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Book | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | 306.76 FLE | 31330008947628 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
"It deserves prominent placement on LGBTQ history bookshelves. . . . An indelible collection of wise voices resonating with experience, pride, resilience, and revolution." -- Kirkus starred review
Foreword by Kate Bornstein and Barbara Carrellas
In The Stonewall Generation: LGBTQ Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging , sexuality researcher Jane Fleishman shares the stories of fearless elders in the LGBTQ community who came of age around the time of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. In candid interviews, they lay bare their struggles, strengths, activism, and sexual liberation in the context of the political movements of the 1960s and 1970s and today. Each of these inspiring figures has spent a lifetime fighting for the right to live, love, and be free, facing challenges arising from their sexual orientation, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, politics, disabilities, kinkiness, non-monogamy, and other identities. These are the stories of those whose lives were changed forever by Stonewall and who in turn became agents of change themselves.
A sex-positive and unapologetic depiction of LGBTQ culture and identity, The Stonewall Generation includes the voices of those frequently marginalized in mainstream tellings of LGBTQ history, lifting up the voices of people of color, transgender people, bisexual people, drag queens, and sex workers. We need to hear these voices, particularly at a time when our country is in the middle of a crisis that puts hard-won civil and human rights at risk, values we've fought for again and again in our nation's history.
For anyone committed to intersectional activism and social justice, The Stonewall Generation provides a much-needed resource for empowerment, education, and renewal.
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
LGBTQ community elders reflect on the decades since the Stonewall uprising. After conducting an expansive statistical research project on the sexual satisfaction of LGBTQ elders, veteran sex educator Fleishman acknowledges this demographic's "invisibility," and she channels her findings into a book of profiles of LGBTQ seniors whose memories and experiences form a moving tapestry of American gay history. Perhaps the most outspoken interviewee is transgender rights advocate Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, one of the few remaining survivors of the uprising and a major influence who has served as a "mother and grandmother figure to countless trans and nonbinary people around the world." Among the couples interviewed are Bob Isadore and his partner, David Velasco Bermudez, who was inside the establishment that night in 1969 to mourn Judy Garland's death; and late-stage activist lesbians Edie Daly and Jackie Mirkin, who met in their 60s and married in 2008. Many other contributors--diversified by age, race, and locale--share their opinions on ageism, sex, and their methods of staying true to the integrity of a liberation movement they helped foster. Mandy Carter, a veteran justice organizer, shares her coming-of-age experience as a black lesbian; at 70, she appreciates "the importance of being humble, dreaming big, and taking risks." Activist Hardy Haberman reflects on a 1964 Life Magazine article about homosexuality that sparked an interest in kink and leather subcultures and the misconceptions about sexual violence involved in those cultures. As Fleishman convincingly demonstrates, these significant voices embody the legacy of a movement for equality, anti-discrimination, and sexual freedom; they also encourage younger community members to take an active role in the preservation of those hard-earned liberties. Though this inspirational volume represents just a small sampling of the community's movers and shakers, it deserves prominent placement on LGBTQ history bookshelves. Kate Bornstein and Barbara Carrellas provide the foreword. An indelible collection of wise voices resonating with experience, pride, resilience, and revolution. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Sex researcher Fleishman interviews nine Elders, as she calls them, whose lives intersect the Stonewall riots of June 28, 1969. Several of her interviewees were actually there on that fateful night; the balance have lived lives touched by the riots that are credited with starting the modern LGBTQ rights movement. It was not only rights those involved were fighting for, though; Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a trans woman now 79 and a participant in the riots, remembers, "We were fighting for our survival." David Velasco Bermudez, another participant, vividly recalls that "Inside the bar it was a rebellion. Outside it was a riot." This Stonewall generation, Fleishman asserts, "has continued to fight for freedom, for rights, for love and, yes, for sex." In this context, it is no surprise that all of the interviewees--most now in their 70s and 80s--have been committed to activism, social change, and political movement. "Otherwise," Fleishman observes, "their lives evidenced more diversity than I could impart." Given the paucity of research in this area, Fleishman's book is a valuable addition to the literature.