OUR GAY HISTORY IN FIFTY STATES

A sweeping reference volume about LGBTQ+ people, institutions, and lore from all over the country.

Stout, a Minneapolis employment attorney and community organizer, surveys the LGBTQ+ community in every state—and in U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico and Guam—including red state heartlands as well as blue state urban enclaves. Each brief chapter features photos and lavish illustrations of people and places by artists Bye and Écija and contains paragraphlong entries on notable people, living or dead, who were born in each state; local cultural fixtures, such as bars and bookstores, pride parades, and advocacy organizations; and historical milestones, including ordinances and statutes. The book is, in part, a kind of Who’s Who in LGBTQ+ America, saluting luminaries such as Ellen DeGeneres, RuPaul, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, but there’s also plenty of less-sung writers, artists, activists, and businesspeople. For example, there’s a veritable roll call of pathbreakers, such as Anchorage, Alaska, assembly member Felix Rivera, “one of the first two gay men ever elected to the Alaskan government,” and Reed Erickson, “The first transgender person to earn an engineering degree from Louisiana State University.” Stout unearths some intriguing historical figures, as well, including Michael Wigglesworth, a 17th-century Puritan minister whose diary reveals his torment over his attraction to male Harvard students; Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, a lesbian couple in early-19th-century Vermont; and Joe Monahan, a transgender miner and cowboy on the Idaho frontier. (The author’s self-described “speculation” about Abraham Lincoln’s sexuality is a bit of a stretch, however.) Stout unsurprisingly finds a rich trove of lore on the LGBTQ+ community in New York and California, but he also helpfully discovers stories in places such as Thurmond, West Virginia, “the smallest town in the U. S. to pass an LBGTQ+ anti-discrimination ordinance.” Overall, Stout’s encyclopedia-style prose is workmanlike and never lyrical, and his choice of entries feels somewhat haphazard. However, casual readers, students, tourists, or new U.S. residents trying to get their bearings will find this to be a useful sourcebook—one that demonstrates the LGBTQ+ community’s deep roots in American soil.

An eye-opening guide to the American LGBTQ+ community and its history in some surprising places.