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

Contents:

• NEW ‘GAY WATER’ LOOKS TO AVOID BUD LIGHT DISASTER
• SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS
• THE U STREET CORRIDOR FALLY HAS A GAY CLUB AGA
• BEG GAY WAS DC’S MOST SHAMEFUL SECRET DURG 20TH CENTURY
• LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY
• A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT
• WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'

NEW ‘GAY WATER’ LOOKS TO AVOID BUD LIGHT DISASTER

In his closed-door posn last month, Ziegler told lawmakers that he is gay, and phed back agast the notn om some right-wg figur that his sexual orientatn fluenc his polics or his job.

“People have said, bee I’m gay and that I am workg as the se agent on this vtigatn, that I mt be a far-left liberal, perfectly placed to f some agenda. A new nned cktail lled Gay Water is lookg to attract LGBTQ drkers and avoid the pfalls of Bud Light’s disastro marketg partnership wh transgenr fluencer Dylan Mulvaney.

The mixture of vodka and soda water, long known rmally as “gay water” the LGBTQ muny, is the brachild of 30-year-old gay entreprenr Spencer Hodson. 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. Hodson, who is fancg Gay Water wh his own money pl backg om fay and iends, his brightly lored ns are leang to their gayns stead of avoidg .

SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS

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. “Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg.

A statement on the Gay Water webse not that the word “gay” appears barely any products outsi of Pri Month each June. Acrdg to the statement, the new cktail reclaims the ia that “gay means happy. 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.

THE U STREET CORRIDOR FALLY HAS A GAY CLUB AGA

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. “I want to tertwe the two threads – the mastream thread of history that we all read about, and this gay history that’s been siled and sequtered, ” he said.

”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.

In fact, cens data shows that DC has the hight proportn of gay people anywhere the US. As he began workg on the massive project, Kirchick started to believe that, as a gay man, he was uniquely equipped to wre Secret Cy.

BEG GAY WAS DC’S MOST SHAMEFUL SECRET DURG 20TH CENTURY

“It need a gay person to do this, ” he said.

LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY

My beg gay rms my abily to say that. 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.

A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT

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.

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

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.