It's Saturday night in Key West and the Girlie Show is about to begin at the 801 Cabaret. The girls have been outside on the sidewalk all evening, seducing passersby into coming in for the show. The club itself is packed tonight and smoke has filled the room. When the lights finally go down, statuesque blonds and stunning brunettes sporting black leather miniskirts, stiletto heels, and see-through lingerie take the stage. En Vogue's "Free Your Mind" blares on the house stereo. The crowd roars in approval.

In this lively book, Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor take us on an entertaining tour through one of America's most overlooked subcultures: the world of the drag queen. They offer a penetrating glimpse into the lives of the 801 Girls, the troupe of queens who perform nightly at the 801 Cabaret for tourists and locals. Weaving together their fascinating life stories, their lavish costumes and eclectic music, their flamboyance and bitchiness, and their bawdy exchanges with one another and their audiences, the authors explore how drag queens smash the boundaries between gay and straight, man and woman, to make people think more deeply and realistically about sex and gender in America today. They also consider how the queens create a space that encourages camaraderie and acceptance among everyday people, no matter what their sexual preferences might be.

Based on countless interviews with more than a dozen drag queens, more than three years of attendance at their outrageous performances, and even the authors' participation in the shows themselves, Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret is a witty and poignant portrait of gay life and culture. When they said life is a cabaret, they clearly meant the 801.

As the fight for same-sex marriage rages across the United States and lesbian and gay couples rush to marriage license counters, the goal of marriage is still fiercely questioned within the LGBT movement. Rarely has an objective so central to a social movement’s political agenda been so controversial within the movement itself. While antigay forces work to restrict marriage to one man and one woman, lesbian and gay activists are passionately arguing about the desirability, viability, and social consequences of same-sex marriage.

The Marrying Kind? is the first book to draw on empirical research to examine these debates and how they are affecting marriage equality campaigns. The essays in this volume analyze the rhetoric, strategies, and makeup of the LGBT social movement organizations pushing for same-sex marriage, and address the dire predictions of some LGBT commentators that same-sex marriage will spell the end of queer identity and community. Case studies from California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Canada illuminate the complicated politics of same-sex marriage, making clear that the current disagreements among LGBT activists over whether marriage is conforming or transformative are far too simplistic. Instead, the impact of the marriage equality movement is complex and often contradictory, neither fully assimilationist nor fully oppositional.

Contributors: Ellen Ann Andersen, U of Vermont; Mary C. Burke, U of Vermont; Adam Isaiah Green, U of Toronto; Melanie Heath, McMaster U, Ontario; Kathleen E. Hull, U of Minnesota; Katrina Kimport, U of California, San Francisco; Jeffrey Kosbie; Katie Oliviero, U of Colorado, Boulder; Kristine A. Olsen; Timothy A. Ortyl; Arlene Stein, Rutgers U; Amy L. Stone, Trinity U; Nella Van Dyke, U of California, Merced.