By J. Jack Halberstam

Judith “Jack” Halberstam, a well-known academic in queer theory, gender, and cultural studies, makes sense of the tectonic cultural shifts that have transformed gender and sexual politics in the last few decades. This colorful landscape is populated by symbols and phenomena as varied as pregnant men, late-life lesbians, SpongeBob SquarePants, and queer families. Using Lady Gaga as a guide—and with equal parts edge and wit—(s)he navigates the reader through a new vision of feminism that privileges gender and sexual fluidity, and invites us to envision a world in which gender is blurred and we all “go gaga.”

Praise

“Jack Halberstam—the king of feminism—has managed to make sense of pregnant men, Lady Gaga, gay marriage, and the advent of the bromance in this provocative and pleasurable romp through contemporary gender politics. Gaga Feminism is as fun as it is illuminating.” —Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs and staff writer at the New Yorker

About the author

J. Jack Halberstam is the author of four books, including Female Masculinity and In a Queer Time and Place. Currently a professor of English and gender studies and director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Southern California, Halberstam regularly speaks on queer culture, gender studies, and popular culture, and blogs at The Bully Bloggers.

By Michael Shelton, Foreword by Elizabeth Castellana, COLAGE

An invaluable portrait and roadmap on how to thrive as an LGBT family.

Family Pride is the first book for queer parents, their families, and allies that emphasizes community safety. While the national focus remains on the mistreatment of LGBT people in schools, the reality is that LGBT families also face hostility in various settings-professional, recreational, and social. Drawing on his years as a dedicated community activist and on the experiences of LGBT parents, Michael Shelton offers concrete strategies that LGBT families can use to intervene in and resolve difficult community issues, teach their children resiliency skills, and find safe and respectful programs for them.

Buy this book at Beacon.org | Independent Bookstore | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Powell’s

Praise

“Community activist Shelton (Boy Crazy) brings intellectual rigor to this well-researched examination of the history, progress, and challenges of LGBT families in the U.S., a broader focus than the title implies” —Publishers Weekly

“An earnest, well-researched overview.” —Library Journal

“An invaluable portrait and roadmap on how to thrive as an LGBT family, Family Pride is engaging, accessible, and packed with essential information for LGBT families and their allies.” —Sue Hyde, author of Come Out and Win

About the author

The author of five books, Michael Shelton is the director of sexual-minority treatment services and works with same-sex families at Equilibria Psychological Consultants in Philadelphia. He is also the residential director for Mountain Meadow, one of two summer camp programs in the United States for the children of same-sex parents. He lives in Philadelphia.

Elizabeth Castellana is COLAGE’s National Program Director. COLAGE is a national movement of children, youth, and adults with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer parent(s). Visit them online at www.colage.org.

Family Pride, Excerpt

Buy From: Beacon Press | Independent Bookstore | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Powell’s

Tweet

A groundbreaking work that turns a "queer eye" on the criminal legal system

Praise

“Queer (In)Justice is the book we have been waiting for. By examining the policing of gender, it forces us to reexamine our complicity in the police state when we are fighting for hate crime legislation but should be arguing for decriminalization. It calls us to develop a more radical analysis that understands that ending state violence must be central to a transformative queer politics.”—Andrea Smith, cofounder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and author of Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide

“If you think the struggle for LGBT equality is only about marriage and the military, Queer (In)Justice will be a revelation. In lucid prose, it tells stories of criminalization, victimization, and discrimination, while illuminating strategies for progressive change. A must-read for anyone who cares about justice.” —Ruthann Robson, author of Lesbian (Out)Law and Sappho Goes to Law School, professor of law, City University of New York School of Law

“A cogent and urgent call to move beyond single issue politics and to take a stand against the often brutal punishment of ‘criminalized queers.’ The authors lay out a framework for a multi-issue social justice agenda that links LGBT activists to feminists, prison abolitionists, and immigrant rights and homeless advocates. This powerful critique should profoundly transform the ways we seek to end violence and fight for our freedom.”—Julia Sudbury, editor of Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex, professor of ethnic studies, Mills College

