LGBT+ PERSPECTIVES The University of Essex Reader

**This book** brings together different perspectives on gender identity and sexual orientation.
This book is rooted in the deepest and most personal part of our being, which is reflected in our interactions with the external world.
**This book** is about who we are, how others see us, how we see others and what differences gender and sexuality make in our lives.
**The focus is** on exploring and understanding matters in relation to the LGBT+ community (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and all other gender identities and sexual orientations that individuals may identify with) from different perspectives, experiences, narratives and subjects.
**The angle is** perspectives in both private and professional lives, because gender identity permeates everything we do, the way we understand ourselves and the world around us.
**The lens used is** inclusion, with the aid of an open mind, in order to access unspoken realities, unknown (hi)stories and to share private experiences that too often remain silenced.
**We suggest r**eading this book to everybody – members of the LGBT+ community, friends, parents, teachers and students. Because we are all different, and we are all unique at the same time.
**We suggest** reading this book to people interested in understanding more about gender identity and sexual orientation, and to those who want to explore the intersection between private and public, in and ‘out’, home and life, inclusion and discrimination.
**We suggest** reading this book to people who are questioning their assumptions and understandings, and to those who believe in equality as a fundamental social principle to value and respect others.
**We dissuade** readers from thinking in binaries (e.g. male or female, gay or straight) and from using a permanent marker to label others. You might need an eraser.