Works by
James T. Sears
(Writer)

Growing Up Gay in the South: Race, Gender, and Journeys of the Spirit (1980, 1991)

Overcoming Heterosexism and Homophobia (1997), edited with Walter L. Williams
Providing strategies fhat can be adopted by educators, counselors, community activists and leaders, and those working in the lesbian and gay community, the contributors discuss role-playing exercises, suggestions for beginning a dialogue, methods of "coming out" effectively to family members and coworkers, and outlines for workshops.

Queering Elementary Education (1999), edited with James T. Letts
Queering Elementary Education is not about teaching kids to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight. It's not part of a sinister stratagem in the "gay agenda." Instead, these provocative and thoughtful essays advocate the creation of classrooms that challenge categorical thinking, promote interpersonal intelligence, and foster critical consciousness. Queer elementary classrooms are those where parents and educators care enough about their children to trust the human capacity for understanding and their educative abilities to foster insight into the human condition. Those who teach queerly refuse to participate in the great sexual sorting machine called schooling where diminutive GI Joes and Barbies become star quarterbacks and prom queens, while the Linuses and Tinky Winkies become wallflowers or human doormats. Queeering education means bracketing our simplest classroom activities in which we routinely equate sexual identities with sexual acts, privilege the heterosexual condition, and presume sexual destinies. Queer teachers are those who develop curriculum and pedagogy that afford every child dignity rooted in self-worth and esteem for others. In short, queering education happens when we look at schooling upside down and view childhood from the inside out. This groundbreaking volume demands we explore taken-for-granted assumptions about diversity, identities, childhood, and prejudice.

Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South (Hardcover)   (2001)
In the decade following the 1969 clashes at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, the emergence of communities among southern lesbians, bisexuals, gay men, and transgendered persons gained new vibrancy and visibility. Where isolation and accommodation had characterized queer southern life since World War II, the seventies were marked by networking and organizing, discoing and marching. In Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones, award-winning writer James T. Sears tells the stories of queer history in the South through characters who shaped, and were shaped by, the events ushered in by the antiwar, civil rights, women’s liberation, and gay movements following Stonewall. Sears builds upon his own earlier acclaimed book, Lonely Hunters, which details the post–World War II generation of southern homosexuals.

Sears interweaves stories of people and places to chronicle a distinctly southern panorama of queer life in a time of transformation. He brings to light unforgettable people and events whose effect on America is still with us: A psychedelic queer wedding. Drag pageants. Motorcycle runs. Dyke softball. Faery gatherings. Gay prison life. Sears follows a dozen characters as they build communities of desire and the heart, work for social change, construct sexual identities—and muster the political clout to take on Anita Bryant and march on Washington. He describes the evolution of music and literature, the bar and disco scenes, and gay spirituality in cities and towns from Virginia to Texas.

In rich, novelistic fashion, Sears explores how southern queer communities emerged from a region and culture uniquely contoured by the divisions of race, social class, religion, and gender, showing how the newly constructed communities of the seventies both owed a debt to their precursors and looked hopefully to the future.

Curriculum Work as a Public Moral Enterprise (2004) with Ruben A. Gaztambide-Fernandez
Reflecting the current turn in curriculum work that underscores the relationship between theory and practice, this volume brings together the voices of curriculum theorists working within academic settings and practitioners working in schools and other educational settings. This collection engages readers in the complicated conversation about the relationship between theory and practice, between theoreticians and practitioners.

Youth, Education, and Sexualities: An International Encyclopedia (2005), James T. Sears, ed.
Featuring more than 200 entries written by an international roster of experts, this work is the most authoritative and accessible source available for educators, researchers and students seeking an understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. This ground-breaking work examines policy, practice and research concerning youth who are often the victims of bullying and harrassment. Interdisciplinary, engaging articles examine the policy, practice, and research concerning the role, responses, and responsibilities of schools, educators, and the larger community to LGBT youth. Ranging from the the school curriculum to popular culture, topics include: gender roles, AIDS and HIV education, teen pregnancy, rural youth, prostitution, mental health, race and racism, counseling, gender roles, identity development, discrimination, anti-bias curriculum, children of LGBT parents, film, homophobia, legal issues, various ethnic groups, prejudice, religion, stereotypes, social class, college youth, and youth culture. There is international coverage as well of the United Kingdom, Asia, Australia, South America, and Europe. Research and scholarship on sexualities, youth, and education has exploded, especially in North America, Australia, and Europe. Over the past 25 years, remarkable progress has been made politically, culturally, and educationally with respect to LGBT and Queer concerns. For example, hundreds of gay-straight alliances operate in high schools and colleges; court settlements have resulted in greater administrative sensitivity to harassment of gay students; and the number of college courses including gay concerns and issues is growing. While there are increasing numbers of articles and books covering LGBT issues and life, this work is the first comprehensive source to look at the important nexus of education and LGBT youth.

Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles And the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation (2006) -- Finalist 2006 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
Take a revealing look at gay history—and the man who helped kickstart gay activism in today’s society The Mattachine is the origin of the contemporary American gay movement. One of the major players in this movement was Hal Call, America’s first openly gay journalist and the man most responsible for the end of government censorship of frontal male nude photography through the mail. Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation, the Hal Call Chronicles travels back to the times before Stonewall and its aftermath, to the beginnings of the modern homosexual movement and the lesser-known individuals who started it. This stunning chronicle gives the unexpurgated history of the activists who organized homosexuals—using the biography of the controversial Hal Call as its springboard.

Behind the Mask of the Mattachine provides a revealing illustration of gay life in the past through an intergenerational history of the early gay men’s movement. Noted author James T. Sears generously weaves oral history, seldom seen historical documents, and rare photographs to provide a rich behind-the-scenes look at the first wave of Mattachine activists and the emerging gay pornography industry. This historical chronicle of a previously neglected era is packed with details of Call’s personal struggles, his celebration of the phallus, and his assertion linking homophobia and heteronormativity to our culture’s sex-negative tradition. The reader is transported to the underworld of youthful hustlers, porno kingpins, spurned lovers, sex clubs, cruising grounds, secretive societies, and personal in-fighting over the direction of gay activism. This enthralling narrative is impeccably referenced.

Behind the Mask of the Mattachine examines:

• the origins of the Mattachine Society

• the Mattachine Foundation of Harry Hay and others of the "Fifth Order"

• the Weimar Republic in Germany—the roots of the modern homosexual movement

• networking of homosexuals through correspondence clubs and speakeasies in Depression-era America

• the intense rivalries between San Francisco and New York City Mattachine groups

• censorship of books, magazines, and films

• much more!

Turning Poin: A Contemporary American Memoirts in Curriculum (1999, 2006) by J. Dan Marshall, James T. Sears, Louise Anderson Allen, Patrick A. Roberts and William H. Schubert
Presenting a historic and contemporary look at curriculum's journey–from its conceptualization in 1947 to present–this innovative work combines intellectual commentary, impressionistic portraiture, parallel tales, interviews, and excerpted scholarly materials to create a living history of the curriculum field. Unique in approach, it uses rich narrative, primary sources and thoughtful discussion to reveal the complex issues and dynamic conversations that have shaped major Turning Points in American curriculum. It is a book that chronicles contemporary curriculum and invites readers to identify with and ultimately participate in this important field of intellectual study.

Gay, Lesbian, And Transgender Issues In Education: Programs, Policies, And Practices (2005), James T Sears, ed.
Understand the challenges from the voices involved—today’s LGBT youth AND the leading educators and scholars in the field!

Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Issues in Education presents LGBT youth issues through the words of the adolescents themselves, along with clear up-to-date essays about LGBT youth programs, policies, and practices around the world. Leading international educators and scholars examine personal experiences of LGBT youth, cutting-edge programs, and research first presented in the international Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues in Education. Dynamic and thought-provoking, this insightful book brings together ideas and a vision vital for the future of today’s LGBT youth.

Invaluable for educators, counselors, graduate and undergraduate students, and LGBT youth alike, Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Issues in Education is readily accessible and easy-to-read, yet still provides in-depth, multidimensional examinations of the LGBT youth programs and practices essential for the propagation of social tolerance, acceptance, and safety of our youth. The LGBT youth voices sing clear their views about the urgent need for programs and policies within educational resources to challenge the present dominant intolerant thinking. The editor presents cogent essays that reveal the complex issues of the educational programs and practices, while offering strategies and hope for societal change. The book strives for the ultimate goal of reaching LGBT acceptance within society, to move beyond simple toleration toward becoming completely equal regardless of sexual identity.

Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Issues in Education explores: