Title: Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities - The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970 Author: John D'Emilio Published by: University of Chicago Press, 1983 ISBN: 0-226-14266-3 [Trade paperback, 249 pages]
This is the definitive analysis of the homophile movement in the U.S. from 1940 to 1970. It does much more than that, however, in providing thorough documentation of the oppression of homosexuals during those years and biographical sketches of the lesbian and gay heroes who helped the contemporary gay culture to emerge.How many students of American political culture know that during the McCarthy era more people lost their jobs for being alleged homosexuals than for being Communists? Or that in the 1950s the F.B.I. launched a campaign of surveillance and harassment against gay men and lesbians that would last for nearly thirty years? Or that World War II was perhaps the single greatest catalyst to the creation of an urban gay milieu in America?
These facts are part of the heretofore obscure history of homosexual men and women in America that is documented by John D'Emilio in Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities.
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