March was Bi+ Health month. Did you know bisexual/pansexual people have worse physical, mental, and social wellbeing outcomes than gay, lesbian, and straight peers? While it might seem unrelated, this phenomenon is a direct result of bi+ people not having a community where we feel a sense of belonging, and not having positive representation to identify with. This contributes to being unable to fully develop our identity during normal developmental timeframes, adding confusion, self-doubt, and internal stress to the mix. The source of this is the cultural belief that attraction can only be to one gender or sex, a belief that permeates LGBTQ+ spaces as well as cis-hetero spaces, resulting in discrimination and microaggression in both kinds of spaces. Bisexuals are queer always, at all times, because of our capacity for attraction to multiple genders or regardless of gender. Yet too often queer sexuality is only seen as same-gender/same-sex attraction, and bisexuals are only seen as queer in relation to that. While bisexuals in same-gender relationships get some access to community of belong in LGBTQ+ spaces, bisexuals in different-gender relationships have an even harder time accessing community where they can see and be themselves.
For bisexual healing, we need community, representation, and pride that is specifically and explicitly bisexual.
Bi+ visibility and community needs to occur all year long – so let’s continue celebrating and recognizing bisexuality into April (and beyond) with these books about bisexuality in disciplines from film, history, religion, philosophy, sociology, and more. Or take a relaxing break for some bi+ representation in a fiction book with bi+ characters!
A History of Bisexuality
Steven Angelides
HQ74.A54 2001
Angelides explores the evolution of sexuology, revisiting modern epistemological categories of sexuality in psychoanalysis, gay liberation, social constructionism, queer theory, biology, and human genetics. He argues that bisexuality has functioned historically as the structural other to sexual identity itself, undermining assumptions about heterosexuality and homosexuality.
Giovanni's room
James Baldwin
PS3552.A45 G5 2016
Set among the bohemian bars and nightclubs of 1950s Paris, this groundbreaking novel about love and the fear of love is "a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction" (The Atlantic). Introduction by Colm Tóibín. David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy. Caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality, David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With sharp, probing insight, Giovanni's Room tells an impassioned, deeply moving story that lays bare the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
Look both ways : bisexual politics
HQ74 .B38 2007
Jennifer Baumgardner
"For author and activist Jennifer Baumgardner, bisexuality has always been more than "the sexual non-preference of the '90s," and in Look Both Ways she takes a close look at gay and bisexual people on the national cultural stage and the issues their growing visibility raises, particularly for younger women navigating the murky waters of identity. Baumgardner discusses her own experience as a bisexual and the struggle she has undergone to reconcile the privilege she's garnered as a woman who is perceived as straight with the empowerment and satisfaction she's derived from her relationships with women."--BOOK JACKET.
The big book of bisexual trials and errors
PN6727.B45 B54 2017
Elizabeth Beier
"Elizabeth Beier chronicles true-life romantic tales as she breaks up with a long-term boyfriend and navigates a brave new world: dating women. Beier tackles the complexities of sexuality and self image with a conversational and immediate art style and stories anyone who's ever struggled with dating can relate to"--Amazon.com.
Bisexuality in the Ancient World
HQ76.2.R6 C3613 1992
Eva Cantarella
"In terms of female bisexuality, accounts of love between Roman women were transmitted exclusively by men. In Greece, however, women had Sappho to give them voice. Cantarella examines the activities of the thiasoi - Greek communities of women - and reveals that their ritual ceremonies also embraced passionate love." "Cantarella explains how the etiquette of bisexuality was corrupted over time and how, influenced by pagan and Judeo-Christian traditions, homosexuality came to be regarded as an unnatural act. Her interpretation goes further than any previous study, claiming not only that homosexuality was common, but that for Greeks of both genders it constituted true love."--Jacket.
The bisexual imaginary : representation, identity and desire
HQ74 .B54 1997
Bi Academic Intervention
This collection of essays focuses on historical and contemporary representations of bisexuality - both "real" and "imagined" - in literature, film and the visual arts. They ask questions concerning what it means to desire both men and women and explores the role of bisexuality in the construction of every person's sexual identity.
