Gay L.A.

From the archives:

Date: Sun Sep 24, 2006 9:13 pm
Subject: Gay L.A.

Hi Everyone:

I just wanted to let everyone know of a new book that's coming out in October called Gay L.A. cowritten by famed lesbian historian Lillian Faderman. There is a great interview with her about the book in the current issue of Lesbian News(http://www.lesbiannews.com/), the one with hottie Jackie Warner of Bravo's WorkOut on the cover. The article's not up on the web but below is a page selling the book. Enjoy!


http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?isbn=046502288X

Drawing upon untouched archives of documents and photographs and more than 200 new interviews, the authors chart L.A.Us unique gay history, and show how geography,
economic opportunity, and a constant influx of new people created a city that
was more compatible to gay life than any other in America.

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Date: Fri Dec 1, 2006 11:06 pm
Subject: Re: Gay L.A.

Here's a great article in this week's Blade about the Queer L.A. book
I've mentioned, by Lillian Faderman:

http://www.nyblade.com/2006/11-27/arts/books/books.cfm

Discover Queer L.A.
Two authors research Los Angeles’ homo history

By KATHI WOLFE
Monday, November 27, 2006

Drag queens, butch hustlers, their friends and customers are talking,
cruising, camping at a gay hang-out. Cops arrive, harass the patrons,
make arrests and a riot breaks out. Stonewall, right? Wrong.

This riot occurred in 1959, when police raided Coopers Doughnuts, a
coffee shop in Los Angeles, say Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons,
co-authors of Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics
and Lipstick Lesbians.

This was perhaps the first homosexual uprising in the world,
Faderman and Timmons write in Gay L.A.,a comprehensive social,
political and cultural history of gay and lesbian life in Los Angeles.
But the historic moment went unreported and unrecorded.

Mention gay culture, and youre likely to think of New York or San
Francisco, Faderman says in a Blade interview. While not denigrating
the contributions of these cities to the gay rights movement, Faderman
says a number of gay and lesbian institutions from the Metropolitan
Community Church to the first gay and lesbian community service
center began in L.A.

Lillian and I had a similar dream, says co-author Timmons, who also
spoke to the Blade about the new book. The pair wanted to highlight
L.A.s contributions to the national gay civil rights movement and
present a well-rounded picture of the citys emerging gay culture.

We wanted to talk about the diversity [of this history] the racial,
ethnic generational diversity, Faderman says.

The co-authors interviewed a variety of people, including former
Hollywood stars, Latinos, blacks and teens.

L.A. is the most diverse city in the world, Timmons says. Its
impossible to cover absolutely everything, but we did as best we could
to try to do that.

ITS HARD TO imagine a better pair to tackle the citys history.

Faderman, known as the founding mother of lesbian history, is the
award-winning author of numerous books, including Surpassing the Love
of Men and Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers.

I came out in 1956 in the [working class] teenage gay girls bar
scene, she says. Id never been a masculine-looking woman, but I got
stopped by the cops.

Though Faderman was hassled by the police for a supposedly
unfeminine demeanor, she wasnt arrested, she says.

Timmons also has a rich history with L.A., having lived there for 30
years.

I came here in 1976 to go to college, he says. I got involved with
covering the growing gay scene ... doing journalism about politics
and gay culture.

He has covered the gay experience from entertainment to AIDS, and his
work has appeared in numerous publications, including L.A. Weekly and
The Advocate. Timmons is also the author of The Trouble with Harry
Hay,a seminal work of gay history about the gay civil rights pioneer
of the title.

The differences in their backgrounds and generations helped their
collaboration, the co-authors say.

Stuart knew the gay male community [in L.A.] and how it came
together, Faderman says, and her own personal involvement with the
lesbian scene of L.A. provided a complement to Timmons knowledge. We
kept each other honest.

This collaboration appears to have worked out well for both authors.

We are both pleased that the book is probably deeper ... than if
either of us had tackled the same material on our own, Timmons says.

Faderman and Timmons hope that Gay L.A. will help people remember
their history.

The co-authors didnt want to whitewash anything, Faderman says. We
wanted to show whats been difficult and whats been wonderful.


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Date: Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:40 pm
Subject: Bohemian Los Angeles

In this history of Los Angeles' Boho world in the first half of the 20th century, Hurewitz shows how "groups of individuals who engaged in similar activities and sought to adopt a shared self-definition" made a major social impact. Focusing on the community of Edendale, Hunter College history professor Hurewitz begins by examining the social circle of the once world-famous drag performer Julian Eltinge and the gay male scene in the 1930s, and concludes with a discussion of Communist Harry Hay, who formed the first gay rights group, the Mattachine Society, in 1950.

Bohemian Los Angeles:

http://www.amazon.com/Bohemian-Los-Angeles-Making-Politics/dp/0520249259

http://californiawriter.blogspot.com/2007/01/bohemian-los-angeles.html

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10561.html