lambdalibrary

[lambdalibrary]

Hi! I came across your review of Manhunt and wanted to ask a question. I have never read it or even heard about it before today but I'm a bookbinder and a friend of mine asked me to bind a copy for their partner. I'm wondering what would make a good book cover for this. If there are any symbols or any particular evocative scenes or settings. Thanks for reading!

Oh god its been a long time since i read manhunt but im flipping through my copy to try and brainstorm and heres what im coming up with

The scene breaks in the book are all the venus symbol and i think it could work i mean the book is about transmisogyny and about who gets to be considered a woman who gets pushed out of womanhood through violence and theres a lot you can do to a venus symbol to represent that even if its just letting the symbol stand by itself

Estrogen and testosterone play an important part in the narrative considering anyone with enough testosterone in their system becomes a monster. So robbie the trans man character cant take t, beth and fran need estrogen as trans women, and so does every post menopausal cis woman and women with hormone imbalances. So i think you could go with the chemical structure of estrogen as an option.

The original cover is also good if you need inspiration considering well balls play an important part in synthesizing that estrogen and i love the way it evokes that shape with plums, already a euphemism for balls and you could pick something else and go for a similar idea

as for settings and scenes

The first scene i reached where i felt like i was really on board with this book was chapter 7 where beth and fran need to restring beths bow, their only weapon, as a group of monstrous men are rapidly approaching. Its so tense and where the narrative really starts to show the tension between fran and beth and i cant stress how effective it is.

This is towards the end of the novel but theres fort dyke for settings. The whole book takes place is Massachusetts but fort dyke is along the coast and the first place that actually feels safe, which is why it's where the climax takes place. I think you could get some beautiful ocean and beach landscapes if you wanted to go for that

I hope whatever you go with it turns out great and you end up checking out the book if you think its up your alley :)

[lambdalibrary]

Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones

Content Warnings

transmisogyny, abuse, alcoholism, putting self harm here just to be safe honestly

Link

Download it here. There's no audio version yet from what I can tell.

Summary

This short novella covers the events pre and post outbreak of a virus that causes people to stop producing any kind of sex hormones like estrogen or testosterone from the perspective of its patient zero.

Thoughts

I loved this just so much I thought it was really smart and honest and I always need more trans apocalypse/horror stories. If you liked Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin I would definitely recommend this as a companion piece to it. They're both drawing on similar themes of inter community violence and connnection, the need for hormones for both cis and trans people, the construction of gender, and survival for trans women in both the real world and in fiction.

The worst thing I can say is that I wish so much this wasn't a novella and was a full fledged novel. I wanted to spend more time with these characters and the way the virus changed the world and the way we all construct gender. What was there was great but I just wanted more, especially more of what the first chapter brought to the table. The exploration of how even in a world where no one naturally produces hormones, people still have ideas of what being cis and being trans means in a way that's also tied up in classism and transmisogyny. Estrogen gets rationed out for cis women to increase the birth rates, and cis men over inject testosterone to preform masculinity in even more drastic ways. People who can't afford pure hormones take riskier methods that create an underclass of trans women still because our cultural ideas of gender are so ingrained with transmisogyny even in a world where there are no "natural" genders.

[lambdalibrary]

We need a digital archive of LGBTQ+ works of art, science, and every other conceivable work we can share between each other because we are beyond the genocide warning level in most countries in the west and they're already trying to purge us from libraries.

[lambdalibrary]

I hate you America with all my heart

[lambdalibrary]

My Brother's Husband | Otōto no Otto

Content Warnings

Homophobia

Links

A link to Penguin Random House where you can buy the volumes. You can also find read them on manga sites, but the fan translators stopped when the volumes were officially translated in order to help promote the work. That's only for English however. Sites I've checked have the full work translated in Spanish and Portuguese if you are fluent.

Tagame's website where you can see his other work. This link is NSFW

Tagame's Twitter. This link is also NSFW.

Something I'd like to say while linking to these sites and before I talk about the manga itself is how different My Brother's Husband is from Tagame's other work. My Brother's Husband is a light hearted slice of life manga, and Tagame's other works are very explicit. I've seen other people explain this difference before they recommend people check out Tagame's other work in a way that I would say feels very judgemental, if not homophobic, even if the people saying it are LGBT themselves.

While I obviously think its good to warn people that his other work is NSFW and therefore may not be what they're looking for, its important not to end up putting his NSFW stuff down in the process. In fact, I think its important that his other work is so explicit. Sexuality after all, is about sexuality. LGBT erotica and pornography is just as important to LGBT history and culture as anything else. Plus, it's not like My Brother's Husband doesn't have a few panels of barely covered men anyways.

