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Forging Gay Identities

Organizing Sexuality in San Francisco, 1950-1994

Unlike many social movements, the gay and lesbian struggle for visibility and rights has succeeded in combining a unified group identity with the celebration of individual differences. Forging Gay Identities explores how this happened, tracing the evolution of gay life and organizations in San Francisco from the 1950s to the mid-1990s.

Table of Contents

Contents
List of Tables and Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Use of Identity Terms
1. The Transformation of the Lesbian/Gay Movement
Part 1. Forging a Gay Identity Movement
2. Beginnings: Homosexual Politics and Organizations, 1950-1968
3. Innovation: Gay Liberation and the Origins of Coming Out, 1969-1970
4. Opportunity: Gay Liberation and the Decline of the New Left, 1969-1973
5. The Crystallization of a Gay Identity Movement, 1971-1973
Part 2. Consequences of Field Formation
6. Success: Growth of a Gay Identity Movement in the 1970s
7. Exclusions: Gender, Race, and Class in the Gay Identity Movement
8. Challenge: The Effect of AIDS on the Gay Identity Movement, 1981-1994
9. Continuity and Change: The Gay Identity Movement in the 1980s and 1990s
Part 3. Conclusion
10. Institutions, Social Movements, and American Political Culture
Appendix: Constructing a Database of San Francisco’s Lesbian/Gay Organizations
Notes
Works Cited
Index

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