Queer History

‘Unruly Unionism’ in Cold War America

August 10, 2026
Book review by Jonathan Kissam

In Teamsters Metropolis, historian (and one-time UE activist) Ryan Patrick Murphy argues that the Teamsters were targeted by the federal government not only because they were, at the time, the fastest-growing union in the country, but also because the government’s broader goal was “the regulation of working people’s bodies.” An historian of sexuality as well as labor, Murphy also finds in the history of the Teamsters a history of resistance to the work discipline and compulsory heterosexual monogamy that characterized Cold War America.

Working-Class Pride in the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union

June 18, 2021
By Jonathan Kissam

Decades before the modern LGBTQ+ movement, a small but militant union of maritime workers on the West Coast with openly gay members and leaders coined a slogan linking discrimination against gay men, racial discrimination, and red-baiting. For the better part of two decades, the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union fought discrimination on the ships where its members worked and in society, until it was crushed by the same corporate and government forces that tried to destroy UE during the Cold War.