On February 2, 2021, Pete Buttigieg became the first openly gay man to win Senate confirmation to run a Cabinet department. This historic appointment has its roots in an extraordinary moment in 1957 when Frank Kameny, a young astro-physicist, decided to stand his ground when the federal government dismissed him from his job for being gay.
While he did not get his job back, Kameny’s subsequent decades-long battle to decriminalize homosexuality fundamentally changed Washington and the world. Kameny (1925-2011) spent more than 50 years here as a civil rights activist and politician, including serving on Mayor Walter Washington’s inaugural Commission on Human Rights soon after DC gained Home Rule, and advocating for DC Statehood.
Two years before his death, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (the successor agency to the U.S. Civil Service Commission) presented Kameny with the agency’s highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Award, and formally apologized for the “shameful action” of his firing. As the 2009 apology also noted, “the civil service laws, rules and regulations now provide that it is illegal to discriminate against federal employees or applicants based on matters not related to their ability to perform their jobs, including their sexual orientation.”
To provide some historical context for the fight for the rights of LGBTQ federal employees, by Kameny and others, we offer the following recommended reading. Also included are selected resources exploring the documentation of the broader social, cultural, and political history of LGBTQ life in DC, where the federal and the local are inevitably intertwined.
Gay is Good: Frank Kameny and the Fight for LGBTQ Rights (Video)
On April 22, 2021 historian Eric Cervini, author of The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, joined Washington History managing editor Jane F. Levey in conversation about his book and the legacy of LGBTQ activist Frank Kameny.
View the video here
Recommended Reading
The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of American by Eric Cervini (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020)
Cervini documents the impact of Frank Kameny’s life and work on Washington, DC and the United States. In 1957 Kameny was fired from his post as an astronomer working for the U.S. Defense Department in Hawaii after a security clearance investigation determined he was a homosexual. In The Deviant’s War, Cervini uses firsthand accounts, declassified FBI records, and personal documents, predominantly from the Frank Kameny Papers at the Library of Congress, to give the reader an insight into the 1960s when the Mattachine Society of Washington, the group Kameny founded, became the first organization to protest the systematic persecution of gay federal employees. It traces the ties that bound gay rights to the Black Freedom Movement, the New Left, lesbian activism, and trans resistance. Purchase a signed copy of The Deviant’s War from the DC History Center Store.
Gay Is Good: The Life and Letters of Gay Rights Pioneer Franklin Kameny, edited by Michael G. Long (Syracuse University Press 2014)
As reviewed in Washington History, this volume combines Kameny’s own words, including approximately 150 documents from his personal papers from 1958 to 1975, with contextual analysis and commentary to explore the evolution of gay rights strategy.
“‘Homosexual Citizens’: Washington’s Gay Community Confronts the Civil Service” by David K. Johnson, Washington History 6-2 (1994)
Johnson explores the the experiences and resistance of the DC gay community at the frontlines of the government’s attempt to purge LGBT people from the Civil Service both before and during the McCarthy era. This research was later expanded and published as The Lavender Scare (University of Chicago Press, 2004).
Jeb and Dash: A Diary of Gay Life, 1918-1945, edited by Ina Russell (Faber & Faber, 1994)
The diaries of Jeb Alexander (a pseudonym) describe ordinary gay life in DC for a U.S. government editor and his intermittent love affair and lifelong friendship with a college classmate. The sketches of Jeb’s circle of male friends set in the details of the city of Washington evoke the social changes of his time.
Historic Context Statement for Washington’s LGBTQ Resources by Rebecca Graham and Kisa Hooks for the DC Office of Planning, Historic Preservation Office (2019).
A project of the National Park Service LGBTQ Heritage Initiative, this comprehensive report describes significant DC citizens, places, and spaces that have shaped LGBTQ history in DC. The report is organized thematically as follows: Historical Background on Human Sexuality; Politics, Law, and the Quest for Civil Rights; Activism and the Quest for Equal Rights; Community Development: Social Spaces and Places; Arts and Expression; Health Advocacy; Religion and Spirituality.