Bisexuality : the psychology and politics of an invisible minority
HQ74.2.U5 B57 1996
Beth A. Firestein
A landmark volume in the field, Bisexuality presents a state-of-the-art glimpse of what is known and what remains to be known about bisexuality. Editor Beth A. Firestein gathers together an impressive group of researchers, activists, educators, theorists, and clinicians to offer insight into this understudied sexual orientation. Written in a scholarly but accessible style, this noteworthy collection of essays provides a focused, comprehensive introduction to research, theory, and practical clinical knowledge about bisexuality. The contributors agree that, given recognition and validity, the study of bisexuality can extend what we know about sexual orientation and sexual identity as well as shed light on previously unexplored aspects of sexuality. This insightful volume explicates the emergence of bisexuality as a phenomenon requiring a paradigm shift in sexual-orientation studies and discusses the implications of this shift. Bisexuality makes accurate, high-quality information about the subject available to professionals and students in lesbian/gay studies, gender studies, sociology, family studies, and human sexuality. The book also brings current clinical perspectives together in a user-friendly volume for practitioners in social work and clinical/counseling psychology.
Bisexual spaces : a geography of sexuality and gender
HQ74 .H45 2002
Clare Hemmings
First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Bi any other name : bisexual people speak out
HQ74 .B5 1991
Loraine Hutchins, Lani Kaahumanu
Bisexual People Speak Out More than seventy women and men from all walks of life describe their lives as bisexuals.
Blessed bi spirit : bisexual people of faith
BL625.9.B57 B54 2000
Debra Kolodny
Reflecting a wide spectrum of religious tradition and spiritual paths--including Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, 12-step, Christian and Jewish--over 30 contributors speak about the intersections of their faith practice and their bisexuality.
Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics: Sex, Loyalty, and Revolution
HQ75.6.U5 R87 1995
Paula C Rust
The subject of bisexuality continues to divide the lesbian and gay community. At pride marches, in films such as Go Fish, at academic conferences, the role and status of bisexuals is hotly contested. Within lesbian communities, formed to support lesbians in a patriarchal and heterosexist society, bisexual women are often perceived as a threat or as a political weakness. Bisexual women feel that they are regarded with suspicion and distrust, if not openly scorned. Drawing on her research with over 400 bisexual and lesbian women, surveying the treatment of bisexuality in the lesbian and gay press, and examining the recent growth of a self-consciously political bisexual movement, Paula Rust addresses a range of questions pertaining to the political and social relationships between lesbians and bisexual women. By tracing the roots of the controversy over bisexuality among lesbians back to the early lesbian feminist debates of the 1970s, Rust argues that those debates created the circumstances in which bisexuality became an inevitable challenge to lesbian politics. She also traces it forward, predicting the future of sexual politics.
Bisexuality in the United States : a social science reader
HQ74.2.U5 B55 2000
Paula C. Rust
This book provides information about the lives and experiences of bisexual people. Articles cover early research in which bisexuality was conceptualized as "situational homosexuality," pioneering research on bisexuality as an authentic sexual orientation, scholarship on bisexuality in the context of AIDS research, the phenomena of "bisexual chic" and biphobia, queer theory, and the contemporary relationship between academia and political activism.
The B word : bisexuality in contemporary film and television
PN1995.9.B57 S36 2013
Maria San Filippo
The B Word explores the ways bisexual fantasy opens a space for "bi-curious" engagement, creating a fluid range of identifications and pleasures. In films as diverse as Brokeback Mountain, The Wedding Crashers, Persona, Chasing Amy, and Mulholland Drive, Maria San Filippo finds that bisexual tropes reveal the workings of our culture's logic of desire. Viewing these and other films through a bisexual lens, which views subjectivity and eroticism as malleable, The B Word transforms understandings of films previously read exclusively as either homosexual or heterosexual. As San Filippo's analysis of the promotion and popular reception of these films reveals, the entertainment industry both exploits and effaces bisexuality in its appeal to diverse audiences.
Bi : the hidden culture, history, and science of bisexuality
HQ74 .S539 2022
Julia Shaw
A provocative, eye-opening, and original book on the science of sexuality beyond gender from an internationally bestselling pop-psychologist Despite all the welcome changes that have happened in our culture and laws over the past few decades in regards to sexuality, the subject remains one of the most influential but least understood aspects of our lives. For psychologist and bestselling author Julia Shaw, this is both professional and personal--Shaw studies the science of sexuality and she herself is proudly and vocally bisexual. It's an admission, she writes, that usually causes people's pupils to dilate, their cheeks to flush, and their questions to start flowing. Ask people to name famous bisexual actors, politicians, writers, or scientists, and they draw a blank. Despite statistics that show bisexuality is more common than homosexuality, bisexuality is often invisible. In BI: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality, Shaw probes the science and culture of attraction beyond the binary. From the invention of heterosexuality to the history of the Kinsey scale, as well as asylum seekers trying to defend their bisexuality in a court of law, there is so much more to explore than most have ever realized. Drawing on her own original research--and her own experiences--this is a personal and scientific manifesto; it's an exploration of the complexities of the human sexual experience and a declaration of love and respect for the nonconformists among us.
Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions
HQ74 .B556 1995
Naomi Tucker
This anthology presents a vivid collection of essays that explore the history, strategies, philosophy, and diversity of bisexual politics and theory in the United States. The 33 contributors develop a multifaceted approach to defining bisexual politics. Through these voices, the book seeks to understand the contexts in which the bisexual movement has evolved. The authors analyze different organizing strategies, formulate new bisexual political theory, provide a vision of future directions for redefining sexuality and gender, and educate activists and allies about current issues pertinent to the bisexual community. This book is the first of its kind. To date, it is the only book that documents and analyzes bisexual politics and theory. While existing literature on bisexuality has focused on identity, coming out, and forming communities, Bisexual Politics takes the vital next step into bisexual political theory and activism. The many subjects and subthemes addressed in Bisexual Politics appeal to a multitude of readers from activists to academics, from friends and family of bisexuals, to those who have struggled with bisexuality. It is a sourcebook for those seeking to locate bisexuality in the schema of other social justice movements. It is a tool to build alliances with other progressive groups, and build coalitions with both lesbian/gay and heterosexual communities. It is a primer for anyone interested in bisexual activism and theory.
Silence Is My Mother Tongue
PR9408.E653 S55 2020
Sulaiman Addonia
A sensuous, textured novel of life in a refugee camp, long-listed for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction On a hill overlooking a refugee camp in Sudan, a young man strings up bedsheets that, in an act of imaginative resilience, will serve as a screen in his silent cinema. From the cinema he can see all the comings and goings in the camp, especially those of two new arrivals: a girl named Saba, and her mute brother, Hagos. For these siblings, adapting to life in the camp is not easy. Saba mourns the future she lost when she was forced to abandon school, while Hagos, scorned for his inability to speak, must live vicariously through his sister. Both resist societal expectations by seeking to redefine love, sex, and gender roles in their lives, and when a businessman opens a shop and befriends Hagos, they cast off those pressures and make an unconventional choice. With this cast of complex, beautifully drawn characters, Sulaiman Addonia details the textures and rhythms of everyday life in a refugee camp, and questions what it means to be an individual when one has lost all that makes a home or a future. Intimate and subversive, Silence Is My Mother Tongue dissects the ways society wages war on women and explores the stories we must tell to survive in a broken, inhospitable environment.
Going bicoastal
PS3601.D54 G65 2023
Dahlia Adler
Told in alternating timelines, Jewish seventeen-year-old Natalya spends one summer in New York with her dad, trying to muster the courage to talk to her girl crush, and the other in Los Angeles with her estranged mom, going for a guy she never saw coming.
You Exist Too Much
PS3601.R33 Y68 2020
Zaina Arafat
A “provocative and seductive debut” of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine). On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12–year–old Palestinian–American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a sense of shame: “You exist too much,” she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East—from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine—Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought–after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as “love addiction.” In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her. Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings—for love, and a place to call home.
Silver Nitrate
PR9199.4.M656174 S55 2023
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film—and awakens one woman’s hidden powers. “No one punctures the skin of reality to reveal the lurking, sinister magic beneath better than Silvia Moreno-Garcia.”—Kiersten White, #1 bestselling author of Hide Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood. Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed. Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend. As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.
She is a haunting
PS3620.R3629 S54 2023
Trang Thanh Tran
In this gorgeously written, deeply haunting ghost story, debut author Trang Thanh Tran explores complex family dynamics and exhilarating romance as a teen girl tries to save her family and herself from a deadly haunted house.
How much of these hills is gold
PS3626.H35 H69 2021
C Pam Zhang
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE 2020 CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE WINNER OF THE ROSENTHAL FAMILY FOUNDATION AWARD, FROM THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION "5 UNDER 35" HONOREE NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Belongs on a shelf all of its own.” —NPR “Outstanding.” —The Washington Post “Revolutionary . . . A visionary addition to American literature.” —Star Tribune An electric debut novel set against the twilight of the American gold rush, two siblings are on the run in an unforgiving landscape—trying not just to survive but to find a home. Ba dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future. Both epic and intimate, blending Chinese symbolism and reimagined history with fiercely original language and storytelling, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a haunting adventure story, an unforgettable sibling story, and the announcement of a stunning new voice in literature. On a broad level, it explores race in an expanding country and the question of where immigrants are allowed to belong. But page by page, it’s about the memories that bind and divide families, and the yearning for home.