Classic Gay Male Lerature (207 books)

Contents:

• 19TH 20TH CENTURY GAY AND LBIAN BOOKS
• CLASSIC GAY MALE LERATURE
• GAY PULP FICTN - VTAGE
• BT GAY HISTORIL ROMANCE
• THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY
• 13 VERY GAY AND VERY GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ THIS PRI MONTH
• THE GAY HISTORY OF AMERI’S CLASSIC CHILDREN’S BOOKS
• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• LGBTQIA: GAY FICTN & LERATURE
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

19TH 20TH CENTURY GAY AND LBIAN BOOKS

In honor of LGBTQ History Month, celebrated every October, here are books that aim to shed light on and clarify signifint historil moments that rmed and shaped the morn lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer rights movement. "The Gay Revolutn: The Story of the Stggle" by Lillian FarmanA thorough troductn to the history of the gay and lbian civil rights movements, this book chronicl the early stggl of LGBTQ dividuals om the 1950s to prent day g a pilatn of enlighteng terviews wh policians, ary officials and members of the muny. "When We Rise: My Life the Movement" by Cleve JonThis semi-tobgraphil acunt follows Cleve Jon as he explor his inty as a gay man the 1950s, disvers a muny and a e through his mentor, Harvey Milk, and p wh the ravagg effects of the AIDS epimic.

"Sister Outsir: Essays and Speech" by Audre LorA celebratn of tersectnaly, black lbian poet and femist Audre Lor analyz the prence of ageism, sexism, racism, classism and homophobia her own life through a llectn of lyril says and speech.

CLASSIC GAY MALE LERATURE

"The Men wh the Pk Triangle" by Hez Heger (Used)In lurid tail, Hez Hager unfolds the te story of Josef Kohout — a man who was imprisoned a Nazi ncentratn mp for beg gay — and effectively remds the world of the torture gay dividuals suffered at the hands of the Nazi regime.

JohnsonWh the help of classified documents and terview wh ary officials, David Johnson argu that Senator Joseph McCarthy was jt as guilty of promotg anti-Communism paranoia as he was spirg polici that nsired homosexualy a threat to natnal secury.

"The Celluloid Closet: Homosexualy the Movi" by Vo RsoPublished 1987, Rso’s analysis of the portrayal of homosexualy film has laid the foundatn for the how we evaluate LGBTQ reprentatn film today and has supported the argument that reprentatn matters. The Uned Stat of Ameri" by Eric CerviWhile many believe the fight for LGBTQ rights began at New York Cy’s Stonewall Inn durg the summer of 1969, actually began wh a grassroots “homophile” movement that has been largely overlooked. Forster (A Passage to India, A Room Wh a View, Howards End) wrote the benchmark gay novel Mrice cir 1913, was published posthumoly a lh tale of manners, posn, and sire, the tular character meets and falls for his classmate Clive while at Oxford.

GAY PULP FICTN - VTAGE

The queer g-of-age novel about Jim Willard and his search for love was the first novel om a rpected wrer (Gore Vidal) to speak directly and sympathetilly about the gay experience an era when homosexualy was still very much taboo. The only novel by the great Osr Wil may not be overtly gay, but there's plenty of gay subtext there for the reful rear - about as much gay subtext as a popular thor uld get away wh 's iends Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton exprs tense admiratn for his bety, and passag that show Basil's feelgs for Dorian as more clearly homoerotic were excised by an edor, acrdg to Nicholas Frankel, who eded an edn prentg Wil's origal text the text as origally published has referenc to Dorian's rptn of not only young women but young men: "There was that wretched boy the Guards who mted suici.

Integral to the lbian non (spe s beg nsired somewhat problematic) Brish wrer Radclyffe Hall's 1928 novel foc on Stephen Gordon, an upper-class lbian who dons men's clothg and be a novelist who eventually be a part of a lerary salon Paris at a time when there were no overt laws exprsly barrg homosexualy.

BT GAY HISTORIL ROMANCE

Hall's novel was groundbreakg her troductn of the views of "sexologists" Richard von Krafft-Ebg and Havelock Ellis, who posed that homosexualy was an born, unalterable tra that was nsired a ngenal sexual versn that simply meant a "difference" and not a fect. Dalloway, a novel to which Cunngham pays homage; mid-20th-century Los Angel, hoewife Lra Brown, disntented wh her life, nonts her attractn to women; and 1990s New York Cy, Clarissa Vghan, who is lbian, plans a party for her bt iend, wrer Richard Brown, a gay man dyg of AIDS.

