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A review by davidpwebber
The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
The first thing I want to say about this book is how well-researched it is. This is as exhaustive an overview of the struggle for LGBT acceptance as you'll ever find. There are times when it is dry, but that's just because there's so much ground to cover. I don't think Faderman left any generally important area of the struggle unmentioned.
The second thing I want to say is that this book is a lot to absorb in the current climate. It ends, appropriately for the pre-Trump progressive era, with a hopeful coda from icon Frank Kameny that the movement started with nothing and ended up with greater acceptance than he could ever dream of. But all those struggles are almost certainly set to be unmade by the hateful dictator in office, and the endless crusade by far-right groups against the equality deemed necessary by the courts, the Constitution, and most certainly the credo of decency.
This was a great follow-up to When Brooklyn was Queer, which ended right before the Stonewall Riots. Faderman's tome details the early years, mostly in World War 2, so the prior book was a fantastic prelude to the history that this book didn't actually cover. That's because Faderman is more concerned with the fight as opposed to the stories of individuals finding themselves. These are the important players in the perpetual struggle against hatred, and all the personal stories she touches on are in reference to people with a specific tie to a part of the fight. In that vein, this book is quite focused despite its monstrous length. There is no doubt about Faderman's intentions in writing it.
I have a lot of thoughts that might be too deep and meditative to delve into here, since I think I'd rather reserve these reviews mostly for the books themselves and not my own musings about their contents, but I will say one thing - the lengths that people have to go to just to gain acceptance from literally anyone are insane. And it's a never-ending struggle. I think, cynically, that is partially why we are here now. There are myriad factors, to be sure, but this book ending with the Supreme Court's gay marriage decision reminded me that the gay marriage issue seemed at the time like a bookend to the overall struggle. I certainly felt that way, as though the left had won and the fight was over. If I thought that, I'm sure even the most impassioned activists felt similarly. And we all probably let our guard down. The curse of progress is that the struggle never ends, not even for a second. You have to fight to get something, and then you have to fight to keep it. Things seem hopeless now, and may remain hopeless for my life, but I have to imagine that the setbacks to come will be met with fierce opposition from people ready to fight again, and, hopefully, learn from the past that the fight can literally never end.
The second thing I want to say is that this book is a lot to absorb in the current climate. It ends, appropriately for the pre-Trump progressive era, with a hopeful coda from icon Frank Kameny that the movement started with nothing and ended up with greater acceptance than he could ever dream of. But all those struggles are almost certainly set to be unmade by the hateful dictator in office, and the endless crusade by far-right groups against the equality deemed necessary by the courts, the Constitution, and most certainly the credo of decency.
This was a great follow-up to When Brooklyn was Queer, which ended right before the Stonewall Riots. Faderman's tome details the early years, mostly in World War 2, so the prior book was a fantastic prelude to the history that this book didn't actually cover. That's because Faderman is more concerned with the fight as opposed to the stories of individuals finding themselves. These are the important players in the perpetual struggle against hatred, and all the personal stories she touches on are in reference to people with a specific tie to a part of the fight. In that vein, this book is quite focused despite its monstrous length. There is no doubt about Faderman's intentions in writing it.
I have a lot of thoughts that might be too deep and meditative to delve into here, since I think I'd rather reserve these reviews mostly for the books themselves and not my own musings about their contents, but I will say one thing - the lengths that people have to go to just to gain acceptance from literally anyone are insane. And it's a never-ending struggle. I think, cynically, that is partially why we are here now. There are myriad factors, to be sure, but this book ending with the Supreme Court's gay marriage decision reminded me that the gay marriage issue seemed at the time like a bookend to the overall struggle. I certainly felt that way, as though the left had won and the fight was over. If I thought that, I'm sure even the most impassioned activists felt similarly. And we all probably let our guard down. The curse of progress is that the struggle never ends, not even for a second. You have to fight to get something, and then you have to fight to keep it. Things seem hopeless now, and may remain hopeless for my life, but I have to imagine that the setbacks to come will be met with fierce opposition from people ready to fight again, and, hopefully, learn from the past that the fight can literally never end.