Work by Joshua Irving Gershick - Joshua Irving Gershick

Dear ONE: Love & Longing in Mid-Century Queer America

Dear ONE: Love & Longing in Mid-Century Queer America, by Joshua Irving Gershick, illuminates the lives of ordinary Queer Americans as recounted through letters written between 1953 and 1965, to L.A.’s ONE Magazine, the first openly gay & lesbian periodical in the United States. Looking for love, friendship or understanding, they wrote of loneliness and longing, of joy and fulfillment, and of their daily lives, hidden from history. Adapted from material from the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries, the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world.

Door Prize

In Door Prize, a proper Midwestern mother (Beth Grant) and a trans, two-spirit, butch, boi lesbian become unlikely confidants while waiting for the loo. A restaurant. A necktie. A line at the Ladies Room. Peeing should never be so problematic. The film premiered at LA's Outfest and screened as an official selection at more than 125 LGBTQ film festivals around the world. Door Prize was employed nationally by The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to promote the full equality and inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and by the Boston-based Keshet, which trains and supports Jewish educators, clergy, program staff, youth and lay leaders to ensure that LGBTQ youth, families, and staff are safe and affirmed in all Jewish educational and community settings.

Bluebonnet Court

Set in 1944, against the backdrop of World War II and the waning days of Hollywood’s glamour era, Bluebonnet Court is a play about sex, civil rights and finding family in the most unusual places. In this multi-racial dramedy, wisecracking Hearst Sob Sister Helen Burke (nee Berkowitz) is on her way from Manhattan to Hollywood and a coveted spot as an MGM contract writer. When she’s waylaid on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, it’s more than her car that gets an overhaul.

Secret Service: Untold Stories of Lesbians in the Military

In Secret Service, readers meet the can-do troops who do battle with discrimination– from the high-ranking Washington-insider who closes the door to much more than her apartment when she leaves for the capitol each morning, to the rank-and-file enlistee whose make-believe boyfriend helps her fend off daily inquisitions. These women – nurses, clerks, commanders, and artillerymen – are part of an extraordinary community of dedicated professionals whose commitment extends above and beyond. They are smart. They are skilled. They are lesbian. And that fact alone – ten years after the passage of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – still means discharge.

Gay Old Girls

What would it have been like to have been a lesbian in 1920s Alabama? 1940s New York? 1950s Texas? Gershick traveled the country to find out, and the result is laid out in Gay Old Girls. A lively and fascinating oral history of life before the birth of the modern LGBT political movement, Gay Old Girls introduces us to nine remarkable women who provide a rare glimpse into the past.

Joshua Irving Gershick

Books, Plays and Film

Dear ONE: Love & Longing in Mid-Century Queer America

Door Prize

Bluebonnet Court

Secret Service: Untold Stories of Lesbians in the Military

Gay Old Girls

Dear ONE: Love & Longing in Mid-Century Queer America