Kev Maxen, Jaguars strength ach, out as gay a first for U.S.-based pro leagu - Washgton Tim

Contents:

• A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT
• JAM KIRCHICK EXPLOR DC’S GAY HISTORY AN AMB NEW BOOK
• SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS
• NEW ‘GAY WATER’ LOOKS TO AVOID BUD LIGHT DISASTER
• WISNS MIDDLE SCHOOL FEATUR 'THIS BOOK IS GAY' LIBRARY, STIRRG ONLE OUTRAGE
• JAGUARS ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR U.S.-BASED PRO LEAGU
• FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG
• WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
• MID-RANGE GAY WASHGTON DC · HOTELS
• ‘THE REAL VILLA IS THE CLOSET’: A NEW HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON DEALS WH SOCIETY AS IT TLY WAS
• SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON

A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT

Published May 22, 2022Updated May 23, 2022When you purchase an penntly reviewed book through our se, we earn an affiliate CITYThe Hidn History of Gay WashgtonBy Jam Kirchick826 pag. )And yet the very skills gay people had to velop to survive — studns, partmentalizatn, discretn, erancy — ma them uniquely skilled, Kirchick pots out, to sensive tasks like pnage or high-level advisg.

Fil, rrponnce, terview transcripts and prs clippgs — you n almost hear the old microfiche sheets tickg by — Kirchick holds the most dited persecutors, some of whom were themselv the closet, to sthg Morigi“Even at the height of the Cold War, was safer to be a Communist than a homosexual, ” he wr. ” Later, as tolerance grew (thanks part to the efforts of the Mattache Society, the gay rights anizatn whose evolutn is traced here), some nfirmed bachelors took the important seat once occupied by Perle Mta, the cy’s famed “hosts wh the mosts. Kirchick wr of Nancy Reagan: “Her own persona is pably, irreprsibly gay, embodied by the retue that signed, drsed, rted, entertaed, flattered, hoed, humored, pampered, styled and tillated her.

It would be bt read at the vlet hour wh a snifter of brandy a wood-paneled library, one of those wh a rollg ladr to brg down some of the fad midcentury bt-sellers rurfaced the pag, like Vidal’s “The Cy and the Pillar” — the narrative perks up nsirably whenever this ntent, urbane wrer arriv on the premis — “Washgton Confintial, ” by Jack La and Lee Mortimer (1951), wh s fabled “Garn of Pansi”; and “Advise and Consent, ” by Allen Dry (1959), which won a Pulzer and was ma to a movie by Otto ’s also a Baeker of important plac (map clud): the rollickg Chicken Hut bar where Teboe met his murrers; the “F Loop” of the Dupont Circle pickup scene that veloped the 1960s; the Cema Folli, the pornographic theater where ne men died a 1977 fire; the “gay rner” of the Congrsnal Cemetery; and, more hopefully, the Lambda Risg is overwhelmgly a gallery of the whe male gaytriarchy, wh lbians and people of lor mostly on the sil. Wh his new book, “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, ” Jam Kirchick tri to retrof the trope to a very specific subset of the District’s famoly diverse LGBTQ muny, ultimately verg a bewilrg amount of old ground whout offerg the rear much that n be lled new. Apart om notable appearanc by a handful of otherwise unrexplored gay and lbian polis — scrappy CIA officer Carmel Offie, Office of Strategic Servic trailblazer Cora Du Bois and Kennedy nfidant Lem Billgs, among others — “Secret Cy” largely foc on the pa experienced by, and at the hands of, faiar gay men like FBI Director J.

JAM KIRCHICK EXPLOR DC’S GAY HISTORY AN AMB NEW BOOK

Most gay voic, however, are drowned out by, even treated as ls credible than, those of homophobic straight people: Gossip lumnists, yellow journalists, embattled prints, nnivg senators, obsequ FBI agents and a rotatg st of ais all are relied upon as primary sourc a history that is not primarily theirs to tell. Prs rps, how such homophobia has long manifted as mor and nuendo (pag and pag of which are here reproduced), the fluence of such homophobia on an enormo st of almost exclively Whe gay men, and how more than a few of those men played not-signifint rol the GOP’s long march to the far are not unimportant topics.

