Best lgbt demographic studies according to redditors
We found 75 Reddit comments discussing the best lgbt demographic studies. We ranked the 40 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 75 Reddit comments discussing the best lgbt demographic studies. We ranked the 40 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
ha, back in high school we had the sensors on the books like public libraries, and my friends thought it would be hilarious to fuck with me. they slipped this book into my backpack when i wasn't looking, and watched from outside as the hilarity ensued when the librarian made me empty my backpack after i set off the alarms. the sight and sound of them laughing outside the library was enough to convince her that it was a joke, thankfully.
The debate has been going of for a long time in queer theory. You might be interested in researching essentialist/constructivist conceptions of sexuality. In the west, many of us are essentialist, insomuch as we believe there is such thing as a gay person. There is an essence to being gay, and you either are gay or you're not. The idea in modern times was first proposed by Karl Heinrich Ulrich, who was himself gay in the late 1800s. He referred to gay people as "urnings" which he describes as men with female spirits. He had a different word for lesbian. Later, Karl Maria Kertbenny, took the idea and came up with the word homosexual and from there, the academic Magnus Hirschfeld (also gay) gave the idea some academic legs.
Before that, there was no such concept as a "homosexual." There were men and there were women. And sometimes men slept with men and sometimes women slept with women, but those men would often go on to marry women or not and there was just much more fluidity. That's not to say that homosexuality was accepted back then, its just that the concept of same sex love being an immutable definitive trait wasn't a thing.
The politicization of sexuality made this worse. We adopted a narrative that we were "born this way." because it was easier to sell equal rights to the masses if we could tell them we couldn't control it.
Constructivists on the other hand, believe that sexuality is a social construct and that there is no such thing as a "gay person." There is just a person and they like what they like. And just like people's preferences for things, sometimes they change. And sometimes they don't. The reason that men are more rigidly gay or straight is a product of socialization. Notice that there is much more fluidity in female sexuality than male.
I remember when I was deciding to come out as gay, I recognized (and still do) that I am somewhat attracted to women. But that socially, it's much less likely I will find a wife if I date and fuck men, because women like your friend will always think that I'm secretly gay. I'm not secretly anything. If I like you, I like you! Similarly, in the gay community a lot of guys are put off by bi guys because they're really "straight" or they're "closet cases." Men are socialized to pick gay or straight and stick to it. Women, not so much. My lesbian roommate is avowedly lesbian and she fucks guys from time to time. She refuses to call herself bi. So be it.
So, yes... sometimes people can discover they're gay later in life.
I suggest
History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault
Queer by Choice by Vera Whisman
One Hundred Years of Homosexuality by David Halperin
I have started and erased this comment three times now.
Basically, I don't remember how or when I first realized trans men existed. There was someone on my freshman year of high school bus who was female assigned but male identified--he used to just tell people he was actually a boy and that was that. For some reason while I clearly remember that (lo these cough 20 years later), I only vaguely had a sense that kid had anything to do with me. I'm generally pretty avoidant, so I walled off that part for as long as I possibly could.
I remember meeting some trans kids at the Chicago pride parade in like 1997--but again, while some part of my brain understood superficially that they were some variety of trans, I wouldn't let myself process it at all. I think I posted on some planetout / AOL trans threads, but not from supportive or self-identifying place at all, but more of a "trans critical" place.
My freshman year of college I finally had semi-privacy and a fast internet connection in my own dorm room...but I don't remember using it to research trans issues at all. I was involved in ...Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco fan sites / list servs, and there were totally some trans folks on those, but I explained them away to myself as experimenting kids. HOW FUCKING IN DENIAL CAN YOU BE?????
That was the year Matthew Shepard was murdered, and I was on a small midwestern campus and was a super visible queer, and I remember we had a candlelight vigil and a guy in a pickup truck screamed at us, and for me being "gay" was more important socially that those weird gender rumblings that were going on. Strangely enough I briefly dated someone there who also went on to transition ftm, and we never even talked about what a few years later would take over our lives. lol.
