Cincinnati Before Stonewall: The Untold Queer History of the Queen City

From queer soldiers in 1862 to drag kings and queens who lit up saloons and concert halls, Cincinnati’s early LGBTQ+ historyreachesinto the forgotten corners of the city's past, introducing unlikely and extraordinary figures. Like Mary Ann Jefferson, a Black transgender woman who, in the late nineteenth century, became a fixture in the criminal underworld of Rat Row, Cincinnati’s most dangerous neighborhood. Or Julius "Junkie" Fleischmann, a gay man who, even as the U.S. government launched a purge of homosexuals from its ranks, secretly served as a covert operative for the CIA at the end of World War II. Charting the rise of pre-Stonewall bars, brothels, and hidden sanctuaries that offered fleeting refuge amid relentless repression, historian Jacob Hogue offers a bold, long-overdue reclaiming of queer Cincinnati’s place in the American narrative.