Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power - Softcover

Signorile, Michelangelo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 067941309X ISBN 13: 9780679413097

Publisher: Random House, 1993

Synopsis

The gay journalist-activist exposes the hypocrisy and prejudice that pervade mainstream American institutions, discussing his youth in working-class Brooklyn, the gay-positive corporations of Silicon Valley, and one case of same-sex sexual harassment. 30,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Controversial journalist and activist Michelangelo Signorile assess that if is the hidden identities--the "closeted" lives--of homosexuals that prevent their acceptance in American society. In "A Queer Manifesto," he issues a call-to-arms that refuses to let the closet, and the suffering it causes, endure.

From the Back Cover:

"I consider Queer in America one of the most important books of the twentieth century."-Larry Kramer "A journalistic history of gay activism in the AIDS era, a coming-of-age coming-out memoir, a manual for guerrilla politics in the Age of Information, and even a utopian blueprint for the high-tech liberation of coming generations of lesbians and gay men. Queer in America will open minds as well as closets."-Washington Post

"Signorile has almost single-handedly transformed the American political landscape."-Boston Phoenix

"[Queer in America's] greatest contribution lies not in [its] defense of outing, but in its critical analysis of the closet. Signorile proposes that the closet, while a private tragedy, is also a public institution, one that's actively maintained by the media, the political establishment, and the entertainment industry. . . . A provocative idea from a provocative thinker [whom] you may embrace or detest, but you can't easily dismiss."-New York Newsday

"Queer in Americaoffers a detailed and powerful account of the destructive workings of the closet on the lives of those in it, gay people in general, and the social institutions that structure meaning and power in America. Openly gay people, in order to live morally, must not play along with the convention of the closet [which] treats gays as less than human...Signorile's brilliant analysis shows why."-Richard D. Mohr, The Nation

"In this combative, powerful, gutsy book, [Signorile] charges that three power structures-Washington, Hollywood, the media industry-conspire to keep gays and lesbians in the closet."-Publishers Weekly

"Arguing that the closet is the antigay agenda's strongest weapon, Signorile defends outing as a moral necessity in the fight for gay and lesbian civil rights. This well-written and informative book is highly recommended for all collections."-Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 067941309X
• ISBN 13: 9780679413097
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1