Download or read book LGBTQ Las Vegas written by Dennis McBride and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Being gay in Las Vegas until the 1990s was a felony with a hefty fine and long prison sentence. The Las Vegas LGBTQ community did not organize to fight for its rights until the late 1970s and by the early 1980s had made headway, before AIDS stopped their momentum. While AIDS was devastating, it taught compassion, self-reliance, and political savvy. By 2017, Las Vegas was a city among the most welcoming of the nation's queer community.

Download or read book LGBTQ Las Vegas written by Dennis McBride and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Las Vegas is known around the world as a flashy, libertarian oasis where an individual's pursuit of happiness and profit is paramount. This was not true for the city's queer community. Being gay in Las Vegas until the 1990s was a felony with a hefty fine and long prison sentence. The Las Vegas LGBTQ community did not organize to fight for its rights until the late 1970s and by the early 1980s had made significant headway, before AIDS stopped their momentum. While the plague was devastating, it taught compassion, self-reliance, and political savvy. In 1993, the community persuaded the Nevada State Legislature to repeal the state's sodomy law, and throughout the 1990s and 2000s--even with some significant setbacks--Las Vegas rapidly caught up with more enlightened places in the United States. By 2017, Las Vegas was a city among the most welcoming of the nation's queer community.

Download or read book Everyday Violence against Black and Latinx LGBT Communities written by Siobhan Brooks and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-12-05 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Everyday Violence against Black and Latinx LGBT Communities, Siobhan Brooks argues that hate crimes and violence against Black and Latinx LGBT people are the products of institutions and ideologies that exist both outside and inside of Black and Latinx communities. Brooks analyzes families, educational systems, healthcare industries, and religious spaces as institutions that can perpetuate and transform the political and cultural beliefs and attitudes that engender violence toward LGBT Black and Latinx people.

Download or read book Out of the Neon Closet written by Dennis McBride and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A century ago in Nevada the idea that there was a queer community worthy of equal right, privilege, and responsibility was beyond imagining. Same-gender love was a criminal offense and Nevada's LGBTQ community faced a desperate battle for equality. As time passed, however, their movement slowly gained momentum. Bars, bookstores, and bathhouses were among the first places where those who identified as queer could gather. Once isolated and fearful, queer people now could gain support and find their voice. Some of the most outspoken activists went on to publish magazines and spearhead groundbreaking events such as Gay Pride and the Reno Gay Rodeo. Out of the Neon Closet is a thoroughly researched narrative of the Nevada queer community's struggle, with history gathered from a wide range of printed sources and dozens of interviews recorded over a twenty-year period. Author Dennis McBride describes private social gatherings and high-profile events with the same care that he reports legal incidents and political upheaval. From early twentieth century sodomy prosecutions through the legalization of same-gender marriage a hundred years later, Out of the Neon Closet recounts the personal struggles and political successes that have made Nevada's queer community what it is today.

Download or read book LGBT Milwaukee written by Michail Takach and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-22 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past 75 years, gays and lesbians have experienced tremendous social change in America. Gay and lesbian culture, once considered a twilight world that could not be spoken of in daylight, has become today’s rainbow families, marriage equality victories, and record-breaking pride celebrations. For a medium-size Rust Belt city with German Protestant roots, Milwaukee was an unlikely place for gay and lesbian culture to bloom before the Stonewall Riots. However, Milwaukee eventually had as many—if not more—known LGBT+ gathering places as Minneapolis or Chicago, ranging from the back rooms of the 1960s to the video bars of the 1980s to the guerrilla gay bars of today.

Download or read book Vegas Friend written by Parker Avrile and published by Paris April Press. This book was released on 2016-06-06 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gay poker players mm romance about two men ready to take a gamble on love. "My business is making friends... but he wants more." If you're rich and lonely, I'll drive your car, carry your shopping bags, and be your arm candy to make your friends jealous. But Jason just wants to get you into a dirty poker game so he can take down your cash. It's a career choice that means he's attracting a lot of attention from the wrong kind of people, including the police and the gangs. I need to stay very far away from Jason. The trouble is we can't seem to keep our hands off each other. Vegas Friend is a 10,800-word male/male contemporary gay romance novella about two bad boy gamblers who need to make a choice about when it's time to get out of the game. This is a complete standalone story including a Happy Ever After and absolutely no cliffhangers.

Download or read book All Kinds of Other written by James Sie and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this tender, nuanced coming-of-age love story, two boys—one who is cis, and one who is trans—have been guarding their hearts, until their feelings for each other give them a reason to stand up to their fears. Two boys are starting over at a new high school. Jules is still figuring out what it means to be gay…and just how out he wants to be. Jack is reeling from a fall-out with his best friend…and isn’t ready to let anyone else in just yet. When Jules and Jack meet, the sparks are undeniable. But when a video linking Jack to a pair of popular trans vloggers is leaked to the school, the revelations thrust both boys into the spotlight they’d tried to avoid. Suddenly Jack and Jules must face a choice: to play it safe and stay under the radar, or claim their own space in the world—together.

