Gay Voices Research Articles

Living out Islam: voices of gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims

Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Engaging Religious Tradition 2. Challenging Family and Community 3. Adapting Religious Politics 4. Adjusting Secular Politics 5. Forging Minority Alliances 6. Journeying toward Individual Identity ConclusionAppendix Glossary of Terms Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

OutServe: An Underground Network Stands Up

From the perspective of an insider, this article explains how an underground network of actively-serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) military members was formed, and able to engage in the fight against the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. By providing the means to connect with one another within the constraints of the law, OutServe enabled the voices of gay and lesbian active military personnel to be heard. This new visibility informed the political debate surrounding the policy and played a role in the final days of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The compromised voice: a consideration of typography as a linguistic expression of gay identity in the silent film boy

This paper begins with a brief discussion of interdisciplinary connections between linguistics and typography. It then offers a consideration of how typography used in queer film has been employed to marginalise gay men. In doing so, the article examines recurring typographical profiles in promotional material that reinforce notions of gay men as the other. Within this consideration it locates typographical depictions of the internally discordant, the damaged threat, and the passive-aggressive. In discussing these specific approaches to the typographical depiction of gay men in cinema, the paper traces a development from marginalisation to self-assertion. Set against this discussion, the paper examines how typography designed for the short film boy (Note 1) looked beyond these precedents for inspiration. In doing this, the designer considered themes embedded in the argot of the New Zealand male prostitute. (Note 2) This language form is permeated by themes of detachment and ecclesiasticism. By applying these metaphors to the short film’s visual and typographical design, the director discusses how an alternative, distinctive, and arguably more authentic gay voice was created. The short film boy can be viewed at http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/boy-2004

The Compromised Voice: A Consideration of Typography as A Linguistic Expression of Gay Identity in the Silent Film Boy

This paper begins with a brief discussion of interdisciplinary connections between linguistics and typography. It then offers a consideration of how typography used in queer film has been employed to marginalise gay men. In doing so, the article examines recurring typographical profiles in promotional material that reinforce notions of gay men as the other. Within this consideration it locates typographical depictions of the internally discordant, the damaged threat, and the passive-aggressive. In discussing these specific approaches to the typographical depiction of gay men in cinema, the paper traces a development from marginalisation to self-assertion. Set against this discussion, the paper examines how typography designed for the short film boy (Note 1) looked beyond these precedents for inspiration. In doing this, the designer considered themes embedded in the argot of the New Zealand male prostitute. (Note 2) This language form is permeated by themes of detachment and ecclesiasticism. By applying these metaphors to the short film’s visual and typographical design, the director discusses how an alternative, distinctive, and arguably more authentic gay voice was created. The short film boy can be viewed at http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/boy-2004

Sexuality and personality: The effect of pitch height and contour width on perception in Japanese.

This work investigates how Japanese listeners judge a speaker’s personality characteristics and sexual orientation. Base sentences, produced in Japanese by a male and a female native Japanese speaker, were resynthesized to manipulate specific acoustic characteristics believed to influence perceived sexual orientation or personality. Overall, the higher the fundamental frequency (f0) of the female voice, the less likely it was to be perceived as lesbian. Similarly, the flatter the intonation pattern of the female voice, the more likely it was to be viewed as lesbian. For male voices, the higher the f0, the more likely the voice would be perceived as gay. Pitch variability did not play a significant role in this perception. Finally, out of the four personality scales investigated, two showed a significant correlation to lesbian voices: masculinity and calmness. Male voices showed the same pattern, with gay voices correlating with femininity and emotionality. The influence of the sex of the listener was also...

Sexuality, Sickness, Silence: The Gay Man in Contemporary Irish Narrative

This paper investigates representations of male homosexuality in contemporary Irish narratives, exploring the progression of homosexuality in Ireland as it has moved from a suppressed crime to a confidently asserted identity. Does inclusion of homosexuality in narrative need to subscribe to explicit, "in-your-face" foregrounding in order to be important to that narrative? Does a gay voice in contemporary Irish narrative have to be the loudest in order to signify assetion of the homosexual identity? Must gay artists bear the burden of the oppressive past in addressing homosexuality in their work, or is it unfair to place such categorizations and restrictions on art? These questions are addressed through the cultural and historical context of homosexuality in Ireland, looking at three different contemporary Irish narratives that feature homosexuality: Colm Toibin's <em>The Blackwater Lightship</em>, Keith Ridgway's <em>The Long Falling</em>, and Neil Jordan's film <em>The Crying Game. </em>