At some point that same school year, I was back with my soft butch high school girlfriend (I was a big fan of butch-butch pairings), and we were in a Borders Bookstore in suburban Milwaukee and holding hands or whatever, and these two middle aged gay guys walked up to us and told us we were adorable and handed us a book they said would be "perfect" for us--it was called Dagger: On Butch Women (http://www.amazon.com/Dagger-Butch-Roxxie-Linnga-Due/dp/0939416824) and it was like a dollar or something because it was already a kind of old book (1994...and this would have been 1999) BUT AND HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART:
THERE WERE A WHOLE TWO CHAPTERS OR SO ABOUT TRANS MEN (were those gay guys my guardian angels???)
granted, why were trans men in a book about "butch women"--well, we could debate that, but it was definitely more of a 90s thing, and I can't explain it at all.
And that book had Michael Hernandez in it, and even then he was a big bad bald bearded dude, and I hadn't even realized you could take, like, testosterone and stuff. So that book was very valuable, though it also hindered a bit because it was already out of date and talked about things like mail-order pants stuffers made out of industrial foam that some dude in California would carve into a wang for you (I'm not even kidding) or Morris Designs surgical vests as binders. It was a far, far different world when we had to like send a check to a weird address we found in a book and hope they sent us the thing.
alright, this is already too long and too personal.
Get a job, save money, and make plans to be self sufficient, and get as far away from them as possible when you graduate from highschool and/or turn 18.
I also highly recommend Sarah Schulman's book [Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and It's Consequences]
(https://www.amazon.com/Ties-That-Bind-Homophobia-Consequences/dp/1595588167).
Know that you are one of thousands upon thousands of people who have been this, and that you are not alone.
> I've been really concerned I made a bad decision
It probably seemed the right thing to do at the time. And it most likely was the right thing to do then. Stuff changes as we learn more about ourselves. What was the right choice then won't be the right choice forever. Despite all our romance stories/fairy tales ending with "and they lived happily every after...", things don't happen that way.
I usually recommend some books on this subject. You are not the first woman to encounter this and will not be the last.
Some books that may help:
Living Two Lives,
Married Women Who Love Women,
Dear John, I love Jane and
Late Bloomers.
I should probably add these to the wiki.
If you are broke, put them on your Amazon wish list and PM it to me. 2 of my exes came out as lesbians.
insert link to the Amazon page for Queering Anarchism here
https://www.amazon.com/Queering-Anarchism-Addressing-Undressing-Desire/dp/1849351201/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488722684&sr=1-1
You might want to check out this book - it has some good tips for escaping from toxic relationships: https://www.amazon.com/Lesbian-Guide-Getting-Crazy-Making-Relationships-ebook/dp/B019XC9FME/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1571569350&sr=8-1
Here's my list so far. It's a mix of FTM-specific, general trans, and gender studies books, including essays, memoir, and more academic works. In no particular order:
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein
Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman
Nina Here Nor There by Nick Krieger
Female Masculinity by Judith Halberstam
Nobody Passes - Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Whipping Girl by Julia Serano
How Sex Changed: A History of Transexuality in the United States by Joanne Meyerowitz
Becoming a Visible Man by Jamison Green
Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer by Riki Wilchins
PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality edited by Carol Queen
Genderqueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary edited by Joan Nestle
From the Inside Out: Radical Gender Transformation, FTM and Beyond edited by Morty Diamond
Second Son by Ryan Sallans
Why are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
and the must-read fiction:
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
I'll edit this if I can find any others, I'm probably missing a couple. Been a big non-fiction reading year for me!
EDIT: Edited to add links, and a few more on my wish list I haven't picked up yet.
Letters for my Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect edited By Megan M. Rohrer, M.Div. & Zander Keig, M.SW.
