The Gay Metropolis

The Landmark History of Gay Life in America

Charles Kaiser

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781555848316
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

Now featuring an updated introduction celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Stonewall
 
"The landmark portrait of 20th-century New York viewed through the eyes of gay New Yorkers." — The New York Observer
 
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year and winner of a Lambda Literary Award,  The Gay Metropolis is a landmark saga of struggle and triumph that was instantly recognized as the most authoritative and substantial work of its kind. Now, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprisings, Charles Kaiser has brought this history into the twenty-first century. In this new edition he covers the three court cases that lead to the revolutionary legalization of gay marriage in America, as well as shifts toward inclusion in mainstream pop culture, with the Oscar–winning films  Brokeback Mountain and  Call Me by Your Name.
 
Filled with astounding anecdotes and searing tales of heartbreak and transformation, it provides a decade-by-decade account of the rise and acceptance of gay life and identity since the 1940s. From the making of  West Side Story to the catastrophic era of AIDS, and with a dazzling cast of characters—including Leonard Bernstein, Montgomery Clift, Alfred Hitchcock, John F. Kennedy, and RuPaul—this is a vital telling of American history.

Index

Aarons, Roy, 104–6, 144–45, 213

abortion, 67, 252

Abrams, Robert, 220, 221, 256, 264–65

Abzug, Bella, 221, 256, 317

Achtenberg, Roberta, 331, 337

ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), 109, 269, 306, 320–25, 329

“Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual, The” (Hooker), 124

adolescents, gay: behavior of, 127; coming out by, xii, 270; AIDS and, 315; organizations for, 329; school for, 330

advertisements: gay, in straight media, 213; window, 271; mainstream, in gay magazines, 339–40

Advise and Consent (film), 155

Advocate (Los Angeles) 149n, 171–72, 288

AIDS: early coverage of, 278–85; New York Times coverage of, 279–81, 286–87, 307; estimates of rate of infection, 283, 284–85; drug therapy for, 284, 318, 324–25; gay activism and, 284, 290–92, 320–25; toll of, 284, 300, 301, 302–6, 329, 330; government expenditures on, 285, 300; Shilts reports on, 288–90; Kramer activated by, 290–94; gay media coverage of, 292–93; GMHC and, 293, 298–300; Krim and, 296; theories on origin of, 296–97; Koch and, 299, 307–8; quilt project, 302; isolation of virus, 302–3; survivor’s guilt and, 307; immunity to, 307; lack of publicity on, 307–8; New York Times Magazine on, 308–9; Koop and education on, 309–10; gay identity and, 310–17, 325; AZT and, 318, 322, 343; ACT UP and, 320–25; Catholic Church and, 323–24; Republicans exploit as campaign issue, 332; advances in combination drug therapy for, 343; contributing to sense of gay community, 329–30, 343–44

Albee, Edward, 7, 89, 165, 166, 175, 180n

Alfred, Randy, 271

Allen, Jay Presson, 97, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for The Gay Metropolis
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Preface to the Stonewall Anniversary Edition
• Introduction
• I: The Forties
• II: The Fifties
• III: The Sixties
• IV: The Seventies
• V: The Eighties
• VI: The Nineties
• The Twenty-First Century
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• Photo Insert
• Back Cover