Lillian Farman’s ‘The Gay Revolutn’ Giv an Epic Sweep to a Story of Reprsn and Ristance | PopMatters

Contents:

• THE GAY REVOLUTN
• ‘THE GAY REVOLUTN,’ BY LILLIAN FARMAN
• THE GAY REVOLUTN : THE STORY OF THE STGGLE
• THE GAY REVOLUTION
• BOOK REVIEW: THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE
• A 750-PAGE JOURNEY THROUGH GAY AMERIN HISTORY
• FARMAN'S THE GAY REVOLUTN A MT READ
• “THE GAY REVOLUTN”: AN INTERVIEW WH LILLIAN FARMAN
• LILLIAN FARMAN’S ‘THE GAY REVOLUTN’ GIV AN EPIC SWEEP TO A STORY OF REPRSN AND RISTANCE
• REVIEW OF LILLIAN FARMAN'S "GAY REVOLUTN" (JAH 2017)REVIEW OF LILLIAN FARMAN'S "GAY REVOLUTN" (JAH 2017)REVIEW OF LILLIAN FARMAN'S "GAY REVOLUTN" (JAH 2017)REVIEW OF LILLIAN FARMAN'S "GAY REVOLUTN" (JAH 2017)REVIEW OF LILLIAN FARMAN'S "GAY REVOLUTN" (JAH 2017)

THE GAY REVOLUTN

”3 His 1947 lecture to the Internatnal Associatn of Chiefs of Police on “Homosexualists and Sex Crim, ” a mol of bigotry and flawed logic, passed for science that lay people accepted uncrilly. The “born-male homosexualists, ” he asserted, are easy to spot by their female characteristics: their walk, body ntour, voice, mannerisms, texture of sk, and also their tert hoekeepg and theatril productns. He and his team had terviewed 5, 300 men, askg each of them over three hundred qutns: the Ksey Study found that 46 percent of Amerin mal admted that as adults they’d “reacted” sexually to both mal and femal; 37 percent admted to havg had at least one homosexual “experience” as an adult; 10 percent said that as adults they’d been “more or ls exclively homosexual” for at least three years.

‘THE GAY REVOLUTN,’ BY LILLIAN FARMAN

13 Four years later, horrified (as they’d expected to be) by what the study told about homosexuals and their “victims, ” the legislators passed a nstutnal amendment that created a Department of Alholic Beverage Control and add a sectn to the Bs and Profsns Co that said that a liquor license uld be revoked if a place was a “rort” where “sexual perverts” ngregated. Yet there was almost no public prott among gay bar-goers when Pearl’s was lost; nor when the North Coastal Area admistrator of the ABC, Sidney Feberg, clared a “vigoro” mpaign to revoke the licens of all gay tablishments the regn.

Though wealthy wh, pecially femal, didn’t generally get arrted and mted to state hospals for beg homosexual, as did people like Thomas Earl and Eldridge Rhos, they weren’t unsthed by the wispread assumptn that homosexualy was a sickns and need curg. Their knowledge on the subject me mostly om popular media—magaz such as the wily read Collier’s, which lled homosexualy “the biggt taboo, ” and associated wh “sexual maladjtment and sex crim that twist the liv of tens of thoands of people to patterns that are as piful as they are ugly. McDarrah/Getty ImagWhen you purchase an penntly reviewed book through our se, we earn an affiliate 2, 2015Lillian Farman’s “The Gay Revolutn: The Story of the Stggle” opens wh two vigt.

Bee of such works, the broad ntours of Farman’s narrative will be faiar to many rears — the wch hunts of the 1950s; the early homophile movement driven by anizatns like the Mattache Society and the Dghters of Bilis; the Stonewall rts of 1969; the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn’s classifitn, the 1970s, of homosexualy as a mental disorr; the AIDS crisis; the crimalizatn of sodomy; the implementatn and repeal of the ary’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy; and the ph for marriage Farman’s book populat even the faiar rners of gay history wh new and vivid life. In what scholars of inty have signated the problem of “tersectnaly, ” lbians found themselv fallg between two mps, outsirs to both a male-domated homophile movement and a straight-domated women’s movement. “The Gay Revolutn” tak up the major antagonists and protagonists of the movement — the stori of Ana Bryant and Harvey Milk are particularly ronant — but this is also a self-nscly rtorative acunt, markg the ntributns of figur, straight and gay, who are ls well known.

