FULL DISCLOSURE: I came of age in the 90’s and always thought of Bette

Midler as that middle-of-the-road star of Beaches who sang the movie’s

treacly theme song, “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Sure, she had her brassy

broad routi, but this pseudo-outrageous, semi-tough-talkin’ persona

seemed tailor-made for Middle America. So imagine my surprise when, a

couple of years ago while writing a master’s thesis on Glitter Rock, I

found nestled in the discussions of Lou Reed and Alice Cooper a

reference to Bette Midler.

Martin Duberman writes in his book Stonewall that “the 1969 riots are now generally taken to mark the birth of the modern gay and lesbian political movement,” he is only reflecting how the coastal cultural establishment has come to monopolize the writing of gay history. That view of history needs to be broadened.

Following is the introduction to the forthcoming book, Sex Variant Woman: The Life of Jeannette Howard Foster (Da Capo Press). Reprinted with permission.

THOSE OLD ENOUGH will recall the classic photograph of the blond young man sticking flowers into the rifle barrels of soldiers who were there to defend America against the hippies who had vowed to levitate the Pentagon in a massive demonstration in October 1967. The young man was George Harris III, who went through many transformations before his death from AIDS in 1982.

IN AN ESSAY titled “The Autumn in Florence,” Henry James reflected on the physical changes in the city that had been, for a brief period in the 1860’s, the capital of the newly formed Italian state.