Real Queer America by Samantha Allen

Real Queer America

LGBT Stories From Red States

Samantha Allen

Little, Brown and Company · Print & ebook · June 16, 2020

LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST A transgender reporter's "powerful, profoundly moving" narrative tour through the surprisingly vibrant queer communities sprouting up in red states (New York Times Book Review), offering a vision of a stronger, more humane America.

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Who it’s for
A layered, discussion-friendly read that works as both study and daily dip-in.
Genres
LGBTQ+ Lives, Transgender Studies, LGBTQ+ Travel
Published
Little, Brown and Company, June 16, 2020

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About this book

LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST A transgender reporter's "powerful, profoundly moving" narrative tour through the surprisingly vibrant queer communities sprouting up in red states (New York Times Book Review), offering a vision of a stronger, more humane America. Ten years ago, Samantha Allen was a suit-and-tie-wearing Mormon missionary. Now she's a GLAAD Award-winning journalist happily married to another woman.

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A lot in her life has changed, but what hasn't changed is her deep love of Red State America, and of queer people who stay in so-called "flyover country" rather than moving to the liberal coasts. In Real Queer America, Allen takes us on a cross-country road-trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Her motto for the trip: "Something gay every day." Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces us to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more. Capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places and revealing a national network of chosen family fighting for a better world, Real Queer America is a treasure trove of uplifting stories and a much-needed source of hope and inspiration in these divided times.

Serious and Social

A layered, discussion-friendly read that works as both study and daily dip-in.

Come here for

  • LGBTQ+ travel lens
  • book-club conversation with a serious edge

Expect

  • Prestige-leaning cultural reporting
  • History, America, and queer perspective

Where it sits

LGBTQ+ Travel73%
LGBTQ+ Lives60%
Transgender Studies41%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • LGBTQ+ Lives
  • Activist Lives
  • LGBTQ+ Studies
Authors
Samantha Allen
Publisher
Little, Brown and Company
Published
June 16, 2020
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
LGBTQ+ Lives