Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians

by Lillian Faderman, Stuart Timmons

Award-winning historian Lillian Faderman teams with journalist Stuart Timmons to write the first history of gay life in America's ultimate frontier town: Los Angeles
The exhortation to "Go West!" has always had a strong hold on the American imagination. But for the gays, lesbians, and transgendered people who have moved to L.A. over the past two centuries, the City of Angels has offered a special home--which, in turn, gave rise to one of the most influential gay cultures in the world.

Drawing upon untouched archives of documents and photographs and over 200 new interviews, Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons chart L.A.'s unique gay history, from the first missionary encounters with Native American cross-gendered "two spirits" to cross-dressing frontier women in search of their fortunes; from the bohemian freedom of early Hollywood to the explosion of gay life during World War II to the underground radicalism sparked by the 1950s blacklist; from the 1960s gay liberation movement to the creation of gay marketing in the 1990s. Faderman and Timmons show how geography, economic opportunity, and a constant influx of new people created a city that was more compatible to gay life than any other in America. Combining broad historical scope with deftly wrought stories of real people, from the Hollywood sound stage to the barrio, Gay L.A. is American social history at its best.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, Lesbian, Gay, Queer Studies

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Lillian Faderman is an internationally known scholar of lesbian history and literature, as well as ethnic history and literature. Among her many honors are six Lambda Literary Awards, two American Library Association Awards, and several lifetime achievement awards for scholarship. She is the author of The Gay Revolution and the New York Times Notable Books, Surpassing the Love of Men and Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers. (photo by Donn R. Nottage)

Reviews

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sociopolitical history of Los Angeles’s gay, lesbian and trans communities from the late 19th Century through the present day. LGBTQ historians Faderman (Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers) and Timmons (The Trouble With Harry Hay) show how critical the City of Angels was to the development of gay identities in America, emerging as a refuge for men and women who found themselves ostracized elsewhere. The authors spend much time on Classic Hollywood, and how stars like Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, Rudolph Valentino and Cary Grant traded on sexual ambiguity both on and off-screen, while less famous queer Angelinos formed parallel subcultures. The early gay rights movement found expression in Los Angeles (Harry Hay’s Mattachine Society was founded there in 1950, along with ONE, Inc., a more radical spin-off), as did provocative protest groups in the ‘70s and '80s, the rise of a politically powerful gay elite, fights against police brutality, conservative backlash and the AIDS epidemic, and the ongoing struggles of bisexuals, lesbians, trans persons and people of color to make their own voices heard. The book’s overview is comprehensive yet readable; I’ve seen a few historians critique some of the authors’ interpretations of events and figures described herein, and I’ll defer to those with a deeper knowledge of the subject. But their principal argument - that Los Angeles, with its combination of economic power, ethnic diversity, cultural glamour and a motivated, well-connected population, deserves place of pride among historically gay cities - is sound, and the book proves an informative, often-inspiring read.

[Anthony McGill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal research covering a wide spectrum of gay related issues - coverage nearly as big as L.A. itself!
Hard going at times keeping track of all the different groups and colorful personalities etc. over the years but I found it a rich and rewarding experience.

Really impressed by the emphasis on lesbian history and its impact on the politics and culture of the city through the years. Also great notes on Chicano, Black and other minorities, and the growth of Silver Lake as a progressive, working class queer community. Too often, seen through the experiences of gay men, we tend to look only at West Hollywood and its image of 'pretty white male' aspects of gay and lesbian L.A. The authors don't ignore the importance of 'Boystown' but they emphasize the rich offerings of queer life on display in all sections of Los Angeles.

If there is a weakness in the book, it maybe that it is a somewhat diplomatic history but that is only a minor criticism when you consider all the brutal battles the community has had to fight during so many years of oppression and each one is expertly discussed.

Solidarity and diversity come through strongly - key ingredients in winning the big battles.

The early section relating to Native American life in Yang-na (before it gradually transformed into Los Angeles) and other Southern California districts and the effect Spanish and Mexican missionaries had on it and its diverse lifestyle - " ...... ridding the land of the gender and sexual behaviour that shocked them, since Indians up and down California had always recognized that some males, as well as some females, were different from conventional men and women" - is of particular interest.

