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Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution
Supreme Court lawyer and political pundit Linda Hirshman details the stunning story of how a resourceful and dedicated minority transformed the notion of American marriage equality and forged a campaign for cultural change that will serve as a model for all future political movements. In the vein of Taylor Branch’s classic Parting of the Waters, Hirshman’s groundbreaking Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution is the powerful story of a massive shift in American culture. Hirshman offers an insider’s view of the crucial struggle that is leading to change, incorporating her unique experiences and insights and drawing upon new interviews—with movement titans such as Frank Kameny and Phyllis Lyon, with next-generation activists such as Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry, and with allies including the likes of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand—to create a comprehensive, inspiring history of change in our time.
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Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution
Supreme Court lawyer and political pundit Linda Hirshman details the stunning story of how a resourceful and dedicated minority transformed the notion of American marriage equality and forged a campaign for cultural change that will serve as a model for all future political movements. In the vein of Taylor Branch’s classic Parting of the Waters, Hirshman’s groundbreaking Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution is the powerful story of a massive shift in American culture. Hirshman offers an insider’s view of the crucial struggle that is leading to change, incorporating her unique experiences and insights and drawing upon new interviews—with movement titans such as Frank Kameny and Phyllis Lyon, with next-generation activists such as Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry, and with allies including the likes of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand—to create a comprehensive, inspiring history of change in our time.
Supreme Court lawyer and political pundit Linda Hirshman details the stunning story of how a resourceful and dedicated minority transformed the notion of American marriage equality and forged a campaign for cultural change that will serve as a model for all future political movements. In the vein of Taylor Branch’s classic Parting of the Waters, Hirshman’s groundbreaking Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution is the powerful story of a massive shift in American culture. Hirshman offers an insider’s view of the crucial struggle that is leading to change, incorporating her unique experiences and insights and drawing upon new interviews—with movement titans such as Frank Kameny and Phyllis Lyon, with next-generation activists such as Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry, and with allies including the likes of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand—to create a comprehensive, inspiring history of change in our time.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”