Currently touring with Lady Gaga on the Monster Ball tour are the fabulous Scissor Sisters. If you notice there is one hot shirtless man on stage who strips down to his thong before he leaves stage and you find yourself asking for more of him later. This would be Jake Shears who is currently also promoting a book.

Pictured is an outtake from photographer Tim Hailand’s One Day in the Life of Jake Shears photo book of Jake naked in the shower! The book which is out now gives fans a glimpse into the private life of the Scissor Sisters frontman. Jake provides his own text for the book, which also includes a special intro by Elton John and afterword by Kylie Minogue. A portion of proceeds of this book will benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Other books in Tim Hailand’s series include One Day in the Life of Rufus Wainwright and One Day in the Life of Daniel Radcliffe. A press release with more info is attached. All can be purchased at onedayinthelifeof.org.

In addition, Jake and Tim will be doing local book signings of One Day in the Life of Jake Shears together in Los Angeles and Atlanta. Info on the signings can be found below and in the attached invites.

We were lucky enough to get a copy of the backside of Jake Shears nude but you will have to get your own copy of the book to see his front side of the frontman. We know you are dying to see his package!

Los Angeles
Sunday, March 27
Bookmarc L.A. – 8407 Melrose Place
4:30pm – 6:00pm

Atlanta
Friday, April 8
Outwrite Bookstore – 991 Piedmont Ave
2:00pm – 3:00pm

An IPad is a great way to keep up with everything current. It makes reading the news, checking your Facebook and reading the literary greats a breeze. It is also a great way to stay culturally aware. There is such a growing gay community that it is easy to get lost in the world of blogs, news stories and advice columns and while there are some really great writers out that that the gay community can relate to, such as Dan Savage and Dave Sedaris, there are several ‘classics’ that should definitely not be missed either. An IPad makes reading these greats easy and accessible. Below you will find a list of the 10 classic books that every lesbian should download on their IPad.
1. Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
This 1973 novel really broke ground in the gay and lesbian world. It tells of a lesbian love story and incorporates humor and an “everydyke” quality. It was one of the first novels of its kind to blatantly address lesbianism.
2. Fingersmith by Sarah Walters
This 1980 novel has so many plot twist in this historical fiction you won’t be able to put it down. It has been compared to the writing styles of Charles Dickens only with erotic lesbian sex scenes and a sweat shop pumping out pornographic texts.
3. Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller
This novel written in 1969 is a historical novel and explores issues like a young women’s first foray into lesbian sex, cross dressing and leaving home to find herself.
4. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg
If you have ever seen the more you probably would have no idea about the lesbian relationship between the 2 main characters of the movie. Reading it, you have no choice but to notice with all the seduction, love making and food fights.
5. Crybaby Butch by Judith Frank
This is a newer novel written 2004 and tells the story of 2 parallel lives of butch women that have crossed each other’s path. The story is beautifully written and the characters are strong and compelling.
6. Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
This story is a little more traditional and is an autobiographical novel. It was the breakout book of its genre and revealed the secretes of the butch culture before it became socially acceptable.
7. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
This 1981 novel depicts the Biblical analogies and accuses religion, convservative culture and has a way of leaving writers baffled from reading this semi-autobiographical novel.
8. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
This 1982 novel has been required reading for many high schools. It is not directly about lesbianism but rather suggested sexual sparks between Shug and Celie. Walker’s writing style is engaging and thought provoking and after reading this book it is easy to see why it has been so well loved by people of all sexualities and generations.
9. Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Dorothy Allison is a lesbian writer who has created a memorable character in Bone. The book tells the good, bad and ugly of the deep South and the choices that are made in order to be who they are and also save themselves.
10. Crocodile Soup by Julia Darling
This is a modern novel set in England where Darling gives us a look into the life of Gert, who after mending a broken heart is ready for love again. It has a dark sense of humor and has a cast of oddballs that make it so enjoyable and intriguing.

While many of us will hit some of the major summer theatrical releases, like the new Indiana Jones and Iron Man, what’s coming out in terms of gay and lesbian independent films for summer viewing? Unfortunately, while we don’t often acknowledge it, a fair bit of the films out there that would appeal to the GLBTQ community are just not well written, acted or filmed. Fortunately, there are exceptions that are worth your time and money this summer. One big change expected in marketing gay and lesbian films is a move toward simultaneous release on DVD and theaters. For those of us without a gay friendly indie theater nearby, this means the chance to see movies months before we could have otherwise.

Shelter offers a refreshingly well done look at two surfers falling in love. This gay romance is a coming out movie, but without the gay bar drama, HIV scares and other issues that mark many such films. It’s simply a story of first love, acted and written well. The trailer, and more information on Shelter, can be found at http://www.heretv.com/sheltermovie/.

Faith Akin’s The Edge of Heaven is, at its core, an east-meets-west story; however, the couple at the core of it is a lesbian couple. This multi ethnic couple is not central to the story because of their sexuality, but simply their love story and their struggles over borders and politics.

If you enjoy foreign films, the 2008 release of The Bubble may appeal. This is also a love story marked by political divisiveness. In this Hebrew film directed by Eytan Fox, the bubble of life as one of the hip in Tel Aviv bursts when Noa meets the Palestinian Ashraf and they fall in love.

Zero Chou’s Spider Lilies is another viable option for those looking for a DVD to add to their on-line queues this summer. The Taiwanese Spider Lilies is a drama, with a lesbian love story intertwined into slightly surreal cinematography. While its official release was 2006, it played at this year’s London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

In fact, the London Gay and Lesbian Film Festival can be a good source for movie possibilities. View the list of films shown at http://www.bfi.org.uk/llgff/all_films_showing. While many of these are not new releases, perhaps you’ll see a movie or two that you have previously overlooked and find new favorites. For newer releases, see http://heretv.com/AFilmsPage.php as a possible source of what you might watch on DVD or even in your local indie theater. The LOGO owned afterellen.com and afterelton.com are a consistently good source for information about what’s going on of interest to LGBTQ individuals in the media, including books, television and movies.

Looking for a good book this summer? Many people take advantage of warm days and additional time off in the summer to do some reading, or spend some time reading by the pool or on the beach. Whether you’re looking to read one of the top new novels of the year or an old classic, summer is an ideal time to start a new book or even pick up a stack.

