Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution

by Linda R. Hirshman

In the vein of Taylor Branch’s classic Parting of the Waters, Supreme Court lawyer and political pundit Linda Hirshman delivers the enthralling, groundbreaking story of the gay rights movement, revealing how a dedicated and resourceful minority changed America forever—now available in a limited Olive Edition.

When the modern struggle for gay rights erupted in the summer of 1969, forty-nine states outlawed sex between people of the same gender. Four decades later, in 2011, New York legalized gay marriage and the armed services stopped enforcing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Successful social movements are always extraordinary, but these advances seem like something of a miracle.

Linda Hirshman recounts the long roads that led to these victories, detailing the remarkable and revolutionary story of the movement that has blurred rigid gender lines, altered the shared culture, and broadened our definitions of family. Written in vivid prose, at once emotional and erudite, Victory is an utterly vibrant work of reportage and eyewitness accounts and demonstrates how, in a matter of decades, a focused group of activists forged a classic campaign for cultural change that will serve as a model for all future political movements.

“Remarkable for its emotional punch as for its historical insight.”—New York Times Book Review

Genres: Nonfiction, History, LGBT, Queer, Politics, Gay, Law

544 pages, Paperback

First published June 5, 2012

Reviews

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

My actual knowledge of gay history is embarrassingly minimal, so I picked this up from the library. Hirshman's focus here is on the American gay rights movement and it's meteoric ascent in the last 60 years, not on American gay culture as a whole. She does an excellent job of examining how that history developed, going all the way back to the 1920's and 1930's and showing the development of the first informal, hopelessly ineffective gay organizations and groups decades before phrases like 'Stonewall' 'Harvey Milk' and 'ACT UP' would mean anything to anyone.

And the books earliest chapters reveal a pre-WWII gay culture that, while hideously mistreated, was also shockingly vibrant and even quite brazen at times. And she also tacitly puts up an alternative to the rather idiotic, and cheaply accepted notion that it was entirely the upheaval of WWII that really "made" modern gay culture happen. As she rightly points out, the simple fact of urbanization (arguably the most basic, widely felt social phenomenon of modernity), of young men and women moving into large cities for more opportunities and then being able to pursue their romantic interests away from the constraints of small town family life is, more than any other force, what first brought gay people together at all.

Hirschman takes a wide approach, and at times the dizzying array of different organizations and figures she casually mentions as being of supreme importance seldom get more than a few sentences describing them. Victory is more interested in the broad trends than in elevating any single person or organization as being the real banner carrier of the gay rights movement. Though, as any reader will come to realize, Larry Kramer and ACT UP, and it's lively response to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s is the real high water mark of direct action. In fact ACT UP, with its brazen public demonstrations carried out at a time when being gay became nearly equated with a death sentence, really kind of set the standards for how any post-60's protests should be organized, even into our own time.

For all the strengths of Hirschman's research and her very smart observations about why certain gay and lesbian initiatives succeeded or failed when they did, the book is marred down by her over-reliance on the Rousseauan idea of the social contract, which she tries to squeeze every fact into with weird, occasionally confused results. And the moments when she really delves into the byzantine wording of various gay rights court cases and the legal theories behind them kind of made my eyes glaze over, but then I'm not a high powered attorney. This book is the product of a brilliant legal mind, but Hirschman's analysis in the later part of the book never really steps beyond the realm of purely legal considerations and examines the gay rights movement in a broader, more holistic context. The progress of gay rights in the last half century is an incredible story, but this book often feels more like a victory lap than a real, in-depth examination of that history. And like many books about gay and lesbian rights, it's already dated.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author goes through a century of the history of the slow but steady change towards equal rights for gay men and women in the United States. The going was tough, after a remarkably good step forward during Prohibition (when the culture of doing things that were not condoned by the main stream became almost main stream by virtue of prevalence), but the book does not have a downbeat tone--quite the contrary, it is uplifting throughout.

The author does not waste any time defending the concept that homosexuals require equal rights--she very appropriately has that as a given. Her contention is that because gays are so much like straight folks it led to a longer time for us all to figure out that we have friends, family members, and co-workers who are gay, and this delay in recognition did the gay community no favors. She argues that it was HIV and AIDS that brought the issue of gay rights to the forefront, for two reasons. One was that it was no longer possible to deny that Uncle Leo was gay--once AIDS was in full epidemic, people became reluctantly openly gay. The equally important effect was that the gay community became an effective and powerful lobby. They worked first for treatment options for HIV, but the networks that developed went on to lobby for gay rights in all walks of life. THe most recent battle grounds--military service and marriage--have taken dramatic strides forward this past several years.