THE GAY REVOLUTN : THE STORY OF THE STGGLE

The psychologist Evelyn Hooker showed her lleagu 1953 that they uld not distguish between the psychologil tt rults of gays and straights, thereby begng to challenge the herence of homosexualy as a diagnostic tegory. Jeanne Manford, who helped start Parents and Friends of Lbians and Gays after one of her gay sons died of a dg overdose and another was btally beaten, “opened a whole new rhetoric” by transformg “the outst homosexual to somebody’s child, a member of the fay.

” The 1987 edn of Ronald Bayer’s book “Homosexualy and Amerin Psychiatry” scribed this speech as “by far the most dramatic event of the panel, ” but uld not or would not reveal the name of the speaker.

Lillian Farman set the amb goal of chroniclg the gay rights movement om s humble origs behd closed doors post–World War II California to the major legal victori of the Obama admistratn ncerng gay ary personnel and marriage equaly. Comparisons will be ma between Farman's work and the earlier tellg of the story, Dudley Clenden and Adam Nagourney's Out for Good: The Stggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement Ameri (1999).

THE GAY REVOLUTION

The Gay Revolutn not only offers an update, movg the story forward to ver gay marriage, but also go back time to pture the years before the 1969 rts at the Stonewall Inn and, I hope, to bury forever the myth that the gay rights movement began at that bar Greenwich Village.

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. Bee of gay monstratns, many of which were iated by LGBTQ Ain-Amerins and therefore were closely associated wh the civil rights movement, police btaly creased signifintly the 1970s (Kane, 2013; Stone, 2016).

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

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. Farman has plumbed the archiv of librari, newspapers, legislative bodi, lbian and gay anizatns, police fil, and also terviewed more than 100 activists and others to get this meticuloly rearched book to .

As Farman lays out lbian and gay history Ameri, we were/are a battle for our very liv, and she explas how and elics ttimony om the victims, the survivors, the activists, the nam lost to history and redisvered by her. Long before the Hoe UnAmerin Activi Commtee (HUAC), which self would and stroy many homosexuals (Farman addrs that later), police and prosecutors all over Ameri were huntg down closeted men and women who were jt tryg to live their gay and lbian liv, and arrtg them g vagrancy and lewdns laws and whatever else they uld fd. As Mart Duberman, founr of Cy Universy of New York’s Center for Lbian and Gay Studi to further LGBT scholarship and curriculum has said about this perd our LGBT history, “I’m overwhelmed at the great distance that we have all traveled.

Activism beme sential, and Farman troduc “The Homophil” to a new generatn (and possibly to olr generatns as well) three chapters voted to the burgeong movement for gay and lbian civil rights. Movg seamlsly om the HUAC heargs and McCarthy-era sr that stroyed many a homosexual life to the work of the early activist groups like the Mattache Society and Dghters of Bilis, Frank Kameny and Barbara Gtgs, Farman illum the work dividual gay men and lbians did to propel the very ncept of gay liberatn forward. And two women we now thk of as premiere activists, Del Mart and Phyllis Lyon, thought rried too much risk But whout radilizg the mass of lbians and gay men, there n be no acceptance of lbians and gay men as full cizens of our own untry, as Farman lays out.

A 750-PAGE JOURNEY THROUGH GAY AMERIN HISTORY

Farrman mov om the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn strikg homosexualy om s DSM 1973 to Ana Bryant rortg aga to the myth of “homosexuals” targetg children 1977 to the rise of Harvey Milk and his assassatn at the end of 1978.

As grippg as the early years of The Gay Revolutn are, I found the chapters most powerful—perhaps bee the are the years when my own activism was charged and bee, well, our people were dyg all around . She says what we all thought at the time: “AIDS uld easily have meant the end of the movement for gay civil rights—not jt bee extremists were llg for s end, but also bee gay people were paralyzed by nfn and fear.