The ClubHouse, A Remarkable LGBTQ Gathering Spot based on the Rainbow History Project’s exhibit – The ClubHouse.
This blog post by John P. Olinger describes the ClubHouse at 1296 Upshur Street NW, its rich legacy, and the impact it had on Black lives in the LGBTQ community for the 15 years it operated from 1975 to 1990.
D.C.’s Dykaries: Phase One – D.C.’s Last Dyke Bar (1971 – 2016) by Ty Ginter (University of Maryland Dissertation, 2019)
In this dissertation, Ginter uses oral history and archival sources to explore the cultural history of lesbian spaces in DC with a focus on Phase One (Eighth Street SE), the longest operating lesbian bar in the nation.
Juneteenth Celebration of DC Black Queer History: A Self-Guided Tour by the Collective Formerly Known as the DC Chapter of BYP 100.
A self-guided tour on people, places, and events significant to DC Black Queer History. The tour can be accessed via audio and/or text.
A Queer Capital: A History of Gay Life in Washington, D.C. by Genny Beemyn (Routledge 2014)
Beemyn draws on extensive archival research and personal interviews to describes more than a century of LGBTQ experiences and documents their efforts to establish spaces of their own before and after World War II. Washington’s gay communities survived some of the harshest anti-gay campaigns in the nation, and organized to demand equal treatment. Beemyn explores the impact of DC as a racially segregated city on the development of separate Black and White gay social spaces.
From Our Collections
Please note: The Kiplinger Research Library is currently offering limited remote reference services. Click the links for more details from our catalog relating to the following collections and resources:
- Rainbow History Project collection. The mission of the Rainbow History Project is to collect, preserve, and promote an active knowledge of the history, arts, and culture relevant to sexually diverse communities in metropolitan Washington, DC. Since 2008 the DC History Center has served as the permanent repository of RHP’s physical collections, including personal papers of individuals, records of LGBTQ organizations, and published periodicals. Materials physically transferred to the DC History Center are described in MS 0764, a collection that expands through periodic transfers. Rainbow History Project’s oral history recordings are not available at the DC History Center. They may be requested directly from the Rainbow History Project website via its “Using Our Collections” section . There you can also find Rainbow History Project’s Walking Tours and Places and Spaces database.
- Gay and lesbian anti-discrimination collection, 1967-1975. MS 0328 includes press released, resolutions, and statements calling for the end of LGBTQ discrimination from national and local organizations.
- Frank Kameny-George Painter correspondence, 1981-1997. MS 0562 is a collection of letters between Frank Kameny and George Painter about anti-LGBT legislation in DC
- Otto H. Ulrich, Jr., papers, 1964-2001. MS 0626 includes documents related to the landmark discrimination case Ulrich, et al. v. Laird, et al. The documents provide details concerning Ulrich’s successful fight to regain his security clearance after it was suspended on the basis of his open homosexuality.
- Capitol Hill Scouts Troop 500 records. MS 0881 includes documentation of the troop’s decision to support LGBT leadership in the troop after the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America could deny membership to an openly gay assistant scout master (Boy Scouts of America v. Dale).
Other Resources
- Guide to Selected Resources to D.C.’s LGBTQ Communities Available at Local Repositories. Created in 2016, this guide highlights selected resources from the DC History Center, George Washington University, DC Public Library, National Archives and Records Administration, and the Rainbow History Project. Additional collections have been accrued and/or made accessible since this guide’s creation, including these digital collections available through The People’s Archive, DC Public Library: Digitized editions of the Washington Blade, DC’s principal LGBT newspaper since its first issue in October 1969; and digitized editions of Blacklight, an independent newspaper serving DC’s Black gay community.
- Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. The original organization was formed by Frank Kameny in 1961; current officers reorganized and repurposed it as a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit in the District in 2011, dedicated to LGBT history and research. The organization’s website features “The Deviant’s Trove,” including declassified documents, news accounts, and other research materials, many of which relate specifically to Washington, DC.