Summary

My Brother's Husband is a slice of life manga about Origuchi Yaichi who has to deal with both his homophobia and the death of his brother Ryoji and what family means as Ryoji's husband Mike Flanagan comes to visit.

Thoughts

Definitely check this out if you're a fan of manga especially slice of life manga or you're just looking for something short and sweet. It's just really cute and I mean sometimes that's all you need. That's not to say there's not substance here because there is, its just explored through a more lighthearted genre.

Like there's the idea of culture and tradition that's explored. It's important not only that Mike is gay but that he's also white. That Ryoji went to Canada to be himself and died there versus in Japan. While this is a large part of the manga, I don't feel qualified enough on the LGBT culture of Japan to go into detail on it myself though, especially when comparing countries based on their LGBT rights records can contribute to pinkwashing.

The only real negative thing I can say is that My Brother's Husband might be a bit too...educational focused? Like I as a gay person don't need a chapter to inform me why other LGBT people might stay in the closet, but a cishet person might. But that's not even a negative thing, that's even part of the reason it exists to help educate people about gay issues in Japan. But it never educates from...for lack of a better term, a cishet gaze? Obviously partially because the author himself is gay but even though the narrator is not it just never slips into treating Mike as a purely educational tool. He's his own character, just like everyone else in the manga.

[lambdalibrary]

Loving Her

Triggers

domestic violence (including physical violence), stalking, rape, car accidents, racism and racial slurs, homophobia, child death, and alcohol just so much alcohol

Summary

Published in 1974, Loving Her is known for being the first novel depicting an interracial lesbian romance between a black woman and a white woman. Renay starts the novel in an abusive relationship to her husband, Jerome Lee, who she married young. To make money to support her daughter she starts working at a club as a pianist in a majority white club, where she meets and starts a relationship with a white woman named Terry. The novel covers their relationship, which is greatly affected and sometimes strained by racism, homophobia, class, and Renay's husband.

Links

Openlibrary link (audio available)

A link to a PDF of Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins. Chapter 4 "Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images" is where I first heard of Loving Her and would recommend reading the whole book, but especially this chapter, as it outlines a lot of the concepts this book touches upon.

Thoughts

This is a book I wanted to like more than I did, unfortunately. I still think its worth reading, especially considering the time it was published and the fact that we still don't have a lot of books like this 50 years later that address the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Unfortunately, Loving Her doesn't really seem to do much but introduce these ideas in the narrative.

As an example, one conflict is that Renay as a black lesbian feels conflicted and lonely entering the mostly (when its not entirely) white LGBT scenes around her. She has to reconcile both her race and her sexuality in spaces that will accept or understand one but not the other. Especially when she's dealing with very racialized homophobia even internally. I would recommend reading the chapter I linked above as it will explain ideas of black matriarchs and the way black women aren't allowed to be feminine in the same way white women are way better than I could.

So when Shockley introduces Clarence Wigginstone, a black gay man also in an interracial relationship, I expected him to be a major character and almost a foil to Renay. But he only shows up for one scene to bond with Renay over their similar situations before disappearing for the rest of the novel. Loving Her is obviously focused on lesbian relationships, but once Shockley introduces this idea of black gay men she has an opportunity to expand the scope of her themes. But she doesn't beyond one short scene. There's a lot of examples of Shockley putting these threads in the novel and never really pulling on them as much as she could.

You've also got Renay's daughter Denise. Spoilers in this paragraph, just in case, although I don't think for books like this it really affects enjoyment. Not only is Renay a lesbian, she's also a mother. And this is the 1970s. She's got to worry about if her daughter will accept her and her new relationship with a woman, keeping custody of her daughter, and her daughter's safety. While Renay struggles with this its often internally. Which in a novel is perfectly reasonable, the themes the ideas they're still there. But there never really reaches a climax. Renay never really explains whats going on to anybody, least of all her daughter. In fact, Denise is gone for most of the novel at Renay's mother's house allowing Renay more freedom, especially in her relationship and education. When the novel does reach the climax of Renay's divorce from her abusive husband and then dealing with the fallout, it happens off screen. Renay gets a call from her mother informing her that Denise was killed in a car accident while her ex-husband was driving. Afterwards, the audience gets more scenes from Terry's point of view about Renay's despair and depression than from her own. And then we switch to Terry's point of view entirely while Renay goes to a funeral we don't get to see and then disappears for months to bring herself back together. So while Renay might be reckoning with her issues, the audience doesn't get to see it in favor of Terry missing her, which is strange to say the least. It would have been more engaging to follow Renay, who not only lost her child, she never got to be honest with her.

The darkly ironic freedom Denise's death grants Renay is never fully explored either. What I mean is, Renay was practically forced into an abusive marriage with her rapist because she became pregnant. It destroyed her life until she could leave her husband and focus on her goals and aspirations again. Not that Renay doesn't love her daughter, we see lots of sweet scenes of not only Renay but Terry doting on her, but that Renay also sees reminders of her husband in her features and can't exist honestly in her relationship with Terry while Denise is around and unaware. Denise's death can be symbolic of the last link to her old life being broken, with nothing tying her to her old marriage and her free to pick up her life with music where it was interrupted by her pregnancy. Sure these aren't exactly comfortable thoughts, but its something the book really could have dived into if it was able to tighten its focus on Renay, Denise, and Terry. Instead Denise dies, how and with what Renay struggles with we don't get to see the full extent of, and in the end she simply appears to Terry at Christmas, ready again to resume her life where it was interrupted last. Which is unfortunate, because the scenes where Renay reflects on her life are the best ones and really explore the Black feminist ideas in this book.

I still this Loving Her is worth reading, its just somewhat rougher than I expected and I'd love to hear about other peoples experiences and thoughts about it.

[lambdalibrary]

btw im not dead sorry i just havent been reading djjqbsbskss i will get back to it eventually :)

[lambdalibrary]

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

Triggers

rape and sexual slavery, abuse, childhood sexual assault and child marriage, suicide, child death, homo/biphobia, a bit of transphobia, misogyny, religion, racism, a character is drugged against their will, and I honestly would kind of describe it as a small forcefem section at the ending?

Summary

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is a post apocalyptic gendercide novel. An unknown virus killed almost all of humanity, where women and children had a higher fatality rate, leaving basically a ten to one ratio of men to women. Because this is a gendercide novel it explores ideas of gender and patriarchy in a world where society has completely collapsed, the triggers above should give you some information as to how those ideas are explored. Because of those triggers we see women in this novel deal with this danger in their own ways, with the protagonist dressing and acting as a man throughout the novel.

Specific to this novel though, is the topic of birth and pregnancy. Not only were women particularly effected by the virus, but the infant mortality rate increased to 100%. So, the titular unnamed midwife, while scavenging for supplies like any post apocalyptic protagonist also scavenges for methods of birth control and abortion. For obvious reasons, it's refreshing to see media treat birth control and abortion as lifesaving healthcare.

Links

Openlibrary link (audio book available)

Meg Elison's website featuring her other works

The YouTube video I heard about this book from, which includes other bisexual book recommendations if you'd like to check it out :)

Thoughts

So this is a book I really enjoyed but not for any of the reasons people will recommend this book. Except for maybe the approach to birth control and abortion I mentioned in the summary. What I liked is how granular the details about survival are, the day to day life after the apocalypse, which I thought was written really well. For me that's something that really pulls me into the world and the conflict, but I can definitely see that going the opposite way for others, in that it could be too slow or repetitive.

I also really liked the occasional changes in perspective. We as the reader, despite the framing device of the midwife's journal, aren't always in her head. We get snippets of writing from other characters who cross paths with the midwife and later find out how their stories ended after they left her, which expanded the plot and the rest of the world in a nice way. It allows us to see even more of the reactions to the collapse of society than we would otherwise get which is important when you're examining that as the central idea of your novel, especially in regards to how the collapse of society would affect women.

And here's where I'm going to get into the things I'm more ambivalent to negative about, which are also the reasons people will tell you to read this book and others like it.

Again this is a gendercide novel, where not only has society collapsed, it has collapsed and left more men than women. Without a coherent civilization, people are living solely to survive or solely for pleasure. But since this is a world where women are rare, violent misogyny has come out in full force. And I'm not sure how much I like this framework, which you see often in these novels, to analyze patriarchy and misogyny.

Two, caveats here: one, this is not me going #notallmen which will hopefully already come through if I phrase things the way I want them but I want to put that up front. Two, I don't really care about spoilers but the rest of the review will contain spoilers from here on out for those who do. I would recommend going in spoiler free but also it's impossible for me to analyze the things I want to without at least vaguely discussing middle portions of the novel.

Okay. So. When we talk about post apocalyptic novels, we're often dealing with authors saying intentionally or not, that this is what humans are like without society. Often, it's humans at their worst, desperate to survive at any cost and sometimes contrasted with people trying to rebuild society in the way they see fit.

When there's a feminist angle to this premise and especially when there's the imbalanced ratio of men to women you see in gendercide novels, we're then discussing specifically men and their misogyny at its worst.

Without society in this novel, we see men within months of the virus decimating humanity viewing women as literal commodities to be traded like food and water, forcing women into sexual slavery, and running after the protagonist to kidnap her and do god knows what the second they see she's a woman.

And here's where I'm conflicted. Obviously, misogyny and problems like human trafficking, rape, and domestic abuse are already common today and I'm not disputing that these issues would get worse with any kind of horrific disaster. We already see that too. But its important to make a distinction between misogyny caused by an array of societal conditions and pressures, and it being inherent.

Obviously these men were alive before the virus, and while society may not be acting on them at the present, they're still carrying over the same values until they come in conflict with them. But what they represent is the equation of men without society, and often men without women. Which makes them desperate and violent for any woman in this story. To me, I feel conflicted because as its presented in the novel, its not bioessentialist, but it doesn't seem to push back on that idea very hard either. Instead it seems to say that this is the eventual outcome of every man, even the ones who are nice to the protagonist. For example, we see the protagonists one time love interest or well, fuckbuddy is more accurate, who once brought her books only written by women end up marrying a child bride he rescued and once treated like his daughter once his wife dies. The theme is that while it may take some time, sex is such a priority to men that they will seek it no matter how violent and disgusting the ways eventually because of their misogyny and inability to see women as human, rendering them interchangeable. And I'm not sure how well that works as a framework. I think its more important in feminist works to discuss not how society holds men's misogyny back, but how it enforces it instead.

And I think I wouldn't have such a problem with the examples I gave if Elison did not also show the way society enforces misogyny very clearly. One section of the novel has the protagonist stumble upon a community of Mormons, still clinging to their religion and way of life in the middle of the hell around them. That includes enforcing gender roles and subservience in the few women in the community. In fact, the situation around them makes them enforce those roles harder in the name of safety. And its a perfect example of showing society and especially religiously enforced misogyny. Which, for obvious reasons, feel way more important to discuss, but its only a portion of the novel.

While we're talking about this novel's approach to gender, I'd also like to say I'm ambivalent on how Elison approaches her protagonist's gender as well. What I expected going in was much less groundbreaking than what I got. The protagonist never really felt like anything more than a cis woman to me personally. In fact, there's very little reflection on her own gender, even though she's full time presenting as a man for her own safety. And it never felt like anything more than that to me. I'm putting the nonbinary tag anyways because I'm not sure, I think this could read differently for other people than it did for me and they might appreciate it more. Other trans people never show up in the novel, except for offhand mentions of them existing and a very...unclear situation at the end that made me put forcefem in the trigger warnings. I wouldn't say this is exactly a problem in the novel, just a blind spot that I think could have been more explored. I can't lie, I was comparing this to Manhunt a lot as a was reading, which is why I wanted more on the subject of gender and gender identity specifically in this world.

One last thing I want to add as a warning is that and I feel like I shouldn't be the one to say this as I am also white, but the writing at times felt very white when it came to characters of color. Its nothing that hasn't been seen before, but I felt like I should warn for it. Especially when there's a very egregious example where the protagonist asks herself if she's wandered into Saudi Arabia when she steps into the Mormon community which, like... just don't.

This is definitely a book which left me very conflicted, but in a way that's good. It's stuck with me, I finished this book weeks ago and I just now finished the review because I kept thinking about how I wanted to phrase things, whether I was reading it right, what I was really saying and what the book was really saying. I think that was worthwhile. Or at least it made me ramble a lot oh my god.

[lambdalibrary]

have you read Valencia, by Michelle Tea?

I have not but its been added to the to read list :)

Heres the openlibrary link for anyone who wants to read it :)

[lambdalibrary]

Sex Crime Panic

I'm going to reiterate this in the triggers section but this book deals heavily with severe sexual abuse of a child and child death including on the cover and while I won't describe anything in detail here I would recommend not reading further if you feel you cannot handle it.

Triggers

child death, sexual assault and abuse of a child, racism, ableism, homophobia, mental hospitals and forced hospitalization, police entrapment, some transphobia in the ending section

Summary

Sex Crime Panic is about exactly what the title says. This is a non fiction true crime book more about the consequences of trying to solve a crime and the climate of the period than the crime itself.

In 1955 through 56 there were two horrific and still unsolved murders of eight year old Jimmy Bremmers and later not quite two years old Donna Sue Davis that shocked Sioux City and the surrounding areas. Because the crimes were so shocking and awful the local legislature and police force were determined to do anything they could to wrap the case up quickly and look like they were doing something productive while still never actually solving the case.

This resulted in a botched trial against Ernest Tripplett which covers the first large chunk of the book as the authorities tried to pin the crime on him due to a combination admitted homosexual tendencies as well as marijuana usage and his life as a drifter. From there, with the link to the murders and homosexuality established and a new law allowing for more "preemptive" lock ups of sexual deviants, there were two round ups of gay men in the surrounding areas. They would be sent to a mental facility with no basis but their sexuality to keep them there until they were cured, effectively indefinitely. This lock up and its consequences on the men and views of homosexuality is what the rest of the book covers, all while pointing out the ineffectiveness of these methods.

