by Eric Cervini
First published 2020
Eric Cervini chronicles the hidden origins of gay rights activism that preceded Stonewall by over a decade. In 1957, astronomer Frank Kameny faced Pentagon interrogators who suspected his homosexuality and promptly fired him from his Defense Department position. Rather than accept this fate quietly like countless others, Kameny chose to fight back. Cervini traces how Kameny navigated the underground gay communities of Boston and Washington while developing legal and moral arguments against government persecution. Through the 1960s, Kameny founded the Mattachine Society of Washington and organized the first protests against federal discrimination of gay employees. Drawing from forty thousand personal documents, declassified FBI files, and firsthand testimonies, Cervini reveals how this early movement connected with Black civil rights, the New Left, and emerging lesbian and transgender activism. The book exposes the systematic targeting of gay federal workers during the McCarthy era's Lavender Scare and shows how one man's refusal to stay silent helped create what became Gay Pride.
Genres: biography, history, gay, activism, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, underdog
Setting: Boston, Washington
Period: 1950s, 1960s
494 pages · Hardcover · Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Content warnings: homophobia