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Shortlist for books to read during the LGBTQ+ month

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Over the last week as many of us have sat down to watch "It's A Sin" the new Queer series on Channel 4. It's made me reflect on the history of the LGBT community and how much things have and haven't changed. Not only the attitudes of people towards our community but also within the community itself. While I like to believe I am pretty clued up on many aspects of our history, the show made me realise knowing some facts doesn't really enable you to fully understand someone else's journey of those times.

As we head into LGBT History Month, we are given the encouragement to better remember our past and the footsteps walked and marched that have given us the rights we have today, but also the ones to come to ensure the much-needed rights and opportunities are there for others in our family. While I can only discuss in detail my own path to where I am now, my commitment to LGBT History Month will be to step out of my own box and challenge myself to discover the past of others in our community and how to become a better ally for them.

We asked Christine Burns, MBE author of "Trans Britain", her thoughts on the importance of LGBT History Month.

"Having access to the history of people like yourself is essential for both individual mental health and happiness but also for political and social emancipation. I grew up in a time when I was taught plenty of history about being British and what my cultural inheritance was if straight and cisgender but I had literally no clue that other trans people existed, bar the shock horror stories I began to read in the press. Naturally, the press presented every exposé of anyone remotely like myself as shocking and new, without precedent. That kind of manipulation of how you might possibly see yourself has an impact, almost obliging you to accept the tabloid world's narrative. Later, having transitioned hardly any wiser, I began to embrace the idea of activism and realised almost straight away how vital it was for us to find and share precious scraps of our history, barely recorded by the mainstream. To learn gradually that people like me had existed throughout history and in every human culture across the globe meant we could see our predicament in an entirely different light. Discovering how to find and piece together our history has remained important to this very day. Indeed, the present push-back against our rights makes a mastery of our history even more vital, since our detractors base their attacks very often in claims that we are new and that accommodating our needs is novel, untested and dangerous. Even medical knowledge amassed over decades is presented as provisional and experimental. So there has never been a more important time for both trans people and our potential allies to have at least a basic, reliable historical framework. I hated history at school and never dreamed I would grow up to be a historian myself."

Rob Cookson, Deputy Chief Executive of LGBT Foundation said;

LGBT History Month is such an important part of the calendar. It's a time for reflection, and to celebrate the diversity and talent of our LGBT communities. LGBT History Month is also about raising awareness of and combating the prejudice and discrimination faced by many LGBT people. It is so important to know our history, of the challenges we have faced and continue to face, so we can make the future better for LGBT people.

We've put together what we believe are some of the best books that will enable you to enhance your history of our community and embrace the journey of those before us.

Over the last five years, transgender people have seemed to burst into the public eye: Time declared 2014 a 'trans tipping point', while American Vogue named 2015 'the year of trans visibility'. From our television screens to the ballot box, transgender people have suddenly become part of the zeitgeist. This apparently overnight emergence, though, is just the latest stage in a long and varied history.

The renown of Paris Lees and Hari Nef has its roots in the efforts of those who struggled for equality before them, but were met with indifference - and often outright hostility - from mainstream society. Trans Britain chronicles this journey in the words of those who were there to witness a marginalised community grow into the visible phenomenon we recognise today: activists, film-makers, broadcasters, parents, an actress, a rock musician and a priest, among many others. Here is everything you always wanted to know about the background of the trans community, but never knew how to ask.

This inspiring story of the fight for sexual liberation travels across continents and centuries, uncovering a radical struggle including the Stonewall riots in 1969 and the mass movement against Apartheid South Africa that achieved the first inclusion of LGBT rights in a constitution. This is a remarkably hopeful account of the way women and men have made history even in the most difficult circumstances. It should be read by every activist who aspires to win a world free from oppression and to realise the unfinished dream of liberation.

'Queer: A Graphic History Could Totally Change the Way You Think About Sex and Gender' Vice Activist-academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Jules Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this ground breaking non-fiction graphic novel. From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding of biology, psychology and sexology; and how these views have been disputed and challenged. Along the way we look at key landmarks which shift our perspective of what's 'normal' - Alfred Kinsey's view of sexuality as a spectrum, Judith Butler's view of gendered behaviour as a performance, the play Wicked, or moments in Casino Royale when we're invited to view James Bond with the kind of desiring gaze usually directed at female bodies in mainstream media.

Presented in a brilliantly engaging and witty style, this is a unique portrait of the universe of queer thinking.

Five Decades of Fighting for Equal Rights.

