Status
Call number
Collections
Publication
Description
The fight for gay, lesbian, and trans civil rights-the years of outrageous injustice, the early battles, the heartbreaking defeats, and the victories beyond the dreams of the gay rights pioneers-is the most important civil rights issue of the present day. Based on rigorous research and more than 150 interviews, The Gay Revolution tells this unfinished story not through dry facts, but through dramatic accounts of passionate struggles, with all the sweep, depth, and intricacies that only an award-winning activist, scholar, and novelist like Lillian Faderman can evoke. The Gay Revolution begins in the 1950s, when law classified gays and lesbians as criminals, the psychiatric profession saw them as mentally ill, the churches saw them as sinners, and society victimized them with irrational hatred. Against this dark backdrop, a few brave people began to fight back, paving the way for the revolutionary changes of the 1960s and beyond. Faderman discusses the protests in the 1960s, the counter reaction of the 1970s and early eighties, the decimated but united community during the AIDS epidemic, and the current hurdles for the right to marriage equality.… (more)
User reviews
The book starts in the 1950s when gays & lesbians were not only in danger of arrests, beatings, robbery, and sexual assault at the hands of the local police "Morals Squad," but a "Lavender Scare" saw the exposure and firing of numerous gay & lesbian people working for the US government. This occurred at the same time as the more famous "Red Scare," but may have had an even more widespread and devastating effect. In 1950, the Mattachine Society organized in Los Angeles as the first activist group to advocate for the rights of gay American citizens, with chapters in other cities established soon afterward. The Daughters of Bilitis, a lesbian civil rights group, was founded in San Francisco in 1956. Early activism focused on court cases to defend gay people from losing employment, with some success.
The Stonewall Uprising of 1969 was a turning point, where the patrons of the Greenwich Village gay bar - inspired by the Civil Rights and anti-war movements - decided to stand their ground against a police raid. The multi-day riots kicked off a decade of mass movement protests and pride parades. The 1970s also saw gay activists take on the American Psychiatric Association to stop having homosexuality classified as a mental disorder. Communities began to include gays and lesbians in their antidiscrimination codes, which prompted a backlash from conservative Christians. Most famously, entertainer Anita Bryant lead an anti-gay movement in Florida. Faderman credits Bryant as an accidental advocate for gay civil rights by bringing attention to their discrimination.
The 1980s is defined by the AIDS crisis and the deaths that devastated a generation of gay people. Faderman notes that AIDS had the effect of strengthening gay rights activism, with the shadow of death making previous infighting seem irrelevant, and prompting people to be greater radicalism. ACT UP, founded in New York in 1987, staged direct action events at government buildings, the New York Stock Exchanged, and churches to bring attention to the lack of action to treat people with AIDS and seek a cure. (Oddly enough, I had a run in with an angry conservative woman in the early 90s who said that gay men spit out communion at St. Patrick's Cathedral, which I'd always thought to be bigoted hyperbole, but it turns out it actually happened, although it makes more sense in the context of the protest).
I found the final chapters of the book that cover the 1990s and 2000s less interesting than the rest of the book, perhaps because it covered events that I remember living through. The focus here shifts from activist people and groups, to government action and becomes more a litany of court cases and presidential campaigns that affected gay civil rights, than the work of the people behind it. Still, this book is overall a good resource to get the big picture of struggle for LGBTQ equality.