“Queer (In)Justice is an urgently needed and essential resource for activists and scholars. Accessible and stirring, it clearly and concisely exposes how criminalization is a central issue facing queer and trans politics today. Tracing the historical and contemporary implications of mass imprisonment as a central vector of racial and gender violence this book is a vital tool toward building a movement that challenges the policing of our very identities.”—Dean Spade, founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, assistant professor of law, Seattle University School of Law

“With remarkable passion Queer (In)Justice makes visible the very serious consequences of the prison industrial complex on the lives of LGBT people. It’s an important scholarly critique, an urgent call to action, and a vivid historical account of how the policing of gender and sexuality are intricately linked to race, class, and power.”—Beth Ritchie, director, Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago

Queer (In)justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States, excerpt

 

About the Authors

Joey L. Mogul is a partner at the People’s Law Office in Chicago, Illinois and Director of the Civil Rights Clinic at DePaul University College of Law.  Mogul’s practice focuses on representing individuals who have suffered from police and other governmental misconduct in civil rights cases, and defending individuals in criminal and capital cases.  Mogul has worked to seek justice for Chicago Police torture survivors for the last fourteen years, which included presenting the cases to UN Committee Against Torture and the Human Rights Committee in Geneva, Switzerland in 2006.  Mogul’s practice has also included representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in criminal and civil proceedings involving police and prisoner torture, abuse and misconduct. Mogul previously published The Dykier, the Butcher, the Better: the State’s Use of Homophobia and Sexism to Execute Women in the United States in the New York City Law Review and with co-author Ritchie, In the Shadows of the War on Terror: Persistent Police Brutality and Abuse of People of Color in the United States in the DePaul Journal for Social Justice.  Mogul has spoken widely before both legal and popular audiences on the state’s use of homophobic, sexist and racist arguments in criminal cases and has devised legal training to counter such efforts. Mogul has also worked as an activist with Queer to the Left in Chicago, Illinois, the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights and with others to challenge the death penalty, torture by law enforcement officials, gentrification and supermax conditions. Mogul is an Oberlin College graduate and earned a juris doctorate from City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law. 

Andrea J. Ritchie is a police misconduct attorney and organizer in New York City. She has engaged in extensive research, writing, speaking, litigation, organizing and advocacy on profiling, policing, and physical and sexual violence by law enforcement agents against women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the US and Canada over the past decade. She currently coordinates Streetwise & Safe (SAS), a leadership development initiative aimed at building knowledge, community and power among LGBT youth of color with experience of gender, race, sexuality and poverty-based policing and criminalization in the context of “quality of life” initiatives and the policing of sex work and trafficking. She proudly serves on the Board of Directors of the Young Women’s Empowerment Project (YWEP) and as a member of the Safe Outside the System Collective of the Audre Lorde Project. She is also counsel, along with Joey Mogul, in Tikkun v. City of New York, et al., a civil rights action challenging unconstitutional and overly invasive searches of transgender people by New York City Police officers. In 2009 she served as the Director of the Sex Workers Project. As a member of the national collective of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence from 2003 – 2008, she coordinated the development of the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence Organizer’s Toolkit on Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color and Transgender People of Color, and drafted its unique “Know Your Rights” flyer. Her original piece, Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color appeared in The Color of Violence: The INCITE! anthology (2006, South End Press).  She and Joey were also primary authors of In the Shadows of the War on Terror: Persistent Police Brutality and Abuse in the United States, a “shadow report” submitted on behalf of over 100 national and local organizations and individuals to the United Nations Committee Against Torture, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Ritchie was as an expert consultant, lead researcher and coauthor for Amnesty International’s 2005 report Stonewalled: Police Abuse and Misconduct Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People in the United States. She was also a consultant and co-author for Caught in the Net, a report on women and the “war on drugs” published by the ACLU, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Break the Chains, and Education Not Deportation: Impacts of New York City School Safety Policies on Immigrant Youth, published by Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM). Her book, Everyday Violence: Racial Profiling and Police Brutality Against Women and Transgender People of Color, will be coming out next year from South End Press.

