About this item
The Internet, news media, television shows, music, and films feature more positive images of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people today than ever before. But less than a generation ago, the situation was very different. How did we get to this point of increasing visibility and respect? This book explores the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) struggle to live openly with dignity and equal rights from the mid-20th century efforts of the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis to the 1969 Stonewall Riots and the international LGBT movement for equality. While celebrating the recent victories for marriage equality and the right to serve openly in the military, its important to recognize that the struggle is ongoing both on a legal level and in peoples everyday lives.
About the Author
Robert Rodi (b.1956) was born in Chicago, a town seething with literary and musical energy, and he has spent his life immersed in their currents. His first novels, which quickly gained him cult status, were deftly drawn satires of the city's gay scene ("Fag Hag," "Closet Case," "Drag Queen") . While continuing to write fiction (most recently, "Baby") he's branched out into nonfiction, the better to share his enthusiasm for the world of canine agility (in "Dogged Pursuit") and all things Italian, specifically the great Tuscan horse race, the Palio ("Seven Seasons In Siena") .
He's also written comic books for both Vertigo and Marvel, and maintained a self-described "guerilla lit-crit" blog about Jane Austen called "Bitch In a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen from the Stiffs, the Snobs, the Simps and the Saps" that has now been collected in two volumes. He's also an actor, spoken-word performer, jazz singer, and the front man for the fusion rock band 7th Kind (whose CD "Sea Monster" is available on Amazon) .
For more information, visit his website, www.robertrodi.com