Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is an American author and activist. She is the author of a memoir and three novels, and the editor of five nonfiction anthologies.

Sycamore was born in Washington, D.C. to a Jewish family and was raised in the Potomac Highlands neighborhood of Rockville, Maryland. After spending a year in college at Brown University, in 1992 she moved to San Francisco where she became involved in activism with ACT UP.

Sycamore opposed the push among the LGBT movement for same-gender marriage, arguing that it distracts from more pressing issues like the securing of universal health care and housing security for all. Sycamore also opposed the LGBT movement's focus on inclusion in the US military, arguing instead that the movement should be focused on opposing the harmful impacts of the military at home and abroad.

Quotes
"If I had to [identify myself] in one little statement it would be: “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."

Books

 * Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients (2000, editor)
 * Pulling Taffy (2004)
 * Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving (2004, editor)
 * That's Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (2004, editor)
 * Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (2006, editor)
 * 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, editor)
 * Sketchtasy Vancouver (2018)
 * The End of San Francisco (2013)