Beacon Broadside: A Project of Beacon Press

Cheers to Beacon’s Bestsellers of 2023!

Beacon Broadside — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 10:55:04 -0500

Image credit: Dewald Van Rensburg

Some are new, some are veteran crew. These are a handful of Beacon’s bestsellers of 2023! Let’s raise a glass of bubbly to the authors and to another year of bestsellers! Which ones were your favorites?

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

Nonsexual romantic love sounds like an oxymoron. Almost all definitions of the feeling of romantic love—separate from the social role of married partners or romantic acts like saying “I love you”—fold in the sexual dimension. People might not be having sex, but wanting sex is the key to recognizing that feelings are romantic instead of platonic. Sexual desire is supposed to be the Rubicon that separates the two. It’s not. Aces prove this. By definition, aces don’t experience sexual attraction and plenty are apathetic or averse to sex. Many still experience romantic attraction and use a romantic orientation (heteroromantic, panromantic, homoromantic, and so on) to signal the genders of the people they feel romantically toward and crush on.
—Angela Chen

Being Heumann: An Repentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist

At camp, I was not seen as a sick kid, excluded from dances and dates and kissing boys behind the football stadium. Nor was I seen as a crippled girl never expected to marry, for whom motherhood was not even a question. No one had told me that no boy would ever give me a second look. At camp we had parties, played loud rock music, and snuck off into the dark to make out. The counselors were young and fun. They strummed the guitar while we sang and danced to the likes of Elvis Presley, Chubby Checker, Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, and the Shirelles. We knew all the words to “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” and “Chantilly Lace” by the Big Bopper, and we danced in a way we never danced anywhere else. Camp was the only place we weren’t self-conscious about how we looked.
—Judith Heumann with Kristen Joiner

Jesus and the Disinherited

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I have heard a sermon on the meaning of religion, of Christianity, to the man who stands with his back against the wall. It is urgent that my meaning be crystal clear. The masses of men live with their backs constantly against the wall. They are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. What does our religion say to them? The issue is not what it counsels them to do for others whose need may be greater, but what religion offers to meet their own needs. The search for an answer to this question is perhaps the most important religious quest of modern life.
—Howard Thurman

Kindred: Gift Edition

I had seen people beaten on television and in the movies. I had seen the too-red blood substitute streaked across their backs and heard their well-rehearsed screams. But I hadn’t lain nearby and smelled their sweat or heard them pleading and praying, shamed before their families and themselves. I was probably less prepared for the reality than the child crying not far from me. In fact, she and I were reacting very much alike. My face too was wet with tears. And my mind was darting from one thought to another, trying to tune out the whipping.
—Octavia E. Butler

Man’s Search for Meaning

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.
—Viktor E. Frankl

On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World

Let’s face it: It’s deeply uncomfortable to confront the fact that we have caused harm. Research has shown that feelings of guilt can impact how we feel in our bodies; it makes us feel literally weighed down, causing even basic tasks to require more effort than usual. And, of course, guilt—the awareness or belief that I have done something bad—can easily trigger, or morph into, shame, the belief that I am bad. It may be tempting to look for ways to hack the process, to get to that place where we no longer feel burdened by our conscience, where things feel better. Crossing that bridge over into reckoning with what we have done seems like the agonizing opposite of removing this heavy awareness. Instead of getting to the white, we have to walk straight into the crimson? That doesn’t seem right! It’s easy to panic, to try to figure out if there’s a way around the system. But the only way out is through. And trying to skip to the end without all the work in the middle means that, instead of making different choices, we repeat variations on that same crimson harm.
—Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

Our breath is such a fragile piece of thread. But once we know how to use it, it can become a wondrous tool to help us surmount situations which would otherwise seem hopeless. Our breath is the bridge from our body to our mind, the element which reconciles our body and mind and which makes possible one-ness of body and mind. Breath is aligned to both body and mind and it alone is the tool which can bring them both together, illuminating both and bringing both peace and calm.
—Thich Nhat Hanh

Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

On a December morning, two years ago, I brought a young, injured black-backed gull home from the beach. It was, in fact, Christmas morning, as well as bitter cold, which may account for my act. Injured gulls are common; nature’s maw receives them again implacably; almost never is a rescue justified by a return to health and freedom. And this gull was close to that maw; it made no protest when I picked it up, the eyes were half-shut, the body so starved it seemed to hold nothing but air.
—Mary Oliver, from “Bird”

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

To begin the work of abolitionist teaching and fighting for justice, the idea of mattering is essential in that you must matter enough to yourself, to your students, and to your students’ community to fight. But for dark people, the very basic idea of mattering is sometimes hard to conceptualize when your country finds you disposable. How do you matter to a country that is at once obsessed with and dismissive about how it kills you? How do you matter to a country that would rather incarcerate you than educate you?
—Bettina L. Love

“You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People

Nearly every cultural message about fatness and weight loss insists that anyone can choose to lose weight, and many of us deeply believe that to be true. In truth, some fat people do choose fat bodies; some do not. But this cultural insistence that fatness is a choice isn’t about the veracity of that claim: it’s about minimizing fat people’s experiences, dismissing our needs, and perpetuating anti-fat bias. And in its determination to do so, it steamrolls over copious evidence that challenges the belief that thinness is a choice that’s always available to fat people.—Aubrey Gordon

About the Author

Christian Coleman is the digital marketing manager at Beacon Press and editor of Beacon Broadside. Before joining Beacon, he worked in writing, copy editing, and marketing positions at Sustainable Silicon Valley and Trikone. He graduated from Boston College and the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. Follow him on Twitter at @coleman_II and on Bluesky at @colemanthe2nd.bsky.social.

Queer to Stay! A Reading Guide to Pride

Beacon Broadside — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 17:18:30 -0400

Photo credit: Nancy Dowd

It’s raining men, and not the ones The Weather Girls sang about. They’re raining on Pride parades with violent intent. A U-Haul truckful of members from the white supremacist group, Patriot Front, was arrested before they could disrupt a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Proud Boys stormed a Drag Queen story hour at a library in San Lorenzo, CA. Baptist ministers in Idaho and Texas went viral for calling on the government to execute gay people. Cancel all the hallelujahs for them.