This is both the story of the 50-year battle for equal rights and deeply personal accounts from high profile politicians, comedians, actors and others in the public arena. The book features contributions from David Hockney, Stephen Fry, Julian Clary, Matt Lucas, Matthew Parrish, Simon Callow, Will Young, Sir Derek Jacobi, Tom Robinson, Marc Almond, Sir Elton John, Alain Judd, Simon Callow, Angela Eagle, Baroness Barker, Dan Gillespie Sells, Evan Davis, Jake Graf, Jason Prince, Jon Savage, Lee Tracy, Lord Browne, Lord Cashman, Lord Paddick, Lord Smith, Manny, Mark Mcadam, Mark Wardell, Mathew Todd, Olly Alexander, Paris Lee, Paul Gambaccini, Peter Tachell, QBoy, Shon Faye, Stephanie Hirst, Stephen Amos, Steve Blame, The Reverend Andrew Foreshew-Cain, Tris Penna, Yotan Ottolenhgi and Zoe Lyons and more.
Shortlisted for Polemic of the Year at The Paddy Power Political Book Awards 2015.
Eighteen million people around the world live with HIV but do not know they are infected. Endangering both themselves and countless others, they represent a public health challenge that affects not only Africa but every part of the world, including Europe and the United States. We stand at a tipping point in the AIDS crisis - and unless we can increase the numbers tested and treated, we will not defeat it. In spite of the progress since the 1980s there are still over 1.5 million deaths and over 2 million new HIV infections a year. Norman Fowler has travelled to nine cities around the globe to report on the position today.

What he discovered was a shocking blend of ignorance, prejudice, bigotry and intolerance. In Africa and Eastern Europe, a rising tide of discrimination against gays and lesbians prevents many from coming forward for testing. In Russia, drug users are dying because an intolerant government refuses to introduce the policies that would save them. Extraordinarily, Washington has followed suit and excluded financial help for proven policies on drugs, and has turned its back on sex workers. In this lucid yet powerful account, Norman Fowler reveals the steps that must be taken to prevent a global tragedy. Aids: Don't Die of Prejudice is both an in-depth investigation and an impassioned call to arms against the greatest public health threat in the world today.

For the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it. June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising - the most significant event in the gay liberation movement and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first hand accounts, diaries, periodic literature and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. Most importantly, this anthology shines a light on forgotten figures who were pivotal in the movement, such as Lee Brewster, head of the Queens Liberation Front and Ernestine Eckstine, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s.
LGBTQ+ Speeches that Empower and Inspire.
Loud and Proud is an inspirational collection of speeches from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies that have changed our world, and the conversation. A sister volume to So Here I Am: Speeches by Great Women to Empower and Inspire, Loud and Proud places the voices of the vibrant LGBTQ+ community centre stage in the first-ever anthology of LGBTQ+ speeches. From equal marriage to the AIDS crisis, bullying to parenthood, the first 19th century campaigns through to the new trans rights allyship, the issues covered in these speeches touch on all aspects of LGBTQ+ and reflect the diverse and multi-faceted nature of this community.

Pour through a pioneering collection of talks, declarations and lectures, from people whose voices have too often been marginalised and the allies that support them; Find over 40 empowering and influential speeches that chart the history of the LGBTQ+ movement up to the present day; Each speech is presented with a striking photographic portrait and an insightful introduction, offering essential context, fresh insights and a nuanced understanding that brings each character and their words to life. A ribbon keeps your place in the book. We are stronger when we stand together, and this collection from award-winning activist Tea Uglow encourages us to do just that whilst celebrating the beauty of our differences.

The voices: Audre Lorde; Harvey Milk; Munroe Bergdorf; Sir Elton John; Sir Ian McKellen; George Takei; Sylvia Rivera; Bayard Rustin; Elizabeth Toledo; Alison Bechdel; Loretta E. Lynch; Hanne Gaby Odiele; Vito Russo; Tammy Baldwin; Hillary Rodham Clinton; Barack Obama; Dan Savage and Terry Miller; Ban Ki-moon; Karl Heinrich Ulrichs; Robert G. Ingersoll; Theodora Ana Sprungli; Franklin "Frank" Kameny; Sally Gearhart; Harry Hay; Sue Hyde; Mary Fisher; Essex Hemphill; Simon Nkoli; Urvashi Vaid; Eric Rofes; Justice Michael Kirby; Evan Wolfson; Paul Martin; Ian Hunter; Rabbi Kleinbaum; Penny Wong; Arsham Parsi; Anna Grodzka; Debi Jackson; Johanna Sigurdardottir; Lee Mokobe; Geraldine Roman; Cecilia Chung; Olly Alexander.
Religion, LGBT Activism, and Arts of Resistance in Africa
Popular narratives cite religion as the driving force behind homophobia in Africa, portraying Christianity and LGBT expression as incompatible. Without denying Christianity's contribution to the stigma, discrimination, and exclusion of same-sex-attracted and gender-variant people on the continent, Adriaan van Klinken presents an alternative narrative, foregrounding the ways in which religion also appears as a critical site of LGBT activism. Taking up the notion of "arts of resistance," Kenyan, Christian, Queer presents four case studies of grassroots LGBT activism through artistic and creative expressions-including the literary and cultural work of Binyavanga Wainaina, the "Same Love" music video produced by gay gospel musician George Barasa, the Stories of Our Lives anthology project, and the LGBT-affirming Cosmopolitan Affirming Church.