Download or read book Creating Change written by John D'Emilio and published by Stonewall Inn Editions. This book was released on 2002-04-16 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two dozen essays assembled in Creating Change examine some of the most bitterly contested and controversial public events and public policy battles in American history. These writings, each by a leading activist or scholar, recount how a specific constituency—gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons, and their allies—achieved tremendous progress despite seemingly insurmountable barriers. With each of the chapters written by an activist or scholar integral to the specific area of discussion, this is a work of scholarship and a work of passion about the way the American political and cultural landscape became what it is today. It is the story of how social change is made.

Download or read book Real Queer America written by Samantha Allen and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST A transgender reporter's "powerful, profoundly moving" narrative tour through the surprisingly vibrant queer communities sprouting up in red states (New York Times Book Review), offering a vision of a stronger, more humane America. Ten years ago, Samantha Allen was a suit-and-tie-wearing Mormon missionary. Now she's a GLAAD Award-winning journalist happily married to another woman. A lot in her life has changed, but what hasn't changed is her deep love of Red State America, and of queer people who stay in so-called "flyover country" rather than moving to the liberal coasts. In Real Queer America, Allen takes us on a cross-country road-trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Her motto for the trip: "Something gay every day." Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces us to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more. Capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places and revealing a national network of chosen family fighting for a better world, Real Queer America is a treasure trove of uplifting stories and a much-needed source of hope and inspiration in these divided times.

Download or read book Saving Alex written by Alex Cooper and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Alex Cooper was fifteen years old, life was pretty ordinary in her sleepy suburban town and nice Mormon family. At church and at home, Alex was taught that God had a plan for everyone. But something was gnawing at her that made her feel different. These feelings exploded when she met Yvette, a girl who made Alex feel alive in a new way, and with whom Alex would quickly fall in love. Alex knew she was holding a secret that could shatter her family, her church community, and her life. Yet when this secret couldn’t be hidden any longer, she told her parents that she was gay, and the nightmare began. She was driven from her home in Southern California to Utah, where, against her will, her parents handed her over to fellow Mormons who promised to save Alex from her homosexuality. For eight harrowing months, Alex was held captive in an unlicensed “residential treatment program” modeled on the many “therapeutic” boot camps scattered across Utah. Alex was physically and verbally abused, and many days she was forced to stand facing a wall wearing a heavy backpack full of rocks. Her captors used faith to punish and terrorize her. With the help of a dedicated legal team in Salt Lake City, Alex eventually escaped and made legal history in Utah by winning the right to live under the law’s protection as an openly gay teenager. Alex is not alone; the headlines continue to splash stories about gay conversion therapy and rehabilitation centers that promise to “save” teenagers from their sexuality. Saving Alex is a courageous memoir that tells Alex’s story in the hopes that it will bring awareness and justice to this important issue. A bold, inspiring story of one girl’s fight for freedom, acceptance, and truth.

Download or read book My Exodus written by Alan Chambers and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2015-09-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In sharing his own story of being a committed believer who struggled with same sex attraction early in his life, author, husband, and father Alan Chambers will help you understand the issues from the inside. And as the former president of the largest ex-gay ministry, Alan knows all the arguments, the concerns, the scriptures, and the heartaches. My Exodus encourages us to look for and affirm the image of God in everyone. It’s a reminder that God is still at work and deeply loves his creation. And it’s a book for everyone who wants to be welcoming and loving to all people without compromising their faith or their biblical theology. Through personal and powerful stories and opening the scriptures, you will come to understand how to love all people and positively engage our culture in the red hot conversations and topics surrounding LGBT and the Church Ultimately, My Exodus equips us all to be better and do better in God-honoring ways. By embracing the idea of loving well because we want to and not because we have to, we will find hope for ourselves, for the Church, and for our world.

Download or read book Under the Rainbow written by Celia Laskey and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Essential." - The New York Times Book Review When outsiders on a mission arrive to change a small town’s attitudes, residents and newcomers alike end up transformed. Big Burr, Kansas is the kind of place where everyone seems to know everyone—or so they think. But when a national nonprofit labels Big Burr “the most homophobic town in the U.S.” and sends in a queer task force to live and work there for two years, no one is prepared for what will ensue. Still grieving the death of her son, Linda welcomes the newcomers, who know mercifully little about her past. Teenage Avery, furious at being uprooted from her life in L.A. and desperate to fit in at her new high school, fears it’s only a matter of time before her classmates discover her mom is the head of the task force. And Gabe, an avid hunter who has lived in Big Burr his whole life, suddenly feels as if he’s in the crosshairs. As tensions roil the town, cratering relationships and bringing difficult truths to light, both long time residents and new arrivals must reconsider what it means to belong. Told with warmth and wit, Under the Rainbow is a poignant, hopeful articulation of our complicated humanity and the ways we can learn to live with each other and ourselves.

