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

Contents:

• OPN WHAT GAY MEN’S STUNNG SUCCS MIGHT TEACH ABOUT THE AMIC GENR GAP
• THE NUMBER OF GAY BARS HAS DWDLED. A NEW GENERATN PLANS TO BRG THEM BACK.
• YOUNG PEOPLE ARE MORE LIKELY TO ACCEPT GAY UPL — AND TO INTIFY AS GAY
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT
• SUPREME COURT PROTECTS WEB SIGNER WHO WON’T DO GAY WEDDG WEBS
• WASHGTON POST PRETENDS ROUTE FD IS ABOUT BEG GAY. WHY?
• A GAY FIRST LADY? Y, WE’VE ALREADY HAD ONE, AND HERE ARE HER LOVE LETTERS.
• FIVE MYTHS ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE
• WASHGTON’S HUNDRED-YEAR WAR ON GAYS
• FDA PLANS TO LIFT BLOOD DONATN RTRICTNS ON GAY MEN AND ALLOW MONOGAMO MEN TO GIVE, REPORT CLAIMS
• CATHOLIC GROUP SPENT LNS ON DATA TRACKG GAY PRITS, 'WASHGTON POST' REPORTS

OPN WHAT GAY MEN’S STUNNG SUCCS MIGHT TEACH ABOUT THE AMIC GENR GAP

In every sgle racial and ethnic group I uld measure, gay men outpace straight men llege pletn by double men’s strikgly high performance is already well tablished high school. Usg the first Department of Edutn study ever to asss stunt sexual orientatn, I also found that, pared wh straight boys om the same school, gay boys earned better gras more advanced class and reported more ser work habs and more amilly oriented close succs are all the more remarkable given the fact that many schools rema dangero spac for gay stunts. Ined, the same data that documented gay boys’ high achievement also revealed them as twice as likely to feel unsafe at what’s the secret to gay men’s amic succs?

THE NUMBER OF GAY BARS HAS DWDLED. A NEW GENERATN PLANS TO BRG THEM BACK.

For the stunts, steppg outsi the strictur of straight masculy signifintly supported amic masculy’s expectatns were the only barrier to succs, however, gay men should perform roughly as well as straight women. Yet gay men outperform them, too, bee gay men don’t jt live outsi tradnal masculy; they often work particularly hard to pensate for not meetg those mascule expectatns — work that n lead to a measurable those nied the most tradnal avenu for “beg a man, ” pursug the kds of prtig reers ma possible through meticuloly high amic achievement n offer a way to shore up one’s standg. As one of my stunts at the Universy of Notre Dame put : “I realized early on that I uldn’t change the fact that I was gay, but I uld change how much I studied for my math tt.

Pike and McDaniel know openg a bar durg a panmic may be risky, but they say they’ve learned one thg om years of visg and workg other queer tablishments: If they want to survive, they first have to build a better and more clive than a barThe gay bar was long the ma, and sometim only, space where queer people uld gather.

About 200 of those tered to, like Hershee Bar Norfolk, opened when their stat had laws that prohibed bar owners om employg gay people or creatg gatherg spots for them. She mentored foster children whose parents had kicked them out, and every Thanksgivg, she threw a dner for people whose fai didn’t accept 1987, Norfolk had four or five gay bars, and the number natnwi peaked at more than 1, 700.

YOUNG PEOPLE ARE MORE LIKELY TO ACCEPT GAY UPL — AND TO INTIFY AS GAY

Those servg lbians and people of lor were h all gay bar listgs cled by 37 percent between 2007 and 2019, the number of queer bars servg people of lor cled by 59 percent, and bars for lbians cled by 52 percent, Mattson Francis lost the Lexgton Club, and Rubyu Jungle shut s doors New Orleans. “Gay bars were never jt hookup plac, but they were plac to meet other LGBTQ+ people, and now that you n meet them om your bedroom or while you’re wag for the b, that has taken away some of gay bars’ monopoly on beg the place where you fd other LGBTQ+ folks, ” he bars are also no longer the only place some queer people, pecially Whe and cisgenr men, feel safe. “I thk this is highly uneven, ” Mattson said, “but for gay, Whe, middle-class people like myself, any bar feels like a gay bar if you show up wh six iends.

