- Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
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Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is a San Francisco-based author and activist. She has written two novels, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights, 2008) and Pulling Taffy (Suspect Thoughts Press, 2003), and is the editor of the non-fiction anthologies Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (Seal Press, 2007), That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Soft Skull Press, 2004; expanded second edition, 2008), Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving (Haworth Press, 2004), and Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients (Haworth Press, 2000). Tricks and Treats was also translated into Italian, as Dolcetti e Scherzetti (Effepi Libri, 2007). Sycamore is currently working on a new anthology, titled Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?, and a memoir titled The End of San Francisco.
In January, 2009, Sycamore initiated a public postering project called Lostmissing, which she describes as:
You know when you have a friend who you think will always be there -- no matter what, at least you'll have that friendship, right? Lostmissing is a public art project about the loss of that relationship, a specific relationship for me -- right now it's missing.[1]In 2010, Sycamore made a short film with Gina Carducci called All That Sheltering Emptiness.[2]
Sycamore was involved in ACT UP in the early 1990s and Fed Up Queers in the late 1990s. She was the host of the first Gay Shame event in New York, appearing with performer Penny Arcade, writer Eileen Myles, cabaret artists Kiki and Herb, and queercore band Three Dollar Bill held in Brooklyn, NY in 1998, which was captured in the documentary film entitled Gay Shame 98, by Scott Berry. She was one of the instigators of Gay Shame in San Francisco, which started in 2000 and became "a year-round direct action extravaganza dedicated to exposing all hypocrites."[3] Sycamore was involved in the cultural center Dumba, and is a leading critic of assimilationist trends in gay culture.[4][5][6]
Sycamore opposes the push among the GLBT movement for gay marriage, arguing that it distracts from more pressing issues like the securing of universal health care and housing security for all.[7][8] Sycamore contributed to Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage, an anthology printed by the Against Equality in 2010. In 2008, Sycamore was named as a “visionary” as part of Utne Reader magazine’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World.”[9]
Regarding gender identity, Sycamore identifies as genderqueer and uses the pronouns 'she' and 'her'.[8]
Bibliography
So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights Publishing, 2008) ISBN 9780872864689
Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (Seal Press, 2007) ISBN 1580051847
That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Soft Skull, 2004; Revised Second Edition, 2008) ISBN 1593761953
Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving (Haworth Press, 2004) ISBN 1560234229
Pulling Taffy (Suspect Thoughts Press, 2003) ISBN 0971084637
Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients (Haworth Press, 2000) ISBN 1560231629References
- ^ Lostmissing: a public art project
- ^ "All That Sheltering Emptiness Breathes Life into Queer Experimental Film", Velvetpark, http://www.velvetparkmedia.com/blogs/all-sheltering-emptiness-breathes-life-queer-experimental-film
- ^ Pulling it together
- ^ Nakao, Annie (2004-09-19), "Rejecting 'normal' in favor of a distinct gay identity", The San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/19/LVGQ48P21I1.DTL, retrieved 2007-10-05
- ^ Sycamore, Matt Bernstein (2004), That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, Soft Skull Press, p. 238, ISBN 1932360565
- ^ "What if Gay Marriage is the Wrong Fight?", LiP Magazine, http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featmattilda_gaymarriage_p.html
- ^ UTNE Reader, Nov-Dec 2008.
- ^ a b "A ‘Queer’ Argument Against Marriage", NPR, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127740436
- ^ "Visionaries Who Are Changing the World", Utne, http://www.utne.com/2008-11-13/50-Visionaries-Who-Are-Changing-Your-World.aspx
External links
Categories:- American activists
- American feminists
- Genderqueer people
- Jewish American writers
- Jewish feminists
- LGBT writers from the United States
- Living people
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