Through these case studies, Van Klinken demonstrates how Kenyan traditions, black African identities, and Christian beliefs and practices are being navigated, appropriated, and transformed in order to allow for queer Kenyan Christian imaginations. Transdisciplinary in scope and poignantly intimate in tone, Kenyan, Christian, Queer opens up critical avenues for rethinking the nature and future of the relationship between Christianity and queer activism in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa.

Drag is transformation, communication, and, above all, exaggeration, where gender non-conformity is the plat du jour. This fearless book observes this increasingly complex world by exploring drag's journey, from the surprising, to the sophisticated, to the utterly bizarre, through the twentieth century and up to the present day. With witty text, dazzling photography, and corralled into thematic chapters, this is the first flamboyant and poignant survey of drag culture.

Drag is not just for fabulous queens and drag enthusiasts, but for anyone interested in gender fluidity and the culture surrounding it. Simon Doonan is a former drag queen who impersonated Queen Elizabeth. A veteran in the fashion industry, he has won every fashion award on Earth including the CFDA Award. Today, Simon is the Creative Ambassador for Barneys New York and a judge on the NBC television show Making It, co-hosted by Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman.
The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. Winner of The Green Carnation Prize for LGBTQ literature. Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT non-fiction. Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2017.
How to Survive a Plague by David France is the riveting, powerful and profoundly moving story of the AIDS epidemic and the grass-roots movement of activists, many of them facing their own life-or-death struggles, who grabbed the reins of scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease. Around the globe, the 15.8 million people taking anti-AIDS drugs today are alive thanks to their efforts. Not since the publication of Randy Shilts's now classic And the Band Played On in 1987 has a book sought to measure the AIDS plague in such brutally human, intimate, and soaring terms.

Weaving together the stories of dozens of individuals, this is an insider's account of a pivotal moment in our history and one that changed the way that medical science is practised worldwide. 'This superbly written chronicle will stand as a towering work in its field' Sunday Times.

In June 1969, police raided New York gay bar the Stonewall Inn. Pride charts the events of that night, the days and nights of rioting that followed, the ensuing organization of local members of the community - and the 50 years since in which activists and ordinary people have dedicated their lives to reversing the global position. Pride documents the milestones in the fight for LGBTQ equality, from the victories of early activists to the passing of legislation barring discrimination, and the gradual acceptance of the LGBTQ community in politics, sport, culture and the media.

Rare images and documents cover the seminal moments, events and breakthroughs of the movement, while personal testimonies share the voices of key figures on a broad range of topics. Pride is a unique celebration of LGBTQ culture, an account of the ongoing challenges facing the community, and a testament to the equal rights that have been won for many as a result of the passion and determination of this mass movement. Includes essays by: Travis Alabanza, Bisi Alimi, Georgina Beyer, Jonathan Blake, Deborah Brin, Maureen Duffy, David Furnish, Nan Goldin, Asifa Lahore, Paris Lees, Lewis Oakley, Reverend Troy Perry, Darryl Pinckney, Jake Shears, Judy Shepard and Will Young.
A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall.
"A grisly, sobering, comprehensively researched new history." - The New Yorker. Indecent Advances is a skilful hybrid of true crime and social history that examines the often-coded portrayal of crimes against gay men in the decades before Stonewall. New York University professor and critic James Polchin illustrates how homosexuals were criminalized, and their murders justified, in the popular imagination from 1930s 'sex panics' to Cold War fear of Communists and homosexuals in government. He shows the vital that role crime stories played in ideas of normalcy and deviancy, and how those stories became tools to discriminate against and harm gay men.

J. Edgar Hoover, Kerouac, Burroughs, Patricia Highsmith, James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg and Gore Vidal all feature. Published around the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in 1969, Indecent Advances investigates how queer men navigated a society that criminalized them. Polchin shows how this discrimination was ultimately transformed by gay rights activists before Stonewall, and explores its resonances up to and including the policing of Gianni Versace's death in 1997.

LGBTQ writing from ancient times to yesterday selected by award-winning translator Frank Wynne. Drawing together writing from Catullus to Sappho, from Arthur Rimbaud to Anne Lister and Armistead Maupin, translator Frank Wynne has collected eighty of the finest works representing queer love by LGBTQ authors. These pieces straddle the spectrum of queer experience, from Verlaine's sonnet in praise of his lover's anus and Emily Dickinson's exhortation of a woman's beauty, to Alison Bechdel's graphic novel of her coming out, Juno Dawson's reflections on gender and Oscar Wilde's 'De Profundis'.