That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men by Lori B. Girshick
Just Add Hormones: An Insider's Guide to the Transsexual Experience by Matt Kailey
The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male by Max Wolf Valerio
I see your point, but do you think that a bunch of queer kids sitting at a restaurant will even get on the news? The civil disobedience you're referring to in previous posts worked because the people doing it weren't supposed to be there - just existing in those spaces was enough to cause a commotion. Fortunately, we're not banned from CFA, so just sitting there won't be as shocking and thought provoking as it was in the 1960s.
Some LGBT people see themselves as virtually normal and want only to be assimilated fully into heterosexual society. Others of us, myself included, are uninterested in appearing "respectable" to the people that oppress us and would rather have our queerness acknowledged openly. I'm not going to tell you how you should live out your sexuality, but please try to see where we're coming from and why we don't think hiding our sexuality is a winning strategy for real progress.
Sources:
Michael Warner, gender theorist, against gay marriage for sexual liberation reasons, calls it “Trouble with Normal”http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674004412
The original “conservative” case for gay marriage on gay marriages being “virtually normal”http://www.amazon.com/Virtually-Normal-Andrew-Sullivan/dp/0679746145/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345952112&sr=1-1&keywords=virtually+normal+sullivan
A gay organization dedicated to social justicehttp://q4ej.org/
Organization that fights for “alternatives to marriage”http://www.unmarried.org/
Feminist perspective that argues against marriage, but for equalityhttp://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/08/27/equality-without-marriage/
Transgender activist Kate Bornstein on bullying, rather than gay marriage, should be a goal:http://katebornstein.typepad.com/kate_bornsteins_blog/2009/12/open-letter-to-lgbt-leaders-who-are-pushing-marriage-equality.html
Is Gay Marriage racist http://www.makezine.enoughenough.org/Is%20Gay%20Marriage%20Racist.pdf
Critics who are against gay marriage, but for social justice:http://www.amazon.com/Against-Equality-Queer-Critiques-Marriage/dp/0615392687/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345951108&sr=8-1&keywords=Against+Equality%3A+Queer+Critiques+of+Gay+Marriage
One cultural commentator who see gay marriage as a desire to conform:http://www.amazon.com/Why-Are-Faggots-Afraid-Objectification/dp/1849350884/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y
One article against gay marriage: Is the LGBT movement walking down the aisle to nowhere?http://inthesetimes.com/article/13466/beyond_gay_marriage/
Another gay activist against gay marriage:http://hivster.com/?p=6315
The rejecting and dehumanizing behavior that she is reportedly engaging in is the cause of those stereotypical gay behaviors. Parents repeatedly traumatizing their children does that.
Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences
If your wife can't resolve to not be evil then when your son goes into therapy as an adult the therapists will direct him to shun her and therefore you.
It's not normal to be abusive to one's children. It's unfortunately common.
It is normal to be gay. It's common. It's just not the majority.
Do we treat left handed people like gay people? Left handedness is a behavior.
The book appears real, with a listing on Amazon showing a publishing date of 1989. However, its importance seems highly exaggerated. The book only has 25 reviews on the website, and the majority of those are from just within the last few years, by conservatives complaining about it, and the book doesn't have an entry on Wikipedia. Again, not a definitive indication, but a pretty good one.
This is called shunning. Your parents are shunning you because of their own homophobia. By not acknowledging that you are gay, they don't have to confront their own homophobia.
There is a shame that you are feeling and that is because shunning is a manner in which your parents are choosing to say your sexuality does not matter, and does not exist and should not exist because it is wrong.
Yes, it will take time for them to deal with THEIR OWN issues around you being gay, but what needs to happen is you have to take back the power by talking about gay stuff, like your boyfriend, love of musicals, whatever, and not be afraid. If they disengage, call them out on it.
The coming out process is long and painful for us especially when we have homophobic parents. Triumphs are found in those little moments when you tell them about how much fun you had at the gay bar, or that you are going on a date with a guy you really like.
Here's a good book that helped me a lot to understand familial homophobia Ties That Bind.