What’s love got to do with it?: Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, and bisexual people with intellectual disabilities in the united kingdom and views of the staff who support them

The voices of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people with intellectual disabilities have rarely been heard within both policy and research. This article reports on a research study involving gay, lesbian, and bisexual people with intellectual disabilities. Results highlighted that, despite many barriers, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people with intellectual disabilities wanted to develop sexual and intimate relationships. Love was a frequently discussed need and desire among study participants. Interviews with staff who worked with this population revealed that supporting their being in an intimate relationship did not feature strongly in staff goals. This disjuncture may partly account for the dearth of sexual relationships among the people with intellectual disabilities interviewed for this study, as well as for their accounts of isolation, loneliness, and depression. The findings have implications for staff and service providers, as well as for social policies addressing disability, which do not routinely reference sexuality and personal relationships.

Gay Voices of the Harlem Renaissance; Cruising Modernism: Class and Sexuality in American Literature and Social Thought

Book Review| June 01 2005 Gay Voices of the Harlem Renaissance; Cruising Modernism: Class and Sexuality in American Literature and Social Thought By A. B. Christa Schwarz. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press. 2003. x, 209 pp. Cloth, $49.95; paper, $21.95.By Michael Trask. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press. 2003. viii, 222 pp.$34.95. Dwight A. McBride Dwight A. McBride Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Literature (2005) 77 (2): 426–428. https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-77-2-426 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Dwight A. McBride; Gay Voices of the Harlem Renaissance; Cruising Modernism: Class and Sexuality in American Literature and Social Thought. American Literature 1 June 2005; 77 (2): 426–428. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-77-2-426 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsAmerican Literature Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. 2005 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Gay voices of the Harlem Renaissance

Preliminary Table of Contents: Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. Gay Harlem and the Harlem 2. Writing in the Harlem Renaissance: The Burden of Representation and Sexual Dissidence 3. Countee Cullen: Virtues Are Many His Vices Unheard Of 4. Langston Hughes: A True 'People's Poet' 5. Claude McKay: Enfant Terrible of the Negro Renaissance 6. Richard Bruce Nugent: The Quest for Beauty Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

AIDS in French Culture: Social Ills, Literary Cures , and: La Littérature et le sida: archéologie des représentations d'une maladie (review)

Book Reviews Jean-Pierre Boulé. HIV Stories: The Archeology of AIDS Writing in France, 1985-1988. Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2002. Pp. vii + 184. With the advent of new treatments, critical work on the literature of AIDS has become scarce. In recent years, international attention has been largely redirected toward developing countries where AIDS rages on beyond the most pessimistic estimates, while a veil of silence has once again fallen upon Western countries where the epidemic is far from over, and from which most AIDS literature , whether fictional or testimonial in form, had originated. Jean-Pierre Boulé's new book, HIV Stories, focuses on the first decade of the epidemic in France where near complete silence about AIDS for years unleashed a public health disaster unparalleled in Europe at the time. It is from this period of so-called dédramatisation that Boulé unearths mostly forgotten texts and gives us a useful warning about what the consequences of our current silence could be. Not surprisingly, and although his theoretical approach is plural and adapted to each text, Boulé is most effective when he analyzes his corpus in the light of the cultural and political context of the period. The first part of the book is devoted to three fictionalized texts whose authors and publishers are revealed to be complicit with dominant exclusionary discourses of the time. Analyzing what he calls the "just punishment" narrative structuring some early AIDS writing, Boulé shows how the French literary establishment and traditions have contributed to the stigmatization of people with AIDS, particularly independent women and gay men whose non-normative sexuality is seen as the cause of their disease. In the second part, the book turns toward testimonial texts by Michel Simonin, Jean-Paul Aran, and Alain Emmanuel Dreuilhe, all three gay men and all three largely neglected today, but who have paved the way for such writers as Hervé Guibert and Cyril Collard, whose work was met with great enthusiasm a few years later. Why were these early gay witnesses ignored? Again the literary establishment , with the active complicity of the media and a seldom acknowledged Catholic tradition, managed to frame these first-person stories within the mode of confession (in the Foucauldian sense) and neutralize them as self-incrimination. It wasn't until the creation of ACT UP-Paris allowed the expression of a collective, combative gay voice that AIDS counterdiscourses started to emerge, and the epidemic was finally confronted with some degree of effectiveness. Sharply focused and often movingly written (particularly when recounting the injustices Simonin had to face), Boulé's study demonstrates the urgent need to periodize and historicize the epidemic. He takes us back to a time that only seems distant today because it uneasily reminds us that discrimination, hatred, and stupidity are not always the sorry prerogative of the fanatic fringe. Indeed, less than fifteen years ago, they were the norm. I hope this book will be translated and read in France, a country so utterly convinced of its inherent enlightenment that it can never face up to its not-so-glorious, not-so-distant past without tearing itself apart. David Caron University of Michigan David Caron. AIDS in French Culture: Social Ills, Literary Cures. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001. Pp. χ + 204. $19.95 soft cover. Stéphane Spoiden. La Littérature et le sida: archéologie des représentations d'une maladie. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2001. Pp. 232. € 16.50. Par les généalogies qu'ils élisent, David Caron et Stéphane Spoiden agencent des regards complémentaires sur les enjeux dont la littérature du sida a été et est toujours le théâtre en France. 98 Fall 2003 Book Reviews En optant pour La Débâcle de Zola et Le Journal du voleur de Genet, Caron démontre brillamment comment la métaphore de la dégénérescence dont l'homosexuel va devenir la figure emblématique a culturellement institué les paradigmes autour desquels les négociations sociales et politiques des identités sexuelles vont se jouer tout au long du XXe siècle. Si cette anxiété identitaire héritée du XIXe siècle joue...

The Impact of Belonging to a High School Gay/Straight Alliance

This qualitative investigation studies the impact of belonging to a high school Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA or Alliance) on the lives of seven students. Individual and focus group interviews were conducted over a two-year time period. The author used voices of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and straight students to relate the experiences unique to each participant. In addition, data from media and spoken transcripts, video tapes of news reports, grade records, and the GSA advisor's personal observations were analyzed and organized into a framework of seven categories of impact. The results support previous research that Alliances positively impact academic performance, school/social/and family relationships, comfort level with sexual orientation, development of strategies to handle assumptions of heterosexuality, sense of physical safety, increased perceived ability to contribute to society, and an enhanced sense of belonging to school community. Implications for educators and questions for further research are included.

Books Received

Books Received Mark I. West Author Talk. By Leonard Marcus. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. This book features brief interviews with fifteen children's authors, including Judy Blume, Karen Cushman, Russell Freedman, E.L. Konigsburg, Gary Paulsen, Jon Scieszka, and Laurence Yep. Checking Out Nonfiction K-8: Good Choices for Best Learning. By Rosemary A. Bamford and Janice V. Kristo. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon, 2000. Intended for elementary school teachers and librarians, this book provides numerous suggestions on how to evaluate works of nonfiction written for children. Children's Literature: An Anthology 1801-1902. Ed. Peter Hunt. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. Arranged chronologically, this anthology of nineteenth-century children's literature includes over 120 poems, stories, and excerpts from novels. All the works represented are from English speaking countries. Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature. By Roberta Seelinger Trites. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2000. In this thoughtful book, Trites examines how power dynamics are portrayed in young adult literature. Her insights are original, but they are informed by theories espoused by several important literary critics, including Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan. Beacham's Sourcebook for Teaching Young Adult Fiction: Exploring Harry Potter. By Elizabeth D. Schafer. Osprey, FL: Beacham, 2000. This is the first book in a series titled Beacham's Sourcebooks for Teaching Young Adult Fiction. Schafer provides back-ground information about the first three books in the Harry Potter series. The book is divided into twenty chapters, including "Characters and Themes," "Archetypes and Biblical References," and "Magic and Witchcraft." Lesbian and Gay Voices: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to Literature for Children and Young Adults. By Frances Ann Day. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. In addition to annotating more than 275 titles, Day includes profiles of 16 authors. The Story Performance Handbook. By R. Craig Roney. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. This practical and clearly organized book includes chapters on "Reading Aloud Picture Books," "Reading Poetry Aloud," and "Sharing Stories Through the Use of Props." U.S. Latino Literature: A Critical Guide for Students and Teachers. Eds. Harold Augenbraum and Margarite Fernández Olmos. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Each of the 18 contributors to this book analyzes particular works of Latino literature and makes suggestions on how to incorporate these works in high school and undergraduate literature courses. Although most of the books covered are not intended for children, much of the background information can also be applied to Latino children's literature. [End Page 220] Copyright © 2001 Children's Literature Association