At one pot, for example, Kirchick attribut a “lack of Black participatn” an early gay rights anizatn, at least part, “to the fact that Washgton’s Black rints were mostly lols … and associatg wh a gay anizatn was signifintly harr while livg the cy where one’s fay rid. Siarly, while “Secret Cy” has ltle to say about lbians, the thor attempts to expla the silence away wh qutnable, and ultimately unstaable, claratns of how “persecutn generally targeted male homosexuals more severely than female on, a nsequence, part, of patriarchal attus privilegg men over women.

Equally troublg is the book’s uneven approach to the plited polics of “the closet, ” lurchg whout warng om requise portrayals of survival-by-secrecy to scribg, language both hackneyed and harmful, the ne gay victims of D. Riemer is a -thor of “We Are Everywhere: Prott, Power, and Pri the History of Queer Liberatn” and a -creator of the onle rource CyThe Hidn History of Gay WashgtonBy Jam KirchickHenry Holt. A brief asi Jam Kirchick’s sweepg new book, Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, reunts how a Dupont Circle der beme a midcentury gay haven: Two men were vertly holdg hands unr the table, and a bartenr me over to tell them they didn’t have to hi.

SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS

Throughout Secret Cy, such tails bump up agast momento historil events: Kirchick trac how homosexualy affected the Alger Hiss trial and the Iran-Contra affair, while makg the se that Washgtonians were the vanguard of anizg for equal rights.

Your book lays out an tertg ethil tensn between rpectg people’s personal privacy if they want to rema the closet and the tactil utily of outg gay people, generally to shame them for advancg an anti-gay agenda their profsnal life while beg secretly gay.

NEW ‘GAY WATER’ LOOKS TO AVOID BUD LIGHT DISASTER

There’s also the moment your book when Harvey Milk outs Oliver Sipple, the man who saved Gerald Ford om an attempted assassatn, bee Milk wanted the public to see an example of gay heroism. This is te of Amerin polics, where the 20th century saw numero gay and lbian dividuals participatg at the hight levels of power, yet almost wholly effaced om the tellg of our natn’s history. In the new book Secret Cy, historian Jam Kirchick attempts to scribe to the historil rerd the homosexual men and women who have served and ntributed to their untry Washgton DC, throughout the 20th century.

”Kirchick first beme trigued by the ia of a gay history of Amerin power polics 2007, when he moved to DC and realized that was suffed wh a vivid gay cultural life and history. Kirchick astutely pots out that the fear of homosexualy has been a driver of printial polics, functng siarly to other historilly regnized forms of prejudice like antisemism and purg of so-lled munists.

This prejudice got kickstarted wh the revelatns of the Ksey Reports 1948 and 1953, when people sudnly realized that the gay populatn was far larger than anyone had gused. This fear of “the gay next door” fueled stereotyp of gays beg disloyal to the Uned Stat, as well as the belief that they were herently nspiratorial – “if you have three homosexuals the room, ’s tomatilly a nspiracy, ” said Kirchick. Bt-known for beg forced to rign amid a sex sndal while on the brk of succeedg Newt Ggrich as Speaker of the Hoe durg the impeachment of Bill Clton, Livgston 1980 beme nvced that the gay men legimately workg for Ronald Reagan were fact a sister bal secretly ntrollg him.

WISNS MIDDLE SCHOOL FEATUR 'THIS BOOK IS GAY' LIBRARY, STIRRG ONLE OUTRAGE

Kirchick entw this lurid tale, which fueled an effort to scuttle Reagan’s 1980 printial nomatn, wh a number of gay nspiracy theori attached to the Reagan admistratn (cludg one that Reagan himself had sex wh another man). Regardls of all the trigue, Kirchick also reports that Reagan’s admistratn proved to be “the gayt of any printial admistratn yet”, monstratg two pots central to Secret Cy: the growg acceptance of gays throughout the 20th century and their great value ernment, even a macho, hard-right one like Reagan’s. It is an irony mon to stori of LGBTQ+ rilience that the very thgs that opprsed gay and lbian dividuals – such as the need to lead a double-life, or the isolatn that me om not beg permted to marry – were ma advantageo both to the pursu of their liberatn and their polil reers.

