Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is an American author and activist. She has written two novels, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly and Pulling Taffy.

Early life and education

Sycamore was born in Washington, D.C. to a Jewish family.[1] After spending a year at college on the East Coast, she moved to San Francisco in 1992. It was here that she became involved in activism and with ACT UP. She has described herself as "A gender queer, faggot, and a queen, on the trans continuum, in a gender bending, gender blur kind of place." But the words I relate to the most are probably "faggot" and "queen." "Queer" would be more of a broader political identity."[2]

Career

Activist

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.[3]

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".[4] Sycamore was involved in the cultural center Dumba, and is a leading critic of assimilationist trends in gay culture.[5][6][7]

Sycamore opposed the push among the LGBT movement for same-sex marriage, arguing that it distracts from more pressing issues like the securing of universal health care and housing security for all.[8][9] Sycamore contributed to Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage, an anthology printed by the Against Equality collective in 2010. In 2008, Sycamore was named as a "visionary" as part of Utne Reader magazine's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World".[10]

Author

Sycamore was awarded the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Non-Fiction on June 2, 2014, for her 2013 book The End of San Francisco.

Personal life

Regarding gender identity, Sycamore identifies as genderqueer and uses the pronouns 'she' and 'her'.[9]

Bibliography

  • Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients (2000)
  • Pulling Taffy (2003)
  • That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (2004)
  • Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving (2004)
  • Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (2007)
  • So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (2008)
  • Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform (2012)
  • The End of San Francisco (2013)

Filmography

  • All That Sheltering Emptiness (2010)

References

  1. ↑ "Q&A with Queer activist and author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore – Emerald Media". 4 April 2013.
  2. ↑ "We Who Feel Differently – Interviews". wewhofeeldifferently.info.
  3. ↑ Sycamore, Mattilda Bernstein (31 January 2009). "NOBODY PASSES, darling: Lostmissing: a public art project".
  4. ↑ Sycamore, Mattilda Bernstein (6 October 2008). "NOBODY PASSES, darling: Pulling it together".
  5. ↑ Nakao, Annie (2004-09-19), "Rejecting 'normal' in favor of a distinct gay identity", San Francisco Chronicle, retrieved 2007-10-05
  6. ↑ Sycamore, Matt Bernstein (2004), That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, Soft Skull Press, p. 238, ISBN 1-932360-56-5
  7. ↑ "What if Gay Marriage is the Wrong Fight?", LiP Magazine
  8. ↑ UTNE Reader, November–December 2008.
  9. 1 2 A 'Queer' Argument Against Marriage, NPR
  10. ↑ "Visionaries Who Are Changing the World", Utne Reader
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