Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution

A review by Chris Riddiough Originally Posted on 09.28.12 at http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Victory-Less-than-the-whole/39747.html Reading Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution by Linda Hirshman is a lot like going to the fun house at a carnival. You see yourself in the mirrors but it doesn't really look like you. From the title to the epilogue you can see the LGBT movement in this book, but it doesn't really look like the movement I've experienced over the last 40 years. The vignettes of gay life in the early part of the 20th century are fascinating to read. The descriptions of Harry Hay's efforts to form the Mattachine Society and how much he took from his Communist Party activism are quite striking. But where is the description of Henry Gerber's attempt in Chicago in the 1920s to start the first known American gay rights organization—the Society for Human Rights? Hirshman's description of Harvey Milk's extraordinary role in the gay movement is stirring, but what of the elections of Kathy Kozachenko, the first openly LGBT elected official in the United States and Elaine Noble, the first openly LGBT state legislator, both elected in 1974? Perhaps these omissions and others like them would not be so egregious if Hirshman were writing only about the gay movement in New York and California, but a book that purports to tell the story of the 'Triumphant Gay Revolution' should not leave out these and many other key elements. In fact her focus throughout the book on New York and California is disturbing. While she gives a nod to the efforts in Washington, D.C. (after all one can hardly write a history of the LGBT movement without mentioning Frank Kameny) and to a few other non-coastal locations, her single-minded attention to the activities on either coast results in the omission of many key players and events over the last century. That's not the only problem with this book, however. Her fawning portrayal of the gay men she interviews is disquieting. Combined with her apparent disregard for lesbians it results in an unbalanced portrayal of life and activism in the LGBT community. She only briefly mentions Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the founders of the Daughters of Bilitis. Barbara Gittings gets even less of a nod in the book and others from those early days (like Barbara Grier of the Ladder) are not even mentioned. This disdain for lesbians and women more generally is well reflected in her comments on feminism. Her perspective on the feminist movement and the civil-rights movement (which she persists in calling the 'racial civil-rights movement') reflects a complete lack of understanding of those movements and their relationship to the LGBT movement. She says, for example, that "At the end of the day, both these modern movements got most of their traction from maximizing their similarity to dominant political and social hierarchies. By definition, people involved in the gay revolution could not replicate majority behavior." Hirshman wants to distinguish (and perhaps elevate) the gay movement from the civil-rights and feminist movements. And there certainly are distinctions, but not the ones she makes. In many respects gay men have been much better able to replicate the majority behavior, politically and socially, of their heterosexual counterparts than have women. And while, as Hirshman points out, morality in America is generally sexual morality, to suggest as she does that 'few would have argued that skin color reflected character' is simply not true. Though not as explicit as the moral indignation of the right when it comes to the LGBT community, it is clear that even today in our 'enlightened' 21st century, it is an offense to the morals of some simply to be black. Later she states, "The women of the feminist movement differed more dramatically from the politically and socially dominant males [than did those from the civil rights movement] if only by virtue of their tie to childbearing. They, too, however, had a path to integration by virtue of their value as sexual companions and mothers." To suggest that integrating women into political and civil society is achieved by virtue of sex and childbearing is a complete misunderstanding of the aims of the women's movement. Rather, they have been part of the basis for women's 'special status' (read oppression) in our society. In addition, those roles, particularly that of sexual companion, offer no path to integration for lesbians. In fact it is the very idea of women's sexuality that most strongly links feminism to the LGBT movement. Years ago I had a conversation with someone from Integrity, the gay Episcopalian organization. He was forcefully in favor of ordaining gay priests but just as forcefully opposed to women priests. History has passed him by in both cases, but one can look back and see that those two positions, common to all too many gay men, were simply contradictory, just as is the position of feminists who believe that support for women's rights does not include support for LGBT rights. Hirshman's willingness to sustain this perspective results in her leaving out of her analysis a significant segment of the LGBT movement—the 'L' part. Lesbian feminism is almost completely missing from Hirshman's discussion of the gay movement. Perhaps it is no accident that the subtitle of the book references the 'gay' revolution. For indeed it is focused on the efforts of gay men. A mention of RadicaLesbians, of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, of lesbian involvement in the AIDS crisis is not a substitute for a more thoroughgoing discussion of lesbian feminism. In the '70s and later there was a vibrant lesbian feminist movement around the U.S. It was not embodied in one large national organization nor in a few individuals but in many local organizations ranging from lesbian feminist separatists to lesbian socialist feminists to lesbian feminists in NOW. But Hirshman seems more intent on denigrating the women's movement, stating, for example—"By 1969, the poisonous feminist slogan, 'The personal is the political,' characterized a strong movement of younger, Sixties-influenced women's liberationists."