Regard this book as essential reading for anyone interested in gay history, wherever they reside.
Rating: 4.5

[6655321 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Major issues with this work:
* the authors repeatedly act as though police violence against the GLBT community is over, completely ignoring the frankly shocking statistics to the contrary
* the authors mention the GLBT community, but this book is ultimately about Gays and Lesbians, the scant coverage of Trans* individuals (which includes the authors misgendering correspondents frequently) is only trumped by the non-existent coverage of Bisexual individuals and Queer individuals
* it seems that the thesis proposed by Faderman & Timmons is that large, moneyed Gay and Lesbian groups are able to provide capital (social and monetary) to "help" grass roots initiatives who push things towards the extreme by appearing reasonable and winning demands, ignoring how frequently wealthy GLBT organizations act against the interests of non-white, non-middle-class GLBT persons.
* some events are given so little coverage it is baffling as to why they are included in the book at all, this includes: the Lesbian Sex Wars, the rise of S&M lesbian organizations, Punk music (which they either have a thin understanding of or rely exclusively on a single source to talk about), and indigenous forms of Gender Performance and Sexuality (which after the first few pages are dropped unceremoniously and indigenous people are never mentioned again, i think the authors are trying to argue that pre-conquest forms of gender/sexual freedom somehow are natural to the area?)

Sections that save this from a 1 star review:
* the coverage of GLBT religious movements is refreshing and often overlooked in GLBT history
* there is some sustained focus on difficulties in a unified movement
* there is some focus on GLBT POC movements although their aims, goals, activism, etc are soft sold outside of fundraising

ultimately, this work is supremely disappointing because of how long it is and how much it (over-ambitiously) tries to cover while ultimately failing to do more than give a quick gloss on almost 100 years of history much of which is over-focused on particular moments.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and very readable history of gay people in the Los Angeles area. The book begins with a description of the native populations of southern California, who shocked the colonizing Spaniards with their same-sex relationships and transgender behaviors. And then the story goes on, decade by decade in the twentieth century, describing how society has winked at, suppressed, harassed, hated, accommodated, murdered, and accepted gay men and women. The history of gay LA is heavily influenced by Hollywood, with its money, influence, and glamour. Sometimes it forced those in the industry more deeply into the closet (Rock Hudson); other times it meant having huge stars on your side and communicating a gay-positive message (Elizabeth Taylor).

I lived through some of this history, though not in LA, and I remember well the late seventies, years of Gay Liberation and lesbian separatism, and the suspicion between the two groups. I initially selected this book to read because I knew that my friend from the University of Wisconsin, Mark Kostopoulos, a founder of ACTUP/LA, would appear in its pages. As the book continued and Faderman foreshadowed the devastation wrought by AIDS, I began to dread the encounter. But when I finally found him, I discovered something true to the Mark I remembered—his warm relationships with women, including me—and that he chose a woman to succeed him as ACTUP/LA facilitator (320).

Even if you don’t know any of the book’s characters personally, you will be familiar with many of the individuals referenced in it, including famous Hollywood names and California politicians. Faderman conscientiously provides a diverse history of a multicultural, trend-setting city. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Hollywood, LGBT history, or southern California.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a very comprehensive overview of LGBTQ history as it relates to the city of Los Angeles up until 2006. I lived in Los Angeles during the late 80s until the mid 90s so this was a very interesting read for me and it was also nice to read about familiar places and names and their relationship to LGBTQ history. This book could have covered the transgendered portion of the equation a little better but at least it did talk about it at the end. All in all this book is a well written history lesson relevant to anyone interested in learning the history of the LGBTQ community in Los Angeles. .

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe it's so stunning because I've lived in L.A. for over 30 years and know so many of the people interviewed for the book, those movers and shakers of our community. Many tears reading about the history of AIDS activism, of which I was also a tiny part. This is essential reading for LGBTQ Americans, Californians, and Angelenos. One of the things I liked best was that I thought it had a very good balance of gay male history and lesbian history. Highly recommended!

