“During the ’50s, when little or nothing honest about gay male and lesbian lives was available culturally, how could a truth teller grab a niche? Not through high culture”

“It is a witty pleasure to read a frontier tale where the explorers, the pathfinders, the hunters, the new builders are there, but metaphorically — as gay women!”

“They swept up Sixth Avenue, from Sheridan Square to Central Park, astonishing everything in their way... My God, are those really homosexuals? Marching? Up Sixth Avenue?”

"She's regarded by those who don't know better as the authority on black gay life, and was recently appointed the James Baldwin Professor of African American Effeminacy at Harvard."

“One detective arms himself with a sawed-off baseball bat. ‘We’ll shoot the first motherfucker that comes through the door.’ ”

“You know, the guys there were so beautiful,” says Allen Ginsberg of the Stonewall, “they’ve lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago.”

“I’ve gone around since the end of last year asking every lesbian I know if she wants to get married and of course it’s been a confusing proposal.“

Janelle Monáe, Car Seat Headrest, Boygenius, and the year in queer music