In all seriousness, though, this is why Pride will always be a protest. Always has been. Because there will be haters who want queer communities snuffed out of existence. Bad news for the haters: the LGBTQ+ communities are not going anywhere. They have always been here to live life as their full authentic selves.

So in the spirit of being queer to stay, here’s your (inexhaustive) reading guide for Pride.

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

The ace world today has become broad enough to include many types of people. There are many types of aces, for one, who describe ourselves as sex-repulsed, sex-indifferent, or sex-favorable depending on how averse we are to sexual material and sexual activity. The ace world also includes people who identify as gray-asexual, or gray-A, a more catchall phrase that encompasses experiences like only occasionally experiencing sexual attraction or not experiencing it very strongly.
—Angela Chen

And the Category Is . . . : Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community

Ballroom’s house system exists on a more personal and visceral level. Yes, Ballroom is a response to classism, racism, transphobia, and a list of other chronic cultural constructs, but at its core Ballroom is an answer to an act against nature: parents disowning their children . . . . Everyone in Ballroom has an origin story of how someone in the community took them in and/or under their wing, became their gay mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, or uncle.
—Ricky Tucker

antes que isla es volcán/before island is volcano: poemas/poems

me raptaste de mi hogar,
castigándome por no llamarte míster.
aprendí tus malas palabras,
y te maldije en tu idioma
para que entendieras.

nunca entendiste.
decías que mi acento era muy fuerte.

you stole me from my home,
punished me for not calling you mister.
i learned your bad words,
cursed you in your language
so you would understand.

you never understood.
you told me my accent was too thick.
—Raquel Salas Rivera, de/from “calibán a próspero”/“caliban to prospero”

The Economic Case for LGBT Equality: Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All

every LGBT person contributes something, whether they are teachers, cashiers, nurses, custodians, in the beauty industry, unpaid caregivers, and truck drivers or whether they are in the underground or informal economy. Their individual human losses from being unfairly targeted turn into our collective social losses as we miss out on the full benefit of their skills, experience, and creativity.
—M. V. Lee Badgett

Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry

Apart from her pseudonymous fiction, Lorraine didn’t spend much time writing about women’s beauty. Maybe she worried that it would sound frivolous (or even too feminine) in comparison to the way many of her literary heroes wrote character descriptions. Perhaps she worried that her attentiveness to female beauty might be too revelatory. But in truth, these lush descriptions were in line with a tradition of Black women’s writing with which Lorraine was familiar, from Harlem Renaissance novelists Nella Larsen and Jessie Fauset to the Chicagoan Gwendolyn Brooks.
—Imani Perry

The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction: 1948-1985

The American idea of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American idea of masculinity. Idea may not be the precise word, for the idea of one’s sexuality can only with great violence be divorced or distanced from the idea of the self. Yet something resembling this rupture has certainly occurred (and is occurring) in American life, and violence has been the American daily bread since we have heard of America. This violence, furthermore, is not merely literal and actual but appears to be admired and lusted after, and the key to the American imagination.
—James Baldwin, from “Here Be Dragons”

Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America

As we head toward the middle decades of the twenty-first century, Two-Spirit futures are focused on decolonizing gender identities and sexual expression—but not only on this. They’re about continuing the conversation about the type of language that best defines a fluid, blended sense of identity. They’re about reclaiming traditions and telling new stories. And they’re about playing a role in meeting the challenges confronting Native communities, including the continued struggle to decolonize virtually every facet of Indigenous life while also identifying ways to address the most pressing existential threat of our time: human-induced climate change.
—Gregory D. Smithers

Soul Serenade: Rhythm, Blues & Coming of Age Through Vinyl

Even as a child I gathered that Aretha’s music, especially her classic Atlantic recordings, was an extension of church. The air changed. A sense of reverence rained down as her voice soared from the speakers. I straightened up and listened. Coupling the sky-ripping strength of Aretha’s voice with Mama’s warrior-woman presence, I felt protected in Daddy’s absence.
—Rashod Ollison

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Marsha P. Johnson and Beyond

Our histories have been erased and whitewashed. We are told that transness is new, that transition is unprecedented. We know this to be patently untrue, but anti-transness continues to find new ways to protect the binary (see the contemporary emergence of gender reveal parties). It remains up to us to track down and preserve our own histories for ourselves. Leslie’s work showed me that it was possible to make history—to find, create, and archive the histories of those who laid the groundwork for us, who showed us how to move beyond the gender binary, and who existed all throughout time as their most full, beautiful, and expansive selves.
—Tourmaline, from the introduction of the twenty-fifth anniversary edition

Vinegar Hill

I wondered that December day
What I would miss. December light:
The air liquid and grey
An hour before the ambiguous hour.

Time when the mind’s half-filled with dreams.
The gift of pure dazzling consciousness.
Some books. And music, not to be heard again.
The touch of flesh, your hand.
—Colm Tóibín, from “December”

We, Too, Are America!: Recommended Reading for AAPI Heritage Month

Beacon Broadside — Fri, 13 May 2022 14:43:22 -0400

WSP Vigil for Asian Americans, Asians for Abolition, March 20, 2021. Photo credit: Andrew Ratto

Still kicking two years in, COVID brought out the worst from the nation’s populace: racist brutality against marginalized communities. This year’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month commemorates the victims of the 2021 spa shootings as well as all other Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders lost to anti-Asian violence during the pandemic and throughout history. This violence is a form of erasure. As historian Catherine Ceniza Choy writes in her forthcoming volume in Beacon Press’s ReVisioning History series, “This positioning of Asians in opposition to American identity and experience is perhaps most powerfully expressed through the erasure of their long-standing presence in the United States and their contributions to its various industries.” And so, this year’s recommended reading list—by no means exhaustive—is a spotlight on our Asian American authors, the rich diversity of Asian American communities, and their contributions to US history. Because they, too, are America.

