Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is an American author and activist. She is the author of a memoir and three novels, and the editor of five nonfiction anthologies.
Early life and education
Sycamore was born in Washington, D.C. to a Jewish family and was raised in the Potomac Highlands neighborhood of Rockville, Maryland. After spending a year in college at Brown University, in 1992 she moved to San Francisco where she became involved in activism with ACT UP.
Activism and literary career
Sycamore was involved in ACT UP in the early 1990s and Fed Up Queers in the late 1990s. In 1998, she was the host of the first Gay Shame event in New York, appearing with performer Penny Arcade, writer Eileen Myles, cabaret artists Kiki and Herb, and queercore band Three Dollar Bill held in Brooklyn, NY, which was captured in the documentary film entitled Gay Shame 98, by Scott Berry. She was one of the instigators of Gay Shame in San Francisco, which started in 2000 and became "a year-round direct action extravaganza dedicated to exposing all hypocrites". Sycamore was involved in the cultural center Dumba, and is a leading critic of assimilationist trends in gay culture. In January, 2009, Sycamore initiated a public postering project called Lostmissing, which she describes as: Sycamore opposed the push among the LGBT movement for same-sex marriage, arguing that it distracts from more pressing issues like the securing of universal health care and housing security for all. Sycamore also opposed the LGBT movement's focus on inclusion in the US military, arguing instead that the movement should be focused on opposing the harmful impacts of the military at home and abroad. In 2010, she appeared on Democracy Now! in the segment , and later penned op-eds against trans inclusion in the military in Truthout and The Baffler. In 2018, in collaboration with Dean Spade, Sycamore co-organized a Queer Anti-Militarism Townhall: Trans Liberation Not U.S. Invasion at the Seattle Public Library, alongside other queer and trans anti-military voices, including Micha Cárdenas, Soya Jung, Nikkita Oliver and Matt Remle. Sycamore contributed to Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage, and wrote the introduction to Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion, anthologies printed by the Against Equality collective in 2010 and 2014. In 2008, Sycamore was named as a "visionary" as part of Utne Reader magazine's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World."
Awards and honors
Sycamore was awarded the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Non-Fiction on June 2, 2014, for her 2013 book The End of San Francisco. NPR's Book Concierge included Sketchtasy on its list of the Best Books of 2018.
Personal life
Regarding gender identity, Sycamore identifies as genderqueer and uses the pronouns 'she' and 'her'. She has described herself as, "A genderqueer, faggot, and a queen, on the trans continuum, in a gender bending, gender blur kind of place. But the words I relate to the most are probably 'faggot' and 'queen.' 'Queer' would be more of a broader political identity."
