Nonfiction Pride Titles

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Titles Found: 15
American Daredevil
American Daredevil (4 Formats) ›
By Cathryn J. Prince
Cloth Price 27.99

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Published Jun 2016

With a polished walking stick and neatly pressed trousers, Richard Halliburton served as an intrepid globetrotting guide for millions of Americans in the 1920s and ’30s. Readers waited with bated breath for each new article and book he wrote. During his career, Halliburton climbed the Matterhorn, nearly fell out of his plane while shooting the first aerial photographs of Mt. Everest, and became the first person to swim the Panama Canal. With his matinee idol looks, the Tennessee native was a media darling in an era of optimism and increased social openness. But as the Great Depression and looming war pushed America toward social conservatism, Halliburton more actively worked to hide his homosexuality, burnishing his image as a masculine trailblazer. As chronicled in American Daredevil, Halliburton harnessed the media of his day to gain and maintain a widespread following long before our age of the 24-hour news cycle, and thus became the first celebrity adventure journalist. And during the darkest hours of the Great Depression, Halliburton did something remarkable: he inspired generations of authors, journalists, and everyday people who dreamt of fame and glory to explore the world.
An Angel in Sodom
An Angel in Sodom (3 Formats) ›
By Jim Elledge
Cloth Price 30.00

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Published Oct 2022

2023 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Gay Memoir/Biography

"Makes the case that we should consider Gerber not an asterisk, but a forefather of the gay-rights movement—one who would influence later generations of activists."—The Atlantic 

Born in 1892 in Germany, Henry Gerber was expelled from school as a boy and lost several jobs as a young man because of his homosexual activities. He emigrated to the United States and enlisted in the army for employment. After his release, he explored Chicago’s gay subculture: cruising Bughouse Square, getting arrested for “disorderly conduct,” and falling in love. He was institutionalized for being gay, branded an “enemy alien” at the end of World War I, and given a choice: to rejoin the army or be imprisoned in a federal penitentiary.

Gerber re-enlisted and was sent to Germany in 1920. In Berlin, he discovered a vibrant gay rights movement, which made him vow to advocate for the rights of gay men at home. He founded the Society for Human Rights, the first legally recognized US gay-rights organization, on December 10, 1924.

When police caught wind of it, he and two members were arrested. He lost his job, went to court three times, and went bankrupt. Released, he moved to New York, disheartened.

Later in life, he joined the DC chapter of the Mattachine Society, a gay-rights advocacy group founded by Harry Hay who had heard of Gerber’s group, leading him to found Mattachine. 

An Angel in Sodom is the first and long overdue biography of the founder of the first US gay rights organization.
Both Sides of the Fire Line
Both Sides of the Fire Line (3 Formats) ›
By Bobbie Scopa
Cloth Price 28.99

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Published Sep 2022

Bobbie Scopa spent close to five decades working through nearly every challenge a firefighter can face.

Scopa was a strike team leader for the Dude Fire in 1990, where six firefighters were tragically killed, and she served at Ground Zero immediately after 9/11. She’s worked mountain rescues, city fires, mega-wildfires, and everything in between.

While battling conditions and harsh flames on the outside, she also found herself waging a tougher battle on the inside. Scopa was torn between how to maintain the façade everyone expected of her and whether to live as her true self. “A hero firefighter can’t possibly be transgender, right?” she thought.

Both Sides of the Fire Line is Bobbie Scopa’s uplifting memoir of bravely facing the heat of fierce challenges, professionally and personally.
Elsa Lanchester, Herself
Elsa Lanchester, Herself ›
By Elsa Lanchester, Foreword by Mara Wilson
Price 19.99

Trade Paper

Published Apr 2018

Being known as “The Bride of Frankenstein” is an unusual form of fame, but for Elsa Lanchester the unusual came naturally. Born to radical socialist parents, Elsa attended an all-boys school and later “studied” in Paris with dance pioneer Isadora Duncan. At 17, she opened her own theater, which was frequented by writers such as H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, and Evelyn Waugh. She began performing with and then fell in love with a brilliant young actor named Charles Laughton. Soon after their marriage he revealed his homosexuality. Though it made their union shaky at times, it did not overshadow their common love of art, music, and nature, and their marriage endured for 36 years until Laughton’s death. Elsa Lanchester, Herself presents the story of a woman ahead of her time: independent, iconoclastic, liberated. It is the chronicle of a life filled with famous people (from Bertolt Brecht to Henry Fonda), and of a career that spanned almost seven decades. It is also a warm, truthful account of a very special marriage. Witty and wise, Elsa Lanchester’s account of her life and times is a delight.
Fighting to Serve
Fighting to Serve (4 Formats) ›
By Alexander Nicholson
Cloth Price 26.95