JAGUARS ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR U.S.-BASED PRO LEAGU

“In the perd documented this book, ” Kirchick said, “closets were good at producg gay people wh skills that ma them preternaturally equipped to functn Washgton – they were good at keepg secrets, had no fay life to distract them, and they were more loyal to people power.

”Throughout Secret Cy, Kirchick do a masterful job of nveyg the flavor of homophobia each historil era, while g impecble rearch to vividly characterize the dozens of var dividuals at play the stori.

FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG

This is a book not jt about how polil power was brought to bear on the liv of gay men and women; even more, nveys the texture of an ever-evolvg world that nstantly kept gay people check.

WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'

It shows how social forc shaped gay liv through nstant implic and explic threats, the very language that homosexuals had to scribe their inty and experience, and stern ntrol over the ways they uld accs the sexual practic that were ma so central to their inty as human Hudson wh Nancy and Ronald Reagan 1984 Photograph: Courty Everett Collectn/REXBee of this rich attentn to tail, Secret Cy also offers a vivid chronicle of the wav of liberatn and backlash that characterized the growg acceptance of LGBTQ+ rights the 20th century. Across the sweep of Secret Cy, we see homosexualy transform om an absolute reer-enr to somethg policians n be refully open wav ntue today Republin efforts to slanr LGBTQ+ people as “groomers” and erase the gas trans people have ma accs to medil re and social cln.

Although Kirchick is well aware of the ugly polics of the prent, as well as the agily of the gas LGBTQ+ people have ma society, he ends Secret Cy on a note of triumph, celebratg the transformative acceptance of gay people as a “massive acplishment of the liberal society”, and a qutsentially Amerin succs story. He noted that the nctn aims “to stigmatize the word ‘gay’ by brgg reprentatn to spac that have not tradnally featured queer products, such as bars, liquor stor, grocery stor, rtrants, hotels and more.

He told CNN that he worked wh a queer signer to base Gay Water’s red, purple, green and orange lor scheme on pop art and 1990s televisn shows om Nickeloon, a ble work for children.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

At the same time, 77 percent of Amerins say they are “extremely” or “very” ncerned by book rtrictns schools, acrdg to a March poll om Fox is also the se, said Skidmore College profsor Cathere Goln, who teach a class on 19th-century children’s lerature, that objectns are surgg bee the number of visual-rich picture books portrayg what ’s like to have gay parents or be transgenr has explod. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circu Richmond is an early tt of how that major Supreme Court cisn ptg ee speech agast anti-discrimatn laws will play out beyond the hypothetil suatn that se, which volved a platiff who had never actually ma weddg webs or been asked to do so by a gay person.

“The Court rejected the dissent’s assertn that s cisn opened the door to discrimatn employment, ” ACLU attorney Josh Block wrote a reply to Becket’s the exampl raised the Supreme Court did not clu a relig anizatn or a gay employee, and Gorsuch repeatedly voked a 2000 cisn allowg the Boy Suts to expel a gay volunteer on “exprsive associatn” grounds. “We all said that thoands of relig anizatns all across the untry ask their employe to uphold their tradnal view of marriage word and ed, and if you terpret the statute that way, ’s gog to unleash lots of lawsus agast them, ” Goodrich the Supreme Court has specifilly said preventg racial discrimatn is a pellg ernment tert that jtifi rtrictg First Amendment eedoms, he noted that the Supreme Court has rejected such a fdg on discrimatn agast gay or transgenr people. “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, " by Jam Kirchick, is a 654-page tome that took years of rearch and an exhstive vtigatn to printial archiv, historil terviews and once-classified ernment rerds.

WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”

“I realized that all the stori I was readg, and the personali and phenomena, whether was McCarthyism or the Reagans, FDR or JFK, that there were the gay stori lurkg the background, ” Kirchick said. “It was the specter of homosexualy that provoked the first and only suici by a member of Congrs his Capol Hill office, ed Lyndon Johnson to et that his historil lead would evaporate, and seized the paranoid md of Richard Nixon send only to the plots of his ever-expandg enemi list, ” Kirchick wr.

