Looking
Queer:
Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay
and Transgender Communities
Edited by Dawn Atkins, MA
Published by Haworth
Press Inc., 1998.
Description:
Looking Queer: Body Image in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and
Transgender Communities contains research, first-hand accounts,
poetry, theory, and journalistic essays that address and outline
the special needs of sexual minorities when dealing with eating
disorders and appearance obsession. Looking Queer will
give members of these communities hope, insight, and information
into body image issues, helping you to accept and to love your
body. In addition, scholars, health care professionals, and body
image activists will not only learn about queer experiences and
identity and how they affect individuals, but will also understand
how some of the issues involved affect society as a whole.
Dismantling the myth that body image issues affect only heterosexual
women, Looking Queer explores body issues based on gender,
race, class, age, and disability. Furthermore, this groundbreaking
book attests to the struggles, pain, and triumph of queer people
in an open and comprehensive manner. More than 60 contributors
provide their knowledge and personal
experiences in dealing with body image issues exclusive to the
gay and
transgender communities, including:
- exploring and breaking down the categories of gender and
sexuality that are found in many body image issues
- finding ways to heal yourself and your community
- discovering what it means to “look like a dyke”
or to “look gay”
- fearing fat as a sign of femininity
- determining what race has to do with the gay ideal
- discussing the stereotyped "double negative"—being
a fat lesbian
- learning strategies of resistance to societal ideals
- critiquing ”the culture of desire” within gay men’s
communities that emphasizes looks above everything else
Revealing new and complex dimensions to body image issues,
Looking Queer not only discusses the struggles and hardships of
gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons, but looks at
the processes that can lead to acceptance of oneself. Written
by both men and women, the topics and research in Looking Queer
offer insight into the lives of people you can relate to, enabling
you to learn from their experiences so you, too, can find joy
and happiness in accepting your body.
Table of Contents
About the Editor
Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Looking Queer by Dawn Atkins
SECTION A: WOMEN, WIMMIN, WOMYN
PART 1: CONSTRUCTING OURSELVES
- Beauty Is a Beast by Amy Edgington
- Living into My Body by Nancy Barron
- Beauty Mandates and the Appearance Obsession: Are Lesbians
Any Better Off? by Anna Myers, Jennifer Taub, Jessica F. Morris
and Esther D. Rothblum
- Resistance and Reinscription: Sexual Identity and Body Image
Among Lesbian and Bisexual
- Women by Sara Auerbach and Rebekah Bradley
- Contradictions of the Spirit: Theories and Realities of Lesbian
Body Image by Naomi Tucker
- Lesbians and the (Re/De)Construction of the Female Body by
Diane Griffin Crowder
PART 2: LOOKING DYKE
- The Ugly Dyke by Wendy Chapkis
- Woman Eats Brownies, Gets Laid by Greta Christina
- Professionally Q: A Day in the Life of a Career Counselor
by Christine Cress
- The Beauty Norm: A Femme Strikes Back by Anna Myers
- It's Not What You Wear: Fashioning a Queer Identity by Kate
Woolfe
- Hair Piece by Andrea Askowitz
- Out-of-Body Experiences by Michele Spring-Moore
- Movement by Amy Edgington
PART 3: SEARCHING A WAY OUT
- Vanishing Point by Margo Solod
- Autobiographical Slices: Life in the Queer Kitchen by Amy
Gilley
- That Other Girl Who Is Not Me by Alexa Leigh
- Moving Like a Dyke by Clancy McKenna
- Tattoo Me by Catherine Lundolf
PART 4: A WOMAN'S LOVE HEALS
- Mirror by Nina Silver
- Big Grrl by Drama Rose
- Ode to My Vibrator by Susanna Trnka
- Dressing Room Blues by Claire Hueholt
- My Ideal Becoming Real by Susie Bullington
PART 5: COMING OUT, LEAVING BEHIND
