"Shameless is a brilliant and bodacious work of sociology that offers new language for understanding how Black gay men transform stigma into radical self-worth, love, and collective power. Terrell Winder has written a book that people will be teaching, citing, and talking about for a very long time." Karida L. Brown, author of The New Brownies' Book: A Love Letter to Black Families
"In this captivating and nuanced book, Winder offers an important and necessary sociological analysis of the lives of young Black gay and queer men and the ways they unpack and 'unspoil' stigma. His analysis of biological and chosen filial commitments, as well as of cultural representations that work together to influence self-identity and socialization into adulthood, is complex, nuanced, and enlightening." Mignon R. Moore, author of Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships, and Motherhood among Black Women
"Rooted in love and resistance, Winder's Shameless is more than a brilliant book it's a blueprint for possibility, a promise for a better tomorrow. In an era when political leaders are hellbent on systematically erasing Black and gay lives from our schools, our libraries, and our history, Shameless is the book that everyone needs in their hands immediately." Anthony Christian Ocampo, author of Brown and Gay in LA
"By centering the ways of knowing and being of Black gay men and elaborating on the practices they use to refashion their identities, Winder intervenes in the social science and public health tendency to obscure or dismiss Black gay men's agency in their own self-recognition, affirmation, and care; this is a crucial contribution that Shameless makes." Marlon M Bailey, author of Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit
"Shameless delivers bold insight into 'another toolkit' for doing life as Black gay men. Rejecting scholarly tendencies to overemphasize the weight of stigma, discretion, and shame, Winder shows how Black gay men actively counter racial and sexual marginalization through creative and communal everyday practices. This work offers a vital addition to the archive illuminating the narratives, spaces, and lived theories that keep Black gay men living and loving. A powerful ethnography of Los Angeles, which embodies a politics of care at its finest." Jeffrey Q. McCune, author of Sexual Discretion: Black Masculinity and the Politics of Passing
"Poignant, personal, and powerful! While centering his own journey growing up in Baltimore and spending his college years in New York City as pretext, and the lives of his subjects in present-day Los Angeles, Winder intellectually moves beyond the geographical local, brilliantly employs multiple methodologies, and maps out a more global narrative of resilience, cultural inversion, and empowerment. Here, the work doesn't minimize the negative experiences of vulnerable populations. Instead, it challenges the reader to think more dynamically about how the socially oppressed can become individually empowered, while managing stigma shamelessly." Juan Battle, co-author of Queer People of Color: Connected but Not Comfortable
