| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Long before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America. Ed. by Thomas A. Foster. (New York: New York University Press, 2007. x, 405 pp. Cloth, $75.00, ISBN 978-0-8147-2749-2. Paper, $25.00, ISBN 978-0-8147-2750-8.)
The modern gay rights movement began on June 27, 1969, when the patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a bar near Sheridan Square in the heart of Greenwich Village, courageously resisted a police raid. "Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad," screeched a headline in the New York Daily News. Anger soon gave way to militant pride. Homosexuals proclaimed their identity, fought for the right to express their sexuality, demanded legal protection for their relationships, and earned the respect of a large segment of straight society.	1
Gay political solidarity may have originated at Stonewall, but same-sex attraction is as old as history itself. So is homosexual behavior. Like heterosexual conduct, homosexual acts emanate from what Plato (in Symposium) called "our pursuit of wholeness": the quest to unite physically with one's other half. If homosexual acts have been around forever, what about homosexual identity? When did practitioners of same-sex intimacy begin to define themselves, at least in part, by the nature of their desires? When did Americans start classifying population groups on the basis of sexual orientation?	. . .

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