In 1931, a sexologist arrived in colonial Shanghai to give a public lecture about homosexuality. In the audience was a medical student. The sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld, fell in love with the medical student, Li Shiu Tong. Li became Hirschfeld’s assistant on a lecture tour around the world. Racism and the Making of Gay Rights shows how Hirschfeld laid the groundwork for modern gay rights, and how he did so by borrowing from a disturbing set of racist, imperial, and eugenic ideas. Following Hirschfeld and Li in their travels through the American, Dutch, and British empires, from Manila to Tel Aviv to having tea with Langston Hughes in New York City, and then into exile in Hitler’s Europe, Laurie Marhoefer provides a vivid portrait of queer lives in the 1930s and of the turbulent, often-forgotten first chapter of gay rights.

"A love story packed with gay history, this dual biography of a sexologist and his student sheds light on the early gay rights movement and the racist and imperial concepts that are embedded in queer politics."--

1. THE RACIAL ANALOGY

In organizing the 1993 March on Washington for gay and lesbian rights, leaders of the gay community consciously paralleled Martin Luther King's historic 1963 March on Washington and proclaimed their mission was "a simple matter of justice." In response, black leaders and ministers across the country challenged any comparison between blacks and gays as offensive and irrational. In "One More River to Cross, Keith Boykin clarifies the relationship between blacks and gays in America by portraying the "common ground" lives of those who are both black and gay. Against a historical backdrop of civil rights and the black experience in America, Boykin interviews Baptist ministers, gay political leaders, and other black gays and lesbians on issues of faith, family, discrimination, and visibility to determine what differences-- real and imagined-- separate the two communities. Boykin points to evidence of African and precolonial same-sex behavior, as well as figures like James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin, to dispel the myth that homosexuality is a "white thang," while his research suggests that blacks are less homophobic than whites, despite the rhetoric of rap and religion. With stories from his own experience as well as that of other black gays and lesbians, Boykin targets gay racism and black homophobia and suggests that conservative forces have substituted the common language of racism for homophobia in order to prevent a potentially powerful coalition of blacks and gays. By portraying what it means to be black and gay in America, "One More River to Cross offers an extraordinary window into a community that challenges this country's acceptance of its minorities, both racial and sexual.

This compelling book recounts the history of black gay men from the 1950s to the 1990s, tracing how the major movements of the times—from civil rights to black power to gay liberation to AIDS activism—helped shape the cultural stigmas that surrounded race and homosexuality. In locating the rise of black gay identities in historical context, Kevin Mumford explores how activists, performers, and writers rebutted negative stereotypes and refused sexual objectification. Examining the lives of both famous and little-known black gay activists—from James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin to Joseph Beam and Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald—Mumford analyzes the ways in which movements for social change both inspired and marginalized black gay men. Drawing on an extensive archive of newspapers, pornography, and film, as well as government documents, organizational records, and personal papers, Mumford sheds new light on four volatile decades in the protracted battle of black gay men for affirmation and empowerment in the face of pervasive racism and homophobia.

In the contemporary era, gay and lesbian activism is part of the intersectional LGBTQ+ community, but this wasn't always so. This book explains why the need for the fight for nonheteronormative rights emerged in the nineteenth century. It goes into how the fight itself began to pick up steam in the 1950s and '60s as small groups of radicals grew into a national movement for social justice. Activists across the LGBTQ+ spectrum confront police and government officials, join forces with labor and civil rights struggles, and help reshape the modern world.

Some of the most divisive contests shaping the quest for marriage equality occurred not on the culture-war front lines but within the ranks of LGBTQ advocates. Nathaniel Frank tells the dramatic story of how an idea that once seemed unfathomable—and for many gays and lesbians undesirable—became a legal and moral right in just half a century.