The Book Club That Helped Spark the Gay-Rights Movement | The New Yorker

Contents:

• THE BOOK CLUB THAT HELPED SPARK THE GAY-RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• BOOK REVIEW: THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE
• GAY RIGHTS
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT BEFORE THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• 3 BOOKS ON THE EVOLUTN OF THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

THE BOOK CLUB THAT HELPED SPARK THE GAY-RIGHTS MOVEMENT

In honor of LGBTQ History Month, celebrated every October, here are books that aim to shed light on and clarify signifint historil moments that rmed and shaped the morn lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer rights movement. "The Gay Revolutn: The Story of the Stggle" by Lillian FarmanA thorough troductn to the history of the gay and lbian civil rights movements, this book chronicl the early stggl of LGBTQ dividuals om the 1950s to prent day g a pilatn of enlighteng terviews wh policians, ary officials and members of the muny.

"When We Rise: My Life the Movement" by Cleve JonThis semi-tobgraphil acunt follows Cleve Jon as he explor his inty as a gay man the 1950s, disvers a muny and a e through his mentor, Harvey Milk, and p wh the ravagg effects of the AIDS epimic. "Sister Outsir: Essays and Speech" by Audre LorA celebratn of tersectnaly, black lbian poet and femist Audre Lor analyz the prence of ageism, sexism, racism, classism and homophobia her own life through a llectn of lyril says and speech. "The Men wh the Pk Triangle" by Hez Heger (Used)In lurid tail, Hez Hager unfolds the te story of Josef Kohout — a man who was imprisoned a Nazi ncentratn mp for beg gay — and effectively remds the world of the torture gay dividuals suffered at the hands of the Nazi regime.

JohnsonWh the help of classified documents and terview wh ary officials, David Johnson argu that Senator Joseph McCarthy was jt as guilty of promotg anti-Communism paranoia as he was spirg polici that nsired homosexualy a threat to natnal secury.

BOOK REVIEW: THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE

"The Celluloid Closet: Homosexualy the Movi" by Vo RsoPublished 1987, Rso’s analysis of the portrayal of homosexualy film has laid the foundatn for the how we evaluate LGBTQ reprentatn film today and has supported the argument that reprentatn matters. The Uned Stat of Ameri" by Eric CerviWhile many believe the fight for LGBTQ rights began at New York Cy’s Stonewall Inn durg the summer of 1969, actually began wh a grassroots “homophile” movement that has been largely overlooked. He’d always assumed that, by the time he entered his twenti, he would velop sir for women, then marry and have 1954, on a bs trip to Cleveland, Segura stopped by a bookstore and saw a py of “The Homosexual Ameri, ” by Donald Webster Cory.

The service didn’t have meetgs; Cory simply selected books and sent the tl to his rears, highlightg everythg om Marc Branl’s novel “The Barriers Between, ” about a man who murrs his iend for “unnatural advanc, ” to “Homosexualy and the Wtern Christian Tradn, ” a gay theologil history that Cory scribed as “the book that hundreds of our rears have been searchg for, ” one that “they uld give to iends, fay, and unsellors. ” Víctor Macías-González, a historian and the thor of a paper on Tony Segura, told me that many queer people refed to buy gay books, stead borrowg them through rental servic, which a number of bookstor had at the yet the early fifti saw a boom queer lerature, driven part by the rise of cheap paperbacks. Together, they figured, they would have a direct le to the gay book the book service’s gural issue, sent out September, 1952, Cory promised that many of the books he featured would be available to his subscribers before they h stor.

Cory do seem to have had a legal team vettg which books he remend: when Jay Ltle, a gay thor, wrote to Cory about placg his book “Maybe-Tomorrow” wh the service, Cory replied that, although he enjoyed the novel, “We have not only been advised, but orred by our lawyers, not to e your book.

GAY RIGHTS

At a discsn group sponsored by the Mattache Society—a secretive gay anizatn that had formed Los Angel 1950—someone mentned the Cory Book Service, and soon afterward an attene ntacted Cory, askg for fifty newsletter-subscriptn rds. Such notable rearchers as John Boswell, Shari Benstock, Carroll Smh-Rosenberg, Jefey Weeks and John D’E illumate gay and lbian life as evolved plac as diverse as the Athens of Plato, Renaissance Italy, Victorian London, jazz Age Harlem, Revolutnary Rsia, Nazi Germany, Castro’s Cuba, post-World War II San Francis—and peopl as varied as South Ain black mers, Amerin Indians, Che urtiers, Japane samurai, English schoolboys and girls, and urban workg women.

“Unspeakable documents the major phas the evolutn of the gay and lbian prs while providg a wdow to the history of the movement, om the era of McCarthyism to the ancy of the ’60s and the Stonewall Rts, om the liberaly of the ’70s to the issue of AIDS the ’80s and the ‘outg’ of the ’90s”. Retracg the evolutn of sexology, and revisg morn epistemologil tegori of sexualy psychoanalysis, gay liberatn, social nstctnism, queer theory, blogy, and human geics, Angelis argu that bisexualy has historilly functned as the stctural other to sexual inty self, unrmg assumptns about heterosexualy and homosexualy. Centered on the sexualy of racialized queer female subjects, the book’s varied archive—which clus burlque borr crossgs, daddy play, pornography, sodomy laws, and sovereignty claims—seeks to brg to the fore alternative sexual practic and machatns that exist outsi the sightl of mastream smopolan gay male culture.

