Gay Lives

The exploits of the famous never cease to captivate our imaginations—rulers, artists, explorers, and all the great personalities of history. Yet many quieter lives also have the ability to impress, to teach us something about the remarkable qualities of human nature.

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In this book, Robert Aldrich presents a fascinating portrait of gay men and women throughout history that reveals the full diversity of gay lives as lived in their times. He gives a voice to more than seventy people from around the world and all walks of life, from poets, philosophers, and artists to radicals and activists. Along with celebrated names such as Michelangelo, Frederick the Great, and Harvey Milk are lesser-known but no less inspiring individuals: two men of ancient Egypt whose lives were closely linked over four thousand years ago; a Renaissance nun who blurred the boundaries between spiritual and physical love; and "Aimee" and "Jaguar," whose love defied the death camps of wartime Germany.

Often colorful, occasionally tragic, but all in some way extraordinary, these life stories reflect—and have sometimes helped to shape—contemporary attitudes toward same-sex intimacy.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 304 pages

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Liked Gay Lives? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Gay Lives. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. And Then I Danced: Traveling the Road to LGBT Equality Shares LGBT, nonfiction, glbtq
  2. Queers in History Shares LGBT, nonfiction, history
  3. Transgender Lives: Complex Stories, Complex Voices Shares LGBT, nonfiction, glbtq
  4. Pink Triangle: The Feuds and Private Lives of Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Members of Their Entourages Shares LGBT, biography

“If you want more of the same (history about lgbt), start with these.”

  1. Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS
  2. Milk: A Pictorial History of Harvey Milk
  3. The Right Side of History: 100 Years of LGBTQ Activism
  4. Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America

“If it was the LGBT that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Dirty White Boy: Tales of Soho
  2. Hear Us Out!: Lesbian and Gay Stories of Struggle, Progress, and Hope, 1950 to the Present
  3. Chicken
  4. Girl Hearts Girl

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-By-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt
  2. Gay in America
  3. A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Around the World
  4. Profiles in gay & lesbian courage