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

Asian American Histories of the United States

Asian American history begins in the here and now, as well as over 150 years ago in the mid-nineteenth century. It begins in Asian continental lands and waterways as well as in urban, suburban, and rural areas of the United States. The Asian American experience stretches back as well as forward in time and space. It crisscrosses over time periods and over lands, oceans, and waterways. Where and when we enter are complex questions.
—Catherine Ceniza Choy

Common Grace: Poems

In the rush of autumn wind, a student reads Chaucer on the banks of the Charles. Her morning
desk: a sunlit bench with notebooks, blue water bottle, a ziplock bag of Wheat Thins. An old
woman with a metal cane limps to the bench, scrunching amber leaves underfoot. She liberates
a surge of Ukrainian as if she never left her country: family, friends, war zones. The student
collects her things to one side, stretches a tiny smile—no eye contact—returns to ninety-five
pages due tomorrow. The woman continues her Slavic monologue, pulling a gray sweater from
her canvas bag. Surrendering to the disruption—now an armhole struggle—the student helps
the woman with gentle tugging and smoothing. An accented Thank you, a closed book on the
bench, they exhale with the wind and watch a crew team glide across the water.
—Aaron Caycedo-Kimura, “Common Grace”

Demystifying Shariah: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It’s Not Taking Over Our Country

When I think of shariah, I don’t think of something cruel and vicious. I think of justice, feminism, defense of the weak and defenseless, and a commitment to the rule of law. I’m well aware that these words might be taken by too many to be some sort of joke. But that’s because few non-Muslims possess even the most rudimentary understanding of shariah.
—Sumbul Ali Karamali

For Want of Water: and Other Poems

The violins in our home are emptied
of sound, strings stilled, missing
fingers. This one can bring a woman down
to her knees, just to hear again
its voice, thick as a callus
from the wooden belly. This one’s strings
are broken. And another, open,
is a mouth. I want to kiss
them as I hurt to be kissed, ruin
their brittle necks in the husk of my palm,
my fingers across the bridge, pressing
chord into chord, that delicate protest—:
my tongue rowing the frets, and our throats high
from the silences of keeping.
—Sasha Pimentel, “If I Die in Juárez”

Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power

Memes are the street art of the social web, and, like street art, they are varied, expressive, and complex, and they must contend with the existing politics of our public spaces. Sometimes this is silly, sure. And that’s pretty wonderful. Not so wonderful is that meme culture often reinforces the powerful, with sometimes terrifying efficiency. But sometimes, memes help make transformative, positive changes to society.
—An Xiao Mina

“Prisons Make Us Safer”: And 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration

Prisons have proven again and again to be an ineffective intervention. First, we must remember that incarceration is a form of punishment and incapacitation that happens after harm has occurred, not before. We must also remember that incarceration addresses only certain types of harm. . . So when confronted with the statement that prisons provide safety, we should ask, Safety for whom? And from what?
—Victoria Law

Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of a Muslim Future

This book describes what Islam has been and what it is, who its heroes are, what its big ideas are. Not only to tell you about the past or the present, but to create a future. This book prescribes outcomes. It advocates for a way of being Muslim in the world. It offers Muslim thoughts for coming generations, fashioning an interpretation of Islam of and for the years ahead, the kind of religion we deserve, with echoes of the confident faith we once had. For Islam was a religion of love and, more than anything, I want it to be (itself) again. I want that vulnerability, that longing, that bond of kinship, and that tug of romance to be at the very heart of my faith.
—Haroon Moghul

The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan

I had never known that a man could have two wives. I had never been to a second wedding or met a second wife. In the days after the revelation, the idea swirled in my head, expanding into a sensational epic of injustice. Every night, under the blue flowered quilt my grandmother had made just for me, I tried to imagine what a wedding would be like for a man who already had a wife. Frustrated by my limited experience, the mysterious “other” wife erupted dark and powerful and witchlike in my head. Bedecked in bridal finery and cunning, she cast a spell that sentenced Aunt Amina to a solitary chamber under a curse of silence. With his first wife gone, she tricked her new husband into believing that she was a better wife and that his old wife was dead, or disappeared.
—Rafia Zakaria

We Need to Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy

The brand of social change I’ve always found more inspiring is the kind that seeks the best for everyone, including the people you consider your enemies. I think this is the great genius of Martin Luther King Jr. King realized that, in a democracy, you have to live with the people you defeat. They get to vote, to advocate for their views, to amass power, to do all the things that you get to do. If you say that the new world you are building has no place for them, why would they journey with you to that place? If you insist that they will never rise above their worst qualities, how will they ever know they have better ones, let alone aspire to embody those?
—Eboo Patel

Kick Back This Summer with Beacon Audiobooks!

Beacon Broadside — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 16:55:07 -0400

Image credit: Marco Verch Professional

This will be our second summer with our favorite global party-crasher, the pandemic. (Leave already, Pandy! We want to get on with our lives.) Seems like a lifetime ago when this started, huh? Except this season, the rollout of vaccines is making outdoor time under the sun a little freer and a little less fraught with worry. Although still nowhere near the comfort and safety level we need, some of us may make to the beach. Others may make it as far as their backyard. Wherever you set your beach blanket or beach chair, vaxxed and masked, we have some audiobook suggestions for the occasion.

First off, we are so stoked about our audio rerelease of Kate Bornstein’s memoir, this time narrated by the gender outlaw herself with a new epilogue! A Queer and Pleasant Danger is as outrageous as it was when it first came out. Listening to it in Kate’s own voice makes it all the more delicious. From nice Jewish boy to Scientologist to the lovely lady she is today, her story is unforgettable and wickedly told. Just in time for Pride Month, too!

“I don’t call myself a woman, and I know I’m not a man. That’s the part that upsets the pope—he’s worried that talk like that—not male, not female—will shatter the natural order of men and women. I look forward to the day it does.”
—Kate Bornstein

Listen to a selection.