By examg the procs of intifitn the work of filmmakers, performance artists, ethnographers, Cuban choteo, forms of gay male mass culture (such as pornography), mms, art photography, mp and drag, and televisn, Muñoz persistently pots to the tersectg and short-circug of inti and sir that rult om misalignments wh the cultural and iologil mastream ntemporary urban Ameri. In Comg Out Unr Fire, Allan Bebe exam pth and tail the social and polil nontatn—not as a story of how the ary victimized homosexuals, but as a story of how a dynamic power relatnship veloped between gay cizens and their ernment, transformg them both. Drawg on GIs’ wartime letters, extensive terviews wh gay veterans, and classified ary documents, Bebe thoughtfully nstcts a startlg history of the two wars gay ary men and women fought—one for Ameri and another as homosexuals wh the ary.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Drawg on newly classified documents and terviews wh former ernment officials, historian David Johnson chronicl how the myth that homosexuals threatened natnal secury termed ernment policy for s, ed thoands of liv, and phed many to suici. Now, based on hundreds of terviews, an exhstive search of public and prevly sealed fil, and over a of tensive rearch to the history and the topic, Stonewall: The Rts That Sparked the Gay Revolutn brgs this sgular event to vivid life this, the five story of one of history’s most sgular events”.

Bullock discs how gay, lbian, and bisexual performers fluenced Jazz and Blu; exam the almost fotten Pansy Craze the years between the two World Wars (when many LGBT performers were feted by royalty and Hollywood alike); chronicl the dark years after the prsn when gay life was driven ep unrground; celebrat the re-emergence of LGBT performers the post-Stonewall years; and highlights today’s most legendary out-gay pop stars: Elton John, Boy Gee, Freddie Mercury, and Gee Michael. “Queer Imag surveys a wi variety of films, dividuals, and subcultur, cludg the work of discreetly homosexual filmmakers durg Hollywood’s Goln Age; classil Hollywood’s (failed) attempt to purge ‘sex perversn’ om films; the velopment of gay male mp Hollywood cema; queer exploatn films and gay physique films; the queerns of 1960s Unrground Film practice; pennt lbian documentari and experimental films; cematic rpons to the AIDS crisis; the rise and impact of New Queer Cema; the growth of LGBT film ftivals; and how ntemporary Hollywood als wh queer issu. Chroniclg the pictns of gay people such as the ‘sissy’ rol of Edward Everett Horton and Frankl Pangborn 1930s edi or predatory lbians 1950s dramas (see Lren Ball  Young Man wh a Horn and Barbara Stanwyck  Walk on the Wild Si), Rso tails how homophobic stereotyp have both reflected and perpetrated the opprsn of gay people.

When Garrard was a neteen-year-old llege stunt, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changg cisn: eher agree to attend a church-supported nversn therapy program that promised to ‘cure’ him of homosexualy; or risk losg fay, iends, and the God he had prayed to every day of his life.

THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT BEFORE THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

“Known as ‘The Mayor of Castro Street’ even before he was elected to the San Francis Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk’s personal and polil life is a story full of personal tragedi and polil trigu, assassatns at Cy Hall, massive rts the streets, the misrriage of jtice, and the nsolidatn of gay power and gay hope. It offers a prehensive acunt of the ntemporary movement for gay, lbian, and trans rights, om the 1950s to the current time, focg on fascatg nversatns wh polil lears, soldiers, civil advot, and reprentativ of the LGBT populatn who experience such stggl on a daily basis.

In 1953, psychiatrist Evelyn Hooker monstrated to her workers that they uld not tell the difference between the psychiatric evaluatn fdgs of straight and gay people, th startg to qutn the nsens of homosexualy as a medil group (p. As a matter of fact, nsirg that LGBTQ people are beg an creasgly mted, regnized, and visible part of society (Chan, 2021), “The Gay Revolutn” is an exceedgly important book sce illtrat the origs and fluenc of the LGBTQ movement.

Army service World War I, Gerber was spired to create his anizatn by the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee, a “homosexual emancipatn” group ’s small group published a few issu of s newsletter “Friendship and Freedom, ” the untry’s first gay-tert newsletter. Ernment signated Gerber’s Chigo hoe a Natnal Historic Pk TriangleCorbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, gay rights movement stagnated for the next few s, though LGBT dividuals around the world did e to the spotlight a few example, English poet and thor Radclyffe Hall stirred up ntroversy 1928 when she published her lbian-themed novel, The Well of Lonels. Addnally, 1948, his book Sexual Behavr the Human Male, Aled Ksey proposed that male sexual orientatn li on a ntuum between exclively homosexual to exclively Homophile Years In 1950, Harry Hay found the Mattache Foundatn, one of the natn’s first gay rights group.

3 BOOKS ON THE EVOLUTN OF THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

”Though started off small, the foundatn, which sought to improve the liv of gay men through discsn groups and related activi, expand after foundg member Dale Jenngs was arrted 1952 for solicatn and then later set ee due to a adlocked the end of the year, Jenngs formed another anizatn lled One, Inc., which weled women and published ONE, the untry’s first pro-gay magaze. Post Office, which 1954 clared the magaze “obscene” and refed to liver Mattache Society Mattache Foundatn members rtctured the anizatn to form the Mattache Society, which had lol chapters other parts of the untry and 1955 began publishg the untry’s send gay publitn, The Mattache Review.

That same year, four lbian upl San Francis found an anizatn lled the Dghters of Bilis, which soon began publishg a newsletter lled The Ladr, the first lbian publitn of any early years of the movement also faced some notable setbacks: the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn listed homosexualy as a form of mental disorr followg year, Print Dwight D. ”In fear of beg shut down by thori, bartenrs would ny drks to patrons spected of beg gay or kick them out altogether; others would serve them drks but force them to s facg away om other ctomers to prevent them om 1966, members of the Mattache Society New York Cy staged a “sip-”—a twist on the “s-” protts of the 1960s— which they vised taverns, clared themselv gay, and waed to be turned away so they uld sue.