A century ago in Nevada the idea that there was a queer community worthy of equal right, privilege, and responsibility was beyond imagining. Same-gender love was a criminal offense and Nevada’s LGBTQ community faced a desperate battle for equality. As time passed, however, their movement slowly gained momentum. Bars, bookstores, and bathhouses were among the first places where those who identified as queer could gather. Once isolated and fearful, queer people now could gain support and find their voice. Some of the most outspoken activists went on to publish magazines and spearhead groundbreaking events such as Gay Pride and the Reno Gay Rodeo. Out of the Neon Closet is a thoroughly researched narrative of the Nevada queer community’s struggle, with history gathered from a wide range of printed sources and dozens of interviews recorded over a twenty-year period. Author Dennis McBride describes private social gatherings and high-profile events with the same care that he reports legal incidents and political upheaval. From early twentieth century sodomy prosecutions through the legalization of same-gender marriage a hundred years later, Out of the Neon Closet recounts the personal struggles and political successes that have made Nevada’s queer community what it is today.

The long nineteenth century witnessed the rapid evolution of the American experiment. For men who desired sex with other men, it was a time marked by both bold exploration and tentative community building, as issues of sexual orientation and gender identity played out against the backdrop of a new nation in the process of creating itself. For the most part, these individuals had neither words nor theory to explain their sexual desires, but they left behind fragments of their stories in widely-dispersed archival sources. The essays in this collection, many first published in the Gay & Lesbian Review, cover a diverse range of experiences, gathering together the scattered stories of men who found ways of connecting—at a time and in a country where men like them needed to remain prudently unknown.

This inspiring biography of Craig Rodwell illuminates the life of a central activist and conscience of gay liberation, the visionary founder of the landmark Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop and the prime mover behind the inaugural pride march of 1970.

Set against the vibrant backdrop of New York and Chicago, Insist That They Love You presents a comprehensive biography of Craig Rodwell, an unheralded yet pivotal figure in the militant gay rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Award-winning journalist John Van Hoesen explores cities grappling with social change, while highlighting Craig Rodwell’s transformative impact. The book traces Rodwell’s journey from a complicated childhood in a Christian Science boarding school and turbulent teenage years to his prominent role as an activist in adulthood. Founder of the first bookstore of its kind dedicated to gay and lesbian literature – the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop – Rodwell played a crucial role in the early protests for gay rights, the Stonewall Riots, and the inaugural pride march of 1970. The book also thoughtfully considers the trajectory of Rodwell’s tumultuous personal life, including his relationship with Harvey Milk. Insist That They Love You honours Rodwell’s vital contributions to the gay rights movement, bringing to life for readers the fearless determination and hard work that built today’s freedoms. This compelling biography inspires readers to reflect on the power of truth, courage, and action to further social change.

Nearly fifteen years before the Stonewall Rebellion and the birth of gay liberation came the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB). Like its predominantly gay male counterparts, the Mattachine Society and ONE, Inc., DOB was launched in response to the oppressive antihomosexual climate of the McCarthy era, when lesbian and gay people were arrested, fired from jobs, and had their children taken away simply on the basis of their sexual orientation. It was against this political backdrop that in 1955 a circle of San Francisco women formed a private club where lesbians could meet other lesbians in a safe, affirming setting. A year later, they produced The Ladder, the first ongoing monthly magazine for lesbians. Over the next two decades, what began as a small social group evolved into a national women's organization that counted more than a dozen chapters.

In Different Daughters, Marcia Gallo draws on interviews with former members of DOB, many of whom have never spoken on record before, as well as extensive research in both archival and personal collections. She chronicles how through its leaders, magazine, and international network of activists, the Daughters played a crucial role in creating lesbian identity, visibility, and political strategies in Cold War America--and in the process laid the foundation for today's lesbian and feminist movements.

In "No One Helped" Marcia M. Gallo examines one of America's most infamous true-crime stories: the 1964 rape and murder of Catherine "Kitty" Genovese in a middle-class neighborhood of Queens, New York. Front-page reports in the New York Times incorrectly identified thirty-eight indifferent witnesses to the crime, fueling fears of apathy and urban decay. Genovese's life, including her lesbian relationship, also was obscured in media accounts of the crime. Fifty years later, the story of Kitty Genovese continues to circulate in popular culture. Although it is now widely known that there were far fewer actual witnesses to the crime than was reported in 1964, the moral of the story continues to be urban apathy. "No One Helped" traces the Genovese story's development and resilience while challenging the myth it created."No One Helped" places the conscious creation and promotion of the Genovese story within a changing urban environment. Gallo reviews New York's shifting racial and economic demographics and explores post–World War II examinations of conscience regarding the horrors of Nazism. These were important factors in the uncritical acceptance of the story by most media, political leaders, and the public despite repeated protests from Genovese's Kew Gardens neighbors at their inaccurate portrayal. The crime led to advances in criminal justice and psychology, such as the development of the 911 emergency system and numerous studies of bystander behaviors. Gallo emphasizes that the response to the crime also led to increased community organizing as well as feminist campaigns against sexual violence. Even though the particulars of the sad story of her death were distorted, Kitty Genovese left an enduring legacy of positive changes to the urban environment.

Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present was first published in 1981 by William Morrow; was a New York Times Notable Book of 1981; won the Stonewall Book Award in 1982; was named by Lambda Literary Review as One of the 100 Best…

For decades, the history of sexuality has been a multidisciplinary project serving competing agendas. Lesbian, gay and queer scholars have produced powerful narratives by tracing back as continuous or discontinuous a homosexual or queer subject. Yet organizing historical work around modern…

Fashioning Sapphism draws on the tools of historical inquiry, the theoretical strengths of feminist and queer theories, and the interpretive strategies of various disciplines to scrutinize the social, cultural and political context surrounding the 1928 publication of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of…

In September 1897 Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) contemplated crafting a poem to his new love, western writer Charles Warren Stoddard. Recently arrived in California, Noguchi was in awe of the established writer and the two had struck up a passionate correspondence. Still, he viewed their relationship as…

The variety of gay life in Chicago is too abundant and too diverse to be contained in a single place. But since 1981, the Gerbert/Hart Library & Archives on the city’s North Side has strived to do just that, amassing and cataloging a wealth of records related to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender,…

Bayard Rustin is one of the most important social justice activists in mid-twentieth-century U.S. history. He was a critical figure in the movement for racial justice and equality. Before Martin Luther King, Jr., before Malcolm X, Rustin was working to bring the cause to the forefront of America’s…

Eve Adams was a rebel. Born Chawa Zloczewer into a Jewish family in Poland, Adams emigrated to the United States in 1912. The young woman took a new name, befriended anarchists, sold radical publications, and ran lesbian-and-gay-friendly speakeasies in Chicago and New York.

Then, in 1925, Adams…

Evidence of Being opens on a grim scene: Washington DC’s gay black community in the 1980s, ravaged by AIDS, the crack epidemic, and a series of unsolved murders, seemingly abandoned by the government and mainstream culture. Yet in this darkest of moments, a new vision of community and hope managed…

The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History presents a broad overview and more than 200 primary sources on the LGBT rebellion that erupted when New York City police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar in 1969. The book explores the developments in the 1960s that culminated in the uprising, the…

Over the course of the last half century, queer history has developed as a collaborative project involving academic researchers, community scholars, and the public. Initially rejected by most colleges and universities, queer history was sustained for many years by community-based contributors and…

Drawn from the life narratives of more than seventy African American queer women who were born, raised, and continue to reside in the American South, this book powerfully reveals the way these women experience and express racial, sexual, gender, and class identities--all linked by a place where such…

Recent victories for LGBT rights, especially the spread of same-sex marriage, have gone faster than most people imagined possible. Yet the accompanying rise of gay 'normality' has been disconcerting for activists with radical sympathies. Global in scope and drawing on a wide range of feminist,…

This authoritative reference guide covers the first twelve years of the organized homophile/gay liberation movement in Canada, from 1964 (when the Association for Social Knowledge [ASK], Canada's first large-scale homophile organization, was formed in Vancouver) through 1975 (the year of the…

This comprehensive reference guide is a continuation of Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada: A Selected Annotated Chronology, 1964–1975. It starts where the first volume left off, and highlights some of the seminal events and people involved in the fight for gay rights in Canada to the end of 1981.…

The autobiography of Jim Egan (1921–2000), Canada's pioneer gay activist, who publicly fought for gay civil rights from 1949 through the 1990s.

“I cannot understand why so many men spend years, sometimes even a lifetime, agonizing over the fact that they are gay. Homosexuality was never a problem…

This illustrated history highlights the triumphs and tribulations of publishing an openly gay periodical in Toronto in the mid-1960s, several years before the establishment of a viable Canadian gay liberation movement. GAY lasted only two years, and was in many ways a failure. But it also had…

Models are everywhere. From the couture runway to the catalogue shoot, models sell things by soliciting our attention, sparking our desires. Whether performing live or in front of the camera, models produce sales through the affective labor of posing. Models do the work of representation in…

Poised on the edge of the United States and at the center of a wider Caribbean world, today’s Miami is marketed as an international tourist hub that embraces gender and sexual difference. As Julio Capó Jr. shows in this fascinating history, Miami’s transnational connections reveal that the city has…

LGBT activism is often imagined as a self-contained struggle, inspired by but set apart from other social movements. Lavender and Red recounts a far different story: a history of queer radicals who understood their sexual liberation as intertwined with solidarity against imperialism, war, and…

Contagious Divides explores a century of epidemics and racial crises to show how Chinese immigrants were demonized as medical menace in the nineteenth century to model citizen in the mid-twentieth century. Public health officials, politicians, women social reformers, white labor union leaders and…