UNC Libraries Databases
Open Web Databases
Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400-1850 by
Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the New World, Native Americans across the continent had developed richly complex attitudes and forms of expression concerning gender and sexual roles. Editors Sandra Slater and Fay A. Yarbrough have brought together scholars who explore the historical implications of variations in the meanings of gender, sexuality, and marriage among indigenous communities in North America. Essays that span from the colonial period through the nineteenth century illustrate how these aspects of Native American life were altered through interactions with Europeans.
Nepantla Squared: Transgender Mestiz@ Histories in Times of Global Shift by
Nepantla Squared maps the lives of two transgender mestiz@s to chart the ways race, gender, sex, ethnicity, and capital function differently in different times. Heidenreich coins the term nepantla² to mark figures who moved between cultures and genders.
The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports by
In December 1935, Zdeněk Koubek, one of the most famous sprinters in European women's sports, declared he was now living as a man. Around the same time, the celebrated British field athlete Mark Weston, also assigned female at birth, announced that he, too, was a man. Periodicals and radio programs across the world carried the news; both became global celebrities. A few decades later, they were all but forgotten. And in the wake of their transitions, what could have been a push toward equality became instead, through a confluence of bureaucracy, war, and sheer happenstance, the exact opposite: the now all-too-familiar panic around trans, intersex, and gender nonconforming athletes.
Revolution Is Love: A Year of Black Trans Liberation by
In June 2020, after a Black trans woman in Missouri and a Black trans man in Florida were killed just weeks apart, activists Qween Jean and Joela Rivera returned to the historic Stonewall Inn--site of the 1969 riots that launched the modern gay rights movement--where they initiated weekly actions known thereafter as the Stonewall Protests. Brought together by the urgent need to center Black trans and queer lives within the Black Lives Matter movement, a vibrant and radical community emerged. This book gathers twenty-four photographers who participated in these actions to share images and words on the demonstrations and their community at large, preserving this legacy as it unfolded. Through photographs, interviews, and text, Revolution Is Love celebrates the power of shared joy and struggle in trans community and liberation.
Sissy Insurgencies: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness by
In Sissy Insurgencies Marlon B. Ross focuses on the figure of the sissy in order to rethink how Americans have imagined, articulated, and negotiated manhood and boyhood from the 1880s to the present. Ross reconsiders several Black leaders, intellectuals, musicians, and athletes within the context of sissiness, from Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and James Baldwin to Little Richard, Amiri Baraka, and Wilt Chamberlain. Ross demonstrates that sissiness can be embraced and exploited to conform to American gender norms or disrupt racialized patriarchy. In this way, sissiness constitutes a central element in modern understandings of race and gender.
And the Category Is...: Inside New York's Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community by
A love letter to the legendary Black and Latinx LGBTQ underground subculture, uncovering its abundant legacy and influence in popular culture. What is Ballroom? Not a song, a documentary, a catchphrase, a TV show, or an individual pop star. It is an underground subculture founded over a century ago by LGBTQ African American and Latino men and women of Harlem. Arts-based and intersectional, it transcends identity, acting as a fearless response to the systemic marginalization of minority populations. Ricky Tucker pulls from his years as a close friend of the community to reveal the complex cultural makeup and ongoing relevance of house and Ballroom, a space where trans lives are respected and applauded, and queer youth are able to find family and acceptance.
¡Cuéntamelo!: Oral Histories by LGBT Latino Immigrants by
¡Cuéntamelo! is a stunning collection of bilingual oral histories and illustrations by LGBT Latinx immigrants who arrived in the U.S. during the 80s and 90s. Stories of repression in underground Havana in the 60s; coming out trans in Catholic Puerto Rico in the 80s; Scarface, female impersonators, Miami and the 'boat people'; San Francisco’s underground Latinx scene during the 90s and more. ¡Cuéntamelo! is bilingual. All stories in this book have both an English and Spanish version.
The Dream of a Common Movement: Selected Writings of Urvashi Vaid by
The Dream of a Common Movement collects essays, interviews, and speeches by the late feminist and civil rights activist Urvashi Vaid, whose pioneering writing and organizing over the course of four decades fundamentally shaped the LGBTQ movement.
Family Matters: Queer Households and the Half-Century Struggle for Legal Recognition by
In 1960, consensual sodomy was a crime in every state in America. Fifty-five years later, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples had the fundamental right to marry. In the span of two generations, American law underwent a dramatic transformation. Though the fight for marriage equality has received a considerable amount of attention from scholars and the media, it was only a small part of the more than half-century struggle for queer family rights. Family Matters uncovers these decades of advocacy, which reshaped the place of same-sex sexuality in American law and society—and ultimately made marriage equality possible. This book, however, is more than a history of queer rights. Marie-Amélie George reveals that national legal change resulted from shifts at the state and local levels, where the central figures were everyday people without legal training. Consequently, she offers a new way of understanding how minority groups were able to secure meaningful legal change.
Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution: An Oral History by
Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution: An Oral History is the very first comprehensive overview of the movement that defied both the music underground and the LGBT mainstream community: queercore. Through exclusive interviews with protagonists like Bruce LaBruce, G.B. Jones, Jayne County, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, film director and author John Waters, Lynn Breedlove of Tribe 8, Jon Ginoli of Pansy Division, and many more, alongside a treasure trove of never-before-seen photographs and reprinted zines from the time, Queercore traces the history of a scene originally "fabricated" in the bedrooms and coffee shops of Toronto and San Francisco by a few young, queer punks to its emergence as a relevant and real revolution.
Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism & Agender Identity by
Powerfully persuasive and thought-provoking, Ending the Pursuit asks us to reimagine sexuality, romance and gender without the borders imposed by society. How did asexual identity form? What is aromanticism? How does agender identity function? Researcher and writer Michael Paramo explores these misunderstood experiences, from the complex challenge of coming out to navigating the western lens of attraction. Expertly mapping their history, Paramo traces the emergence of vital online communities to the origins of the Victorian binaries that still restrict us today. With a groundbreaking blend of memoir and poetry, online articles and discussions, Ending the Pursuit is a much-needed addition to the cultural conversation. It encourages us to end the search for 'normalcy' and gives voice to an often-misunderstood community.
Fifty Years of Polyamory in America: A Guided Tour of a Growing Movement by
Fifty Years of Polyamory in America is a history of multiply committed relationships, group marriage, and group living in American over the last fifty years. It is based on the personal experiences of the authors, on extensive research of the movement, and on interviews with leaders in this movement.
You'll Do: A History of Marrying for Reasons Other Than Love by
A thought-provoking examination of the uniquely American institution of marriage, from the Colonial era through the #MeToo age. Americans hold marriage in such high esteem that we push people toward it, reward them for taking part in it, and fetishize its benefits to the point that we routinely ignore or excuse bad behavior and societal ills in the name of protecting and promoting it. The widely overlooked problem with this tradition is that individuals and society have relied on marriage to address or dismiss a range of injustices and inequities, from gender- and race-based discrimination, sexual violence, and predation to unequal financial treatment. Through revealing storytelling, the author builds a compelling case that when marriage is touted as "the solution" to such problems, it absolves the government, and society, of the responsibility for directly addressing them.
Need help finding something? Stuck on your research project? Want to suggest that we buy something for the Libraries collection or that we add something to this research guide? We got you!
We're excited to hear from you!