Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement

Now in its second edition, Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement provides an accessible overview of an important and transformational struggle for social change, highlighting key individuals and events, influential groups and organizations, major successes and failures, and the movement’s lasting effects and unfinished work.

Focusing on four decades of social, cultural, and political change in the second half of the twentieth century, Marc Stein examines the changing agendas, beliefs, strategies, and vocabularies of a movement that encompassed diverse actions, campaigns, ideologies, and organizations. From the homophile activism of the 1950s and 1960s through the rise of gay liberation and lesbian feminism in the 1970s to the multicultural and AIDS activist movements of the 1980s, this book provides a strong foundation for understanding gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer politics today. This new edition reflects the substantial changes in the field since the book’s original publication eleven years ago.

Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement will be valued by everyone interested in LGBTQ struggles, the politics of movement activism, and the history of social justice in the United States.