[kory. · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting, informative, inspiring, infuriating. basically the la version of gay new york, which i enjoyed and often reference. but it’s not without flaws, as it’s a pretty narrowed history, focusing on (allo cis white abled) gays and lesbians. and of course, one single book cannot capture all history (and accurately, at that), even if it’s localized to one city.

content/trigger warnings; discussions/mentions of homophobia, lesbophobia, transphobia, misgendering, police violence, racism, n word, antisemitism, physical assault, castration, sexual assault, sexual harassment, suicide, death, illness, hiv/aids, loss of loved ones, fatphobia, ableism,

this book got on my radar through my research for my pansexual history timeline, with these passages specifically:

most punks who had gay sexual experiences did not identify as homosexual any more than they identified as heterosexual or even bisexual. jack marquette, who promoted pink nightclubs, recalls that many in that scene “thrived on sexual ambiguity,” but they maintained a determined refusal to categorize their lifestyles. their “orientation” (the very concept of which they would disdain) was best classified as “decline to state.” john callahan, who was openly gay, says that few in his crowd declared their homosexuality because “public sexual orientation was passé.”

though homosexual practices were usually covert among male punks, among pink girls they were open and even signified a declaration of female sexual freedom, which punks resoundingly approved. sheree rose remembers her own early sojourns into the punk rock club scene: “there was an amorphous sexual energy,” she says. “who you slept with didn’t have anything to do with gender. the men knew that the women were sleeping together. it was no problem.” according to fran, who was also a punk rocker, everyone acknowledged that pansexuality was the female-punk “norm”: “you’d go to a club, come back to the crash pad shit-faced, and end up sleeping with another girl as likely as with a guy, and you didn’t have to hide it.” in between visits to punk rock venues such as florentine gardens and brave dog, fran would visit bars such as peanuts, and, as she observes now, the distinctions were more apparent than real: “the girls [at peanuts] were different those at the punk clubs mostly because they had a gay identity. we punks did the same things in bed that they did. it was just that we never called ourselves ‘gay.’” phranc, who the public darling of sexually flexible punk rockers like fran, agrees that although pansexuality was the punk female norm, a “lesbian identity” was rare in pink culture: “everyone among the punk rocker girls was experimenting with sex, but i can think of only one other person besides me who actually called herself a dyke. the rest just did it.”

punk females “we not at all political,” phranc says. “they were into ‘anything goes.’ it was all personal pleasure and fashion.” despite their sexual fluidity and gender ambiguity, the girl punks were nothing at all like the radical feminists of the decade before who had experimented with lesbian relationships as “the next important step” and wore “boy things” as a politically correct uniform. like the lipstick lesbians, girl punks provided another model of style for young females who enjoyed sex with other females—one that was far more loose and light and trendy than anything lesbian feminists could be comfortable with.

female punk rockers, disdaining conventional femininity, demanded what most women were still too timid to claim. fran was a devotee of women’s punk rock bands, including the slits, castration squad, and red fear, which flaunted aggressive female pansexuality. she remembers that those performers “had so much strength, power, and presence,” which was “really attractive and appealing to a girl like me who was looking for a way to be.”

my biggest issue is the way the authors write about trans people. first, trans people are only mentioned here and there throughout the book, until in the epilogue when they finally get four pages dedicated solely to them. instead of including trans people throughout the narrative, they’re a footnote at the very end of the book, that not only says they were present throughout the history detailed in the book and have shared experiences with gays and lesbians (again, but not included in the narrative), but strongly implies that organizing and activism among trans people didn’t exist until long after that of gays and lesbians, as if they weren’t active in the organizing and activism that gays and lesbians were doing.

further, nearly every single time a specific trans person is mentioned, they are either misgendered, deadnamed, referred to with questionable terms (“transgenders”, “transgendered���, “s/he”), and painted in a doubtful light through the use of scare quotes around their name or pronouns. sometimes, the authors act as if it’s a fact that the people they’re discussing were simply cis women “masquerading as men”, even in cases where it wasn’t until their death that people learned they weren’t cis men. the idea that they could’ve been trans men or otherwise not women is either not even considered or briefly noted before the assumption they aren’t is made. (apparently lillian faderman’s writings have a theme of transphobia/erasure, so...)

