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Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'
A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski
3 reviews
bbymac's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Sexism, Transphobia, and Colonisation
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Acephobia/Arophobia, Antisemitism, Forced institutionalization, Ableism, Outing, Xenophobia, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Hate crime, Mental illness, Police brutality, and Drug use
These are for topics mentioned in the book. There aren’t many personal narratives experiencing these things since it’s looking at historical events unsung a removed context. The author also does not express these views himself, merely shared stories of overcoming adversity.lilacs_book_bower's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
While this book wasn't what I expected, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it would be more like a walkthrough of historical events (names and places, etc), but Bronski takes a bigger picture look at the cultural and historical events that were happening and how those affected LGBTQ people in the US, and how they affected US history as well. This is more of a sociological look at Queer US History. Bronski discusses things like how a war might have changed the notion of the "ideal American man" and how moving to cities during the Industrial Revolution allowed people in queer communities to find each other. I thought it was a very interesting take and brought up a lot of things that I hadn't considered.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Physical abuse, Classism, Outing, Terminal illness, Homophobia, Murder, Deportation, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Transphobia, and Violence
wogslandwriter's review
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
This book would be better titled A Gay History of the United States because the white gay male bias of the author is extremely strong and handicaps his narrative in many ways. I learned a lot reading this book and I really appreciated the expansive way in which Bronski approached gay history. He aimed to provide historical details and context for the queer events and people he wrote about while also building a historical narrative for the reader to trace gay history through time and through the American history they likely already know.
However, his bias was extremely strong. He focused mainly on the gay males, usually white gay males of history. When Bronski did discuss women or transgender people, not nearly as much deferrence was shown nor as much information was shared overall. His discussion of transgender people was fraught with misgendering of nonbinary people such as the Public Universal Friend and misgendering transgender men. He also barely discussed transgender women throughout history.
Bronski's history is interesting to read and I learned a lot. However, it also drove home how important it is for transgender people to tell our own stories because even our alleged community leaders leave us out of the history of our own community. Every mention of transgender people felt like Bronski was just tacking us on, so that he could call the book and LGBT history without actually discussing the transgender history of the United States. This book would have been much better if Bronski had been honest and aware of his bias. If I had known going it the book was almost entirely about cisgender gay men I would have been much less annoyed at the exclusion of the rich history of transgender people.
Overall, I would not recommend this book to a friend without finding a book on transgender history to recommend alongside it.
However, his bias was extremely strong. He focused mainly on the gay males, usually white gay males of history. When Bronski did discuss women or transgender people, not nearly as much deferrence was shown nor as much information was shared overall. His discussion of transgender people was fraught with misgendering of nonbinary people such as the Public Universal Friend and misgendering transgender men. He also barely discussed transgender women throughout history.
Bronski's history is interesting to read and I learned a lot. However, it also drove home how important it is for transgender people to tell our own stories because even our alleged community leaders leave us out of the history of our own community. Every mention of transgender people felt like Bronski was just tacking us on, so that he could call the book and LGBT history without actually discussing the transgender history of the United States. This book would have been much better if Bronski had been honest and aware of his bias. If I had known going it the book was almost entirely about cisgender gay men I would have been much less annoyed at the exclusion of the rich history of transgender people.
Overall, I would not recommend this book to a friend without finding a book on transgender history to recommend alongside it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Outing, Sexism, Transphobia, Sexual content, Slavery, Terminal illness, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Hate crime, and Homophobia
Minor: Forced institutionalization, Genocide, and Deadnaming
This book covers the history of gay people in the US from precolonial to modern times, so there is discussion of the violence done against us and other minority groups. The AIDs epidemic is also discussed in later chapters.
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