Michael Waters reviews Jam Kirchick’s book “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton,” which chronicl the panic over queer polil fluence Washgton, D.C., om the Princy of Frankl D. Roosevelt to that of Bill Clton.
Contents:
- WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
- SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS
- GAY WATER, A NEW NNED CKTAIL, WANTS TO BE THE ANTI-BUD LIGHT
- GAY WASHGTON DC
- WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
Lnchg Thursday is a brightly lored nned vodka and soda beverage lled Gay Water that proudly displays who ’s for, stead of backg off om support for the LGBTQ+ muny like Bud Light did. * gay history in dc *
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. "Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton" by Jam, Henry & Company, Inc. “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.
SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS
The bt gay bars, dance clubs, gay-rated hotels, gay snas and gay cise clubs Washgton DC. * gay history in dc *
“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. ” 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.
GAY WATER, A NEW NNED CKTAIL, WANTS TO BE THE ANTI-BUD LIGHT
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.
GAY WASHGTON DC
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. “Secret Cy” ends wh the princy of Bill Clton, who said a mpaign speech ont of a largely gay dience Los Angel 1992, “I have a visn, and you are a part of . ” 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.
When the book begs, queer people are visible, ’s illegal to be gay, and the medil tablishment nsirs LGBTQ people to be mentally ill. 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. 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.
WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
“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.