One-Dimensional Queer

Roderick Ferguson is Professor of African American and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"One-Dimensional Queer is as clear an account as you could hope to encounter of how race and sexuality came to be understood as separate formations in US history. The resultant mainstreaming of LGBT cultures has been disastrous in terms of seeing our way out of the current crisis we inhabit. Offering solutions as well as critique, Ferguson's book is destined to be a crucial part of any library of liberation."—Jack Halberstam, Columbia University"In this searing critique of pink capitalism and rainbow-approved state violence, Ferguson slays the flat misnomer that the 1969 Stonewall Riots were only about gay sex. Instead, he brilliantly contextualizes Stonewall multi-dimensionally in histories of anti-racist and anti-imperialist rebellion."—Steven W. Thrasher, The Guardian and Northwestern University"One-Dimensional Queer is as clear an account as you could hope to encounter of how race and sexuality came to be understood as separate formations in US history. The resultant mainstreaming of LGBT cultures has been disastrous in terms of seeing our way out of the current crisis we inhabit. Offering solutions as well as critique, Ferguson's book is destined to be a crucial part of any library of liberation."—Jack Halberstam, Columbia University"In this searing critique of pink capitalism and rainbow-approved state violence, Ferguson slays the flat misnomer that the 1969 Stonewall Riots were only about gay sex. Instead, he brilliantly contextualizes Stonewall multi-dimensionally in histories of anti-racist and anti-imperialist rebellion."—Steven W. Thrasher, The Guardian and Northwestern University"One-Dimensional Queer raises provocative and important questions about the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality, and about the extent to which capitalism has determined the course of LGBT+ lives." (New York Journal of Books)"Gay liberation didn't originate as a single-issue movement, and must confront neoliberalism and gentrification as well as anti-queer violence." (Black Agenda Report)"A fascinating unearthing of seldom discussed LGBT history, including groups like STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) and the Philadelphia-area collective DykeTactics." (KPFA Women's Magazine)"One-Dimensional Queer demands that we reexamine the intersectional history of the LGBTQ movement, which was rooted in many other movements of the '60s and '70s, to find instruments of true radical change." (TruthOut.org)"Ferguson's book convincingly shows that the 'multidimensional' (or intersectional) queer story offers a more viable starting point for political-theoretical questions." (Die Tageszeitung – Kultur)"In One Dimensional Queer, Ferguson asks his reader not to parse individual elements of society but to consider how various gears work as a cohesive whole. Those who elide bits and pieces, whole chunks and swaths, of the history of oppression are complicit in that oppression. . . . Ferguson, alongside the many activists, historians, and critics he documents, offers a way forward towards liberation. And in doing so, Ferguson provides a way for us to think about creating a more just world; he offers his reader a way to consider one's queerness broadly, to open their methods of inquiry, and to consider history in a more spacious, more equitable way." (QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking)"[A]n extraordinary contribution to the fields of LGBTQ Studies, American Studies, and queer of color critique. One Dimensional Queer is necessary reading for scholars interested in the history of sexuality in the 20th-century US, queer theory, and gender and sexuality studies." (Women's Studies)

• Introduction 11 The Multidimensional Beginnings of Gay Liberation 182 Gay Emancipation Goes to Market 463 Queerness and the One-Dimensional City 814 The Multidimensional Character of Violence 114Conclusion: The Historical Assumptions of Multidimensional Queer Politics 143Notes 152Bibliography 153Index 161