Black On Both Sides

Winner of the John Boswell Prize from the American Historical Association 2018 Winner of the William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association 2018 Winner of an American Library Association Stonewall Honor 2018 Winner of Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction 2018 Winner of the Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies from the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives—ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence. Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible. Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.

A groundbreaking twentieth-century history of transgender children With transgender rights front and center in American politics, media, and culture, the pervasive myth still exists that today’s transgender children are a brand new generation—pioneers in a field of new obstacles and hurdles. Histories of the Transgender Child shatters this myth, uncovering a previously unknown twentieth-century history when transgender children not only existed but preexisted the term transgender and its predecessors, playing a central role in the medicalization of trans people, and all sex and gender. Beginning with the early 1900s when children with “ambiguous” sex first sought medical attention, to the 1930s when transgender people began to seek out doctors involved in altering children’s sex, to the invention of the category gender, and finally the 1960s and ’70s when, as the field institutionalized, transgender children began to take hormones, change their names, and even access gender confirmation, Julian Gill-Peterson reconstructs the medicalization and racialization of children’s bodies. Throughout, they foreground the racial history of medicine that excludes black and trans of color children through the concept of gender’s plasticity, placing race at the center of their analysis and at the center of transgender studies. Until now, little has been known about early transgender history and life and its relevance to children. Using a wealth of archival research from hospitals and clinics, including incredible personal letters from children to doctors, as well as scientific and medical literature, this book reaches back to the first half of the twentieth century—a time when the category transgender was not available but surely existed, in the lives of children and parents.

For novelist Stephanie Johnson, her relationship with Australia and Australians has been an ambivalent one. She has lived there for periods in her life, and her first book, a collection of short stories, was actually published in Australia. She was described then as a young Australian writer, something she says she agreed to ‘for reasons that are complex and some of them hardly honourable’. For Johnson the longing to return has waxed and waned. ‘Why don’t I live there?’ she often asks herself. Yet she is a sixth-generation New Zealander. In this BWB Text Johnson explores her elusive and ambivalent feelings about the sunburnt country – which includes a musician’s road trip there with her singer-songwriter son Skyscraper Stan – and in so doing casts fascinating light on some of the formative influences that have shaped the work of this award-winning New Zealand writer.

A witty and warm-hearted novel about a trans teen finding his place in the world perfect for fans of Red, White and Royal Blue There’s only one thing standing between Finch Kelly and a full-blown case of high school senioritis: the National Speech & Debate Tournament. Taking home the gold would not only be the pinnacle of Finch’s debating career, but the perfect way to launch himself into his next chapter: college in Washington, DC, and a history-making career as the first trans congressman. What could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters, Finch could develop a teeny tiny crush on his very attractive, very taken, and very gay debate partner, Jonah. Never mind that Finch has never considered whether he’s interested in more than just girls. And that dream of college in DC? Finch hasn’t exactly been accepted anywhere yet, let alone received the full-ride scholarship he’ll need to make this dream a reality. Worst of all, though, is this year’s topic for Nationals: transgender rights. If he wants to cinch the gold, and get into college, Finch might have to argue against his own humanity. People say there are two sides to every argument. But, as Finch is about to discover, some things—like who you are and who you love—are not up for debate.

Barrington Black was for many years one of the UK’s best-known criminal defence lawyers and founder of a solicitor’s firm in Leeds now commemorated in the name of a practice known as Black’s. He was later a Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate and Circuit Judge in the Crown Court before becoming a Supreme Court Justice in Gibraltar. Both Sides of the Bench charts his life, legal and judicial progress and his contributions as legal expert to such programmes as BBC TV Look North and Yorkshire Television’s Calendar. Always in demand due to his reputation as a reliable defence solicitor, he was sought out by among others the serial killer Donald Neilson also known as the Black Panther as well as being involved in other high profile cases. His accounts of these and other fascinating cases from his life as a lawyer and judge form the main parts of this compelling book which also looks at his early life, political ambitions and time in the army when he was involved in Courts Martial. It also takes readers behind the scenes to show what it is like to establish and run a legal practice as it grows and develops and contains insights into the normally private and behind the scenes world of the judiciary. Written by one of the UK’s best-remembered defence lawyers, Both Sides of the Bench takes readers behind the scenes of life as a busy lawyer, judge and family man. A valuable social history due to its descriptive passages of parts of London and England and Wales the book also contains criticisms of the way criminal defence is at-risk of dilution. Review 'Filled with anecdotes and observations from a lifetime in court that will be of interest to any practising or student lawyer. There is much to learn from Mr Justice Black’s anecdotes, which are often laced with dark humour and dry wit ... The book is lined with nuggets of practical advice that any criminal lawyer will find useful'- Gibraltar Chronicle. 'An excellent set of views and opinions from a leading well-known and controversial lawyer of our time'- Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers.

Ten years after their home was almost torn apart by infidelity, Mona and Shawn Black are just getting back to normal . . . or so it seems. Both Shawn and Mona are still keeping secrets from each other and their immediate family. Back to his old tricks, James Parks exits prison older but not wiser, and his bitter rage seeks revenge. He again manipulates the lives of the Black family with knowledge of secrets that they hold locked away. He uses any and everyone in his path to get his payback; that is, until he stumbles onto someone who offers him something he vowed to do away with forever: love. Will Mona and Shawn learn that it is best not to keep secrets and just let the chips fall where they may? Will James bury the hatchet to try his hand at love once again? Is there still hope for these wayward souls, or will they be swallowed up by their lies and secrets once again? Secrets, lies, deception, murder, lust, and revenge rule the pages of this sophisticated drama. Let's see what happens when the gates of their lives swing wide open once again.

“Wilderson’s thinking teaches us to believe in the miraculous even as we decry the brutalities out of which miracles emerge”—Fred Moten Praised as “a trenchant, funny, and unsparing work of memoir and philosophy” (Aaron Robertson,?Literary Hub), Frank B. Wilderson’s Afropessimism arrived at a moment when protests against police brutality once again swept the nation. Presenting an argument we can no longer ignore, Wilderson insists that we must view Blackness through the lens of perpetual slavery. Radical in conception, remarkably poignant, and with soaring flights of memoir, Afropessimism reverberates with wisdom and painful clarity in the fractured world we inhabit.“Wilderson’s ambitious book offers its readers two great gifts. First, it strives mightily to make its pessimistic vision plausible. . . . Second, the book depicts a remarkable life, lived with daring and sincerity.”—Paul C. Taylor, Washington Post

Inspired by True Current Events.Dolores, Ernesto, and Emilio Sanchez are on a quest to America to find work and to save their family, who has been devastated by their father's accident and the drought in their home country of Honduras. But making their way to America would be too expensive for a family stricken by poverty. With only their faith in God to see them through, the teenaged siblings set off for their new home, despite the threat from the cartel, corrupt police officers, starvation, and death. Meanwhile, Eva Jordan is determined to start a new life on the American side of the Mexican border, hoping to shake off the scars from a horrible marriage. Despite her mother's concern for her daughter living so close to the border, Eva decides to take a vacation to the other side to sharpen up her Spanish and relax before her new job begins. She is struck by the beautiful towns of Mexico, but slowly, her eyes are opened to the dangers that are knocking at her front door. But when a hurricane washes away the border walls, will the two sides collide in hatred or unite in perfect harmony?