The history of LGBTQ issues, movements, and rights is the subject of this 2-volume set. Covering both global and U.S. events, this illustrated set includes 150 essential primary documents. Extensive chapter introductions cover topics ranging from same-sex desire in the ancient world, to LGBTQ persecution and criminalization since the nineteenth century, to LGBTQ life in the twenty-first century. Written by scholars, the chapter introductions include Questions for Further Reflection and Further Reading sections, while document selections include fact boxes and glossaries. This modern exploration of LGBTQ history is edited by Dr. Cookie Woolner (University of Memphis) and is an essential purchase for high school, academic, and public libraries.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE: Same-Sex Desire in the Ancient World

Enheduanna: Hymns to Inana (23rd century BCE)

Plato: Symposium, The Discourse of Aristophanes (384-379 BCE)

Sappho: "Fragment 31" (570 BCE)

Spell 84: For a Man to Obtain a Male Lover (circa 6th century)

CHAPTER TWO: Gender Transgression and Same-Sex Desire before the 19th Century

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: "I saw a devilish thing" (1528-36)

The Buggery Act (1533)

Theodor de Bry: "Employments of the Hermaphrodites" (1591)

Richard Cornish's Trial for Buggery (1624)

First Anti-Sodomy Law in the Colony of Virginia (1612)

Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia Regarding Thomas/sine Hall (1629)

Wiliam King: The Toast (1732)

Diary of Father Pedro Font (1775-1776)

Lieutenant Gotthold Frederick Enslin Dismissed from the U.S. Military for Homosexuality (1778)

CHAPTER THREE: Queer Lives and Loves in the Nineteenth Century

Wu Tsao: "For the Courtesan Ch’ing Lin" (circa 1800)

Bryan Edwards: “Shipmates” (1801)

Anne Lister: Journal Entry (1832)

Hiram Harvey Hurlburt: Passage about Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake's Marriage (1835)

Charlotte Cushman: Letter to Emma Crow (1858)

Addie Brown: Letter to Rebecca Primus (1859)

Fanny Fern: “Women Lovers” from The Women’s Exponent (1867)

Walt Whitman: Letter to Peter Doyle (1870)

"A Most Shocking Crime" (1892)

"Judge Kimball Sends Dorsey Swan Down for Ten Months" (1896)

CHAPTER FOUR: LGBTQ Persecution and Criminalization since the Nineteenth Century

The Execution of James Pratt and John Smith (1835)

"An Amalgamationist in Limbo for the Second Time" (1842)

Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

"Under False Colors" (1876)

Oscar Wilde: Letter to Lord Alfred Douglas (1893)

Photograph of Nazis plundering Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin (1933)

German Penal Code Paragraph 175 (1935)

Photograph of Gay Japanese American Men at Tule Lake Segregation Center (circa 1942-45)

Sex Perverts as Government Employees (1950)

"Cops Start Bar Brawl" (1967)

"Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad” (1969)

"National Day of Mourning" Flyer (1971)

Anita Bryant "Rally for Democracy" Advertisement (1977)

Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)

Don't Ask Don't Tell (1993)

CHAPTER FIVE: Sexology and Medicalization

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: The Riddle of "Man-Manly Love" (1864-1880)

Richard von Krafft-Ebing: Psychopathia Sexualis (1894)

Edward Carpenter: The Intermediate Sex (1908)

Alexander Berkman: Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1912)

Havelock Ellis: Sexual Inversion (1915)

Katherine Bement Davis: Case Study Four, Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-Two Hundred Women, (1929)

Sigmund Freud: Letter to an Anonymous Mother (1935)

Alfred Kinsey: Sexual Behavior In The Human Male (1948)

Alfred Kinsey: Kinsey Scale (1948)

DSM-1 "Sexual Deviation" (1952)

"20,000,000 Gay People Cured!" (1974)

CHAPTER SIX: The Fight for Equal Rights before Stonewall

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs Speech (1867)

Society for Human Rights Charter (1924)

Mattachine Society "Mission and Purposes" Statement (1951)

Daughters of Bilitis: Purpose (1956)

Lorraine Hansberry: Letter to The Ladder (1957)

Frank Kameny: Letter to President John F. Kennedy (1961)

José Sarria Campaign Platform Speech (1961)

Barbara Gittings: Editorial in The Ladder (1964)

The Mattachine Society of Washington: First DC Gay Rights Protest Information Bulletin (1965)

Janus Society: Dewey's Sit In Statement (1965)

Society for Individual Rights Homosexual Bill of Rights (1966)

Compton's Cafeteria Photograph (1966)

Ernestine Eckstein Interview (1966)

Press Release about Street Sweep (1966)

CHAPTER SEVEN: Gender Transgression and Trans Identities since the Nineteenth Century

"A Mountain Romance" (1877)

"Charley Parkhurst" (1880)

"A Zuni Princess in Washington" (1886)

Dr. Alan Hart: Letter to Mary Roberts Rinehart (1921)

Lilli Elbe: Letter about Her Gender Confirming Surgeries (1930)