Links

Openlibrary Link (audiobook available)

While this podcast does not address LGBT issues, In the Dark Season One, covers the death of Jacob Wetterling, which also lead to legislation that created the sex offender registry while police badly mishandled the case for 27 years. This is a true crime podcast, but in the same way this is a true crime book, in that it critically examines the attitudes of the time period and the ineffective and almost hysterical approach by the legislature and police.

Thoughts

Okay here we go, this post took a while to write because I needed to be angry enough at the current climate around LGBT issues in America and now unfortunately seems to be the perfect timing. I am going to put my thoughts under the cut because I'm not sure one, how much they will end up being about the book seeing as I honestly mostly picked it to write about the links between the homophobic panics of today and yesteryear, and two, because I'm not sure how long they will get and this is already long enough.

I want to again reiterate the triggers above and add a few more for discussions of transphobia and transmisogyny, hate crimes, homophobia again, as well as childhood sexual abuse and grooming.

To start off with, at the time of writing on July 24th, monkey pox has gone from something people were murmuring about mostly in LGBT communities to a declared global health crisis. At the same time, with monkey pox now an issue for the general public to officially worry about, the framing of monkey pox as an STI from gay sex has hit the mainstream. This is completely inaccurate, and while I would encourage you to research this more rather than just reading one post by some random person on the internet, here are the facts as they stand. Monkey pox spreads though various forms of contact like most viruses some of which are touch, respiration, and contact with fluids, which yes, are basically impossible to avoid during any kind of sexual contact. It is also true that in most outbreaks so far gay and bisexual men have been the most impacted, which is why support for vaccines in the LGBT community is especially important right now. But this does not mean that this is exclusively a gay disease or even an STI. To say otherwise is not only homophobic and inaccurate but dangerous. However, conservatives and homophobes of all stripes have been quick to label monkey pox not as HIV/AIDS 2.0 but as gay cancer 2.0, back to all the blatant derision that entails.

I'm starting off with monkey pox because again as of writing we are at a very dangerous point as the outbreak spreads, not just of monkey pox, but of violent homophobia specifically about old homophobic ideas of increased promiscuity and the idea that gay men are pedophiles.

A few days ago, it was confirmed that the US has seen the first cases of reported monkey pox in children. The response by conservatives, predictably, has been:

Here is probably the clearest example of violent homophobia, in the legislature even, implicitly linking gay and bi men -- as they have been reported as the primary cases of monkey pox -- to pedophilia under the guise of "just asking questions."

Matt Walsh, noted fascist and transmisogynist linking gay and bi men to promiscuity and almost hyper sexuality, while also implying that gay and bi men have some form of "special privileges" in that you can't question their behavior.

Fox News radio contributor Jimmy Failla linking a spate of current homophobic attacks together, monkey pox, LGBT children's books, and "wokeness."

Here is the article the last two tweets were taken from which also includes an overview of the situation and reaction from conservative media. Again and again we see LGBT people and especially gay and bi men used as scapegoats and their suffering the targets of mockery and slander as a way to ignore the real danger a monkey pox outbreak presents. In the conservative and reactionary mindset, gay and bi men are already linked with disease, extreme promiscuity, and pedophilia and it has been that way since the 50s and again in the 80s and the early 00s, any time LGBT people and issues hit the mainstream media and become extremely visible homophobia and transphobia increases incredibly, which we see happening again now in multiple ways.

Especially now we see the presentation of LGBT people as a danger to children. This is only the beginning, as people have pointed out this rhetoric is likely to get worse as more children get infected with monkey pox once school resumes. Here we see how the deliberate ignorance of framing monkey pox as an exclusively gay STI is here to link one imagined sex crime panic to another. I am, of course, talking about the "groomer" rhetoric spread in large part by the account LibsofTikTok.

Some quick background information for those who haven't been following this specific thread of hate. While the homophobia and transphobia LibsofTikTok (I will use LTT for short) peddles is as old as dirt, this is an account that has inspired a particularly large backlash against the LGBT community in large part due to it's connection with Fox News and conservative politicians. LTT has been operating since the creator, Chaya Raichik, made the account in November of 2020. However, the account reached a peak in April of 2022 when an article by Taylor Lorenz was posted uncovering the creator and Raichik used the article as an excuse to cry doxxing despite her information being easily accessible enough and her notoriety warranting the article. At this point Raichik buddied up to Tucker Carlson so they could both decry the "violence" of the left while LTT was posting homophobic and transphobic violence every day under the guise of "just reposting TikToks of 'libs' owning themselves."