Pike did secury for Nellie’s Sports Bar, and McDaniel bartend at APEX, Cobalt and other gay bars before workg alongsi Pike at A League of Her Own (ALOHO) Adams was one of jt 21 lbian bars left the untry when Pike and McDaniel worked there, but durg the early days of the ronavis panmic, the uple cid they wanted to create a new spot, one they owned. As You Are won’t have secury guards; stead, Pike is trag a fleet of “safety managers” — a change Pike hop will attract applints who are ls ncerned wh actg tough and more terted creatg a safe atmosphere for and McDaniel know that some people thk the gay bar era is over, that spac like theirs are no longer need, but people who say that tend to have more privilege, McDaniel said. “My experience of tryg to fd safe space here the Stat, and parg wh trips back to vis fay Mexi, has probably rmed my fervor for creatg a space where you are able to jt exist regardls of how or where you were born, who you want to love and how you intify, ” Castellanos, the owner of Hershee Bar Norfolk, nsirs herself an “old-school gay girl, ” but she’s rootg for the next generatn of queer bar owners.

As Florida nsired legislatn passed last year that limed discsn of same-sex relatnships schools, the dangero ia that kids were beg actively enuraged to be gay beme prevalent right-wg is a simpler explanatn, one that grants adults the agency of their choic. Des of hostily to same-sex relatnships loosened recent years, and younger Amerins grew up a untry that was ls hostile to gay relatnships than ed to be. Perhaps the change isn’t that kids are beg enuraged to be gay when they aren’t; perhaps ’s that they feel ee to intify that way if they are — a eedom olr Amerins didn’t enjoy.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

The bsman and his wife, Melissa, first plaed to the Front Porch proprietors about pre-dawn vendor liveri 2019, not long after the nservative Christian uple moved their fancial firm right next door to the rtrant, which fli a gay Pri flag. (Front Porch Market and Grill)What’s more, the Washers say, the ad rat was jt one more sult that the uple, who once planted an “all liv matter” sign their ont yard, have endured sce movg next door to a rtrant owned by a gay uple.

They married 2020, five years after they opened the Front Porch, which quickly beme a statn The Front Porch has been flyg a Pri flag on s pat sce 2016, not long after a gunman killed 49 people a gay bar Orlando. “I had so many threats agast me that even the Dallas police statned squad rs outsi our home, ” Waybourn an activist, Waybourn says, his goals were clear: same-sex marriage, gays and lbians the ary, accs to lifavg medic.

To the activist, feels like a step backward after a lifetime of fightg for gay pack the seats at the Board of Zong Appeals hearg hosted at Grace Epispal Church. “I have que a few gay iends, clients and a fay member, and I have patronized a gay-owned rtrant for years, ” he whether the Washers are tryg to remake The Plas to their image of Ameri — Whe, nservative, Christian — Melissa said, “I n see where you’re g om.

A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT

“In Banglash, where homosexualy is still outlawed, the implable vid-19 panmic has exacerbated social prejudic for LGBTQ+ dividuals, who already experienced margalizatn, excln and untls guis of vlence and discrimatn, ” Anjuman says. She had seen every episo of “Law & Orr: SVU” at least twice; I owned DVDs of the plete seri and worked wh Mariska Hargay, the longtime star of the show, at the Joyful Heart pursu of Roxane started wh vg her to be a gut on my long-nng podst, “Dign Matters, ” ostensibly to talk about “Hunger.

By then we had e to unrstand the ease of our daily rhythms, the pth of our patibily, the joys we took the same small thgs and, ankly, jt how much we liked each Millman, left, and wife Roxane Gay. ‘My quiet ristance’Photos by Mengwen CaoFor Che photographer Mengwen Cao, who is based New York, the panmic was an opportuny to step away om the racism, homophobia and xenophobia they had experienced: “Turng the lens ward” — as Cao did for this self-portra seri, featurg their ner dialogu and cultural fluenc — “ the perd of panmic is my quiet ristance agast vlence and discrimatn.

SUPREME COURT PROTECTS WEB SIGNER WHO WON’T DO GAY WEDDG WEBS

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.

WASHGTON POST PRETENDS ROUTE FD IS ABOUT BEG GAY. WHY?