Pauli Murray: “Summary of Symptoms of Upset" (1940)

Christine Jorgensen: The Story of My Life (1953)

The Chevalier D'eon Resort (1960)

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries Manifesto (1970)

Sylvia Rivera: "Y'all Better Quiet Down" Speech (1973)

Lou Sullivan: Letter to Jude Patton (1985)

Information for the Female-to-Male Crossdresser and Transsexual (1985)

"A Final Tribute to Billy Tipton" (1989)

Leslie Feinberg Speech (2002)

Laverne Cox Speech (2025)

CHAPTER EIGHT: 20th Century Queer Culture and Community in the US

Gertrude Stein: "Miss Furr and Miss Keene" (1922)

Countee Cullen: Letter to Alain Leroy Locke (1923)

Elsa Gidlow: "Episode," On a Grey Thread (1923)

"Hamilton Lodge Ball An Unusual Spectacle" (1926)

Review of The Captive (1926)

"Chinese Woman Becomes Surgeon" (1927)

Radclyffe Hall: The Well of Loneliness (1928)

Gertrude "Ma" Rainey: "Prove It on Me Blues" (1928)

Lisa Ben: Here to Stay (1947)

Langston Hughes: "Café: 3 a.m." (1951)

"Letter to a G.I." (1961)

"The Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop Opens" (1967)

Olivia Records Announcement (1974)

Charles White: The Life and Times of Little Richard (1988)

Ellen DeGeneres: "Yep, I’m Gay" (1997)

CHAPTER NINE: 1960s-70s Liberation Movements

Joe Adams: "Love and Bisexuality" (1967)

Gay Liberation Front Platform Statement (1970)

"Women's Liberation Is a Lesbian Plot" (1970)

Huey Newton: "The Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements" (1970)

Radicalesbians: "The Woman Identified Woman" Speech (1970)

Bart Moncq: "Gay Liberation Will Succeed" (1971)

Jeanne Manford: "A Fair Chance" (1972)

Denise Harmon: Stonewall Means Fight Back! (1973)

Combahee River Collective Statement (1977)

"Gays Mobilize Against Briggs" (1977)

Harvey Milk: "Where Do We Go From Here?" (1978)

Harry Hay: "Spiritual Conference for Radical Fairies: A Call to Gay Brothers" Flyer (1979)

"Why We Are Marching" (1979)

Audre Lorde, keynote speech at the first National Third World Gay and Lesbian Conference (1979)

CHAPTER TEN: LGBTQ Culture and Community in the 1980s

Gay & Lesbian Latinos Unidos Promotional Flyer (circa 1980s)

Melvin Boozer: Address to the Democratic National Convention, New York City (1980)

"Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals" (1981)

Adrienne Rich: "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" (1980)

Cheryl Clarke: The Failure to Transform (1983)

James Baldwin Interview (1984)

Audre Lorde: The Master's Tools will Never Dismantle the Master's House (1984)

Joseph Beam "Brother to Brother: Words from the Heart" (1986)

Bayard Rustin: Martin Luther King’s Views on Gay People (1987)

Lani Kaahumanu: "The Bisexual Community: Are We Visible Yet?" (1987)

Gloria Anzaldúa: "Fear of Going Home: Homophobia" (1987)

"Our Demands: The National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights" (1987)

"Dykes, Disability, and Stuff" (1988)

Vito Russo: "Why We Fight" Speech (1988)

CHAPTER ELEVEN: LGBTQ Culture and Community in the 1990s

Schedule of North American Gay and Lesbian Gathering in Manitoba (1990)

The Queer Nation Manifesto (1990)

"Black Leaders Meet Discuss Lesbian/ Gay Issues" (1990)

June Jordan, "A New Politics of Sexuality" (1991)

Anything That Moves: Beyond the Myths of Bisexuality (1991)

Lesbian Avengers Flyer (1993)

Essex Hemphill: "Vital Signs" (1994)

"Life of 22 Years Ends, but Not Before Many Heard Message on AIDS" (1994)

Sandip Roy: "Pink Peacocks in San Francisco" (1995)

CHAPTER TWLEVE: Progress and Pushback: LGBTQ Life in the 21st Century

Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits Newsletter (2000)

Lawrence v. Texas (2003)

Nkunzi Zandile Nkabind: Black Bull, Ancestors and Me. My Life as a Lesbian Sangoma (2008)

S.909: Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009)

Barack Obama: Repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell Speech (2010)

Gilbert Baker Speech (2011)

Gender Identity Law as Approved by the Senate of Argentina (2012)

H.Res.319 Recognizing Bayard Rustin (2013)

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) (2015)

"Latinx LGBTQ Adults in the U.S." (2021)

Bostock v. Clayton County (2021)

Executive Order 14168: Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (2025)

Cookie Woolner is a Freeburg Associate Professor of History at the University of Memphis, where she teaches classes on modern US history, women's and gender history, queer history, and the history of popular music and culture. She is the author of The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire before Stonewall (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).