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

Contents:

• WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
• SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS
• JAM KIRCHICK EXPLOR DC’S GAY HISTORY AN AMB NEW BOOK

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

A new book exam the unknown or barely known liv of gay people workg and livg our natn’s pal, a cy known for s mix of power and secrets. “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.

Those stori lurked the background out of necsy: The st of g out as gay — or, more likely, beg outed agast one’s will — was enormo profsnally and socially.

Even beg associated wh a spected homosexual uld e the untry’s most powerful men to quiver. “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.

SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS

” 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.

“I don’t thk people unrstand or realize that was more dangero to be gay than was to be a munist.

JAM KIRCHICK EXPLOR DC’S GAY HISTORY AN AMB NEW BOOK

But one man said Waldron had “homosexual tennci” and shared a story about Waldron’s makg a pass at him. ”There was not one person whose power uld not be danger of beg promised if there was even a whisper of possible homosexualy activy.

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.

Y., a former Buffalo Bills and San Diego Chargers quarterback, to be his vice printial nng mate — another person mored to be gay. 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. When a ngrsman later asked Reagan’s munitns ai about the loss of the nomatn for Kemp, he reportedly said, “It was that homosexual thg, ” Kirchick wr.