With stories, poems, extracts and scenes from countries the world over, Queer is an unabashed and unapologetic anthology, which gives voice to those often silenced.

In recent years, there has been substantial progress on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights in the United States. We are now, though, in a time of incredible political uncertainty for queer people. LGBTQ Social Movements provides an accessible introduction to mainstream LGBTQ movements in the U.S., illustrating the many forms that LGBTQ activism has taken since the mid-20th century.

Covering a range of topics including the Stonewall uprising and gay liberation, AIDS politics, queer activism, marriage equality fights, youth action, and bisexual and transgender justice, Lisa M. Stulberg explores how marginalized people and communities have used a wide range of political and cultural tools to demand and create change. The five key themes that guide the book are assimilationism and liberationism as complex strategies for equality, the limits and possibilities of legal change, the role of art and popular culture in social change, the inter connectedness of social movements, and the role of privilege in movement organizing.

This book is an important tool for understanding current LGBTQ politics and will be essential reading for students and scholars of sexuality, LGBTQ studies, and social movements.

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Over the last week as many of us have sat down to watch "It's A Sin" the new Queer series on Channel 4. It's made me reflect on the history of the LGBT community and how much things have and haven't changed. Not only the attitudes of people towards our community but also within the community itself.

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Disabled Lesbian Youtuber from Brighton providing educational videos on queer history, disability and LGBTQ+ topics. Recently started documenting the baby journey with her wife

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"lesbian youtubers" deaf "disabled youtuber" lesbian "deaf youtubers" "lesbian couple youtubers" "vintage hair tutorials" "vintage make up tutorial" "family ...

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Adding vintage lesbian fabulousness to a life with disabilities and chronic illnesses, aided by my beautiful wife Claudia, our son Rupert and our adorable pups. I make fun, uplifting and educational content that should help you get through tough times and not feel alone.

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Rose and Rosie - Parental Guidance Podcast

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Rose and Rosie - Parental Guidance Podcast

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The journey to having a baby with 2 cis women

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Listen to Rose and Rosie: Parental Guidance on Spotify.

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Author - Patricia Highsmith
The book Carol was adapted from

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Cast overview, first billed only:

Cheryl is young, Black, and lesbian, working in Philadelphia with her best friend Tamara and consumed by a film project: to make a video about her search for a Black actress from Philly who appeared in films in the 30s and was known as the Watermelon Woman. Following various leads, Cheryl discovers the Watermelon Woman's stage name and real name and surmises that the actress had a long affair with Martha Page, a White woman and one of Hollywood's few female directors. As she's discovering these things, Cheryl becomes involved with Diana, who's also White. The affair strains Cheryl's friendship with Tamara. More discoveries bring Cheryl (and us, her audience) to new realizations.

Trivia

According to writer/director Cheryl Dunye, much about the character she plays in the film is autobiographical, but the historical references to the Watermelon Woman are fictional: "The Watermelon Woman came from the real lack of any information about the lesbian and film history of African-American women. Since it wasn't happening, I invented it." See more "

Quotes

: Hey! Hey, you're Martin Pumphrey!
Street Magician : No ma'am, I'm a magician.
See more "

Crazy Credits

The film, which seems to be a documentary about Cheryl's search for the obscure actress who inspired her, ends with these printed words: "Sometimes you have to create your own history. The Watermelon Woman is fiction. Cheryl Dunye, 1996" See more "

Alternate Versions

In 2016, director Cheryl Dunye's landmark Black Queer Film THE WATERMELON WOMAN was re-released in select theaters and festivals with a pristine 2K HD restoration overseen by the production company 13th Gen, in partnership with Modern Videofilm. The restoration and re-release was sponsored by First Run Features, the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, and the Toronto International Film Festival. This theatrical tour will be followed by a DVD re-release in early 2017. See more "

Soundtracks

Low Down Dirty Business
by Swing Out Sister
Published by EMI Virgin Songs, Inc./EMI 10 Music, LTD., BMI
Courtesy of Mercury Records
by arrangement with Polygram Special Markets
See more "

Release Date:

5 March 1997 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Watermelon Woman

Budget:

$300,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$774, 13 November 2016

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$1,989

See full technical specs "

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Cast overview, first billed only: Cheryl is young, Black, and lesbian, working in Philadelphia with her best friend Tamara and consumed by a film project: to make a video about her search for a Black actress from Philly who appeared in films in the 30s and was known as the Watermelon Woman.

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I have MUBI - its released next week, would love to stream this for a bit of intersectionality / maybe do a Baldwin reading too - Yazz

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Synopsis

A documentary portrait of James Baldwin, one of the towering figures of 20th-century American literature, Black culture and political thought, filmed in Paris. The iconic writer is captured in many symbolic locations in the city, where he was living at the time, including the Place de la Bastille.

