S. Bear Bergman

S. Bear Bergman is a storyteller, a theater artist, an instigator, a gender-jammer, and a good example of what happens when you overeducate a contrarian. He is the author of Butch Is a Noun (reissued with a new foreword by Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010), Lambda Literary Award-finalist The Nearest Exit May be Behind You (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009), Backwards Day (Flamingo Rampant, 2012), Lambda Literary Award-finalist The Adventures of Tulip, Birthday Wish Fairy (Flamingo Rampant, 2012) and Blood, Marriage, Wine, & Glitter (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2013) – as well as the editor (with the inimitable Kate Bornstein) of the multiple-award-winning Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation (Seal Press, 2010). Bear is also the creator and performer of three award-winning solo performances and a frequent contributor to anthologies on all manner of topics (see his CV for an extensive list of publications of presentations). Bear can be found many days in an airport lounge, writing stories on his laptop and letters on any piece of paper that can pretend to be stationery.

A frequent lecturer at colleges and universities regarding issues relating to gender, sexuality, and culture, Bear enjoys digging in to complicated ideas and getting dirty doing it. He also works extensively helping to create queer and trans cultural competency at universities, corporations, health care providers, and governmental organizations. This work has included training, policy development, policy reviews, and process/barrier audits, as well as cultural awareness consulting for external marketing.

As a Jew, Bear also speaks extensively about how his religious and cultural lives have shaped one another and the intersection of identities, especially as it relates to being both Jewish and queer. He remains exceptionally pleased to have been asked to write the chapter on trans inclusion for Hillel International’s LGBTQ Resource Guide

Less recently, Bear was one of the five original founders of the first Gay/Straight Alliance, a frequent lecturer at high schools and colleges on the subject of making schools safe for GLBT students, and a founding commission member of what is now called the Massachusetts Safe Schools Project. Bear was an insufferable know-it-all in high school, but is reformed these days. Somewhat.

Bear was educated at Concord Academy, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts. He currently resides in Toronto, Ontario where he has set up housekeeping with his husband j wallace skelton and their children, and travels frequently to visit the many people close to his heart.