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Published Sep 2012

Revealing the backstage strategies and negotiations that led to the 2010 repeal of the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, this history offers a detailed, no-holds-barred account of the controversial policy from an insider’s perspective. In early 2006, the founder of the largest organization for gay and lesbian servicemembers—Servicemembers United—along with fellow former military members who had also been discharged under the DADT policy, toured the United States, speaking about the repeal campaign at American Legion posts, on radio talk shows, and at press conferences across the South and both coasts. Surprised at the mostly positive reception and momentum for the repeal that the tour received, Servicemembers United was suddenly propelled to the forefront of DADT’s repeal fight. From the unique perspective of the only person with a central role on every front in the war against DADT, this examination exposes how various Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) organizations, Congress, and the White House often worked at cross purposes, telling the public they were doing one thing while advocating other strategies behind closed doors.

Gay & Lesbian History for Kids
Gay & Lesbian History for Kids (4 Formats) ›
By Jerome Pohlen
Trade Paper Price 18.99

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Published Oct 2015

Part of the popular For Kids series, this book puts the historic struggle for LGBT equality into perspective
 
Given today’s news, it would be easy to get the impression that the campaign for LGBT equality is a recent development, but it is only the final act in a struggle that started more than a century ago. This timely resource helps put recent events into context for kids ages nine and up. After a brief history up to 1900, each chapter discusses an era in the struggle for LGBT civil rights from the 1920s to today. The history is told through personal stories and firsthand accounts of the movement’s key events like the 1950s “Lavender Scare,” the Stonewall Inn uprising, and the AIDS crisis. Readers will learn about civil rights mavericks, like Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, founder of the first gay rights organization; Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who turned the Daughters of Bilitis from a lesbian social club into a powerhouse for LGBT freedom; and Harvey Milk, the first out candidate to win a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Also chronicled are the historic contributions of famous LGBT individuals, and 21 activities enliven the history. Kids can write a free verse poem like Walt Whitman, learn the Madison line dance, design an AIDS quilt panel, and write a song parody to learn about the spirited ways in which the LGBT community has pushed for positive social change.
Genius
Genius (4 Formats) ›
By Patrick Dennis
Trade Paper Price 16.99

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Published May 2018

Following in the tradition of Auntie Mame, in 1962 bestselling author Patrick Dennis turned his wicked satirical pen on the insane world of fictional director Leander Starr. Rumored to be based on legendary filmmaker Orson Welles, Starr proves to be outrageous and memorable in this glamorous comedy of errors. Fleeing the IRS, creditors, and jilted lovers, Starr holes up in a Mexico City apartment, Casa Ximenez, with his faithful valet, Alistair St. Regis. To his surprise, the proprietor is none other than Catalina Ximinez, the leading lady in Starr’s early masterpiece, Yucatán Girl. By accident or intent, others soon descend on Casa Ximenez—Starr’s ex-wife, his estranged socialite daughter, a shady Mexican film producer, a tax collector who has chased Starr around the world, and a dim young widow sitting on a fortune in laxative stock. Starr concocts a plan to distract them all, and possibly stage a comeback: an abbreviated epic covering the history of Mexico titled Valley of the Vultures. This fresh edition of Dennis’s uproarious novel is joined by a long-lost short story of Leander Starr, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas in the Railway Station,” which appeared in the Chicago Tribune Magazine of Books, as well as a new afterword by the author’s son.
Never Silent
Never Silent (4 Formats) ›
By Peter Staley, Foreword by Anderson Cooper
Cloth Price 26.99

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Published Oct 2021

In 1987, somebody shoved a flyer into the hand of Peter Staley: massive AIDS demonstration, it announced. After four years on Wall Street as a closeted gay man, Staley was familiar with the homophobia common on trading floors. He also knew that he was not beyond the reach of HIV, having recently been diagnosed with AIDS-Related Complex. A week after the protest, Staley found his way to a packed meeting of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power—ACT UP—in the West Village. It would prove to be the best decision he ever made. ACT UP would change the course of AIDS, pressuring the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and three administrations to finally respond with research plans that ultimately saved millions of lives. Staley, a shrewd strategist with nerves of steel, organized some of the group’s most spectacular actions, from shutting down trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to putting a giant condom over the house of Senator Jesse Helms. Never Silent is the inside story of what brought Staley to ACT UP and the explosive and sometimes painful years to follow—years filled with triumph, humiliation, joy, loss, and persistence. Never Silent is guaranteed to inspire the activist within all of us. 
Rainbow Warrior
Rainbow Warrior (5 Formats) ›
By Gilbert Baker, Foreword by Dustin Lance Black
Cloth Price 26.99