Our take

Tense, combative, discursive: A meeting with James Baldwin doesn't quite go according to plan for a group of presumptuous white filmmakers in this rarely seen, Paris-set short film. An illuminating snapshot of Baldwin's intellectual worldview that bristles with friction and ideas.

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A documentary portrait of James Baldwin, one of the towering figures of 20th-century American literature, Black culture and political thought, filmed in Paris. The iconic writer is captured in many symbolic locations in the city, where he was living at the time, including the Place de la Bastille.

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Nominated for 6 Oscars. Another 77 wins & 242 nominations. See more awards "

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:

Storyline

In an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's seminal novel The Price of Salt, CAROL follows two women from very different backgrounds who find themselves in an unexpected love affair in 1950s New York. As conventional norms of the time challenge their undeniable attraction, an honest story emerges to reveal the resilience of the heart in the face of change. A young woman in her 20s, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), is a clerk working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol (Cate Blanchett), an alluring woman trapped in a loveless, convenient marriage. As an immediate connection sparks between them, the innocence of their first encounter dims and their connection deepens. While Carol breaks free from the confines of marriage, her husband (Kyle Chandler) begins to question her competence as a mother as her involvement with Therese and close relationship with her best friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) come to light. Written by The Weinstein Company

Taglines:

Some people change your life forever

Did You Know?

Trivia

Phyllis Nagy, who at the time she was approached to write the script was the writer in residence at the Royal Court Theatre in London, wrote the first draft in 1996. She spent almost two decades as the constant presence keeping the film project alive throughout financing problems. See more "

Goofs

"When Carol and Therese are driving through the Lincoln Tunnel, a close up of Therese through the window of the taxi from the beginning of the film is used."

^ The closeup of Therese through the taxi window is not a goof. It appears briefly in the Lincoln Tunnel scene because the scene is her memory of it. Therese's ride in the taxi after just seeing Carol again makes her think of her first ride in Carol's car. This film begins where it ends and the story is a circle between these bookends. In this tunnel scene the conversation between Carol and Therese is distant and barely audible, and Carol's face blurs and comes into focus because it is Therese's remembrance of this moment in time. See more "

Quotes

: How do you know my wife?
: Harge, please.
Therese Belivet : I work at Frankenberg's, the department store.
: I ordered a gift from her desk. I forgot my gloves. So, she returned them and I thanked her.
: Well, that's bold.
See more "

Soundtracks

Auld Lang Syne
Performed by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks
Arranged by Vince Giordano
Published by Starr Score Holdings, LLC
Master recording Licensed courtesy of Starr Score Holdings, LLC
See more "

User Reviews

Details

Release Date:

15 January 2016 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Price of Salt

Box Office

Budget:

$11,800,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$253,510, 22 November 2015

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$40,272,135

Company Credits

Technical Specs

See full technical specs "

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Nominated for 6 Oscars. Another 77 wins & 242 nominations. See more awards " Cast overview, first billed only: In an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's seminal novel The Price of Salt, CAROL follows two women from very different backgrounds who find themselves in an unexpected love affair in 1950s New York.

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LGBT+ History Month Claiming our past - Celebrating our present - Creating our future LGBT+ History Month is for everyone; whether you work in education, a museum, library or art gallery, a business, a service, are a member of a network/social group or an individual.

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Well, hello. Homo Sapiens is the smash hit Podcast where Queer people talk about life.

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Directed by David Freyne. With Fionn O'Shea, Lola Petticrew, Sharon Horgan, Barry Ward. Two school friends decide to start a pretend straight relationship in an effort to fit in.

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Paris Is Burning is a 1990 documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it.

Critics consider the film to be an invaluable documentary of the end of the "Golden Age" of New York City drag balls, and a thoughtful exploration of race, class, gender, and sexuality in America.

In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The title takes its name from the Paris Is Burning ball held annually by artist Paris Dupree who appears in the film.

The film explores the elaborately-structured ball competitions in which contestants, adhering to a very specific "category" or theme, must "walk", much like a fashion model parades a runway. Contestants are judged on criteria including their dance talent, the beauty of their clothing, and the "realness" of their drag - i.e., their ability to pass as a member of the group or sex they are portraying. For example, the category " banjee realness" comprises gay men portraying macho archetypes such as sailors, soldiers, and street hoodlums. "Banjee boys" are judged by their ability to pass as their straight counterparts in the outside world.

Most of the film alternates between footage of balls and interviews with prominent members of the scene, including Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, Angie Xtravaganza, and Willi Ninja. Many of the contestants vying for trophies are representatives of " houses" that serve as intentional families, social groups, and performance teams. Houses and ball contestants who consistently win trophies for their walks eventually earn "legendary" status.