If you are looking for a good overall list of recommended gay and lesbian literature, take a look at jclarkmedia.com/gaybooks/recommended.html for a fairly comprehensive list. You might also check out afterellen.com/books for reviews of books with lesbian themes, and afterelton.com/books for books with gay themes. You might also review past winners of the Stonewall Book Award. While not specifically gay and lesbian oriented, many avid readers have happily taken on the challenge presented in Peter Boxall’s 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Either of these can be a good start, particularly if you prefer your summer reading on the heavier side of things.

Some of the best possibilities for summer reading are not specifically queer themed, but are great new novels on the market. You should be able to find these in your local bookshop without difficulty, and enjoy them whether you are at home or traveling this summer. These range from novels of serial killers to young adult fantasy, from vampire stories to travel writing.

Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 is a story of a serial killer in Stalinist Russia, and is receiving broad accolades, both from the literary community and readers as a whole. If you are of a more romantic bent, Salman Rushdie’s new Enchantress of Florence brings to life the world of renaissance Italy. Since some of us admittedly enjoy our summer reading on the lighter side, Stephenie Meyer’s new novel in the Twilight series, The Host is receiving good reviews. Christopher Paolini’s new addition to the Eragon trilogy is also due out for an early summer release.

What am I reading this summer? I suspect I’ll reread the classic Rubyfruit Jungle, and read for the first time John Barrowman’s autobiography Anything Goes, Jennifer Harris’ Pink, and Sarah Schulman’s The Child. I’d like to squeeze in Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch and finally, with some guilt that I haven’t read them before, take on Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. I have no doubt I’ll sneak a few other books in under the wire as well while I retreat to the comfort of air conditioning on hot summer days.

This article was just fascinating. It features two young gay men aged 25, who recently were married in Boston. Joshua and Benjamin are husbands. That was fun to type… husbands not just hugsbands they would be if they were only allowed Civil Marriage.

The New York Times did an elaborate piece on the young couple. It also talked about how MTV did a show on a set of male and female couples from Massachusetts. Good Stuff. Read more about it here.

When most of us just paid our high tax bills we looked around and wondered if we get anything out of our payments to the government. Gay Marriage is a start to getting the benefits in life we deserve and the love that the straights can cherish.

If you are over 18 and have excellent writing skills and enjoy to write or blog we would love to hear from you. We are looking for a GLBT perspective on current events, politics, health, fashion, dating, and money. We are looking for more than just a typical blogger but someone who can write great newsworthy articles with a little research involved (all writings will be at least 250 words).

If you have a passion for writing and getting your voice heard then send us an email via the contact form. Send us your contact information and if you have any online (or print) articles or blogs be sure to include those. Also, please send amount you are looking to be paid per post or article.

Note: You must be a legal resident of the US, UK, or Canada.

It’s up at Pulp Magazine’s site.

I’m working on a submission for Best Lesbian Erotica 2008. I’m currently at 1600 words.

A call for submissions via BeyondMasculinity.com:

Deadline extended until May 31st!

Gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer men’s gender identities often exist somewhere outside the traditional categories of “masculine” and “feminine.” Sissies, drag queens, and leather daddies alike play with gender in a way that cannot be accounted for in traditional understandings of maleness. This collection — part blog, part anthology, part audiobook — aims to shatter traditional understandings of maleness and point towards a new understanding of how queerness and gender intersect.

BEYOND MASCULINITY is looking for contributions in four key areas. Contributors should not feel bound by these categories – they should rather be seen as potential prompts:

• Identity Intersections: How do race, ability, class, and other kinds of identities and experiences intersect with gender and queerness — and how do these intersections complicate our relationship to traditional understandings of “maleness?”

• Feminism, Gender, and Politics: How can feminism inform our understanding of queer male gender? Can queer men be feminists? How can we use our queerness as a political tool? What does male privilege look like for queer men?

• Bodies, Desire, and Pleasure: What kinds of male bodies are desired? Fetishized? Where does sexual desire intersect with queer gender and how are these politics mapped out on our bodies?

• Queer Male Communities: How are our identities produced through our communities? How do the gender norms and politics of gay/bi/trans/queer male communities both liberate and constrain us?

We’re looking for queer male writers to step up and contribute their thoughts to this online project. This is not your typical bookstore anthology. It will be only available online – and it will be completely free of charge to the public. With its unique implementation of media, this anthology aims to change the way queer non-fiction is done.

I love what this anthology is about. And I love the idea of making audio recordings of contributors reading their essays available even more. So much so that audio recordings of Femmethology contributors reading their pieces may appear in the future!

So if you’re a “straight” woman who is reading this queer blog and sleeping with other women you can find out what Rachel wants to talk about here. And don’t worry, you can be anonymous; there’s no danger of losing your “straightness.”

I’m still accepting submissions for my next book, Visible: A Femmethology, an anthology of writing on queer femme identity. You can read my call for submissions here.

And for some femme around the Web, check out:

• Darrah‘s words on sluts and virgins in her most recent “Femme in the City” column
• Ethereal‘s interview with Go Rainbow Radio, in which she discusses music, the GLBT community, politics, femme identity and her short story that appeared in my first anthology, Queer Shorts
• “Trans, Cyber and Valentine’s Day,”a piece by femme writer who chatted with Allenina, a “former porn star, turned stripper, aspiring actress, and ‘one name’ performance artist,” about some of her online dating experiences:

  One year ago, she met Lon on MySpace. After messaging for a while, they decided to rendezvous.”I wanted to meet where it was bright and safe… Also, as a transwoman, there is an insecurity that someone may be repulsed.”

  Lon wasn’t. Days after their first date, Allenina invited him to her home. The mutual attraction led to a back massage. “Just to make sure he knew I was trans, I asked him if he had read my profile,” Allenina reveals. [He asked] “Why, is there some thing that I should know?” From the look on his face, Allenina sensed there was a problem and told Lon that perhaps he should leave. He agreed saying he would phone later. She never spoke to him again.

  “Sometimes I think people just don’t read cyber profiles. I always put in my profile that I am trans. I do put it at the end, however, as I don’t think that is all I am. I also wonder if my profile on MySpace is too sexy. Maybe people relate transsexual with sex and nothing more,” Allenina says.