When I initially came out, I was religious (Lutheran), and I actually came out with the help of my campus pastor in our Lutheran Student Community. I continued active participation in my religious community, and most of my pastors after that time were aware of my identity, so don't ever feel as if there's no place for you in religious communities. In the US, at least, mainline protestant denominations (Lutheran, Anglican/Episocopal, Presbyterian, UCC) often tend to be much more accepting than so-called "nondenominational" or Evangelical churches, but there aren't hard and fast guarantees.
(Just as full disclosure, I'm no longer religious, but it has nothing to do with my coming out, and much more to do with other philosophical changes and ideas.)
There has been a lot of good advice in this thread, so I really don't feel the need to repeat it. I do, however, want to share few resources that might be helpful:
In your situation, I understand it may be hard to get these books or read them, but if you can do so privately and safely, I'd highly recommend them as avenues for exploring your identity and giving you a theological and philosophical frame to think about your identity from. I'm not sure if you're worried about disapproval or punishment from divine or human sources when you say, "I'm afraid my own religion will punish me for something that I can't control," but in either case, you may find these helpful.
So far, it sounds like you're doing it RIGHT. It's important that you don't push her to do anything she's not comfortable with- where coming out is concerned, more is not necessarily better. She may need years of careful acclimation before she accepts the fact that she's queer, and reaches a point where she's okay with it. In the meantime, it may be true that even the thought of being inches away from another queer woman will drive her wild with confusing want and gut-churning terror.
I would recommend that you offer her resources to fuel her own, independent research, like the chat rooms she's already joining. Maybe some magazines she can read when the kids are asleep, or books of adorable coming-out stories. Make it clear that you support her exploring, or not exploring, these parts of herself. You're already doing a good job of not imposing your own agenda, so I say keep it up. (heh.)
When I realized I was queer, I burned two whole months of my life in the "HQ" section of my uni library, reading all the les/bi/an books I could find. I recommend the following to you and/or your lady. Also, my fedora's off to you, as you're clearly one upstanding fellow.
Coming-out stories to warm even the most closeted of hearts
Bisexuals narrate their lives
Studies show women's sexuality is more fluid, anyway
Hell yeah bisexual erotica
More where that came from
Hey, I did that whole thing a couple years ago at 32. Enjoy the exhilarating terror! It was all-consuming for me for a while, and I still get euphoria bumps of "holy shit I fucking love women" but I think that might just be what it feels like to actually be interested in people?? Who knew!
>Is there a handbook or something I could follow? /s
You joke, but Late Bloomers was recommended to me in a few places. I had a mixed reaction to it; I was hoping it'd have more stories (or any at all) from women (like me) who had just been in pure denial. If it matches your experience more closely, you may get a lot more out of it than I did. That said, it was good to read to help normalize what I was feeling. There are other, similar books on the 'Customers Also Bought' section, but this is the only one I personally read.
Aside from that, I immersed myself in other gay-lady media: movies, TV, blogs, articles, tumblrs, whatever. I dabbled around a bit on personals sites, and enjoyed how normal/good chatting ladies up felt even if the meetings were meh. You've also got the added hook of having kids -- I don't know of any to refer, but I'd have to think there are lesbian parenting forums out there full of women with your experience.
Good luck, have fun, relish the feeling.
I haven't read any really academic type stuff, but I have read some pretty great books of a radically queer nature.
I just finished reading From Transgender to Transhuman: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Form and would highly recommend it. However, definitely go for the hard copy rather than the kindle version, as the etext is marred with formatting issues. In this expanded second edition of The Apartheid of Sex, she advocates an end to the legal separation of people based on genitals as well as even cooler things in the future as technology further erodes the reason for divisions between people based on genitals, or even social roles or meat/non-meat status. Her experience as a lawyer really shows in her ability to make concise, effective arguments for her points.
I would also suggest Whipping Girl by Julia Serano. I don't know if it's really that radical, but her understanding and explanation of sexism and it's impact on all people is pretty damn awesome in my opinion.
Also, for a more pot pourri style smattering of essays and such, I'd recommend GENDERqUEER, voices from beyond the sexual binary and Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation.
