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Looking Queer

Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender Communities

• By Phd, John Dececco, Dawn Atkins

• Price: $39.95
• Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
• Pages: 467
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 15th June 1998
• ISBN: 978-1-56023-931-4

About the Book

Looking Queer: Body Image in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender Communities contains research, firsthand 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.
  
  Visit Dawn Atkin’s website at: http://home.earthlink.net/~dawn_atkins/>

  Table of Contents

  Contents About the Editor
  • Contributors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction: Looking Queer
  • Section A: Women, Wimmin, Womyn
  • Part 1: Constructing Ourselves
  • Part 2: Looking Dyke
  • Part 3: Searching a Way Out
  • Part 4: A Woman’s Love Heals
  • Part 5: Coming Out, Leaving Behind
  • Section B: One, Both, Neither
  • Part 6: Crossing the Divide
  • Part 7: Square Pegs
  • Part 8: Boyz, Grrls, Queers
  • Section C: Beyond the Pale
  • Part 9: Color Vision
  • Part 10: Access to the Look
  • Section D: Men, Boys, and Trolls
  • Part 11: The Uniform Doesn’t Fit
  • Part 12: Feeling the Burn
  • Part 13: Reenvisioning Men
  • Index

  see more books tagged as:

  • Eating Disorders - All - Adult