followed by the lack of consideration for trans people is the lack of consideration for bi/pan/mspec people. they are mentioned even less than trans people. the terms bisexual, pansexuality, sexual fluidity, sexual ambiguity, “unstraight”, and “undeclared” are lightly sprinkled a few times, but nothing meaningful about these groups is present in the book. their contribution to activism, their struggles with nonqueer society, their struggles within the community, etc. nothing.

there’s also a sort of vibe of downplaying what lesbians went through. even though the authors detail the bigotry lesbians faced from police (such as harassment, violence, policing of their gender presentation, raids, false charges, and arrests), they later say because lesbians didn’t face sexual entrapment or arrest for public cruising/sex specifically (two biggest police tactics against gay men), that lesbians had “little occasion to worry about the police”. there’s actually a pretty apt example of this in the book, an attorney who worked with the early homophile organization one wrote in one magazine that lesbians had “greater freedom” than gay men, only that issue of the magazine was seized by the post office for being obscene and a story about lesbians was named the most obscene of the issue. ironic, huh?

the authors also acknowledge that lesbians could lose their jobs if their lesbianism was found out, but because the attorney for the ladder (magazine for the first american lesbian organization) said lesbians had “nothing to fear” as long as they “minded their own business and used good manners”, they downplay the reality. never mind that the whole reason lesbians seemingly had “nothing to worry about” and “greater freedom” compared to gay men was because lesbianism wasn’t even treated as legitimate in the first place. erasure/invisibility is not freedom or a worry-free life. freedom is never worry free when it’s contingent on suppression or stealth, which requires constant hypervigilance/awareness of yourself and surroundings. i don’t know, it just feels like the authors are pitting lesbians and gay men against each other in a battle of oppression, when historically (as acknowledged in this book), they teamed up with each other to try to avoid or fight against their oppression.

the authors say gays are no longer persecuted by police and politicians....in what world lmfao

[Rem · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Los Angeles was a city of heretics....a city of refugees from the [rest of] America. [Their] banishment was partly dreamed and partly real." pg. 1

"They had learned to play "the movie game," which meant creating public images that were generally far more conventional than real--though within the parameters of Hollywood, people were much more freer to indulge in the "mad, extravagant," and "unbridled." pg. 43

"They [Tom Gibbon and company] created what they called the "Cufflink Crowd." a "tight social circle" of lesbian and gay may couples who were of their class and shared their interests...Gibbon says that most of his "Cufflink Crowd," who are now in their eighties, "remain friends for life" and still see one another." pg. 103

"Such an instance of community was possible in Los Angeles long before the start of a gay movement because the homosexual population had reached a critical mass. Los Angeles by the 1940s was already largely a city of immigrants, people who came from somewhere else in search of what they could not find back home. Of course, Los Angeles would have been particularly attractive to both those who sought fleeing homosexual sex and to those who saw themselves as homosexual. The city promised the sophistication and panache associated with Hollywood, the freedom that comes from relative anonymity, and the urban-area odds of meeting others who shared one's interests." pg. 106

"In Los Angeles, Chicanos rejected the assimilationist "Mexican Americans" and proclaimed themselves members of "La Raza." They formed organizations such as the Brown Berets and captured attention by dramatic demonstrations not only against the Establishment's war in Vietnam but also against discrimination, oppression, and malign neglect.
Fueled by the nearby examples of Watts and the Chicano movement, as well as the attention of the Hollywood media that loved the color and drama of the new "youth culture," the disaffected young in L. A. also grabbed headlines.
Among the protestors were many gay young people who relished the freedom to blur gender lines in the unisex drag that the counterculture now encouraged." pg. 142

"The number of lesbians in Los Angeles multiplied exponentially during the 1970s, when radical women who had ostensibly been heterosexual opened up to the notion of lesbianism as a political choice that any radical feminist might make." pg. 189

