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Making Gay History

Memoir of a Scholar-Activist

Cover of Making Gay History features three photographs: the photo at the top is a group protesting holding signs and banners; the next is cut off only showing part of a person on a chair; the third features two people smiling into the camera. Read the Introduction

Book

Pages: 290

Illustrations: 13 illustrations

Release Date: July 07, 2026

Author: John D′Emilio

Making Gay History recounts John D’Emilio’s career as a public historian, activist, and academic. Tracing his involvement in developing LGBTQ history from the 1970s to the 1990s, D’Emilio paints a queer history both personal and national that helps us understand how the LGBTQ movement has grown.

Making Gay History continues John D’Emilio’s story, following his memoir of his early years, Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood. Here, D’Emilio recounts his career as a public historian, activist, and academic, relating his own queer history alongside the development of the LGBTQ movement in the United States. D’Emilio was part of the first burgeoning period of LGBTQ studies while still a graduate student in New York City. From there, he takes readers through his experiences as an out professor at UNC Greensboro, his activism in Washington, DC, and finally, his employment at the University of Illinois as an LGBTQ historian, a position that was unimaginable at the start of his career. At the same time, he narrates his own coming out, his successes and struggles with LGBTQ advocacy, and the loves and losses faced throughout his adult life, telling an intertwined personal and national history of queer hearts and minds.

Praise

“This lively, engaging memoir by one of the earliest, major historians of US sexuality is a report from the trenches, a history of the struggle to create a history of sexuality, a personal history of political activism, the story of a smart boy from the Bronx who made himself into a pioneering, left, feminist, anti-racist gay, public intellectual.” - Jonathan Ned Katz, author of The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams

“One of John D’Emilio’s great gifts is the ability to bring the large-scale transformations that are the heart of history to life. Now he’s done it with his own remarkable story. The scholarly, activist, and personal life of one of our greatest queer historians illuminates so much about the rise of queer activism and queer history in the last quarter of the twentieth century.” - Leila J. Rupp, author of Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information

Author/Editor Bios

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John D’Emilio is Emeritus Professor of History and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is the author of numerous books, including Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood and The World Turned, both published by Duke University Press, as well as Queer Legacies.

Table Of Contents

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Prologue  ix
Part I. New York
1. Reading as a Pathway to Change  3
2. Studying US History  9
3. Life with Carlos  17
4. The Meeting That Changed My Life  25
5. A Conference to Remember  35
6. The Decision to Do “Gay History”  43
7. Coming Out to My Parents  51
8. A Chosen Family  59
9. The Gay Socialist Action Project  67
10. Finding Our History  75
11. California Discoveries  81
12. Life as an Activist and Writer  89
13. San Francisco Call Me  99
14. Struggling to Move Forward  109
15. He Enters My Life  119
16. Now What?  131
Part II. Greensboro
17. Moving to Greensboro  146
18. Learning to Teach  153
19. Staying Engaged and Connected  163
20. Remaining an Activist  171
21. Life Picks Up Speed  181
22. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force  189
23. My Year in Paradise  197
24. Troubles at Home  205
25. Hoping to Leave  213
Part III. Washington, DC
26. Creating the Policy Institute  225
27. What Now?  235
Epilogue  251
Acknowledgments  255
Bibliography  257
Index
A gallery appears after page 142

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Sales/Territorial Rights: World

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Additional Information

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Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4780-3384-4 / eISBN: 978-1-4780-6235-6 /