Origins of the LGBT Rights Movement

The following discussion of the origins of the LGBT (lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender) movement took place on WMST-L in
June 2002.  For additional WMST-L files available on the Web,
see the WMST-L File Collection.

Is there a history of the gay and lesbian rights movement useful for use
in freshman women's studies classrooms? Do different texts point to
different "origin dates?"


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mary Jo Aagerstoun
University of Maryland at College Park
mjaag     @     wam.umd.edu
www.artwomen.org
phone:(202)234-6038
fax:(202)332-1479
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have found the video called "Out of the Past" a nice introduction to
the idea of lesbian and gay rights.  It combines the stories of
several individuals living at different periods and representing
different classes.  The central story is that of a young woman
starting a GLBT club in a Utah high school.  So far I have found no
one objecting to the film and a strong positive feeling about lesbian
and gay people and rights at the end of the film.  The film itself
shows more than one origin date.

Out of the Past
Inverted Pictures
Dir: Jeff DuPre
Written: Michelle Farrari
70 min

Marilyn Grotzky
Auraria Library
Denver CO 80214

Hi to all who have responded so far:

Thanks for the ideas. One of the things I am having trouble with is
identifying "origin dates," for the gay/lesbian movement. Can some of you
make suggestions as to origin dates I can propose, and the problems with
them, such as, didn't include lesbians, didn't include bisexuals, didn't
include transgenders, or alternatively, historicizing the movment
development by the adding of "different" sexualities. Or is there a text
that does this?


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mary Jo Aagerstoun
University of Maryland at College Park
mjaag     @     wam.umd.edu
www.artwomen.org
phone:(202)234-6038
fax:(202)332-1479
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have been asked to define what I mean by the "origin" of (a) g-l
movement(s). Actually, what I wanted was when did g-l (and other) people
begin to join together in a mass approach to addressing issues around
discrimination and stereotyping...was it in the wake of the '60s antiwar
and Civil Rights approaches? Or was there something else going on earlier?

I would like to know this primarily for the US, but if there are solid
examples from other areas of the world, that would be great as well...


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mary Jo Aagerstoun
University of Maryland at College Park
mjaag     @     wam.umd.edu
www.artwomen.org
phone:(202)234-6038
fax:(202)332-1479
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A quick Google search using the terms "gay and lesbian history"
revealed a plethora of resources on Gay-Lesbian-BI-Trans history.
Among them are:

The International Museum of Gay and Lesbian History
http://www.gaymuseum.org

Bibliography of Gay & Lesbian history:
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/bibhist.htm

People with a History : An Online Guide to
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans* History
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh

I'm no expert, but I recall that the Stonewall incident (1969) in NYC
provides a significant demarcation point for the U.S. gay/lesbian
movements, but that there were attempts at organizing much earlier
than that. For example, there was the Mattachine Society, begun
California in the early 1950s, with a magazine that began publication
in 1953.

One of the things you have to ask yourself is, what counts as evidence
of a "mass approach to addressing issues..."?  Do you count
publication of a magazine? Or do you want to count from the time that
people started marching & demonstrating in a way that (however
briefly) gained the attention of national U.S. media? If the latter,
then 1969 would be your starting point. But that kind of glosses over
what had been done on a smaller scale earlier.

Georgia NeSmith
---
Georgia NeSmith, Ph.D.
Rochester, NY
georgia_nesmith     @     lycos.com

See my fiction, poetry, and other creative work at:
http://georgia_nesmith.tripod.com

> when did g-l (and other) people
>begin to join together in a mass approach to addressing issues around
>discrimination and stereotyping

I believe the LGB Rights movement is generally considered to have
started with the Stonewall Inn riots in NYC in 1969.  You can get
a capsule history of it at:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/

(I hope I've not misunderstood your question)

Margaret
--
Margaret Tarbet / oneko     @     att.net

An indispensable resource is John Scagliotti's film, Before Stonewall.

Eleanor Stein
Womens Studies Department
State University of New York at Albany
Albany, New York
stein.jones     @     verizon.net

Don't forget the Daughters of Bilitis, founded in the 50s by Del
Martin and Phyllis Lyon, and their publication *The Ladder* in which
Barbara Grier (founder of Naiad Press) wrote under the name Gene
Damon, and to which Lorraine Hansberry contributed.