"Suddenly, in the wake of gay visibility that the radicals had succeeded in effecting, and the Sexual Revolution that acknowledged that sex was not always connubial, a whole new group of men and women were daring to admit publicly that they, too, were gay. They were not hippies or radical who had dropped out of society, but professional and business people who were invested in the system. Because they wanted to forge a new image for the group to which they had secretly belonged, one of a "respectable" and "responsible" gay community, they had to begin by coming out, one person at a time....No collection of individuals can find it uncomplicated to work together for an extended period of time toward a huge objective....The community's upsetting tendency to "eat its own" was so prevalent that it was dubbed "oppression sickness." It was only when enemies appeared at the gates--as happened when Senator John Briggs attacked California homosexuals through a deadly ballot initiative--that the entire gay and lesbian community seemed able to put aside its differences and work together toward victory." pp. 197-198

"Although sexual ambiguity may have been almost universal among them, however, the punk world was not always entirely accepting of males who were unambiguously homosexual...for men, punk sexual ambiguity alternated with punk rock machismo that could express itself in homophobia as hostile as a hardhat's." pg. 252?

"Gay wit and imagination had a strong influence on the L. A. punk rock scene...Alternating with the extreme of machismo, hints of gayness were sometimes provocative political statements because of their power to epater le bourgeois....gayness influenced punk rock culture and, in turn, exploited its outrageous challenges to convention. pg. 253?

"Though homosexual practices were usually covert among male punks, among punk girls they were open and even signified a declaration of sexual freedom, which punks resoundingly approved." pg. 254

"West Hollywood--with its witty moniker "Boystown" (a reference to the 1948 Spencer Tracy film about a colony of orphaned newsboys) and its double-entendre zip code, "90069"--had long been a gay male enclave...it had drawn gay men for the same reason and continued to draw them through the years. It was a gay dreamland.
In the 1970s, the residents, of West Hollywood became emboldened, expressing their gay freedom not just after dark, but brazenly in the sun: holding hands, flirting and cruising all over the district. Boystown became even more of what it had been in earlier years; only now, gay-owned and gay-targeted businesses boomed there and glitzy consumption flourished. West Hollywood appeared to be not just a gay ghetto, but an entire gay town." pp. 231-232

"That ethos [of 'Yeah let's give it a try'] helps to explain why it was Los Angeles that gave birth to the country's first gay organizations, churches, synagogues, magazines, community centers. L.A.'s growth to gargantuan magnitude and its vast diversity also helps to explain why gay men and women flocked there: In Los Angeles, they knew, they could find both anonymity and community, which have been vital to gays' survival and development. during the last half-century, gay life has been transformed in cities all over America. But in Los Angeles these transformations have occurred on a huge scale; and its gay consciousness and lifestyles that have developed there have had tremendous influence on how gay life is lived everywhere." pg. 361.

[Lily · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting introduction to LA's history as a place where members of the LGBT community congregate to find, well, a community. This book is almost 15 years old so a lot of the terminology is outdated (particularly its language and attitudes towards trans people) and it focuses primarily on the "G" and "L" while ignoring the other letters.

The authors write that "[Los Angeles's] location at the edge of the continent, far from "back home", has sharpened its cutting edge and sanctioned experimentation such as would have been impossible elsewhere. From its beginnings as a frontier town, it has permitted, or has seemed to permit, what was unconventional, creative, and daring." And it's true: they trace the formation of LGBT communities and LA itself through many incarnations as an amoral Wild West town, a cleaned-up "haven of morality", the rise of Hollywood, the experimental 30s and 40s and the restrictive 50s, the explosion of counter-culture, the beginnings of gay pride, the AIDS/HIV crisis, and the transition into the 21st century. We see the first LGBT magazines, newsletters, films, and community centers emerge in LA as well as the first openly gay and lesbian mayors, representatives, and directors.

Overall, it's a good starting point if you don't know much about LA's gay history, but I wish it utilized even more in-person accounts to give it less of a dry textbook tone. The authors do a surprisingly good job of documenting the disparity between different racial communities and how POC experiences radically differed from the affluent whites' throughout the 20th century, including the effects of aggressive police brutality (the Vice Squad is the stuff of nightmares) and environmental segregation.
A lot of it focuses on LA's unique ability to let LGBT people congregate and organize in person, so I'd be interested to read about how the rise of the internet changed things as resources and online communities became more accessible to folks across the nation.

