City of Friends: A Protrait of the Gay and Lesbian Community in America - Hardcover

Levay, Simon; Nonas, Elisabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262121948 ISBN 13: 9780262121941

Publisher: Mit Pr, 1995

Synopsis

City of Friends offers a practical, intelligent, and well-informed overview of what it means to be gay or lesbian. The authors seek to help gay men and women, as well as their families and friends, to better understand the institutions and communities that make up the most culturally and ethnically diverse minority in America today.Beginning with basic concepts, LeVay and Nonas define the words "homosexual," "gay," "lesbian," and "bisexual" and discuss the various patterns of homosexuality in different cultures around the world. They relate the history of the gay and lesbian community in the United States, and its struggle for equal rights and social acceptance, before tackling the question -- still highly controversial -- of what determines an individual's sexual orientation.City of Friends describes the great diversity within the gay and lesbian community: Life in the "gay ghetto." Old lesbians in rural hideaways. Gay resorts. A "town without men." Gay and lesbian Latinos, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Native Americans -- what it means to be a minority within a minority. Lesbian and gay youth, the elderly, the deaf. Bisexuals and transsexuals. Academics, drag queens, technoqueers, publishers, softball players -- all make their appearance in these pages.LeVay and Nonas continue with a discussion of health issues (especially of the AIDS epidemic and the community's response to it), the law, and gay and lesbian politics. They describe the cultural achievements of lesbians and gay men -- their art, literature, theater, music, and dance. Finally they take a look at the spiritual life of gays and lesbians, both within and outside of organized religion.

About this title

About the Author

Simon LeVay, whose 1991 paper published in Science, "A difference in hypothalamic structure between homosexual and heterosexual men," attracted worldwide scientific and public attention, is Associate Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the University of California, San Diego. He is presently Chair of the Steering Committee of the Institute of Gay and Lesbian Education, West Hollywood, a new college for the gay and lesbian community in Southern California.

From Library Journal

This well-intentioned volume attempts to be "a survey of what it means to be gay or lesbian; where gays and lesbians come from in history and in individual development; what are their common interests, needs, and aspirations; and a portrait of the gay community as a seething coalition of groups and subgroups that resolve ultimately into the splendid uniqueness of the gay individual." Nonas is a teacher of fiction writing at the Institute of Gay and Lesbian Education in West Hollywood, cofounded by LeVay, the author of the controversial The Sexual Brain (MIT Pr., 1993; "Best Sci-Tech Books," LJ 3/1/94, p. 52-56). Overly ambitious, this title includes information on such topics as science, health, legal and political issues, arts, and spirituality but is compromised by peculiarly opinionated and ill-defined prose, oversimplification and generalization, errors of fact, specious interpretation, glaring omissions, redundancies, inconsistencies, and peculiarly incomplete lists for further reading. An optional purchase for gay studies collections. (Index and illustrations not seen.)?James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mit Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0262121948
• ISBN 13: 9780262121941
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 472