The natn’s pal has long been a place where the battle for gay rights is fought and celebrated, om landmark lgs to landmark bars.
Contents:
- WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
- JAM KIRCHICK EXPLOR DC’S GAY HISTORY AN AMB NEW BOOK
- ‘THE REAL VILLA IS THE CLOSET’: A NEW HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON DEALS WH SOCIETY AS IT TLY WAS
- WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
- A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT
WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
Jam Kirchick reunts the past and prent of gay rights "Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton," cludg DC's Stonewall equivalent. * washington dc gay history *
“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.
JAM KIRCHICK EXPLOR DC’S GAY HISTORY AN AMB NEW BOOK
"Secret Cy," isn’t so much a gay history of D.C. as is a history of Washgton as experienced by s gay power players. * washington dc gay history *
“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.
‘THE REAL VILLA IS THE CLOSET’: A NEW HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON DEALS WH SOCIETY AS IT TLY WAS
” 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.
WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
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.
This historic appotment has s roots an extraordary moment 1957 when Frank Kameny, a young astro-physicist, cid to stand his ground when the feral ernment dismissed him om his job for beg gay. In The Deviant’s War, Cervi firsthand acunts, classified FBI rerds, and personal documents, predomantly om the Frank Kameny Papers at the Library of Congrs, to give the rear an sight to the 1960s when the Mattache Society of Washgton, the group Kameny found, beme the first anizatn to prott the systematic persecutn of gay feral employe. As reviewed Washgton History, this volume b Kameny’s own words, cludg approximately 150 documents om his personal papers om 1958 to 1975, wh ntextual analysis and mentary to explore the evolutn of gay rights strategy.
A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT
Johnson explor the the experienc and ristance of the DC gay muny at the ontl of the ernment’s attempt to purge LGBT people om the Civil Service both before and durg the McCarthy era.