Published by Soft Skull Press
A FINALIST FOR A 2005 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD!
Order the book from your local independent bookstore via Indiebound
Listen to Mattilda at Bookshop Santa Cruz, February 3, 2005
Read an article in the
San Francisco Chronicle
THAT'S REVOLTING!:
Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation
That's Revolting! is a queer intervention in the culture wars. It is both blueprint and call to action, bringing the anti-assimilationist politics of a new generation of queer visionaries to a wider audience. The anthology consists of personal histories, rants, interviews, conversations, activist struggles, practical advice and glamour. Contributors include early gay liberation rabble-rousers, counterculture demons, fringe artistes, renegade academics, the dispossessed, the obsessed and various other enemy combatants. In other words, That's Revolting! is a book by a bunch of freaks, fruits, perverts and whores who are dedicated to resisting homogenization, globalization and all the other evils of this ravaging world.
In June 2008, an expanded second edition was released, featuring new work, including an interview with former members of the George Jackson Brigade, and essays about the Gay Liberation Front, ACT UP, the Drop the Debt/Stop AIDS “Naked Action” at the 2004 Republican National Convention, and rural queer youth organizing...”
"Startlingly bold and provocative."
–Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States
"That's Revolting! reads like a patchwork alternative history of the gay '90s and 2000s: the part queers played in the anti-globalization movement, their responses to racist 'quality-of-life' policing, how they coped with welfare reform and the withering of social services and their valiant efforts to banish tacky corporate sponsorship from gay pride parades.
–In These Times
"Mattilda has performed the Herculean task of gathering all my favorite smart, irreverent, talented, fierce, funny and fabulous people together in one place. I can't wait to see what happens in the world once That's Revolting! has been out there for a while."
–Kate Bornstein, author of My Gender Workbook
"That's Revolting! is a pre-emptive line in the sand, a radical embrace of the political creativity of the 'outsider.' It calls us all, regardless of our specific sexual and gender identities, to resist the pressures to assimilate into an increasingly belligerent and racist normality. Ranging from New York to San Francisco, from prison cells to the prison camp life of occupied Palestine, That's Revolting! does more than map out the nether regions of queer identity politics. The articles and interviews gathered together here are full of the collective wisdom of generations of activists determined to take the social space needed to live their lives. Inspiring, angry, ribald and also soberly self-critical, this book is a great way to dispel the post-election blues and expand your notions of what a better world can be."
–Left Turn
"Excellent writing and unabashed left politics combine to make this collection vibrant and energizing. The diversity of voices--young and old, people of color, working class, and, of course, every shade of queer--is impressive. These amazing essays represent an anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist perspective in a positive, optimistic, and even hilarious manner."
–Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie and Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975
"That's Revolting! offers an inspiring history of queer activism... Recommended reading for activist types of any stripe."
–Maximumrocknroll
"Tired of being represented by the Rich White Homosexual Lobby and its corporate and media sponsors? Pick up That's Revolting! and find the bracing world of vivid, provocative, radical queer visionary argument and activism that you need to feel challenged, goaded, energized and alive."
–Lisa Duggan, author of The Twilight of Equality: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy