Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Matt Bernstein Sycamore

A collection of essays inspired by the issues presented in the award-winning movie TransAmerica and the HBO series Middle Sexes explores the modern world's notions of belonging, identity, and community, in an anthology that challenges counterculture perceptions and the ways in which acceptance standards are set. Original.

Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity

Nobody Passes

That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation

As an assimilationist gay mainstream wields increasing power, the focus of gay struggle has become limited to marriage, military service and adoption. By the twisted priorities of the gay mainstream, it's ok to oppose a queer youth centre because it might interfere with property values, or to fight against the inclusion of transgendered people under hate crime legislation because this might not appeal to straight voters. That's Revolting shows us what the new queer resistance looks like. It also challenges the commercialised, commodified and objectified views of today's gays.

Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation

That's Revolting!

A book of accounts by sex workers which offers a,window into their lives and the lives of their,clients, the sex industry and society as a whole.,Sex workers usually tell each other bar-stories to,rant, brag, process - in this book these usually,private conversations become public. Not another,Why-I-Became-a-Prostitute book, this book,provocatively turns the tables on the buyers of,sex, giving the reader a window into the lives and,experiences of sex workers.

Sex Workers Write about Their Clients

Tricks and Treats

Queer survivors piece together the clues to discover their own lives! Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving goes beyond the recovery narrative to create a new queer literature of investigation, exploration, and transformation. Twenty-six stories illuminate the reality of growing up in fear, struggling to rebuild lives damaged by sexual, physical, and/or emotional abuse. The book explores how abuse turns queer survivors—male, female, and transgendered—into healers, heartbreakers, and homicidal maniacs, presenting brilliant stories that sear and soar. Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving addresses all forms of abuse head-on, representing a cross-section of queer survivors in terms of race, class, ethnicity, education, origin, sexuality, and gender. Contributors use their own life experiences to create a book that takes back control from well-meaning “outsiders,” as they recount the daily struggle to overcome the damage done to their minds, bodies, and spirits in a world that denies their gender, sexual, and social identities. From the editor: “Dangerous Families consists entirely of writing by survivors of childhood abuse. That's right—no therapists analyzing our plight, no talk-show hosts exploiting us—just survivors, exploring our complicated, frightening, and fulfilling lives. These stories dispense with the usual technique of carefully massaging the reader's fragile worldview before plunging this unsuspecting innocent into a world of horror. They go right to the horror, the beauty, and the joy, often throwing the reader off-guard, revealing layers of meaning before the reader can step back.” Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving is an anthology of 26 true stories of growing up queer in families that magnify the horrors of the outside world instead of offering protection. The book is an essential read for therapists, caseworkers, cultural studies specialists, and anyone struggling to survive childhood abuse.

Matt Bernstein Sycamore

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