Edited by Zane McNeill, Riley Clare Valentine, and Blu Buchanan
PM Press
9/16/2025, paperback
SKU: 9798887441306
Sometimes it pays to be gay and do crime.
As communities are boldly rising to challenge capitalism, white supremacy, and authoritarianism, Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion is your ultimate guide to LGBTQ+ resilience and rebellion. Packed with daily snapshots of radical queer history, this book celebrates the bold, the brave, and the beautifully defiant moments that have shaped the fight for justice.
Ever wonder why the Stonewall protests became an uprising or what the earliest acts of queer resistance looked like? How about the ways queer communities have organized against oppression across the globe? Be Gay, Do Crime dives into these stories and so many more--from fierce acts of resistance to joyful victories--bringing to life the rich, diverse history of LGBTQ+ liberation.
By situating readers within a larger pattern of struggle, these everyday acts counter the erasure of queer people from history and serve as a reminder that our struggles are part of a broader fight against systemic violence and dehumanization.
But, this isn't just a history book; it's a rallying cry. Flip to any page, soak up some inspiration, and join the legacy of resistance.
Foreword by Cindy Barukh Milstein and Introduction by Working Class History.
Reviews:
"Be Gay, Do Crime is a beautiful collection of daily bite-sized lessons in queer history. It serves as an excellent reminder of those who have come before us and what they have endured. As LGBTQ+ people continue to face challenges today, we must return to our roots and Be Gay, Do Crime." --Allison Chapman, LGBTQ+ activist and legislative researcher
"It takes a multiplicity of tactics and histories to make liberation, and we can only win by struggling persistently together, day by day. Be Gay, Do Crime offers insight to forge queer and trans revolt and inspires new futures by naming our collective past. Use this book!" --Emily Hobson, author of Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left
"Be Gay, Do Crime is a provocation. What if learning about queer and trans histories was an everyday practice? What if we marked time by honoring the lives of queer and trans activists past and present, instead of the birthdays of saints or presidents? What if queer and trans people had an accessible way to place themselves in the larger story of liberation? Organized like a daily calendar rather than a history textbook, this unique and useful book brings together stories that are usually separated by centuries: the birth of Emma Goldman in Lithuania on June 27, 1869, for example, appears alongside the launch of the first Trans Pride March in Toronto on June 27, 2009. By disrupting our commonplace ideas about chronology and progress, Be Gay, Do Crime offers a way to think about history differently: not as a straight line leading to a single inevitable present but as a queer tangle, spawning multiple possible futures. Help get queer and trans history out of the ivory tower and into the chaotic share houses where it belongs: buy this book for everyone on the Signal chat, have arguments about it, and let it inspire your next wave of mischief." --Cassius Adair, assistant professor of media studies, the New School
About the Contributors:
Zane McNeill is the editor of Y’all Means All: The Emerging Voices Queering Appalachia (PM Press, 2022) and coeditor of Deviant Hollers Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future (University Press of Kentucky, 2024).
Riley Clare Valentine holds a PhD in political science from Louisiana State University. Their work focuses on care ethics critique of neoliberalism as well as analyses of political rhetoric.
Blu Buchanan is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at UNC Asheville. Their academic writing has appeared or is forthcoming in journals like GLQ: The Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies and PUBLIC: A Journal of Imagining America, as well as edited volume chapters in Black Feminist Sociology: Perspectives and Praxis and Unsafe Words: Queer Perspectives on Consent in the #MeToo Era. They have also written extensively in the public sphere, particularly about movements to disarm campus police and confronting trans antagonism in the university.
Cindy Barukh Milstein, a diasporic queer Jewish anarchist, is the author of Paths Toward Utopia: Graphic Explorations of Everyday Anarchism and Anarchism and Its Aspirations, and the editor of anthologies such as Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice; Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief; Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy; and There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists.
Working Class History is an international collective of worker-activists who uncover our collective history of fighting for a better world and promote it to educate and inspire a new generation of activists. Check out their book, Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance & Rebellion.