Charlene

M. Charlene Ball, Ph.D., Academic Professional
Women's Studies Institute
Georgia State University
University Plaza
Atlanta, GA   30303-3083
404-651-4633
404-651-1398 fax
mcharleneball     @     gsu.edu
http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwwsi

Thanks to all who have sent me ideas...They are quite varied. Here are the
ones I have received so far via private email:

-- chapter three of Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold:  The History
of a Lesbian Community, by Elizabeth Kennedy and Madeline Davis (Penguin,
1993) because the whole book attempts to inform about what was happening
in working class communities

--last chapter in Steven Seidman's Contested Knowledge does this, at least
to some extent.  Sex and Sensibility by Arelene Stein also illuminates
issue of generation very well

-- If you want an authoritative, globally-valid date, I would pick 1864,
the year Karl Ulrich's published (pseudonymously) the first ever defense
of homosexuality and call for the repeal of repressive laws.

-- Neil Miller, "Out of the Past:  Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to
the Present." (1995, Vintage Books, Random House)  "Out of the Past"
(ironically the same title as the video recommended) is not a
textbook, but it is packed with information and quite a few photographs
and written in a style that your students will not find boring.  It's also
a good deal for the money--$16 for a 657 page paperback book.  Though
written by a man, it divides its attention nearly fifty-fifty between
lesbians and gays, and also covers "the Life" in North America, Europe,
China and Japan.  Running through the Clinton years, it says nothing about
bisexuality except historically (Bloomsbury, Harlem, etc.) or
transsexuality--but it certainly provides a good background for use with
more recently published material.  I've never taught with it, but I use it
as a general reference all the time. BTW, Miller begins with a careful
review of the diaries of Walt Whitman--I'd love to see the reaction of
young students to learning that Whitman was definitely gay and prowling
the streets of New York looking for sailors and working men.

--Dates, etc.----1950: Formation of the Mattachine Society (U.S.)--led by
Communist Party organizer Harry Hay.  Eventually (i.e., by 1965) led to
coalition effort with Daughter of Bilitis and Council on Religion and the
Homosexual.

1924: Founding of "Society for Human Rights," Chicago--by Henry Gerber.
First U.S. GLB public education and law reform group.  Quickly suppressed
by local police after incorporating and publishing the first issue of a
newspaper.

1911:  First gay rights organization organized outside Germany:  The
Dutch Scientific Humanitarian Committee (Nederlandsch Wetenschappelijik
Humanitair Komitee, NWHK).  Ironically, the NWHK was formed to fight the
backlash to establish laws against homosexuality--the Netherlands had
abolished its laws a century before!

c. 1897: Scientific Humanitarian Committee, founded by Dr. Magnus
Hirschfeld.  Repeatedly petitioned Imperial Reichstag to abolish
Paragraph 175, which criminalized homosexual acts between men.  According
to Miller, German states such as Bavaria and Hannover were repealing
their anti-gay laws in the years before unification of Germany under
Prussia established a national ban of homosexuality between men.

Clearly, the "gay-rights" movement began in Germany before WWI.

    One issue you will find is that legal prohibitions against
homosexuality were not in the laws of many Western states until the late
19th C.  Practically speaking, no gay rights movement without a sodomy
law.  It was true that lesbians were not even believed to exist by Queen
Victoria and her colleagues.  Not until 1911 did the Reichstag even
consider making sex between women illegal.
    On the other hand, 1861 marks the year the U.K. removed hanging as
the penalty for "buggery," or sodomy between men.  The hanging of the
last man for buggery was in 1836.  No parliamentary attempt was made in
the U.K. to legalize sodomy until 1954.
    Also relevant is that homosexuality was decriminalized by the U.K. in
1967, Canda in 1969.  In other words, even before the "hatpin drop" of
Stonewall. homosexuality was already legal in two important Commonwealth
countries, and it was never illegal in Holland.

Even in America, the conflict between whether "gay rights" means
repealing the sodomy laws (which in the extreme can be used to abolish
even discussion of homosexuality, much less the closing of "gay bars.")
and anti-discrimination measures is at least latently apparent.

--_Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers_ by Lillian Faderman (unless I completely
misremember the author) gives what I think is an excellent explanation of
how it's likely that people were having same-sex relationships, and those
relationships probably included activities we would call sexual (but that
they don't seem to have, at least in the case of women), but that no one
seems to have thought of themselves as 'gay' or 'lesbian' in the sense we
mean it today until the very early twentieth century.  Then you had the
Mattachine Society, which was mostly men, and the Daughters of Bilitis,
which was entirely female.  I'm recalling this from memory, but I think
both groups were very strong in the 1920's and 30's, and possibly earlier.

If the 1960's, and particularly Stonewall, has a major significance to gay
and lesbian people (speaking for myself, at least) it is that here was the
first instance of people fighting back--not of having a consciousness of
themselves as a group, but of having an awareness that they should be
skulking in dark alleys and shipyards or prim ladies drawing rooms--they
should be living as openly as anyone else.  :-)

 And I would be _very_ careful about including transpeople with the glbt
movement.  Transpeople have their own identity (I'm not trying to be
condescending, btw, I just automatically slide into Professor Mode when
writing these kinds of emails--please forgive), and they don't all (or
even most?) think of themselves as gay or even queer.  And the history of
the Michigan Womyn's Music festival would indicate that lesbians, at
least, are not at all happy to clasp transgendered women to their
metaphorical (or literal) bosoms.

Of course you can teach frosh without going into the sniping and politics,
but to me at least, it makes things much more interesting...

--I believe the LGB Rights movement is generally considered to have
started with the Stonewall Inn riots in NYC in 1969.  You can get a
capsule history of it at:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/

-- An indispensable resource is John Scagliotti's film, Before Stonewall.

-- John D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities.  Chronicles the
rise of a gay AND lesbian movement way before Stonewall.

Martin Duberman, Stonewall. Despite its name, also starts before 1969,
makes a good effort to cover gay and lesbian, as well as non-white
organizing, and is quite fun to read (almost like a novel).

Blasius and Phelan, eds.  We Are Everywhere.  A historical sourcebook of
gay and lesbian political documents (includes some trans stuff as well, i
believe).

I did not include here offerings made ON the list...

Thanks to all!

MJA
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mary Jo Aagerstoun University of Maryland at College Park
mjaag     @     wam.umd.edu www.artwomen.org phone:(202)234-6038 fax:(202)332-1479
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

on history of gay&lesbian movement:

Lillian Faderman (author of *Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers* and
*Surpassing the Love of Men*, both important histories of lesbians) is
also co-editor of a book entitled *Lesbian Feminism in
Turn-of-the-Century Germany*.  It mentions Magnus Herschfeld and
others and shows that women were definitely part of the homosexual
rights movement in Germany before WWI and that their movement was
feminist.

Also, Daughters of Bilitis wasn't founded until the 1950s (but I'm not
sure of the date.)

Charlene

M. Charlene Ball, Ph.D., Academic Professional
Women's Studies Institute
Georgia State University
University Plaza
Atlanta, GA   30303-3083
404-651-4633
404-651-1398 fax
mcharleneball     @     gsu.edu
http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwwsi

found on google

ONE/GAY & LESBIAN ARCHIVES
by Jim Kepner. Too many writers have claimed that, before the
Daughters of Bilitis started (San Francisco 1955) the homophile
movement, as it was then known ...  isd.usc.edu/~retter/onewomen.html

  The following is an abbreviated summary of what I wrote Dr. Aagerstoun,
which I am posting to clarify the most important point here:  The world GLB
movement began in Germany in 1897, not New York in 1969.


GLOBAL HISTORY

c. 1897: Scientific Humanitarian Committee.  Repeatedly used psychological
and legalistic arguments to petition Reichstag to abolish law criminalizing
homosexual acts between men.  Prior to unification in 1870, German states
such as Bavaria (1813) and Hannover (1840) were repealing their sodomy laws.

1911:  First gay rights organization organized outside Germany:  The Dutch
Scientific Humanitarian Committee, formed to fight an attempt to establish a
sodomy law.

    Clearly, as a functioning force applying influence on political
institutions, the world "gay-rights" movement began in Germany well before
the First World War.


By comparision:

UNITED STATES HISTORY

1924: First U.S. GLB group: "Society for Human Rights," chartered in
Chicago, devoted to public education and law reform.  Quickly crushed by
local police.

