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Gay America: Struggle for Equality

This informative, engaging account of LGBTQ lives in the United States over the past 100-plus years documents critical history while providing a fascinating look at how social and political attitudes have influenced and been influenced by individual lives. Alsenas opens his essential work with a look relationships and attitudes prior to the twentieth century. He then embarks on a chronological account of LGBTQ culture, which both reflected and responded to social attitudes as well as and political advances and frustrations in the quest for LGBTQ equality under the law. As he looks at the twentieth and the first part of the twenty-first century, his profile includes the earliest organized activism and sweeping public celebrations of pride that are commonplace in large cities today. He also notes how key events spurred new modes of activism, which ranged from quiet quests for acceptance and change from within the social structure to angry wake-up calls for action, especially in response to the AIDS crisis. His volume offers a perspective on sweeping social change while offering glimpses of individual lives that are both testament to how far LGBTQ visibility and activism have come, and how far our society and our laws still need to go to provide equal rights and safety for all. ©2008 Cooperative Children’s Book Center

CCBC Age Recommendation: Age 12 and older
Age Range: Grades 6-8 (Ages 11-13)
Format: Substantial Narrative Non-Fiction
Subjects: 20th Century Activism and Resistance Bisexuals Discrimination and Prejudice Gays History (Nonfiction) Homophobia Lesbians LGBTQ+ Persons U.S. History
Diversity subject: LGBTQ Non-Fiction

Publishers: Abrams, Amulet
Publish Year: 2008
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9780810994874

CCBC Location: Non-Fiction, 306 Alsenas

Gay America: Struggle for Equality