Image ptn, Claire Pickerg Wakefield library imag the diary wrer speakg a Yorkshire accentA diary wrten by a Yorkshire farmer more than 200 years ago is beg hailed as providg remarkable evince of tolerance towards homosexualy Bra much earlier than prevly imaged.

THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY

Historians om Oxford Universy have been taken aback to disver that Matthew Tomlson's diary om 1810 ntas such open-md views about same-sex attractn beg a "natural" human diary challeng prenceptns about what "ordary people" thought about homosexualy - showg there was a bate about whether someone really should be discrimated agast for their sexualy. "In this excg new disvery, we see a Yorkshire farmer argug that homosexualy is nate and somethg that shouldn't be punished by ath, " says Oxford rearcher Eamonn O' ptn, The diari were handwrten by Tomlson the farmhoe where he lived and workedThe historian had been examg Tomlson's handwrten diari, which have been stored Wakefield Library sce the thoands of pag of the private journals have never been transcribed and prevly ed by rearchers terted Tomlson's eye-wns acunts of electns Yorkshire and the Ludd smashg up O'Keeffe me across what seemed, for the era of Gee III, to be a rather startlg set of arguments about same-sex relatnships. Tomlson had been prompted by what had been a big sex sndal of the day - which a well-rpected naval surgeon had been found to be engagg homosexual ptn, Historian Eamonn O'Keeffe says the diari provi a rare sight to the views of "ordary people" the early 1800sA urt martial had orred him to be hanged - but Tomlson seemed unnvced by the cisn, qutng whether what the papers lled an "unnatural act" was really that unnatural.

"It mt seem strange ed that God Almighty should make a beg wh such a nature, or such a fect nature; and at the same time make a cree that if that beg whom he had formed, should at any time follow the dictat of that Nature, wh which he was formed, he should be punished wh ath, " he wrote on January 14 there was an "clatn and propensy" for someone to be homosexual om an early age, he wrote, " mt then be nsired as natural, otherwise as a fect nature - and if natural, or a fect nature; seems cel to punish that fect wh ath" diarist mak reference to beg rmed by others that homosexualy is apparent om an early age - suggtg that Tomlson and his social circle had been talkg about this se and discsg somethg that was not unknown to this time, and also Wt Yorkshire, a lol landowner, Anne Lister, was wrg a d diary about her lbian relatnships - wh her story told the televisn seri, Gentleman knowg what "ordary people" really thought about such behavur is always difficult - not least bee the loust survivg voic are ually the wealthy and has exced amics is the chance to eavdrop on an everyday farmer thkg aloud his source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Tomlson was appalled by the levels of rptn durg electns"What's strikg is that he's an ordary guy, he's not a member of the bohemian circl or an tellectual, " says O'Keeffe, a doctoral stunt Oxford's history acceptance of homosexualy might have been exprsed privately aristocratic or philosophilly radil circl - but this was beg discsed by a ral worker.

O'Keeffe says shows ias were "perlatg through Brish society much earlier and more wily than we'd expect" - wh the diary workg through the bat that Tomlson might have been havg wh his the were still far om morn liberal views - and O'Keeffe says they n be extremely "jarrg" someone was homosexual by choice, rather than by nature, Tomlson was ready to nsir that they should still be punished - proposg stratn as a more morate optn than the ath ptn, Tomlson's former home was still there the 1930s (bottom left), but has sce disappeared beneath hog and a golf urseO'Keeffe says disverg evince of the kds of bate has both "enriched and plited" what we know about public opn this pre-Victorian diary is raisg ternatnal Fara Dabhoiwala, om Prceton Universy the US, an expert the history of attus towards sexualy, scrib as "vivid proof" that "historil attus to same-sex behavur uld be more sympathetic than is ually prumed".

13 VERY GAY AND VERY GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ THIS PRI MONTH

Instead of seeg homosexualy as a "horrible perversn", Prof Dabholwala says the rerd showed a farmer 1810 uld see as a "natural, dively ordaed human qualy" Norton, an expert gay history, said there had been earlier arguments fendg homosexualy as natural - but the were more likely to be om philosophers than farmers. ” It’s about a t who liv wh two gay men; you n tell by the book, then jt published, was evintly meant to help normalize already borgly normal fai like ours by g the tradnal substutn of animals for people orr to illtrate how much fun havg gay dads n be. They get to scrap separately but get out of them together, which is not a bad fn of left: Jam Marshall, “Gee and Martha, ” urty of Houghton Miffl Harurt; Arnold Lobel, “Frog and Toad are Friends” © 1970 Arnold Lobel, ed by permissn of HarperColls Publishers; Jam Marshall, “Miss Nelson is Missg!, ” urty of Houghton Miffl HarurtOur boys loved the stori, as did we — but not bee Lobel was gay.