The book is a wonderful read, but it is especially strong in the area of Supreme Court rulings related to gay rights.

[James Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m always a bit apprehensive on non-fiction books in the way that they get me very excited but then I’m like “hold on a minute, this might be super biased!”

Meaning that I actually enjoyed all this and I guess there is not a lot of “two sides” of this story. But it was fresh and informative in a easy and fun way, it never felt dull or like you were being fed plain facts.

Great book.

[Hayleigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not get very far in this book due to its wildly inaccurate depictions of the feminist, marxist, and Civil Rights movements in the early pages of the book.

[Ayla Crisostomo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some radical lessons on how to move the needle towards social acceptance, how some fundamental human rights take collective action, and how democracy = participation.

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the book which invites you on a journey of American gay civil rights through the last 80 years. It has a strict focus on civil liberties and rights and the official attitude towards the LGBT citizens such as the psychiatrists' classification of LGBT peopleas mentally ill, sodomy laws and funding for AIDS research. It did not focus on the change in public opinions, the change in the framing of LGBT people in the media or what caused this change, but instead focused on the social movement alone. Although the other aspects would have been interesting, and I at times missed them, it would also have diluted the book which is already 350 pages. It is still however a very interesting, smart book, that really shows the gigantic change in perception towards LGBT citizens, who would be fired and jailed if outed just 50 years ago. I would highly recommend it to anyone interest in the journey of LGBT rights in America and the western world in general.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating and well-written at first, but then I got lost in the swirling pool of names and dates. The author keeps jumping back and forth in time, which makes following the many threads confusing. That's probably unavoidable considering the large number of gay-rights leaders involved, but I just couldn't wade through this title. It would be good for someone determined to know the entire story, for people looking for detailed information on the gay-rights movement, and for people who already know a fair amount of the story and can keep the people, times and places straight in their minds.

[M.K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linda Hirshman's book Victory covers legal cases effecting LGBT rights and the culture surrounding them, covering the 1920s up to the passing of the 2012 Marriage Equality Act in New York State. For obvious reasons this work is outdated (with the 2015 passing of Federal Marriage Equality & 2020 passing of updated Anti Discrimination Laws), however I think even for 2012 Hirshman's turns of phrases and assertions are slightly outdated.
Hirshman makes the claim, early on in Victory, about the Civil Rights movements of the 60s saying "...the option to leave the "ghetto" was one of the forces that ultimately split the racial civil rights movement and stopped it short of achieving its full goals" (pg. 34), while she simultaneously gives leeway to the various slow downs of the 'Gay Rights' Movement.
At one point, Hirshman disparages groups of the movement for attempting intersectionality (when in 1969 the Gay Liberation Front disbanded when it had trouble keeping membership due to it's 'No one's free until everyone's free' mentality). She says "...the more inclusive [a movement] becomes the more weak it gets."(pg. 140). When reading this part, a section titled 'I Would Kill for Those Kisses' I felt uncomfortable trying to understand what she was saying from a framework for modern Civil Rights movements where people shout "Black Lives Matter" and "Black Trans Lives Matter" in one breath. I think that Hirshman would have benefited, not from disparaging the attempted intersectionality, but addressing the common misogyny and racism of 1960s gay white men who were joining these movements.
Hirshman struggles in several other areas as she goes on, remembering to bring up lesbians only once or twice and fairly dismissively (when I would think that the Radical Feminist movement of the 70s and the Women's communes would have appealed to her background in gender studies). She also struggles with misgendering prominent activists, referring to still-living transwomen as "cross dressers" and, at one point, writing "The 1995 murder of anatomically female Brandon Teena, supposedly because of her presenting herself as male..." blatantly misgendering an out trans man who was raped and later murdered and then buried in a grave which also misgendered him. Hirshman then goes on in the next sentence to not even name Tyra Hunter who died due to paramedics and hospital staff refusing to treat her after her car crash, even while her friends screamed and begged for them to help her as she died.
Hirshman also struggles with how to refer to the LGBT people she talks about, with the slur 'homosexual' being the term she chooses to use most commonly, even after addressing how it was a term born from the pathologizing of same sex attraction and is no longer preferred today.
Aside from these things, Linda Hirshman just isn't a good writer. Reading this book felt like reading many many dissertations in a row. Each chapter, and sometimes even section to section, is written as if, perhaps, you wont have read any of the previous chapters. She's wordy, repetitive, and often crisscrosses between times and events with ideas that are hard to follow. She frequently stops to give odd, objectifying descriptions of the activists she's talking about - something that makes sense if she were quoting an interview but she's not. It seems that every man she talks about is handsome, slender, and has a mop of [insert color] hair.
All in all, this books is probably fine if you already know a little bit about the LGBT Rights Movement, have down a few names and dates in your mind, and know a little bit about the basics of law (or a good interest in them) otherwise this book is wordy, convoluted, and quite frankly outdated enough that it simply isn't worth it. It's main value is in it's bibliography and as a great way of getting a list of names and dates to look further into.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wavered between a 3-4 this whole book, but despite the clunkiness (and age—published 2012) of much of this book, I would still recommend it to those looking for a comprehensive history of how the LGBTQ+ community to see the struggle this group has somewhat miraculously persevered through.