  (Send 1ofakindfeminatrix at MySpace a friend request so you can read the rest of “Trans, Cyber and Valentine’s Day” at her blog.)

• I Heart Brooklyn Girls is looking for 12 queer femme Brooklynites for their upcoming 2008 calendar.Send your bio and couple of photos (a close up and a full body shot) to castingcall AT iheartbrooklyngirls DOT com by March 20th.

Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers by Cris Beam was released last month by Harcourt. In Transparent Beam introduces four teen trans girls whose lives she found herself deeply involved with when she decided to volunteer at a Los Angeles school for gay and transgender kids.

You’ll find an excerpt after the jump.

I’ll have a review copy of Transparent soon. More after I finish it. And maybe an interview with Cris Beam, too.

If you’re a transgender girl (meaning you were born male but live as a female), you might notice something extra along this stretch of Santa Monica. It’s here that you’ll find girls trading secrets about how to shoot up the black-market hormones purchased from the swap meets in East L.A. If the hormones don’t work fast enough to manifest your inner vision of wider hips and C cups, you can find out about “pumping parties” out in the Valley, where a former veterinarian or a “surgeon’s wife” from Florida will shoot free-floating industrial-grade silicone into hips, butts, breasts, knees — even cheeks and foreheads. Of course, this is dangerous when the oils shift and form hard lumps in the armpits and thighs, but you’ll look good for a while.

On Santa Monica, you can learn which dance clubs, like Arena (with its crudely painted ocean mural on the outside), let in underage kids and have go-go boxes for dancing. You can learn which motels, one block up on Sunset, are safe and clean and have weekly rates. You can find out about the telemarketing company that hires transgender youth, no matter what they look like, to sell garbage bags and first-aid kits over the telephone. Of course, for the job you’ll have to memorize a script saying that you’re handicapped and that these household items are offered at higher prices because they provide employment to mentally handicapped people like yourself. And though it makes you sick to say it, this technically won’t be a lie; transgender people are still dubbed “mentally ill” by the medical community, the way gay people were in the seventies. This is how the telemarketing firm gets away with cheap labor.

On Santa Monica, you can walk with a friend to the Jeff Griffith Youth Center — one of the few outreach agencies that knows about, and feeds, struggling transgender kids under twenty-four. It’s right on the corner of Sycamore; you’ll recognize it by the thick bars on the windows and the hand-drawn sign that says NO FIGHTING. Here you can sign up for a shower or get free bus tokens or a subsidized meal on a tray that looks just like the kind served in the high school cafeteria you ran from. There’s also a big TV and a pool table with no billiard balls, and you can hang out until the place closes at six o’clock, without cars stopping you on the street and asking, “How much?”

And when the center closes, you can traipse over to Benito’s, the twenty-four-hour clapboard outdoor food stand and “Home of the Rolled Taco,” for yet another dinner. Teenagers can always eat.

At Benito’s, over the sizzle and pop of day-old grease, kids preen and throw insults and drink oversize sodas from waxy paper cups and look into cars for cute boys who might roll by. As the girls wait for night, when the dance clubs open, the Benito’s parking lot fills with them, laughing and squealing and running up to one another with halfway air-kissy hugs, like they haven’t seen each other in ages and yet don’t want to muss their clothes. Most look nothing like the drag queens or cross dressers that stereotypes dictate or outsiders expect. They’re young and soft faced and wear jeans and T-shirts or, if it’s a Saturday night, clingy dresses and big hoop earrings.

“Tracy, girl, I haven’t seen you since like last month! You look good! Where you staying at?” This is the kind of banter one might hear as girls bump into each other buying post-taco Slurpees at the 7-Eleven.

“Angel! I know, it’s been a long time — that’s ’cause I’m not staying in Hollywood no more, chica. I got me a husband and we moved over to Culver City.”

A husband is a stretch, but it’s a term kids commonly fling around in an attempt at permanence or stability. When Tracy asks Angel more questions about her man, Angel will likely demur unless the two are legitimately good friends. Teenagers are known for stealing one another’s boyfriends, especially when there’s a perceived scarcity, like there is in this community.

Standing on the corner of Highland and Santa Monica, you can feel positively cultured, as canned classical music is piped out of a loudspeaker and into the parking lot all night long. I heard that it was the Chinese restaurant that put this in, in an oddly misguided attempt to curb loitering. But teenagers like Vivaldi as much as anyone else, and they gather there, shouting over its trills, bobbing their heads in four four time. Gossip speeds along the sidewalk, as kids swap secrets about crushes and losses, and dish about what no-good ho stole another girl’s man. Some kids, though certainly not all, climb in and out of cars — hustling for cash. In this crowd there’s competition for men and money and good clothes and popularity just like at any high school in America, and on the Boulevard you can find out who’s winning. The Boulevard is also where you can hear about who just got her breasts pumped and looks damn good, and who went back home to live with her mother, becoming a boy again. It’s where you can learn from the older girls that not everyone has surgery and not everyone wants it, because a woman can have a penis and — girl! — no one can tell her she can’t. It’s where you can listen to the new Pink CD on your friend’s Walkman and play video games at the all-night Donut Time. It’s where you can feel normal, connected, hip. It’s where you can be a teenager.

Around the corner from Santa Monica and up the street, on Highland, is an unremarkable brown office building. It’s the kind of place that houses dozens of low-rent and high-turnaround businesses: limo services, temp agencies, computer repair places, accounting firms. Every weekday morning a handful of transgender kids stumble in with the rumpled brown suits and briefcased folks, because in the basement of this building is a high school, of sorts. Or was, when I became a teacher there.

I don’t even remember how I first heard about Eagles, the small, scrappy high school for gay and transgender teenagers. Probably just from a new acquaintance in a passing conversation. But it had piqued my interest; I was curious who would go there, since when I was a kid, there was no such thing as a gay school, and hardly any such thing as a gay student. Would these kids be harassed, troubled, in need? I wondered if I could help in any way. By then I had been living in Los Angeles for six months, and an itchy boredom with the town had begun to creep up my spine. Having moved from New York so my partner, Robin, could get a Ph.D., I was missing an urban edge and lonesome for community beyond my dining-room table. I worked at home as a freelance magazine writer, and I had extra time to volunteer, maybe once a week, maybe twice. So that winter (which didn’t really feel like a winter at all), I rang up the school.

