A new book Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington by James Kirch is compendium of DC gayness..
According to Airmail‘s Jonathan Darman,
The result of all his digging is an 800-page tour de force, certainly the most comprehensive history of gay Washington ever written. It’s also more than that. Tracing the strand of how the capital’s big shots treated gays across the decades, Kirchick provides a compelling account of how the bloodless, brutal Washington power game has always worked.
As such, Secret City’s main characters aren’t just gay men and women but the straight-male political figures for whom they toil.
President John F. Kennedy’s close White House circle includes several closeted or semi-closeted men, including;
- his lifelong best friend, Lem Billings (top, left and right)
- columnist Joseph Alsop
- Camelot taste-maker William Walton
According to Gore Vidal, Kennedy was a worldly sophisticate,
quite comfortable in the company of homosexuals.”
Vidal once told Kennedy that Tennessee Williams admired his ass. Kennedy was flattered.
But Kennedy’s gay-friendly attitude had no effect on his administration. Gay activist Frank Kameny wrote Kennedy, to ask him to reverse the policies barring gays and lesbians from the civil service. He never heard back.
Under attack in the the 50s from Senator Joe McCarthy, Carmel Offie, the unapologetically flamboyant C.I.A. agent, furious that his sexual orientation made him a blackmail risk, said
I don’t deny [it] I’ll stand up on the roof and admit it.
Nobody can blackmail me.”
With public officials like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg the days when gays in and around American government had to live their lives in secret are seemingly gone, right? Sort of.
Homophobia and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in 2023 are sadly, all the GOP (out) rage. Secret City is available on Amazon here.
Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington author @jkirchick explains how panic about homosexuality led to discrimination, bad policy, and, eventually, freedom for sexual minorities. Latest @reason Interview podcast! #Pride2022 #PrideMonth https://t.co/TRN4BlxGpY
— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) June 6, 2022
