I grew up in DC, not in a political family. My family like so many non political Washingtonians who owned small businesses in DC --- We just laughed about the difficulty of delivering pizza, etc to the CIA, and other "secret" groups, and about the all too well known, "secret" men's clubs. I moved to NYC. . I am surprised/not surprised that the closeted Republicans are still hiding in plain sight. Its just sadder in today's time of more open homosexuality, Republicans are still leading double lives.
My first inkling that there was gay life in D.C. came over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, when I spent a few days sightseeing with my father. I was on break from my senior year at Choate. Two moments from that trip have stayed with me.
One evening at dinner, I happened to glance across the room and noticed two men seated together at a two-top. The one facing away from me wore a sweater in a shade of red that was fashionable in Europe at the time. Instinctively, I knew they were a couple. By then, I had lived on three continents—I wasn’t sheltered—but this was the first time I had ever registered the presence of an openly gay pair. Out of necessity, I was closeted, but I had no angst about being gay. I knew I would come out when the time was right. That night gave me an important measure of confidence about my future.
As an old South America hand, my father had known his share of luminaries from his years in journalism and public relations. While we were in D.C., he arranged for us to have lunch with Tad Szulc. This was Nixon’s America, and Merle Haggard’s Okie from Muskogee was still on the radio. When the waiter came to take my order, he turned to me and said, “And what will Miss have?” My hair wasn’t as long as the Pre-Raphaelite locks favored by the most fashionable Choaties, but it was long enough to have earned me a public reprimand in the nation's capital. The part of the conversation that stuck was Szulc’s reference to “Nixon’s Nazis”—his term for H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman.
But back to the matter at hand—won't someone please drop a lavender dime on Ralph Reed?
I’m gay. Came out in 1977. We would go to the lesbian bar in Atlanta and back into our parking place so that if the bar got raided you just might be able to escape quicker. It was against the law back then to be gay although admittedly men were the targets, police really didn’t know what to do about women - mostly they wanted to watch.
There were always these lecherous men at the bar who hated women but wanted to watch them being together. And not so much now, but back then, there were quite a number of gay men who despised all women including their mothers, gay women and straight women (usually in that order).
Sadly, the gay men who married women to appear straight were the most hateful and their wives the sweetest but most hurt when they discovered the truths about their gay husbands, the law dealt with them or when either one or both got AIDS.
I’ve never thought much of log cabin republicans even when I regrettably voted Republican. They never seemed transparent. A bunch of pretty people in expensive clothes with perfect teeth and leather penny loafers. Omg, I’m old.
I can still remember being called “heartless” in the New York Times comment section. My offense? Opining on the stellar career of an overachiever who had scaled the pinnacles of multiple hyper-competitive fields without a single misstep. So fearful was he of falling off the high wire that he remained strategically closeted.
Only when a security clearance required full disclosure did he finally acknowledge being gay. And once out, he had to make his coming-out narrative as over-the-top as every other step of his carefully choreographed ascent—published in the NYT, of course. In baring his soul, he confessed that his success stemmed from the “best little boy in the world” complex he had developed to compensate for his one perceived defect: being gay.
But this man hadn’t come of age in the heteronormative fifties or even the AIDS-scarred eighties. His excessive caution belonged to the LGB-positive nineties and early 2000s—akin to playing a castaway in rags when, in reality, he was wading distance from shore.
Having been out since I passed the bar in 1980, I called it like I saw it: his success was ill-gotten gains. It’s been years, and I still stand by that.
Your "bunch of pretty people in expensive clothes with perfect teeth and leather penny loafers"? They're called A-list gays. We have them in Portland, too, except here they wear sweaters.
I even commend the pretty boys. I don’t stand OUT too much and will not ever with the orange turd. I feel really bad for men, still the big target. I am scared to death for my nephew who is a member of the church. We are 3000 miles apart. His city starts with a P. I could never help him physically. I used to beat up (at least intimidate) neighbor kids who harassed my younger brothers who are straight. I’m sure that surprises you :) Thank you for your thoughts and all the best. I was one of the few medical residents who would touch AIDS patients at my training hospital. At one point, every patient I was assigned had AIDS and none of my fellow students would help me. Those were very long days and weeks and I did many procedures that needed more than one person, one of which a needle curved through a cap I was replacing. That was before we knew it wasn’t smart to recap a needle. Patient dead of at least old age, I’m here 40!years later waiting to die of old age. Kind of scary, especially when your mother is still alive and one is waiting for her to die of old age. You write well. I hope you share your story. I love my sweaters. I still have the ones that barely fit. No lesbian, except the lip stick ones, will be called A list. I did not mean to offend, just sayin’.
