This book is a study of homosexual politics in Britain from the C19th to the 1970s. It was written by the historian, sociologist and gay activist Jeffrey Weeks.
From the back cover of the book
“Coming Out records the growth of homosexual law reform from the development of harsh legal and social oppression in the late 19th century to the tremendous impact of the gay liberation movement today”
You can find the book here at Amazon UK
You can find the book here at Amazon USA
The Chapters in the 1983 edition are as follows.
Part One: Definitions and Self Definitions
1. From Sin to Crime
2. The Medical Model
3. A Way of Life
Part Two: Pioneers
4. Speaking Out: John Addington Symonds
5. Havelock Ellis and Sexual Inversion
6 Edward Carpenter and Friends
Part Three: Invisible Women
7. Lesbianism and the Position Of Women
8. Lesbianism and the Women’s Movement
9. Emerging Identities
Part Four: Approaches to Reform
10. Creating a Consciousness
11. Reform Societies
12. Homosexuality and the Left
13. Norman Haire and Sex Education
14. Prelude to Reform
15. Law Reform
Part Five: The Gay Liberation Movement
16. The Gay Liberation Front
17. A Gay Community
18. Old Ways, New Departures.
From the Introduction
“This book is intended as an exploration of a particular homosexual experience – that of reform groupings – but in pursuing this I hope to be able to offer some more general comments about the nature of the changing homosexual situation in Britain over the past 100 years:
Quotes from the back cover of the book
“This important book has a part to play in the revolutionary struggle by recognizing an oppressed minority and allying that fight against this oppression within the broader struggle against sexism” – Emmanuel Cooper. Morning Star.
“Jeffrey Weeks’s through, entertaining, and generally well written books surveys changing attitudes, and movements attempting to change them, over a century – Keith Walker New Society”