Added to my queer book collection again today. There have been a couple times so far where I've found five or six books all at once, glorious stories of people who are like me, or close enough that they feel like family. This time I sit with these books in front of me and I want to absorb them immediately. I feel hungry for the intimacy of understanding. One is essays: "Girls Can Kiss Now," by Jill Gutowitz.
Another: "With Respect to Sex-- Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India," by Gayatri Reddy.
The third: "The Pink Triangle," Richard Plant.
And then: "When Brooklyn Was Queer," Hugh Ryan.
And last, out of curiosity, "The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution," by Shulamith Firestone.
I cradle them like they have just been born, like they need protection. And maybe they do, now. It's why I've asked them to come here, because I want access to my history to be more than what lives on the ever-malleable internet landscape. These can go to other people. They can be touched and cherished. They can travel and hide or sit proudly out in the open. Internal catalysts, if we want them to be. Conversation starters, if we let them be. Every one of these books, any book really, let's me gaze deeply into someone else's world. That's such a beautiful expression of love, I think, to sit with someone's thoughts like that, cradled in your two hands while you think and think about what they have to say.
