Beyond the Politics of the Closet explores identity, minority politics and their relationship with the state, setting out to answer the question, “why has gay rights politics had such a difficult relationship with broader questions of equality?” (2). The collection of essays that Jonathan Bell has brought together showcase the intersections between issues of equality and identity in an era of conservative ascendency and the decline of the Great Society tradition of governance. Bell's collection – which is split into three chronological sections – asks difficult questions of race, representation, and sexuality during a period of increased visibility and resistance for the LGBT community.

The first section, entitled “Public Policy Comes Out: The 1970s,” addresses the relationship between the state and gay politics with authority. Utilizing Bell's broader discussion of LGBT politics, this section delivers an influential discussion on public-service access – health care and housing, for example – and the realization of a political agenda that goes beyond the recognition of civil liberties. The investigation of state and government officials as agents of sympathy and progress, or indifference and resistance, engages with the complex interplay between the desire for acceptance and legitimacy and an authenticity that reflected values of the LGBT community.

Whilst observing race to a much lesser extent than later contributions in the collection, “Public Policy Comes Out” begins a discussion about the complicated relationship between racial identity and sexual identity in 1970s America. Building on the work of Katie Batza, Ian M. Baldwin, and many others in this collection, more LGBT “history from below” will further our understanding of the unique challenges faced by communities beset by the interplay between conflicting questions of identity and legitimacy.

Section Two, “Confronting AIDS,” places discussions of race at the heart of the book's analysis of gay politics and AIDS. The focus on the tensions constructed around concepts of identity draws on the LGBT community's desire to seek acceptance and legitimacy in an authentic way. As Dan Royles's analysis of Philadelphia's “Gayborhood” shows, at times, the unifying effect of sexual identity failed to overcome the fraught class and racial difficulties a locality encounters, hampering the ability to realize a vision of legitimacy that might appear to resonate across social groups.

A major contribution comes with the integration of a dialogue centred around the interplay between racial and sexual identity, broadening the AIDS narrative beyond the established ACT UP image of activism and liberation. The chapters offer a foundation to continue research into other experiences of sexual and racial tensions in the decade of AIDS, expanding the scope of gay politics and identity to other localities with varying scales of AIDS and activism.

Section Three, “Beyond Liberalism and Conservatism,” is a survey of gay politics as part of the political climate in the decades after the 1980s. Clayton Howard's exploration of the complexities of consolidating a conservative political platform with the values of LGBT liberation continues the discussion of identity in a way that resonates across the book's contributions, reflecting the intricacies of racial and class identity in his investigation of political allegiance in the gay community. Rachel Guberman and Julio Capó Jr.'s discussions of how sexual identity – as well as other forms of identity – can be used as a tool in a public dialogue that divides opinion are thought-provoking, shedding light on the importance of exploring these narratives as extensions of gay political representation in the wider US context.

Throughout Bell's collection of essays, the multiplicity of identities and the resulting complex interactions that occur shape a discussion of a political landscape littered with minority agendas that compete for acceptance and legitimacy in the face of state and societal resistance. The essays in the book challenge the assumption that minority groups faced with comparable problems – gay people with differing racial identities, for example – see and approach issues in a similar fashion.

The book addresses interdependence and the reality that, when concerned with campaigns for legitimacy and civil rights – campaigns that shape how the state perceives an individual or a community's existence – conflict and divisions exist between groups who share a similar oppressed relationship with the state, and that how they address such tension is pivotal.