“Eagles!” a gruff voice answered my call. And then, “Fiona! Put down that straighten iron! The outlet is for the coffee pot!” I heard a muffled crash. “I’m sorry. Eagles Academy. Can I help you?”

“Yes,” I said. “My name is Cris Beam. I’m a writer who just moved into town, and I’m calling to find out about your school: what it’s about and whether you need –”

“Fiona!!” the person shouted, without covering the phone. The voice was masculine sounding, but without the deep tones of a man — like an adolescent boy whose voice hadn’t changed, except this person was clearly an adult. I detected a slight German accent. “I’m sorry. I’m going to have to call you back.”

Hiding in Hip-Hop: Confessions of a Down Low Brother in the Entertainment Industry, a book by former MTV producer Terrance Dean, has been sold to Atria Books, a division Simon & Schuster, and is expected to be published next year.

Pink News reports the book will expose “[t]he author’s life as a closeted homosexual working in the film and music industry and his relationships with other closeted homosexuals—film stars, rap artists, and music producers.” While the book will not name any of the film stars, rap artists or music producers, an Atria spokesperson said those who know the hip hop world will be able to identify the people in Dean’s book.

Already published popular “down low” titles include:

On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of ‘Straight’ Black Men Who Sleep with Men

Charlene Cothran, the publisher of Venus Magazine, a magazine that has targeted Black gays and lesbians for 13 years, has announced that she is now an ex-lesbian. She has changed the direction of the magazine to one that will “encourage, educate and assist those who desire to leave a life of homosexuality.”

Back in October, Jasmyne Cannick posted the “10 ways to get out of ‘the life’” Cothran included in an issue of Venus and on the magazine’s website.

I don’t want to go on them or read about them, but if you have any interest: Bad Lesbian Dates.

(Heel click: Lusty Lady)

Robert Julian of the Bay Area Reporter calls Brian Whitaker’s Unspeakable Love – Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East, a book examining gay life in Middle Eastern and Islamic countries, “a book that simply must be read by any homosexual who lives, or contemplates living, in a Middle Eastern country.”

Doug Ireland posted his review of Unspeakable Love – Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East here.

Tania Katan, author of My One Night Stand With Cancer, will be reading at the February 15th Girlsalon at The Perch Bar and Cafe in Park Slope. Joining her: Ellis Avery, Cheryl B, Diana Cage, Zaedryn Meade and Janine Avril.

No cover charge. Be there at 6:30pm.

Em & Lo:

We’re looking for ten couples (aged 20-40) to feature in Glamour who are willing to chat with us about their sex live — in exchange for a gorgeous professional portrait. You don’t have to share anything X-rated or raunchy — unless you’d like to, of course! You could, for example, just tell us about how often you do it or who usually initiates or whether you like the lights on or off. The point is not to be shocking, but just to create a portrait of the sex lives of American couples. All couples will be considered: newly dating, happily married, shacked up, in an open relationship, gay, bi, straight, etc. The couples chosen will take part in a (fully clothed!) photo shoot, complete with hair/makeup/stylist, by a renowned photographer, and they’ll get a print of their portrait!

Contact Emma Taylor and Lorelei Sharkey for more information.

(Heel click: Lusty Lady)

Almost a year after the release of James McGreevey’s The Confession, Dina Matos McGreevey’s memoir, Silent Partner, will be published by Hyperion Books this spring. James and Dina are in the process of getting a divorce.

Jenny Shimizu is writing a book in which she exposes details about her past sexual relationships with Madonna and Angelina Jolie.

(Heel click: Best Lesbian-ish Day Ever)

Self-Organizing Men: Conscious Masculinities in Time and Space, which was recently included in “A Watershed Year for Trans Rights” in the San Francisco Bay Times, is on sale for $9.99 plus shipping.

Alyson Books is currently accepting submissions for Best Gay Love Stories: Summer Flings (Editor: Brad Nichols) and Best Lesbian Love Stories: Summer Flings (Editor: Simone Thorne).

Everyone loves to fall in love, and summertime is the perfect time of year. The days are long, the living is easy, and your heart is just that much more happy, that much more receptive to the notion of love. In this year’s edition of our annual “love stories” series, Alyson Books is looking for entries about that hot time of the year when the heat of the sun and breeze off the ocean encourage us to link our arms, our hearts, and our lives. Whether it’s the start of a long-term relationship or just a fun fling for the summer months, we want to celebrate the season with a sprinkling of romance.

Please submit all original stories as a Word document attachment to lovestories@alyson.com, along with name and pseudonym (if applicable), short bio, as well as contact info.

[This email address is for SUBMISSIONS ONLY.]

The submissions deadline for both books is March 15, 2007. Stories should be between 2,500 and 4,000 words in length.

Thanks for sending the info along, Jen!

Girlsalon news from Janine Avril:

Tania Katan, author of “My One Night Stand With Cancer” (Alyson Books) will be reading at Girlsalon from her memoir on Thursday, February 15th. The venue has still not been chosen, so I will keep you updated but mark your calenders for Miss Katan because she is brilliant, hilarious, a survivor of some very serious challenges and here to tell us about them.

She will be selling and signing copies of her book.

Gay City News ran a piece about Overcoming Crystal Meth by Steven Lee, a psychiatrist who specializes in crystal methamphetamine addiction, last week.

From Amazon.com’s Book Description: Based on extensive scientific and social research and drawing from his professional experience, [Steven Lee] covers everything from the definition and history of crystal meth to the physical and psychological effects; from dealing with the addictive personality to helping a friend or family member cope with it. He focuses on understanding rather than outright condemnation of the drug, and empathetically covers all of the crucial questions: What is crystal meth? How is it made? How does it affect the body? How do you know if you’re addicted to it? How do you stop using it? What if you don’t want to stop? If you are going to use CM anyway, how can you minimize the damage? What if you quit but slipped and used again?

More about the addiction to Crystal Meth…

A mention of Cheryl B.’s forthcoming anthology Coming Out of the Closet Again: Queer Women on Loving Men got me looking around for any word on when it will be released. One thing I found during my unsuccessful search is an article, from 2001, titled “Coming out of the closet — to be straight” (only half of this piece is available to those who are not Salon.com Premium members).