[Hillary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a good history of gays and lesbians in LA. It was not a very good history of queer people who are not gay or lesbian. Trans people have two chapters largely to themselves, and are incorporated very little into the rest of the narrative. They are also referred to awkwardly as "transgenders" and often misgendered, unless they've had bottom surgery. Bisexual people are mentioned maybe half a dozen times in over 350 pages, which I'd say qualifies pretty well as bisexual erasure. The epilogue also suggests a level of success and safely for gay and lesbian people that has not quite actually been achieved. However, if you can deal with those issues, the history of LA's gay and lesbian experiences, gathering places, fights for rights, and growing political power was extensively researched. The end notes are very detailed, though I would have appreciated a few more where slang was quoted and not defined. 

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faderman is a diligent researcher and an excellent writer. This is a thorough and engaging history of Los Angeles from the indigenous tribes to the early 2000s. There were three weaknesses that marred the strength of this book for me. The authors use the term "berdache" rather than "two-spirit." The "gossip" chapters about which Hollywood celebrities were or might have been gay or lesbian seemed too much like the National Enquirer. Finally, and this often happens in similar works, as we approach the present, the material seems to lose perspective and we get far more detailed descriptions of people and events than we did for earlier events.

[Cami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I'm using Gay L.A. as a textbook, it reads very much like a novel! Before I finished, I often looked forward to reading more and learned a lot along the way. There are definitely some subjects the authors touch upon briefly that I will be looking into later! It's also very neat that the book is centered on Los Angeles, something I haven't seen in many other LGBTQ+ histories. However, I have some reservations about how trans issues are treated. . . There is no section focusing on trans folks until the Epilogue, and the way they're discussed feels very outdated to me.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned much about life before my life in LA began. And I learned much about the political scene happening during the 3 years I lived in LA. I discovered interesting tidbits of the lives of several friends of mine as well. I think it was a worthy read about Gay life in Los Angeles, then and now, and while it is impossible to tell the whole story, it does give one a satisfying perspective and a forward-looking hope to the future of our community.

[Alok Vaid-Menon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book single-handedly made me like Los Angeles (a remarkable feat, I must admit). Hearing about how LGBTQ+ communities persisted despite relentless criminalization and brutality was awe-inspiring and made me tear up. Hearing especially about lesbians who are so often disappeared in these historical accounts was so meaningful. I'll write a longer report on this later, but for now -- feeling awe. And gratittude.

[Pan Ellington · Rating 3 out of 5]

good, solid, broadstroked history of lgbtq l.a. was pleased to see the authors go in depth on ACT/UP los angeles. very disappointed, however, at the authors language with respect to the trans community, ie: "transgenders," adjective FTM, MTF, misgendering, etc.

[Asher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good collection of history. I loved that it started with a discussion of Indigenous sexuality and gender variances, and that there was a chapter dedicated to discussing how race affected LGBT culture in L.A.
There was some misgendering of individuals who were clearly trying to assert the gender they felt they were however they were all from a time when there are no actual depictions of the words they used to identify themselves, so I do understand this to an extent.

[Marsha Altman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book on the history of LGBT people in LA. First half more interesting than the second.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

very informative! makes me proud to live in l.a.

[Elevate Difference · Rating 4 out of 5]

California: Land of the free, the brave, and the gay. This heart-lifting literary biopsy of gay rights’ progression in Southern California (Los Angeles, specifically) is a delight to read. For those of you who have ever stood in the face of adversity, protest poster in hand, Gay L.A. will remind you exactly why you did so. For the rest, it will open your eyes to the continuing need for civil rights activism on all planes.

The non-fiction novel is a chronological retelling of the way gay community has evolved in the past hundred years. Though both stories and people vary, the one element that does not change is each generation’s responsibility to push the envelope a little more than its predecessor. After all, where would Lindsey Lohan be today if Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo hadn’t been gender-bending wearers of pants? In the closet, of course!