Summer is also the season for blissing out to bops and jams. We selected some choice memoirs and biographies on music and musicians from our catalog for you to cue up on your playlists, four of which are perfect for Black Music Month! You may even discover some new tunes to carry into the fall and winter. (I know: Let’s not think that far ahead into the year yet. We need to enjoy what we can of months coming up.)

In a rocking debut that Kimberlé Crenshaw calls “a spellbinding odyssey,” G’Ra Asim pens a survival guide to his younger brother, Gyasi, for tackling the sometimes treacherous cultural terrain particular to being young, Black, brainy, and weird in the form of a punk rock mixtape.

Listen to a selection.

An AudioFile Earphones Award winner and selected as an AudioFile Best Audiobook of 2020! Ian Zack brings the legendary singer and Voice of the Civil Rights Movement back in the spotlight in her first in-depth biography. So many folk roads lead back to Odetta. Where’s her Grammy?

Listen to a selection.

Leslie Uggams, Shawn T. Andrews, and Anthony Heilbut lend their vocal talents to narrate Gayle Wald’s biography of America’s first rock guitar diva, 2018 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She was the Woman Who Rocked before Women Who Rock.

Listen to a selection.

The late pop music critic and culture journalist Rashod Ollison had such an ear for music and such acumen for laying out the cultural context in which it was written. In his memoir, he described how music was his refuge during his tumultuous upbringing, especially soul and R&B, as he came of age Black and gay in 1980s’ Arkansas.

What’s left unexamined in many Woody Guthrie bios is how the bulk of his work delves into the importance of intimacy in his personal and political life. Gustavus Stadler dismantles the man we’ve been taught to reveal the overlapping influences of sexuality, politics, and disability on his art.

Listen to a selection.

If you get through these as fast as you get through a tall glass of lemonade on a hot day, look no further than our bestselling audiobooks! They cover a wide range of subject matter—asexuality, abolitionist teaching, fat justice, white fragility, embracing life and meaning in the face of stark hardship—to tide you over through the season.

Aces today are not concerned with how to have sex, but we are not anti-sex either. We don’t ask people to stop having sex or feel guilty for enjoying it. We do ask that all of us question our sexual beliefs and promise that doing so means that the world would be a better and freer place for everyone.
—Angela Chen

Listen to a selection.

Abolitionist teaching stands in solidarity with parents and fellow teachers opposing standardized testing, English-only education, racist teachers, arming teachers with guns, and turning schools into prisons. Abolitionist teaching supports and teaches from the space that Black Lives Matter, all Black Lives Matter, and affirms Black folx’ humanity.
—Bettina L. Love

Listen to a selection.

Regardless of our size, working toward fat justice will call upon our most honest, compassionate selves. It will require deep vulnerability, candor, and empathy. Together, we can create a tectonic shift in the way we see, talk about, and treat our bodies, fat and thin alike.
—Aubrey Gordon

Though white fragility is triggered by discomfort and anxiety, it is born of superiority and entitlement. White fragility is not weakness per se. In fact, it is a powerful means of white racial control and the protection of white advantage.
—Robin DiAngelo

Listen to a selection.

The rules of the game of life . . . do not require us to win at all costs, but they do demand from us that we never give up the fight.
—Viktor E. Frankl

Listen to a selection.

Put on your shades, pull up your umbrella, and jack in those headphones.

The Fight Continues!: A Pride Month Reading List

Beacon Broadside — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 17:13:32 -0400

Photo credit: Melissa Gagnon

Raise your hand if you’re going to Pride this year! 2020 has been voted off the island. More importantly, we missed Pride. As we strut our stuff under the sun, let’s not forget why we have the parades in the first place. The queers, drag queens, and trans women—especially the folx of color—who fought back against police violence. The fight for LGBTQ rights has never stopped since the Stonewall uprisings. Whether it’s the fight for self-acceptance and self-expression, for the right to marry, for the right to use the bathroom aligned with your gender identity, for affordable access to HIV medication, for the abolition of violent and oppressive systems, there’s always a fight. And the fight has always been intersectional. That’s this year’s theme for NYC Pride. It’s also the theme that runs through all the books we’re recommending this month. Get your queer on!

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

The goal of ace liberation is simply the goal of true sexual and romantic freedom for everyone. A society that is welcoming to aces can never be compatible with rape culture; with misogyny, racism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia; with current hierarchies of romance and friendship; and with contractual notions of consent. It is a society that respects choice and highlights the pleasure that can be found everywhere in our lives. I believe that all this is possible.
—Angela Chen

And the Category Is . . . : Inside New York’s, House, and Ballroom Community

The Ballroom community is unabashedly radical in its awareness of the ability to use identity as creatively as a makeup brush, whilst liberated from the gravity of greater social norms and the consequences of defying them: some so heavy—like transphobia—that they could be fatal. This is only one of many paradoxes Ballroom as a subculture so gorgeously embodies. And for over a century, it has advanced a concept that the mainstream is still grappling with: that all things can be many things at once.
—Ricky Tucker (forthcoming this December!)

At the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up the Pieces

We both sensed that we had always needed a book like At the Broken Places, which digs into the muddy middle where we disagreed on so much, and we always knew we wanted to return to a loving, more empathetic space for each other. The majority of families with transgender children exist in this more conflicted space. Now, finally, I have mustered the emotional strength to share with them our real story.
—Mary Collins

There is incredible trepidation that comes with moving away from your starting place toward something else. It is exciting; it is horrifying. It is this form of “trans” that not only moved me but also moved the others in my life, away, away, away, to a place where we had no reliable guides and no right words. For my mom and me, this book represents our best efforts, our worst shortcomings, and our frequent misunderstandings.
—Donald Collins

A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir

The worst part about trying to date women is that I don’t have my mother’s warnings. There is no indicator if I am doing it right or wrong. And so, my queer friends and the spoken-word artists in New York are my teachers, and they know the formula. Sleep with your friend, sleep with her friend. Break up and get back together again. Write her a poem, show her the piers, pretend you want less than you do. One-night stands, one-night nothing. You’ll see her at Henrietta’s again and again.
—Daisy Hernández

The Economic Case for LGBT Equality: Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All

If homophobia and transphobia are costly, then we can and must make changes that will reduce those costs and more fully include LGBT people in our economies and societies. . . . Over time, more and more people around the world are being asked to make a choice about LGBT issues, whether in their votes for antigay politicians, their acceptance of family members, or their hiring decisions. They need to know the consequences of their decisions for us all, including for LGBT people.
—M. V. Lee Badgett

How to Love a Country: Poems

I knew it then—when we first found our eyes,
in our eyes, and everything around us—even
the din and smoke of the city—disappeared,
leaving us alone as if we were the only two
men in the world, two mirrors face-to-face:
my reflection in yours, yours in mine, infinite.

