“Identity politics” is one of those labels that say most about the labeler. Used as a pejorative (generally by people who already feel safe in their identity), it implies that causes like race, gender and sexual-orientation rights should be secondary to concerns that — so the argument goes — are more concrete and universal.

“When We Rise,” ABC’s sweeping four-night history of the gay rights movement, is a rebuttal. As a television drama, it often plays like a high-minded, dutiful educational video. But at its best moments, it’s also a timely statement that identity is not just an abstraction but a matter of family, livelihood, life and death.

For more, see  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/26/arts/television/review-when-we-rise-review-gay-rights.html?_r=0