A collection of articles, interviews, essays, reviews, and poetry from the gay magazine “Christopher Street” features works by such noted authors as Christopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Kate Millett, May Sarton, and Pier Paolo Passolini
This riveting account of the transformation of the Danish painter Einar Wegener into Lili Elbe is a remarkable journey from man to woman. Einar Wegener was a leading artist in late 1920’s Paris. One day his wife Grete asked him to dress as a woman to model for a portrait. It was a shattering event…
Mountain Charley, or the Adventures of Mrs. E. J. Guerin, Who Was Thirteen Years in Male Attire. An Autobiography Comprising a Period of Thirteen Years Life in the States, California, and Pike’s Peak. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968. First Edition. Hardcover. The Western Frontier Library Vol. 40. xv, 112pp. Boards. Introduction by Fred…
Huckleberry Finn dressing as a girl is a famously comic scene in Mark Twain’s novel but hardly out of character—for the author, that is. Twain “troubled gender” in much of his otherwise traditional fiction, depicting children whose sexual identities are switched at birth, tomboys, same-sex married couples, and even a male French painter who impersonates…
Miss Ashley’s Odyssey is a voyage indeed. Told with frankness, humour, wit, and a total lack of self pity, April Ashley started out life as a boy in Liverpool, and became famous as Britain’s most glamorous sex change. It took courage and determination, and after I read this wonderful book I felt, well, if April…
Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to the Mid-Twentieth Century is a comprehensive and fascinating survey of the key figures in gay and lesbian history from classical times to the mid-twentieth century. Among those included are: * Classical heroes – Achilles; Aeneas; Ganymede * Literary giants – Sappho; Christopher Marlowe; Arthur Rimbaud;…
As we follow Achilles’ metamorphosis from wild boy to demure girl to lover to hero, Statius brilliantly illustrates a series of contrasting codes of behavior: male and female, epic and elegiac. This first full-length study of the poem addresses not only the narrative itself, but also sets the myth of Achilles on Scyros within a…
Orlando: A Biography is a novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 11 October 1928. Inspired by novelist Vita Sackville-West, Woolf’s lover, it is arguably one of her most popular novels; Orlando is a history of English literature in satiric form. The book describes the adventures of a poet who changes sex from man to…
Starting in the 1990’s, feminist and queer scholars frequently cited Woolf’s Orlando as an example of the potential of modernist experimentation to open up a space for the elliptical articulation of fluid genders and desires. This reading finds its best evidence in Orlando’s cross-dressed erotic pursuits. However, the text’s popularity has been on the wane…
This is the first introductory textbook intended for transgender/trans studies at the undergraduate level. The book can also be used for related courses in LGBTQ, queer, and gender/feminist studies. It encompasses and connects global contexts, intersecting identities, historic and contemporary issues, literature, history, politics, art, and culture. Ardel Haefele-Thomas embraces the richness of intersecting identities—how…