Kay Whitlock is a Montana-based writer, organizer and consultant working for progressive social change. As an activist, she was worked for almost 40 years to build bridges between LGBTQ struggles and movements fighting for racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice. She formerly served in national leadership positions on LGBTQ issues, including National Representative for LGBT Issues for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC, a Quaker organization advocating for peace, social and economic justice, and human rights); chair of the National NOW Lesbian Rights Committee; and member and co-chair of the board of directors of the (as it was then known) National Gay Task Force. Kay is the author of an AFSC Justice Visions series of publications addressing the meaning of justice in a society based upon violence, exclusion, and abuses of human rights.  These include In a Time of Broken Bones, which challenges penalty enhancement hate crime laws as a progressive response to hate violence; Corrupting Justice: A Primer for LGBT Communities on Racism, Violence, Human Degradation & the Prison Industrial Complex; and In the Killing Fields of the State: Why Abolition of the Death Penalty is a Queer Issue.  She also authored Bridges of Respect: Creating Support for Lesbian and Gay Youth (AFSC, 1988), the first nationally distributed resource guide for adults working with lesbian and gay youth. She has worked closely with Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ) to produce educational resources about poverty and economic hardship in LGBTQ communities and served as a member of a national working group convened by QEJ to produce Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision for All Our Families & Relationships that seeks to place the struggle for marriage equality within a broader context of social and economic justice. Kay travels widely throughout the United States, speaking, doing research, and facilitating workshops.  Her essays and articles have appeared in numerous periodicals and several anthologies.

From Queer Action/ Queer Ideas editor Michael Bronski: 

The first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present.

Buy this book at Beacon.org | Independent Bookstore | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Powell’s

“A lucid, cerebral treatise on gay culture from the point of view of a clever historian who maintains that ‘the heritage of LGBT people is the heritage of Americans.—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“A succinct distillation of the history of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders in America… Bronski’s impeccable research bolsters his arguments… a useful handbook for LGBT activist groups and other interested members of the gay community.” —Boston Globe

“A savvy political, legal, literary (and even fashion) history, Bronski’s narrative is as intellectually rigorous as it is entertaining.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

A Queer History of the United States, Excerpt

By Carlos A. Ball

Buy From: Beacon Press | Independent Bookstore | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Powell’s

Tweet  

The advancement of LGBT rights has occurred through struggles large and small-on the streets, around kitchen tables, and on the Web. Lawsuits have also played a vital role in propelling the movement forward, and behind every case is a human story: a landlord in New York seeks to evict a gay man from his home after his partner of ten years dies of AIDS; school officials in Wisconsin look the other way as a gay teenager is repeatedly and viciously harassed by other students; a lesbian couple appears unexpectedly at a clerk’s office in Hawaii seeking a marriage license.

Engaging and largely untold, From the Closet to the Courtroom explores how five pivotal lawsuits have altered LGBT history. Beginning each case narrative at the center-with the litigants and their lawyers-law professor Carlos Ball follows the stories behind each crucial lawsuit. He traces the parties from their communities to the courtroom, while deftly weaving in rich sociohistorical context and analyzing the lasting legal and political impact of each judicial outcome.

Over the last twenty years, no group of attorneys has helped to transform this country more than LGBT rights lawyers, and surprisingly, their collective accomplishments have received relatively little attention. Ball remedies that by exploring how a band of largely unheralded civil rights lawyers have attained remarkable legal victories through skill, creativity, and perseverance.

In this richly layered and multifaceted account, Ball vividly documents how these judicial victories have significantly altered LGBT lives today in ways that were unimaginable only a generation ago.

