Local
Kameny’s work finds new home
Library of Congress to preserve gay activist’s 70,000 letters, documents
Veteran D.C. gay rights leader Franklin E. Kameny has turned over more than 70,000 of his personal letters and documents to the Library of Congress, which will make them available to scholars and researchers.
At a ceremony scheduled for Oct. 6 at the library’s ornate Thomas Jefferson Building across the street from the U.S. Capitol, library officials were expected to join Kameny and many of his longtime friends and supporters to commemorate the library’s acquisition of the Kameny papers.
Kameny, 81, is credited with playing a lead role in launching the modern U.S. gay rights movement in the early 1960s after government officials discovered he was gay and fired him from his job as an astronomer with the Army Map Service.
In what gay activists see as a monumental twist of fate, the product of Kameny’s work on gay rights causes for nearly 50 years will now be placed in the same Library of Congress Manuscript Division that holds original documents of Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Susan B. Anthony, and Bayard Rustin, among many other historic figures.
The Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History also has accepted a collection of 1960s-era protest and picket signs from the Kameny collection that Kameny and his supporters used for the nation’s first-ever gay rights demonstrations in front of the White House.
“After examining the Kameny papers, Manuscript Division historians judged them to be a rich and valuable resource that would allow researchers to more accurately understand the evolution of the homosexual rights movement into a significant social and political force,” said John Earl Haynes, a 20th century political historian at the Manuscript Division.
“The personal detail provided by the material on Mr. Kameny himself and those he assisted in similar circumstances is of unusual value,” Haynes said.
“Nearly 50 years go, the United States government banned me from employment in public service because I am a homosexual, Kameny said in a statement. “This archive is not simply my story,” he said. “It also shows how gay and lesbian Americans have joined the American mainstream story of expanded civil liberties in the 20th century.
“Today, by accepting these papers, the nation preserves not only our history, but marks how far gay and lesbian Americans have traveled on the road to civil equality,” he said.
Haynes said officials with the Manuscript Division first contacted Kameny about obtaining his papers in 1995 after they read an article about Kameny’s work by gay historian David K. Johnson. The article appeared in the official journal of the Historical Society of Washington.
Documents valued at $75,000
Earlier this year, a group of gay rights advocates and supporters founded the Kameny Papers Project, an ad hoc group created to raise money to facilitate the transfer of the papers to the library, according to gay public relations executive Charles Francis, the lead organizer of the project.
Francis said the group’s main purpose was to raise funds to buy the papers from Kameny — so that he could be compensated for his life’s work — and then donate the documents to the Library of Congress.
Its first task was to help Kameny assemble the papers in or orderly fashion and to have them appraised by a professional document appraiser. The appraiser determined the papers had significant historic value and were worth $75,000.
“With advancing years and limited means, Frank Kameny was not eligible for a federal tax deduction, as is common with such an extraordinary donation,” the Kameny Papers Project said in a statement.
Former California congressman and philanthropist Michael Huffington made the single largest contribution toward the purchase of the papers from Kameny, Francis said. He said the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political group, and the gay groups Gill Foundation, Bohnett Foundation, Log Cabin Republicans, Liberty Education Fund, and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force also contributed to the fund.
Others firms and individuals that provided pro-bono services or contributions included Francis, New York gay businessman Donald Capoccia, the gay public relations firm Witeck-Combs Communications, the Joiner Law Firm, attorney Michele Zavos, and activists Gregory King, Elizabeth Koontz, and Ellen Ratner, according to the Kameny Papers Project.
Huffington and Capoccia have been longtime contributors to Log Cabin Republicans, and Francis is one of the founders of the Republican Unity Coalition, which has billed itself as a gay-straight alliance of prominent Republicans that support gay civil rights.
Kameny vs. J. Edgar Hoover
Gay historians have described Kameny as the architect of the modern U.S. gay rights movement, crediting him with transforming the fledgling “homophile” movement of the 1950s into an assertive civil rights struggle for gays and lesbians.
Most gay activists view the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Village as the spark that ignited a new phase in the gay movement that celebrated the slogan, “Out of the closet and into the streets.”
But gay historians like Johnson have credited Kameny with establishing, beginning in 1961, the philosophical and tactical underpinnings for the Gay Pride marches and political advocacy work that followed the Stonewall riots.
Kameny was the gay movement’s equivalent of Bayard Rustin, according to D.C. gay activist Rick Rosendall, in referring to Rustin’s role as a lead strategist for Martin Luther King in the black civil rights movement.
Shortly after being fired from his job at the Army Map Service, Kameny founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, the city’s first gay rights group. Kameny initially modeled the group after Mattachine Society chapters that had formed since 1950 in Los Angeles and other cities.
