book 28: Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds by Judy Grahn

I first read this book 20 years ago, freshly out of the closet at Alverno College and soaking up all queer culture I could get my hands on. The monthly drag shows, weekly Rainbow Alliance meetings, and occasional events at the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center weren't enough - I needed it all of the time, which meant a lot of books. The vast majority of these books were from the 70's-early 90's, many lesbian feminist tomes that haven't aged well. I was also just beginning to become disillusioned with Wicca, and I knew that the religion and queerness were somehow tied up with each other, but it was so hard to find anyone who'd written anything about this.
Another Mother Tongue was the perfect book to me, combining the depths of queer culture with mythology, Pagan spirituality, and symbolism. The LGBT Community Center had a fundraising event including a sale of secondhand books; I didn't have the money for this, but the stunning cover intrigued me so I sat in a corner skimming it for the majority of the event. The basement of my dorm was The Mug, a coffeeshop for students, with a meager library of secondhand books - I was stunned to discover a worn copy of this down there, and despite the "PROPERTY OF THE MUG" sticker on the cover I took it with me when I graduated. Then when I had to flee an abusive situation years later, it was among the 100 books I had to leave behind.

The secondhand copy that I own now I purchased when I started rebuilding my personal library. This is probably the fourth time I've read it, the first in well over a decade. It hasn't aged well, and Grahn followed the misinformation of Margaret Murray. And yet there are no other books like it; although she included ample notes it's hardly scholarly - thank goodness! It's poetic, personal, and deeply entrenched in early 80's queer culture. This is the ultimate insider's book, she doesn't explain things as though a straight ally would ever read it. 
I found it refreshing that Grahn wrote about Paula Gunn Allen, Luisah Teish, and Audre Lorde as though the reader automatically knows who they are (this was very frustrating when I was 20 and clueless). She's not trying to make herself look anti-racist or "oh I have a Black friend," she just includes them because she respects them and they have information and insights. This book is pretty white, and yet she doesn't write about people as being poor marginalized masses who deserve pity. 

It'll probably be another many years before I reread it again, and I'm so grateful that I found it when I did.

Https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64767.Another_Mother_Tongue

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