Changing Portrayals in the Mainstream Media

As much as book lovers might hate to admit it, the primary way mainstream ideology is promoted and disseminated is not through the written word but through the visual media. In his book, "from perverts to fab five: The Media's Changing Depiction of Gay Men and Lesbians," Rodger Streitmatter charts the changing topography of the LGBT cultural landscape reflected through the lens of television and movies. He begins with the newspaper image of the prowling pervert of the Joseph McCarthy era and proceeds through the breakthrough film "Brokeback Mountain" in 2005. Ellen DeGeneres' coming out, "Queer as Folk," The L-Word," Will and Grace," and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," all of which have become cultural reference points in television history, are taken on by Streitmatter, a Professor and Senior Associate Dean in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C.

For other resources the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, (GLAAD), monitors the U.S. media for both positive and negative depictions of queer folks. Here is a video of the history of LGBTs on television. And here is a more up to date version of the same subject.

Judy Grahn: Words That Mobilized a Movement

Judy Grahn's poetry is intense, electric, a firestorm that illuminated a path for dyke activists in the early seventies. She spoke, she theorized, she shed light from a feminist and uniquely lesbian perspective that was steeped in her working-class roots and consciousness. And as the years have passed she continues to explore and analyze the meaning of patriarchy and the role that women play in it.

"The Judy Grahn Reader," is a compilation that summarizes the highlights of her work from 1969 to 2000. It begins with the "Common Woman Poems," and continues through much of her early poetry including "Edward the Dyke," and her classic epic poem, "A Woman is Talking to Death." There are short sections of fiction and drama and many excerpts from her prolific later-life, mostly non-fiction material.

Here are some selections from interviews with Grahn and an article on Celebrating the Poetry of the Women's Movement.

Bayard Rustin, Gay Civil Rights Activist

Martin Luther King Day celebrates the birthday of the most well-known leader of the black civil rights movement. However, a long unsung hero and prominent activst of that era had been nearly written out of history up until the last decades of the 20th century. Bayard Rustin, the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington was an openly gay African-American man, a draft resister, a pacifist and a one-time member of the Communist Party. He faced arrest for his political convictions and his sexual orientation and endured censure from both the outside world as well as the groups he considered his community.

Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer is an overview of his life and times. Jerald Podair begins with a chronology of important events in his career and the book is organized by time periods with a chapter at the end containing supporting articles, letters and statements by Rustin addressing a wide-range of political issues from trade-unions to Soviet Jewry to Homosexual Rights. This book is a handy resource with a host of original material and documentation.

Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, by John D'Emilio is a more in depth biography. "Based on more than a decade of archival research and interviews," it is revommended for those who want to dive more fully into the details of the turbulent life of this passionate and fascinating man.

Here is a film clip with actual footage from the civil rights struggle that includes John D'Emilio speaking and also a clip of Rustin debating Malcolm X.

The Queer Perspective in Spanish Culture

Mexico City recently legalized same-sex marriage and adoption. Buenos Aires just licensed its first gay marriages as well. But the pioneering country of the Spanish-speaking world is Spain, a country that legalized queer marriages in 2005. The death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975 brought Spain out from behind a heavy, fascist curtain of repression and isolation where even the train tracks had been built to different dimensions than those in the rest of Europe.

Franco's death brought forth a culture renaissance known as La Movida Madrilena, (the Madrid Movement), a politically and socially progressive blossoming of art and culture that continues today. This book, "Queer Transitions in Contemporary Spanish Culture: From Franco to La Movida," sheds light on ongoing democratic transition of Spain from a queer perspective. Gema Perez-Sanchez begins with the dangerous and self-loathing homosexual of the Franco years, through the literary blossoming of the eighties onward through the early years of the 21st century. She analyzes films, periodicals and comic books along with works of literary fiction.

Here is some more information on La Movida. And click here for the moving speech by the Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, delivered in 2005 marking the end of discriminatory marriage laws.

The Quest for Sobriety

The coming of the New Year has long been a cause for celebration. This year once again the lighted ball will descend in Times Square, 2009 will go out as an old man and 2010 will come in as a baby. The other tradition connected with Auld Lang Syne has been a problematic for some. The fact is that alcohol consumption and gay culture have been intimately connected since before the days that Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud downed their first absinthe cocktails.

In today's selection, "The History of Gay People in Alcoholics Anonymous: From the Beginning," Audrey Borden traces the role queers have played in helping construct the twelve-step program, a system utilized by groups as diverse as narcotic abusers, sex addicts and compulsive gamblers to name a few. The book is written in the personal, down-home style typical of these meetings. Borden lets her subjects tell their own stories while providing background information highlighting the specific obstacles LGBT folks faced in both their struggle to stay clean and sober as well as their struggle for acceptance withing the Alcoholics Anonymous Community.

Here is an online chronology of gays in AA. And here are more resources for Gay and Lesbian Recovering Alcoholics. Have a Safe and Happy New Year!

Re-Imagining Christian Imagery

Christmas is on the horizon again bringing with it a melange of seasonal joy and darker, more complex emotions. Today's book, "Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More," is a collection of non-traditional, Christian iconography by eleven different artists who identify as Christian, Agnostic and even one Buddhist. It was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in the LGBT Arts and Culture category in 2007. That year the art was compiled by Kittredge Cherry, for an exhibit she mounted in Taos, New Mexico as part of the Festival of Progressive Spiritual Art . These are images that challenge the traditional visual interpretation of the sacred. Examples of the new visions include: a black, female "Jesus of the People," a lesbian "Madonna, Lover and Son," and a passionate, "Judas Kiss."

Cherry defines herself as a lesbian, Christian author, minister and art historian. She holds a master of divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion as well as undergraduate degrees in journalism and art history. Click here for a video of her speaking about this book as well as the censorship of art in general.

Queer Jews: History, Identity, Visibility

As Hanukah approaches today's books deal with the ever-evolving, much-debated issue of Jewish identity. Warren Hoffman's work, "the passing game: queering jewish american culture," delves into the history of the queer, Jewish pespective in American theater, fiction and culture in general. He examines the many forms passing (as non-Jewish and straight) and coming out (in both respects) have taken in the world of literature and the arts. Click here for Hoffman's online article: Closeted No More or Why Jewish American Culture is Really Gay.

Marla Brettschneider's book, 'The Family Flamboyant: Race Politics, Queer Families, Jewish lives,"starting with the personal experience of her own life, she widens the net to include adoption of children, non-traditional families, queerness, Jewishness, racial and ethnic politics and the socio-political interpretation of all of the above. At the University of New Hampshire, Brettschneider holds a joint appointment as professor of Political Philosophy and Women's Studies and is Co-ordinator of Queer Studies. Her theories are thoughtful and compelling.

Transformation of a Relationship

People undergoing gender reassignment are not always single. The impact one spouse's gender change on a formerly traditional heterosexual couple can, in many instances, blow a relationship apart. Helen Boyd didn't let that happen to her marriage. Instead she utilizes her book, "She's not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband," to delve into her internal feelings and societal experiences surrounding her husband's transition from male to female.

Here is a video interview with Helen Boyd along with some other resources for spouses; a PFLAG pamphlet: Opening the Straight Spouse's Closet and another personal story: Can a Marriage Survive Transition?