In some of his earliest papers now preserved at the Library of Congress, Kameny took exception to the prevailing view by Mattachine Society leaders that the groups should keep a low profile. Nearly all of the early Mattachine groups limited their work to research about homosexuality, educating the public on the subject, and helping other homosexuals adjust to society’s anti-gay prejudice, Johnson wrote in his 2003 book, “The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government.”
“Under Kameny’s leadership, the MSW would not remain underground and seek heterosexual authorities to speak on its behalf,” Johnson wrote. “On issues of homosexuality, Kameny argued, ‘we are the experts and the authorities.’” Johnson quoted him as saying.
Among Kameny’s innovations was the publication of a Mattachine Society of Washington newsletter, which the group sent to most top U.S. government officials, including President John F. Kennedy at the White House and all of Kennedy’s cabinet members, and then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Although most government officials did not appear to pay much attention to the newsletter, Kameny said he was startled in the summer of 1963 when FBI agent John A. O’Birne called Kameny by phone and requested to meet with him.
Kameny said he and Mattachine Society member Bob Bellanger had no idea why they had been summoned to a meeting with the FBI, an the two wondered whether a crackdown against Mattachine was in the works.
To their amazement, Kameny said, O’Birne politely asked him and Bellanger to remove Hoover’s name from the Mattachine Society mailing list, saying that Hoover did not wish to have his name on such a list. Kameny said he told O’Birne that he would have to consult other members of the group about this request and would get back to the FBI with the group’s response.
“I sent them a letter setting conditions for our removal of Hoover from our list,” said Kameny.
The conditions included a requirement that the FBI provide the group with the name of another FBI official to be placed on the newsletter list in place of Hoover and that the group would reserve the right to send Hoover a one-time mailing if an important issue arose.
The FBI never responded to Kameny’s letter. “Hoover stayed on our mailing list until the day he died,” said Kameny.
Hoover, who became notorious for keeping secret files on political activists and politicians – including President Kennedy – appears to have had the tables turned on him by discovering he was powerless to have him name removed from a homosexual rights group, gay activists have said.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Kameny served as an administrative counsel to gays who encountered problems obtaining or keeping security clearances issued by the federal government, becoming one of the nation’s recognized experts on gay-related security clearance issues. He also represented members of the military under investigation for being gay. In advising gay service members, Kameny coined the phrase, “Say nothing, sign nothing, and get counsel.”
He is also credited with creating the slogan, “Gay is Good,” which activists used in protest marches and Gay Pride festivals.
Virginia
Va. court allows conversion therapy despite law banning it
Judge in June 30 ruling cited religious freedom.
In 2020, the state of Virginia had banned the practice of conversion therapy, but on Monday, a county judge ruled the ban violates the Virginia Constitution and Religious Freedom Restoration Act, allowing the therapy to start once more.
The conversion therapy ban, which can be seen in Va. Code § 54.1-2409.5 and 18VAC115-20-130.14, was overturned on June 30 as a result of two Christian counselors who argued that their — and all Virginia parents’ — constitutional right to freedom of religion had been encroached upon when the state legislature passed the ban.
A Henrico County Circuit Court judge sided with John and Janet Raymond, two Christian counselors represented by the Founding Freedoms Law Center, a conservative organization founded in 2020 following Virginia’s conversion therapy ban. Virginia’s Office of the Attorney General entered a consent decree with FFLC, saying state officials will not discipline counselors who engage in talk conversion therapy.
Conversion therapy, as the legislation described it, is considered to be “any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.” The ban’s reversal will now allow parents to subject their children to these practices to make them align better with their religion.
This decision comes despite advice and concern from many medical and pediatric organizations — including the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and the American Counseling Association, to name a few — all of which denounce conversion therapy as dangerous and harmful to those subjected to it.
The American Medical Association, the largest and only national association that convenes more than 190 state and specialty medical societies, says that “these techniques are the assumption that any non-heterosexual, non-cisgender identities are mental disorders, and that sexual orientation and gender identity can and should be changed. This assumption is not based on medical and scientific evidence,” with attached data indicating people subjected to conversion therapy are more likely to develop “significant long-term harm” as a result of the therapy.
The AMA goes as far as to say that they outright “oppose the use of reparative or conversion therapy for sexual orientation or gender identity.”
FFLC has a clear goal of promoting — if not requiring — conservative ideology under the guise of religious freedom in the Virginia General Assembly. On their website, the FFLC argues that some progressive policies passed by the Assembly, like that of freedom from conversion therapy, are a violation of some Virginians’ “God-given foundational freedoms.”
The FFLC has argued that when conservative notions are not abided by in state law — especially when it involves “God’s design for male and female, the nuclear family, and parental rights” — that the law violates Virginians’ religious freedom.