FARMAN'S THE GAY REVOLUTN A MT READ

Farman charts the rise of ACT-UP and Queer Natn and NGLTF and a host of lol groups that began to flourish an attempt to unter the retroductn of the narrative that gays and lbians were a surge on Ameri. The applitn of law do not acunt for people like Kim Davis or the majory of the Republin ndidat for print who are stalwart their belief that lbians and gay men should not have the same protectns as heterosexuals. Hate crim agast lbians and gay men are on the rise, not the cle, wh three lbians victimized the New York area jt the past two weeks, one beg beaten and dragged om a rtrant while she was eatg wh her mother.

2015-10-25T20:00:27-04:00 Farman talked about her book, The Gay Revolutn: The Story of the Stggle, which she chronicl the gay revolutn om the 1950s, when homosexualy was nsired mentally ill, to the prent, cludg several landmark urt s.

“THE GAY REVOLUTN”: AN INTERVIEW WH LILLIAN FARMAN

Lillian Farman talked about her book, The Gay Revolutn: The Story of the Stggle, which she chronicl the gay revolutn om the 1950s, when homosexualy was nsired mentally ill, to the prent, cludg several landmark urt s.

The Washgton Post "This is the history of the gay and lbian movement that we’ve been wag for: pulsively readable, refully anchored the historil rerd, overflowg wh rivetg stori, human peculiari and thoughtful analysis of the msy polil ntradictns that dogged this untidy movement. The Amerin Prospect "The Gay Revolutn will equip rears wh a greater knowledge of the movement’s history, and an appreciatn for the ccial role of dividual acts of urage wng and safeguardg equaly.

The Gay Revolutn fills a yawng gap history lerature, providg rears for the first time wh a history of the entire LGBT civil rights movement, om s ceptn 1950 up through the current day. The fight for gay and lbian civil rights—the years of outrageo jtice, the early battl, the heart-breakg feats, and the victori beyond the dreams of the gay rights pneers—is the most important civil rights issue of the prent day.

LILLIAN FARMAN’S ‘THE GAY REVOLUTN’ GIV AN EPIC SWEEP TO A STORY OF REPRSN AND RISTANCE

In “the most prehensive history to date of Ameri’s gay-rights movement” (The Enomist), Lillian Farman tells this unfished story through the dramatic acunts of passnate stggl wh sweep, pth, and feelg. “A pellg read of a ltle-known part of our natn’s history, and of dividuals whose stori range om heart-wrenchg to spirg to enragg to motivatnal” (Chigo Tribune), The Gay Revolutn pats a nuanced portra of the LGBT civil rights movement. ” —The Washgton Post The sweepg story of the stggle for gay and lbian rights—based on amazg terviews wh policians, ary figur, and members of the entire LGBT muny who face the challeng every fight for gay and lbian civil rights—the years of outrageo jtice, the early battl, the heart-breakg feats, and the victori beyond the dreams of the gay rights pneers—is the most important civil rights issue of the prent day.

REVIEW OF LILLIAN FARMAN'S "GAY REVOLUTN" (JAH 2017)REVIEW OF LILLIAN FARMAN'S "GAY REVOLUTN" (JAH 2017)REVIEW OF LILLIAN FARMAN'S "GAY REVOLUTN" (JAH 2017)REVIEW OF LILLIAN FARMAN'S "GAY REVOLUTN" (JAH 2017)REVIEW OF LILLIAN FARMAN'S "GAY REVOLUTN" (JAH 2017)

Farman (Naked the Promised Land), a scholar of lbian history and lerature, renrs the slow transformatn of culture to a sweepg narrative of the Amerin stggle for gay and lbian civil rights. She digs ep to media and legislative archiv to nstct a prehensive narrative, begng the 1950s wh the spegoatg of homosexuals unr "vag-lewds" law and the first formulatn of homosexuals as a mory group, and ntug to the current and recent legal fights around the Employment Non-Discrimatn Act (ENDA), hate crime legislatn, and marriage equaly.