Praise

"Ball revels in a handful of important legal victories, while also delving deeply into the personal stories of each case, resulting in a richly textured account that is part history book, part colorful reportage." —Beth Greenfield, Time Out New York

"While the gay and lesbian rights movement had its start in 1969 at the Stonewall in New York City, it has yet to have a book tell the story of its poster children and the legal struggles in which they fought. This volume amply fills this void. . . Well written, exciting, and fun to read." —Choice Magazine

"Ball dramatically resurrects each case, bringing together opposing attorneys and litigants to show how ordinary human conflict can translate to extraordinary civil rights gain. This groundbreaking book is crucial if we are to understand the history of the rights we take for granted." —Mary Bonauto, Civil Rights Project director for GLAD, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders

"Ball approaches his subject with vigor and sensitivity and makes a poignant plea for justice." —Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Carlos A. Ball is professor of law at the Rutgers University School of Law (Newark). He has written extensively on LGBT rights issues, is the author of The Morality of Gay Rights, and has received a Dukeminier Award from UCLA’s Williams Institute for excellence in sexual orientation and the law scholarship. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York.

Author photo by Dyanna Stupar

 Buy
A Queer (In)Justice
at Beacon.org
Independent Bookstore
Amazon * Barnes & Noble Powell’s * Borders

 Buy
From the Closet to the Courtroom
at Beacon Press
Independent Bookstore
Amazon * Barnes & Noble
Powell’s * Borders

 Buy
Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage
at Beacon.org
Independent Bookstore
Amazon * Barnes & Noble Powell’s * Borders

 Buy
Out Law
at Beacon.org
Independent Bookstore
Amazon * Barnes & Noble Powell’s * Borders

 Buy
Come Out and Win
at Beacon.org
Independent Bookstore
Amazon * Barnes & Noble Powell’s * Borders

 Buy
A Queer History of the United States
at Beacon.org
Independent Bookstore
Amazon * Barnes & Noble Powell’s

Buy From: Beacon Press | Independent Bookstore | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Powell’s

Tweet  

The debate over marriage equality for same-sex couples rages across the country. Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage boldly moves the discussion forward by focusing on the larger, more fundamental issue of marriage and the law. The root problem, asserts law professor and LGBT rights activist Nancy Polikoff, is that marriage is a bright dividing line between those relationships that legally matter and those that don’t. A woman married to a man for nine months is entitled to Social Security survivor’s benefits when he dies; a woman living for nineteen years with a man or woman to whom she is not married receives nothing.

Polikoff reframes the debate by arguing that all family relationships and households need the economic stability and emotional peace of mind that now extend only to married couples. Unmarried couples of any sexual orientation, single-parent households, extended family units, and myriad other familial configurations need recognition and protection to meet the concerns they all share: building and sustaining economic and emotional interdependence, and nurturing the next generation.

Couples should have the choice to marry based on the spiritual, cultural, or religious meaning of marriage in their lives, asserts Polikoff. While marriage equality for same-sex couples is a civil rights victory, she contends that no one should have to marry in order to reap specific and unique legal results.

A persuasive argument that married couples should not receive special rights denied to other families, Polikoff shows how the law can value all families, and why it must.

Read the Introduction to Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage

Praise

"A much-needed intervention in the contemporary debate about marriage and family. Polikoff’s argument is provocative, illuminating, and original." —John D’Emilio, author of Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin

"Polikoff mobilizes an impressive array of legal history and contemporary court cases to show how marriage, whether same-sex or heterosexual, has ceased to be the only place where people incur long-term obligations. She argues vigorously that our society needs to find new ways of determining when legally-enforceable responsibilities and entitlements have accrued in interpersonal relationships." —Stephanie Coontz, author, Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage

“This book really matters. It is brilliant and thoughtful, not simply about a set of laws, but as a manifesto to transform the way we understand, recognize and respect the reality of our diverse and complex family compositions. Polikoff grounds her arguments in the 35 year history of social change activism in this country to construct a passionate and nuanced argument for expanding our same sex marriage activism to include all of the ways people love, form families and build community.” —Amber Hollibaugh, Senior Strategist, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and author of My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming her Way Home

“Passionate but completely grounded in reality, Polikoff challenges LGBT rights advocates to see beyond gay equality arguments and question the fundamental fairness of limiting family recognition based on marriage, gay or straight. It is a powerful call for social justice.” —Nan D. Hunter, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project and Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School

