Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence

Perverse Modernities

by Christina B. Hanhardt

Since the 1970s, a key goal of lesbian and gay activists has been protection against street violence, especially in gay neighborhoods. During the same time, policymakers and private developers have declared the containment of urban violence to be a top priority. In this important book, Christina B. Hanhardt examines how LGBT calls for "safe space" have been shaped by broader public safety initiatives that have sought solutions in policing and privatization and have had devastating effects along race and class lines.

Drawing on extensive archival and ethnographic research in New York City and San Francisco, Hanhardt traces the entwined histories of LGBT activism, urban development, and U.S. policy in relation to poverty and crime over the past fifty years. She highlights the formation of a mainstream LGBT movement, as well as the very different trajectories followed by radical LGBT and queer grassroots organizations. Placing LGBT activism in the context of shifting liberal and neoliberal policies, Safe Space is a groundbreaking exploration of the contradictory legacies of the LGBT struggle for safety in the city.

Genres: Queer, History, Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer Studies, Social Justice, Theory

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Christina B. Hanhardt is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Reviews

[6655321 · Rating 3 out of 5]

i wanted to like this book more than i did? like, there are some *really* good parts to this and i think this book is worth reading (5 stars on *you should read this*, 3 stars on *this is fun to read*). i think my biggest problem comes from the sheer volume of work that Hanhardt is attempting to address (the history of discourses of safety & space in "queer" history) and thus some parts feel a little sketchy (despite the mentions of transwomen being targeted in the "cleanup" of the piers very little ink is spilled on transwomen's relationship to the space except for via Sylvia Rivera who is given minimal coverage). Also there seems to be a lack of analysis on how hate crime laws actually have worked out for the LGBTQ+ community (Queer (In)Justice paints this very clearly: they haven't helped and police still brutalize LGBTQ+ folx) and, honestly, and this may be just because of my own theoretical perspective: the history of the policing of queer spaces is sorta never touched on except for occasional mentions of bar raids & Stonewall & police sensitivity training as a goal for reformist organizations. But honestly, read it.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a truly intersectional analysis of neighborhood political organizing around violence and how it connects to the protection of private property and gentrification. It's a solid, clearly argued and very well documented book that covers a tremendous amount of historical and territorial ground in a relatively brief narrative. Consider this, it covers the LGBT organizing in neighborhoods from the 1960s-present, including the Castro, the Central City and Tenderloin in San Francisco and the West Village and Piers in NYC. It critically engages queer theory, Marxist geography, feminist theory, and a ton of work in criminal and policy studies, without being dry, bombastic or obfuscatory.

[Caitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

is this book too dense or am I? Hanhrardt tries to do a whole lot and I don't find it particularly accessible.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hanhardt argued that anti-violence neighborhood organizing by white LGBT activists, using politics of respectability to gain visibility, helped push gentrification and backlash by queer POC. She looks to gay neighborhoods of Castro, Center City and Tenderloin in San Francisco, and West Village, Piers, and Greenwich Village in NYC, in the years proceeding Stonewall and the decades since, while concentrating on the safe street patrols, antiviolence programs and access to private/public money, and activism to recognize hate crimes in order to transform homosexuals from a criminal class to the perpetrators of violence being criminals. These movements often targeted youth of color, and attempted to clear out working class queer people of color who lived within gay neighborhoods that had, by the early 2000s achieved respectability. While antigay law enforcement still occurred, it tended to be against the most vulnerable. “Quality of life” campaigns tended to target sex workers and drug addicts, calling for more policing.

Key Themes and Concepts
-Militant gay liberalism put on the show of militant radicalism but often used regressive manners to achieve goals, such as targeting youths of color. FIERCE rose to argue against police, capital, and respectability.
-Gay activists argued for visibility, which put them at more risk for violence. However, it also defined gayness as a white category and often erased working class people of color, especially youth, and sometimes lesbians and trans people.
-Metronormative: where standards of ideal neighborhood are applied to all places not equal in access. Spatial fixes are gentrification and mass incarceration.
-Threat of violence tends to be a moral bookend for struggles of upper middle class gay men, as opposed to continuing existence for disclosed queer poc.

[brady steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

i found this book really interesting in how it positioned the rise of an “acceptable” white gay middle class, often gentrified, public space against that of the non-white, non-gender conforming, poor person excluded and harmed by these “safe spaces”. was an essential read for me in my education and understanding, and would recommend this book because of how well it connects queerness, spatial violence, and policing.

will say i felt there was a large exclusion of trans people and their relationship to violence in neighborhoods, both deemed queer friendly and not, (hanhardt briefly mentioned sylvia rivera/star in chapter 5). feel there could be a part 2 book dedicated to the trans experience in relation to these topics? also, as amazing and essential as fierce is, wish chapter 5 expanded beyond fierce and included work beyond greenwich village and fierce in the modern era. overall couldn’t recommend this enough though!

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very excited to discover this book since I am an officer for Seattle's Q-Patrol revival and I've found that there are surprisingly few histories of early gay/queer safety patrols. Therefore, even though only about a third of this book is about that in particular I'll be recommending it to everyone in the group.

It's primarily useful as presentation of why, while earlier patrols can be a good inspiration, we need to think of ourselves as a definite rupture with them in practice. Since liberals so often make a show of abhorring violence, Hanhardt helpfully reminds us that earlier street patrols were almost all liberal rather than radical organisations, focusing too much upon "cleaning up the streets" and police inaction against hate crimes, rather than the police themselves as instigators of violence.

[celia]

After a certain point I think you just have to admit that you're "reading" a book as a grad student is -- that is, you've read enough sentences to have something to say, but you're not actually internalizing anything you're reading or really engaging with the text...

[stevie · Rating 4 out of 5]

so happy to have read this book. so happy to be done reading this book. i will have to eventually read it again if i want to really get out of it what i'd like to, but i'll wait awhile.

Safe Space is well-researched and sharp, and it offers skillful analyses + important perspectives on histories whose relationships are under-examined. it is also very dense and at times difficult to follow. the author is calling on and pulling together many different areas of study, and for me, trying to hold onto all the pieces long or well enough to weave them into something coherent was a real challenge. some of that is perhaps the nature of the beast, and some of it showed up in the writing itself. there are places in the book that involve many consecutive sentences of ten clauses each, and i can't say those parts were either fun to read or particularly salient or comprehensible, or at least not to me.

that said, i do absolutely recommend this book. sometimes i read things i have to try real hard at, only to realize that there's little there there. other times the reach is well worth the reward. Safe Space is very much the latter.

[Josh Mintanko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid scholarship with deeply perceptive insights. Hanhardt deftly entangles strands (often contradicting) of queer history, urban studies, and economic change. Students in these areas will find her approach instructive.

That said, the book was less compelling than I had hoped, perhaps because I read it after I finished some personality-driven narrative histories. Hanhardt emphasizes the role of movements, not individuals, and while this approach give rewarding insights and combats unhelpful "great men" tendencies in historical scholarship, it sometimes reads a bit dowdy.

[willowdog · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dense, historical, well-researched account of the various organizations and groups from the early 60's though the present which sought to guarantee safe spaces for GLBT individuals and neighborhoods, and the difficulties of finding that difficult road along class and race lines.

[Tony Parsons]

like 2 win/read this book

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great.

[Mills College Library]

306.76609 H239 2013

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the book I was looking for when I read it, but one I would return to, maybe, in the future.