumford analyzes how movements for social change both inspired and marginalized black gay men. Drawing on an extensive archive of newspapers, pornography, and film, as well as government documents, organizational records, and personal papers, Mumford sheds new light on four volatile decades in the protracted battle of black gay men for affirmation and empowerment in the face of pervasive racism and homophobia.

The first inside look at gay gang members. Many people believe that gangs are made up of violent thugs who are in and out of jail, and who are hyper-masculine and heterosexual. In The Gang’s All Queer, Vanessa Panfil introduces us to a different world. Meet gay gang members – sometimes referred to in popular culture as “homo thugs” – whose gay identity complicates criminology’s portrayal and representation of gangs, gang members, and gang life. In vivid detail, Panfil provides an in-depth understanding of how gay gang members construct and negotiate both masculine and gay identities through crime and gang membership. The Gang’s All Queer draws from interviews with over 50 gay gang- and crime-involved young men in Columbus, Ohio, the majority of whom are men of colour in their late teens and early twenties, as well as on-the-ground ethnographic fieldwork with men who are in gay, hybrid, and straight gangs.

To be fat in a thin-obsessed gay culture can be difficult. Despite affectionate in-group monikers for big gay men-chubs, bears, the cubs-the anti-fat stigma that persists in American culture at large still haunts these individuals who often exist at the margins of gay communities. In Fat Gay Men, Jason Whitesel delves into the world of Girth & Mirth, a nationally known social club dedicated to big gay men, illuminating how these men form identities and communities in the face of adversity. In existence for over forty years, the club has long been a refuge and 'safe space' for such men. Both a partial insider as a gay man and an outsider to Girth & Mirth, Whitesel offers an insider's critique of the gay movement, questioning whether the social consequences of the failure to be height-weight proportionate should be so extreme in the gay community. ...