A review by invisibleninjacat
Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians by Stuart Timmons, Lillian Faderman

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

3.5

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.