Abstract
Lisa Stulberg’s book, LGBTQ Social Movements, examines the social history of LGBTQ persons in the United States from the mid-20th century to the present day by exploring mainstream LGBTQ movements. Stulberg, an associate professor of the sociology of education at New York University, presents her text as a selective overview of LGBTQ movements, providing the reader with a foundation of knowledge of the core elements of these movements rather than an exhaustive history. Stulberg explains that the function of her text is twofold: to provide an introduction to influential moments in LGBTQ movements and to inspire readers to research these movements further. (She offers a reference list to guide future research.)
In the book’s seven chapters, Stulberg explores several facets of the history of LGBTQ movements, including time periods pre- and post-Stonewall, the AIDS epidemic, marriage equality, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth, and the experiences of bisexual and trans-identified individuals. Stulberg contextualizes each movement within the social and political climate of the United States, highlighting the contributing factors leading community members to organize and take action. Further, Stulberg describes the nuanced, conflicting responses of those within the LGBTQ community and broader society to each of these movements. In her history of biphobia in the United States, Stulberg exposes how “straight America” blamed bisexual-identified men for the spread of HIV/AIDs to heterosexual women. She also strengthens our understanding of LGBTQ community members’ views of marriage politics, explaining that establishing the right to marry was both a priority and concern for community members (with some worried that this win would overshadow other civil rights concerns). Finally, the text captures the failures of movements to create a space for intersectionality, noting the frequent tendency for organizational structures to mirror classism and racism of other aspects of U.S. society.
At times, Stulberg’s text seems to understate and oversimplify concepts related to the consequences of societal discrimination, phobias, and stigma in the United States. In her description of the pre-Stonewall era, Stulberg explains that one’s sexual orientation was communicated through “codes of dress, speech, and language” (p. 13). Stulberg goes on to explain how these sartorial communication methods suggest that individuals identifying as gay did not internalize stigma or a label of “sickness.” Her interpretation is notably devoid of reference to or reflection on internalized homophobia. The dress of individuals who identified as gay in the pre-Stonewall era did not necessarily reflect their internal state; here, Stulberg fails to acknowledge the literature on minority stress (Meyer, 2003). In another instance, Stulberg misses an opportunity to further contextualize the stigma and discrimination propagated by McCarthy era politics; she fails to explain that the fear of the “homosexual” went far beyond governmental officials and that the punishment for sodomy frequently included job loss, the sudden end of friendships and positive family relationships, and imprisonment, with many people even being institutionalized in mental hospitals for these “crimes.”
Later, in Chapter 5, the concept of mental health reemerges when Stulberg writes that marriage equality laws have had a positive impact on the mental health of LGB-identified individuals. Her comment implies causality without an explanation of how or why federal law influences mental health. Lastly, while earlier chapters outlining Stonewall, AIDS activism, and marriage politics provide a cohesive narrative of contributing factors to and undertakings of their respective social movements, Stulberg’s final chapters seem fragmented. In her chapter describing LGBT youth movements, Stulberg first presents overwhelmingly positive data on social “progress,” providing examples of LGBT youth thriving in affirming environments. While these data are important and critical to address, just two pages later, Stulberg presents data from the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network’s 2015 survey of 10,000 LGBTQ-identified students, which explains that over half of their sample (57.6%) reported feeling unsafe in their school—exposing the reality of bullying, discrimination, and victimization experienced by LGBT youth. This apparent contradiction goes unexplained and leaves the reader questioning the accuracy of prior reports.
While Stulberg satisfies her objective of providing an overview of mainstream LGBTQ movements in the United States, her brevity seems to minimize unintentionally the gravity of discrimination, stigma, and oppression experienced by the community. Without an understanding of the impact of the infrastructure of oppression built into the laws and roots of U.S. society, the reader may part with a misconception of the continued need for LGBTQ social movements.