Download or read book Safe Is Not Enough written by Michael Sadowski and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2020-01-15 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Safe Is Not Enough illustrates how educators can support the positive development of LGBTQ students in a comprehensive way so as to create truly inclusive school communities. Using examples from classrooms, schools, and districts across the country, Michael Sadowski identifies emerging practices such as creating an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum; fostering a whole-school climate that is supportive of LGBTQ students; providing adults who can act as mentors and role models; and initiating effective family and community outreach programs. While progress on LGBTQ issues in schools remains slow, in many parts of the country schools have begun making strides toward becoming safer, more welcoming places for LGBTQ students. Schools typically achieve this by revising antibullying policies and establishing GSAs (gay-straight student alliances). But it takes more than a deficit-based approach for schools to become places where LGBTQ students can fulfill their potential. In Safe Is Not Enough, Michael Sadowski highlights how educators can make their schools more supportive of LGBTQ students’ positive development and academic success.

Download or read book Safe Spaces written by Annemarie Vaccaro and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-11-02 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive research, recent events, and numerous first-person accounts, this revealing book illuminates both the challenges and triumphs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth, and offers effective strategies for combating LGBT marginalization in our nation's schools and communities. Safe Spaces: Making Schools and Communities Welcoming to LGBT Youth is the first book to offer a comprehensive view of the complex lives of LGBT youth of all ages, from kindergarten through college. Drawing on a wealth of research collected from first-person accounts of students, family, educators, and community members, the authors not only chronicle the struggles of LGBT youth but also describe models of inclusive school and community environments. The authors address the breadth of experiences of LGBT youth—in and out of the classroom, at home and in the community, and in personal interactions with allies and antagonists. They also reveal how these young people, their friends and families, teachers, and dedicated allies stem the tide of LGBT exclusion. Most important, Safe Spaces offers action steps for readers who want to make their own homes, schools, and communities safe and welcoming spaces for LGBT youth.

Download or read book His Majesty the Queen written by Frank Marino and published by Marino Schechter Writings. This book was released on 1997 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Part autobiography, part how-to manual, superstar female impersonator Frank Marino talks about performing in the neon city of Las Vegas for the past ten years, along with all the trials and tribulations that he's encountered along the way. Don't miss his many make-up and beauty secrets, fashion advice, and exercise tips on how to keep that "girlish figure." He keeps his audience in stitches while his surgeon keeps him in stitches with over nine plastic surgeries. Plus, many hysterical face-to-face encounters with superstars like Joan Rivers, Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton and Diana Ross"--Dust jacket flap.

Download or read book Trans Figured written by Brian Belovitch and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine experiencing life not as the gender dictated by birth but as one of your own design. In Trans Figured, Brian Belovitch shares his true story of life as a gender outlier and his dramatic journey through the jungle of gender identity. Brian has the rare distinction of coming out three times: first as a queer teenager; second as a glamorous transgender woman named Tish, and later, Natalia Gervais; and finally as an HIV-positive gay man surviving the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. From growing up in a barely-working-class first-generation immigrant family in Fall River, Massachusetts, to spinning across the disco dance floor of Studio 54 in New York City . . . from falling into military lock-step as the Army wife of a domineering GI in Germany to having a brush with fame as Natalia, high-flying downtown darling of the boozy and druggy pre-Giuliani New York nightclub scene, Brian escaped many near-death experiences. Trans Figured chronicles a life lived on the edge with an unforgettable cast of characters during a dangerous and chaotic era. Rich with drama and excitement, this no-holds-barred memoir tells it all. Most importantly, Brian's candid and poignant story of recovery shines a light on the perseverance of the human spirit.

Download or read book When We Rise written by Cleve Jones and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2016-11-29 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2017 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER The partial inspiration for the ABC television mini-series! "You could read Cleve Jones's book because you should know about the struggle for gay, lesbian, and transgender rights from one of its key participants--maybe heroes--but really, you should read it for pleasure and joy."--Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me Born in 1954, Cleve Jones was among the last generation of gay Americans who grew up wondering if there were others out there like himself. There were. Like thousands of other young people, Jones, nearly penniless, was drawn in the early 1970s to San Francisco, a city electrified by progressive politics and sexual freedom. Jones found community--in the hotel rooms and ramshackle apartments shared by other young adventurers, in the city's bathhouses and gay bars like The Stud, and in the burgeoning gay district, the Castro, where a New York transplant named Harvey Milk set up a camera shop, began shouting through his bullhorn, and soon became the nation's most outspoken gay elected official. With Milk's encouragement, Jones dove into politics and found his calling in "the movement." When Milk was killed by an assassin's bullet in 1978, Jones took up his mentor's progressive mantle--only to see the arrival of AIDS transform his life once again. By turns tender and uproarious, When We Rise is Jones' account of his remarkable life. He chronicles the heartbreak of losing countless friends to AIDS, which very nearly killed him, too; his co-founding of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation during the terrifying early years of the epidemic; his conception of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest community art project in history; the bewitching story of 1970s San Francisco and the magnetic spell it cast for thousands of young gay people and other misfits; and the harrowing, sexy, and sometimes hilarious stories of Cleve's passionate relationships with friends and lovers during an era defined by both unprecedented freedom and and violence alike. When We Rise is not only the story of a hero to the LQBTQ community, but the vibrantly voice memoir of a full and transformative American life.