I was too young and too stupid to know it was selfless. I simply loved my patients and I was never going to abandon them ESPECIALLY because none of the other f*ers would take care of OUR patients. Even black nurses, reviled and castigated would take care of these beautiful men. I could not believe it. For God’s sake I worked in an Atlanta hospital built with one side for blacks and one side for whites. It was H shaped. The long hallway that connected the two wings - A, B vs C, D was an interesting collection of offices, rooms and interventional suites. But if you were a patient and went to that connecting hallway suite of rooms, no one, I don’t care what color, gender, class or preference you were was going to check on you. Welcome to Atlanta in 1983. Pathetic. I only did what my parents taught me to do as flawed as they were and are - do your job to the best of your ability and with all your heart.
That is what we must do with the superb examples of our contrarian leaders. Do our jobs well and reverse the orange turd. The only thing worse than plopping in the toilet is reversing up one’s colon and causing a painful blockage. That is April 5 - a painful blockage with a gentle protest! We can do this.
For those who remember the DC charity fundraising group Hexagon (performed at the Duke Ellington School in Georgetown), and provided equal opportunity skewering of both parties.
There was a skit during the W Bush Administration, whose lyrics were:
We're AC in DC
Surreptitiously
and we're turning the Elephant pink.
So not only was it known, but came with a song and dance number.
I was a Democratic political consultant in the 80s and 90s. I was also a Navy spook for four years and felt I could find out anything I wanted to find out. So I’d spend about week in the district before I officially showed up. I did a thorough background on my candidate to make sure there were no surprises in my candidate’s background. I also did a background on my Republican opponent. The Republican candidate was a closeted gay. That gay candidate said terrible things about gay people, like really awful, calling for the death penalty and shit like that. A few of my Democratic candidates had affairs with women who weren’t their wives. I always wanted to out the Republican, but the state Democratic parties wouldn’t let me. Later on I figured out the Democrats had their own closeted gays and didn’t want them outed in revenge. I don’t know who they were. I just knew there were a lot more gay Republicans. Matt Schlapp was not a surprise to me.
Very interesting story and very true one...I lived and worked in DC most of my adult life as a gay professional woman. I had a best friend named Mack, and we were like brother and sister. I went to many gay parties, bars and dinners etc. thru him I actually met many of these gay men. I met Terry Dolan, he actually went out with Mack... there were others I met as well, Roger Stone was one I vividly recall, as he bragged and showed his tatoo of Nixon on his back!!! During Nixon addmin... they were known as The Lavender Bund!
I have been incredulous at the hypocracy that runs wild thru the GOP ...and this trans issue is just a means of keeping the culture wars alive. THEY ARE COMING FOR GAY MARRIAGE/// FULL STOP!
Wow! You said, Stuart, that if they ever managed to piss you off enough, you'd do this. Well, if the past two months haven't pissed everyone who believes in the country that political party is attacking, they'd have to be un-pissoffable. This is gonna "turn heads." Definitely looking forward to Chapter Two.
I do not understand how people who have so much to lose from the Republican alliance with Christian conservatives can continue to support the party's aims, which include ending same sex marriage and adoption. They're coming for your families. They're not talking about it very loudly, in the public spaces most of us inhabit. But they're planning it. What's it going to take for gay and trans conservatives to step away?
Anyway, name the names, Stuart. And please continue to remind us HOW MANY DIED TERRIBLE DEATHS FROM AIDS, and HOW REPUBLICANS DRAGGED THEIR FEET ON FUNDING AIDS/HIV RESEARCH AND TREATMENT, for which I hope they burn in Hell.
Great story Stuart. I remember you mentioned on an LP video not long ago something about the potential to use those closeted secrets against some of the current GOP Trumpists. YES!!! If you can figure out a way... Keep up your good work. You help me stay sane in the midst of the shitshow.
I have come back to add more. At 74 I often forget where I put my coffee cup 😍 All of a sudden I thought of the Log Cabin Republicans - any tie-in here?
I grew up in DC, not in a political family. My family like so many non political Washingtonians who owned small businesses in DC --- We just laughed about the difficulty of delivering pizza, etc to the CIA, and other "secret" groups, and about the all too well known, "secret" men's clubs. I moved to NYC. . I am surprised/not surprised that the closeted Republicans are still hiding in plain sight. Its just sadder in today's time of more open homosexuality, Republicans are still leading double lives.
My first inkling that there was gay life in D.C. came over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, when I spent a few days sightseeing with my father. I was on break from my senior year at Choate. Two moments from that trip have stayed with me.
One evening at dinner, I happened to glance across the room and noticed two men seated together at a two-top. The one facing away from me wore a sweater in a shade of red that was fashionable in Europe at the time. Instinctively, I knew they were a couple. By then, I had lived on three continents—I wasn’t sheltered—but this was the first time I had ever registered the presence of an openly gay pair. Out of necessity, I was closeted, but I had no angst about being gay. I knew I would come out when the time was right. That night gave me an important measure of confidence about my future.
As an old South America hand, my father had known his share of luminaries from his years in journalism and public relations. While we were in D.C., he arranged for us to have lunch with Tad Szulc. This was Nixon’s America, and Merle Haggard’s Okie from Muskogee was still on the radio. When the waiter came to take my order, he turned to me and said, “And what will Miss have?” My hair wasn’t as long as the Pre-Raphaelite locks favored by the most fashionable Choaties, but it was long enough to have earned me a public reprimand in the nation's capital. The part of the conversation that stuck was Szulc’s reference to “Nixon’s Nazis”—his term for H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman.
But back to the matter at hand—won't someone please drop a lavender dime on Ralph Reed?
Always good to hear from you Stuart. You and the rest of the LP lads an’ lassies have been my Pole Stars ever since “Mourning in America”.
You all & Michael Steele
(I still say Michael should run for president!)
Cheers from the great state of Hawai’i
🤙🏼🌺💖🪷🌻🌴🇺🇦🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🏴🇺🇸🏴☠️😎
I’m gay. Came out in 1977. We would go to the lesbian bar in Atlanta and back into our parking place so that if the bar got raided you just might be able to escape quicker. It was against the law back then to be gay although admittedly men were the targets, police really didn’t know what to do about women - mostly they wanted to watch.
There were always these lecherous men at the bar who hated women but wanted to watch them being together. And not so much now, but back then, there were quite a number of gay men who despised all women including their mothers, gay women and straight women (usually in that order).
Sadly, the gay men who married women to appear straight were the most hateful and their wives the sweetest but most hurt when they discovered the truths about their gay husbands, the law dealt with them or when either one or both got AIDS.
I’ve never thought much of log cabin republicans even when I regrettably voted Republican. They never seemed transparent. A bunch of pretty people in expensive clothes with perfect teeth and leather penny loafers. Omg, I’m old.
I can still remember being called “heartless” in the New York Times comment section. My offense? Opining on the stellar career of an overachiever who had scaled the pinnacles of multiple hyper-competitive fields without a single misstep. So fearful was he of falling off the high wire that he remained strategically closeted.
Only when a security clearance required full disclosure did he finally acknowledge being gay. And once out, he had to make his coming-out narrative as over-the-top as every other step of his carefully choreographed ascent—published in the NYT, of course. In baring his soul, he confessed that his success stemmed from the “best little boy in the world” complex he had developed to compensate for his one perceived defect: being gay.
But this man hadn’t come of age in the heteronormative fifties or even the AIDS-scarred eighties. His excessive caution belonged to the LGB-positive nineties and early 2000s—akin to playing a castaway in rags when, in reality, he was wading distance from shore.
Having been out since I passed the bar in 1980, I called it like I saw it: his success was ill-gotten gains. It’s been years, and I still stand by that.
Your "bunch of pretty people in expensive clothes with perfect teeth and leather penny loafers"? They're called A-list gays. We have them in Portland, too, except here they wear sweaters.
I even commend the pretty boys. I don’t stand OUT too much and will not ever with the orange turd. I feel really bad for men, still the big target. I am scared to death for my nephew who is a member of the church. We are 3000 miles apart. His city starts with a P. I could never help him physically. I used to beat up (at least intimidate) neighbor kids who harassed my younger brothers who are straight. I’m sure that surprises you :) Thank you for your thoughts and all the best. I was one of the few medical residents who would touch AIDS patients at my training hospital. At one point, every patient I was assigned had AIDS and none of my fellow students would help me. Those were very long days and weeks and I did many procedures that needed more than one person, one of which a needle curved through a cap I was replacing. That was before we knew it wasn’t smart to recap a needle. Patient dead of at least old age, I’m here 40!years later waiting to die of old age. Kind of scary, especially when your mother is still alive and one is waiting for her to die of old age. You write well. I hope you share your story. I love my sweaters. I still have the ones that barely fit. No lesbian, except the lip stick ones, will be called A list. I did not mean to offend, just sayin’.
