Pink Line

A groundbreaking examination of how the issues of sexuality and gender identity divide and unite the world today.

More than seven years in the making, Mark Gevisser’s The Pink Line is an exploration of how the conversation around sexual orientation and gender identity has come to describe—and divide—the world in an entirely new way over the first two decades of the twenty-first century. A new Pink Line, Gevisser argues, has been drawn across the globe, and he takes readers to its frontiers. Between sensitive and sometimes startling profiles of the queer people he’s encountered along the Pink Line, form Israel to Russia, Michigan to Mexico, Gevisser offers sharp analytical chapters exploring identity politics, religion, gender ideology, capitalism, human rights, moral panics, geopolitics, and what he calls the new transgender culture wars. What results is a moving and multifaceted picture of the world today, and the queer people defining it. Eye-opening, heartfelt, expertly researched, and compellingly narrated, The Pink Line is a monumental—and urgent—journey of unprecedented scope into twenty-first-century identity, seen through the border posts along the world’s new LGBTQ+ frontiers.

One of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2020

Longlisted for the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize

Praise for The Pink Line

“[Mark] Gevisser is clear-eyed and wise enough to have a sharp sense of how tough the struggle has been, and how hard it will be now for those who have not succeeded in finding shelter from prejudice.” —Colm Tóibín, The Guardian

“A global geography of queer struggle, a wide-ranging, openhearted, beautifully told account of the radically various state of LGBTQ rights in the world.” —Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness

“Gevisser’s monumental effort in this global deep-think of a text outlines how much work remains ahead. This necessary, timely, intelligent book belongs in every library, the world over.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Makes impressive strides in chronicling distant and recent LGBT history and progress across the world . . . the humanity and tension with which Gevisser portrays his subjects keeps the prose engaging alongside his incredible and seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of LGBT world history.” —Library Journal (starred review)