MID-RANGE GAY WASHGTON DC · HOTELS

” Rumors of homosexualy were tastrophic to those who were acced of , but Kirchick also asks the rear to nsir the broar human and societal impact of such wch hunts on gay Amerins workg ernment. “To asss the full sle of the damage that the fear of homosexualy wrought on the Amerin polil landspe, one mt take to acunt not only the reers ed and the liv cut short, but somethg vaster and unquantifiable: the possibili thwarted, ” Kirchick wr.

Although openly LGBTQ people have ma their way to the hight ranks of ernment today, was not long ago that spected homosexuals workg for the feral ernment were hunted down, publicly huiated and termated wh the full force of the ernment. There were whispers that Reagan was possibly participatg “homosexual nduct, ” and some Republins saw Reagan’s potential nomatn as a “danger to the Republin Party and the untry. The possibily that Kemp uld jo the ticket was evince that there was a “homosexual rg” around Reagan and that he was “the ventriloquized pawn of shadowy and sister forc, ” Kirchick wr.

” Wh those words, Clton would do somethg that would have seemed unfathomable to most, if not all, of his precsors: make an explic appeal to gay Amerins for their support a printial electn. The bsman and his wife, Melissa, first plaed to the Front Porch proprietors about pre-dawn vendor liveri 2019, not long after the nservative Christian uple moved their fancial firm right next door to the rtrant, which fli a gay Pri flag.

‘THE REAL VILLA IS THE CLOSET’: A NEW HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON DEALS WH SOCIETY AS IT TLY WAS

(Front Porch Market and Grill)What’s more, the Washers say, the ad rat was jt one more sult that the uple, who once planted an “all liv matter” sign their ont yard, have endured sce movg next door to a rtrant owned by a gay uple. They married 2020, five years after they opened the Front Porch, which quickly beme a statn The Front Porch has been flyg a Pri flag on s pat sce 2016, not long after a gunman killed 49 people a gay bar Orlando. “I had so many threats agast me that even the Dallas police statned squad rs outsi our home, ” Waybourn an activist, Waybourn says, his goals were clear: same-sex marriage, gays and lbians the ary, accs to lifavg medic.

“I have que a few gay iends, clients and a fay member, and I have patronized a gay-owned rtrant for years, ” he whether the Washers are tryg to remake The Plas to their image of Ameri — Whe, nservative, Christian — Melissa said, “I n see where you’re g om. Blick arrived to share telligence about a new threat, one that, he suggted, uld stabilize Amerin natnal secury om wh: the existence of gay staffers at the hight levels of began by explag that “a well-known pnage tactic” entailed lurg female ernment staffers “to the munist unrground by volvg them lbian practic.

SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON

Blick said that he had intified forty to fifty female ernment employe who had participated the “sex i, ” and that many more were likely to surface: five thoand homosexuals lived D.

Blick kept the list locked a metal safe at police ’s gay list quickly took on mythic stat, a now largely fotten rollary to Joseph McCarthy’s famo “list of nam” of Communists the State Department. Edgar Hoover, followg a basels tip om a begdged strategist, began vtigatg Richard Nixon for allowg a “rg of homosexualists” to operate at the “the hight levels of the Whe Hoe. Ngrspeople, eager to stop Ronald Reagan om wng the Republin Printial nomatn, gathered to discs whether a “homosexual rg” ntrolled the “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton” (Henry Holt & Co.

(Relayg the fear exprsed by the Republin senator Bob Livgston 1980 that a “bal of right-wg gay hmen” was on s way to assassate him, for stance, Kirchick not that this “may seem far-fetched” to the ntemporary rear. C., was “simultaneoly the gayt and most antigay cy Ameri, ” a place which queer people were omniprent—but so, too, was the risk of you went lookg for the prototypil queer staffer among the book’s st of characters—Kirchick helpfully lists the dramatis personae at the ont of the book—you might settle on Carmel Offie, who, spe a most background, got a job wh the Ambassador to Honduras when he was jt twenty-two, the early neteen-thirti.