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“It's not conversion 'therapy;' it's conversion brainwashing.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“The less that women are visible as a research subject, the less we are likely to learn about lesbians.”
― Bonnie J. Morris, The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture

“Burlesque involves stripping... It's also historically been a way of satirizing or commenting on politics, making people laugh, showing off your sexuality or your body- it's hella queer.”
― Ray Stoeve, Between Perfect and Real

“The only reason they tolerated the transgender community in some of these movements was because we were gung-ho, we were front liners. We didn’t take no shit from nobody. We had nothing to lose. You all had rights. We had nothing to lose. I’ll be the first one to step on any organization, any
politician’s toes if I have to, to get the rights for my community.”
― Sylvia Rivera, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR): Survival, Revolt, and Queer Antagonist Struggle

“Older age can be challenging for LGBTQ people when living an independent life becomes more difficult. Having lived in a same-sex relationship for many years there are limited choices about living in a retirement home where some people may feel that they have to supress their sexuality in order to appease others. I hear less these days about this aspect of LGBT life, being forced back into the closet in order to live in close proximity to others, that can cause depression particularly where there may be no close relatives or friends having lived a long life”
― Franko Figueiredo-Stow, Out On An Island

“On the table behind the built-in bar stood opened bottles of gin, bourbon, scotch, soda, and other various mixers. The bar itself was covered with little delicacies of all descriptions: chips, dips, and little crackers and squares of bread laced with the usual dabs of egg salad and sardine paste. There was a platter of delicious fried chicken wings and a pan of potato-and-egg salad dressed with vinegar. Bowls of lives and pickles surrounded the main dishes, along with trays of red crabapples and little sweet onions on toothpicks. But the centerpiece of the whole table was a huge platter of succulent and thinly sliced roast beef set into an underpan of cracked ice. Upon the beige platter each slice of rare meat had been lovingly laid out and individually folded up into a vulval pattern with a tiny dab of mayonnaise at the crucial apex. The pink-brown folded meat around the pale cream-yellow dot formed suggestive sculptures that made a great hit with all the women present. Peteyâ€� at whose house the party was being given and the creator of the meat sculpturesâ€� smilingly acknowledged the many compliments on her platter with a long-necked graceful nod of her elegant dancer’s head.”
― Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

“Politically correct sexuality is a paradoxical concept. One of the most deeply held opinions in feminism is that women should be autonomous and self-directed in defining their sexual desire, yet when a woman says “This is my desire,â€� feminists rush in to say, “No, no, it is the prick in your head; women should not desire that act.â€� But we do not yet know enough about what womenâ€� any womenâ€� desire. The real problem here is that we stopped asking questions too early in the lesbian and feminist movement, and rushed to erect what appeared to be answers into the formidable and rigid edifice that we have now. Our contemporary lack of curiosity also affects our view of the past. We don’t ask butch-femme women who they are; we tell them. We don’t explore the social life of working-class lesbian bars in the 1940’s and 1950’s; we simply assert that all those women were victims. Our supposed answers closed our ears and stopped our analysis. Questions and answers about lesbian lives that deviate from the feminist model of the 1970’s strike like a shock wave against the movement’s foundation, yet this new wave of questioning is an authentic one, coming from women who have helped create the feminist and lesbian movement that they are now challenging into new growth. If we close down exploration, we will be forcing some women once again to live their sexual lives in a land of shame and guilt, only this time they will be haunted by the realization that it was not the patriarchal code they had failed, but the creed of their own sisters who said they came in love. Curiosity builds bridges between women and between the present and past; judgement builds the power if some over others. Curiosity is not trivial; it is respect one life pays to another. It is a largeness of mind and heart that refuses to be bound by decorum or by desperation. It is hardest to keep alive in the times it is most needed, the times of hatred, of instability, of attack. Surely these are such times.”
― Joan Nestle, The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader

“Mary: What are you teaching Him at that public high school of yours, Mrs. McElroy?

Joshua: She's teaching Me that this town is the armpit of Western civilization.”
― Terrence McNally, Corpus Christi

“Patricia: What they did was stupid and cruel and why I am going to write the president of the United States telling him that if there is any place in this country where nuclear bomb testing should be allowed, it's Corpus Christi, Texas.”
― Terrence McNally, Corpus Christi

“Is sex reassignment surgery moral/right? ''If a patient came to you and wanted you to remove his normal left eye or his right hand,
would you do that, just because he asked you to?''
A patient who comes in with such a request is, on the face of it, acutely psychotic. Transsexuals are not psychotic. Further, transsexuals do not want a useful organ removed, reducing their efficiency; but they want a more or less (to them) useless sexual
equipment altered so that a more or less useful (to them) equipment will result.”
― Louis Graydon Sullivan, Information for the Female-to-Male Cross Dresser and Transsexual

“Ella warned Ruby, "Let me tell you, the life lead is not an easy one. There are many dangers in the world for us - it's dangerous if other people find out because of what they might do to us. Some will want to hurt us or put us into mental institutions. Some will want to get rid of us altogether. Others will try to 'cure' us by forcing us into marriage, thinking that all we need is a 'good man.' Let me assure you, sweet lady, there is no cure for what ails us, because we are not ill.”
― Gayla Turner, Don't You Dare: Uncovering Lost Love

“Researching and documenting the past and present lives of members of the LGBTQ+ population is, I suggest, a form of activismâ€� - Clare Summerskill introducing Out On An Island book.”
― Franko Figueiredo-Stow, Out On An Island