This beautiful, bold book celebrates the achievements of LGBTQ+ people through history and from around the world—featuring dynamic full-color portraits of a diverse selection of 53 inspirational role models accompanied by short biographies that focus on their incredible successes. From Freddie Mercury’s contribution to music and Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to James Baldwin’s best-selling essays and more, discover tales of courage, triumph, and determination. Published to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, this extraordinary book shows children that anything is possible. Discover the inspiring stories of these LGBT artists, writers, innovators, athletes, and activists who have made great contributions to culture, from ancient times to present day: Freddie Mercury, Sappho, Audre Lorde, Manvendra Singh Gohil, Frida Kahlo, Emma Gonzalez, James Baldwin, Leonardo da Vinci, Alexander Wang, Subhi Nahas, Tove Jansson, Alan Turing, Michelangelo, Martina Navratilova, Sia, Tim Cook, Pedro Almodovar, Virginia Woolf, Tchaikovsky, Vikram Seth, Yotam Ottolenghi, Johanna Sigurðardóttir, Marsha Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, David Bowie, Kasha Nabagsera, Lili Elbe, Matthew Bourne, Alvin Ailey, Harvey Milk, Willem Arondeus, Nergis Mavalvala, Rufus Wainwright, Marlene Dietrich, Larry Kramer, Didier Lestrade, Nabuko Yoshiya, Bayard Rustin, Claire Harvey, Barbara Jordan, Josephine Baker, k.d. lang, Kristen Stewart, Jazz Jennings, Elio di Rupo, Oscar Wilde, Harish Iyer, Khalid Abdel-Hadi, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, Ellen DeGeneres, and Portia de Rossi.

Hidden in the margins of history books, classical literature, and thousands of years of stories, myths and legends, through to contemporary literature, TV and film, there is a diverse and other-worldly super community of queer heroes to discover, learn from, and celebrate. Be captivated by stories of forbidden love like Patroclus & Achilles (explored in Madeleine Miller's bestseller Song of Achilles), join the cult of Antinous (inspiration for Oscar Wilde), get down with pansexual god Set in Egyptian myth, and fall for Zimbabwe's trans God Mawi. And from modern pop-culture, through Dan Jones's witty, upbeat style, learn more about 90s fan obsessions Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Neil Gaiman's American Gods and the BBC's Doctor Who. Queer Heroes of Myth & Legend brings to life characters who are romantic, brave, mysterious, and always fantastical. It is a magnificent celebration of queerness through the ages in all its legendary glory.

William S. Burroughs is consistently thought of as a novelist who is gay, rather than a gay novelist. This distinction is slight, yet remarkable, since it has meant that Burroughs has been excluded from the gay canon and from the scope of queer theory. In this intelligent book, Jamie Russell offers the first queer reading of Burrough's novels. He explores how the novels of Burroughs can be seen as a sustained attempt to offer a very personal rethinking of gay subjectivity, and as an attempt to overturn stereotypes of gay men as effeminate. Yet in his celebration and appropriation of some of the most violent, misogynistic, and effeminaphobic elements of heterosexually-identified masculinity, Burroughs's life and writing suggests a subjectivity which has been deeply troubling to many in the gay community.

About the Book A STEP-BY-STEP MANUAL FOR BUILDING INCLUSIVE WORKPLACES—AND A LESS UNEQUAL WORLD. The reading down of Section 377 by the Supreme Court in 2018 has led to a fundamental shift in the rights of India’s LGBTQ citizens and necessitated policy changes across the board—not least in the conservative world of Indian business. In this path-breaking and genre-defying book, Parmesh Shahani draws from his decade-long journey in the corporate world as an out and proud gay man, to make a cogent case for LGBTQ inclusion and lay down a step-by-step guide to reshaping office culture in India. He talks to inclusion champions and business leaders about how they worked towards change; traces the benefits reaped by industry giants like Godrej, Tata Steel, IBM, Wipro, the Lalit group of hotels and many others who have tapped into the power of diversity; and shares the stories of employees whose lives were revolutionised by LGBTQ-friendly workspaces. In this affecting memoir-cum-manifesto, Shahani animates the data and strategy with intimate stories of love and family. Even as it becomes an expansive reference book of history, literature, cinema, movements, institutions and icons of the LGBTQ community, Queeristan drives home a singular point—in diversity and inclusion lies the promise of an equitable and profitable future, for companies, their employees and the society at large.

The first full-length study of transgender representations in art, fiction, film, video, and music In her first book since the critically acclaimed Female Masculinity, Judith Halberstam examines the significance of the transgender body in a provocative collection of essays on queer time and space. She presents a series of case studies focused on the meanings of masculinity in its dominant and alternative forms’ especially female and trans-masculinities as they exist within subcultures, and are appropriated within mainstream culture. In a Queer Time and Place opens with a probing analysis of the life and death of Brandon Teena, a young transgender man who was brutally murdered in small-town Nebraska. After looking at mainstream representations of the transgender body as exhibited in the media frenzy surrounding this highly visible case and the Oscar-winning film based on Brandon's story, Boys Don’t Cry, Halberstam turns her attention to the cultural and artistic production of queers themselves. She examines the “transgender gaze,” as rendered in small art-house films like By Hook or By Crook, as well as figurations of ambiguous embodiment in the art of Del LaGrace Volcano, Jenny Saville, Eva Hesse, Shirin Neshat, and others. She then exposes the influence of lesbian drag king cultures upon hetero-male comic films, such as Austin Powers and The Full Monty, and, finally, points to dyke subcultures as one site for the development of queer counterpublics and queer temporalities. Considering the sudden visibility of the transgender body in the early twenty-first century against the backdrop of changing conceptions of space and time, In a Queer Time and Place is the first full-length study of transgender representations in art, fiction, film, video, and music. This pioneering book offers both a jumping off point for future analysis of transgenderism and an important new way to understand cultural constructions of time and place.

