Twenty-six lesbian grassroots activists -- some of them household names nationally, others known only within their local communities -- help us focus on the future of our lesbian lives as we move into the next century. Written with both heart and smarts, in language that speaks to the dailiness of personal experience and larger political questions, This Is What Lesbian Looks Like is the kind of reading that helps to shape a movement. If any disenfranchised group is only as strong as its weakest members, how do we think about lesbians who are not white, able-bodied, and middle class? What is lost in the gap that exists between the first generation to age having lived their adult lives out of the closet and the young dykes for whom out feels like a been there/done that kind of thing?Where does fighting the Right fit into the rainbow rush toward assimilation? How will lesbian identity be defined within the multiplicity of gender expressions becoming increasingly visible? Not easy, but essential nonetheless -- these are some of the critical issues tackled in This Is What Lesbian Looks Like's two dozen essays.

Looks can be deceiving, and in a society where one's status and access to opportunity are largely attendant on physical appearance, the issue of how difference is constructed and interpreted, embraced or effaced, is of tremendous import. Lisa Walker examines this issue with a focus on the questions of what it means to look like a lesbian, and what it means to be a lesbian but not to look like one. She analyzes the historical production of the lesbian body as marked, and studies how lesbians have used the frequent analogy between racial difference and sexual orientation to craft, emphasize, or deny physical difference. In particular, she explores the implications of a predominantly visible model of sexual identity for the feminine lesbian, who is both marked and unmarked, desired and disavowed. Walker's textual analysis cuts across a variety of genres, including modernist fiction such as The Well of Loneliness and Wide Sargasso Sea, pulp fiction of the Harlem Renaissance, the 1950s and the 1960s, post-modern literature as Michelle Cliff's Abeng, and queer theory. In the book's final chapter, "How to Recognize a Lesbian," Walker argues that strategies of visibility are at times deconstructed, at times reinscribed within contemporary lesbian-feminist theory.

The National Lesbian and Gay Survey is a mass observation project set up in 1985 to record the experience of lesbians and gay men. Since that time, lesbian and gay volunteers have provided accounts on a wide range of issues pertinent to lesbian and gay life. What a Lesbian Looks Like draws on this material to provide an anthology of personal writings from lesbians nationwide. The volunteers come from all walks of life, from the unemployed to holders of high powered jobs, and represent all age groups. A ll aspects of lesbian experience are covered, including first sexual encounters, long term relationships, the difficulties of coming out and Clause 28. This book should be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in the fields of women's studies, gender studies and cultural studies.

The National Lesbian and Gay Survey is a mass observation project set up in 1985 to record the experience of lesbians and gay men. This work draws on that material to provide an anthology of personal writings from lesbians from all walks of life which offers a picture of lesbian life in general.

After ten years of talking about having children, two years of trying (and failing) to conceive, and one shot of donor sperm for her partner, Amie Miller was about to become a mother. Or something like that. Over the next nine months, as her partner became the biological mom-to-be, Miller became . . . what? Mommy’s little helper? A faux dad? As a midwestern, station wagon–driving, stay-at-home mom—and as a nonbiological lesbian mother—Miller both defines and defies the norm. Like new parents everywhere, she wrestled with the anxieties and challenges of first-time parenthood but experienced pregnancy and birth only vicariously. Part love story, part comedy, part quest, Miller’s candid and often humorous memoir is a much-needed cultural roadmap for becoming a parent, even when the usual categories do not fit.

Dispatches from Lesbian America is a collection of more than forty works of short fiction and memoir from contemporary writers, some newly emerging and some well-known. Unique in recent lesbian anthologies, these thoughtful stories address themes meaningful to us in the modern world. Featured Authors: Charlene Allen, Mari Alschuler, Joan Annsfire, Roxanne Ansolabehere, Terry Baum, Xequina Maria Berber, Elizabeth Bernays, Lynn Brown, Giovanna Capone, Susan Clements, Elana Dykewomon, Haley Fedor, Joanne Fleisher, Pippa Fleming, Judy Grahn, Felicia Hayes, Lois Rita Helmbold, Chante Shirelle Holsey, Toke Hoppenbrouwers, Happy/L.A. Hyder, Bev Jafek, Bev Jo, Lenn Keller, Heidi LaMoreaux, Alison Laurie, Mo Markham, Arielle Nyx McKee, Heal McKnight, Helena Montgomery, Dr. Bonnie J. Morris, Ashley Obinwanne, Artemis Passionflower, Tonya Primm, Francesca Roccaforte, Lilith Rogers, Ruth A. Rouff, Heath Atom Russell, Barbara Ruth, Mary Saracino, Cheela "Rome" Smith, Tess Tabak, and Polly Taylor.