1950: First durable U.S. gay rights group:  Mattachine Society.  Founded in
Los Angeles, modeled after U.S. Communist Party.  Named after a medieval
French society of bachelors who conducted dances and rituals, wearing masks,
during the Feast of Fools.

1952-1953:  Mattachine mailed questionaires to candidates and circulated
leaflets.  Also began publishing a monthly magazine, and defended its right
to mail the magazine in the U.S. Supreme Court--successfully.

1955: First durable U.S. lesbian rights group: Daughters of Bilitis.  Formed
in San Francisco, named after a book by turn of the century author Pierre
Louy that included love poems between women.  The idea of DOB was to sound
like Daughters of the American Revolution or "a poetry club."

1961:  Washington D.C. chapter of Mattachine formed, begins making clear
that 1) homosexuality is not the result of mental illness, and 2) that
homosexuals, not doctors and lawyers, are the experts on homosexuality.

1964:  First White House demonstration against G-L employment
discrimination.

  Clearly, the U.S. had an open, functioning gay rights movement at least
five years (perhaps 27 years) before Stonewall.  While the "Gay Liberation"
movement was very different in tone, tactics and numbers, U.S. gay rights
activism far pre-dated 1969.


  For brevity, many honored names omitted.


Source:  Neil Miller, "Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to
the Present."  New York: Vintage Books (1995).  A general source I
recommend.


Hannah Miyamoto
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Social Change and Development, Senior
Women's Studies Emphasis
hsmiyamoto     @     msn.com
http://www.hannahmiyamoto.com/

 The Stonewall Riots of 1969 are often considered a "origin"
 of the Gay Liberation Movement.  (I've never heard it
 described as "Gay/Lesbian."  It seems to me that in
 Colorado, where I live, for at least a short time, gay meant
 both gay and lesbian.  It probably changed faster on the coasts.)

 The video I mentioned earlier (Out of the Past) shows at
 least one post-WWI attempt at a movement (the man who
 attempted the movement was dismissed from his job and most of
 his papers were taken by the police and never returned) and one
  pre-Stonewall movement attempt, but
 Stonewall seems to be the ignition point.  To find out more, I went
 to my library computer.

 Checking the InfoTrack Database called Expanded Academic Index (owned
 by most libraries) under "gay liberation and history," I found 107
 articles.  One reported that the Advocate (the gay and lesbian
 newsmagazine) started 2 years before Stonewall.  The lesbian bar
 Maud's in San Francisco opened about the same time (2 years prior to
 Stonewall), while homosexuality was against the law.  Females were
 not allowed to act as barkeepers either.  The first gay man to
 present a brief for gay legal equality rights was Franklin Kamony in
 1961. So Stonewall was probably more watershed than origin.

 You would, of course, get different results with searches such as
 "lesbian and rights and history" or "(gay or lesbian) > and (rights
 or history)".

 For library sources that might be of help, try
 http://carbon.cudenver.edu/public/library/instruction/glbt.html or,
 for net resources especially,
 http://carbon.cudenver.edu/public/library/libq/reference .  The
 second site, developed by Ellen Greenblatt, was the starting point
 for the first; the first site eliminated a lot of information
 directed toward librarians.

And most of all, where's Max?

Marilyn Grotzky
Marilyn.Grotzky     @     cudenver.edu
Auraria Library
Denver CO 80214

Regarding looking for texts to introduce gay and lesbian rights
history, I would highly recommend looking at _We Are Everywhere: A
Historical Sourcebook in Gay and Lesbian Politics_, edited by Mark
Blasius and Shane Phelan, Routledge, 1997. It's incredibly huge and
therefore probably inappropriate for the students to buy, but it's a
great resource. I think your questions about who gets excluded when
and what came before Stonewall and what came after would all get
answered in this book.

Jodi Kelber-Kaye
PhD Candidate, Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies
University of Arizona
jodik     @     u.arizona.edu

Again, how you define the beginning (or origin) of a movement depends
upon the *criteria you have for determining beginnings.* For example,
the 60s Civil Rights movement *in the U.S.* had origins much further
back in the abolitionist movement (and possibly even earlier). There
was certainly significant activity of the kind we saw in the 60s in
the 1950s -- e.g., Brown v. Board of Education, and the subequent
efforts to integrate schools. The difference is that the activity in
the 60s was much more widespread than it had been before, involved
many more people, and gained much more national press. And, of course,
this doesn't even begin to address what was happening world-wide.