Melissa Levine was 28 when she realized that she had no sexual interest in women (though she had exclusively dated them) and only wanted to be with men; that she was straight.

I love women; I connect with women. Three times in eight years, I have fallen in love with women — women I would have committed my life to, if I could have. And for me, this love translated into romance, and then into sex, though only briefly.

I wanted the lesbian life, complete with herbal tea, incestuous friendships and golden retrievers. I cherished the emotional intimacy and craved the freedom, power and joy of the queer community, which looked like home. But when I finally had that dream within my reach, I couldn’t do it. I was in love with my girlfriend, but I didn’t want to have sex with her.

I have no idea how difficult it is to come out as straight to those you’ve shared a lesbian life with. I do, however, remember the outrage, years ago, when I dated a trans guy for the first time. I was “working my way back.”

Do you know anyone who came out as straight? I’m wondering what their experience was like. I do believe that it’s probable you will lose people when you come out, as anything. The good thing is you’ll lose the right people.

Sally Bellerose‘s “Breaking Vows” is the winner of the 2006 Rick DeMarini’s Short Story Award.

Congratulations, Sally! I’m so happy to hear the news.

Kevin Bentley is still accepting submissions for My Gay Brother. You now have until February 1st, 2007, to submit your writing.

Most gay men grow up as strangers in their own families, outsiders with a closely-guarded secret. But many gay men share that secret in common with someone very close by in the foxholes of the family battle, acknowledged or not: a brother. Whether they know it at first or only sense a difference, how they are alike or how surprisingly they differ, how one’s coming out affects the other, the special bond they may share as adults—or not; how having a gay brother influenced their developing identities and made them who they are today: these are some of the issues that will be addressed in the personal essays collected in My Gay Brother.

Read the full call for submissions here.

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

Merge Press is offering 15% off all of its titles until December 20th! To get your 15% discount, use “holly” as your voucher code.

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

Queer Foundation offers to the winners of the 2007 high school English essay contest $1,000 scholarships to attend the college or university of their choice in the 2007–08 academic year to study queer theory or related fields.

The theme of the 2007 high school English essay contest is pink ink (“We write not only about different things; we also write differently”—Brecht).

Suggested approaches:

1. We’re Here and We’re Queer: Interviews with Queer Teenagers and Their Friends
2. Living Healthy as Queer Teenagers
3. Getting Smart: Education Issues of Queer Teenagers

Click here for contest rules, judging criteria, and to find out how to submit an essay.

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

You can read Darrah de jour’s December Femme in the City column here.

Also, Darrah was recently featured in Blade Newsmagazine:

MSJCPAGE interviewed myself and others in the community to talk about the term “tranny chaser.” The result, a well-scribed and informative yarn-spin about gender, appears in December’s Blade Newsmagazine, on stands now!

Blade Newsmagazine is not available online, but here’s a snippet of the article for you:

If a queer femme is attracted to masculine gender outlaws, especially if she acts upon that attraction, she may be called a “tranny chaser.” Even if she is coming from a point of advocacy, she is subject to be included in the “tranny chaser” category, rather than to be seen as a valuable ally. Some girlie girls feel more comfortable with the fluidity in the queer (inclusive of trans and gender-gifted) community, than the lesbian community. They identify as queer femmes, rather than with the “L” word.

If Darrah, a beautiful young femme writer and performer, is called a tranny chaser, her first response is to feel disrespected. “Queer femme is my gender expression and the queer community is mine too! I am not just identified by my partner. I don’t like the ‘why are you here?’ feeling I have experienced at trans’ events. I don’t want to feel under the gun to explain myself.”

If you’re in the LA area, pick up a copy of Blade Newsmagazine to read the rest!

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

Janine Avril, the founder of GirlSalon, “a forum for queer women/trans artists/performers,” is considering hosting monthly readings at the Perch Cafe and Bar in Park Slope.

From Janine:

[I]f you are a writer interested in reading please send me your name, contact info and what you type of stuff you write (poetry, prose, fiction, etc). Spread the word to people you know and have them touch base w/me.

She’d also like to hear from people who are interested in joining an informal writers group.

Email Janine at: janinesays @ hotmail dot com

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

From Bruin Christopher Runyan:

Less Than Settled: Critical Perspectives on Travel and Privilege

**CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS**

What compromises do activists, organizers, and those actively pursuing social justice make when traveling internationally? How does the experience of living in a global super power, either “legally” or “not”, affect our reception in countries that make up the global south? How do we own (or not own) our privilege, be it race, class, age, gender, sexuality, citizenship, body type, or ability in another cultural context? What happens when our identities are anything but simple and we experience oppression simultaneously with privilege? What does contemporary colonialism look like and what is our responsibility to its existence and perpetuation while traveling? What does traveling respectfully, accountably or even radically look like? Is it possible?

This anthology seeks to address critical questions around western privilege and international travel. Specifically, bruin wants to investigate how activists, organizers, critical thinkers, radicals, progressives, and subversives bring or don’t bring their politics with them when they travel to the third world/two-thirds world/global south. bruin wants to hear specifically from those who have decided not to travel and from those who travel but feel less than settled about it. How do folks negotiate steadfast beliefs about social justice and oppression when in different cultural contexts that don’t share such beliefs or share them differently? What is open to compromise and what will never be compromised?

Other questions hoping to be explored include: critiques of eco-tourism or “activism”-based tourisms, critical experiences around international summit hopping and “solidarity work,” especially in the global south, participation in other countries’ revolutionary movements, the romanticization of such movements, thoughts about sexual opportunism, associating with other travelers/responsibilities around other travelers, and thoughts and experiences of ex-patriots of those who struggle with desires to become ex-patriots. What do our projects with other international activists look like? How does our privilege and power enter into our cross-border romantic relationships as well as cross-border friendships? How does this affect our work at home? How do we travel to countries that we’re from or our family of origin is from, where the distance is less and potentially more at the same time?

bruin is less interested in political theory and well-worded rants and more interested in the complication and contradiction of your lived experiences. Please be honest. Let’s create a space for our mistakes and visions. Less Than Settled hopes to emerge as a resource and the continuation of a conversation that is critical to better living what we’re hoping to create.

bruin christopher runyan is a white, genderqueer, trans, urban queerbo and organizer in seattle, washington who thinks too much. He is committed to having conversations that make him uncomfortable but further the creation of fabulous, critical, sustainable, and transformative communities. He has traveled in latin america, southern africa, and throughout north america and feels way complicated about it.

