In the vein of Taylor Branch’s classic Parting of the Waters, Supreme Court lawyer and political pundit Linda Hirshman delivers the enthralling, groundbreaking story of the gay rights movement, revealing how a dedicated and resourceful minority changed America forever.
When the modern struggle for gay rights erupted in the summer of 1969, forty-nine states outlawed sex between people of the same gender. Four decades later, in 2011, New York legalized gay marriage and the armed services stopped enforcing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Successful social movements are always extraordinary, but these advances seem like something of a miracle.
Linda Hirshman recounts the long roads that led to these victories, detailing the remarkable and revolutionary story of the movement that has blurred rigid gender lines, altered the shared culture, and broadened our definitions of family. Written in vivid prose, at once emotional and erudite, Victory is an utterly vibrant work of reportage and eyewitness accounts and demonstrates how, in a matter of decades, a focused group of activists forged a classic campaign for cultural change that will serve as a model for all future political movements.
“Remarkable for its emotional punch as for its historical insight.”—New York Times Book Review
1110766188
Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution
In the vein of Taylor Branch’s classic Parting of the Waters, Supreme Court lawyer and political pundit Linda Hirshman delivers the enthralling, groundbreaking story of the gay rights movement, revealing how a dedicated and resourceful minority changed America forever.
When the modern struggle for gay rights erupted in the summer of 1969, forty-nine states outlawed sex between people of the same gender. Four decades later, in 2011, New York legalized gay marriage and the armed services stopped enforcing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Successful social movements are always extraordinary, but these advances seem like something of a miracle.
Linda Hirshman recounts the long roads that led to these victories, detailing the remarkable and revolutionary story of the movement that has blurred rigid gender lines, altered the shared culture, and broadened our definitions of family. Written in vivid prose, at once emotional and erudite, Victory is an utterly vibrant work of reportage and eyewitness accounts and demonstrates how, in a matter of decades, a focused group of activists forged a classic campaign for cultural change that will serve as a model for all future political movements.
“Remarkable for its emotional punch as for its historical insight.”—New York Times Book Review
In the vein of Taylor Branch’s classic Parting of the Waters, Supreme Court lawyer and political pundit Linda Hirshman delivers the enthralling, groundbreaking story of the gay rights movement, revealing how a dedicated and resourceful minority changed America forever.
When the modern struggle for gay rights erupted in the summer of 1969, forty-nine states outlawed sex between people of the same gender. Four decades later, in 2011, New York legalized gay marriage and the armed services stopped enforcing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Successful social movements are always extraordinary, but these advances seem like something of a miracle.
Linda Hirshman recounts the long roads that led to these victories, detailing the remarkable and revolutionary story of the movement that has blurred rigid gender lines, altered the shared culture, and broadened our definitions of family. Written in vivid prose, at once emotional and erudite, Victory is an utterly vibrant work of reportage and eyewitness accounts and demonstrates how, in a matter of decades, a focused group of activists forged a classic campaign for cultural change that will serve as a model for all future political movements.
“Remarkable for its emotional punch as for its historical insight.”—New York Times Book Review
Linda Hirshman is a lawyer, a cultural historian, and the author of Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution and many other books. She received her JD from the University of Chicago Law School and her PhD in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and has taught philosophy and women’s studies at Brandeis University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, Newsweek, the Daily Beast, and POLITICO. She lives in Arizona and New York City.
Table of Contents
Introduction: How an Army of Good Gays Won the West xi
1 Gays and the Cities: Community First, Politics Later 1
2 Red in Bed: It Takes a Communist to Recognize Gay Oppression 29
3 It Was the Sixties That Did It: Gays Get Radical, Radicals Get Gay 61
4 Stonewall Uprising: Gays Finally Get Some Respect 95
5 The Good Gays Fight the Four Horsemen: Crazy, Sinful, Criminal, and Subversive 129
6 Dying for the Movement: The Terrible Political Payoff of AIDS 169
7 ACT UP: Five Years That Shook the World 187
8 Failed Marriages and Losing Battles: The Premature Campaign for Marriage and Military Service 217
9 Founding Fathers: Winning Modern Rights Before Fighting Ancient Battles 243
10 Massing the Troops for the Last Battle: The New-Media Gay Revolution 283
11 With Liberal Friends: Who Needs Enemies? 301
12 Victory: The Civil Rights March of Our Generation 323
“I picked this book up one night and never got to sleep. Victory is an epic account of our movement’s progress; a beautifully written and fast moving narrative that is poignant, humorous, and inspiring.”
Rich Benjamin
“As popular history, Victory excels. Hirshman is a nimble storyteller with an agile curatorial eye for what matters. . . . Exemplary. . . . I find Victory to be an astute jolt, as remarkable for its emotional punch as for its historical insight.”
Rebecca Traister
“A compulsively readable mix of philosophy, social history and journalism, Hirshman’s [book] provides an invaluable understanding of the people across the years who have worked so passionately to increase liberty and justice in our union.”
Eric Marcus
“Before he died, gay rights hero Arthur Evans told Linda Hirshman to tell our story. And she does so brilliantly—with insight, passion and the keen eye of a fierce social scientist. And what a story it is! Arthur Evans would be proud.”
Katha Pollitt
“Victory tells the fascinating inside story of how gay activists changed America for the better, not just for themselves but for everyone. There’s inspiration here for everyone who wants a fairer, more equal society— and plenty of hope as well.”
Todd Gitlin
“Linda Hirshman’s Victory is the chronicle that the brilliant, unremitting gay movement deserves. Deeply informed with human detail, political theory, and legal analysis alike, it moves fluidly out of the closet to the precincts . . . A genuine, sparkling tour de force.”
Amanda Foreman
“Linda Hirshman has written an important and necessary book that should be read in every school and every home in the country.”