I think it is perfectly legitimate to use a watershed event to define
a "beginning," so long as you acknowledge that, in order to have a
watershed event, there has to have been a great deal of work and
activity long before it. They don't just pop up out of the blue.

"Origin" in history is not a factual term, but is socially defined and
constructed in relationship to a socially defined and contructed
metanarrative (or set of metanarratives). You can spend a lot of time
deconstructing the metanarrative and establishing your own.

You can also set your criteria for definition, acknowlege its location
in a socially constructed metanarrative, and then move on to the topic
at hand -- assuming the point in your scholarship is not to challenge
historical metanarratives but rather to provide some kind of
historical sense for your subject.

We could trace the origins of practically everything back to human
pre-history if we want to. For example, as a matter of biological
"fact," every human being on this planet is of African descent --
rendering such terms as "African-American" rather absurd. Nonetheless,
the term "African-American" has a useful social purpose for the time
being.


Georgia
-------------
Georgia NeSmith, Ph.D.
Rochester, NY
georgia_nesmith     @     lycos.com

See my fiction, poetry, and other creative work at:
http://georgia_nesmith.tripod.com

Hi,
I was pleased to see the recent discussion about the history of the gay
rights movement, since queer theory is my main research focus, and I've
enjoyed reading the bibliographic suggestions posted so far.  I have taught
courses on queer identities and on lesbian & transgender communities which
have included a substantial historical component, and I wanted to add some
suggestions of books and films that I've found to be useful when teaching
l/g/b/t/q studies.  I hope it is not too late to add them here.

1) Marilyn Grotzky mentioned the San Francisco lesbian bar, Maud's.  I wanted
to add that there is a fantastic film called "Last Call At Maud's" (1993;
directed by Paris Poirier), which traces the history of the bar, which was
open from 1966 until the mid-1980s. With Maud's as a touch-point, the film
vividly narrates a history of the gay and lesbian movement, pre- and
post-Stonewall.  The Daughters of Bilitis is discussed (its founders, Del
Martin and Phyllis Lyons are interviewed, I believe--as are Judy Grahn,
Joanne Loulan, Sally Gearhart, and a number of other well-known lesbians).
The film is available from Frameline (www.frameline.org) and I highly
recommend it.
For another very visual cultural history, I also recommend a sort of
coffee-table book called _Gay By the Bay: A History of Queer Culture_ in the
San Francisco Bay Area, by Susan Stryker and Jim Van Buskirk.  (San
Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996.)  Along with brief, informative chapters
covering queer history from pre-WW2 through 1995, it is filled with archival
photographs and historical memorabilia (buttons, political posters, magazine
covers, etc.), which could make for some interesting classroom discussions on
ephemera, archives and historical documents, and high/low culture. There is
material on the transgender, as well as lesbian, gay and bisexual movements.

2) Regarding Daughters of Bilitis:  A recent colloquium at the Center for
Lesbian & Gay Studies at CUNY Graduate Center in New York featured a paper by
Marcia Gallo called "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun: The Daughters of Bilitis and
Lesbian Organizing in the 1950s." Gallo is working on her dissertation at
CUNY Graduate Center, and could probably be contacted through CLAGS
(www.clags.org).  Of course, you could also go straight to the source--the
book _Lesbian/Woman_, written by DOB founders Del Martin & Phyllis Lyons (NY:
Bantam, 1972).

3) Annamarie Jagose's _Queer Theory: An Introduction_ (NY: NYU Press, 1997),
which I think was mentioned on this list recently, is a good text for
undergraduate classes. It includes concise historical chapters on the
homophile movement, gay liberation, and lesbian feminism. (By the way, she
pinpoints the origin of the German homophile movement to 1869.) This history
is contextualized in terms of 1990s queer theory, and a general introduction
to  theorizing sexuality, gender and desire. (Jagose discusses Foucault's
approach to the history of sexuality, and topics such as essentialism, the
benefits and limits of identity politics, AIDS, and definitions/critiques of
the term "queer.")

