A review by aimiller
A Queer History of the United States for Young People by Michael Bronski

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

2.0

Oh what a mess of a book. As other reviews have noted, there's a great deal of confusion around language in this book--it doesn't seem to know what to do with trans people in general, conflating trans-ness with sexuality in some parts and separating it with others (which theoretically I'd be fine with except for the inconsistency of it all--it feels more like a mistake than a political move.) 

I think my biggest beef with it all (beyond yknow the nationalism of tying up queer history with US history and in particular with American myths about ourselves, which I think we should be questioning, but it also like makes sense given the title,) is the inconsistency overall in methodology with regards to whether or not we can call someone from the past "gay" or "trans." The authors (and I'm unclear how much of this is the original text itself or the way it's been adjusted for "young people" (more on that later)) lay out that we can't do this, which is of course a valid way of approaching queer history, but then in the actual chapters there's a lot of flopping back and forth on whether or not we can claim a history from these people. As an example, when talking about Emily Dickinson, the text reads "However she may have thought of herself, Emily Dickinson was certainly a woman who loved other women." It all feels very like trying to have your cake and eat it too, and while I understand the tension--to offer youth a history grounded in an awareness of the way that our ideas about sex and sexuality have changed over time--I don't think this is a good way of approaching it (and I think settling a history in individuals is also a bad way of going about it, but yknow here we are I guess.) 

The other issue I have is who this book is aimed at. I assumed (and picked up the book based on the idea that) this book is aimed at young teens, maybe ages 12+. The book itself seems to indicate it's aimed at people in their late teens and early twenties--not in terms of how the language is written (I still thought it was aimed at 12 year olds reading it!) but with an actual phrasing that comes late in the text. And while I wouldn't discourage an 18 year old from reading this book (I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading anything!) I think you can probably read a much better queer history book for adults and get a better sense of the history. 

Overall this was most disappointing because young people deserve better than this! I haven't yet found a good replacement (and I might have to write it >.>) but I wouldn't recommend this, especially as the first contact a person might have with queer history.