An O, The Oprah Magazine LGBTQ Book "Changing the Literary Landscape" A gorgeously illustrated collection of essays written by today’s queer heroes—featuring contributions from Elton John, Tan France, Gus Kenworthy, Paris Lees, Russell Tovey, Munroe Bergdorf, and many others. The Queer Bible is a celebration of LGBTQ+ history and culture, edited by model, performer, and GQ contributing editor Jack Guinness. Our queer heroes write about theirs. In 2016, model and queer activist Jack Guinness decided that the LGBTQ+ community desperately needed to be reminded of its long and glorious history of stardom—and he was spurred to action. The following year, QueerBible.com was born, an online community devoted to celebrating queer heroes, both past and present. “So much queer history is hidden or erased,” says Guinness. “The Queer Bible is a home for all those personal stories and histories.” In this book, contemporary queer heroes pay homage to those who helped pave their paths. Contributors include Vogue columnist Paris Lees (writing on Edward Enninful), singer and songwriter Elton John (writing on Divine), comedian Mae Martin (writing on Tim Curry), author Joseph Cassara (writing on Pedro Almodóvar), and many others, honoring timeless queer icons such as Susan Sontag, David Bowie, Sylvester, RuPaul, and George Michael through illuminating essays paired with stunning illustrations. The Queer Bible is a powerful and intimate essay collection of gratitude, and an essential, enduring love letter to the queer community. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Now we praise their names.

The subject of gay and lesbian sexuality is perhaps the most vexed issue in the contemporary Christian Church. Many churches have been forced to confront the matter, both theologically and pastorally and in consequence, controversies have proved divisive within the Church, most notably between conservative and liberal orientated denominations, as well as evangelical churches. This book explores these themes from a sociological perspective, addressing not only gay and lesbian sexualities, but also bi- and transgendered sexualities. With rich empirical material being presented by a team of experts, this book constitutes the first comprehensive sociological study of 'non-hetero' sexualities in relation to contemporary Christianity. As such, it will appeal to sociologists, scholars of religion and theology as well as readers across a range of social sciences

Taking in a wide range of film, television, and literature, this volume explores 21st century horror and its monsters from an intersectional perspective with a marked emphasis on gender and race. The analysis, which covers over 70 narratives, is organized around four primary monstrous figures--zombies, vampires, witches and monstrous women. Arguing that the current horror renaissance is populated with willful monsters that subvert prevailing cultural norms and systems of power, the discussion reads horror in relation to topics of particular import in the contemporary moment--rampant sexual violence, unbridled capitalist greed, brutality against people of color, militarism, and the patriarchy's refusal to die. Examining ground-breaking films and television shows such as Get Out, Us, The Babadook, A Quiet Place, Stranger Things, Penny Dreadful, and The Passage, as well as works by key authors like Justin Cronin, Carmen Maria Machado, Helen Oyeyemi, Margo Lanagan, and Jeanette Winterson, this monograph offers a thorough account of the horror landscape and what it says about the 21st century world.

An eye-opening exploration of the toxic masculinity and sexism that pervades the superhero genre. Superheroes have been exciting and inspirational cultural icons for decades, dating back to the debut of Superman in the 1930s. The earliest tales have been held up as cornerstones of the genre, looked upon with nostalgic reverence. However, enshrining these tales also enshrines many outdated values that have allowed sexist gender dynamics to thrive. In Not All Supermen: Sexism, Toxic Masculinity, and the Complex History of Superheroes, Tim Hanley examines how anger, aggression, and violence became the norm in superhero comics, paired with a disdain for women that the industry has yet to fully move beyond. The sporadic addition of new female heroes over the years proved largely ineffective, the characters often underused and objectified. Hanley also reveals how the genre’s sexism has had real-world implications, with many creators being outed as sexual harassers and bigots, while intolerant fan movements are awash with misogynistic hate speech. Superheroes can be a force for good, representing truth, justice, and courage, but the industry is laden with excessive baggage. The future of the genre depends on what elements of its past are celebrated and what is left behind. Not All Supermen unravels this complex history and shows how superheroes can become more relevant and inspiring for everyone.

Intersectional Feminist Readings of Comics collects several theoretically informed close reading of comics and graphic literature that apply an intersectional feminist lens to the interpretation of several contemporary North American graphic narratives. The essays examine use a range of interpretive lenses drawn from theoretical models used in contemporary aesthetics, media studies, and literary criticism to analyze mainstream figures like DC’s Catwoman and Marvel’s Miss America and Doctor Strange, to contextualize historical and speculative comics by Indigenous American illustrators, and to explicate autography by critically lauded Jewish, queer and female cartoonists. In the first half of the book, the chapters examine ways in which superhero comics and the cinematic and televisual adaptations thereof, reify, revise and reject gender parity, systemic misogyny and heteropatriarchy through visual and textual rhetorics of representation. In the second part of the volume, the chapters look at the ways that feminist interpretive practices illuminate the radical work undertaken by cartoonists from historically marginalized communities in the U.S. and Canada. Across both halves, readers will find applications of longstanding feminist critical traditions, like ecofeminism, as well as new intersectional extrapolations of narratology, autobiographical studies, and visual rhetoric, which have been applied to the selected comics in insightful and innovative ways. This is a lively and varied collection suitable for students and scholars in gender studies, cultural studies, media studies and literary studies.