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Published Jun 2019

In 1978, Harvey Milk asked Gilbert Baker to create a unifying symbol for the growing gay rights movement, and on June 25 of that year, Baker’s Rainbow Flag debuted at San Francisco’s Gay Liberation Day parade. Baker had no idea his creation would become an international emblem of freedom, forever cementing his place and importance in helping to define the modern LGBTQ+ movement.

            Rainbow Warrior is Baker’s passionate personal chronicle, from a repressive childhood in 1950s Kansas to a harrowing stint in the US Army, and finally his arrival in San Francisco, where he bloomed as both a visual artist and social justice activist. His fascinating story weaves through the early years of the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights, where he worked closely with Milk, Cleve Jones, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Baker continued his flag-making, street theater and activism through the Reagan years and the AIDS crisis. And in 1994, Baker spearheaded the effort to fabricate a mile-long Rainbow Flag—at the time, the world’s longest—to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising in New York City. Gilbert and parade organizers battled with the newly elected Mayor Giuliani for the right to carry it up Fifth Avenue, past St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

            Today, the Rainbow Flag has become a worldwide symbol of LGBTQ+ diversity and inclusiveness, and its rainbow hues have illuminated landmarks from the White House to the Eiffel Tower to the Sydney Opera House. Gilbert Baker often called himself the “Gay Betsy Ross,” and readers of his colorful, irreverent and deeply personal memoir will find it difficult to disagree.
Reaching Ninety
Reaching Ninety (3 Formats) ›
By Martin Duberman
Cloth Price 30.00

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Published Mar 2023

Martin Duberman, one of the LGBTQ+ community’s maverick thinkers and historians, looks back on ninety years of life, his history in the movement, and what he’s learned.

In the early Sixties, Martin Duberman published a path-breaking article defending the Abolitionists against the then-standard view of them as “misguided fanatics.” In 1964, his documentary play, In White America, which reread the history of racist oppression in this country, toured the country—most notably during Freedom Summer—and became an international hit.

Duberman then took on the profession of history for failing to admit the inherent subjectivity of all re-creations of the past. He radically democratized his own seminars at Princeton, for which he was excoriated by powerful professors in his own department, leading him to renounce his tenured full professorship and to join the faculty of the CUNY Graduate School.

At CUNY, too, he was initially blocked from offering a pioneering set of seminars on the history of gender and sexuality, but after a fifteen-year struggle succeeded in establishing the Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies—which became a beacon for emerging scholars in that new field.

By the early Seventies, Duberman had broadened his struggle against injustice by becoming active in protesting the war in Vietnam and in playing a central role in forming the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force and Queers for Economic Justice.

Down to the present-day, he continues through his writing to champion those working for a more equitable society.
The Boys of Fairy Town
The Boys of Fairy Town (4 Formats) ›
By Jim Elledge
Cloth Price 29.99

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Published Jun 2018

A history of gay Chicago told through the stories of queer men who left a record of their sexual activities in the Second City, this book paints a vivid picture of the neighborhoods where they congregated while revealing their complex lives. Some, such as reporter John Wing, were public figures. Others, like Henry Gerber, who created the first “homophile” organization in the United States, were practically invisible to their contemporaries. But their stories are all riveting. Striptease artists Quincy de Lang and George Quinn were arrested and put on trial at the behest of a leader of Chicago’s anti-“indecency” movement. African American ragtime pianist Tony Jackson’s most famous song, “Pretty Baby,” was written about one of his male lovers. Alfred Kinsey’s explorations of the city’s netherworld changed the future of American sexuality while confirming his own queer proclivities. What emerges from The Boys of Fairy Town is a complex portrait and a virtually unknown history of one of the most vibrant cities in the United States.
The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams
The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams (4 Formats) ›
By Jonathan Ned Katz
Cloth Price 30.00