DETAILS:

*Please submit non-fiction essays up to 6,000 words. Essays must be typewritten, double-spaced and submitted via mail. Please include a short bio.

*Send essays to:

Less Than Settled
c/o bruin christopher runyan
1643 south king street
seattle, washington 98144

*Feel free to contact bruin with questions at bruinator@gmail.com

*Deadline for submissions is: (June 31, 2007), but really, the sooner the better.

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

If you’re in or around the Bay Area, stop by one of these two free celebrations of the launch of Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity.

Tuesday, December 5, 2006
6 p.m.

San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin Street
Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room
Featuring Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Kirk Read, Dean Spade, Tommi Avicolli Mecca, Amy André, Dominika Bednarska, Nico Dacumos, Irina Contreras, Jennifer Blowdryer, Logan Gutierrez-Mock, Jen Cross, Amy André and Mattilda a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore

Thursday, December 7, 2006
7 p.m.

Delicious Reading and Devastating Discussion
City Lights Bookstore
261 Columbus Ave. at Broadway
(415) 362-8193
Featuring Benjamin Shepard, Irina Contreras, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Kirk Read, Nico Dacumos, Jennifer Blowdryer and Mattilda a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

Richard Labonte is currently accepting gay erotic writing for two upcoming Cleis Press titles.

City Boys

Editor: Richard Labonte
Publisher: Cleis Press
Deadline: April 30, 2007

Not many gay boys are born in the Castro, West Hollywood, or Chelsea – or in Dallas’s Oak Lawn, San Diego’s Hillcrest, Atlanta’s Midtown, St. Louis’s Central West End, Seattle’s Capitol Hill, or any of America (and the world’s) urban gay centers. These queer and queer-friendly neighborhoods are magnets that attract boys just coming out or men who come out late, oases of fag-friendly faces that seduce country boys into city life, suburban kids into the inner city, cyber kids into the real queer world.

Cleis Press is looking for stories – erotic fiction, or erotic autobiography with a strong narrative tone – for an anthology about discovering sex and a sexual community, about the “click” of understanding that there are others like us, about reading (or misreading) the codes that (for better or worse) define queer life. We want sex-charged stories that chart the geographic, the emotional, even the spiritual transition to a centered erotic self.

Original submissions under 7,000 words are preferred, though work that has appeared online will be considered. Queries and stories as .doc files to: Richard Labonte at cleiscityboys@gmail.com . Deadline: April 30, 2007, for Fall 2007 publication.

Best Gay Erotica 2008

Edited by Richard Labonte, judged by Emanuel Xavier
Publisher: Cleis Press
Deadline: April 30, 2007

Short stories, novel excerpts, memoirs, narrative artwork, essays – original or reprint – are now being accepted for Best Gay Erotica 2008, to be published by Cleis Press in late fall of 2007.

Maximum length preferred: 6,000 words; no minimum. Reprints must have appeared in print or online, or been scheduled to appear, between July 2006 and June 2007.

BGE is not a “theme” anthology, so anything goes – any fantasy, all flesh, any kink, every genre – as long as the work is intensely erotic, lusciously literary, and quite, quite queer.

Deadline for submissions is April 30, 2007 for late Fall 2007 publication; 35-40 stories will be selected by series editor Richard Labonte from among the submissions, with winners chosen from the finalists by this year’s judge, Emanuel Xavier – author of the novels PIER QUEEN and CHRIST-LIKE and the poetry collection AMERICANO, and editor of the anthology BULLETS & BUTTERFLIES; he appears in the Logo film THE SKI TRIP and was featured on RUSSELL SIMMONS PRESENTS DEF POETRY SEASON 3; and he is the founder of the HOUSE OF XAVIER. For more info: www.emanuelxavier.com

Queries and submissions to: bge2008@gmail.com, in .doc format.

Thanks for forwarding these to me, Jen!

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

Cypress House sent me a complimentary copy of Deep South by Jody Dixon.

Thank you!

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

Darrah de jour wonders if we’ve “become so picky [about potential partners] that even a great catch could slip from our fingers if her or his fins are as scaly as blended fabric” in Femme in the City: Catch and Release.

Read it HERE.

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

From Jeff Mann‘s “Key West”:

We got to the Oasis at sunset. John’s friends Richard and Charlie had heartily recommended this guesthouse, and we were soon to toast their good taste. The Oasis was delightful: a clothing-optional, all-male compound, full of enormous banana fronds, ficus, palms, bougainvillea, and blooming hibiscus, with many-leveled decks, two pools and a huge hot tub. Our room, located right behind the big pool, sported a broad four-poster and a walk-in shower stall that could have hosted several friendly couples. Wine was served by the pool, and we indulged in several glasses. “We’re on vacation” is, after all, a fine excuse for all kinds of immoderation. Later, at the Half Shell Raw Bar, we enthusiastically gulped pina coladas and devoured conch fritters, broiled scallops, cole slaw, and flan. How fine, I thought, to have a lover who shares my devotion to good food, who matches me appetite for appetite.

We made love at midnight, then again at dawn, the eager sex of a professional couple who are usually too exhausted at work-day’s end to feel erotic, who must make up for lost time during vacation. About the guesthouse that first morning a terrific thunderstorm tore, wind and wind and sheets of rain. Listening to the elements, sunk in the deliciousness of a half-drowse, I pressed myself closer against John’s bare back, feeling warm, safe and protected, insulated from such savagery.

When the storm passed, we stepped out to the rain-puddled but sunny deck to share a continental breakfast and check out the fellow guests. A friend back home had predicted that a clothing-optional place would be a magnet for, well, the ill-favored “The last time I stayed at such a place,” Tom had wailed, “I dubbed the hot tub ‘Troll Soup!’” To our pleasure, however, as we sunbathed by the pool, several sexy boys strolled by in various stages of undress, all of them up for a chat.

