
Real Queer America
LGBT Stories from Red States
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Narrated by:
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Samantha Allen
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By:
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Samantha Allen
About this listen
A transgender reporter's narrative tour through the surprisingly vibrant queer communities sprouting up in red states, 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 senior Daily Beast reporter 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 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.
©2019 Samantha Allen (P)2019 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Real Queer America is a book necessary for anyone in—or allied with—the queer community, especially those of us who see the bad news day after day. [Allen is] sharing the beauty of the spaces that LGBTQ+ people have carved out for themselves, and she's giving credit where credit is very much overdue, because it's the queer folk who live and stay in red states—whether by choice or due to a lack of options—who have to survive there and work to make them better."—Los Angeles Times
"A powerful book of memoir and reportage...It is difficult to capture universality in a way that also celebrates uniqueness. Allen does so through the diversity of the individual stories she uplifts, giving any reader an entry point into LGBTQ lives... [She writes] with a vulnerability and humility as approachable and accessible as it is profoundly moving."—New York Times Book Review
"Allen's award-winning work as an LGBT journalist for platforms like Fusion and The Daily Beast is both radically empathetic and comprehensively analytical. This is a balance she has upheld admirably in Real Queer America, an exploration of queer communities in conservative parts of the country-communities that are often overlooked in conversations about what it means to be queer, American, or both. Use this title to help you chart the course of your next cross-country road trip."—Harper's Bazaar
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As our society becomes more inclusive, some of our most underrepresented communities are getting a much-needed opportunity to tell their stories. For this list, we’ve come up with some of the best trans and nonbinary listens, across all genres and age categories. And because we know that authenticity is important to listeners, our selections are almost exclusively written by queer, trans, and nonbinary authors.
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Story
Hey, I'm Jamie, a 29-year-old trans guy from the UK. I've been transitioning for 12 years now after realising I was trans (by accident!) at sixteen years old. I knew I was a boy since the age of four, but realised whilst growing up that I was different. It was only in my teens that I found the words to express who I was and what I needed to do. Since then, I've been on testosterone for more than a decade - I know, I can't believe it either - I've also had top and bottom surgery and legally changed my sex, so I know a few things about the transitioning process and being trans!
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Amazing
- By Victor Rhodes on 08-03-24
By: Jamie Raines
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M to (WT)F
- Twenty-Six of the Funniest Moments from My Transgender Journey
- By: Samantha Allen
- Narrated by: Samantha Allen
- Length: 3 hrs and 18 mins
- Original Recording
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In this poignant audio piece, Samantha Allen takes listeners along for the wild ride of her own transition: The good, the bad, but mostly, the funny. Because once she began this life-changing journey in earnest, Samantha realized that while the emotional trials of gender dysphoria and self-discovery could be harrowing, there were so many laugh-out-loud moments along this winding road.
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her past is my present
- By æ on 10-13-20
By: Samantha Allen
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Who's Afraid of Gender?
- By: Judith Butler
- Narrated by: Judith Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Judith Butler, the groundbreaking thinker whose iconic book Gender Trouble redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on “gender” that have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed “anti-gender ideology movements” that are dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous, perhaps diabolical, threat to families, local cultures, civilization—and even “man” himself. In this book, Butler illuminates the concrete ways that this phantasm of “gender” collects and displaces anxieties and fears of destruction.
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Butler’s reading of Butler was stunning
- By Joseph Schneider on 07-19-24
By: Judith Butler
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Hi Honey, I'm Homo!
- Sitcoms, Specials, and the Queering of American Culture
- By: Matt Baume
- Narrated by: Matt Baume
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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From flamboyant relatives on Bewitched to closely-guarded secrets on All in the Family, from network-censor fights over Soap to behind-the-scenes activism on the set of The Golden Girls, from Ellen’s culture clash to Modern Family’s primetime power-couple, Hi Honey, I’m Homo! is the story not only of how subversive queer comedy transformed the American sitcom, from its inception through today, but how our favorite sitcoms transformed, and continue to transform, America.
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Loved it!
- By Sage on 07-14-23
By: Matt Baume
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Gender Queer
- A Memoir
- By: Maia Kobabe
- Narrated by: Maia Kobabe, Trini Alvarado, Stephen Graybill, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.