—rather than truly exploring the vital role that lesbian feminism has played in both the LGBT and women's movements. In fact, that 'poisonous' slogan pertains at least as much to the struggle for LGBT rights as that for women's rights. What could be more personal than the intimate relationships we have. At the same time, for lesbians and gay men those personal relationships underlie the political and social oppression we have faced. Her failure to understand the links between the women's movement and the LGBT movement underlies her devaluing of the role of lesbians in the movement. Certainly there were elements in the women's movement who would prefer to ignore or dismiss the involvement of lesbians (just as this was true in the gay movement), but neither movement would have become what it did without the efforts of lesbians. Most lesbian activists recognize that our liberation has to involve both women's rights and gay rights. One final note related to this topic—Hirshman feels it necessary within the first few pages of the book, even before the introduction, to proclaim her heterosexuality. This need is at best irritating and could have been left to the acknowledgments (in which she does, in fact, acknowledge the support of her husband). It does suggest that the author is at least uncomfortable with the idea that she might be taken for a lesbian. Yet another problem with the book is her characterization of what constitutes the movement and her failure to understand basic organizing principles. She says, for example, "Unlike the other major civil rights movements, the gay movement was still saddled with free riders, people passing as heterosexual while the out activists labored to make the world a better place." This completely misunderstands what revolutions are about. Anyone who has been an activist in any movement knows that no movement has included in its ranks every member of the group it is fighting for. My goal when I became an activist for feminism and LGBT rights was not to just change things for myself and others in the movement but to change things for women and all members of the LGBT community. I never expected that all women or all LGBT people would be involved. While I would have liked every woman to be active in the women's movement, I knew that there were often reasons that women, even supportive women, couldn't or wouldn't get involved. The same is true for the LGBT movement. Hirshman emphasizes the role of lawyers and the legal system in the recent victories on Don't Ask, Don't Tell and marriage equality, but neglects the role of grassroots activism and political activism. Over the last 40 years one of the critical strategies for LGBT activists has been coming out. Hirshman acknowledges this in other places, but doesn't really discuss the small, everyday acts carried out by many local activists. In Chicago, for example, teams of gay men and lesbians from at least the 1970s on acted as a speakers' bureau, participating in high school and college class discussions, in police academy training programs and community group events, just talking about what it meant to be gay. Many others would go to different Chicago neighborhoods and circulate petitions for a bill for gay and lesbian rights, while others lobbied the mayor and members of the city council day-in and day-out. And this happened not just in Chicago, but in cities and towns across the country. All of this, not just the efforts of lawyers in New York and California, ultimately resulted in the dramatic attitude changes that we see today. Forty years ago I would not have thought it possible that the president of the United States would support marriage equality for lesbians and gay men. Twenty years ago it would not have been conceivable that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would support gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military. These changes, which reflect changes in the views and attitudes of the majority of Americans, were not made possible by only by 'the exquisitely careful planning of the long-sighted, obsessive gay legal establishment' nor by the ability of 'lawyers to see through the easy appeal, so powerful in other realms, to the "natural" or the traditional.' Years of grassroots activism, of coming out, of speaking openly about what it means to be gay, of lobbying elected officials, of electing openly gay men and lesbians to public office made it possible to get where we are today. Perhaps not 'Victory', but closer to victory than might have seemed possible a few short years ago. Hirshman's description of the pre-Stonewall gay community, her discussion of ACT UP and the AIDS crisis, and her description of the legal proceedings that have culminated in recent changes in on military and marriage issues were all interesting and thought-provoking. They might have each made a useful contribution to the compendium of works on LGBT history and politics. Unfortunately this is not that book.