A companion to the Lambda Literary Award-winning First Person Queer, these forty essays speak to the reader from a variety of stances, views, and attitudes on five major areas: (1) Looking into the Queer View Mirror; (2) Getting Your Queer On; (3) Queer Wisdom: Our Past, Present, and Future; (4) Practically Queer; and (5) Finding Yourself, Queerly.
Bringing out what persons who identify as LGBT (or Queer) often feel (but others aren’t aware of), this work makes all readers aware of the impact of being part of this society, whether intentional or not. The voices in this book speak not only to the straight, or non-queer world, but also to the queer world, demonstrating the wide variance in this culture that is not really a culture, just as male or female is not a culture.
Although each chapter is one specific entry, each chapter can apply to other subsections of the culture. Whether discussing psychological issues, relationships and sex identification, acceptance by parents and others, the act of sexual behaviors, or other issues, this work makes the reader think. While some chapters are more graphic than others, and some have content that might insult rather than educate due to the tone of the author, these chapters can open great discussions and would be wonderful additions to book groups or other tolerance groups as reading material.
Second Person Queer cannot be added to a collection open to children, as the content is not readily identifiable as potentially offensive, but the content is important for those who need to hear these stories “from the horse’s mouth.” This book can also be used as an example of writing in the second person, samples of which are not always easily found in such a down-to-earth way on topics that have the potential to be controversial.
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