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For the first time in 30 years, I heard things out loud that were said in my brain as a child.
- By Anonymous User on 06-09-24
By: Maia Kobabe
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The Queer Bible
- Essays
- By: Jack Guinness
- Narrated by: Jack Guinness, Amelia Abraham, Paula Akpan, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A gorgeously illustrated collection of essays written by today’s queer heroes - featuring contributions from Elton John, Tan France, Gus Kenworthy, Paris Lees, Russell Tovey, Munroe Bergdorf, and many others. The Queer Bible is a celebration of LGBTQ+ history and culture, edited by model, performer, and GQ contributing editor Jack Guinness.
By: Jack Guinness
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The End of Gender
- Debunking the Myths About Sex and Identity in Our Society
- By: Debra W. Soh
- Narrated by: Debra Soh
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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International sex researcher, neuroscientist, and columnist Debra Soh debunks popular gender myths in this scientific examination of the many facets of gender identity that “is not only eminently reasonable and beautifully-written, it is brave and vital” (Ben Shapiro, number-one New York Times best-selling author).
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stirring a conversation that is lacking
- By Robert K. on 08-08-20
By: Debra W. Soh
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Mutual Aid
- Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)
- By: Dean Spade
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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This book is about mutual aid: why it is so important, what it looks like, and how to do it. It provides a grassroots theory of mutual aid, describes how mutual aid is a crucial part of powerful movements for social justice, and offers concrete tools for organizing, such as how to work in groups, how to foster a collective decision-making process, how to prevent and address conflict, and how to deal with burnout.
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abridge this for audio format
- By Jeff M. on 02-17-22
By: Dean Spade
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Let This Radicalize You
- Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care
- By: Kelly Hayes, Mariame Kaba
- Narrated by: Diana Blue
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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What fuels and sustains activism and organizing when it feels like our worlds are collapsing? Let This Radicalize You is a practical and imaginative resource for activists and organizers building power in an era of destabilization and catastrophe. Longtime organizers and movement educators Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes examine some of the political lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and consider what this confluence of power can teach us about a future that will require mass acts of care, rescue, and defense, in the face of both state violence and environmental disaster.
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together, we fight back
- By Anonymous User on 05-10-24
By: Kelly Hayes, and others
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The Myth of American Idealism
- How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World
- By: Noam Chomsky, Nathan J. Robinson
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of the world’s most prominent thinkers, an urgent warning of the threat that U.S. power poses to humanity’s future as well as a sharp indictment of both American foreign policy and the national myths that support it.
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Absolutely spot on except . . .
- By anthony pape on 11-09-24
By: Noam Chomsky, and others
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An African American and Latinx History of the United States
- By: Paul Ortiz
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning more than 200 years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress, and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms American history into the story of the working class organizing against imperialism.
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I had to return
- By Andrew Alvarez on 05-19-20
By: Paul Ortiz
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How Fascism Works
- The Politics of Us and Them
- By: Jason Stanley
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century.
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A Warning Too Clear to Ignore
- By Chip Auger on 10-30-18
By: Jason Stanley
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Rage Becomes Her
- The Power of Women's Anger
- By: Soraya Chemaly
- Narrated by: Soraya Chemaly
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Women are angry, and it isn’t hard to figure out why. We are underpaid and overworked. Too sensitive or not sensitive enough. Too dowdy or too made-up. Too big or too thin. Sluts or prudes. We are harassed, told we are asking for it, and asked if it would kill us to smile. Yes, yes it would. Contrary to the rhetoric of popular “self-help” and an entire lifetime of being told otherwise, our rage is one of the most important resources we have, our sharpest tool against both personal and political oppression.
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Holy Raging Hell
- By Enid Quimby on 10-17-18
By: Soraya Chemaly
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Men Who Hate Women
- From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth About Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All
- By: Laura Bates
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
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Men Who Hate Women examines the rise of secretive extremist communities who despise women and traces the roots of misogyny across a complex spider web of groups. It includes interviews with former members of these communities, the academics studying this movement, and the men fighting back. Women's rights activist Laura Bates wrote this book as someone who has been the target of many misogynistic attacks online. As Bates went undercover into the corners of the internet, she found an unseen, organized movement of thousands of anonymous men wishing violence (and worse) upon women.
