michelangelo signorile
It's Not Over
Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia, and Winning True Equality
“Visionary . . . Prescient . . . Signorile has brilliant advice for the future.” — Advocate
In It's Not Over, Signorile takes aim at the homophobia that persists in our culture and daily lives, despite the strides made in the pursuit of civil rights. He shows how the persistent fear of homosexuality remains pervasive throughout American politics, media, education, culture, and sports — an underlying and socially permitted anti-gay sentiment that not only motivates the continuing attacks of the enemies of gay rights but also pervades pro-gay allies whose actions belie their words. For Signorile, it is time to demand an end to the fabricated, rationally unsupportable reaction against gay civil rights and gay legitimacy — time to move beyond tolerance to full equality.
With a vast audience of listeners to his three-hour daily radio show on Sirius XM Progress — and with many more reading his regular columns on the Huffington Post — Signorile has the ear and eye of thinking, feeling gay Americans nationwide. He knows how fearlessly they built their own lives against enduring obstacles, and how their grassroots work — including that in support of same-sex marriage — has brought us much of the success of the gay civil rights movement. The Americans of Mike Signorile’s audience are rightfully impatient with our nation’s piecemeal progress, furious about the country’s enduring and pervasive homophobia, aching for full equality, beyond tolerance.
In this searing and insightfully reasoned book, Signorile provides a vision that will define the next decade of gay public life and form the basis for provocative discussion and take-no prisoners debate.
Michelangelo Signorile is a bestselling author, a widely acclaimed journalist, an unapologetic on-air civil rights expert for news outlets ranging from CNN to Fox News to NPR, and an outspoken, passionate SiriusXM Radio host and Huffington Post editor with a significant following.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2015.
More praise for It’s Not Over:
“[A] call to arms . . . Brutally honest and brimming with hope.” — OUT
“The thrust of Signorile’s urgent message is cogent and heartfelt . . . A cautionary, timely gay rights manifesto with teeth.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Makes the case clearly and convincingly that after the high court’s ruling on same-sex marriage, the lives of LGBT Americans won’t change all that much . . . The fight will be long, but not impossible to win. All that’s needed is for the LGBT community to realize that ‘it’s not over.’“ — Washington Post
“The gay rights movement is wise to temper jubilation with caution. In a sober new book entitled It’s Not Over, Michelangelo Signorile, a well-known gay radio host and blogger, warns against what he calls ‘victory blindness,’ which he defines as falling prey to ‘a kind of bedtime story that tells us we’ve reached the promised land.’ Getting beyond ‘mere tolerance’ and winning ‘full equality’ is likely to remain an elusive goal.”
— The New York Times
“Michelangelo Signorile knows confrontation. He’s great at it. A lot of people are alive today because he is great at it. A lot more are likely to have better lives in the future because he keeps doing it . . . Signorile has a message for the LGBT community: Stay confrontational; there is a backlash coming that will threaten the hard-fought gains made in recent years.” — Texas Observer
“An invaluable and idiot-proofed argument.” — Gawker
“Compelling in both its breadth and its frequent forays into granular detail . . . Signorile harnesses the concepts of victory blindness and covering to thoughtful consideration of a host of big issues before us.” — Gay City News
“An impressive polemic.” — Lambda Literary
“Signorile has never been more tactical and inspiring as he is in It’s Not Over, and he knows he is not just inspiring the choir anymore.”
— New York Journal of Books
“Enlightening and compelling, It’s Not Over is a trenchant book founded on solid evidence that reveals the truth about the current struggle for LGBT equality. Through rich detail and powerful stories, Signorile shows why we can’t let our intensity falter, and he offers an incisive, exhilarating blueprint for the future.” — Martina Navratilova
“For twenty-five years, Michelangelo Signorile has been one of America’s most incisive critics and influential activists in the movement for gay equality, and It’s Not Over demonstrates he is better than ever. The new book is a penetrating look at one of the great social movements of our time and the challenges that lie before it. With detailed reporting and razor-sharp analysis, Signorile exposes the dangerous triumphalism that has taken hold. He reveals the bigotry and bias still deeply embedded in the media, the political establishment, and throughout American culture. And he provides an illuminating, stirring plan of action to vanquish it.” — Glenn Greenwald, author of No Place to Hide
“This page-turner cuts through illusions and lays bare the unique and ongoing oppressions lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people face. With great compassion, Michelangelo Signorile knits all of us who support equality together as a community with a purpose and a real-world plan for achieving our goals. Read this book, please, and use it.” — Kate Bornstein, author of A Queer and Pleasant Danger
“Unflinching, uncompromising, It’s Not Over is a call to arms. Signorile describes the full breadth and scope of the LGBT struggle. Indeed, the fight for equality, and for freedom for all members of the LGBT community is not over. This landmark work by an irreplaceable writer vividly illustrates why.”
— José Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, filmmaker, and founder of Define American
“It’s Not Over provides an eye-opening reminder of the deep roots of hatred and prejudice as well as the critical role played by LGBT activists. While the arc of the moral universe does indeed bend toward justice, Signorile is right—we cannot let ourselves be lulled into a false sense of security that we are at the end of the journey.” — Roberta Kaplan, lead attorney, U.S. v. Windsor
“Amid great progress and celebration, Signorile strikes a cautionary tone: homophobia is alive and well today, and the fight for equality is far from won. In fact, complacency and apathy are the biggest allies of well-organized conservatives who refuse to surrender their bigotry and hate. This astute book primes us to tackle the unfinished business ahead.” — Markos Moulitsas, founder, Daily Kos