Book review: The Gay Revolutn: the Story of the Stggle, by Lillian Farman – Rabow Round Table Book and Media Reviews

Contents:

• ‘THE GAY REVOLUTN,’ BY LILLIAN FARMAN
• THE GAY REVOLUTN
• THE GAY REVOLUTION
• THE GAY REVOLUTN : THE STORY OF THE STGGLE
• BOOK REVIEW: THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE
• FARMAN'S THE GAY REVOLUTN A MT READ
• REVIEW: 'THE GAY REVOLUTN' BY LILLIAN FARMAN
• THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE
• “THE GAY REVOLUTN”: AN INTERVIEW WH LILLIAN FARMAN
• BOOK REVIEW: THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE, BY LILLIAN FARMAN

‘THE GAY REVOLUTN,’ BY LILLIAN FARMAN

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 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.

THE GAY REVOLUTION

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.

THE GAY REVOLUTN : THE STORY OF THE STGGLE

”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. Though Simon granted that some homosexualists live as “cent members of society, ” many, he sisted, have psychopathic personali, are different to public opn, and bee “predatory prostut.

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

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.

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. 14 The newly created ABC was charged wh matag public safety tablishments that served alhol—and homosexualy, the legislature and most of Ameri agreed, was tensely jur to the public. 15 • • • Lbians were ls likely than homosexual men to make a sexual move on a stranger after a brief nversatn, but women agents and unrver officers were sent to lbian bars as spi.

FARMAN'S THE GAY REVOLUTN A MT READ

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.

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. Her scriptns of the Gay Activists Alliance's “zaps” (r public monstratns signed to embarrass public figur)—pecially the equent zaps of New York Cy mayor John Ldsay—are vivid. 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).

REVIEW: 'THE GAY REVOLUTN' BY LILLIAN FARMAN

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.

THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE

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 GAY REVOLUTN”: AN INTERVIEW WH LILLIAN FARMAN

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.

BOOK REVIEW: THE GAY REVOLUTN: THE STORY OF THE STGGLE, BY LILLIAN FARMAN

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. 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.

The Gay Revolutn begs the 1950s, when gays and lbians were crimals, psychiatrists saw them as mentally ill, church saw them as sners, and society victimized them wh hatred. “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. 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.