I knew since I knew you—but we couldn’t.
—Richard Blanco, from “Until We Could”

Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry

I believe that if we take her work seriously, we must talk about sexuality. I take the careful preservation of Lorraine’s writings in which she explored and expressed her sexuality seriously. Though her romantic relationships remain, for me, somewhat opaque, it is unquestionable that her desire for women and her love of women was meaningful as part of her politics, her intellectual life, and her aesthetics, as well as her spirit. I could not possibly write a portrait of her as an artist without it.
—Imani Perry

A Queer and Pleasant Danger

I don’t call myself a woman, and I know I’m not a man. That’s the part that upsets the pope—he’s worried that talk like that—not male, not female—will shatter the natural order of men and women. I look forward to the day it does.
—Kate Bornstein

A Queer History of the United States for Young People

For LGBTQ people—and especially youth and people just coming out—it’s not as easy to find out our true history. It’s not taught in schools; it’s not on postage stamps; the statues and monuments are only now beginning to appear. Many famous Americans have been LGBTQ, yet when their names appear in textbooks or histories, their sexuality is never discussed. Their love lives—and sex lives—are never mentioned. If we are erased from the history books, then how can we ever know who we are? This absence, this erasure, denies us the right and the ability to use our history as a guide, to feel pride in the heroism and accomplishments of the LGBTQ people who came before us.
—Michael Bronski, adapted by Richie Chevat

The Queering of Corporate America: How Big Business Went from LGBTQ Adversary to Ally

Most historical accounts of the LGBTQ movement have focused on activism directed at government actors, with the aim of explaining how the movement sought either to end discrimination by the government itself or to persuade public officials to prohibit privatesector discrimination. But it is not possible to have a complete and accurate picture of what the American LGBTQ rights movement has been able to achieve since the Stonewall riots without understanding how and why the movement targeted large corporations as a means to advance LGBTQ civil rights.
—Carlos A. Ball

Soul Serenade: Rhythm, Blues & Coming of Age Through Vinyl

This burning curiosity about other boys, I figured, would pass . . . . Whatever it was, I didn’t know what to do with it, and I told myself that the feelings would all fade away. The dashikis and clumsy Afrocentric rhetoric would disguise the desire, distract me from it, or maybe erase it altogether.
—Rashod Ollison

Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements

Verbal and physical attacks on Black lesbian feminists may seem surprising to some, as if they belong to a less enlightened era, but they are predictable in times of our high activity and visibility. Regardless of the risk, however, we Black queer and trans women have been on the front lines of anti-police and Black liberation organizing in the United States. We have been there after Black men and boys have been slain by police officers and vigilantes. We have shown up, even when masses have not, after a Black woman, girl, or trans, or queer, or gender-nonconforming person has been killed. And we will continue to show up. What we choose to support and oppose defines our politics.
—Charlene A. Carruthers

“You’re in the Wrong Bathroom!”: And 20 Other Myths and Misconceptions About Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People

Would you recognize someone as transgender if that person didn’t tell you? Most people think they would. But they would be wrong. Many transgender people live “stealth,” at least to the general public, telling only those they are close to about their identities. For centuries, long before hormone therapies or gender-reassignment surgeries, there were people whose cross-gendered lives were not known until their deaths. Today, thousands of transgender Americans go about their lives with few people knowing that they are transgender.
—Laura Erickson-Schroth and Laura A Jacobs

Advancing Writers as Leaders: An AAPI Heritage Month Reading List

Beacon Broadside — Wed, 26 May 2021 19:19:03 -0400

DC Rally for Collective Safety; Protect Asian/AAPI Communities; McPherson Square, Washington, DC. Photo credit: Miki Jourdan

This year’s theme for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is Advancing Leaders Through Purpose-Driven Service. Beacon Press views their writers as leaders, charting the way to a better future with uncovered histories, cultural commentary, and more. Which is why, as AAPI Heritage Month wraps up, we’re putting the spotlight on the work of our Asian American writers. The following list of recommended reads—by no means exhaustive—honors their work and contributions to our society and American history at large, especially during a time when anti-Asian violence has been on the rise. These are titles to be savored all through the month and beyond.

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
Angela Chen

“A book that makes room for questions even as it illuminates, Ace should be viewed as a landmark work on culture and sexuality.”
—Nicole Chung, author of All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir

Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation
Eboo Patel

“Eboo Patel has crafted an elegantly written and brilliantly argued manifesto-a call to arms, really-about the importance not of interfaith dialogue but of interfaith cooperation. Acts of Faith is more than a book; it is an awakening of the mind. It should be required reading for all Americans.”
—Reza Aslan, author of No God but God

Demystifying Shariah: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It’s Not Taking Over Our Country
Sumbul Ali-Karamali

“With clarity and wit, [Ali-Karamali] describes shariah’s origins, central texts, methodologies, and schools of thought, exploring something that was never a code of law, but rather a system of interpretation designed to evolve and be flexible . . . This is a remarkably nuanced and thought-provoking history.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

For Want of Water: and other poems
Sasha Pimentel

“In language of fierce compassion and tenderness, Pimentel humanizes the dehumanized. And oh, how we need such poems.”
—Martín Espada, author of Vivas to Those Who Have Failed

