BY GRAEME AITKEN
BETWEEN April and June, a diverse range of books highlighting the defining moment in US LGBT history hit the shelves.
Award-winning historian Martin Duberman published Stonewall: The Definitive Story Of The LGBTQ Rights Uprising That Changed America back in 1993, and it’s being reissued with a new introduction by the author and an updated title. Duberman re-creates five days of riots and its aftermath through the lives of six people who were drawn into the struggle for LGBTQ rights. James Polchin explores the period prior to Stonewall in his book Indecent Advances: A Hidden History Of True Crime And Prejudice Before Stonewall. He recounts stories from the crime pages that were often lurid and euphemistic and, in the process, reveals the hidden history of violence against gay men. Victims were often reported as having made “indecent advances” which effectively reduced murder charges to manslaughter in court.