The Girls Next Door
Into the Heart of Lesbian America
Lindsy Van Gelder; Pamela Robin Brandt
In a revealing cross-section of lesbian life in America, the authors, both journalists as well as life partners, report on their travels through various lesbian subcultures. They joined a cross-country Pride Ride of the Austin, Tex., Lesbian Avengers, a political direct-action group protesting anti-gay ordinances. They attended the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, often called the ‘Lesbian Woodstock,’ where thousands of naked or seminude women gather in the woods for a tribal experience. They witnessed a lesbian wedding ceremony at a Unitarian Universalist church in Indiana; met closeted and open lesbian golf pros at chic parties on a Palm Springs, Calif., tournament circuit; and tagged after Seattle city councilwoman Sherry Harris, the nation’s first avowed black elected lesbian official. Through interviews with some 100 women, a candid picture emerges of lesbians coping with low self-esteem, gay-bashing, rejection by their families and sexual self-definition. Many interviewees feel their sexuality is genetic or inborn, while others say they have made a conscious decision to leave heterosexual lifestyles. Van Gelder is chief writer for Allure; Brandt, a New York Daily News columnist.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Van Gelder and Brandt (Are You Two … Together?: A Gay and Lesbian Grand Tour of Europe, LJ 5/1/91) bring a sense of humor and whimsy to this ‘field guide’ to today’s lesbian. Traveling around the country from 1993 to 1995, they met lesbians in three distinct arenas: at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, at the Dinah Shore/LPGA tournament in Palm Springs, and on an ‘action’ with the Lesbian Avengers. Over 100 lesbians across the spectrum-radical separatists and lipstick lesbians, ministers and ex-nuns, moderate Democrats and grass-roots activists-were interviewed about themselves and about lesbian issues. The authors, with wry affection, describe their Sapphic sisters as egalitarian, inclusive, compassionate, earnest (often to a fault), and tolerant. The majority of lesbians are, they report, rather boring and desire the ordinary things in life: love, enduring relationships, families, acceptance, and to become less invisible in the larger culture (hence the title). A lively and accessible popular work that should appeal to readers of any gender or sexual orientation; recommended for all libraries.
Jo McClamroch, Xavier Univ. Lib., Cincinnati
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Details
| ISBN | 684811189 |
| Genre | Lesbian Studies |
| Publication Date | May-96 |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
| Format | Hardcover |
| No. of Pages | 320 |
| Language | English |
| Rating | NotRated |
| BookID | 4819 |