How to Be a Muslim: An American Story
Haroon Moghul

“Both authentically American and authentically Muslim, Moghul navigates the perilous fault lines of each dysfunctional identity while gracefully juggling the hot-potato topics of race, religion, nerd pop culture, and awkward first dates. . . . By showing us his warts, pain, flaws, insecurities, demons, and hypocrisies, Moghul ultimately reveals the joy, wonder, and purpose of living and being in the messy, conflicted playground that is modern life.”
—Wajahat Ali, author of The Domestic Crusaders

Prison Baby: A Memoir
Deborah Jiang Stein

“Deborah Jiang Stein has beaten the cycle of intergenerational incarceration, despite the odds against her—multiracial, born in a federal prison to a heroin-addicted mother. Her story offers hope to the possibility of personal transformation for anyone.”
—Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and Pulitzer Prize nominee

“Prisons Make Us Safer”: And 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration
Victoria Law

“Law has offered us a very important tool. Her careful and accessible analysis, her feminist approach, and her methodical demystification of widely held views about incarceration enable precisely the kind of understanding we need at this moment.”
—Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Cruz

Radicalizing Her: Why Women Choose Violence
Nimmi Gowrinathan

“This is the kind of book that will unravel your understanding of the world. Reading Gowrinathan is a rare treat: when she narrates a story, she is as gripping and lyrical as Arundhati Roy—when she presents her philosophical takeaways on violence, she is precise and incisive, the Hannah Arendt of our times.”
—Meena Kandasamy, author of When I Hit You

Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women, and Queer Christians Are Reclaiming Evangelicalism
Deborah Jian Lee

“Lee’s reporting indicts modern American evangelicalism’s failure to be good news for those who aren’t conservative, straight, white men. Weaving in her own story, she movingly chronicles her subjects’ search for a spiritual home, and what emerges is a profoundly hopeful, deeply Christian narrative about redemption and resurrection.”
—Jeff Chu, author of Does Jesus Really Love Me?

Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury After War
Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini

“An eloquent, deeply human reminder that war is not just what takes place on a distant battlefield. It is something that casts a shadow over the lives of those who took part for decades afterwards. The stories told by Lettini and Brock are deepened by what the authors reveal about the way the tragic thread of war’s aftermath has run through their own families.”
—Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars

Thousand Pieces of Gold
Ruthanne Lum McCunn

“From Shanghai to San Francisco, Lalu Nathoy’s courageous journey is an important contribution to the history of pioneer women.”
—Ms. Magazine

The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan
Rafia Zakaria

“From a window in the upstairs of her family’s house, Rafia Zakaria parts the curtain, looks down on Pakistan, and writes its history. The Upstairs Wife roams between the lives of a family and the life of a nation—and finds itself in the heart of a society that is much maligned and little understood.”
—Vijay Prashad, author of The Poorer Nations

Readers and Their Cats Are Loving “Ace”

Beacon Broadside — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 15:29:12 -0500

By Angela Chen

Cat photo credit: Gundula Vogel. Cover art: Louis Roe

When I published Ace, I hoped for positive reviews and perhaps a reader email or two. I did not, however, expect that social media would bring a very particular joy to my life, which is that of readers sending me photos of the book with their cat.

For example:

One unexpected pleasure of publishing Ace is that people send me photos of their cats with the book. Someone said that she posted this one while coming out during Ace Week (reshared with permission): pic.twitter.com/cNQLxegSmO
— Angela Chen (@chengela) November 23, 2020

And this: https://t.co/NRkGyYoeuH
— Angela Chen (@chengela) November 23, 2020

This one is especially adorable:

Also pic.twitter.com/4qwCI4slaF
— Elle 💖💛💙 (@scretladyspider) November 23, 2020

Black cats seem to be overrepresented, so here’s a cream-colored one for good measure:

I have to get in on this now pic.twitter.com/BXCEKaPj6j
— AceLord(Tempest)🐼🎃 (@kat_veil) November 23, 2020

And a gray-and-white one:

Just got mine in the mail. Bout to curl up on the couch and read to my cat. pic.twitter.com/x0j30zGTWS
— Kaitlyn (@kaitlynintherye) December 5, 2020

As a lifelong admirer of felines in all forms, seeing cats hanging out with my book warms my heart. And as someone who barely knows how to do makeup but has immense respect for the creativity of those who do, I was utterly delighted to see that Ace had even inspired a makeup #BookLook:

Today’s #BookLook was inspired by Ace—a book on asexuality by Angela Chen! I haven’t read it yet but I’m very much looking forward to getting my hands on it.

(I mucked up the eyeliner a little but I fixed it best I could without spoiling the whole look.) pic.twitter.com/DAJlsVTEMg
— Beck the Halls (@BDingz) September 29, 2020

Truly, this has exceeded my wildest dreams.

About the Author

Angela Chen is a journalist and writer in New York City. Her reporting and criticism have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, Guardian, Paris Review, Electric Literature, Catapult, and elsewhere. Chen is a member of the ace community and has spoken about asexuality at academic conferences and events including World Pride. Find her on Twitter @chengela or at angelachen.org.

The Uses and Abuses of Narrative

Beacon Broadside — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 13:30:24 -0400

By Angela Chen

Photo credit: Clarissa Bell

This essay appeared originally in Powell’s.

I distrust narratives, always have. The child too shy to open her mouth and captivate others with story became the science journalist who fetishized data instead, fond of talking about how stories can stand in the way of justice—just look at how a blond girl suddenly kidnapped can receive so much more attention and care than all the less photogenic children who live every day in difficult conditions.

The distrust has not changed. I still believe that narratives are easy to mutate and misinterpret, and that narrative is an insidious form of magic, a tool not always used for good. The difference now is that I see that narrative is all there is. All my suspicion has done little to immunize me; I am not as imaginative as I would like to believe. And I keep thinking about a minor plot point in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials how it taught me without me knowing, and how it hits differently now.

