Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

Tell is the riveting story of Major Margaret Witt’s dedicated and decorated military career as a frontline flight nurse, and of her love and devotion to her partner - now wife - Laurie Johnson. Tell captures the tension and drama of the politically charged legal battle that led to the congressional repeal of the controversial law and helped pave the way for a suite of landmark political and legal victories for gay rights.

Meet the Law family - eccentric, endearing and hard to resist. Your guide: Benjamin, the third of five children and a born humorist. Join him as he tries to answer some puzzling questions: Why won't his Chinese dad wear made-in-China underpants? Why was most of his extended family deported in the 1980s? Will his childhood dreams of Home and Away stardom come to nothing? What are his chances of finding love? Hilarious and moving, The Family Law is a linked series of tales from a wonderful Australian talent.

Brian Belovitch has the rare distinction of coming out three times: first as a queer teenager; second as a glamorous transgender woman named Tish, and later, Natalia Gervais; and finally as an HIV-positive gay man surviving the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. From growing up in a barely-working-class first-generation immigrant family in Fall River, Massachusetts, to spinning across the disco dance floor of Studio 54 in New York City, Brian escaped many near-death experiences. Trans Figured chronicles a life lived on the edge with an unforgettable cast of characters.

A gorgeously illustrated collection of essays written by today’s queer heroes - featuring contributions from Elton John, Tan France, Gus Kenworthy, Paris Lees, Russell Tovey, Munroe Bergdorf, and many others. The Queer Bible is a celebration of LGBTQ+ history and culture, edited by model, performer, and GQ contributing editor Jack Guinness.

Richard Coles narrates this witty account of life as a parish priest and Radio 4 broadcaster. After a life of sex and drugs and the Communards - brilliantly recounted in the highly acclaimed first volume of his memoirs Fathomless Riches - the Reverend Richard Coles went on to devote his life to God and Christianity. He is also a much-loved broadcaster, presenting Saturday Live on Radio 4 and giving us regular reason to Pause for Thought on Radio 2.

Transitioning is an alignment of the invisible and the physical. It is truth rising to the surface. It is one of the most fundamental aspects of the human condition—a part of our experience as a conscious being, no matter who we are. As time goes on, we all develop as people. None of us ever becomes someone else entirely—regardless of how we identify—but nor do we stay the same forever. We all transition. It's what binds us, not what separates us.

How did a disheveled, intellectually combative gay Jew with a thick New Jersey-Massachusetts accent become one of the most effective politicians of his time? In this candid and witty political memoir, Barney Frank relates his journey from the outskirts of New York City to Boston's City Hall and the Massachusetts legislature, and then to the US Congress, where he played a vital role in the struggle for personal freedom and economic fairness over four decades.

Born the youngest of 15 siblings in Lakewood, Ohio, Shelly McNamara began writing as a child to explore her inner self and make sense of the world around her. From the grief of losing close friends and family, the pain of estrangement and rejection, and a deep desire to make the world a more respectful, loving, and inclusive place, Shelly wrote poetry and stories of hope and strength. Writing helped her embrace her own identity while she waited for the world to recognize her lifelong commitment to the woman she loves and the family they built together.

Más allá de la historiografía tradicional, nos encontramos con grandes poetas, intelectuales o cientí ficos homosexuales cuyos deseos han sido borrados. Es momento de sacarlos del armario. Desde Alejandro Magno o Leonardo da Vinci hasta Isaac Newton o Miguel de Cervantes, este libro desvela, de una manera desenfadada y a través de una profunda investigación, los grandes personajes homosexuales que han cambiado—pese a los prejuicios y las dificultades de su época—la historia de la humanidad.

Karla Jay's memoir of an age whose tumultuous social and political movements fundamentally reshaped American culture takes listeners from her early days in the 1968 Columbia University student riots to her post-college involvement in New York radical women's groups and the New York Gay Liberation Front to Southern California in the early '70s, where she continued in the battle for gay civil rights. We see her helping to organize the takeover of The Ladies Home Journal and “ogle-ins” - where women staked out Wall Street and whistled at the men.

