LGBTQ – Reading for you

Fighting for LGBTQ rights

Lgbtq Social Movements by Lisa M. Stulberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lisa Stulberg told me, when I interviewed her on KKUP radio, the other day, that the reason that she wrote this text book was that she found it hard to teach LGBTQ social studies, and history without it. Most of her students knew about the fight for gay marriage, or may have heard of Stonewall, because she was teaching not far from that famous bar, but they couldn’t tell her much more than that, so she wrot this book.

She has divided it into the five major movements in LGBTQ rights in the United States. These movements were: Before and after Stonewall, the AIDS activism, Marriage polticits, LGBTQ Youth, and the “b” and “t” as she calls bringing in Bisexuals and Transgenders. As she explained, although we currently call it LGBTQ, in the early days it was just G, as in Gay. Then, later, Lesbians were added, then Bisexuals then Transgenders, and Queer.

What she found most interesting, when she was doing research to write the book, was that it was World War II that brought about the biggest change to the LGBTQ community. It brought large numbers of men and women together, where they might not have ever met, and a lot of them found each other, and when the war was over, didn’t want to go “back to the farm” so to speak.

She also brought up, how, there were always those that thought if they just looked and talked, and acted as straight as possible, so that they wouldn’t be that different, that they would be accepted for who they were, versus the parts of the movement who felt that was not the right way to go. She called that the difference between Assilimlationists and liberationists, and how that is common in all social movements such as the civil rights movement and the women’s rights movements.

Well written, comprehensive, non-dry book. I can only hope that it finds its way into many classrooms.

Thanks to Gail Leandare Public Relations for providing this book for an honest review.

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Figure skating and coming out

Spinning by Tillie Walden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The problem with memoirs, if the author is being true to themselves, is that things don’t always happen in a neat, perfectly rounded up way, the way they do in fictionalized stories. As I was reading this, I didn’t realize it was a memoire, and I kept wondering why the author didn’t expound on what she was writing about, give more details, but the author is in her early 20s. This is her fifth book. As far as I can tell, she is entirely self-taught, so for me to be asking for things that she probably hasn’t finished processing is a bit far fetched.

I bring this up, because, for example, she mentions that she realized she was a lesbian early on, but didn’t know what to do about it. Didn’t know how long to hide it. Didn’t know, exactly how to act on it. She says she realized that she got into figure skating because of the love that her first instructor showed towards her, the mother figure she wished she had, and she realizes that is the only reason she continued to skate, as she was still looking for that love.

This is a sad, longing story, of a girl lost in the world of figure skating, going through the motions, but not happy about it.

And this is a girl that at some point realized that art was what gave her the love and passion and joi de vivre that she once felt for figure skating, and so abandoned it to focus on her art.

I can’t wait to see what she writes next. Deep, interesting read.

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Banning books, and burning books

The Year They Burned the Books by Nancy Garden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I studied journalism, in college, this was before personal computers became common. There were computers in the work room, where we could enter our stories, but these were before the mouse, and you had to code bolds, and italics, and fun stuff like that. This was before what became known as Desktop Publishing, so all the text were printed out and pasted onto the sheet, and then sent off to the print shop to put together.

I bring this up, because, kids-these-days™ probably think all the discussions about layout and printing and such might seem out of date, and since this book was written in the 90s, it does feel a bit out of date. It was before the Internet had become so big, before Wikipedia, before most of the websites that are out there today. That is why the kids, in this book, have to go to the library to research newspapers. It seems like another world, and yet, it was less then a quarter century ago.

But, while the technology might be old fashioned, the message of this book, is, unfortunately still around, that there is a group of conservatives who feel they have to impose their brand of morality on the rest of the world.

And their version of morality says that teens should not have sex, should not be gay, and should not even know about either sex, or homosexuality, because that will protect them.

I wish I could say the fight is old, and doesn’t happen any more, but it does.

There is a great line in the book, after the majority of parents vote to not offer sex education or “certain” books in the library.

“The opinion of the majority is important,” Mr. Just said. “But the majority must never be allowed to tyrannize the minority–nor must the minority be allowed to tyrannize the majority.”

Great book, though it started a little slow. By the time I got half way through my heart was breaking for the closeted teens, and their fight with the family-values parents.

If you want to read other books with teens, censorship, and “morality” minded parents, I would suggest Americus.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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