Secret Cy: behd the untold gay history of DC polics | Books | The Guardian

Contents:

• THE QUIET REVOLUTN: WHY BRA HAS MORE GAY MPS THAN ANYWHERE ELSE
• GAY TORY MP FIGHTS BACK TEARS OVER 'DAMAGE' HE SUFFERED HIDG HIS SEXUALY THE ARMY
• SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS
• PROMENT GAY REPUBLINS HELPED SMOOTH THE WAY FOR MARRIAGE BILL
• THE TE STORY OF ‘A VERY ENGLISH SNDAL’ AND THE TRIALS OF A CLOSETED GAY POLICIAN
• BURYG THE PAST, TORI URT GAY VOTE
• THE TTH ABOUT LIFE AS A GAY TORY MP
• THE UK’S PARLIAMENT IS STILL THE GAYT THE WORLD AFTER 2019 ELECTN
• GLAD TO BE GAY, GLAD TO BE TORY
• GAY TORY
• VLADIMIR PUT GIV RSIAN STATE HONOUR TO 'ANTI-GAY' POLICIAN

THE QUIET REVOLUTN: WHY BRA HAS MORE GAY MPS THAN ANYWHERE ELSE

Stephen Twigg was gay – a “practisg homosexual”, to e a formula still popular at the time – and though mours about Michael Portillo’s sexualy had been swirlg for years, he was most fely not. Proportnally, though, the SNP is now by far the gayt party Wtmster, wh 12% of s MPs chalkg themselv up as sexual may scratch our heads as to the meang of the numbers: is a surprise that there are so many out Tori?

GAY TORY MP FIGHTS BACK TEARS OVER 'DAMAGE' HE SUFFERED HIDG HIS SEXUALY THE ARMY

Homosexualy was crimalised England and Wal 1967 by reformg home secretary Roy Jenks (Stland had to wa until 1980, and Northern Ireland until 1982), but prosecutns for sexual offenc ntued to snare many gay men to the 90s. In addn, a vic prs culture of blackmail and exposure ma life difficult for gay people who wanted to participate ernment and Tatchell, who stood as the Labour ndidate for Bermondsey 1983, was the subject of a notorly homophobic mpaign by his Liberal opponents.

“There were lots of gay MPs, ” he says, “but they were all the closet, eher bee they were secure about their own sexualy, or bee they feared vilifitn the papers and selectn by their party. Photograph: Tony Harris/PAStill, Tatchell says there was “public revulsn” agast the homophobia he experienced, which he believ ma the tabloids more reluctant to nduct anti-gay wch-hunts, for a time, at least.

SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS

Crisp Blunt spoke movgly about beg gay the armed forc, as MPs discsed the landmark Etherton Report to the historil treatment of gay people the aryVio LoadgVio UnavailableCrisp Blunt fights back tears as he reunts time army as a gay manA Tory MP fought back tears today as he talked about the “damage” he suffered by hidg his sexualy while servg the Army. Rchie TorrRchie Torr is one of the first gay Black men to serve Congrs and the first gay Ao-Lato person to serve was the first LGBTQ person to reprent the Bronx the New York Cy Council, where he was also the cy’s youngt elected official. Glenn Thompson sred high on this summer's hypocrisy x when the PennsylvaniaRepublinvoted agast a bill that sought to enshre marriage equaly protectns to feral law days before dancg at his gay son's d rerdg provid to Buzzfeed highlights the rank hypocrisy.

" The Republin was stnchly agast marriage equaly spe his son's beg gay, Poli did urge his son, also named Matthew, to attend harmful nversn therapy to pray the gay beg urged to unrgo nversn therapy by his fay at 18, the younger Salmon eventually me out of the closet. Hodg that same-sex upl the Uned Stat have the same right to marry as different-sex 2013, Portman, whose son Will is gay, announced his support for marriage equaly after Will me out. "This cisn means a lot to me and my fay as my brother is gay, means a lot to our entire muny, and means a lot to everyone throughout the Uned Stat of Ameri who has yearned for eedom and has been nied until today.

Rearch published this year found that more than 400, 000 people who are gay, transgenr or non-bary had been subjected to someone tryg to change, “cure” or supprs their sexual orientatn or genr a letter to Sunak seen by the Guardian, those phg for the ban to be enacted speedily said the ernment’s “moral failg” not yet publishg the legislatn “should ncern all”. 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.

PROMENT GAY REPUBLINS HELPED SMOOTH THE WAY FOR MARRIAGE BILL

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 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.

THE TE STORY OF ‘A VERY ENGLISH SNDAL’ AND THE TRIALS OF A CLOSETED GAY POLICIAN

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.

BURYG THE PAST, TORI URT GAY VOTE

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. “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.

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. 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.

THE TTH ABOUT LIFE AS A GAY TORY MP

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. 11, 2022WASHINGTON — When the Senate passed landmark legislatn last month to mandate feral regnn for same-sex marriag, the vote was ld as a rare moment of bipartisanship at a time of ep polil polarizatn the the narrow aln of 12 Republins that joed every Democrat support of the measure — which cleared Congrs on Thursday wh fal passage the Hoe, sendg to Print Bin — did not sprg up spontaneoly a groundswell of cross-party the scen, a group of fluential Republin donors and operativ, cludg some of the party’s most proment gay lears wh long experience proddg their party to embrace L.

Senators that backg would give them a polil quiet work helps expla how a bill to ensure regnn of same-sex marriag across the untry went om beg the subject of an electn-season polil manver that few expected to be enacted to an iative embraced by a cisive majory of senators, and an unexpected victory for the gay rights movement that will be one of the fal acts of the Democratic-ntrolled Congrs. Bh’s mpaign manager 2004 and a former chairman of the Republin Natnal Commtee who me out as gay 2010, and Centerle Actn, a centrist nonprof fund by him and Regald Brown, a lawyer Mr. Mehlman, who has worked to build greater acceptance among Republins for gay- and transgenr-iendly polici, also leaned on a work of Republins that he enlisted 2019 to urge the Supreme Court to clare that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 explicly prohibs discrimatn agast gay men, lbians and transgenr people the workplace.

THE UK’S PARLIAMENT IS STILL THE GAYT THE WORLD AFTER 2019 ELECTN

Tmp; Ben Gsberg, the proment Republin lawyer; Mary Cheney, the openly gay and married dghter of former Vice Print Dick Cheney; Tom Ridge, the former homeland secury secretary unr Mr. Even then, was followed by dranian measur to prevent gay relatnships, cludg the Crimal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which ma “gross cency” between men—a purposely vague term—a crimal act. The panic over homosexualy ntued after World War II, wr historian Michael Bloch Closet Queens: Some 20th Century Brish Policians: “A fiercely homophobic Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, aid by an equally puranil Director of Public Prosecutns, Sir Theobold Matthew, was termed to ‘rid England of this plague.

Regardls of how historilly accurate the earl’s reactn to his servant’s behavr was, is te that gay experimentatn flourished upper-class, sex-segregated is like boardg school, the ary, and the clergy. ” The edian Bill Maher said on his show that by 2054, if we follow what he se as the current trajectory, “we will all be gay, ” addg that the rise the number of younger people intifyg as transgenr seemed spic.

GLAD TO BE GAY, GLAD TO BE TORY

Bee of the fluence of Schorr put siarly Natnal Review: “To suggt that social suggtibily uld be playg a role the skyrocketg numbers of young girls’ exprsg their sire to bee mal, for example, is not of urse to say that gay and transgenr people would not exist whout the topics’ beg discsed the public square. In recent weeks, Labour ndidat have remd gay voters of the party’s role phg through key reforms, cludg the Civil Partnership Act and lowerg the age of nsent for same-sex sexual activy to make the same as that for heterosexual sex. ” David Cameron has promised to take a tough stance agast reparative therapi that purport to “cure” gay people of their homosexualy, and discsed his very public ll for the legalizatn of gay marriage, which the Hoe of Commons approved May 2013.

Benjam Cohen, the openly gay founr and CEO of PkNews, an onle newspaper that vers LGBT issu, timat that, acuntg for iends and fay of gay people, there are likely 20 ln LGBT alli the UK. In 1988, Thatcher’s ernment passed a Lol Government Act, Sectn 28 of which fed gay partnerships as “pretend fay relatnships” and which banned the “promotn of homosexualy” schools. This is how ed to be for many when I was an MP, and there were dozens of other gay Tori at Wtmster, and nothg was said, and everythg was steeped alhol, and ltle was off-lims so long as uld be nied, and sex was quick, lovels and panicky.

GAY TORY

Chris Pcher MP is not some herald of a dystopian future of sexual abandon and shamels abe: stead the picture is of a sad fiftysomethg throwback to the 1980s when Mr Pcher turned 20 and the Metropolan Police hnted London pubs as agents provotrs tryg to tch gay men sg too sistently the lavatori so they uld be charged wh ‘importung’. There was so ltle opportuny to make proper iendships; and an endurg homosexual relatnship, if you dared be open, nmned you to disqualifitn om polics, om advancement most profsns and om much of the public sector and the bs world.

Born Walsall, raised Staffordshire, his adolcence jt a few years too early to learn the self-rpect that legal reforms and changg attus would soon engenr, his youthful days as a young Tory arrivg when there were plenty of other gay young Tori but honty was polil ath. The new gay world drks ffee Soho; is unaaid to look for long-term partnership; is fairly tolerant of promiscuy but nralgilly tolerant of abe; and as disapprovg of sexual harassment as is any new man the days.

VLADIMIR PUT GIV RSIAN STATE HONOUR TO 'ANTI-GAY' POLICIAN

As a parliamentary vice-print of the Conservative Group for Homosexual Equaly the early 1980s, I chaired a meetg where our gut speaker was the late Ian Harvey, who as an MP and mister had had a promisg reer until ught wh a young guardsman the bh St Jam’s Park, wherpon he rigned. Of those who ran, more than 220 won their Make It spoke to Torr, along wh three other LGBTQ+ policians about their history-makg w the 2020 electn, the power of reprentatn polics and the advice they have for other LGBTQ+ dividuals who want to n for Rchie Torr, New York's 15th Congrsnal DistrictMa history as the first openly gay Ao-Lato elected to this, March 19, 2018, file photo, New York Cy Council Member Rchie Torr addrs a news nference New York. If I had seen an openly gay, Black person the halls of Congrs when I was growg up, would have been livg proof that thgs really do get better — that I didn't have to hi or cry so much.