Includes bibliographical references (pages 641-767) and index.

Scapegoats : Lawbreakers and loonies ; America hunts for witches ; No army of lovers: toward a homosexual-free military ; America protects its youngsters -- The homophiles : Mattachine ; The daughters ; Jousts with the four horsemen -- Revolts before the revolution : Slivers of space and justice ; Throwing down the gauntlet ; The homosexual American citizen takes the government to court -- Earthquake: the Stonewall years : The riots ; Say it proud, and loud: new gay politics ; Less talk and more action: the Gay Activists Alliance ; A parallel revolution: lesbian feminists -- A place at the table : Dressing for dinner ; How gays and lesbians stopped being crazies ; The culture war in earnest -- How Anita Bryant advanced gay and lesbian civil rights : Enter, Anita ; How to lose a battle ; Grappling with defeat ; Learning how to win -- Ashes and phoenixes : Of martyrs and marches ; The plague ; Family values -- Demanding to serve : New gays and lesbians versus the old military ; Don't ask, don't tell, don't serve ; "Get 'Don't ask, don't tell' done!" -- LGBT American citizens : How lesbians and gays stopped being sex criminals ; "The first law in American history that begins the job of protecting LGBT people" ; A forty-year war: the struggle for workplace protection -- "What justification could there possibly be for denying homosexuals the benefits of marriage?" : "The status that everyone understands as the ultimate expression of love and commitment" ; Getting it right, and wrong, in the West ; The evolution of a president and the country.

This chronicle of the modern struggle for gay, lesbian, and transgender rights draws on interviews with politicians, military figures, legal activists and members of the LGBT community to document the cause's struggles since the 1950s.