At the same time LTT has a habit of calling any LGBT person a "groomer." Specifically here I want to bring up LTT's pattern of posting videos and tweets of LGBT teachers and trying to get their followers to get them fired. These teachers have not done anything wrong, except in the eyes of conservatives where simply being out as gay or trans is a way of sexually "grooming" kids by exposing them to the concepts of...being gay and trans. LGBT people are presented as a danger simply for existing in proximity to children, and even more dangerous if they try and affirm LGBT children. Should monkey pox spread in schools due to the lack of urgency on the part of the Biden administration, LGBT teachers are going to be at even more risk for unlawful firing and hate crimes than they already are.

I mention hate crimes because LTT and other conservative media have not been shy towards spurring them on. Recently, there's been multiple instances of gay bars, drag shows (and especially Drag Queen storytime events), and libraries getting swarmed by angry parents, Proud Boys, and neo-nazis, often armed. They've been informed of these events by accounts like LTT posting about them and sensationalizing them with Raichik's groomer rhetoric. You may remember a picture spread on Twitter of children at a drag show at a nightclub in Texas, where people expressed horror at a sign that said "it's not gonna lick itself" in the background as a sign of deviant grooming and pedophilia. I don't want to undercut how serious the rhetoric around this event was, but as someone who just watched all of the Shrek movies recently... kids have heard worse. The real issue these people have is with children being exposed to drag and different ideas of gender, which they view as inherently sexual. Although there were some useful idiots who furthered transphobia with their mostly genuine hand wringing about an easily explained away innuendo, unwilling to see their part in spreading the trans panic further.

A quick note on all of these protests, although they're really violent intimidation against the LGBT community, is that the police have deliberately failed to step in in all of them and instead allowed these attacks to happen freely. The police have never and will never be on the side of the LGBT community as they are a tool of state repression and always have been. While Lawrence v. Texas is still the law of the land and sodomy is legal and gay bars are free to operate and book all the drag performers they, the police have no legal way to harass the LGBT community. A large chunk of Sex Crime Panic details the way police officers would entrap gay men by flirting with them until there was enough evidence there was conspiracy to commit sodomy and prosecute them, which is in large part how those round ups happen. And there is history of gender nonconforming and transgender people being hit especially hard by police raids on gay bars. With the police no longer able to intimidate the community under homophobic and transphobic laws, it's fallen on their comrades in the Proud Boys and other fascist groups to do it for them under the guise of reasonable concerns.

Because what it all comes down to is that "think of the children" has always been an excuse not to actually advocate for the welfare of children in any way from education to healthcare, but as a cheap way to start a moral panic on demand. Please, as much as you can, be aware of the climate LGBT people and especially gay/bi men and trans people are facing. These attacks have been very dark signs to me, and they should be for everyone, and they've been happening for a long, long time.

[lambdalibrary]

Unknown Number

[Image ID: A section of Unknown Number by Blue Neustifter, stylized as a text message conversation. It reads, and I am taking the author's own image ID here, "Them: does breaking physics to talk to yourself in another timeline sound like a “happy person” kinda thing to do You: no, I got that much You: I mean what are you going to do now You: you said I was the first one to do it, right You: how many of us have you talked to? Them: you’re the sixth" End ID.]

Trigger Warnings

Self harm, deadnaming (putting this here just to be safe, but all mentions are redacted), some mentions of transphobia/transmisogyny, also tagging just to be safe but i can see the beginning of this story especially with the formatting being paranoia inducing

Summary

Unknown Number is a science fiction short story, presented as a series of text messages between I guess you would say the narrator or the protagonist and an unknown number. Said unknown number happens to be the narrator from another timeline, breaking through to talk to other of their other selves, to figure out if any of them really figured out what they were feeling their whole lives.

Links

The entire story as well as the author's Twitter can be found here

The author's itch.io page where you can find her other writing

This story has also been nominated for a Hugo Award, and the rest of the short story and novella entries and some other science fiction can be found here

Thoughts

So I literally just stumbled upon this story like an hour ago and realized I needed to share it here immediately. It's very short and reads even faster because of the text message format, so please take some time to read some emotional trans sci fi and maybe pass it along. This is a very worthwhile read, especially if you're trans, if you've ever wondered what would be different if you figured it out sooner, if you were able to transition sooner, if you've dwelled on that a little too much.

I think a lot of trans people have made art and fiction talking to themselves, its a common theme for obvious reasons, but it usually happens to be them reflecting on their younger selves, reassuring them one day they'll figure it out. Unknown Number is somewhat similar thematically, but what I find interesting is that both Gabys in this story are middle aged, and while they may talk about the dysphoria they experienced as a child, they're both at the same phase in their life and only one has seemingly figured it all out, leading unknown number Gaby to seek the same reassurance usually given to a younger version of a trans person in one of these stories. I think that phrasing is kind of clunky but I'm pointing it out because I think its a good rebuke against the idea that there's some kind of unspoken deadline for transitioning, that at one point you will be "too old" and that's just not true, which is exactly what this story is about and what Gaby points out to well, herself.