From Jen Burke‘s “Finding Room”:

As I brew tea for you and coffee for me, I start to wonder if dirty socks decorate the bathroom floor or stray hairs punctuate the sink. I wonder if you’re the type to notice these things. I realize that I’m nervous, so I focus on your jaw line as it moves to tell your story.

I sit quite still at the table with my coffee, my elbows and feet fixed in place, resisting the urge to run and see what is possibly lurking in my bathroom after my rush to get ready for our dinner. Make-up smudges on the mirror? Torn nylons on the floor? You, meanwhile, stay in constant activity, a counterpoint to my enforced calm.

As you talk, you graze by my bookshelves and book piles, sipping tea, pausing to read, interrupting yourself to tell me about what you did manage to read or wish you had, all the time refusing to mince words about the dissolution of a marriage. Your marriage. The one you’ve talked about intermittently through the night as you ate with me.

Still meandering around the shelves, you take a book that is about foes, about opposites and silent screams, and you won’t put it down. “I heard about this author, but I’ve never seen this book,” you said, trailing off from the description of your son’s death through alcohol poisoning. This is your habit, to mention tragedy in unconnected spurts.

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

You can now see some of the gorgeous people whose words make Queer Shorts over at the Author Bios page at QueerShorts.com.

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

I know that when I think about the FBI, the first thing that comes to my mind is the protection of N Sync star Lance Bass and his boyfriend, Reichen Lehmkuhl.

Reichen says that threats, some serious enough to be forwarded to the FBI, are coming in from people who do not like what he writes about his time in the military in his book _Here’s What We’ll Say: Growing Up, Coming Out, and the U.S. Air Force Academy_.

Lehmkuhl, 32, says that he and Bass, who revealed he is gay in July, forward the threats to private security personnel who send what they consider the more serious ones to the FBI. “Everything is being covered so we feel safe,” he said.

…snip…

“There was definitely an institionalized acceptance of people being homophobic and telling gay jokes and making homophobic remarks _ really, really mean homophobic remarks to the point of, `Kill gay people,’” Lehmkuhl, who was honorably discharged from the Air Force five years ago, told ABC News earlier this week.

He became a target when people began to suspect his sexuality, he says. One night, he told ABC News, a bag was pulled over his head and he was sexually assaulted. He didn’t report the incident.

You can find Maria on MySpace here and read her current call for essays on femme identity here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

In Piggee v. Carl Sandburg College, 2006 WL 2771669 (Sept. 19, 2006), the plaintiff brought suit against her former employer. Plaintiff, a former instructor for Carl Sandburg College, was terminated after distributing anti-gay materials to students in her class, reported Eric J. Wursthorn for the October, 2006, edition of the Lesbian/Gay Law Notes (see page 4 for this article). According to Mr. Wursthorn’s summary of the facts of the case,

On September 5, 2002, Piggee gave a gay student, Jason Ruel, two pamphlets entitled “Sin City” and “Doom Town,” respectively. “Sin City” is a story about “a man who tries to persuade gay pride advocates that homosexuality is an abomination. He is beaten when he tries to stop a gay pride parade; he is arrested by the police; a demon urges on a minister who preaches that God loves even gay people; the man then asks about Sodom and Gomorrah; and eventually the minister repents his sin (which apparently is supporting gay pride).” The second pamphlet told a similar story.

Once Mr. Ruel reported this incident to the school, officials investigated and questioned Ms. Piggee, who agreed that she had distributed the materials described above. The school issued a written reprimand for her behavior.

Mr. Wursthorn wrote that the school “formally found that she sexually harassed the student ‘in the hopes of changing Mr. Ruel’s sexual orientation and religious beliefs.’” The school chose not to renew Ms. Piggee’s contract for further employment; nearly a year later, she brought suit against her former employer.

According to Mr. Wursthorn’s summary, Ms. Piggee’s lawsuit alleged “that the college violated her due process rights, her rights under the Free Exercise, Equal Protection and Free Speech Clauses of the Constitution, and that the College’s sexual harassment policy was constitutionally infirm.”

On appeal, Judge Harlington Wood, Jr., held for the school, indicating that Ms. Piggee’s actions in disseminating anti-homosexual literature disrupted the instruction that she was hired to provide.

You can read Judge Wood’s reasoning and the comments from other students about Ms. Piggee’s actions by clicking on the banner for the Lesbian/Gay Law Notes to the right.

I’ve been talking about putting a call for essays on femme identity out for quite some time now.

Here it is!

Femmes are still invisible. Society can’t see past our heels to hear our stories, so we must continue to build platforms for our voices. Visible: A Femmethology, a forthcoming anthology about the power and complications in presenting femme as a gender and breaking the traditional meaning of feminine, aims to showcase blunt, personal essays exploring what “femme” means to those who claim it as an identity.

Give me your experiences, your inner dialogues, your theories and practices. Please do not send fiction, poetry, erotica, or any material to which you do not fully own the rights. I am seeking prose that is thoughtful, analytical, raw, challenging, exploratory, and uniquely you.

Submissions must be sent as Word files with text in 12 point Times New Roman font. Essays must be previously unpublished, 1500-6000 words in length, and typed double-spaced. You may submit more than one essay.

Author maintains and controls the copyright of their essay and licenses their First North American Rights to Merge Press for publication purposes. Author retains the right to reprint the material in any publication.

Send SUBMISSIONS ONLY to Maria Angeline at femmethology at mergepress dot com. Include your legal name, pseudonym (if any) you wish to use, address, phone number, email, and the bio you would like to appear in the book if your selection is chosen for publication. Put the title of your essay in the subject line of the email. Each essay must be emailed separately.

Send questions to Maria Angeline here.

Visible: A Femmethology is expected to be released in 2008. Do not email to inquire about the status of your submission after you receive a confirmation that it has been received. It is not possible to respond to all email inquires. Once selections have been made, every person who has submitted work will be sent an announcement. Please do not submit material if you do not regularly check your email.

Please post freely!

You can find Maria on MySpace here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

Queer Shorts contributor Ethereal is featured in this month’s edition of AboveGroundTesting Magazine. Click here to read about her poetry, her songwriting, her first album, and her upcoming music.

Ethereal on her piece in Queer Shorts, “Room for Rent”:

Now you’re a published author. Tell me about your story, the compilation it is appearing in and how was it to write?

