From Vice to Nice
Regular price
€31.99
A01=Rene Esparza
anti-gay violence
Author_Rene Esparza
bathhouse closures and AIDS prevention
bicoastal normativity
Category=JBSD
Category=JBSF
Category=JBSJ
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Category=WQH
domestic partnerships
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
HIV
HIV criminalization
HIVAIDS
homonormativity and neoliberalism
law and order
LGBTQ alliances with police
Midwestern LGBTQ history
Minneapolis gay community
Minnesota Nice and white supremacy
neoliberal spatial politics and LGBTQ identities
privacy and LGBTQ politics
public health and gentrification
public sexual cultures and policing
queer urban studies
race and sexuality in urban renewal
racialized health disparities and HIV
racialized policing of LGBTQ spaces
sodomy repeal
Product details
- ISBN 9781469690391
- Dimensions: 25 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 21 Oct 2025
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Shifting the focus of AIDS history away from the coasts to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, this impressive book uncovers how homonormative political strategies weaponized the AIDS crisis to fuel gentrification. During the height of the epidemic, white gay activists and politicians pursued social acceptance by assimilating to Midwestern cultural values. This approach, René Esparza argues, diluted radical facets of LGBTQ activism, rejected a politics of sexual dissidence, severed ties with communities of color, and ushered in the destruction of vibrant queer spaces.
Drawing from archival research, oral histories, and urban studies from the 97 s through the 99 s, Esparza illustrates how the onset of the AIDS epidemic provided a pretext for further criminalization of perceived sexual deviance, targeting sex workers, "promiscuous" gay men, and transgender women. More than the criminalization of people and behaviors, it also saw increased targeting of urban venues such as bathhouses, adult bookstores, and public parks where casual, anonymous encounters occurred. Cleansing the city of land uses that undermined gentrification became a protective measure against the virus, and the most marginalized bore the brunt of the ensuing surveillance and displacement. Esparza contends that, despite purporting seemingly progressive values, LGBTQ Midwestern politics of conformity leveraged the AIDS crisis to further instigate racial and sexual exclusion and fundamentally alter the urban landscape.
Drawing from archival research, oral histories, and urban studies from the 97 s through the 99 s, Esparza illustrates how the onset of the AIDS epidemic provided a pretext for further criminalization of perceived sexual deviance, targeting sex workers, "promiscuous" gay men, and transgender women. More than the criminalization of people and behaviors, it also saw increased targeting of urban venues such as bathhouses, adult bookstores, and public parks where casual, anonymous encounters occurred. Cleansing the city of land uses that undermined gentrification became a protective measure against the virus, and the most marginalized bore the brunt of the ensuing surveillance and displacement. Esparza contends that, despite purporting seemingly progressive values, LGBTQ Midwestern politics of conformity leveraged the AIDS crisis to further instigate racial and sexual exclusion and fundamentally alter the urban landscape.
René Esparza is assistant professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