One of the most alluring feats of world-building in that universe is the daemon, the animal personification of a person’s soul. Daemons change shape throughout childhood, but eventually pick an animal and stick to it. At the end of the Pullman series, young protagonists Lyra and Will touch each other’s daemons (which is usually a major taboo). Their daemons settle, hers into a pine marten and his into a cat. They are adults now. “And she knew, too,” Pullman writes, “that neither daemon would change now, having felt a lover’s hands on them. These were their shapes for life: they would want no other.”

It’s a quiet detail and a lovely moment. It is a new rule in this world, one I accepted and rarely thought about until, a decade or so later, I heard someone joke: If you’re asexual, does that mean your daemon remains a shapeshifter forever? (Asexual people can experience romantic attraction—it's people who are aromantic who usually don't have lovers—but Pullman is alluding to both sexual and romantic awakening here.) And the subtext: Since only children have shifting daemons, will you be seen as a child forever?

It’s a tongue-in-cheek comment, yes, but it also pokes a hole in a narrative that most readers had taken for granted. His Dark Materials used a story to reinforce the old lesson that sexual maturity equals the onset of adulthood. Sexuality equals growing up; before that, you are a child, immature and naive about the ways of the world.

For many, this lesson lines up with what they know of life. There is no incongruity, and so this passage provokes no criticism. For asexuals, or aces—people who do not experience sexual attraction—this type of narrative can be wielded to infantilize us. It can be internalized, too, used against ourselves. Many people I interviewed for my book Ace told me about struggling with the feeling that they were infantile, despite not knowing, exactly, where that feeling had come from or how they had learned it.

This is not the only lesson from fiction that we absorb about those who may be ace. Though few literary novels feature protagonists who could be read as asexual, recent fiction does provide two examples. One is Keiko Furukura, the eponymous protagonist of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman. The other is Jude St. Francis, from Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. (Neither character explicitly identifies as ace.)

Keiko from Convenience Store Woman has always been a misfit. She is not ambitious. She is not interested in a traditional career, and she is even less interested in romantic relationships, sexuality, or children, much to the dismay of a family who just wants her to be “normal.” The book is clearly a critique of the patriarchal pressures placed on Japanese women—yet by making Keiko such an outlier, it also reinforces the idea that not being interested in sexuality is “odd,” a trait of those on the fringes. There is nothing wrong with being odd or on the fringes, but this connection with asexuality is very common, and I'd like to see portrayals expand beyond this set of associations. Asexuality should be normalized and presented as part of the everyday lives of many types of people.

Jude from A Little Life teaches a different, though equally easy to misinterpret, lesson. A brilliant and much-loved lawyer, Jude’s history of sexual trauma has made him averse to having sex. Jude should be claimed as asexual, especially because there are asexual people who are disabled and asexual people who are survivors of sexual violence. Yet when general ace representation is so thin, each example can become overly important, and narratives never exist in a vacuum. If Jude were to become the face of asexuality in modern fiction, set against the reality that most people still don’t understand the nuances of the orientation, it becomes very likely that people will learn another misguided lesson: that asexuality is always related to disability or sexual trauma—when that is not always the case.

It’s too much pressure to place on any book, and the only solution is more stories. Narratives exclude, but a multiplicity of narratives can provide a fuller picture, and I have tried to do some of this work myself. In the months since I first published an excerpt of Ace, many people have reached out to me, saying that my description of my own asexuality aligned with their experience in a way that other depictions of asexuality never had. I am not disabled or a survivor of sexual violence like Jude or “quirky” like Keiko. I am not celibate or sex-repulsed like many common representations of asexuality in nonfiction. People told me that my narrative was an anchor of sorts and that they were going to think more carefully now about the labels that fit and do not, and what that might mean, and what lessons they have learned and what new lessons they need to learn.

I see now that narrative is inescapable. Our minds are never blank slates, and to think so is to be deluded, even less objective than if we interrogated our assumptions. We can only try to question that which we may have already learned and, when those lessons are found lacking, look for new stories that contain new revelations.

About the Author

What the Ace Perspective Can Teach Us About Desire, Identity, and Our Hierarchy of Love

Beacon Broadside — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 11:38:33 -0400

A Q&A with Angela Chen

Author photo: Sylvie Rosokoff

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex is the first book of its kind to offer an in-depth examination of asexuality, contextualize it within the queer community, and resist characterizing aces as a monolith. Journalist Angela Chen centers Ace on the experiences of asexual people and traces a path to understanding her own asexuality through a blend of reporting, cultural criticism, and memoir. She candidly explores the misconceptions around asexuality and challenges us to rethink the meaning of pleasure and intimacy. Our intern, Priyanka Ray, caught up with Chen to chat with her about it.

Priyanka Ray: In Ace, you argue that the experiences of aces can outline the constrictive system of compulsory sexuality and reveal alternate forms of eroticism. What does a world without compulsory sexuality look like, and what steps can we take to dismantle this system?

Angela Chen: A world without compulsory sexuality doesn’t mean desexualizing everything. It means removing the “compulsory” part. It means removing pressures and presenting more ways of how to live. It means more choice. People will be able to choose what they want—a lot of sex, no sex, and so on—without pressure or shame or judgment and without feeling like they need to explain themselves to doubters. People will be encouraged to really question what pleasure is and whether it has to be sexual and find what other forms of pleasure exist in their lives. There will be many types of relationships and relationship models, both in real life and expressed in popular culture. Drug companies won’t prey on people’s fears about low desire to sell medication; there will be more equality in relationships when it comes to desire and consent; and sex ed will include the ace perspective too.

It’s wonderful when people learn about asexuality and the ace lens and see things differently, but it’ll take so long to get anywhere if we wait for people to discover this way of thinking one by one. I really do believe that it’s important to politically organize, to lobby and campaign and work together to show that there are many ways to live a full life and we should all get to choose the way that works best for us.

PR: You write that performing sexuality is often a prerequisite for male identity and social inclusion. How do the experiences of asexual men encourage us to deconstruct gender expectations?