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Vitally Important
- By Alyssa Huelsenbeck on 01-09-23
By: Laura Bates
What listeners say about Real Queer America
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- dupuytren
- 01-26-20
Shout-out to a queer hero for an excellent job!
The narrative of life as queer people know it is much different than what is reflected in a very small slice of lgbtq+ friendly national outlets and by a who's-who list of prominent people under the broad, inclusive and expansive queer umbrella. Queer life in the heartland is much more fulfilling and diverse than what it is depicted to be. Of course there are major challenges and everyday threats to our very existence and to the safety of our community but that does not mean that a conclusion to arise from that fact should be to pack up shop and leave town for metropoli where queer life can become uninspiring, people can become jaded and the very real connections that makes our relationships prosper at a deeper level can become flimsy threads. This book is an eye-opener for everyone who does not know enough about the queerness of red america. Humanity of people trumps indecency of everyday brinksmanship that we see from depraved politicians and anyone who has both the courage and the time to invest in real relationships with actual people will open up their heart and dispel any seed of prejudice and bias which basically is the result lack of information and connectedness. Terrific stories and inspired narration!
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6 people found this helpful
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- Benjamin Mengebier
- 11-18-20
Exceptional!
Satisfying curiosities you didn't know you had about diverse people you want to know by the end of the story. Samantha is an incredible storyteller, nourishing the senses throughout and make you ache for the foods, smells and sights enough to consider moving to a red state. I hope Samantha writes more books like this one.
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- storm baughman
- 04-03-23
So good!!
I loved this book! It's well written and thoughtful representation of the closeness of queer communities made me proud to be part of my own red state queer world ❤️
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- Danica
- 12-10-24
Informative
Books like these can be hard for me to review. It's a quick dive into various cities across the country. I prefer books that take a deeper dive in general, but I knew what this was going into it.
It is presented as a part memoir/part travel log. In general, I thought this was well done. I think there were a lot of insightful comments throughout. A fascinating project.
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- Kyle M. Palmer
- 07-08-19
Critical Commentary On Life Outside the Coasts
One thing I’ve always noticed growing up in the Midwest is how little my experience is reflected in the national media. Samantha Allen does an excellent job exploring the different facets of a full LGBTQ+ experience in America, in what can only be her voice. You have not read or listened to a book like this before and history will thank her for writing it.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Seth
- 08-12-23
Perfect!
As a gay ex Mormon from Utah, I related in some ways to Samantha’s experience. I thought for so long that I wanted to move to a bigger city. Don’t get me wrong. I still really want to leave Utah. It never felt like home to me. But reading this book has made me rethink on where I want to move to. It has left me with a lot of introspective questions.
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- Jessica T
- 12-12-19
This experience needed to be explored.
As a Floridian, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this exploration of LGBT activism in the south and in "red states" in general. I never identified as a "southerner" because I've always been very liberal. But a great deal of my childhood was spent camping, hiking and canoing in the woods of southern states, and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. It is great to explore the space between two truths that seem to oppose each other, which this book does very well.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 06-08-22
I Might have given it a different title
It's a good book. I enjoyed it. The title is all wrong though. It's not really "Real Queer America: LGBTQ stories from Red States". She visited Austin, Houston, Provo, Atlanta and Bloomington, IN. All metropolitan areas in red states. Let's face it...cities typically lean liberal, even in the south. So, not really red. Bloomington? It's a college town home of the Kinsey Institute. I've have spent most of my life in Indiana, Bloomington is a college town and they tend to be far more liberal. She didn't visit say a LaPorte, IN which is ridiculously conservative and not very accepting of the LGBTQ community. And while she does tell really great stories about queer people and the things they're doing, it's mostly about how they relate to her and how it makes her feel. A better title would have been "My Transition in Red States by Samantha Allen". I like it. I do. The title is just all wrong.
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1 person found this helpful
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- L
- 09-28-20
Worthwhile and uplifting
I love Samantha Allen’s beautiful, uplifting perspective on America’s inherent queerness. Her descriptions of queer hotspots in “Red America” made me want to take a road trip and experience them all for myself - no easy feat! A very worthwhile read.
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- KingMB
- 06-28-21
Enjoyed very much!
Eye-opening, insightful, honest, sobering, hopeful, lovely, encouraging. Read this to prepare for a book club meeting at which the author will be present, and so glad I did!
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