Traps is the first anthology of writing by nineteenth- and twentieth- century African American men on the overlapping categories of race, gender, and sexuality. The selections on gender in Parts I and II reveal what some may view as the unexpected commitment of African-American men to feminism along with critiques of the subordinate social, economic, and political position of Black women. Parts III and IV analyze the taboos and myths in which Black sexuality is enmeshed. These selections also stress the importance of rejecting homophobia and the need to contest the predominance of a heterosexual paradigm. Monolithic constructions of gender and sexuality, reinforced by sexism and historically sanctioned homophobia, are the "traps" that give this anthology its focus and its title.