I’m so happy you mentioned that. **smiles** I’m very proud of my new accomplishment as a writer. The story is called, “Room for Rent” and it is published in the new GLBT anthology, Queer Shorts released in September of 2006 by Merge Press. The story revolves around a young woman who moves into an apartment with whom she believes to be a gay male and becomes very attracted to him, only to find out there is much more to her roommate than she would have imagined. It’s a poignant love story dealing with the transgender and butch/femme community and how the characters further each other’s growth through mutual acceptance. The butch/femme and transgender community is still on the “outskirts” of the Gay and Lesbian community and I am honored to be able to put a spotlight on such a relationship through my writing and help spread awareness of this type of diversity. Writing “Room for Rent” was a lot of fun actually. When I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, usually it’s my characters that tell me what’s going on and there are just some funny scenes that just sort of popped out that had me laughing out loud and moments that had me tearing up. It was a very emotional experience, as though I were not creating these characters, but merely telling their story and experiencing it with them.

You can find Maria on MySpace here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

The GLBT Historical Society will host a reading of the forthcoming anthology Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism From the Pages of Bitch Magazine.

According to Advocate.com,

Local contributors, including historical society board member Don Romesburg, will read selections from their work that appears in the volume. The event will take place at the GLBT Historical Society building in San Francisco on Tuesday, October 23, 6–8 p.m. It is free and open to the public. For more information, call (415) 777-5455

Victoria Moses and Kelvin King, the biological parents of a twelve-year-old girl, fell into conflict when King failed to pay monthly child support. When Moses filed an action for contempt, the court found King “to be $16,500 in arrears and ordered him to jail if he didn’t come up with $5,000 right away and agree to a payment schedule,” according to Professor Leonard’s summary at the Lesbian/Gay Law Notes.

As payback, King filed a complaint against Moses challenging her fitness as a parent and her ability to provide for their child. He also alleged that “Moses had become an ‘irresponsible’ mother and had a series of same-sex partners,” Professor Leonard wrote. King claimed that as a married person, he could provide a stable, traditional environment.

Professor Leonard stated what happened at the trial court level:

The trial judge seems to have initially fallen for this line, changing primary physical custody to King and ordering Moses to pay child support to King. The trial judge claimed that this had nothing to do with Moses’ sexual orientation, insisting that the judge would be equally unhappy had Moses been through several short relationships with men culminating in a nonmarital cohabitation.

Moses took her case to the court of appeals. Professor Leonard described the reversal of the trial court’s decision:

Reversing a trial court decision that implicitly assumed that it is harmful for a child to be raised in a lesbian household, a panel of the Court of Appeals of Georgia ruled in Moses v. King, 2006WL2742296 (Sept. 27, 2006), that the trial court erred by modifying an original custody decree without any evidence that the mother’s relationship was harmful to her child.

Professor Leonard summed up his feelings about this case below, explaining why the court of appeals’ reversal was a victory for LGBTQ rights:

What was most refreshing about this decision was the refusal of the court of appeals to take seriously the trial court’s assertion that it was not ruling because of the mother’s sexual orientation, and to go beneath the surface to produce an objective analysis of the evidence and apply established principles of family law to reach the appropriate result. This is not something one could routinely count upon from appeals courts a generation ago, and it is still not all that common in the southeastern states.

To read the entire analysis of the case, click on the banner to the right for the Lesbian/Gay Law Notes. Professor Leonard also discusses this case on his blog, The Leonard Link, where you can leave comments.

Coming out, I once read, refers not only to the process of disclosing your identity to other folks, but also to yourself.

At TheNervousBreakdown.com, I wrote about coming out. I discussed my early crushes, innocent things from when I was in single digits. Desire is a teacher, a revealer.

I also talked about candy, the sweet stuff that is forbidden but craved.

An excerpt from TheNervousBreakdown.com:

I don’t remember Cherry’s real name, partially because the years have erased it, and mostly because I don’t care now about the truth of her.

I care about the truth of me.

About the truth of candy and of the difference between sharing it and giving it all away because the latter feels, strangely, safer.

I care about the truth in being one of God’s spies chasing the forbidden in a very Catholic, all-girls school.

I never intended to give it all away to Cherry, but she was a first, so she got it all anyhow.

I recently posted that I am looking for queer reading series. I just learned of another series in New York City: GirlSalon

Janine Avril is the founder of GirlSalon, “a forum for queer women/trans artists/performers,” and is looking for queer writers who would like to read at a GirlSalon event in November. For more information, email Janine at: janinesays @ hotmail dot com

You can find Maria on MySpace here. Pick up Queer Shorts, her new anthology, at MergePress.com.

In February I posted that “Queer Femmes Loving FTMs,” a piece by Dr. Susan Driver, would appear in the anthology Trans/forming Feminisms, edited by Krista Scott.

Sumach Press released Trans/forming Feminisms last month.

Read more about Trans/forming Feminisms here.

“Fenceberry” is the result of combining two surnames: Fenceroy and Mayberry.

I n high spirits because the February day was warm, Jean Mayberry honked and waved at a neighbor, a woman she knew only as “Aleta, the lesbian down the street.”

“She smiled at me, and I was hooked,” recalls Jean, who was way too shy to introduce herself. So, she searched the Sioux City, Iowa, phonebook line by line until she spotted Aleta’s address and discovered her last name: “Fenceroy.” Jean threw a party to have an excuse to invite Aleta over.

That was the start of the name Fenceberry, according to an article by Deb Price.

They developed both a hobby and a service:

They distributed via email every newspaper article they could find about anything gay — a court ruling, a celebrity coming-out story, a syndicated column, a hate crime.

For their devoted fans, the Fenceberrys became town criers, telling us far more than we could learn from the occasional gay article in our hometown papers.

Aleta has passed away at 57, “after a short, brutal battle with cancer.”

Aleta understood that in the race to achieve full equality for those of us who are gay, each of us can carry the baton only so long. In the early years of the Fenceberry articles, Jean did the lion’s share of the work because Aleta was in grad school.

But for most of the eight years, Aleta took the lead. In 2004, she decided that the Internet had matured enough for them to bow out.

“It’s been a pleasure and an honor,” Aleta said to The Washington Blade. “Nobody told us to do this. We just kind of started doing it. … The void will be filled by someone.”