The Lexington Six : lesbian and gay resistance in 1970s America /

In 1975, five lesbian feminists and one gay man in Lexington, Kentucky, were jailed for refusing to cooperate with an FBI investigation of two former members of their community, fugitives in hiding who were wanted for a politically motivated bank robbery in 1970. The group, dubbed the Lexington Six, gained national attention for their resistance to what they claimed was actually FBI surveillance of sexual minorities. This book reveals the details of this lesser-known example of LGBTQ resistance to harassment by government authorities, an event that Donovan (emer., English, Univ. of Maine, Orono) compares to the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. The Lexington Six is noteworthy both for its exploration of the connections between the New Left movement and the lesbian feminist movement (a rich topic that is underexplored in the scholarly literature) and for its effort to incorporate the US heartland into the historical narrative of LGBTQ history. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers, advanced undergraduates, and graduate students. --Susan Ferentinos, independent scholar