A memoir of the struggles and scandals, politics, and personalities that made up the women's and liberation movements of the 1960s and '70s. 8-page photo insert.

For Smith, "lesbian panic" is often a fear of losing one's identity and value within the heterosexual paradigm. This book traces the history of "lesbian panic" through key works: The Voyage Out and Mrs. Dalloway; The Little Girls and Eva Trout; King of a Rainy Country; The Golden Notebook; and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

In 1982, two friends Bob and Sigrid opened their new radical lesbian, gay and feminist bookshop, 'Lavender Menace' on Edinburgh's Forth Street. On the eve of the shop's 5th birthday, sales assistants Paul and David take a look back at its origins, in this funny, moving play. Cast your mind back to 1982 - Margaret Thatcher sends the British Fleet to the Falklands, Channel 4 comes to the living room and Prince William is born. But this play has nothing to do with all that. This play is about activism, community and fighting for acceptance with words, music, humour and heart. The play looks back at 1982, as Bob and Sigrid open their shop. A trailblazing venture that began life in the cloakroom of a gay club, the shop will become the beating heart of Edinburgh's LGBT+ community. Now, on the final night of the shop's existence, sales assistants Lewis and Glen look back at its origins, its importance, its celebration of queer culture, how things have changed for the better (maybe)...And straight away the arguments begin! Love Song to Lavender Menace is a beautifully funny and moving exploration of the love and passion it takes to make something happen and the loss that is felt when you have to let it go. "Ley's script achieves a deft and sophisticated balance of subjects and registers, shedding light on queer experience with humour, warmth, passion and complexity." (The Scotsman)

Against queer theory's long-suffering romance with mourning and melancholia and a national agenda that urges homosexuals to renounce pleasure if they want to be taken seriously, Acts of Gaiety seeks to reanimate notions of "gaiety" as a political value for LGBT activism by recovering earlier mirthful modes of political performance. The book mines the archives of lesbian-feminist activism of the 1960s–70s, highlighting the outrageous gaiety—including camp, kitsch, drag, guerrilla theater, zap actions, rallies, manifestos, pageants, and parades alongside "legitimate theater”-- at the center of the social and theatrical performances of the era. Juxtaposing figures such as Valerie Solanas and Jill Johnston with more recent performers and activists including Hothead Paisan, Bitch and Animal, and the Five Lesbian Brothers, Sara Warner shows how reclaiming this largely discarded and disavowed past elucidates possibilities for being and belonging. Acts of Gaiety explores the mutually informing histories of gayness as politics and as joie de vivre, along with the centrality of liveliness to queer performance and protest.

A series of essays concerning the Gay Liberation Movement, from individuals and groups associated with the movement.

For author and activist Baumgardner, bisexuality has always been more than the "sexual non-preference of the '90s." Here she takes a close look at gay and bisexual people on the national cultural stage and the issues their growing visibility raises. In a society supposedly grown more open and accepting, what can it mean that bisexuality continues to be marginalized by both gay and straight cultures, and dismissed either as a phase or, worse, a cop-out? Baumgardner discusses her own experience as a bisexual, and the struggle she's undergone to reconcile the privilege of a woman who is perceived as straight, and the empowerment and satisfaction she's derived from her relationships with women. Her book is a study in bisexual lives lived secretly and openly, and an exploration of the lessons learned by writers, artists, and activists who have refused the either/or paradigm defended by both gay and straight communities.--From publisher description.