4) As a complement to Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis's _Boots
of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community_ (NY:
Routledge, 1993), I have taught two autobiographical novels:  Audre Lorde's
_Zami: A New Spelling of My Name_, (Watertown, MA: Persephone, 1982), which
describes the gay bars of pre-Stonewall Greenwich Village, and Leslie
Feinberg's _Stone Butch Blues_ (Ithaca: Firebrand, 1993). Much of Feinberg's
novel is set in the gay bars of Buffalo, the site of Kennedy and Davis's oral
history research, so they work well together.  An interesting aspect of
Feinberg's story, in terms of the gay liberation and lesbian feminist
movements, is that despite their arguable centrality to the story, these
movements are positioned somewhat on the periphery during much of the
narrative, which focuses on labor and gender struggles, allowing a discussion
of location and class issues in these movements.

5) In terms of the various historical emergences of transgender and bisexual
movements, I'd recommend the following:
--Joshua Gamson, "Must Identity Movements Self-Destruct? A Queer Dilemma."
Social Problems, volume 42, no. 3 (August 1995). (Includes discussion of
letters to the editor of gay newspapers and debates over inclusion in 1993
gay pride parades, as well as in gay/lesbian/queer theory.)
--Steven Epstein.  "Gay Politics, Ethnic Identity: The Limits of Social
Constructionism."  Socialist Review, volume 17, no. 2, 10-54.
--Paula Rust.  Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics: Sex,
Loyalty, and Revolution.  NY: NYU Press, 1995. (Sociological study that
includes detailed historical discussion of relationship of lesbianism to
feminism in the 1970s & 80s, and the emergence of bisexual activism.)
--Riki Anne Wilchins.  Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender.
 Ithaca: Firebrand Books, 1997. (Includes a timeline on transgender activism,
photographs from demonstrations, and a glossary.)
--Jay Prosser. "Transgender." In Lesbian & Gay Studies: A Critical
Introduction. Andy Medhurst and Sally R.  Munt, eds.  London: Cassell, 1997.
(Argues for a discipline of transgender/transsexual studies.)
--The Village Voice: "The Queer Issue," 1992.  (A neat time-capsule of the
early 1990s queer movement, with round-table discussion including Eve
Sedgwick and others.)

6) Here are a few other books that I have included on bibliographies of
further reading for my classes:

**Pre-Stonewall history:
Brett Beemyn, ed. Creating a  Place for Ourselves: Gay Community  History.
NY: Routledge, 1997.  (Emphasizes communities in the midwest, south, and
northeastern US, rather than the "gay meccas" of San Francisco and NYC.)
Alan Berube.  Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in
World War II.  NY: Macmillan, 1990.
George Chauncey.  Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the
Gay Male World, 1890-1940.  NY:  Harper Collins, 1994.
John D'Emilio. Sexual Politics,  Sexual Communities: The Making of a
Homosexual Minority in the United States.  Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1983.
Esther Newton.  Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America.  Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1979.

**Gay Liberation and Lesbian Feminism (1970s):
Barry D. Adam.  The Rise of a Gay & Lesbian Movement.  Boston: Twayne, 1987.
Margaret Cruikshank.  The Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement.  NY:
Routledge, 1992.
Karla Jay and Allen Young, eds.  Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay
Liberation.  London: Gay Men's Press, 1972; 1992.
Karla Jay.  Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation.  NY: Basic
Books, 1999.
Jonathan Ned Katz.  Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA.
NY: Thomas Cromwell, 1976.
Lisa Power.  No Bath But Plenty of Bubbles: An Oral History of the Gay
Liberation Front, 1970-1973.  London: Cassell, 1995.
Becki L. Ross.  The House That Jill Built: A Lesbian Nation in Formation.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.

**History of Homosexual Politics in Britain (might complement the material on
the 19th century German homophile movement):
Jeffrey Weeks.  Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain from the 19th
Century to the Present.  London: Quartet, 1977.

**19th & early 20th century analyses of sexuality and gender:
Lucy Bland and Laura Doan, eds.  Sexology in Culture: Labelling Bodies and
Desires.  Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Lucy Bland and Laura Doan, eds.  Sexology Uncensored: The Documents of Sexual
Science. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Jay Prosser. Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality.  NY:
Columbia University Press, 1998.

Hope I haven't exhausted you all with this.  I look forward to more
discussion and suggestions.

Shifra Diamond
Ph.D. Program in Human Sciences
George Washington University
E-mail:  shifradiam    AT    aol.com  (or sdiamond    AT    gwu.edu)