Books for the LGBTQ History in Your Life

Denver is the Mile High City, the Queen City of the Plains, and the Gateway to the West. Today, the city attracts thousands of new residents each year, including the LGBTQ people from the rural West and digital nomads from around the nations seeking a welcoming community where they can thrive. In LGBTQ Denver, Phil Nash showcases how the city evolved from its pre-1970s history of rebuking gay people to a magnet for LGBTQ residents and the capital of the first state to elect and reelect the nation’s first openly gay governor.

Nestled in the Eureka Valley area, the Castro is arguably the most well-known of San Francisco's neighborhoods, having been the epicenter of the gay rights movement since the 1970s. This new collection of photographs shows the area's growth from a smattering of Victorian houses built for working-class families in the 1870s to the flood of young gay men who settled in the neighborhood during the 1970s. This influx transformed the area and led to the rise of Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to a major public office. This book also chronicles the 1978 assassination of Milk and Mayor George Moscone, the subsequent riots, and the effects of AIDS on the community in the 1980s and 1990s. Ultimately, these stirring images bear witness to the resilience of the Castro today.

Delve into the compilation of images that show how Richmond has a unique story to lend to the larger national LGBT history.

The history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Richmond, Virginia, invokes a rich but uncelebrated past. From the first recorded sodomy prosecution in America in 1624 to the fight to repeal the ""crimes against nature"" laws, LGBTs have left their imprint on almost 400 years of history in the Old Dominion's capital. Lesbian and Gay Richmond presents a photographic showcase of the events, people, and places that have been a part of this history. There are snapshots from the 1920s and 1930s when avant-garde and gay authors caroused and shared ideas in private homes. Previously untold stories from the post-World War II era tell of the rise of the gay cafés in Richmond and the subsequent attempts by the authorities to shut their doors. Much like larger cities to the north and west of Richmond, the attempts to close these bars led to the first public protests in the late 1960s. Other images show how Richmond has a unique story to lend to the larger national LGBT history.

Los Angeles has always been a city of possibilities and reinvention. A youthful and independent spirit permeates the culture and gives a sense of freedom found in few other places. This environment provided fertile ground for the growth of a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community that had a major influence on LGBT life in the United States. For most of American history, queer identities were only visible in forms of entertainment, with most of the culture existing underground and in fear. By the 1950s, however, a few brave gay people living in Los Angeles dared to challenge society's negative views on homosexuality. For the next two decades, L.A. produced the nation's first LGBT leaders, organizations, and publications, and gave birth to the national movement for LGBT equality.

In recent years, San Francisco has been synonymous with gay and lesbian pride, and the various achievements of the gay and lesbian community are personified in the city by the bay. The tumultuous and ongoing struggles for this community's civil rights from the 1950s to the present are well documented, but queer culture itself goes back much further than that, in fact all the way back to the California gold rush.

Long Beach, California, founded in the 1880s by conservative, pro-temperance settlers, has been known as "American Colony," "Queen of the Beaches," "Iowa-By-The Sea," "Home of the Pike," and "Paradise for Pansies." This book gives a glimpse of how Long Beach went from making national headlines in 1914 for entrapping 31 gay men as "social vagrants" to receiving a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign's "Municipal Equality Index" for issues that contribute to a positive climate for LGBTQA+ people. Over time, Long Beach changed, becoming one of the most diverse cities in California. Voters elected a lesbian to city council in 2006 and a gay mayor in 2014 who they sent to Congress in 2022. Its new main library is named in honor of its hometown lesbian heroine, Billie Jean King. Today, Long Beach has the third largest "Pride Parade and Festival" in California.

For much of the 20th century, Atlanta was a magnet drawing newcomers from around the nation. Atlanta's growth from a small Southern town to a Sunbelt colossus in many ways parallels the changes that shaped America during those 100 years: industrialization, technological innovation, suburbanization, and battles over racial equality. Largely overlooked in the Atlanta story, however, are the experiences of lesbians and gay men. In a city governed by powerful business interests and an ethos of Christian conservatism, gays and lesbians maneuvered in ways both large and small, public and private, to find personal happiness, professional fulfillment, and, eventually, a political voice. Until recently, Atlanta's gay and lesbian history survived and perished with the memories of the men and women who lived it. Now a small part of that history has been preserved in this collection of unforgettable images.

In the identity of gay and lesbian America, Washington, D.C., has a history, perhaps unknown, that begs to be acknowledged. This history ranges from the planner of this new city on the Potomac River to generations of gay women who fought, lobbied, and marched for the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Prohibition promoted the rise of underground clubs with back rooms for gays and lesbians to socialize in the 1920s. The history of these clubs and cruise spots reveals the migration of gay neighborhoods across the city, from Georgetown to Lafayette Square to Dupont Circle. In the 1960s and 1970s, gays and lesbians marched with Pride to be recognized. In the 1980s, they covered the Mall with a quilt to finally hear politicians utter the word AIDS. Today, the word is marriage: equal under the law and equal in the heart.

In the late 19th century, St. Louis--America's fourth-largest city--was a hub of robust commerce and risqué entertainment. It provided an oasis for those who lived "in the shadows." Since 1764, the Gateway to the West's LGBT community has experienced countless struggles and successes, including protests, arrests, murders, celebrations, and parades. St. Louis had its own version of Stonewall in October 1969 and is the hometown of icons such as Tennessee Williams and Josephine Baker. A colorful array of activists, drag queens, leather men, artists, academics, business leaders, and everyday folks have contributed to the rich fabric of the lesbian and gay community in St. Louis.

The diverse landscape of gay and lesbian Philadelphia is a story of highs and lows. From rustic post-Civil War days when Camden poet Walt Whitman crossed the Delaware River on a ferry or caroused Market Street "eyeing" the grocery boys, to the beginnings of ACT UP more than one hundred years later, the gay and lesbian community in Philadelphia has never lost its flair for the dramatic.

Gay and Lesbian Philadelphia is a historical look at the neighborhoods, events, and people that have been a part of this community. The 1920s saw the birth of private dance bars on Rittenhouse Square. It was a time when drag shows in straight bars were the order of the day, as was the presence of men in drag during the annual Mummer's Parade on New Year's Day. The pre-Civil Rights era, when segregation was the status quo, saw the proliferation of African American house parties in neighborhoods such as North Philadelphia, where black gays and lesbians formed a community. During the 1950s and 1960s, Rittenhouse Square was the site of informal public gatherings. These gatherings of friends and strangers helped set the stage for the Annual Reminder, the first public protest in support of "homosexual equal rights," which took place every Fourth of July at Independence Hall. Throughout all of these eras, members of the community faced challenges, celebrated victories, and continued to try to blend their lives with those of their gay and straight neighbors.