Help Us Stay Paywall-Free

We rely on readers to keep our website open to all. Help sustain a public space for collective reasoning and imagination—make a tax-deductible donation today.

Graffiti on boarded-up Stonewall Inn window. Image: Fred W. McDarrah / Getty

June 27, 2020

How Did We Go from Gay Liberation to Homonormative Reforms?

A reading list for pride month.

Last week’s Supreme Court six–three decision, holding that discrimination against LGBT people constitutes sex discrimination, came as a shock to queer and trans legal advocates. It looked to be five solid votes against the gay and transgender employees in the three cases consolidated as Bostock v. Clayton County, and plans for protests were already in the works if the Court voted as such.

But instead, a conservative legal perspective saved LGBT rights, with Paisley Currah arguing in a new essay that Gorsuch’s majority opinion tossed out the old common sense about sex—even as its logic buttressed other kinds of state control. This comes six decades after Frank Kameny laid the groundwork for the success, as the first person to ask the Supreme Court to protect the employment rights of homosexuals. 

Despite the thrill of the current victory, Samuel Huneke argues that the fact that it took sixty years points to both the successes and agonies of a legalistic approach to activism. Today’s reading list considers this theme in earnest, with multiple essays weighing the riotous legacy of Stonewall and gay liberation against the reformist legal gains of gay rights, a movement which has often alienated those who aren’t white and cisgender. 

Samuel Clowes Huneke

In 1961 Frank Kameny became the first person to ask the Supreme Court to protect the employment rights of homosexuals. The fact that the Court finally has—sixty years later—points to both the successes and agonies of a legalistic approach to activism.

Micki McElya

The press has crowned Buttigieg the inheritor of Stonewall’s legacy, but this doesn’t square with what we know of Stonewall activists and the world they hoped to create.

Paisley Currah
Gorsuch’s majority opinion tossed out the old common sense about sex, even as its logic buttressed other kinds of state control.
Joseph J. Fischel
Pride festivities attempt every year to reinforce the idea of an LGBT community, but when it comes to views on policing, white gay men and trans women of color often have little in common.
Samuel Clowes Huneke
In our search for a useful past, we need to be careful whom we name as the heroes of queer history.
Michael Bronski

Seventies activists wanted to emancipate kids and destroy the nuclear family—so how did we end up with gay marriage instead?

Hugh Ryan

Did the success of gay marriage erode the radical potential of queer politics?

Michael Bronski
Radical gay liberation laid the ground for the moderate legal gains of gay rights.
Jack Halberstam

Feminism and trans* activism have been at odds for decades. They don't need to be.

Our weekly themed Reading Lists compile the best of Boston Review’s archive. Sign up for our newsletters to get them straight to your inbox before they appear online.

Boston Review is nonprofit and reader funded.

We believe in the power of collective reasoning and imagination to create a more just world. That’s why we’re committed to keeping our website free and open to everyone, regardless of ability to pay. But we can’t do it without the financial support of our readers.

Help sustain a public space for collective reasoning and imagination, without ads or paywalls:

Become a supporting reader today.

Get Our Newsletter

Sign up to get vital reading on politics, literature, and more sent straight to your inbox.

Most Recent

Lewis Gordon and Nathalie Etoke discuss the space for freedom opened up by Black existentialist thought.

Nathalie Etoke, Lewis Gordon

The post-work movement reckons with reproductive labor.

Rachel Fraser

Melvin Rogers and Neil Roberts discuss the difficulty of keeping faith in a foundationally anti-Black republic.

Melvin Rogers, Neil Roberts

We can't publish without your support.

For nearly 50 years, Boston Review has been a home for collective reasoning and imagination on behalf of a more just world.

But our future is never guaranteed. As a small, independent nonprofit, we have no endowment or single funder. We rely on contributions from readers like you to sustain our work.

If you appreciate what we publish and want to help ensure a future for the great writing and constructive debate that appears in our pages, please make a tax-deductible donation today.

"An indispensable pillar of the public sphere."

That’s what sociologist Alondra Nelson says of Boston Review. Independent and nonprofit, we believe in the power of collective reasoning and imagination to create a more just world.

That’s why there are no paywalls on our website, but we can’t do it without the support of our readers. Please make a tax-deductible donation to help us create a more inclusive and egalitarian public sphere—open to everyone, regardless of ability to pay.