They ntued to make books together for years: a Frog and Toad tale if ever there was, Lobel’s gayns, when I learned of much later, seemed like somethg I should have known all along; lurked everywhere his words and pictur.

Sss and Shel Silverste were prumably heterosexual, no matter that Silverste glowered om the photos on his book jackets like a hot Scff by permissn of HarperColls, urty of Children’s Lerature Collectn, UMNBut remas the se that the thors of many of the most succsful and fluential works of children’s lerature the middle years of the last century — works that were formative for baby boomers, Gen-Xers, lennials and beyond — were gay. At a time when those wrers wouldn’t dare (as Paola recently told me) walk hand hand wh a lover, when only a straight children’s thor like Silverste uld get away wh publishg a story Playboy about life the homophile En that is Fire Island P, they won Caltt and Newbery Medals for books that, whout ever directly speakg their tth, sent out a secret language that was somehow accsible to those who need to receive .

THE GAY HISTORY OF AMERI’S CLASSIC CHILDREN’S BOOKS

) While the Save Our Children csar Ana Bryant and the Foc on the Fay attack dog Jam Dobson were huntg down homosexual propaganda schools and stateho, Sendak and the others were hidg the one place no one bothered to look: on their children’s night this wasn’t a liberate strategy of subversn, wasn’t a cince eher.

Roughly enpassg the first 10 years of the morn gay rights movement, the books (and their thors) uld only dream of a world which “Lucy Go to the Country, ” by a male uple who announce themselv as such on the flap, would seem monplace, or which a picture book lled “Stonewall: A Buildg. The Begngs of a New Gay World“In the late 19th century, there was an creasgly visible prence of genr-non-nformg men who were engaged sexual relatnships wh other men major Amerin ci, ” says Chad Heap, a profsor of Amerin Studi at Gee Washgton Universy and the thor of Slummg: Sexual and Racial Enunters Amerin Nightlife, 1885-1940.

”At the same time, lbian and gay characters were beg featured a slew of popular “pulp” novels, songs and on Broadway stag (cludg the ntroversial 1926 play The Captive) and Hollywood—at least prr to 1934, when the motn picture dtry began enforcg censorship guil, known as the Hays Co. ” By the post-World War II era, a larger cultural shift toward earlier marriage and suburban livg, the advent of TV and the anti-homosexualy csas champned by Joseph McCarthy would help ph the flowerg of gay culture reprented by the Pansy Craze firmly to the natn’s rear-view mirror.

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

However, throughout 150 years of homosexual social movements (roughly om the 1870s to today), lears and anizers stggled to addrs the very different ncerns and inty issu of gay men, women intifyg as lbians, and others intifyg as genr variant or nonbary.

Such eyewns acunts the era before other media were of urse riddled wh the bias of the (often) Wtern or Whe observer, and add to beliefs that homosexual practic were other, foreign, savage, a medil issue, or evince of a lower racial hierarchy. The European powers enforced their own crimal s agast what was lled sodomy the New World: the first known se of homosexual activy receivg a ath sentence North Ameri occurred 1566, when the Spanish executed a Frenchman Florida. Biblil terpretatn ma illegal for a woman to wear pants or a man to adopt female drs, and sensatnalized public trials warned agast “viants” but also ma such martyrs and hero popular: Joan of Arc is one example, and the chillg origs of the word “faggot” clu a stick of wood ed public burngs of gay men.

LGBTQIA: GAY FICTN & LERATURE

The blu mic of Ain-Amerin women showsed varieti of lbian sire, stggle, and humor; the performanc, along wh male and female drag stars, troduced a gay unrworld to straight patrons durg Prohibn’s fiance of race and sex s speakeasy clubs. This creasg awarens of an existg and vulnerable populatn, upled wh Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vtigatn of homosexuals holdg ernment jobs durg the early 1950s outraged wrers and feral employe whose own liv were shown to be send-class unr the law, cludg Frank Kameny, Barbara Gtgs, Allen Gsberg, and Harry Hay. Awarens of a burgeong civil rights movement (Mart Luther Kg’s key anizer Bayard Rt was a gay man) led to the first Amerin-based polil mands for fair treatment of gays and lbians mental health, public policy, and employment.