Jennie Livingston, who moved to New York after graduating from Yale to work in film, spent six years making Paris Is Burning, and interviewed key figures in the ball world. Many of them contribute monologues that shed light on gender roles, gay and ball subcultures, and their own life stories. The film explains how words such as house, mother, shade, reading and legendary gain new meaning when used in novel ways to describe the gay and drag subculture. The "houses" serve as surrogate families for young ball-walkers who face rejection from their biological families for their gender expression and sexual orientation.

The film also explores how its subjects deal with issues such as AIDS, racism, poverty, violence and homophobia. Some, such as Venus Xtravaganza, become sex workers to support themselves. Near the end of the film, Angie Xtravaganza, Venus's "house mother", reacts to news that Venus is found strangled to death and speculates that a disgruntled client killed her. Others shoplift clothing so they can "walk" in the balls. Several are disowned by transphobic and homophobic parents, leaving them vulnerable to homelessness. Some subjects save money for sex reassignment surgery, while a few have extensive surgery; others receive breast implants without undergoing vaginoplasty.

According to Livingston, the documentary is a multi-leveled exploration of an African-American and Latino subculture that serves as a microcosm of fame, race, and wealth in the larger US culture. Through candid one-on-one interviews, the film offers insight into the lives and struggles of its subjects and the strength, pride, and humor they display to survive in a "rich, white world."

Drag is presented as a complex performance of gender, class, and race, and a way to express one's identity, desires and aspirations. The African-American and Latino community depicted in the film includes a diverse range of sexual identities and gender presentations, from "butch queens" (gay cisgender men) to transgender women, to drag queens, to butch women.

The film also documents the origins of " voguing", a dance style in which competing ball-walkers pose and freeze in glamorous positions as if being photographed for the cover of .

However, Livingston maintained in 1991 that the film was not just about dance:

This is a film that is important for anyone to see, whether they're gay or not. It's about how we're all influenced by the media; how we strive to meet the demands of the media by trying to look like Vogue models or by owning a big car. And it's about survival. It's about people who have a lot of prejudices against them and who have learned to survive with wit, dignity and energy.

Ball

Legendary

Categories

Lucious Body

Schoolboy/Schoolgirl realness

Town and country

Executive realness

Butch queen first time in drags at a ball

High fashion eveningwear

Realness

House

Mother

Shade

Reading

Voguing

Mopping

Livingston studied photography and painting at Yale University. After moving to New York, she worked for the Staten Island Advance, a local newspaper. She left for one summer to study film at New York University in Greenwich Village. She was photographing in that neighborhood's Washington Square Park, where she met two young men and was intrigued by their dancing and the unusual slang they were using. She asked what they were doing, and they told her that they were voguing. She attended her first ball, a mini-ball at the Gay Community Center on 13th Street, which she filmed as an assignment for her class at NYU.

At that mini-ball, Livingston encountered Venus Xtravaganza for the first time. Later, she spent time with Willi Ninja to learn about ball culture and voguing. She also researched African-American history, literature, and culture, and she also studied queer culture and the nature of subcultures. She conducted audio interviews with several ball participants: Venus and Danni Xtravaganza, Dorian Corey, Junior Labeija, Octavia St. Laurent and others. The main self-funded shoot was the Paris is Burning ball in 1986.

From that footage, Livingston worked with editor Jonathan Oppenheim to edit a trailer, which was then used to obtained funding from some grants, including awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Paul Robeson Fund, and the Jerome Foundation. Finally, Madison Davis Lacy, the head of public TV station WNYC, saw the material and contributed $125,000 to the production. The producers still needed to raise additional funds to edit the film, which came primarily from executive producer Nigel Finch at the BBC-2 show .

There was some followup production in 1989: to tell the story of voguing's entry into mainstream culture, and to tell the stories of Willi's international success as a dancer and of Venus Xtravaganza's murder, which remains unsolved to this day. The filmmakers also did an additional interview with Dorian Corey, talking about "executive realness", "shade", and "reading".

The documentary took seven years to complete due to production costs and difficulties obtaining funding. Livingston edited the final cut down to 78 minutes from over 75 hours of footage, all shot on expensive 16mm film. After the film's completion, the producers still needed to raise funds to get permission to use the music played in the ballrooms. It cost almost as much to clear the music as it did to shoot and edit the entire film. The production team had to rely on 10 separate funding sources throughout the course of the project.

The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from a number of mainstream and independent presses, remarkable at that time for a film on the LGBT community, given the enormous legal and cultural obstacles that they faced then. The film holds a score of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 7.83/10. The website's critical consensus reads, " Paris Is Burning dives into '80s transgender subculture, with the understated camera allowing this world to flourish and the people to speak (and dance) for themselves."

