Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left (American Crossroads) (Volume 44)

A breakthrough intervention in LGBTQ history!

To understand LGBTQ Liberation in a new century, we need to know as much as we can about the people who started and continued the movement in communities around the nation and the world. Hobson's meticulously researched and provocative study of LGBTQ liberation during the turbulent 1970s - 1980s in the San Francisco Bay Area is a wonderful place to begin or to continue the project of historical reflection. Lavender and Red's wide-ranging narration focuses on one US region that has successfully fertilized radicalism in communities throughout the world. Hobson writes with precision and passion about Left/Queer political intersections during dangerous times: from the working-class lesbian collectives and grass roots solidarity campaigns that energized the battle to defeat California's Proposition 6 (the Briggs Initiative) to Solidarity projects with third world communities in San Francisco's Mission, to new understandings of working class economies and coalition principles during the worst years of the AIDS crisis.

Lavender and Red is a remarkable book. The specific period and politics it covers hasn't really been written about is this kind of detail before, to the best of my knowledge. So if you're interested in queer history, the radical left, social movements, etc you're going to learn a ton about gay and lesbian left that you didn't know. Obviously people seriously studying social movements of the 70s and 80s are going to be interested, but I also think that this book will be incredibly useful of radical activists today. I was particularly fascinated with the in depth look at queer solidarity with the revolutions in Central America in the 80s. I've read about US solidarity efforts, and I've read about queer movements in the 80s, and yet all of this research was new to me. Genuinely eye-opening, even if you think you know left history. Please, get Emily Hobson's book! My hope is that she continues to write unique, penetrating books about radical social movements!

I was there and I don’t recall seeing Emily Hobson there when SF Bay Area LGBT empowerment was launched by Harvey Milk. The premise of this book has a familiar feel... self-satisfied anti-imperialists looking down on regular queer folks. I have been in both movements and it’s absurd and insulting to dismiss Stonewall or the movement. I am glad a few gay people went to Nicaragua. Of course the Ortega they supported has turned into a monstrous dictator with help from Cuba.But the only way that the gay movement itself made progress was to detach from repressive Marxist anti-imperialism and work on our own liberation.

Last review definitely overrated. Obscure book by an obscure writer who has an agenda in trying to dismiss the Stonewall Rebellion as a central part of LGBTQ history.