She brings the heft of a career to bear here - of the more than 150 interviews she draws on for this new book, some date back decades, like her 1987 interview with the lesbian pioneers Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. Faderman is often called a “lesbian historian,” based on her distinguished work in the field, notably “Surpassing the Love of Men” (1981) and “Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers” (1991). Perhaps the most obvious contribution is the equal attention it gives to women. Yet Faderman’s book populates even the familiar corners of gay history with new and vivid life. Because of such works, the broad contours of Faderman’s narrative will be familiar to many readers - the witch hunts of the 1950s the early homophile movement driven by organizations like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis the Stonewall riots of 1969 the American Psychiatric Association’s declassification, in the 1970s, of homosexuality as a mental disorder the AIDS crisis the decriminalization of sodomy the implementation and repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and the push for marriage equality. Linda Hirshman’s 2012 book “Victory,” for instance, skillfully covers the same period, from World War II to the early 21st century. Recent years have generated a shelf of books on the gay rights movement geared toward both scholarly and popular audiences. Faderman then asks one of the framing questions of her important book: “What long-fought battles, tragic losses and hard-won triumphs have brought us as a country from the days when a much loved and gifted professor could be disgraced, thrown in jail and hounded out of his profession as soon as his private life was revealed, to the days when a military officer could marry the woman she loves in broad daylight and be promoted, in a very public ceremony, to the rank of general with her wife by her side?”Ī reader might fairly ask whether Faderman’s answer could offer anything new. According to tradition, the stars on a new general’s epaulets are affixed by the two individuals most meaningful to her - in Smith’s case, her father and her wife.
Tammy Smith’s elevation to the rank of general in 2012. The respected 50-year-old “lost his job, his good name, his beloved students, his entire career - even his pension.” The second depicts a ceremony for Army Col.
Johnston of the University of Missouri, prosecuted for sodomy in 1948. Lillian Faderman’s “The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle” opens with two vignettes.
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