[lambdalibrary]

btw since pride month is over my original...project or goal or whatever i guess is over so i won't update every day anymore (not like i did in the first place covid made sure of that) but I'm probably still gonna post whenever i do finish something :)

[lambdalibrary]

June 29th Boy Erased

[Image ID: The cover of Boy Erased by Garrard Conley. The background is pale blue with a boy's jaw and praying arms on wood pasted on top to resemble a collage. Below is a fig leaf and then the authors name on a cut out of lined paper. End ID.]

Triggers

Conversion therapy, religious trauma, homophobia, rape, child abuse, sexual abuse of a child, bestiality (any mentions of S from Conley's "therapy" group), domestic abuse, mentions of slavery and racism, self harm, suicide, ableism, eating disorders

Summary

Boy Erased is Garrard Conley's memoir focusing on his struggles with faith and sexuality that would eventually lead to an experience in conversion therapy at Love in Action after he was forcibly outed to his conservative and religious parents by his rapist. Alongside his experience in conversion therapy he details his relationship to his parents, his ex girlfriend, his church and also his experiences generally from growing up in the Bible Belt as gay and the son of a pastor.

Links

Openlibrary link (audiobook available)

UnErased a podcast produced by Conley about the history of conversion therapy and a second season about adoption and deportation.

Garrard Conley's website

This is a recommendation not exactly related to conversion therapy or LGBT issues at all but I would like to link the webcomic Elan School by Joe Nobody. I was struck by how similar Love in Action and Elan functioned, from the idea of false image/guilt and erasing identity, to purposefully obfuscating language to make communication between kids and their parents difficult, the constant surveillance, and even the inspiration from addiction groups. Conversion therapy is just one religious branch of a wider troubled teen industry, and I think that's important to consider, that teens and children are vulnerable enough groups already on top of the homophobia and transphobia LGBT teens face. I would add that Elan School has the same triggers as Boy Erased with regards to suicide, self harm, child abuse but also drug use and violence and probably more.

Review

So I read this book because it's quickly become THE book on conversion therapy, at least on the non fiction side. The fiction side is probably locked down by The Miseducation of Cameron Post, and they've kind of become interlinked to me. Probably not helped by both of them having movie adaptions come out at relatively the same time, which is probably the reason why Boy Erased has become the go to book when it comes to these conversations.

And it makes sense why, this is a very accessible memoir. I think a lot of people tend to shy away from non fiction because they assume it won't be as compelling as fiction, and that's definitely not true here. It should be pretty apparent from his writing style that even Conley himself is more comfortable with fiction, and writes in a similar style with tons of descriptive details, metaphors, and the like you might not expect if you haven't read any narrative non fiction. Honestly, that's why I didn't like the writing, because I don't like narrative non fiction and I'm fine if it's a little drier and I'm not getting descriptions of every sensory detail the author can remember. I say that, but also I couldn't stop reading Boy Erased every time I opened it and eventually came to really appreciate the style. Please give it a chance whether or not it clicks with you immediately.

And I really would suggest you give this book a chance if you can handle how triggering it can be, especially if you're in my situation. Not to make this review about myself, but while Conley and I are both gay I'm from a blue state, my mom's always been accepting and even been to more pride parades than I have, and more importantly religion plays no part in my life. While I have sympathy for LGBT people, especially LGBT teens and transgender people in the south, it's also easy for me to dismiss a literal hell with literal demons and the fear of them, to roll my eyes when I see churches in my area advertise "everyone is welcome" with a little rainbow flag, to just exist without those fears and trauma and without the need for those reassurances, to be relieved when you find a church where you belong. Because it's just never been a huge part of my life. I think it was a good experience to read Boy Erased and put myself in the headspace that was decidedly the opposite, to experience as best I could that kind of pressure and its consequences. Where there really would be that struggle between faith and sexuality, to wrestle with how much an all loving god can possibly love when you're in a place that well, quite literally demonizes being gay. That would push you to go into conversion therapy, to stick with it despite the abuse and the shame until you reach the breaking point.

[lambdalibrary]

June 28th The Tree and the Vine

[Image ID: The cover of The Tree and the Vine by Dola de Jong. The backgound is split in half vertically. The left half is a flowery green and white print, and the right half is pale orange. On top of the background, slightly off center to the right, is a black and white picture of two women kissing. End ID.]

Triggers

Nazism, antisemitism, the holocaust, homophobia, domestic abuse, depression, mother death

Summary

The Tree and the Vine is the story of Bea and Erica, two roommates in Holland, and their struggles with each other in the time up to and during the Nazi occupation of Holland. Bea is unable to admit even to herself her attraction to Erica, who is reckless and mercurial to the extreme in complete opposite to Bea.

