The Gay Liberation Youth Movement In New York

Between 1966 and 1975 North American youth activists established over 35 school- and community-based gay liberation youth groups whose members sought control over their own bodies, education, and sexual and social relations. This book focuses on three groundbreaking New York City groups -- Gay Youth (GY), Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), and the Gay International Youth Society of George Washington High School (GWHS) -- from the advent of gay liberation in NYC in 1969 to just after its dissolution and the rise of identity politics by 1975. Cohen examines how gay liberation -- with its rejection of stultifying sex roles, attack on institutional oppression, connection between personal and political liberation, celebration of innate androgyny, and resolute anti-war and anti-capitalist stance -- shaped understandings of sexual identity, membership criteria, organization, decision-making, the roles of youth and adults, and efforts to effect social change.

This book explains the emergence of the modern gay liberation movement, from its early years prior to the Stonewall riots of 1969 and its continuation into the 1970s. Readers will learn about the Stonewall riots, the Compton's cafeteria riot, the Gay Liberation Front, the Lavender Menace, and more. This book also discusses the contributions of important people such as Harvey Milk, Audre Lorde, and many others. The difficulties and legacies of that era will become clear to students who may know only the outline of the early history of the movement.

Have pride in history. A rich and sweeping photographic history of the Queer Liberation Movement, from the creators and curators of the massively popular Instagram account LGBT History. “If you think the fight for justice and equality only began in the streets outside Stonewall, with brave patrons of a bar fighting back, you need to read We Are Everywhere right now.”—Anderson Cooper Through the lenses of protest, power, and pride, We Are Everywhere is an essential and empowering introduction to the history of the fight for queer liberation. Combining exhaustively researched narrative with meticulously curated photographs, the book traces queer activism from its roots in late-nineteenth-century Europe—long before the pivotal Stonewall Riots of 1969—to the gender warriors leading the charge today. Featuring more than 300 images from more than seventy photographers and twenty archives, this inclusive and intersectional book enables us to truly see queer history unlike anything before, with glimpses of activism in the decades preceding and following Stonewall, family life, marches, protests, celebrations, mourning, and Pride. By challenging many of the assumptions that dominate mainstream LGBTQ+ history, We Are Everywhere shows readers how they can—and must—honor the queer past in order to shape our liberated future.

‘One of the greatest global creative change-makers and activists in the world right now brings his incredible charisma, provocation and personality into this important book.' Ruth Daniel, CEO and Artistic Director, In Place of War 'United Queerdom is a thing of beauty. Dan Glass has penned a memoir that pulsates with existential rage, solidarity, and tactical hope.’ Amin Ghaziani, author of There Goes the Gayborhood? Throughout the 1970s the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) initiated an anarchic campaign that permanently changed the face of Britain. Inspired by the Stonewall uprisings in the US, the GLF demanded a 'Absolute Freedom For All' worldwide. Yet half a century on, injustice is rife and LGBT+ inequality remains. Complete LGBT+ liberation means housing rights, universal healthcare, economic freedom and so much more. Although many people believe queers are now free and should behave, assimilate and become palatable – Dan Glass shows that the fight is far from over. United Queerdom evocatively captures over five decades of LGBT+ culture and protest from the GLF to 2020s. Showing how central protest is to queer history and identity this book uncovers the back-breaking hard work as well as the glamorous and raucous stories of those who rebelled against injustice and became founders in the story of queer liberation.

This pioneering collection provides, for the first time, an international and transdisciplinary reflection on youth, history and queer sexualities and genders. Since the 1970s there has been an explosion in research focusing on LGBTQ history and on the lives of LGBTQ young people, but these two research areas have seldom been brought together explicitly. Bridging LGBTQ historical scholarship and contemporary queer youth cultural studies, this book marks out pathways for thinking more about youth in LGBTQ history and more about history in contemporary understandings of LGBTQ youth. Examining histories from the nineteenth century through to the recent past, contributors examine queer youth histories in continental Europe, Britain, the United States of America, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Ireland, India, Malaysia and Hong Kong.