Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is a San Francisco-based author and activist. She has written two novels, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly and Pulling Taffy.

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]

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."[2] Sycamore was involved in the cultural center Dumba, and is a leading critic of assimilationist trends in gay culture.[3][4][5]

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.[6][7] 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.”[8]

Regarding gender identity, Sycamore identifies as genderqueer and uses the pronouns 'she' and 'her'.[7]

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

Bibliography

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ Lostmissing: a public art project
  2. ↑ Pulling it together
  3. ↑ Nakao, Annie (2004-09-19), "Rejecting 'normal' in favor of a distinct gay identity", The San Francisco Chronicle, retrieved 2007-10-05
  4. ↑ Sycamore, Matt Bernstein (2004), That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, Soft Skull Press, p. 238, ISBN 1-932360-56-5
  5. ↑ "What if Gay Marriage is the Wrong Fight?", LiP Magazine
  6. ↑ UTNE Reader, Nov-Dec 2008.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "A ‘Queer’ Argument Against Marriage", NPR
  8. ↑ "Visionaries Who Are Changing the World", Utne

External links