Showing titles in Parenting & Families

Sean Szeps had wanted to be a mum since the age of four when he fell in love with Mrs Potts, the motherly teapot in Beauty and the Beast. But there was just one problem – he was not, in fact, a woman. But when he was swept off his feet by a handsome Australian man in New York City, Szeps's dreams of marriage and parenthood seemed – for the very first time – within reach. There were just a few little things still standing in his way – outdated marriage laws, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a healthy dose of internalised homophobia.

Pageboy is a groundbreaking coming-of-age memoir from the Academy Award-nominated actor Elliot Page. A generation-defining actor and one of the most famous trans advocates of our time, Elliot will now be known as an uncommon literary talent, as he shares never-before-heard details and intimate interrogations on gender, love, mental health, relationships, and Hollywood.

In this inspiring self-help handbook, a trans activist dares us to be the change we want to see—both out in the world, and amongst our closest connections. Lifelong activist and educator Dean Spade dares us to decide that our interpersonal actions are not separate from our politics of liberation and resistance. Many activist projects and resistance groups fall apart because people treat each other poorly, trying desperately to live out the cultural myths about dating and relationships that we are fed from an early age.

In the wake of a disastrous two-year relationship, Melissa Febos decided to take a break—for three months she would abstain from dating, relationships and sex. Her friends were amused. Did she really think three months was a long time? But to Melissa, it was. Ever since her teens, she had been in one relationship or another. It was time to focus on herself and examine the lifelong patterns that had got her to this point. When those three months ended, she decided to extend her celibate period, fearing that she had not yet gained the clarity she was searching for.

As long as there have been humans, there have been LGBTQI+ people. From an 18th century gentleman’s servant known as 'Princess Seraphina', to a lesbian punk rocker in Malaysia, challenging her country’s homophobic laws today; queer life always finds a way. We join Queer Eye’s Tan France to take a look at the lives, past and present, of those who have proudly defied rigid concepts of normality.

Differences in libido is a common issue in romantic relationships, often leading to insecurity, conflict and communication breakdown. It can be difficult to find help, as most research on the topic adheres to a narrow, heteronormative model of sexual intimacy — a way of thinking that hinders our ability to enjoy sex to the full. Dr. Fogel Mersy and Dr. Vencill’s Desire rejects this model.

As an AASECT certified sex therapist and founder of @queersextherapy, Casey Tanner has received hundreds of intimacy-related questions, both from couples in their practice and from followers who are desperate for advice. At the root of all of these insecurities is a single truth: we've received a sex miseducation. Our sex lives - Tanner argues - are a microcosm for everything we have been taught to believe and internalized about gender, sex, and relationships. In Sex Therapy, Tanner will provide a comprehensive guide to uncovering your own expansive approach to sexuality and relationships.

Eighteen months before Kathryn Schulz’s beloved father died, she met the woman she would marry. In Lost & Found, she weaves the stories of those relationships into a brilliant exploration of how all our lives are shaped by loss and discovery—from the maddening disappearance of everyday objects to the sweeping devastations of war, pandemic and natural disaster; from finding new planets to falling in love.

How did Adeline Virginia Stephen become the great writer Virginia Woolf? Acclaimed biographer Gillian Gill tells the stories of the women whose legacies—of strength, style, and creativity—shaped Woolf’s path to the radical writing that inspires so many today. Gill casts back to Woolf’s French-Anglo-Indian maternal great-grandmother Thérèse de L’Etang, an outsider to English culture whose beauty passed powerfully down the female line; and to Woolf’s aunt Anne Thackeray Ritchie, who gave Woolf her first vision of a successful female writer.

What is a black cat lesbian? Is ‘aromantic’ a sexuality or a preference? How are bisexual and pansexual different? What’s it like to be queer and religious? Does Gen Z do darkrooms? How do you navigate life as a OAQ (Old Age Queer)? What does trans euphoria feel like? Why is nightlife so central to the community? What is camp today? As queer people themselves, authors Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley knew they didn’t have all the answers, because their individual experience represents a single pixel of the rainbow.

In Forest Euphoria, Kaishian shows us this making of a scientist and introduces readers to the queerness, literal and otherwise, of all the life around us. Fungi, we learn, commonly have more than two biological sexes—and some as many as twenty-three thousand. Some intersex slugs mutually fire calcium carbonate “love darts” at each other during courtship.

I'm Jen Brister, stand-up comedian, middle-aged adolescent and, more recently, a mum. But not that mum - I'm the other one. Confused? Let’s back up a bit. Two years ago, my partner (a woman - we're not solicitors) gave birth to twins. Like every new parent, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. Add ‘gay’ and ‘non-biological’ to the mix and what do you get? Not a weird box of detergent, but a panicked beige lesbian desperately googling, ‘Will my babies love me?’ at 3 a.m. This is a book for any parent who feels they don’t fit the mould of a traditional 2.4 family.

Moments of Glad Grace is a moving and witty memoir of aging, familial love, and the hunt for roots and belonging. The story begins as a trip from Canada to Ireland in search of genealogical data and documents. Being 80 and in the early stages of Parkinson’s Disease, Joe invites his daughter Alison to come along as his research assistant, which might have worked very well had she any interest - any at all - in genealogy.

Picking up where he left off at the end of his widely praised debut memoir, One of These Things First, Gaines recounts his hilarious, sometimes poignant attempt to forge a writing career and a successful love life in the gay world of the 1970s. He has limited success until he falls in love with an older woman dying of cancer.

Alison Wearing led a largely carefree childhood until she learned, at age 12, that her family was a little more complex than she had realized. Sure her father had always been unusual compared to the other dads in the neighborhood: he loved to bake croissants, wear silk pajamas around the house, and skip down the street singing songs from Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. But when he came out of the closet in the 1970s, when homosexuality was still a cardinal taboo, it was a shock to everyone in the quiet community of Peterborough, Ontario - especially to his wife and three children.

Want to know the secret to acing fatherhood? The fear of fatherhood isn’t a conversation many men like to have over a cold beer. But the truth is that nearly every father-to-be has concerns… So if you’re feeling a little anxious right now, rest assured that you’re not the only one. Dads have traditionally been sidelined when it comes to talking about pregnancy and parenthood, but there's good news for you – your baby is coming at the perfect time.

An empowering guide to imagining (and living) better relationships, Radical Relating pushes back on the monogamy mandate. Author, somatic educator, and relationship coach Mel Cassidy explodes the often-unquestioned mainstream myths about the nuclear family structure: those that tell us your soulmate must be your sole mate. That sex is the only yardstick of relational success. That self-sacrifice and self-denial are necessary trade-offs for security and partnership. That we need to ride the relationship escalator all the way up, or we’ll die alone.

Drawing on the author's experience as a mother walking with and learning from her own transgender child, as well as working with hundreds of families across the country doing the same, this book helps parents navigate the emotional, spiritual, and logistical landscape of raising a gender-diverse child.

Un récit autobiographique aussi acide que lucide d’une étoile montante du stand-up. Un récit événement, qui fait le buzz dans les médias. Un récit de coming-out, et de toutes les hontes qui ont pu entraver l’acceptation de soi.

In Baby Making for Everybody, queer millennial midwives Ray Rachlin and Marea Goodman use their professional expertise to demystify the dizzying process of pursuing parenthood as queer and solo people, offering detailed, gender-affirming, body-positive advice. The result is a much-needed compassionate step-by-step guide for every aspect of the complicated, messy, and glorious process of building a family.