This is a book we used in one of my sociology of gender classes.
>You haven't proven that
For fuck's sake.
>Fone reveals how and why same-sex desire has long been the object of legal, social, religious, and political persecution.
Look at the word in bold you big fucking dummy. Persecution is an infinitely broader concept than irrational fear. It is looking at the persecution of same sex relationships and using "homophobia" as a catch all title. I do not get why you are making this so fucking difficult. "-phobia" has, for a long fucking time, been used in various political contexts to refer to persecution that doesn't necessarily stem from irrational fear. It took me twenty seconds to find an example. For your sake, here's another:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spectacle-Violence-Homophobia-Knowledge-Corporealities/dp/041518956X/ref=sr_1_22?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463864250&sr=1-22&keywords=homophobia
and another:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Love-Homophobia-Bisexual-Transgender/dp/1873328575/ref=sr_1_43?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463864338&sr=1-43&keywords=homophobia
>even addressing it as part of the problem justifies the title under the old definition.
But that's true of this definition of Islamophobia too.
>titles aren't 100% accurate representation of a book.
No, they're just hand-picked by the author for the sake of summarizing what the book is about.
Want to see something scarier? This is something that has been happening for awhile, but most aren't even aware of it, and it's literal propaganda more or less.
https://www.amazon.com/After-Ball-America-Conquer-Hatred/dp/0385239068/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=After+the+Ball&qid=1551050012&s=gateway&sr=8-6
[Out and Running: Gay and Lesbian Candidates, Elections, and Policy Representation (American Governance and Public Policy series)]
(http://www.amazon.com/Out-Running-Candidates-Representation-Governance/dp/1589016998/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334884978&sr=1-1&tag=bookforyoums-20)
> So why do you feel that if you can't have kids you shouldn't get marriage
What is the purpose of marriage if not to have a couple capable of procreation joined for life?
> Based on your use of the words sanctimony I would guess it's due to religious beliefs, which is fine it's your right to believe whatever you like, but does that give you the right to stop others from getting married?
No. I am but one vote and one opinion. The decision about who should be married and who should not is a government decision that is swayed by a majority vote.
> What negative impacts on society will there be if gay marriage is legalised?
Think back to the 1950s, when illegitimacy and cohabitation were relatively rare. At that time many asked how one young woman having a baby out of wedlock or living with an unmarried man could hurt their neighbours. Now we know the negative social effects these two living arrangements have spawned: lower marriage rates, more instability in the marriages that are enacted, more fatherless children, increased rates of domestic violence, increased modern poverty (that is, those within modern societies living below the poverty line), and a vast expansion of government welfare expenses.
Another effect will be that sexual fidelity will be detached from the commitment of marriage. That's not just my opinion. Andrew Sullivan, who is (according to his website) a Gay Rights Advocate, wrote a book called Virtually Normal and in it he wrote "Among gay male relationships, the openness of the contract makes it more likely to survive than many heterosexual bonds...There is more likely to be a greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman. … Something of the gay relationship's necessary honesty, its flexibility, and its equality could undoubtedly help strengthen and inform many heterosexual bonds.".
I read that to say "Even if we gay men do marry, it won't mean anything, because we always have a desire to look and play outside the martial bounds". But you'll probably say I'm taking that out of context....
So let's go medical. Let's look at how the Society of the Protection for Unborn Children say that Same-sex 'marriage' has negative effects and cites a lot of International research.
I hope you don't mind me simply copy pasting my previous answer.
It's a cultural theory which, for many people (myself not included) , is closely tied to the concepts of post-scructuralism. I guess the Wikipedia article would be a good start? I personally got into the topic through Nikki Sullivan's book.
There was literally a book written about this over 15 years ago.
good starting points can be found
http://www.amazon.com/Queer-Theory-Gender-Instant-Primer/dp/1555837980/ref=pd_sim_b4
and
http://www.amazon.com/GenderQueer-Voices-Beyond-Sexual-Binary/dp/1555837301/ref=pd_sim_b5
although of course the real issues are far more diverse than two starter level books can convey.