Links

Openlibrary Link (audiobook available)

Review

This is just such a depressing book, although I mean that positively. The atmosphere of this book is just crushing between Bea's regretful narration which really gets the reader into the same headspace, Erica's depression, and the steadily increasing prominence of World War 2 in the narrative. And I think it's good to read something that's this bleak and unhappy occasionally, to really sit with some disquieting situations.

And there's probably nothing more disquieting than the steady rise of fascism, the way everyone in the novel can see it creeping up thinking it won't affect them until it does. Something Dola de Jong, a Jewish woman herself, lived through and the reason why this book is so complete as a portrait of life in those years. How easily war is put off as something that happens in other countries, how easily at the same time anxiety, war reports, and rationing start to weave their way into daily life on top of individual concerns.

I'm discussing more of the content related to WW2 and fascism because by contrast, much of the lesbian content is not as overt due to censorship from publishers who were not inclined to publish anything explicit and also from the narration, as Bea self censors herself and her own feelings. You should not go into this novel expecting a relationship and especially not a happy one. The content is there but it is not as I've seen it described, a lesbian pulp novel? I don't understand where people got that and the description on goodreads and amazon certainly isn't helping.

This is a book about people who realize things too late, where their realizations and confessions hit the same time the war does and by then its already been too late for a long time.

This is a beautiful and bleak book, I highly recommend it and I'm glad I stumbled upon it.

[lambdalibrary]

Btw im mostly healed but still probably gonna be a bit before i have like a full post but i did find the short story they adapted brokeback mountain from and it was pretty good so not a full post but if youre like me and didnt even know brokeback mountain was a short story here it is :)

Trigger warnings for animal death, homophobia, hate crimes, car accidents

[lambdalibrary]

So unfortunately im not feeling well and i dont have a post again </3 but i thought i would throw out my kind of to read list if anyones interested. I'll probably talk about most if not all of these books eventually when i read them but right now theyre just like titles i also need to check out, under the cut since it's kind of long idk

The Tree and the Vine by Dola de Jong -> 1950s lesbian book from a dutch author dealing with ww2

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes -> late 1930s also a lesbian book, seems similar to Stone Butch Blues in that it takes points from the authors real life

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson -> 1980s young adult lesbian novel, seems like it deals with religious themes

Drag King Dreams by Leslie Feinberg -> its from leslie feinberg what else do you need to rec it

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon -> scifi with two nonbinary protagonists dissecting racism as the protagonists are on a starship organized like the antebellum south and named for a slave ship. Have read it but i need to get triggers again because its very heavy

Books of Blood by Clive Barker -> horror short story collection by the guy behind hellraiser and who wrote the original story the movie candyman is based on

Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison -> post apocalyptic book with a bisexual protagonist i believe

The Body and its Dangers and Other Stories by Allen Barnett -> short story collection dealing with AIDS i belive

Carol or The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith -> 1950s lesbian pulp novel but written by a lesbian

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall -> 1900s? lesbian book features what i would consider a butch protagonist

The Color Purple by Alice Walker -> have read but need to reread for accurate triggers because it deals with a lot of abuse and racism

Hidden from History -> history book detailing lgbt communities across the world in different cultures

Bingo Love by Tee Franklin -> lighthearted comic about two older sapphic women who met in the 1950s as teens and then again at bingo in the 2010s maybe 2020s? have read but i want to do a quick reread

okay writing this list out should uh, really expose my reading biases towards lesbians and horror/other genre fiction.....

[lambdalibrary]

June 16th She of the Mountains

[Image ID: The cover of She of the Mountains by Vivek Shraya. It features 7 green and black arms coming off from the same central point. End ID.]

Triggers

bullying, homophobia, biphobia, fatphobia, child death

Summary

She of the Mountain consists two different narratives that draw parallels between each other. One is a re-imagining of Hindu mythology between Pavarti and Shiva, their child Ganesha, and their different identities. The other is the story of a nameless man and his relationship to his own identities as he grows up and enters a relationship with an nameless woman. The story also includes illustrations.

Links

Openlibrary link - audio book available

Vivek Shraya's website where you can find her other books and music and just a whole lot of other projects

Review

I was not surprised to find out Vivek Shraya was also a musician when I looked into her for this post. She of the Mountains is a very lyrical and poetic narrative, often playing with space and repetition. It's a very uniquely written book, sometimes more like a series of long poems than anything, and I really enjoyed that, especially in the mythology sections.

And this book covers so many topics of identity: sexual and gender identity, femininity and masculinity, bisexual erasure and biphobia, culture and cultural hegemony, all so well, all intertwined with the way they affect the way we love and hate ourselves.

I would really recommend this book, especially if you're bisexual. I hadn't ever read a book that really talked about bisexuality like this before and it was a refreshing experience.