"A provocative and perspicuous intervention in one of the most devilish recent debates in U.S. law and politics…In a principled yet pragmatic analysis, Polikoff mounts a compelling case against the continued grip of ‘conjugalism’ on our family law and policy. Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage challenges us to imagine and build a political consensus that respects the realities of contemporary American kinship and family life, in all its complexity." —Kendall Thomas, Nash Professor of Law, Columbia University

“Polikoff wades through legislation and legalese with style and substance, plus a touch of flair. Impeccably researched, the book offers an evocative read that takes in the full breadth of the issues affecting marriages and avoids pedantry while remaining persuasive.” —Publishers Weekly Review

“Ultimately, marriage isn’t the right dividing line, Polikoff maintains in this provocative argument for valuing all kinds of family.” — Whitney Scott, Booklist

About the Author

Nancy Polikoff is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law, where she teaches Sexuality and the Law and has taught Family Law for more than 20 years. Previously, she supervised the family law programs of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund, and before that she practiced law as part of a feminist law collective, where she specialized in family law. For more than 30 years, she has been writing about, speaking about, and litigating cases involving lesbian and gay families.

Professor Polikoff’s articles have appeared in many law journals, including those at University of Chicago, Georgetown, Harvard, Hastings, and Hofstra. Her history of the development of the law affecting lesbian and gay parenting appears as a chapter in the 2000 book, Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy, and Civil Rights, edited by John D’Emilio, William Turner, and Urvashi Vaid. Professor Polikoff was successful appellate counsel in the case that the established the right of lesbian and gay couples to jointly adopt children in the District of Columbia, and in a Maryland case overturning a visitation order prohibiting any contact between a gay noncustodial father’s children and his life partner. 

Visit Nancy Polikoff’s blog, http://beyondstraightandgaymarriage.blogspot.com/.

Buy From: Beacon Press | Independent Bookstore | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Powell’s

Tweet  

Can a high school principal make you cover up your “gay pride” T-shirt? What can you do if school officials say your gay/straight alliance can’t meet on school grounds?

If you tell your doctor you’re gay, does he or she have to share that information with your parents?
Out Law answers these questions and others, laying out the basics about laws that impact LGBT youth and telling you what your rights are, how to exercise them, and when and where to seek help.

Praise and Reviews

“Keen’s book is brilliant in its concise and well-researched treatment of complex legal issues for LGBT people. Engaging and accessible, it offers a unique and smart focus on the rights of young gay people in each facet of their lives.” —Urvashi Vaid, author of Virtual Equality and Executive Director of the Arcus Foundation

 “Jam-packed with information—history, obstacles, and remedies—Out Law is a terrific legal guide for LGBT kids looking to achieve equal rights.” —Nancy Garden, recipient of lifetime achievement award by the American Library Association and author of Annie on My Mind

“Keen’s book is must reading for all gay youth and those who care about them.” —Kevin M. Cathcart, executive director, Lambda Legal

“Keen delivers a sharp and coherent analysis of legal issues affecting LGBT kids today . . . Geared to LGBT teenagers, this important, eye-opening book is also an essential read for any parent with a gay child.” —Publisher’s Weekly Review

“Established journalist Keen has written an indispensable introduction to the legal rights of LGBT youth. Though she’s not trained in the law, Keen has clearly done her research, and the result is a systematic and comprehensive survey that belongs in every library.” —Booklist Review

“Lisa Keen has created an important, vibrant book that will serve as both a guide for LBGT youth looking to make sure they know their legal rights, and as an historical document for future generations to mark the community’s growth.” —Between the Lines Review

“From a legal perspective, she hits the nail dead on its head in providing very accurate legal advice while making sure to point out the obvious loopholes . . . If you’re looking for a solid resource on the law for LGBT youth, consider checking out Out Law. This may be a new survival guide. Knowledge is half the battle, and Out Law certainly presents ways to be able to utilize the law to fight bullying and discrimination.” —Edge Boston 

“Keen addresses youth of high school and college age with respect for their intelligence and experiences, and provides suggestions for appropriate use of channels likely to be available to those who are somewhat, although not yet completely, independent as they emerge as young adults." —Voice of Youth Advocates Review

Download Chapter One 

Read chapter one by clicking here. 