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Foreword There's an old joke about Woodstock that could just as easily apply to Stonewall. Basically, it says that if everyone who claims to have been there had really been there, the crowd size would be equal to the population of a not-so-small European country. Funny--and true. Why do so many of us who were alive and aware in 1969 feel like we were at Stonewall or Woodstock? Probably because both these events, which happened only two months apart, were such huge cultural milestones that they transcended a place or a date. They washed over us like a tsunami, changing the landscape of our lives forever. And although they were gatherings attended by relatively few, they changed everything for millions of people worldwide. So it's logical that the first question Jane asks all her interviewees in The Stonewall Generation is "Where were you on the night of June 28, 1969?" And this time everyone who's asked tells the truth, including us: On June 28, 1969, Kate was sitting quietly in their car, staring up at a moose who was standing in the middle of the Trans-Canada Highway. She was going to San Francisco. Kate had missed 1967's Summer of Love and was going in search of sloppy seconds. Surely, there would still be hippies and hippie chicks lining the sidewalks of Haight Ashbury. At the time, Kate was a hippie boy who wanted to be a hippie chick: twenty-one years old, just out of college, and about to start graduate school in the fall. The only trans people Kate's age who were out of the closet were drag queens, street fairies and butch women who passed as men. Most of them lived on the streets; that was the cost of being a gender outlaw in 1969. Trans wasn't even a word yet--the phenomenon of transsexuality was barely noticed by the mainstream media. Kate called themself a freak, but they didn't want the rest of the world calling them a freak too. Hippie boys could grow their hair long and wear pretty headbands, bell bottoms, and flowered shirts. Kate would have to make do with her delight in that small piece of gender freedom for a while. Kate wouldn't hear about Stonewall for another fifteen years. Barbara was a teenager in Newport, Rhode Island, deeply mourning the death of Judy Garland while celebrating her first professional theater job as an apprentice with a local summer stock company. She doesn't recall hearing about Stonewall in any meaningful way until the following winter when she became friends with Paul, a twenty-something gay sound designer at her community theatre. He was ecstatic about the possibilities that the Stonewall Riots and gay liberation, as they were called at the time, would bring, and his enthusiasm was infectious. Interestingly enough, the thing Barbara and Paul were most passionate about being liberated from was marriage. They were convinced that gay people would be able to model a lifestyle that would convince straight people that marriage was outmoded and anti-liberation. (Ah well . . . win some, lose some.) Gay Liberation, Women's Liberation, Black Liberation, Sexual Liberation. Liberation was the heart and soul of the years following June 28, 1969 for Barbara, as it was for so many others. Like us, not all the people who share their stories in The Stonewall Generation were "in the room where it happened"--that is, on the front lines resisting the police. Many did not pick up the activist baton until several years later, yet their contribution is just as important to the history of the Stonewall phenomenon as if they'd been loaded into the police vans on June 28. Many of the people interviewed for this book were marginalized not only by the mainstream culture but also by folks within their already marginalized culture for various reasons: for being too effeminate, too butch, too kinky, too bisexual, or for being people of color, sex workers, or drag queens. Our biggest delight and immense gratitude for this book rests in the choice of people who were included. Because the vast majority of us were not at Stonewall (or Woodstock), we have tended to interpret the event through the narrow historic lens of the dominant culture. Until relatively recently, most people thought of Stonewall as a primarily white, middle class, gay male event. The Stonewall Generation strips away this whitewashed, classist, sexist, and sex-negative veneer. We also celebrate the author's decision not to edit the voices of these elders. We all spoke a different language of liberation fifty years ago, particularly those of us in hyper-marginalized communities, and it's important for us to remember what our struggles and victories sounded like in the original language. It is equally important for young people today to hear how differently things looked and sounded in 1969, while still being able to appreciate the common yearnings for love, identity, and human rights that they are still fighting for today. As the saying goes, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." Social change is never a straight line. What goes down comes around in a spiral--not circling back to the same spot, but with each revolution, reaching a point a bit further away from the center as we expand our awareness and ability to include and connect with others. Most importantly, The Stonewall Generation is a love story. In the midst of all the fights for our rights over the past decades, we were then and are still fighting to be loved for who we are, and to be able to love whomever we choose in the way we choose. Perhaps you picked up this book because you remember life before and after Stonewall. Maybe you even know one of the people interviewed. Or maybe you've only just heard about Stonewall from a teacher at your school and you'd like to learn more about it from someone who was there. Welcome to the Time Capsule of Love that is The Stonewall Generation . The brave, youthful activists who have become our LGBTQ+ elders will inspire you--whatever your age; with the spirit and perseverance to shape your own LGBTQ+ future. --Kate Bornstein and Barbara Carrellas Excerpted from Stonewall Generation: LGBTQ Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging by Jane Fleishman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.Table of Contents
A Note on Language | p. xi |
Foreword | p. xv |
Introduction | p. xxi |
About the Interviewees | p. xxxix |
1 Sex Workers' Struggles | p. 1 |
2 Fighting Back | p. 19 |
3 The Power of One | p. 49 |
4 A Life in Leather | p. 81 |
5 Sex at a Later Age | p. 109 |
6 Love, Loss, and Laughter | p. 141 |
7 Finding Strength | p. 175 |
8 Postscript: Working with Elders in the Community | p. 197 |
9 Continuing Their Legacies | p. 207 |
Resources | p. 217 |
Acknowledgments | p. 221 |
Index | p. 223 |