Lesbian and gay voices: an annotated bibliography and guide to literature for children and young adults

Lesbian and gay voices: an annotated bibliography and guide to literature for children and young adults

Reclaiming the Heartland: Lesbian and Gay Voices from the Midwest

Reclaiming the Heartland: Lesbian and Gay Voices from the Midwest. Eds., Karen Lee Osborne and William J. Spurlin. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. xxv + 227 pages. $18.95. Contesting the notion that queer culture resides primarily in urban coastal areas, the editors of this multigenre, multicultural anthology locate the as a vantage point for the creation of queer culture. Karen Lee Osborne and William J. Spurlin collect the short fiction, poetry, drama, memoir, essays and photographic work from lesbians and gay men who live or have spent a significant portion of their lives in areas not always assumed to be hot beds of queer activity, such as Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, and Kansas. To their credit, Osborne and Spurlin's choices of the approximately sixty pieces collected in this volume create an overall fluid narrative of the multiple facets contributing to queer identities, as regards issues of color, class, age, differing expressions of eroticism and desire, locations, and styles. The anthology is structured into five sections which work well as a framing device. The pieces included in Part I, `When You Were Young': Growing Up in the Midwest begin the volume with reflections on growing up in the Midwest, developing a queer consciousness, and connecting midwestern landscapes to the psyche and the body. The opening piece, Jess Wells's short story, Luke Giovanni's Canoe, is a wonderful example of the ways in which the as a location is incorporated metaphorically in many of the pieces in the volume. Wells explores her relationship with her father as his mental health begins to deteriorate along with his deeply rooted connection to the lake on which they live and in which he eventually drowns. Using natural images common to the as a geographical space, Wells weaves metaphors of ice cracking and separating to capture the fragmentation and instability of her father's mental health. In this section, several of the writers work with notions of the development of a queer consciousness and a recognition of Otherness as part of the process of growing up. For example, in the short story, Swimming Lessons, Greg Shapiro traces a young boy's awakening to homosexual desire in the context of a public pool setting in which his fears of learning how to swim are woven together with his awakening to homosexual yearnings for the males he counters in that setting. The pieces selected for Part II, `Lake Michigan Sunrise': The as Place, work well in blending the geography of the as tied to queer desire and eroticism, and the as a backdrop for queer experiences. For example, in Jim Elledge's beautiful poem, Salt into Wounds, he uses his reference to the expansive prairie's summer sky, to reflect the long lasting impact of the pain of losing one's lover. Poignantly, several of the pieces collected in the volume are from the late Terri L. Jewell, an African American lesbian poet well known and respected in lesbian cultural and literary spaces. Her poem Bad Ass captures the sensuousness found in her poetry, as she explores the black lesbian body through a portrayal of landscape imagery, My sweat carves out valleys, wells like sweet water at the edge of my spine. I am black as boxcars bringing oils from Tuinisia, lovers curled hot into earth creased over from your momma's dreamworld. The functions as a backdrop in several of these pieces for the exploration of queer experiences. D. Travers Scott's, Digestion, is a neatly crafted short story of dialogue that simultaneously offers humor, depth, and an examination of such politically loaded issues as men and monogamy, straight men who fuck gay men, safe sex, and interracial relationships to name just a few. In a brief space, Scott deftly crafts three dimensional characters who offer differing perspectives on some very intense issues as they sit and eat brunch together. …

Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990: An Oral History. By Eric Marcus (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992. xii plus 532 pp.) and Gay Voices from East Germany. By Jurgen Lemke, edited and introduction by John Borneman. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. vi plus 197 pp.)

Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990: An Oral History. By Eric Marcus (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992. xii plus 532 pp.) and Gay Voices from East Germany. By Jurgen Lemke, edited and introduction by John Borneman. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. vi plus 197 pp.)

The Gay Voice in Popular Music:

The gay voice in popular music and its potential to create positive social change regarding societal values about homosexuality is the focus of the present study. The historical development of the gay voice in popular music is reviewed as an introduction to a critical analysis of the Communards' music video "Don't Leave Me This Way." Using a modified version of the Social Value Model proposed by Rushing and Frentz, the video is analyzed on three levels: (a) narrative content, (b) use of symbols in the narrative, and (c) lyrical content. It is suggested that this video effected a dialectical synthesis of mainstream and homosexual values because it achieved mainstream commercial success while realistically expressing a gay perspective.