We know Will as a multi-platinum recording artist, Olivier-nominee and the first winner of the Idol franchise. But his story began long before his first audition. Looking back on a world where growing up being called gay was the ultimate insult and coming out after a lifetime of hiding his sexuality, Will explores the long-lasting impact repressing his true self has had. Here you will find a friend, champion and mentor, breaking taboos with frank honesty and offering invaluable practical advice on overcoming the difficult issues too often faced within the LGBTQ+ community.

Part hidden history, part love letter to creative innovation, this is the true story of an unlikely friendship between a dancer, Loie Fuller, and a scientist, Marie Curie, brought together by an illuminating discovery.

Ryan never envisioned just how far his football career would take him. But bubbling under the surface of his entire NFL career was a collision course between his secret sexuality and his hidden drug use. As injuries mounted and his daily intake of opioids reached a near-lethal level, he wrote his suicide note to his parents and plotted his death. Yet, someone had been watching. A member of the Chiefs organization stepped in, recognizing the signs of drug addiction. Ryan reluctantly sought psychological help, and it was there that he revealed his lifelong secret for the very first time.

This stirring and intimate collection brings together 30 unique narratives to paint a vivid portrait of what it means to be a queer Nigerian woman. Covering an array of experiences—the joy and excitement of first love, the agony of lost love and betrayal, the sometimes-fraught relationship between sexuality and spirituality, addiction and suicide, childhood games and laughter—She Called Me Woman sheds light on how Nigerian queer women, despite their differences, attempt to build a life together in a climate of fear.

Calum leaves the hometown he has been in all his life to embark on a journey that takes him all around the world, from teaching in a school on the outskirts of Rome to exploring the sex clubs of Berlin, to raising tigers in an animal sanctuary deep in the jungles of Thailand. Along the way, he meets LGBT+ people from all walks of life and every part of the rainbow - from an Italian teenager struggling with a homophobic father to a kathoey navigating life as a trans person in Thailand, to a young HIV-positive man living on the streets of London.

From bullying, to illness, attempted suicide, becoming a victim of sex trafficking, death threats by the thousands, revolution and never being able to return to a country he once called home, Omar Sharif Jr. has overcome more challenges than one might imagine. Drawing on the lessons he learned from both sides of his family, A Tale of Two Omars charts the course of an iconoclastic life, revealing in the process the struggles and successes that attend a public journey of self-acceptance and a life dedicated in service to others.

For 60 years, Mr George Leo John Lucas led a double life. By day, he was a civil servant at the Board of Trade, but by night—unable to live openly as a gay man before the Sexual Offences Act of 1967—he was a fixture of London's colorful underground gay scene, a twilight world of petty crime, louche pubs and public lavatories. He was also an obsessive diary writer.

It’s funny how life never pans out the way you’d expect. I always knew that something wasn’t right, that some part of my inside didn’t match my outside. What I didn’t know then is that I’m transgender, a realization that took a lifetime to fully unpack and understand. And to embrace. Growing up in Michigan I started off sheltered with no idea of what lay over the horizon, but serving in the navy opened my eyes to what possibilities might be within my grasp. I encountered many forks in the road, sometimes I made the right choice, sometimes my decisions were terribly wrong.

This is Jim Hart's story: how he survived a violent childhood home, how he overcame obsessive dependencies, and how he finally found the strength to be his true self. A master at building relationships, Jim is charming, funny, and a great listener. His success in life and business was based on his ability to connect with others, from people recovering in 12-step groups in upstate New York to those living in the rarefied air of Martha's Vineyard.

In this funny and poignant memoir and cultural history, the television personality, columnist, and author of Drag pays homage to Lou Reed’s groundbreaking album Transformer on its fiftieth anniversary and recalls its influence on his coming of age and coming out through glam rock.