From scintillating behind-the-scenes tales of Hollywood’s 1920s heyday, to the rigid role-playing of the 1950s, to the moving protests against the government’s indifference in the face of the AIDS epidemic, this historical work reads like a novel. All the work big Hollywood names of the '20s and '30s had to go to remain closeted is fascinating. Gay L.A. states that celebrities could be open and “out” in private circles, but they kept their flamboyancy far from public eye. Thanks to Twitter, paparazzi, and camera cell phones, celebs no longer have this luxury—which makes reading about the elaborate lengths famous gay people went to in those days all the more interesting. (Did you ever wonder where the term “beard” marriage came from? Even “lipstick lesbian” is an invention of a bygone era.)

As far as an accurate representation of the GLBT community, I’d have to say that these authors did a fairly evenhanded job. They are able to approximate the delicate balancing point between the telling of gay men’s and lesbian’s stories—although less attention is paid to transgender narratives. This gap in information might just be due to the lack of research and archived information on transgender identities, which is accurate for the time periods covered but still somewhat disappointing.

The amount of GLBT history that I gleaned from this book is astounding. For instance, I’d never heard the gay agenda addressed in a respectful and literal way. I’ve always wondered why conservatives fling the phrase around to depict gays as child-molesting monsters seeking world domination. The “gay agenda” always sounded so ludicrous to me, an offensive mischaracterization of a disenfranchised group’s fight for equality. Apparently such a thing actually existed at one point! Take, for example, the difference between L.A.’s early gay rights political activists fighting for domestic partnership benefits and a satiric website like The Homosexual Agenda. We have the ability to be flippant about the “gay agenda” in the 21st century because of the hard-won battles fought by those who went before us.

Gay L.A. is a two-fold motivational work: it is both a call to action and to remembrance. It ends on a hopeful note, reminding us that the battle has not been won but that much progress has been made. It also reminds modern-day civil rights proponents of just how much blood, sweat, and tears it took to get us where we are today.

Review by Sam Williams

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faderman makes a LOT of claims for LA's primacy in the growth of queer culture, but man oh man has she done her research! The stories keep rolling out - the launch of a newsletter, the formation of a group, the off-camera intrigues of the film crowd, the first this and the first that.

As a long-time New Yorker, I naturally feel a bias that many of these same events were taking place in my adopted city, but Faderman so often has dates and comparisons, which support her theories and conjectures.

Regardless, she tells a fascinating tale of LA's remarkable 20th century rise of gay men and lesbians, so many of whom came to LA in search of the cinematic dreams and found a million other refugees from small towns and small minds.

[Michael Thomas Angelo]

I attended the University of Southern California in the mid 1990s and was active in campus community advocacy for queer issues while conducting outreach into the West Hollywood enviornment of which I was incredibly enamored having recently begun acting on the homosexuality I always knew was within me. I was affiliated with Walter Williams, the pioneer responsible for the extensive ONE institute that was just taking shape at the time. It is now the largest collection of queer historical archives in the LA community and housed at USC. I am looking forward to reading this book as the issue of queer identity in LA is very close to my heart and my own personal development.

[Lisa Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

absolutely fascinating. having grown up within commuting distance of san francisco, i'd never really given much thought to the importance of los angeles on LGBT history and culture, so the book was as much informative as entertaining for me. exhaustively researched and very well written, a refreshing take on the struggle(s) for civil rights.

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most comprehensive lgbtq historical account I have encountered thus far. Faderman and Timmons trace the history of Southern California and LA as far back as spanish explorations to the present, in a rich, inclusive historical account that at times, raised goosebumps on my arms. Amazing.

[ONTD Feminism · Rating 4 out of 5]

LJ user munkymp3 says, " An absolutely brilliant documentation on where queer activism began. Everyone thinks it all began in Stonewall but people will find that they were very much mistaken as they find that the very first reported uprising took place at the Black Cat Tavern in LA."

[Graciela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an eye opener.
It gave exact date and details about what the LGBT community has contribute to Los Angeles. It was a very interesting book :) I learned about multiple events that occurred in my city waayyyy before the Stonewall riots.

[Nicholas George · Rating 4 out of 5]

The co-author, Stuart Timmons, is recovering bravely from a recent stroke. Hope he'll write another like this someday!

[Averin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing details and some deeply disappointing missing ones, too.