Books:
Blog: In Focus Blog from bisexual.org
Podcasts:
There's always an in-between option, or a both option. You may wish to check out the book Dagger: On Butch Women which, in spite of its name, covers a good range of butch afab gender identity.
>Bible-believing
Demonstrate it.
> At that point it's a much more nuanced debate that requires a careful look at the whole of scripture,
It's so obvious just reading Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. that homosexuality is a wicked sin in of itself. Cultural peer pressure to accept homosexuality is purely the result of what can be accurately called a psyop. Almost none of what the LGBT crowd proposes is based on logical propositions derived from fundamental principles of truth. Rather, it's based on emotional manipulation (think how the word bigot is used), collective shame (think what happened with Chick-Fil-A and the author, Orson Scott Card), and repetitive propaganda dissemination techniques (homosexual characters in sitcoms, now children cartoons, to the point where "it's not a huge deal).
Think, a few decades ago, homosexuals weren't as ostracized as previously, but it wasn't culturally condemned to hate or revile them. At this time, people who can be described as propagandists and agitators wrote about using effective propaganda techniques in order to switch the moral paradigm. Why is it that you can look back on the past today, and think of how "backwards" people of the past were? It has nothing to do with us being "better," it's because the paradigm of morality and tradition was different. Because moral paradigms are never intrinsically true or universal, even if they're hypothetically based on true and universal morals.
The most recent publishing I would begin with is The Tolerance Trap or Queer by Choice.
In summary, they represent changes made in Queer studies of the past five years which criticize how the current LGBT movement have become severely misguided outside the original challenges of gender and sexuality offered by LGBT academics during 1950-80s, which were not motivated by genetic determinism [born-this-way argument].
Essentially the LGBT political movement in the early 1900's rested on this notion that sexuality is biological truth, despite scientists never fully advocating this and evidence that early environmental factors still play a role; this notion became internalized and unchallenged leading to sexuality developing into a comprehensive biological identity similar to being a women or african-american. The issue still remains that no conclusive evidence has proven that sexuality is anything more than genetically predisposed (with environmental factors also having influence). A double-edged sword comes along with that since many undesirable things, such as schizophrenia and alcoholism, also have genetic predispositions.
These newer books, as well as contemporary Queer theorists in their line, want to challenge the moral claims of sexuality and develop out Queer morality that have nothing to do with biological aspects. In effect sexuality could be a personal choice rather than a genetic punishment. Some queer theorists I have talked with are critical towards the LGBT categorization system, which require and reinforce the uneven foundations of genetic determinism for authentic meaning. Personally, I believe the system hyperinflated nonsense; sexual preferences should not constitute personal identity in that degree.
Some earlier works I would recommend is "Compulsory Heterosexuality" by Adrienne Rich or The History of Sexuality by Foucault. But I would add that Foucault's historical record [which has some problems] is not as important as his critique; One Hundred Years of Homosexuality by Halperin is seen as the better alternative to defend Foucault's views. These theories, however, are within the postmodern era and carry significant problems that are associated throughout the tradition.
I highly recommend Sex and Social Justice by Martha Nussbaum, which argues that so far our history has supervised sexuality rather than proven anything resembling moral truth.
Umm.. they are concerned about that because it's actually been done. Hell, there is an entire book about how to do it. https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Love-J-Z-Eglinton/dp/1589636376
Good read.
I read this book many years ago and in one of the essays he starts off stating, in effect, that the most prejudiced people against any minority are members of that minority. It was a bombshell in my brain at the time but I've experienced that to be true. Among gays, racial minorities, religious groups, etc., the most venomous and vociferous prejudice will come from those inside the group, not outside.
Here's a good one that offers a variety of perspectives on the issue.
http://www.amazon.com/GenderQueer-Voices-Beyond-Sexual-Binary/dp/1555837301
Link to book
There you go, you're welcome!