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                LGBTQ2/I+ MOVEMENTS & RESOURCE SITES

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What we now call gender identities and sexual orientations have varied immensely over the course of human history and across cultures. The currently dominant two gender (male/female) system in the US is an historical anomaly, not an unvarying biological fact. Most cultures have recognized more complex sets of sexual identities, preferences and practices. Sexual desires are socially constructed, and what may be a minority practice in one context, may be quite common in another. Movements for the equal treatment of people choosing diverse forms of sexual expression exist today in every corner of the world.

In a North American context, the example of "two spirit" identity (a person sharing in modern terms elements typically identified as male and female) was common in many Native cultures. In 19th century US society, some forms of what we would now call homosexual practices were more widely accepted. While labels and forms of sexual desire have changed in the US, there is a long history of domination by "heteronormative"  persons (those privileging heterosexuals over others) and "cis gender" persons (those who identify with the sex given them at birth).

Modern movements for liberation from discrimination against those expressing non-dominant sexual desires received a new degree of intensity in the mid-20th century, and continue to evolve in complex ways in the 21st century, as indicated graphically by the changing labels used to more inclusively name these movements. A modest but important homophile movement arose in the 1950s, a more radical Gay/Lesbian Liberation movement arose in the 1960s and 70s, and over the last several decades a host of more varied and inclusive movements for persons whose sex/gender identities have been marginalized has grown and expanded, including people identifying as gender queer, intersex, transgender, and transexual, among others.

This site offers links treating the history of these movements, contemporary movement sites, some additional resource sites, and a bibliography for further exploration.

Movement History Sites

General Resources

Some Key E-Journals

Bibliography

Featured Book: Stein, Marc. Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement. New York: Routledge, 2012. Excellent reassessment of the LGBTQ2AI+ movement.

  • Abelove, Henry, Michele A. Barale, and David M. Halperin, eds. Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, New York: Routledge, 1993. Classic collection.
  • Bawer, Bruce, 1993, A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society, New York: Poseidon Press. Conservative take on the movement.
  • Bérubé, Allan; John D’Emilio, and Estelle B. Freedman, eds. My Desire for History : Essays in Gay, Community, and Labor History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
  • –––, 1996. Beyond Queer: Challenging Gay Left Orthodoxy, New York: The Free Press.
  • Boswell, John, 1980, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  • –––, 1994, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, New York: Vintage Books.
  • Butler, Judith, 1990, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge.
  • –––, 1993, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”, New York: Routledge. Butler's work has been a key force in queer theory and its political uses.
  • Chauncey, George. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Makings of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York: Basic Books, 1994. Important work on the pre-history of the movement.
  • Cruikshank, Margaret. The Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement. New York: Routledge, 1992
  • Engel, Stephen M. “Developmental Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Politics: Fragmented Citizenship in a Fragmented State.” Perspectives on Politics 13.2 (2015): 287–311.
  • Source: D’Emilio, John.  “After Stonewall.”  Queer Cultures.  Eds. Deborah Carlin and Jennifer DiGrazia.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2004.  3-35.
  • ---. “Capitalism and Gay Identity.”  The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Eds.
  • ---. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. 
  • Duberman, Martin. Stonewall. New York: Dutton, 1993. Book on a key event in the rise of the movement.
  • Duggan, Lisa. “The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism.”  Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics. Eds. Russ Castronovo and Dana D. Nelson. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. 175-94.
  • Eskridge, Jr., William N., 1999, Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Faderman, Lillian, 1985, Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present, London: The Women's Press.
  • Fausto-Sterling, Anne, 2000, Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, New York: Basic Books.
  • Foucault, Michel, 1980, The History of Sexuality. Volume One: An Introduction, Robert Hurley (trans.), New York: Vintage Books.
  • –––,1985, The History of Sexuality (Volume Two: The Use of Pleasure), New York: Pantheon Books.
  • –––, 1986, The History of Sexuality (Volume Three: The Care of the Self), New York: Pantheon.
  • Halperin, David M., 1990, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: and other essays on Greek love, New York: Routledge.
  • –––, 1995, Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography, New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Hirshman, Linda. Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution. New York: Harper, 2012.
  • Jagose, Annamarie, 1996, Queer Theory: An Introduction, New York: New York University Press.
  • ---, 2009, “Feminism's Queer Theory,” Feminism and Psychology, 19(2): 157–174.
  • Malinowitz, Harriet, 1993, “Queer Theory: Whose Theory?” Frontiers, 13: 168-184.
  • Marcus, Eric. Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990: An Oral History. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
  • Marinucci, Mimi, 2010, Feminism is Queer: The Intimate Connection Between Queer and Feminist Theory, London: Zed Books.
  • Marotta, Toby. The Politics of Homosexuality. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981
  • Nussbaum, Martha, 1999, Sex and Social Justice, New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Phelan, Shane, 2001, Sexual Strangers: Gays, Lesbians, and Dilemmas of Citizenship, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  • Rich, Adrienne, 1980, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” in Women, Sex, and Sexuality, Catharine Stimpson and Ethel Spector Person (eds.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, 1990, Epistemology of the Closet, Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Spargo, Tasmin, 1999, Foucault and Queer Theory, New York: Totem Books.
  • Stein, Marc. Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement. New York: Routledge, 2012.
  • Warner, Tom. Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2002.

Further Research: New York Library LGBTQ Studies Resources.