Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy, and Civil Rights (Stonewall Inn Editions)

by John D'Emilio

Like those '40s dance marathons, where the winners were the couple that stayed on their feet the longest, public policy change is sometimes just a matter of endurance. Over the past 30 years, despite a steady shift to the right in federal and state politics, lesbians and gays have made tremendous social and political advances, thanks to the unremitting efforts of activists and sympathetic legislators and policy makers. This inspiring and highly readable anthology, which includes Barney Frank on immigration law, Rich Tafel on gay Republicans, Marj Plumb on lesbian health in the Clinton years, and David L. Chambers on marriage and domestic partnership, describes the incremental but essential changes in American public policy on gay rights since 1970. Creating Change reminds us of the big that gay issues now have a national stage, and that queer lives are braver and hipper than anyone else's. This book should be in every gay library, but especially on the shelves of younger readers, who may not be familiar with the pre-ACT-UP world. --Jack Connolly

Genres: Queer, LGBT, Nonfiction, Politics, History

Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

John D'Emilio is a professor emeritus of history and of women's and gender studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He taught at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He earned his B.A. from Columbia College and Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1982, where his advisor was William E. Leuchtenburg. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1998 and National Endowment for the Humanities fellow in 1997 and also served as Director of the Policy Institute at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force from 1995 to 1997.