The Gay & Lesbian Review

Books from a More Honest Time By Andrew Holleran. I chose a book called A Proust Souvenir. … Then I came to an old favorite, its binding broken by time and use: My Father and Myself, by J. R. Ackerley. … Next I paired a travel book with a biography. The Gentleman in the Parlour (1930), by W. Somerset Maugham, is an account of a trip he made by sampan, donkey, and on foot through Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Dispatches from the Pandemic By Steven F. Dansky. Around the world, masks have been the one recurring metaphor to symbolize the Covid-19 pandemic. Historically, masks serve a social function and can be used in communal rituals to promote the cohesion and the well-being of a community, as protection from evil spirits, or to ward off sickness. Often in poetry a mask trope alludes to disguise, secrecy, and maintaining hidden identities.
Is Covid Crushing Queer Culture? By Michael Musto. I was also transformed by midnight showings of the musical sci-fi spoof The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which had become an interactive experience that attracted young gays who dressed like the characters and threw rice at the screen on cue.
Where the Binary Never Ruled By Karla J. Strand. Jackie Shane was a trailblazer in the world of soul music for queer and trans people. (She re-emerged decades later, an anthology of her music was released in 2018, and she was nominated for a Grammy for Best Historical Album.) She lived authentically and unapologetically until her death in 2019. During her short career, she exhibited many of the characteristics Sasha Geffen examines in Glitter Up the Dark.
In Search of Warhol’s Boyfriends By Martha E. Stone. Gopnik has particularly harsh words about Warhol’s 1986 appearance, as himself, in an episode of the popular comedy series The Love Boat, which became a multimedia event that Warhol described as the “Exploding Plastic Inevitable.”
You Never Heard of Simeon Solomon? By James Cassell. The big discovery for me was Simeon Solomon (1840–1905)— a name I didn’t recognize—who had two works in the Yale show: Babylon Hath Been a Golden Cup (pen and ink, 1859) and Bacchus (oil painting, 1867).

By Laura Moreno
In the words of Broadway legend Terrence McNally, who died this year of coronavirus in New York City, “[Plays] provide a forum for the ideas and feelings that can lead a society to decide to heal and change itself.” So perhaps it’s no surprise that many of most influential playwrights are LGBTQ. Here are seven of them.

October 1, 2020

A Book Is Still Your Best Pandemic Friend

By Bruce Skeaff
Is a good book still your best pandemic friend to take your mind off all this? I think so. In fact, I’d say more so than six months ago. …

September 11, 2020

‘Comfort with’ versus ‘Acceptance of’ LGBT People

By Laura Moreno
A 2019 GLAAD study that found that people 18 to 34 years old are less comfortable than other groups in personal situations involving people of different gender orientations. But here’s why jumping to the conclusion that this indicates eroding LGBT acceptance is a misrepresentation of the data.

Here's My Story View all

October 27, 2020

Taking the Secret Out of ‘Open Secret’

By Terry Boyle
My father, a very pious Catholic, never suspected that one of his five sons might be gay. The closest we came to having a discussion on the subject happened quite accidentally. We were driving downtown, when all of a sudden, he pointed at a man walking down the street and said, “See him? He’s a wee bit gay.” When I later told this story to my partner, he said: “You should have asked him, which bit of the man was gay?”

October 20, 2020

Upstate New York Meets Puerto Rico

By Ted Simonin
It’s more important than ever to appreciate and embrace people’s differences. Forget skin color and birthday parties. If your family is as strong as an army, that’s a unit I want to be a part of, and I truly wouldn’t change a thing.

October 17, 2020

They Asked, and I Told

By Kenneth Stiger
As I approached graduation, I decided to apply to the Peace Corps and was accepted for a contingent of volunteers to go to Colombia, South America, to work in educational television.

More Here’s My Stories

Book Reviews

Short Reviews

Reviews of Female Husbands: A Trans History, and The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir

The Angst of the Everyday

“MAY I CONFESS to you a few things about myself?” Evan James asks in one of the 23 essays that make up I’ve Been Wrong BeforeI, an assessment of his young adulthood, globe-trotting adventures in his thirties, and daddy issues.

Love Letters to Her Queen

Fiebre Tropical is a triumphant exploration of queer Latinidad in the 20th century.

Micro-aggressions Add Up

Real Life arrives at an important moment in our ongoing national conversation—now a global one—about race and racism in American society.

The Gospel According to…

Jesus and John is a story not only of love, devotion, and longing, but also a finely written and refreshingly liberating “queering” of the Jesus myth that has been so misused and misunderstood in relation to LGBT lives.

Tierra del Fuego

Fire on the Island has one instance of sexual assault along with several depictions of ethnic racism and homophobia. These elements do not seem misplaced in any way but carry the story toward a satisfying conclusion. Smith has blended action, drama, romance, and mystery into an arresting tale set in an alluring part of the world.

September-October 2020
Features From Current Issue

Essays

Books from a More Honest Time

By Andrew Holleran. I chose a book called A Proust Souvenir. … Then I came to an old favorite, its binding broken by time and use: My Father and Myself, by J. R. Ackerley. … Next I paired a travel book with a biography. The Gentleman in the Parlour (1930), by W. Somerset Maugham, is an account of a trip he made by sampan, donkey, and on foot through Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Features

Frank Kameny’s Revolutionary Idea

ERIC CERVINI is the author of The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America. The book is both a biography of gay rights activist Frank Kameny and a history of the times in which he lived and organized the first protests for homosexual rights in the 1950s and ‘60s. This interview was conducted as part of a live, on-line series titled “Zooming through Queer Culture.”

Essays

Dispatches from the Pandemic

By Steven F. Dansky. Around the world, masks have been the one recurring metaphor to symbolize the Covid-19 pandemic. Historically, masks serve a social function and can be used in communal rituals to promote the cohesion and the well-being of a community, as protection from evil spirits, or to ward off sickness. Often in poetry a mask trope alludes to disguise, secrecy, and maintaining hidden identities.

Essays

Is Covid Crushing Queer Culture?

By Michael Musto. I was also transformed by midnight showings of the musical sci-fi spoof The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which had become an interactive experience that attracted young gays who dressed like the characters and threw rice at the screen on cue.
Blog
1. October 16, 2020 Influential LGBTQ Playwrights
2. October 1, 2020 A Book Is Still Your Best Pandemic Friend
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Blog Posts View all

Influential LGBTQ Playwrights