Thank you for your selfless work during the AIDS crisis. The tremendous contribution of women made a huge difference.
Thank you for your kind words!
I was too young and too stupid to know it was selfless. I simply loved my patients and I was never going to abandon them ESPECIALLY because none of the other f*ers would take care of OUR patients. Even black nurses, reviled and castigated would take care of these beautiful men. I could not believe it. For God’s sake I worked in an Atlanta hospital built with one side for blacks and one side for whites. It was H shaped. The long hallway that connected the two wings - A, B vs C, D was an interesting collection of offices, rooms and interventional suites. But if you were a patient and went to that connecting hallway suite of rooms, no one, I don’t care what color, gender, class or preference you were was going to check on you. Welcome to Atlanta in 1983. Pathetic. I only did what my parents taught me to do as flawed as they were and are - do your job to the best of your ability and with all your heart.
That is what we must do with the superb examples of our contrarian leaders. Do our jobs well and reverse the orange turd. The only thing worse than plopping in the toilet is reversing up one’s colon and causing a painful blockage. That is April 5 - a painful blockage with a gentle protest! We can do this.
For those who remember the DC charity fundraising group Hexagon (performed at the Duke Ellington School in Georgetown), and provided equal opportunity skewering of both parties.
There was a skit during the W Bush Administration, whose lyrics were:
We're AC in DC
Surreptitiously
and we're turning the Elephant pink.
So not only was it known, but came with a song and dance number.
I was a Democratic political consultant in the 80s and 90s. I was also a Navy spook for four years and felt I could find out anything I wanted to find out. So I’d spend about week in the district before I officially showed up. I did a thorough background on my candidate to make sure there were no surprises in my candidate’s background. I also did a background on my Republican opponent. The Republican candidate was a closeted gay. That gay candidate said terrible things about gay people, like really awful, calling for the death penalty and shit like that. A few of my Democratic candidates had affairs with women who weren’t their wives. I always wanted to out the Republican, but the state Democratic parties wouldn’t let me. Later on I figured out the Democrats had their own closeted gays and didn’t want them outed in revenge. I don’t know who they were. I just knew there were a lot more gay Republicans. Matt Schlapp was not a surprise to me.
Very interesting story and very true one...I lived and worked in DC most of my adult life as a gay professional woman. I had a best friend named Mack, and we were like brother and sister. I went to many gay parties, bars and dinners etc. thru him I actually met many of these gay men. I met Terry Dolan, he actually went out with Mack... there were others I met as well, Roger Stone was one I vividly recall, as he bragged and showed his tatoo of Nixon on his back!!! During Nixon addmin... they were known as The Lavender Bund!
I have been incredulous at the hypocracy that runs wild thru the GOP ...and this trans issue is just a means of keeping the culture wars alive. THEY ARE COMING FOR GAY MARRIAGE/// FULL STOP!
Wow! But isn’t that kind of the one upsmanship almost cut throat nature of DC
Wow! You said, Stuart, that if they ever managed to piss you off enough, you'd do this. Well, if the past two months haven't pissed everyone who believes in the country that political party is attacking, they'd have to be un-pissoffable. This is gonna "turn heads." Definitely looking forward to Chapter Two.
This is fascinating, Stuart.
I do not understand how people who have so much to lose from the Republican alliance with Christian conservatives can continue to support the party's aims, which include ending same sex marriage and adoption. They're coming for your families. They're not talking about it very loudly, in the public spaces most of us inhabit. But they're planning it. What's it going to take for gay and trans conservatives to step away?
Anyway, name the names, Stuart. And please continue to remind us HOW MANY DIED TERRIBLE DEATHS FROM AIDS, and HOW REPUBLICANS DRAGGED THEIR FEET ON FUNDING AIDS/HIV RESEARCH AND TREATMENT, for which I hope they burn in Hell.
How interesting. Lots of intriguing situations. Thanks.
Thank you for this fascinating read. Waiting for more!
Great story Stuart. I remember you mentioned on an LP video not long ago something about the potential to use those closeted secrets against some of the current GOP Trumpists. YES!!! If you can figure out a way... Keep up your good work. You help me stay sane in the midst of the shitshow.
Deeply moving. Thank you!
I have come back to add more. At 74 I often forget where I put my coffee cup 😍 All of a sudden I thought of the Log Cabin Republicans - any tie-in here?
Thank you Stuart
Looking forward to Part 2!