Book review of Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton by Jam Kirchick - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT
• SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON
• WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'

A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTJam Kirchick’s new book talli the st of homophobia on liv and reers Washgton, D. 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.

“Secret Cy, ” by Jam Kirchick, is a sprawlg and enthrallg history of how the gay subculture Washgton, D.

SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON

)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. A homosexual was forever tated. ” 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.

”)Kennedy’s and Reagan’s first ladi were both tightly encircled by gay urtiers, though loyalty both directns uld easily waver. 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.

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

And Kirchick seems to n out of gas toward the end, as the gay suatn improv. 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.

Edgar Hoover (who Kirchick curly avoids intifyg as homosexual), McCarthye and Tmp mentor Roy Cohn, and famo New Right lobbyist Terry Dolan. 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.

Kirchick promis to show “the wi-rangg fluence of homosexualy on the natn’s pal, on the people who dwelled wh , and on the weighty matters of state they nducted. ” But “Secret Cy” might more accurately be scribed as a surface-level glimpse at the promence of homophobia the feral ernment and the D. 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.