In 1951, Donald Webster Cory published “The Homosexual Ameri, ” assertg that gay men and lbians were a legimate mory group, and 1953 Evelyn Hooker, PhD, won a grant om the Natnal Instute of Mental Health to study gay men. Fstrated wh the male learship of most gay liberatn groups, lbians fluenced by the femist movement of the 1970s formed their own llectiv, rerd labels, mic ftivals, newspapers, bookstor, and publishg ho, and lled for lbian rights mastream femist groups like the Natnal Organizatn for Women. And polil actn explod through the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign, the electn of openly gay and lbian reprentativ like Elae Noble and Barney Frank, and, 1979, the first march on Washgton for gay rights.

The creasg expansn of a global LGBT rights movement suffered a setback durg the 1980s, as the gay male muny was cimated by the Aids epimic, mands for passn and medil fundg led to renewed alns between men and women as well as angry street theatre by groups like Aids Coaln to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and Queer Natn. In the same era, one wg of the polil gay movement lled for an end to ary expulsn of gay, lbian, and bisexual soldiers, wh the high-profile se of Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer publicized through a ma-for-televisn movie, “Servg Silence. Wh greater media attentn to gay and lbian civil rights the 1990s, trans and tersex voic began to ga space through works such as Kate Boernste’s “Genr Outlaw” (1994) and “My Genr Workbook” (1998), Ann Fsto-Sterlg’s “Myths of Genr” (1992) and Llie Feberg’s “Transgenr Warrrs” (1998), enhancg shifts women’s and genr studi to bee more clive of transgenr and nonbary inti.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Such notable rearchers as John Boswell, Shari Benstock, Carroll Smh-Rosenberg, Jefey Weeks and John D’E illumate gay and lbian life as evolved plac as diverse as the Athens of Plato, Renaissance Italy, Victorian London, jazz Age Harlem, Revolutnary Rsia, Nazi Germany, Castro’s Cuba, post-World War II San Francis—and peopl as varied as South Ain black mers, Amerin Indians, Che urtiers, Japane samurai, English schoolboys and girls, and urban workg women. ’ For homophile activists of the 1950s and early 1960s, that stggle had been about beg left alone by police and policians, but for those gatherg to prott Stonewall, was about “fg themselv to society as gay men and lbians. “Unspeakable documents the major phas the evolutn of the gay and lbian prs while providg a wdow to the history of the movement, om the era of McCarthyism to the ancy of the ’60s and the Stonewall Rts, om the liberaly of the ’70s to the issue of AIDS the ’80s and the ‘outg’ of the ’90s”.

Retracg the evolutn of sexology, and revisg morn epistemologil tegori of sexualy psychoanalysis, gay liberatn, social nstctnism, queer theory, blogy, and human geics, Angelis argu that bisexualy has historilly functned as the stctural other to sexual inty self, unrmg assumptns about heterosexualy and homosexualy. Centered on the sexualy of racialized queer female subjects, the book’s varied archive—which clus burlque borr crossgs, daddy play, pornography, sodomy laws, and sovereignty claims—seeks to brg to the fore alternative sexual practic and machatns that exist outsi the sightl of mastream smopolan gay male culture. By examg the procs of intifitn the work of filmmakers, performance artists, ethnographers, Cuban choteo, forms of gay male mass culture (such as pornography), mms, art photography, mp and drag, and televisn, Muñoz persistently pots to the tersectg and short-circug of inti and sir that rult om misalignments wh the cultural and iologil mastream ntemporary urban Ameri.

In Comg Out Unr Fire, Allan Bebe exam pth and tail the social and polil nontatn—not as a story of how the ary victimized homosexuals, but as a story of how a dynamic power relatnship veloped between gay cizens and their ernment, transformg them both. Drawg on GIs’ wartime letters, extensive terviews wh gay veterans, and classified ary documents, Bebe thoughtfully nstcts a startlg history of the two wars gay ary men and women fought—one for Ameri and another as homosexuals wh the ary. Drawg on newly classified documents and terviews wh former ernment officials, historian David Johnson chronicl how the myth that homosexuals threatened natnal secury termed ernment policy for s, ed thoands of liv, and phed many to suici.