Blog Posts by Subject: Gay and Lesbian Studies

In case you missed the runway fashion show at this year's Anti-Prom, the fabulous designs of the students from the High School of Fashion Industries are on view in the Fifth Avenue window of the Mid-Manhattan Library. And to see the story behind the designs check out our online videos of Design NYPL 2011. The teen-selected theme for the 2011 Anti-Prom was "Super Prom." Teen designers explored the meaning of super, from caped crusaders to spandex-wearing super villains and everything in between during their visits to the Library for the 

Has somebody recently called you Miss Fairgrounds or wished you a Happy Easter, Sugar... in June? You can find out what they meant in the basement of Jefferson Market Library.

Published in 1972 by Straight Arrow Press, Bruce Rodgers's 

 

 

Boy meets Boy while wandering in the Vast Fields of Ordinary? Kicked Out Tales from the Closet? From Glee to DADT to It Gets Better, what’s happening in the world of LGBT youth? Here from authors and illustrators as they talk diversity, identity and visibility in the YA book world. For ages 12 and up.

Today at the Library's Mulberry Street Branch at 4:30pm. 

Check out great coverage of this year's Anti-Prom on Fox 5 News and in the New York Times: 

It was way back in 2004, at the Donnell Library's Teen Central room, when a bunch of librarians, myself included, came up with the idea for Anti-Prom. At the time, a bunch of teen books about prom and prom-related activities were being published and we were all sharing our own (somewhat anti-climatic) prom experiences. Then someone said, "We should throw a prom here." There was laughter as we imagined decorating the library with streamers, crepe paper and a disco ball and then someone said, 

One of the notable themes in the Library's current Centennial exhibition is Gay and Lesbian history.  Items on view include GMHC's safe sex packets, early issues of the lesbian journal The Ladder,  a pamphlet from the Mattachine Society, and a signed copy of Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol. Check out the exhibition curator, Thomas Mellins, discussing Ballad of Reading Gaol, as well as an important print documenting early feminist movements in England. 

Please join us the evening of April 20,2011, when singer and lyricist Scott Matthew plays a special concert at the Tompkins Square Branch Library.

Describing the lush informal beauty of his music, Glitterhouse Records says: “Scott Matthew’s music has truth and exigency. And he forms this into songs that are purely magnetic, that expose an honest beauty and sorrow, allowing listeners to take and feel part of the experience.”  Matthew’s most recent album is THERE IS 

 

Tonight: Wednesday, March 23, 2011, 6 p.m.

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Margaret Liebman Berger Forum

First come, first served

FREE - Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

 Widely known for his self-portraiture and explorations of identity in his photographs, videos, and performances, artist Lyle Ashton Harris has spent the last decade creating a monumental series of sepia-toned portraits with the large-format 

 

 Head up to the Schomburg Center tonight for the opening sessions and amazing concert of multi-site conference sponsored by New York University, the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Brecht Forum, and the Studio Museum of Harlem.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2011, 5:30PMThe Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,Langston Hughes Auditorium, NYPL515 Malcolm X Boulevard (@135th Street), NY, NYOpening Reception: 5:30pm-6:15pm...Opening Plenary Roundtable: 

 Reading through all the events and comments today on the 100th anniversary of Elizabeth Bishop's birth, I'm struck by the quietness around Bishop's sexuality. This is doubtlessly due to Bishop's own discretion in her work.  Despite the passion and loss communicated through her art, outright eroticism was rare in her work. One gorgeous exception is "Vague Poem" in the posthumous collection of her unpublished poems Edgar Allan Poe & the Juke-Box: ... 

  The trouble with Valentine's Day ( or one of the troubles...) is the paucity of compelling images of LGBT lives and loves in all the hustle of red roses, pink love notes, and chocolate bonbons. If you are looking for inspiring words and thoughts on love, check out the poetry collection Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems edited by J. D. McClatchy. It has a beautiful arc of language ranging from Sappho to John Weiners. My favorite is a quiet gem called "Fable" by Robin Becker: 

…The story got 

 "To be regularly gay was to do every day the gay thing that they did every day. To be regularly gay was to end every day at the same time after they had been regularly gay. They were regularly gay. They were gay every day. They ended every day in the same way, at the same time, and they had been every day regularly gay." Gertrude Stein. "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene." The Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories edited by Margaret Reynolds. To celebrate Gertrude Stein's birthday today, born February 3rd 1874, check out these 

 

This Thursday,  February 3^rd, Calm Tóibín discusses his new book, The Empty Family, with Paul Holdengraber for LIVE from the NYPL.

Calm Tóibín’s new collection of short stories, The Empty Family, demonstrates a profound understanding of human fragility and resilience – and the price we pay for 

Last week at the 2011 ALA Mid-Winter meeting in San Diego, the Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature Awards were announced as part of the ALA youth media awards. The award is given annually to English-language children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered experience. This year's winner is Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher.  This groundbreaking young adult novel depicts the troubled 

In case you were unable to attend the Library's standing-room-only talk by Hide/Seek curators Jonathan D. Katz and David C. Ward, check out the video online through our website:

 

 

Hide/Seek is a groundbreaking show, the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture, currently on view at the National Portrait Gallery. “Hide/Seek” considers such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern America; how artists explored the fluidity of sexuality and gender; how major themes in modern art—especially 

 

Take Care of Your Blessings: Items from the Essex Hemphill/Wayson Jones CollectionNovember 3-13, 2010Black Gay & Lesbian Archive Project

Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books DivisionSchomburg Center for Research in Black CultureNew York Public Library

Why do you need to read Emily Horner's A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend? I've got 5 reasons right here.

1) The protagonist is a girl. Who crushes on girls. But unlike a lot of novels about LGBTQ teens, this one lets her story unfold subtly and simply. Cass’s sexuality isn’t some big reveal, just one more piece of the story, floating just out of view until it finally comes into view. 2) The characters are ACTUAL NERDS. Plenty of characters in YA fiction claim to be nerds, but how many