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.

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. 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.

At one pot, for example, Kirchick attribut a “lack of Black participatn” an early gay rights anizatn, at least part, “to the fact that Washgton’s Black rints were mostly lols … and associatg wh a gay anizatn was signifintly harr while livg the cy where one’s fay rid. Siarly, while “Secret Cy” has ltle to say about lbians, the thor attempts to expla the silence away wh qutnable, and ultimately unstaable, claratns of how “persecutn generally targeted male homosexuals more severely than female on, a nsequence, part, of patriarchal attus privilegg men over women.

A GAY FIRST LADY? Y, WE’VE ALREADY HAD ONE, AND HERE ARE HER LOVE LETTERS.

Equally troublg is the book’s uneven approach to the plited polics of “the closet, ” lurchg whout warng om requise portrayals of survival-by-secrecy to scribg, language both hackneyed and harmful, the ne gay victims of D. Riemer is a -thor of “We Are Everywhere: Prott, Power, and Pri the History of Queer Liberatn” and a -creator of the onle rource CyThe Hidn History of Gay WashgtonBy Jam KirchickHenry Holt. ”In dissent — and monstratg the pth of her disagreement by readg part of her objectns om the bench — Jtice Sonia Sotomayor said her lleagu were abandong prcipl of cln and protectn for gay people that past Supreme Courts extend to women and people of lor durg the civil rights and women’s rights movements.

They left uncid whether a bs owner’s relig beliefs or ee speech rights n jtify refg some servic to gay ’s office is jt five om Phillips’s Masterpiece Cakhop.

FIVE MYTHS ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE

To wre the 303 Creative opn, 2020 surprised his fellow nservativ by wrg an opn that said Tle VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protected gay and transgenr workers. Clayton County, announcg Friday’s lg, and noted the stris gay Amerins have ma toward securg equal Gorsuch ma a distctn between the urt’s precents which has prohibed pelled speech and s cisns upholdg public acmodatn laws. Sotomayor, who ss to Gorsuch’s left, has her time on the urt been a supporter of gay rights, recently officiatg at the same-sex weddg of a former clerk.

Wrote Thomas Balcerski: “Last week, the hashtag #LadyGraham explod on social media rponse to allegatns ma on Twter by gay adult-film star Sean Hardg agast Sen.

WASHGTON’S HUNDRED-YEAR WAR ON GAYS

The other day I heard Fay Rearch Council print Tony Perks, a major foe of same sex marriage, claim that his own children would probably never be gay bee he'd parented them the right way. As a gay man I of urse found this credibly offensive, but until we n get past this outdated and disproved view that sexual orientatn n be changed we as a natn will never fully accept same sex marriage.

As more and more people get to know gay people, and as gay people e out at younger ag, and as be clear that you n be as happy and healthy as anyone else if your gay--then the myths will lose much of their hold. I spect there's a lot of agenda behd the gay marriage movement that they're more terted makg the pot that there should be no difference between heterosexly and homosexualy, than g up wh practil solutns to the problems of non-tradnal partnerships.

FDA PLANS TO LIFT BLOOD DONATN RTRICTNS ON GAY MEN AND ALLOW MONOGAMO MEN TO GIVE, REPORT CLAIMS

Let's be blunt: a lot of relig folks thk they have an obligatn to discrimate one way or another agast homosexual persons or (more monly) behavr--pecially but not only marriage. It seems that most of the opposn to gay marriage is om nservative people who selectively read their bible to cherry pick parts that they thk support their posn. I do wonr why proponents of biblil or tradnal marriage then acce gay-marriage advot of pavg the way for polygamy--the most tradnal form of marriage and one exprsly sanctned the Bible.

CATHOLIC GROUP SPENT LNS ON DATA TRACKG GAY PRITS, 'WASHGTON POST' REPORTS

Conservative adherents to Christiany, Judaism, and Islam reject gay marriage bee they reject gay people as havg any kd of validy or rpectabily their society.

Ben Bradlee, the edor of the Post, had a gay brother—one whom he accepted—and he believed the public should know that such a proment nservative activist, an ally of the “Moral Majory, ” had died of AIDS, the disease that Print Ronald Reagan refed to name.