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'
- A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT
- ‘THE REAL VILLA IS THE CLOSET’: A NEW HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON DEALS WH SOCIETY AS IT TLY WAS
- A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
- GAY RIGHTS
- SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON
- WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
"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. * history of gay washington *
“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.
A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT
The story of LGBTQ Seattle is over 130 years the makg. In the 1880s same-sex relatns were of ltle ncern to most rints. Later, 1893, they were clared a crime, and the late 1960s, activists polilly anized around same-sex timacy. Gay Seattle fought for … * history of gay washington *
“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. 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.
‘THE REAL VILLA IS THE CLOSET’: A NEW HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON DEALS WH SOCIETY AS IT TLY WAS
The gay rights movement the Uned Stat began the 1920s and saw huge progrs the 2000s, wh laws prohibg homosexual activy stck down and a Supreme Court lg legalizg same-sex marriage. * history of gay washington *
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.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
For s, the specter of homosexualy hnted Washgton: The mere suggtn someone might be gay stroyed reputatns, end reers, and ed liv. Jam Kirchick discs dividuals who urageoly cid that the source of their private shame uld stead be galvanized for public pri. * history of gay washington *
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.
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.
GAY RIGHTS
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. 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. Fil, rrponnce, terview transcripts and prs clippgs — you n almost hear the old microfiche sheets tickg by — Kirchick holds the most dited persecutors, some of whom were themselv the closet, to sthg Morigi“Even at the height of the Cold War, was safer to be a Communist than a homosexual, ” he wr.
SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON
” Later, as tolerance grew (thanks part to the efforts of the Mattache Society, the gay rights anizatn whose evolutn is traced here), some nfirmed bachelors took the important seat once occupied by Perle Mta, the cy’s famed “hosts wh the mosts.
It would be bt read at the vlet hour wh a snifter of brandy a wood-paneled library, one of those wh a rollg ladr to brg down some of the fad midcentury bt-sellers rurfaced the pag, like Vidal’s “The Cy and the Pillar” — the narrative perks up nsirably whenever this ntent, urbane wrer arriv on the premis — “Washgton Confintial, ” by Jack La and Lee Mortimer (1951), wh s fabled “Garn of Pansi”; and “Advise and Consent, ” by Allen Dry (1959), which won a Pulzer and was ma to a movie by Otto ’s also a Baeker of important plac (map clud): the rollickg Chicken Hut bar where Teboe met his murrers; the “F Loop” of the Dupont Circle pickup scene that veloped the 1960s; the Cema Folli, the pornographic theater where ne men died a 1977 fire; the “gay rner” of the Congrsnal Cemetery; and, more hopefully, the Lambda Risg is overwhelmgly a gallery of the whe male gaytriarchy, wh lbians and people of lor mostly on the sil. As is a history of Washgton as experienced by s gay power players—figur who were workg alongsi their straight lleagu to put the untry on a post-World War II footg, addrs the risg Civil Rights Movement, and ntend wh a Cold War that left everyone paranoid.
WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
I was aware of the whole gay OSS [Office of Strategic Servic, an early eratn of the CIA] thg bee there’s a chapter on a book about the early years of the OSS, and there’s a chapter about Donald Down that kd of refers to him as beg gay. Drag performanc quickly beme a central feature of the gay muny, first appearg vville performanc as early as 1898, when the natnally regnized female impersonator Edward Stewart performed a Seattle Theater productn of 1492. In a piic sponsored part by the group, atten were not allowed to wear drag, an ditn that the Dorian Society was tryg to move away om certa forms of gay cultural exprsn to achieve rpectabily the ey of hetersexual rints.
Organizatns dited to gay pri clud the Unn of Sexual Mori, the Gay Women’s Alliance, the Seattle Counselg Service, the Gay Communy Center, Seattle’s chapter of the Gay Liberatn Front, Stonewall (a dg and alhol rehabilatn center), and the Lbian Rource Center. Some lbian and femist groups believed that separatism (livg, anizg, and socializg wh women only) was the answer to endg male domance, yet the Unn of Sexual Mori, a aln of gay men and women who shared anti-racist and anti-imperialist views, believed this approach to be shortsighted bee society is posed of both women and men.