Pride & Joy ― Lgbtq Artists, Icons and Everyday Heroes

This book fills the gap for 20 million queer Americans where 90% of the current queer nonfiction titles are predominantly by and about white, educated, upper middle class LGBTQ artists and icons, mostly gay men. Global figures, diverse representatives, Lesbians, disabled, gender fluid, working class artists, icons and, especially, everyday heroes are left out of the portrait. Most collections highlight research and feature dead heroes. Only Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes crossed over into bestseller status, cutting across race, class and sexual orientation in its readership. This collection is based on actual interviews with real stories and direct quotes. The subjects are leading successful, happy and fulfilling lives. Readers can see themselves in the featured LGBTQ icons, from the highest-ranking Lesbian at IBM to the Argentinian baker in Oakland, from the Maori Olympic rugby player and New Zealand MP to the African American choreographer from a potato sharecropping family, from the former president of the L.A.F.D. Women Firefighters to the Dutch-Spanish firefighter in the UK, from the Kansas gay dads to the Mexican American founder of a nonprofit to help queers stop smoking, from the first openly Lesbian Bishop of a major Christian religion to a Cuban immigrant inaugural poet, from the owner of the London gay bookshop featured in the film, PRIDE, to the first Transgender Member of Parliament in the world, and so on. This is what makes my book original. It’s one of the only books of its kind on the current amazon.com list of Top 25 Gay & Lesbian History Books and Nonfiction bestsellers. These are the “happy ending” stories queer readers and their allies crave.On a global scale, the awareness of the broad swath of LGBTQ artists, icons, everyday heroes and their contributions is often limited. This book brings those global role models out of the shadows for the gay boy in Ireland being bullied in his all-boys Catholic school or the Ugandan Lesbian fearing rape or worse in a country that outlaws homosexuality. With the Internet and e-books, nonfiction queer titles can find their way into the 73 countries where queers risk imprisonment for the crime of being queer or the 13 states where being gay brings the death penalty. For all our advances, American queer youth are still 4 times more likely to attempt suicide as their straight peers (The Trevor Project, 2016). In America, queer youth make up 40% of the homeless population compared to 7% of the straight population (True Colors Fund, 2016). Studies are limited, but most indicate that substance abuse among LGBTQ Americans is 20-30% higher than the general population.This book will touch hearts and save lives. This book will encourage queer youth, college students and adults to pursue their dreams. I’m writing this book to inspire and embolden the next generation of queer youth, adults and allies around the world. I want American queers to realize on a visceral level that the fight for global LGBTQ rights, as well as gay rights in the U.S., is not over. I don’t want LGBTQ young professionals to experience what I did as a closeted Lesbian in a corporation where it was literally dangerous to come out. In one of my Persuasive Speaking classes at HP, one of my students, a highly educated white American engineer, delivered a speech justifying murder for only 5 crimes, one of which was homosexuality. At another company, I was OUTed by a former friend and colleague and subsequently fired by a Southern “cracker” CEO. A labor lawyer advised that I had no recourse since I was not OUT and couldn’t prove that this was a targeted “layoff.” The next corporate job, I was OUT to my department, but not to the salespeople I was training around the world. When the secretary OUTed me to the entire building at corporate headquarters, I had recourse with my boss and HR and was, subsequently, promoted and the secretary moved to another building with a stern warning. When I first met my Kiwi wife, she was not a citizen and we couldn’t marry in the U.S. This caused us to make all kinds of jujitsu moves; from becoming Civil Union partners in New Zealand to carrying Power of Attorney papers everywhere we went to paying extraordinary taxes and tax preparation fees because we could not marry. That was not that long ago: Marriage Equality was just won in the U.S. Supreme Court on Jun. 26, 2015.