The overall tale of the struggle for gay rights is inspiring, and I was surprised to realize how little of it I knew before reading this book. Hirshman’s examination of the interplay of activism, legislation, referendums, and the judicial system also heavily weighs the importance of timing and frankly luck for certain moments to occur in concert.

The sections on AIDS and the role that epidemic played in the movement, along with the events of the 90s and early 00s, were the most well done sections. The book is one (well-informed, -positioned, and -educated) person’s opinion, and though most was probably fairly written, some clear biases came out, especially against the Obama Administration.

My struggle was with the writing itself, which felt like it needed another round of editing or two to smooth out some of the prose. The beginning ~60pp set in the 20s and 30s in particular was a slog and could’ve been cut in half. It was also impossible to keep track of the key players and groups due to the sheer volume, at times confusing split between chronology and geography, and the very light differentiation between one person/group and another. I also found myself regularly setting down the book to search a legal term or process—there seems to be an assumption that the reader has a strong understanding of our federal judicial process. A glossary would’ve helped tremendously with keeping track of people, events, legal cases, legislation, and judicial process.

[Brynn Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read up to Chapter 9, and found it hard to continue after that. The first third of the book I flipped through pretty quickly because the information, though specific and sometimes confusing with many acronyms and names, was interesting enough to for me to keep reading and be okay with grasping a general sense of the topic. But as I read more, that became hard for me. The book shifted from a pretty equal and interesting discussion about culture and legal issues, to a discussion mainly in legalese. I’m truly not interested in the in’s and out’s of law, so the book just got less and less entertaining to read. I think Hirshman missed the mark when it comes to walking that line between too much legal information and just enough so a wide audience can understand.

A few things I’d like to note:

The book is primarily about gay men. As much as Hirshman mentioned lesbians (usually in the somewhat politically correct phrasing of “gays and lesbians”), she didn’t talk about us very much. I’d say the book was 80% about gay men, and 20% about lesbians. Trans and gender non conforming queers? Forget about it. Their inclusion in this book is virtually nonexistent aside from the mention of queens here and there.

Hirshman is extremely verbose. Sometimes I’d have to read certain sentences about legal stuff a few times only to realize she could’ve said the same thing in a far less confusing way with far less words.

Overall, the book was okay but didn’t wow me. I’ll be using it as a starting point to research other gay revolution topics, as this book provides so many references to articles, magazines, films, books, etc.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this and then took a year to open it, because hey, its a 445 page non-fiction book. Still, it's worth reading. I was struck by my new understanding that within activist groups who supposedly all have the same agenda, there is discord on how to run the organization and create goals and achieve them. That's why activist groups form, work for a time, dissolve, and a new group takes over. It's a very frustrating path forward. Other interesting insights were that the gay white men were advocating only for themselves (shocker), and if you want a better history of lesbians in America, I highly recommend "Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America", because the first 100 or so pages of this are an ode to the white gay man experience.

Of note in this book (for me) is that the push for anti-discrimination legislation for gays in the military, which led to DOMA, stemmed from women being harassed and propositioned by superior officers. If they didn't agree to sexual abuse, they were labeled "lesbian" and the anti-sodomy laws were used to eject them from military service. Actually, the book's explanation for how Clinton got elected promising to support Queer military service, and then the horror of DOMA, and then finally, it being struck down, was very educational for me. I also enjoyed reading about the creation of Lambda Legal.

