"A reappraisal of women who are known by history but whose histories are incomplete, To Believe in Women examines how their lesbianism may in fact have facilitated their accomplishments. Lillian Faderman persuasively argues that even before a "lesbian identity" was defined, many female leaders had what would now be called lesbian relationships, free from the constraints of traditional heterosexual arrangements, which might have impeded their pursuits...

The fight for gay and lesbian civil rights -- the years of injustice, the early battles, the defeats, and the victories beyond the dreams of the gay rights pioneers -- is an important civil rights issue of the present day. In this book, Lillian Faderman tells this unfinished story through the accounts of passionate struggles with sweep, depth, and feeling. The Gay Revolution begins in the 1950s, when gays and lesbians were criminals, psychiatrists...

Lesbian and bisexual literature over the past four centuries, tracing the evolution of the genre from romantic friendship, through the exotic and evil, to the explicitly sexual. An example of exotic and evil is provided by Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 vampire novella, Carmilla.