From a young Harvard- and Cambridge-trained historian, the secret history of the fight for gay rights that began a generation before Stonewall.In 1957, Frank Kameny, a rising astronomer working for the U.S. Defense Department in Hawaii, received a summons to report immediately to Washington, D.C. The Pentagon had reason to believe he was a homosexual, and after a series of humiliating interviews, Kameny, like countless gay men and women before him, was promptly dismissed from his government job. Unlike many others, though, Kameny fought back.
Based on firsthand accounts, recently declassified FBI records, and forty thousand personal documents, Eric Cervini’s The Deviant’s War unfolds over the course of the 1960s, as 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 forgotten ties that bound gay rights to the Black Freedom Movement, the New Left, lesbian activism, and trans resistance. Above all, it is a story of America (and Washington) at a cultural and sexual crossroads; of shocking, byzantine public battles with Congress; of FBI informants; murder; betrayal; sex; love; and ultimately victory.
October Book Club
When:
October 20, 2020 @ 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
2020-10-20T20:00:00-07:00
2020-10-20T21:00:00-07:00
Where:
Virtual - via Zoom
Contact:
Tom Schmidt
The next meeting of the Gay Book Club will be Tuesday October 20 at 8 pm. This will be a virtual meetup via zoom. All are welcome. Just read the book and come prepared to discuss.
The book for October is “The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual Vs the United States of America”.
This is a longer book, so start reading early.
Please RSVP to the organizer for the zoom credentials for the meeting.
Here is a description of the book from Amazon: