A Queer History of the United States stops at 1990, but LGBT communities have seen enormous changes since then. By the late 1980s, the rise of the so… - Michael Bronski

Since the 1960s, there have been movements to include those people who have been "left out" of American history. So we see Women's History, African-American history, Latino history, Native American history. And certainly when we think about Gay and Lesbian or GLBT history, that's the same impulse--to bring Gay and Lesbian people back into American history. When I began writing the book, it struck me that the more research I did, that while this project was well-intentioned, it was rather unnecessary. That in fact gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people, African-American people, Latino people, women have always been in American history. So the very process of separating people out in order to put them back in seemed to me to be shortsighted. So the purpose of the book as I began writing it became clearer and clearer--it was simply to identify and find the LGBT people that are in American history already. The more I did this, what I discovered was that there were so many people, so many events, people's lives, people's personalities were so intertwined with what we think of as American history that there was no separation at all.

My earliest involvement in the gay community was in the gay liberation movement of the early 1970s. We had very strong opinions then. I have come to realize that in life and politics, there is always more to take into consideration. If there is one clear, unambiguous argument here, it is that the LGBT history of America is, and has always been, U.S. history. (Author's Note)

History is an ongoing process through which we understand and define ourselves and our lives.