That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation

As the gay mainstream prioritizes the attainment of straight privilege over all else, it drains queer identity of any meaning, relevance, or cultural value, writes Matt Bernstein Sycamore, aka Mattilda, editor of That's Revolting! . This timely collection shows what the new queer resistance looks like. Intended as a fistful of rocks to throw at the glass house of Gaylandia, the book challenges the commercialized, commodified, and hyperobjectified view of gay/queer identity projected by the mainstream (straight and gay) media by exploring queer struggles to transform gender, revolutionize sexuality, and build community/family outside of traditional models. Essays include “Dr. Laura, Sit on My Face,” “Gay Art Guerrillas,” “Legalized Sodomy Is Political Foreplay,” and “Queer Parents: An Oxymoron or Just Plain Moronic?”

ISBN-13: 9781593761950

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Catapult

Publication Date: 05-28-2008

Pages: 360

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the author of three novels and a memoir, and the editor of five nonfiction anthologies. Her memoir, The End of San Francisco, won a Lambda Literary Award, and her anthology, Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform, was an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. Her novel Sketchtasy was one of NPR’s Best Books of 2018. Her book The Freezer Door is out now. Maggie Nelson says it's "a book about not belonging that made me feel deeply less alone."

Table of Contents

There's more to life than platinum: challenging the tyranny of sweatshop-produced rainbow flags and participatory patriarchy   Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore     1
Church, State, Acid Trips, the Merry-go-Round, Patriots, the Conspiracy, and Diapers
Dykes and Fags Want Everything: Dreaming with the Gay Liberation Front   Ferd Eggan     11
Queering the Underground   Daniel Burton-Rose     19
It's All About Class   Tommi Avicolli Mecca     29
Sites of Resistance or Sites of Racism?   Priyank Jindal     39
Fighting to Win   Dean Spade     47
Gay Art Guerrillas: Interview with Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman   Stephen Kent Jusick     54
More Abercrombie Than Activist?   Kaila Kuban   Chris Grinnell     74
Choice Cuts   Charlie Anders     87
Legalized Sodomy is Political Foreplay   Patrick Califia     92
Queer Parents: An Oxymoron? Or Just Moronic?   Stephanie Schroeder     100
Never a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride   Carol Queen     105
Is Gay Marriage Racist?   Marlon M. Bailey   Priya Kandaswamy   Mattie Udora Richardson     113
Children, the Trucks, Chainmail, Time, the Border, Skin Problems, the Feds,and the Urban Eco-Village of Your Dreams
Sylvia and Sylvia's Children: A Battle for a Queer Public Space   Benjamin Shepard     123
Unsuitable for Children   Gina de Vries     141
Revolting   Josina Manu Maltzman     147
A Tragic Love Story, or The Love Affair As Defining Moment, or The Love Affair That Never Happened   Reginald Lamar     152
Inside the Box   Neil Edgar     158
Riding Radio to Choke the IMF   Blake Nemec   SalMonella     162
Sexing up the Conflict   Query     174
Vitoligo vs. the Drapetomania Syndrome   Dr. Ralowe Trinitrotoluene Ampu, DDS     188
Sex, Gender, and Letters to Myself   Elias seMbessakwini     199
Piss, Transnational Capital, Lice Remover, the Piers, Mary, Dr. Laura, the Naked Truth, and Ricki Lake
Dr. Laura, Sit on My Face   Rocko Bulldagger     213
Calling All Restroom Revolutionaries!   Simone Chess   Alison Kafer   Jessi Quizar   Mattie Udora Richardson     216
That Incredible Exhilaration: An Interview with Jim Eigo from The ACT UP Oral History Project   Sarah Schulman     237
Fed Up Queers   Jennifer Flynn   Eustacia Smith     249
Gay Shame: From Queer Autonomous Space to Direct Action Extravaganza   Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore     268
Stripping for the Movement   Eustacia Smith     296
Stayin' Alive: Trans Survival and Struggle on the Streets of Philadelphia   Michelle O'Brien     305
Getting to the Root   Jesse Heiwa     312
Corroding our Quality of Life   Justin Anton Rosado     317
Dealing Discourse: Drugs and the (Re)invention of Resistance   Eric Stanley     329
Bios     337
Acknowledgments     347
About the Author     349 Show More