AC: There is a pervasive message that “real men” have a lot of sexual desire and are supposed to be able to score with a lot of people. Especially in the cis and hetero context, men are encouraged to speak about women sexually as a bonding activity and as a way of proving their masculinity. Ace men say that this has made them feel like outcasts, encouraged them to “play along” and pretend to have crushes they don’t, encouraged them to have unwanted sex with partners, and at times made them question their gender. One trans man I interviewed said that before his transition, people were fine with what they saw as his sexual hesitancy, but afterward told him that he needed to just “get out there.”

It’s not a secret that these pressures exist, especially because there’s been a lot of discussion about incels (involuntary celibates) in the past couple of years. But the experiences of ace men show that the same pressures that affect incels affects this seemingly opposite group of ace men. In fact, ace men say that people sometimes think they’re actually incels who are just pretending to be asexual because they’re bitter that they can’t get laid. I’m not an incel apologist—plenty of people feel unattractive and excluded without becoming entitled—but this shows how just deeply the idea that men have to be sexual is ingrained. It also shows that working to reduce this pressure would help a lot of different groups of men.

PR: With the advent of sex positivity, sex has become viewed as a way to perform feminist politics. Therefore, women who do not want or enjoy sex are seen as conservative and repressed by patriarchal control. How can we acknowledge that women’s sexual liberation is political while decentering sex from feminist politics?

AC: Sex is political, of course. Many women are shamed by double standards and don’t feel comfortable exploring their sexuality. I would never contest this. But sexual variation also exists. People are different! There are asexual women out there who simply don’t experience sexual attraction, and it’s not because of shame or repression or because they need to try more sex positions or sex toys. And there’s nothing wrong with that. (It’s also true that you can be both shamed into feeling disconnected from sex and discover that you’re ace. A lot of nuances exist.)

It’s important for people to walk the line between encouraging women to explore, which is good, while also believing them and not being pushy if they say that they’re apathetic about sex and simply not that interested. Don’t assume that, deep down, every woman has a high libido and just needs to throw off the chains of repression to discover it. In general, I advocate letting other people be the experts on themselves.

I also think it’s important to have more representations of asexuality in popular culture, especially feminist popular culture. Very few feminists would explicitly say that not having sex makes you repressed or that having a lot of sex makes you more feminist or cool—but the message of sex as liberation and sex as cool and sex making you more fun is still present. It’s a feeling in the air and in the culture. I don’t have a problem with explicit content about desire, but I don’t think it’s good for any one message to dominate, because those messages can and do make ace women (and anyone ace-adjacent or anyone who simply isn’t that into sex) feel ashamed. We can keep those messages and also have different stories and different messages brought to prominence, too.

I always advocate for focusing on the power of organizing and collective action. Ace women can feel like they’re not “feminist enough” because they don’t fulfill this supposed requirement that feminist women personally enjoy sex a lot. But the greater potential of organizing is that you work politically to help others and to change structures around a wide variety of issues. Who cares if you don’t care about sex if you’re writing to politicians and campaigning and lobbying for better pay and domestic abuse protections and uplifting women of color? That’s the work that will change systems and do so much good for so many people.

PR: Throughout the book you illustrate how understanding ace experiences can liberate all of us from harmful cultural narratives, particularly those surrounding consent. What new ways of thinking about and practicing consent do asexual people’s experiences with sex give us?

AC: There are two things I’d like to highlight. One is this often unspoken belief that while nobody should have unwanted sex with strangers, within a relationship you need a “good enough reason” to say no. A good enough reason is that you’re sick or stressed or that your partner is treating you badly. “I don’t want to” is not a good enough reason. It means you’re withholding and selfish. I think this idea comes from the belief that everyone has a baseline of sexual desire; so if everyone has that baseline and nothing is wrong, why wouldn’t you want to have sex with someone if you love them?

This kind of reasoning really makes aces feel like “no” within relationships is not okay, that they can say “no” right now but cannot say “no” forever and have to keep fending their partner off. (Well, this reasoning can make everyone feel this way, but the pressure is especially acute for aces.) My position is this: if we believe that people should never have unwanted sex with strangers, no matter how good of a person the stranger may be, we should believe that people should never have unwanted sex with their partners, no matter how good and loving their partner is. Entering a relationship should never mean giving up a measure of consent. I should add that partners are free to not date someone if sex is a dealbreaker, and that is completely their prerogative. But there’s a difference between setting your own boundaries and feeling entitled to sex without ever discussing it and then shaming the other person.

Similarly, there is also a very common narrative that the lower-desire partner is “broken” and it’s their responsibility to work on themselves to fix their libido. But there are two people in a relationship, and this is a shared problem that needs a shared solution. If one person wants to have sex just as much as the other person wants not to have sex, why is the preference of the higher-desire partner given more moral weight? Shouldn’t they be equal, because they’re equal people in the relationship? There are so many books on learning to desire again, whereas it’s rare to ask the higher-desire partner to have less sexual desire. Asking someone to work on themselves to have more sex seems reasonable, but asking someone to try to be celibate or have less sex seems like asking too much.

Don’t get me wrong. Of course I acknowledge that most people in relationships have and enjoy sex and that having sex is “normal”—insofar as “normal” means “statistically common.” But I argue that “statistically common” is less important in a relationship than carefully considering what the two people in the relationship want and what works for them and how each can feel valued and learn to compromise. In that case, the preferences of both people should have equal weight.

PR: What insights would you want allo (non-asexual) readers to take away from your book?

AC: The questions that aces have regarding sexuality and desire are questions that almost everyone (ace or not) will deal with at some point, and a lot can be gained from the ace perspective. Learning about asexuality can encourage allos to rethink their very definitions of sexual attraction and sexuality. It can help them consider more carefully the ways that sexuality intersects with race and disability and gender; the ways we privilege romantic relationships over friendships; the invisible inequalities in relationships and consent. It can help them think through questions such as the difference between platonic and romantic feelings and the difference between “normal” low-sexual desire and asexuality and a medical condition. The ace lens really offers new ways of evaluating sexual ethics and pleasures and intimacy.

About Angela Chen