I didn't read the most recent edition of this book, which is ok, because I've read plenty about post 2011 LGBTQ+ activism.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

(I'm chuckling as I write this.) V:TTGR has a lot of personality, and that "extra" quality is both its strength and weakness. I learned a ton from Hirshman's history of the LGBTQ movement in America, and her prose is decidedly un-traditional, which only adds to the thrill of each barrier broken in the timeline. On the other hand, there are some odd details that feel sort of shoe-horned into the story, as though specific figures are named just because they perhaps have a personal relationship to the author. I found some of the comparisons made between the civil rights movement and the gay revolution a little tone deaf, but the intent of the book was to celebrate the work and bravery that moved the needle in the fight against institutional homophobia, and in that way the book was extremely successful. It's a lot though. I wouldn't try to plow through this quickly.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good historic overview pre-Obergfell

I first came across this book in a bookstore in DC’s Dupont Circle in 2017. Given the state of politics over the preceding year and a half, it seemed like a good time to read about a movement. Victory did a good job of giving an overview of the state of the LGBTQ movement in the 20th-21st centuries. It was certainly very gay white male heavy, but the book acknowledges this, and frequently references the fissures and exclusionary traits of the movement when it comes to lesbians and trans activists. Overall, I liked the book and it was a good reading of history pre-2105.

[Mike Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was not a fan of writing style in the first third or so of the book, there was a lot of name dropping and side commentary about people, but the rest of the book was a well written and interesting history of the gay rights movement in the US. Most likely (and sadly) this not the kind of history you would learn in school unless you take a specific class on the topic but it is a history that everyone should know.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview history of gay history, specifically for the 20th century. Our country has already gone through some big changes since this book was published, but it helped give me an overview of Stonewall and the AIDS crisis. I would view this book as a general starting point, not an in-depth dive.

[Wesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely important testimony of a group of revolutionaries that have not gotten their due until very recently. I think it's incredibly important for any individual in the LGBTQ community to know their history. The only problem I had with this book is that it was written in a way that was kind of hard to get through. Overall it was a valiant attempt to do good.

[Cassie Dishman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was excellent. Well-researched and written. Gives an incredible look at the various legal battles (as well as cultural ones) fought by the LGBTQIA+ in the U.S. to get to where we are today. Or at least to where we were in 2011, as that’s where the book ends.

If you want a better understanding of some of the various figures mentioned in the book, I suggest listening to the Making Gay History podcast. This is an oral history podcast that publishes audio interviews with various people from American Gay History.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of legal writing, but I definitely learned a lot! I really appreciated the epilogue’s meditation on the implications of the title and the work that still has yet to be done to bring justice to the lgbtq community, especially trans folk.

I would recommend to any queer person wanting to learn more about the history of the fight for our rights.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goodreads Summer Reading Challenge, June: Take Pride (Read a book written by an LGBTQIA author or that features an LGBTQIA character)
A bit of a dry read, but a good overview of the gay rights movement in the US

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found it was not very inclusive of trans people, especially on their contribution to the stonewall riot. Can't really erase trans' people struggle from the LGBT revolution. Also just using the word gay to say LGBT is just plain ignorant. And that's what this book does.

[Federico · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is not always 100% clear (at least to a non-native, even if still fluent, speaker like me), and some statements are debatable, but overall an interesting read, detailed with the intertwining stories of all the main characters that have shaped the road to "victory"

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hirshman's book is more thesis-driven, and less extensive and complete, than Faderman's The Gay Revolution. Hirshman focuses on how the LGBTQ community slowly, inch-by-inch, won recognition as full citizens of the liberal community.

[Sarena Delgado · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's still more work to be done, but this book is more of a reminder of how far we've come and a poignant view of queer history beginning from the late 1880's to shortly before the book was published in 2012.

[Glenn E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative, Dry

I learned a great deal from this book and I expect the knowledge gained to be useful. I found the writing to be dry. I found myself rereading more than a few sentences.

[G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this dark hour, a hopeful book to read. Ms. Hirschman believes a bit too strongly in the great man (and woman) version of history, but the chronology was well written and framed.

[h · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good introduction to the last century of LGBTQ history, though Hirshman's writing style does little to alleviate the disorienting abundance of names/dates/locations.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I picked this up because it was the really pretty rainbow olive edition but I stayed for the amazing content and history that this book provides.

[Angel · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF incredibly extensive history but the author's writing style was not for me

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book needs a revised edition to cover developments since it was first published, but it is still very good.