Terrence Rafferty of The New Yorker said the film was "a beautiful piece of work-lively, intelligent, exploratory .... Everything about Paris Is Burning signifies so blatantly and so promiscuously that our formulations - our neatly paired theses and antitheses - multiply faster than we can keep track of them. What's wonderful about the picture is that Livingston is smart enough not to reduce her subjects to the sum of their possible meanings..."

Filmmaker Michelle Parkerson, writing for The Black Film Review, called the film "a politically astute, historically important document of our precarious times."

Essex Hemphill, the poet well known for his role in Marlon Riggs's classic film Tongues Untied, reviewed the film for The Guardian, celebrating how the documentary created a forum for the people in it to speak in their own voices, and writing: "Houses of silk and gabardine are built. Houses of dream and fantasy. Houses that bear the names of their legendary founders...Houses rise and fall. Legends come and go. To pose is to reach for power while simultaneously holding real powerlessness at bay."

Yet the film was not without detractors even after its initial release.

Writing for Z Magazine, feminist writer bell hooks criticized the film for depicting the ritual of the balls as a spectacle to "pleasure" white spectators. Other authors such as Judith Butler and Phillip Harper have focused on the drag queens' desire to perform and present "realness". Realness can be described as the ability to appropriate an authentic gender expression. When performing under certain categories at the ball, such as school girl or executive, the queens are rewarded for appearing as close to the "real thing" as possible. A main goal amongst the contestants is to perform conventional gender roles while at the same time trying to challenge them.

Hooks also questions the political efficacy of the drag balls themselves, citing her own experiments with drag, and suggesting that the balls themselves lack political, artistic, and social significance. Hooks criticizes the production and questions gay men performing drag, suggesting that it is inherently misogynistic and degrading towards women. Butler responds to hooks' previous opinion that drag is misogynistic, stating in her book, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex":

The problem with the analysis of drag as only misogyny is, of course, that it figures male-to-female transsexuality, cross-dressing, and drag as male homosexual activities - which they are not always - and it further diagnoses male homosexuality as rooted in misogyny.

Both hooks and Harper criticize the filmmaker, Jennie Livingston, who is Jewish, gender-nonconforming, and queer, for remaining visibly absent from the film. Although the viewers are able to hear Livingston a few times during the production, the director's physical absence while orchestrating the viewer's perspective, creates what hooks calls an " Imperial Oversee(r)".

In the years following the film's release, people have continued to speak and write about Paris Is Burning. In 2003, the New York Times reported that more than two decades after its release, Paris Is Burning remains a commonly cited and frequently used organizing tool for LGBT youth; a way for scholars and students to examine issues of race, class, and gender; a way for younger ball participants to meet their cultural ancestors; and a portrait of several remarkable Americans, almost all of whom have died since the film's production.

In 2013, UC Irvine scholar Lucas Hilderbrand wrote a history of the film, a book detailing its production, reception, and influence, Paris Is Burning, A Queer Film Classic (Arsenal Pulp Press). In 2007, writer Wesley Morris, in a print-only section for children for The New York Times, wrote "12 Films to See Before You Turn 13". The piece recommended kids see films like Princess Mononoke, The Wiz, and Do the Right Thing. About Paris Is Burning, Morris says "seeing [Livingston's] documentary as soon as possible means you can spend the rest of your life having its sense of humanity amuse, surprise, and devastate you, over and over."

1990 - IDA Award, International Documentary Association

1990 - LAFCA Award Best Documentary, Los Angeles Film Critics Association

1990 - Audience Award Best Documentary, San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival

1991 - Grand Jury Prize Documentary, Sundance Film Festival

1991 - Teddy Award for Best Documentary Film, Berlin International Film Festival

1991 - Boston Society of Film Critics Awards (BSFC) Best Documentary

1991 - Open Palm Award, Gotham Awards

1991 - NYFCC Award Best Documentary, New York Film Critics Circle Awards

1991 - Golden Space Needle Award Best Documentary, Seattle International Film Festival

1992 - Outstanding Film (Documentary), GLAAD Media Awards

1992 - NSFC Award Best Documentary, National Society of Film Critics

2015 - Cinema Eye Honours Legacy Award

2016 - Added to the National Film Registry

Controversy

The film received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts during the period when the organization was under fire for funding controversial artists including Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. Aware that publicity surrounding her project could result in revoked funding, Livingston avoided releasing many details about the project outside of her small circle of producers and collaborators.

Although there had been no agreement to do so, the producers planned to distribute approximately $55,000 (1/5 of the sale price of the film to Miramax) among 13 of the participants. While Dorian Corey and Willi Ninja were very happy to be paid for a film they'd understood was an unpaid work of nonfiction, several other film participants felt they were not properly compensated and thus retained an attorney, planning to sue for a share of the film's profits in 1991. When their attorney saw they had all signed standard model releases generated by WNYC Television, they did not sue and accepted payment. Paris Dupree had planned to sue for $40 million.

Livingston has consistently downplayed the financial controversy in interviews and forums. She has expressed that documentaries are works of nonfiction and journalism, and that it has never been standard practice to pay their subjects. She states that she paid the principals as a matter of respect at a time when this was not commonly done, and she argues that they received considerably more than they would have received if they had been actors in an independently-made drama feature.

Upon its release, the documentary received exceptionally good reviews from critics and won several awards including a Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, a Berlin International Film Festival Teddy Bear, an audience award from the Toronto International Film Festival, a GLAAD Media Award, a Women in Film Crystal Award, a Best Documentary award from the Los Angeles, New York, and National Film Critics' Circles, and it also was named as one of 1991's best films by the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, magazine, and others.

In spite of the many positive reactions and film awards earned, Paris Is Burning did not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature that year. This generated accusations that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was homophobic and transphobic (even though it awarded such LGBT films as Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt two years prior and The Times of Harvey Milk), which in turn led to changes on how documentaries are nominated for the Academy Awards.

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Paris Is Burning is a 1990 documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it.

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The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson

Directed by
David France

Produced by

Written by

Music by
Bryce Dessner

Cinematography

Edited by

Tyler H. Walk

Distributed by
Netflix

April 21, 2017 (Tribeca)

October 6, 2017

105 minutes

Country

United States

Language

English

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson is a 2017 American documentary film directed by David France. It chronicles Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, prominent figures in gay liberation and transgender rights movement in New York City from the 1960s to the 1990s and co-founders of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. The film centers on activist Victoria Cruz's investigation into Johnson's death in 1992, which was initially ruled a suicide by police despite suspicious circumstances. It is France's second film, following How to Survive a Plague (2012).

The film premiered in the documentary competition section at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2017. In June 2017, Netflix acquired worldwide rights to the film. The film was released on the streaming service on October 6, 2017.

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96%, based on 28 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, " The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson uses its belated investigation into an activist's murder as the framework for a sobering look at the ongoing battle for equal rights." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

On October 7, 2017, transgender filmmaker Tourmaline wrote on Instagram alleging that France appropriated her research from a grant application for her film project (which would become Happy Birthday, Marsha!, a narrative short). France denied the allegation saying that he was already well into the research for his documentary when he first became aware of Tourmaline's work, while acknowledging that he "witnessed the obstacles [Tourmaline] faces as an artist who is also a transgender woman of color, obstacles that have been far less onerous" for him. On October 11, a more detailed account of Tourmaline's allegation was published on the website. Subsequent investigations by and The Advocate found no evidence in support of the allegation.

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The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson Directed by David France Produced by Written by Music by Bryce Dessner Cinematography Edited by Tyler H. Walk Distributed by Netflix April 21, 2017 (Tribeca) October 6, 2017 105 minutes Country United States Language English The Death and Life of Marsha P.

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University of Sussex Students' Union - Company No. 07695765. Charity No. 1147242University of Sussex Students' Union Trading Ltd - Company No. 02146582 © 2021 | All Rights Reserved | Powered by SUMS

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Groundbreaking US series about the underground world of 1980s ball culture.

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Be prepared for a tearjerker...

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Watch It’s A Sin | Stream free on Channel 4

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Drama from Russell T Davies about five friends. With their lives tested as they grow up in the shadow of AIDS, they’re determined to live and love more fiercely than ever.

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Check out your Students' Union's programme of events, run by students and staff at Sussex.

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LGBTQ+ History Month is a national programme that takes place every February, with our listings showcasing events from Sussex students, staff and local organisations.

Previous LGBTQ+ History Month events have included talks from iconic activist Travis Alabanza, drag extravaganzas and queer history tours of Brighton to name but a few. These were hosted alongside smaller events for LGBTQ+ students to meetup and get involved with the community on campus and beyond.

Due to current government restrictions, we will be compiling a programme of virtual events, activities and campaigns for LGBTQ+ History Month 2021. This is a great opportunity to 'think outside the box' and host, co-host or attend online events, participate in online activities and support virtual campaigns. If you are thinking of hosting an event or activity, please fill in this form to let us know! There is the chance to ask for extra support or for grants from our small funding pot available.

If you want to get involved but don't know where to start, or know what you want to see but are not able to host it yourself, please email [email protected] to start a conversation with us!

We will also add anything to our LGBTQ+ History Month listings on the SU What's On page.

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LGBTQ+ History Month is a national programme that takes place every February, with our listings showcasing events from Sussex students, staff and local organisations. Previous LGBTQ+ History Month events have included talks from iconic activist Travis Alabanza, drag extravaganzas and queer history tours of Brighton to name but a few.