About the Author

Lisa Keen is chief correspondent for Keen News Service, a professional news organization specializing in national political and legal news that involves or affects gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. We deliver that news to interested readers through select means: gay newspaper clients, websites of LGBT community-based organizations, and through our own website—keennewsservice.com. Keen has been reporting news for gay audiences since 1979 and, for 18 years, was editor of one of the nation’s most respected gay newspapers, The Washington Blade (and its eventual sister paper, The New York Blade). She was one of the first reporters for a gay newspaper to cover the national Democratic convention, one of the first to be credentialed to cover the White House, and one of the only reporters to carefully analyze gay voting trends.

She won the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association for her coverage of an anti-gay initiative in Colorado and its subsequent landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Romer v. Evans. And she won a Society of Professional Journalists award for her series of interviews — from diagnosis to death — with one of the first gay men to develop AIDS in the early 1980s.

She has published commentary in The Washington Post, written environmental news for The Nature Conservancy Magazine, and reported local news for the Boston Globe. She began her freelance work in 2001, with the sale of the Blade, and currently covers major legal and political stories for gay news outlets around the country.

by Sue Hyde

From starting a gay-straight alliance in your high school to effectively lobbying your state representative face-to-face, Come Out and Win explains in a clear and user-friendly manner how to organize and become politically active. It will educate, engage, and agitate LGBT people and allies of all ages to become involved in the political movement to win full equality under the law and sexual/gender freedom. Sue Hyde tells the history of gay liberation but also offers firsthand guidance and practical advice for building organizations and taking concrete action to eradicate homophobia.

Praise and Reviews

“Sue Hyde’s book answers the plaint, ‘What are we gonna do?’  So quit whining, get her book, pick a chapter, do the workbook.  Repeat.  Create change.  Badges not included.” —Kate Clinton, humorist and author of What the L?

 “Sue Hyde has demonstrated in her own life that winning equal rights for LGBT people is not a spectator sport.  Now she has taken this one step further and provided a manual for other LGBT people so that they can join her in this effort.” —Congressman Barney Frank

“Unique and invaluable, this is the essential guide for anyone wanting to advance equal rights for LGBT people.” —Matt Foreman, Executive Director National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

“An invitation to change the world can’t be taken lightly, unless it’s delivered with the sure and light touch of an engaging, dedicated organizer like Sue Hyde.  Turn the pages and be the new world.” —Jewelle Gomez, author and activist

 “In this richly detailed and well-organized book, she offers a stirring course in gay activism with step-by-step-how-to-advice . . . Designed to outrage, inspire, encourage and anger readers, and give them the tools to spring into action, this is an indispensable resource for anyone looking for a little guidance and a little push.” —Publisher’s Weekly Review

“Hyde presents activism as an organized method for gaining self-acceptance as well as societal and political change . . . This book fills a niche that heretofore has lacked a sophisticated yet accessible treatment of the topic . . . This book has staying power for the reader and as a library collection staple.” —Voice of Youth Advocates Review

About the Author

For two decades, Sue Hyde has inspired and nurtured organizers and led community members to participate in democracy with the goal of securing freedom, justice and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people and their families.

She is a seasoned community organizer and advocate whose issue portfolio at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has included repeal of sodomy laws, rescission of the military’s ban on openly gay, lesbian and bisexual servicemembers, passage of local and state civil rights laws, training leaders to effectively oppose right-wing incursions in their communities, directing the annual Creating Change Conference, and securing marriage equality for same-sex couples.

Hyde is an accomplished public speaker, teacher and writer whose wit, wisdom and wry observations of politics in these United States frame a tireless dedication to community building and an inexhaustible faith in our movement and its people. She was the recipient of the 2002 Stonewall Award in recognition of lifetime service to the LGBT political movement.

She also serves as the Task Force New England field organizer and lives in Cambridge, Mass., with her partner and their two children.

Come Out and Win: Organizing Yourself, Your Community, and Your World