- Coming Out by Darcy Wakefield
- Power, Beauty, and Dykes by Silva Tenenbein
- My Big Fat Body by Anna Snoute
- My Mother's Journals by Jo Schneiderman
- Be, Being, Becoming by Michelle Bancroft
- Boogeywoman by Amy Edgington
SECTION B: ONE, BOTH, NEITHER
PART 6: CROSSING THE DIVIDE
- The Razor's Edge: Walking the Fine Line of the Self by Julie
Waters
- My Life As an Erroneous Sonogram by Marcelle Cook-Daniels
and Loree Cook-Daniels
- Holding My Breath Underwater by Michael Hernandez
PART 7: SQUARE PEGS
- Affronting Reason by Cheryl Chase
- In(to)Visibility: Intersexuality in the Field of Queer by
Morgan Holmes
- Agdistis' Children: Living Bi-Gendered in a Single-Gendered
World by Raven Kaldera
PART 8: BOYZ, GRRLS, QUEERS
- Flunking Basic Gender Training: Butches and Butch Style Today
by Sherrie A. lnness
- Frankly Feminine: Rejecting and Embracing Standards for Beauty
by Laura Cole
- Faggot Rant by Sandra Lee Golvin
- Beautiful Boy: A Girl's Own Story by Boye
SECTION C: BEYOND THE PALE
PART 9: COLOR VISION
- "I" is for Intersection: At the Crux of Black and
White and Gay and Straight by Layli Phillips
- Piece of Man: Redefining the Myths Around the Black Male
Phallus by Conrad R. Pegues
- Mapping My Desire: Hunting Down the Male Erotic in India
and America by Sandip Roy
- "Undressing the Oriental Boy": The Gay Asian in
the Social Imaginary of the Gay White Male by Paul EeNam Park
Hagland
- I Like My Chi-I-sa-i Body Now by Donna Tsuyuko Tanigawa
PART 10: ACCESS TO THE LOOK
- When Pigs Have Wings by Mark O'Brien
- Inside/Outside by Julia Dolphin Trahan
- Body Language by Kenny Fries
- The Imperfections of Beauty: On Being Gay and Disabled by
Kenny Fries
- Love Poem by Kenny Fries
SECTION D: MEN, BOYS, AND TROLLS
PART I 1: THE UNIFORM DOESN'T FIT
- Queer Crash Test Dummies: Theory, Aging, and Embodied Problematics
by Dean Kiley
- Laws of Desire: Has Our Imagery Become Overidealized? by
William J. Mann
- A Matter of Size by Patrick Giles
- Justify My Love Handles: How the Queer Community Trims the
Fat by Jay Blotcher
- Fatness and the Feminized Man by Ganapati S. Durgadas
PART 12: FEELING THE BURN
- But to Hear THEM Tell It . . . Or: Looksism, Beauty's Evil
Stepsister by Gene-Michael Higney
- Reps by Jim Provenzano
- Your Dreamworld Is Just About to End by Frank Martinez Lester
- Learning the F Words by John Stoltenberg
PART 13: REENVISIONING MEN
- Why I Hate The Beatles and The Supremes by Ozzie Diaz-Duque
- If Only I Were Cute: Looksism and Internalized Homophobia
in the Gay Male Community by Andrew J. Feraios
- More Than a Sum of Parts: Rescuing the Male Body from Fundamentalism
by Darrell g.h. Schramm
- Skinny, "White" Chicks and Hung, Buff Boys: Queer
Sex Spaces and Their Discontents by Jill Nagle
Index
Reviews
“Offers searing, gutsy, and political accounts of lookism
in and out of queer communities. . . . This book deserves room
on the bookshelf with feminist writing that aims to account for
race, class, and sexuality and with scholarship that keeps the
body at the center of focus.”
Becky Thompson, PhD, Associate Professor of Sociology, Simmons
College, Boston, Massachusetts; Author, So Wide and So Deep:
A Multiracial View of Women’s Eating Problems
“This may be the first collection to attack the demons
of body fascism head-on. If nothing else, these essays assure
those of us unable to meet the expectations of physical ideals
that we are not alone.”
William Leap, Department of Anthropology, American University,
Washington, DC
“This powerful book fills a glaring hole in ‘queer’
studies. . . . It should be required reading for all courses on
the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender experience.”
Mickey Eliason, Director, Sexuality Studies Program, The University
of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
Other web pages which include reviews of Looking Queer:
Eating Disorders Journal
Women and Therapy
Amazon
Books
Independent
Living book review by Kari Ann Owen
GenderTalk web
radio interview with Dawn Atkins
BiCommunity
News review