The Gayborhood: From Sexual Liberation to Cosmopolitan Spectacle explores the lived experiences of LGBT+ persons in an era of heightened visibility. Gay urban enclaves, known colloquially as gayborhoods, illustrate the evolution of LGBT+ political capacity building. Since their emergence after World War II, gayborhoods have homogenized at the expense of women, transgender, and nonwhite persons due to neoliberal policies promoted by urban planners. Thus, their popularization and economic vitality correlate with a loss of collective identity and space for some inhabitants. While gayborhoods were once diverse and inclusive spaces that rejected normative institutions of marriage and assimilation into dominant society, the stakeholders of these areas have now unashamedly aligned themselves with conformity and profitability to legitimize their existence. The contributors within The Gayborhood invite readers to reflect on the future of LGBT+ politics and look beyond the commercialized rainbow spectacle of gayborhoods to the communities and aspirations within.
Christopher T. Conner is visiting professor of sociology at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Daniel Okamura is a doctoral candidate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Introduction: Queering the Sociological ImaginationChristopher T. Conner and Daniel OkamuraChapter One: Performative Progressiveness: Accounting for New Forms of Inequality in the GayborhoodAdriana Brodyn and Amin GhazianiChapter Two: Style and the Value of Gay Nightlife: Homonormative Placemaking in San FranciscoGreggor MattsonChapter Three: The Triumph of Collective Intimacy—Gay Collective Sex in New York City from the Late 1800s to TodayÉtienne Meunier and Jeffrey EscoffierChapter Four: Gayborhoods as Criminogenic SpaceVanessa R. PanfilChapter Five: Disappearing: Gay Spaces and the Gay SingletonAliraza JavaidChapter Six: Erotic Capital and Queer Men of ColorOmar Ali MushtaqChapter Seven: The Whiteness of Queer Urban PlacemakingTheo GreeneChapter Eight: Beyond the Homonormative Framework: How Two-Mother Families in Poland Deal with Social Invisibility and Related AnxietiesMagdalena WojciechowskaChapter Nine: When the Gayborhood Isn’t Enough: How Trans Y
Mapping the field of gayborhood studies, this volume is a masterful one-of-a kind collection that invites readers to rethink what they know about queer communities. The rich contributions from a wide range of scholars fill an important niche and makes it a must-read. A wonderful accomplishment.