In honor of Queer History Month, I want to give a shout out to Lesléa Newman, an iconic yet under-recognized gay Jewish writer whose work continues to inform the changing landscape of GLBT rights in the U.S. I first met Lesléa at a writing workshop sponsored by my mom’s Sisterhood group at our synagogue nearly […]
Queer History Month
How Audre Lorde Made Queer History
In her piece “Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis” in The Cancer Journals, black feminist lesbian mother warrior poet Audre Lorde wrote: “I also began to feel that in the process of losing a breast I had become a whole person.” This courageous insight and numerous others—about her mind, body and spirit being sites loaded with meaning, […]
How Rachel Maddow Makes Queer History
What’s sexier than a brilliant, Internet-savvy, queer, liberal prime-time news host with an Oxford University degree? Yeah, I can’t think of anything either. Since her show on MSNBC began in 2008 (and even before that, on Air America), Rachel Maddow has been turning heads and getting people thinking. She has been able to set herself […]
Queer History Month: Remembering Gloria Anzaldúa
No discussion of Queer History Month would be complete without paying homage to the woman whose multi-disciplinary approach to queer theory, Chicano/a studies, gender, cultural theory, spirituality and aesthetics transformed the feminist movement’s understanding of what it means to navigate oppression and privilege. Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa was born in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas on September 26, […]