289. James Kirchick — Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington

<p class="p1">This episode is sponsored by Wren. Signup at <a href= "https://www.wren.co/shermer">wren.co/shermer</a> and Wren will plant 10 trees in your name. Start a monthly subscription to fund climate solutions.</p> <p>Shermer and Kirchick discuss: archives and secret sources of secret histories • the cause of homophobia, and how and why homosexuality was thought of as a “contagious sexual aberrancy” • why there is no lesbian history of Washington • J. Edgar Hoover, Clyde Tolson and gay mythmaking • FDR and Sumner Welles • why at the height of the Cold War, it was safer to be a Communist than a homosexual • Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss • the McCarthy hearings and how the Lavender Menace became inextricably linked with the Red Menace • astronomer Franklin Kameny and the Mattachine Society • JFK and his tolerance of homosexuality • Richard Nixon’s notorious homophobia • Ronald Reagan’s conflicting attitudes toward homosexuality • George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and real progress in acceptance of homosexuality • the trans movement and its homophobic consequences.</p> <p>James Kirchick has written about human rights, politics, and culture from around the world. A columnist for <em>Tablet</em> magazine, a writer at large for Air Mail, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, he is the author of <em>The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age</em>. Kirchick’s work has appeared in the <em>New York Times</em>, the <em>Washington Post</em>, the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, the <em>Atlantic</em>, the <em>New York Review of Books</em>, and the <em>Times Literary Supplement</em>. A graduate of Yale with degrees in history and political science, he resides in Washington, DC.</p> <p>This episode is also sponsored by <a href= "https://www.wondrium.com/shermer" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">Wondrium</a>. </p>