num_pages: 321
description: LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALISTA 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. 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 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.
language: English
title: Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States
publisher: Little, Brown and Company