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Published May 2021

Eve Adams was a rebel. Born Chawa Zloczewer into a Jewish family in Poland, Adams emigrated to the United States in 1912. The young woman took a new name, befriended anarchists, sold radical publications, and ran lesbian-and-gay-friendly speakeasies in Chicago and New York. Then, in 1925, Adams risked all to write and publish a book titled Lesbian Love. In a repressive era, long before today’s gay liberation movement, when American women had just gained the right to vote, Adams’s bold activism caught the attention of the young J. Edgar Hoover and the US Bureau of Investigation, leading to her surveillance and arrest. In a case that pitted immigration officials, the New York City police, and a biased informer against her, Adams was convicted of publishing an obscene book and of attempted sex with a policewoman sent to entrap her. Adams was jailed and then deported back to Europe, and ultimately murdered by Nazis in Auschwitz. In The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams, acclaimed historian Jonathan Ned Katz has recovered the extraordinary story of an early, daring activist. Drawing on startling evidence, carefully distinguishing fact from fiction, Katz presents the first biography of Adams, and the publisher reprints the long-lost text of Adams’s rare, unique book Lesbian Love.
TransElectric
TransElectric (3 Formats) ›
By Cidny Bullens, Foreword by Elton John
Cloth Price 30.00

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Published Jun 2023

From the depths of the '70s rock 'n' roll excesses through unimaginable personal losses to an inspiring late-life transformation, Cidny Bullens’s story is an utterly compelling journey about living and singing with your authentic voice.

An androgynous gender-bending musician from the get-go, Bullens toured extensively with Sir Elton John and performed with Bob Dylan, undergoing a complete immersion in the drug-fueled excesses of 1970s rock 'n' roll. Despite getting sober, climbing the charts with the Grammy-nominated Survivor, as well as a Grammy nomination for his lead vocals in the soundtrack for the movie Grease, Bullens was unable to break out as a solo star in a world that allowed its artists to cross the gender line, but had much more narrow expectations about how women could behave and perform.

Retreating into the conventional lifestyle of a suburban mom, Bullens felt like she was living in an alternate universe. Then whatever world she had was shattered by the tragic death of her younger daughter from cancer. Out of the ashes of despair, Bullens brought forth an award-winning album, Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth, that relaunched the musician’s career. 

Finally, nine years ago, Cidny claimed his own healing and transitioned from female to male—finding unexpected love, becoming a new stepfather and a grandfather.

What he found, too, was his true voice and true power as a performer.
 
We Set the Night on Fire
We Set the Night on Fire (3 Formats) ›
By Martha Shelley
Cloth Price 28.99

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Published Jun 2023

Martha Shelley didn’t start out in life wanting to become a gay activist, or an activist of any kind.
The daughter of Jewish refugees and undocumented immigrants in New York City, she grew up during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s, was inspired by the civil rights and anti–Vietnam War movements that followed, and struggled with coming out as a lesbian at a time when being gay made her a criminal.
Shelley rose to become a public speaker for the New York chapter of the lesbian rights group the Daughters of Bilitis, organized the first gay march in response to the Stonewall Riots of 1969, and then cofounded the Gay Liberation Front. She coproduced the newspaper Come Out!, worked on the women’s takeover of the RAT Subterranean News, and took a central role in the Lavender Menace action to confront homophobia in the women’s movement.
Martha Shelley’s story is a feminist and lesbian document that gives context and adds necessary humanity to the historical record.
When the Band Played On
When the Band Played On (3 Formats) ›
By Michael G. Lee
Cloth Price 30.00

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Published Oct 2024

Randy Shilts was the preeminent LGBTQ+ reporter of his generation. 

He was the first openly gay reporter assigned to a gay beat at a mainstream paper and one of the nation’s most influential chroniclers of gay history, politics, and culture. Shilts wrote three seminal works on the community: The Mayor of Castro Street, on the life, assassination, and legacy of Harvey Milk; And the Band Played On, detailing the failure of politics as usual during the early AIDS epidemic; and Conduct Unbecoming, a history of the US military’s mistreatment of LGBTQ servicemembers.  

Yet the intimate life story of Randy Shilts has been left unwritten. When the Band Played On tells that story, recognizing his legacy as a trailblazing figure in gay activism, journalism, and public policy.   

Author Michael G. Lee conducted interviews with Shilts’s family, friends, college professors, colleagues, informants, lovers, and critics. The resulting narrative tells the tale of a singularly gifted voice, a talented yet insecure young man whose coming of age became intricately linked to the historic peaks and devastating perils of modern gay liberation. 

When the Band Played On is the authoritative account of Randy Shilts’s trailblazing life, as well as his legacy of shaping the history-making events he covered.