This book is intended for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and non-gay readers. It is divided into three sections: OC On Being Gay, OCO OC On Being Politically Correct, OCO and OC On Being Gay in the Real World.OCO Section I, OC On Being Gay, OCO focuses almost exclusively on what it means to be gay, the kinds of discrimination gays and lesbians face in their daily routines and lives, and how to face those issues of inequality, discrimination, and bigotry. Section II, OC On Being Politically CorrectOCO is directed toward contemporary issues within the gay community and presents a number of controversial topics that are hotly debated among gays and lesbians. Section III, OC On Being Gay in the Real World, OCO focuses on issues that affect gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals as they try to live effectually in the prevailing majority community. This section includes several essays that are not necessarily gay-specific, but can apply to people of every orientation. Section III emphasizes that all people, regardless of orientation, race, religion, gender, nationality, or ethnic background share the same hopes, fears, dreams, and desires. John Arthur Maddux writes in the introduction of his book: Read this book with an open mind. You never know what you might learn, or re-learn from a new perspective. Learning is essential to growth and if it ceases to be so, our hope for social, environmental, and political change will be thwarted, and we may find ourselves no better off than our primordial ancestors who lived in intellectual darkness and superstition. For an author photo and bio and a sample read visit www.bosonbooks.com."

A Badge of Injury is a contribution to both the fields of queer and global history. It analyses gay and lesbian transregional cultural communication networks from the 1970s to the 2000s, focusing on the importance of National Socialism, visual culture, and memory in the queer Atlantic. Provincializing Euro-American queer history, it illustrates how a history of concepts which encompasses the visual offers a greater depth of analysis of the transfer of ideas across regions than texts alone would offer. It also underlines how gay and lesbian history needs to be reframed under a queer lens and understood in a global perspective. Following the journey of the Pink Triangle and its many iterations, A Badge of Injury pinpoints the roles of cultural memory and power in the creation of gay and lesbian transregional narratives of pride or the construction of the historical queer subject. Beyond a success story, the book dives into some of the shortcomings of Euro-American queer history and the power of the negative, writing an emancipatory yet critical story of the era.

Sexual Orientation in Child and Adolescent Health Care serves as a resource for child health care professionals including pediatricians, family physicians, nurses, pediatric psychologists, child and adolescent psychiatrists, and social workers. The issues of sexuality and sexual orientation now generate great interest among those who treat children. This volume describes the effects of stigmatization on non-heterosexual physicians, patients, and students, and discusses a variety of clinically relevant topics including the development of sexual orientations, children of gay or lesbian parents, young children with gender atypical behavior, and the healthcare needs of gay and lesbian adolescents. The last two chapters describe methods for improvement in medical education and medical care, and provide extensive resources available to professionals and consumers.

A much-needed faith-based resource for the LGBTQ+ community, Colors of Hope uses the iconic Pride Flag as the core of a nine-week-long reflection and devotional journal. The flag’s eight colors is each tied to a specific symbolic theme, inspiring the book’s contributors to craft a short essay and a set of several common themes that carry over to each week and invite readers to reflect on the week’s theme in different ways. Colors of Hope includes a page each day for readers to journal, doodle, or otherwise reflect on the theme. The book also includes an introduction, benediction, and a list of resources and/or bibliography for the LGBTQIA+ community.

DIVReads white supremacist narratives in the context of Black and white literature at the turn of the century, with special attention to the interconnections between race and sexuality./div

At the age of twenty-five, Benjamin James Brenkert—a young man from Long Island, a social work student, and an internet vocation to the priesthood—entered one of the historically boldest, influential, apostolic religious orders of the Roman Catholic Church. Aged thirty-four, and a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in good standing, Brenkert was missioned to the laity by his last religious superior. Brenkert could not come out publicly as a gay Jesuit and support his LGBTQ peers who were being fired from various church employment and volunteer activities because of whom they loved. Brenkert had never concealed his sexuality from his religious superiors, he knew all too well what was written in the Church’s Catechism about homosexuals. Still, he felt uniquely called to respond to God’s invitation to serve him in total love as a priest, something confirmed in him in prayer during his thirty-day silent retreat and affirmed to him by his religious superiors and peers throughout his life in the Jesuits. In his Open Letter to Pope Francis in 2014 Brenkert wrote, “Pope Francis . . . I ask you to instruct the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to tell Catholic institutions not to fire any more LGBTQ Catholics. I ask you to speak out against laws that criminalize and oppress LGBTQ people around the globe. These actions would bring true life to your statement, ‘Who am I to judge?’” In 2015, the United States Supreme Court struck down bans on same-sex marriage in Obergell v. Hodges and in 2020, the United States Supreme Court expanded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Despite these landmark achievements in the public sector, LGBTQ Catholics still cannot receive communion and must always seek reconciliation. Their flourishing as part of their religious community is always frustrated. Brenkert’s account of his life before, in, and after the Jesuits is interwoven with trials and tribulations, but remains always full of hope, written candidly and with bracing honesty. Brenkert offers readers the opportunity to join him on a theological and spiritual pilgrimage, one that ends with readers making a discernment. The world today is full of distraction, misinformation, and timidity, Brenkert’s pilgrimage is full of conviction, heartful, written with an eagerness to help people of faith and no faith at all find their true selves, all for the greater glory of God.

A collection of essays written in the 1990s-2000s. Partial contents: