Michael Waters reviews Jam Kirchick’s book “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton,” which chronicl the panic over queer polil fluence Washgton, D.C., om the Princy of Frankl D. Roosevelt to that of Bill Clton.
Contents:
- WASHGTON BLA: LGBTQ NEWS, POLICS, LGBTQ RIGHTS, GAY NEWS
- 'KEEP KEY WT GAY!'
- GO GAY DC
- WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
- D.C.'S BT GAY BARS AND HANGOUTS
- THE BEST WASHGTON DC GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS WASHGTON DC
- EXPLORE GAY ROOMS & RENTALS WASHGTON
- FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG
- WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
WASHGTON BLA: LGBTQ NEWS, POLICS, LGBTQ RIGHTS, GAY NEWS
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Larry’s Lounge is a gay neighborhood pub, wh always-affordable drks, solid happy hour specials, mouth-waterg pub fare (see: sweet potato tots) and one of the cy’s iendlit pats (you n brg your dog, too! “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. “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. ” 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.
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” 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.
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In Febary 2016, the Washgton Bla noted an "unual flurry of activy" wh the openg of four new gay bars, the majory of which land the U Street/Shaw/Logan Circle area.
Wh some of the most polilly and socially active LGBT muni the natn, the District has been the birthplace for many movements and anizatns, such as the Mattache Society of Washgton and the Gay Men’s Chos of Washgton, D.
Certaly, the District do not tend to be the first cy that to md when nsirg the untry’s most LGBT-iendly ci, pecially when many of the hate-filled mpaigns the 1950s that hoped to crack down on those who were gay were lnched by police and feral officials centered the District. Dpe this, there have been several people, march, and headquarters the cy that have bolstered the polil strength of the LGBT muny, such as the Natnal March on Washgton for Lbian and Gay Rights 1979. It also served as a headquarters for gay civil rights anizg that eventually led to overturng the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn's fn of homosexualy as a mental illns.
WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
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Bullough’s “Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lbian Rights Historil Context” publitn, Kameny is scribed as "one of the most signifint figur" the Amerin gay rights movement. ” Here, participants clud pneerg gay rights activists John Richard “Jack” Nichols, who -found the Mattache Society of Washgton, and Lilli Vcenz, who was the first lbian member of the Mattache Society of Washgton. This former bookstore Dupont Circle was found 1974 by Dean Maccubb, who ntributed to the migratn of LGBT members to the Northwt neighborhood, acrdg to Frank Muzzy his book, “Gay and Lbian Washgton, D.
Wh a march past the Whe Hoe, a rally near the Capol, and approximately 200, 000 people, the Send Natnal March on Washgton for Lbian and Gay Rights on October 11, 1987 is one of D.
“Jam was a long-time member of the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA), former print of the Gay Communy Center of DC, a foundg member of SMYAL (Sexual Mory Youth Assistance League), a long-time member of the Board of Directors of the Rabow History Project, and print of CARA (Capal Area RaBowlers Associatn), ” acrdg to a wre-up by Woods. The Rabow History Project wre-up says Ctchfield served for two years as print of the Capal Area Gay, Lbian and Bisexual Veterans of Ameri and served as secretary for an earlier lol LGBT veterans group. 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“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. 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.
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.
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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. A lleague of Offie’s once lled him “as homosexual as you n get, ” and Kirchick reunts mors that Offie, who reportedly scribed his bedroom as “the playg fields of Eton, ” had a romantic relatnship wh William Bullt, the Ambassador to the Soviet Unn, for whom he eventually went to work. Though not que to the level of a “homosexual rg, ” a notable ntgent of high-level gay iends and staffers worked for Reagan, for stance, and queer people ma up a signifint share of other Admistratns throughout the middle and latter parts of the twentieth century.
EXPLORE GAY ROOMS & RENTALS WASHGTON
Roosevelt vociferoly fend his iend and the Unr-Secretary of State, Sumner Well, followg revelatns that Well was a homosexual, askg for Well’s rignatn only unr mountg prsure om his Republin rivals.
For years, the prs went along wh this discretn, but that mutually assured silence began to unravel durg Roosevelt’s third term, when a New York Post article that acced the Massachetts senator David Walsh of visg a “hoe of gradatn”—the Post never ed the word “homosexual”—gurated outg as a polil weapon.
FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG
Kirchick posns “Secret Cy” as a lightly revisnist work, notg that “most narrativ of the movement for gay equaly” emphasize the Stonewall uprisg, the assassatn of Harvey Milk, and the mpaign agast the antigay activist Ana Bryant before sistg that “the spark for the revolutn was l, and s flame was tend, Washgton, DC. Kameny subsequently built up the cy’s first staed gay anizatn and is rightly regard as a pneer for equal the tth most clearly revealed by Kirchick’s foc on Washgton is one that queer historians have emphasized for years: that change was prompted not by those the halls of power but by activists workg well outsi of them.
WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
And almost no one “Secret Cy” who had a job a Printial Admistratn phed for equal rights, quietly or otherwise, while still employed—even after activists had succeed makg gay rights a natnal story. The figur engenr varyg gre of sympathy when they navigate the shadows and silenc of the neteen-forti and fifti, the era of Senator Walsh’s outg and Blick’s gay list.