Every couple of years there’s a new kid on the block when it comes to the be-all-end all of LGBT nonfiction books. And every couple of year’s I’m sorely disappointed—I’m not sure if it has to do with the hype machine around the books, if it’s what they decide to focus on, or if it’s the author’s themselves (almost always cisgender white gay men).
When this book started to make waves in the LGBT book blogging community, I took notice. And then when I found out Cervini was giving a talk via the Boston Public Library (The Boston Calendar), I requested a copy of the book via NetGalley to see why there was so much hype.*
I won’t say I’m sorely disappointed with this one, but I’m definitely not enthusiastic about it. Cervini has done his research, this is his adapted doctoral dissertation after all, and he’s a decent writer, but it seems like more information about the same-old white men that we’ve heard about in previous books. Sure, he dives more deeply into Frank Kameny’s life and history and his driving force behind the Mattachine Society of Washington and the countless lawsuits against the US Federal Government, but was this the story we really needed?
“When the trans patrons and drag queens and street youth put their bodies on the line at the Stonewall, ‘Gay is Good’ transformed from a tactic, from an antidote, to a tangible truth. The movement exploded in size because, for once, homosexuals could join the movement as themselves, as individuals who deviated from society in an infinite number of equally detested combinations. They could point to the least respectable of them all—covered in blood and tears and streaking makeup—and say, That is me.” (Chapter 18, The Liberation)
With transgender pioneers Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson and lesbian leaders Ernestine Eppenger, Barbar Gittings, Martha Shelley, and Lilli Vincenz as supporting characters in this, why couldn’t they have been the lens through which we viewed this time period? I know part of this is because he finished writing and defending his dissertation back in 2015 and the world is a far different place in 2020. Reading it now, during 2020 Pride month doesn’t provide the same context as it would have in 2015 (pre-Obergfell v. Hodges, marriage equality) or even 2019 (pre-Bostock v. Clayton County, LGBT job protection). And with the current administration still stripping the healthcare rights of transgender Americans, these women, especially the trans women of color, seem like throw away nods. Cervini treated their stories respectfully and with the importance they deserve and some had larger roles in the book (Gittings) than others, but it just came up short of what the world needs.
“Kameny could not forget Dowdy’s attempt to tarnish his respectable Society with the crass words and images of other homosexuals. He feared his opponents would use Drum’s semipornographic material to discredit his suit-and-tie society. This is the type of material your movement is publishing?” (Chapter 12, The Picket)
This being said, where Cervini excelled was drawing the line and highlighting the tension between the respectable Society and the “other”. At times I felt Cervini was being too kind to Kameny and the old school around their drive for respectability (an argument that remains valid today, especially around marriage equality and job protection) in that white men gay men will leave others being, specifically trans women of color, to get respectability. In this instance, this is why it was useful to have Kameny (cisgender gay man) as the protagonist of this work because Cervini was able to show his very slow and begrudging evolution from stalwart respectability to pride as a protest. How much of this actually being Kameny or being viewed through the historical lens (there were pages and pages of notes) is unknown. I have to wonder how much creative liberty Cervini took when he interpreted Kameny’s stories about the first pride march (the scene on the hill when Kameny and other old school homophiles talk about their feelings in the moment had me tear up) or about the APA movement when Kameny is the one who takes the microphone in an unprecedented protest. Was this polishing a turd (I’m sure there’s a better way to say it), or was it genuine introspection on a life lived fighting “the man”?
“Hoover did not need further proof that homosexuals threatened national security. Indeed, if it was so easy for him to blackmail homosexuals, why would the Soviets not blackmail them, too?” (Chapter 6, The Bureau)
Other things I noted:
- He spent pages and pages about the purge of homosexuals from the federal government during the McCarthy era but never once referred to it as the “Lavender Scare” (Wikipedia link) which was just weird to me. (The chapter focusing on this was “Panic on the Potomac”, which yay alliteration, but come on!)
- I was not aware the term “Auntie Tom” existed. Urban Dictionary (that great resource) defines it as: “A homosexual male who’s personal goals will always take precedent over that of his fellow homosexuals. Even to his own detriment.” It looked like a direct quote from someone (historical document), and I 100% understand why it may have fallen out of use with Uncle Tom being problematic, but it was still something new to note.
- This book is already outdated, always a risk with nonfiction, with the Bostock v. Clayton County U.S. Supreme Court decision granting job protection for LGBT individuals released June 15, 2020 (less than two weeks after publication).
- I now want a t-shirt that says “Lavender Menace”. I already have the book I bought a few years ago full of LGBT super villain stories, but thanks to Betty Friedan I want the t-shirt. [“Meanwhile, National Organization for Women (NOW) president Betty Friedan referred to lesbians as a ‘lavender menace’ that threatened to delegitimize the entire women’s liberation movement.” (Chapter 19, The Pride)]
- The LGBT rights movement and Black Civil Rights movements have been intertwined from the beginning and will forever be connected. [“Congressman Nix of Philadelphia, a Democrat, was Pennsylvania’s first black U.S. representative and the sixty-four-year-old son of a former slave. In 1962, by agreeing to meet with the Society, Nix became America’s first member of Congress to speak to homosexual activists. He did so within weeks of an election.” (Chapter 7, The Crusader)]
- The first electronic dating service, Operation Match (1965, Wikipedia link) came from Harvard University undergrads (hello pre-Facebook), and within the first three years they wanted to include homosexuals!
- I REALLY hope they had a really good copy editor. The version I read (clearly a pre-press version because of the lack of page numbers and end note citation numbers] was riddled with typos and missing words. I’m sure this was remedied, FSG generally has wonderful editing.
- There is so much history that has been loss or easily could be lost and things like the ONE Archives (website), Making Gay History (website), and even the National Archives and Library of Congress have been and will continue to be incredibly vital over the next few years as those who were alive in the early days of the LGBT rights movement die and no longer have the chance to share their histories. And this is even more important for trans voices, women’s voices, Black voices, and other racial minorities—there is so much we don’t know or wasn’t recorded out of fear of persecution.
Recommendation: I have so many thoughts and there all jumbled because of when I read this book. I know if I would’ve read this last year my thoughts would have been 100% different on this. I also know that because of the large number of LGBT history, politics, literature, and other courses I’ve taken I have a different perspective than your run-of-the-mill LGBT reader. Cervini did a great job writing about a fascinating time in LGBT history and brought light to many things that are often just footnotes in history books or things you hear in passing in an LGBT class. That being said I will continue ask moving forward with every LGBT nonfiction book I read, “is this the story we need to hear right now?” For me, it wasn’t, but for others it may well be.
*I received a copy of The Deviant’s War from the publisher via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.
Opening Line: “It began, as usual, in a public restroom.”
Closing Line: “‘Gay is good. It is. And that is that.” (Not whited out as this is a work of nonfiction.)
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