Sexuality researcher Jane Fleishman shares the stories of nine fearless elders in the LGBTQ community who came of age around the time of Stonewall. In candid interviews, they lay bare their struggles, their strengths, their activism, and their sexual liberation in the context of the political movements of the 1960s, 1970s, and today. Each has spent a lifetime fighting for liberation, for the right to live, love, and be free. Each has faced challenges arising from their sexual orientation, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, politics, disabilities, kinkiness, nonmonogamy, and other identities. With unflinching directness, the elders interviewed explore their struggles within the LGBTQ community: Were they the "right" kind of lesbians or gay men? Were they scrutinized more critically because they came out as bi? Was there insidious racism or classism keeping them down just when they thought they'd finally come home? Were they called names or looked down upon for choosing to be paid for sex, for being fat, for having kinky sexual practices? Were their political credentials dissected when they wore the "wrong" kinds of clothes or lived in the "wrong" kinds of places? What political movements made an impact on them? How did their sexual lives as young people inform their sexual lives as adults? These are the stories of those whose lives were changed forever by Stonewall and who became agents of change themselves. We need to hear these voices, particularly at a time when our country is in the middle of a crisis that could shatter hard-won core values we've fought for again and again in our nation's history.