A statement on the FFLC’s website calls gender dysphoria among children a “contagion” and upholds “faith-based insights” from counselors as equal — in the eyes of the law — to those who use medical-based insights. This, once again, is despite overwhelming medical evidence that indicates conversion therapy is harmful.
One study showed that 77 percent of those who received “sexual orientation change efforts,” or conversion therapy, experienced “significant harm.” This harm includes depression, anxiety, lowered self-esteem, and internalized homophobia. In addition, the study found that young LGBTQ adults with high levels of parental or caregiver rejection are “8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide,” with another study finding that “nearly 30 percent of individuals who underwent SOCE reported suicidal attempts.”
Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, a Democrat representing Fairfax, said that the overturning of the ban on religious merit disregards the entire concept of having professionally licensed counselors.
“I have no problem if somebody wants to go look at religious counseling from their priest or their minister, their rabbi, their imam — that’s perfectly fine,” Surovell told the Virginia Mercury. “When somebody goes to get therapy from somebody licensed by the commonwealth of Virginia, there’s a different set of rules applied. You can’t just say whatever you want because you have a license. That’s why we have professional standards, that’s why we have statutes.”
District of Columbia
GenOUT Chorus offers solace, strength to LGBTQ teens
Summer camp held from June 23-27
As Pride month draws to a close and Washington begins to take down its rainbow flags and WorldPride decorations, it can be easy to confine the ideas of LGBTQ liberation to June. One historic organization in Washington has been speaking out — or singing out if you will — to ensure that LGBTQ youth are allowed to explore and be themselves every month of the year.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington is one of the oldest and largest LGBTQ choruses in the world. With more than 300 members and more than 40 years in the D.C. LGBTQ community, to say it is an institution would be an understatement.
Beginning in 1981, following an inspiring performance by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus at the Kennedy Center, a group of 18 gay men — led by a “straight” woman and friend of Washington’s gay community, Marsha Pearson — created the GMCW. Since its establishment the organization has only grown in number and relevance within the city. From hosting multiple concerts a year, international equality trips, and creating a dedicated space to “inspire equality and inclusion with musical performances and education,” the GMCW is one of the cornerstone organizations in the Washington LGBTQ community.
One of the most remarkable parts of the GMCW is its youth outreach program and choir: GenOUT. The outreach ensemble specializes in providing a space for Washington’s LGBTQ and allied youth, ages 13-18, to find their voice through song and connect that voice to community. The GenOUT program has been around since 2001, and since 2015 has provided a platform for their voices to be heard — literally — making it the first LGBTQ youth chorus in the Washington area.
The Washington Blade sat down with GenOUT Director C. Paul Heins and member Ailsa Ostovitz to discuss why GenOUT, and more specifically the GenOUT summer camp, which was held from June 23-27, has become an essential space for LGBTQ youth in the D.C. area to find their voice amid less-than-supportive administration and rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in the nation.
“This is my 11th season with GenOUT, and also the 11th season with Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington,” Heins said when explaining how he ended up in the director role for the self-selected, no audition required youth outreach ensemble. “I was hired in August of 2014 to start GenOUT. I spent that first fall researching other choruses, figuring out the infrastructure, promoting the chorus, and building relationships with schools, organizations, and faith communities. And then we started in January of 2015 with nine brave singers and since then, we’ve had 150+ singers from 80 or more schools in the DMV participate.”
Ailsa Ostovitz, on the other hand, being in high school had not had as much experience with choirs — yet her commitment and unwavering passion for the work she — and the other performers within GenOUT provide to each other was unmistakable.
“I’ve been a part of the course since April of 2022, and that was like seventh grade— which is wild to think about,” Ostovitz said when reflecting on how long she had been a part of GenOUT. She explained how she had begun to develop a drive for filling leadership roles within GenOUT after gaining valuable experiences and education from the organization.
“This is my first year in leadership,” she added. “The rest of the years, I kind of hung back. I really wanted to — especially last season — kind of put myself in the position of a peer and think ‘What would I want from people that are supposed to represent me to the adults? What would I want out of that?’”
And with those questions in mind, Ostovitz explained she buckled down and worked hard to get to where she is now as a member of the leadership team within the GenOUT choir.
“I spent a lot of time working with my section leader, and, looking up at him and being like, ‘What are you doing now that I can do in the future?’ And so this year, I ran for leadership,” Ostovitz said. “I got section leader, and that was cool. I’ve just spent a lot of time — most of my time in this course — learning leadership skills to kind of help me in all sorts of things in life, because I like to take control of things, and I like doing stuff.”
These leadership skills are just a handful of the things that students like Ostovitz learn while participating in the program. This year’s theme was “Make Them Hear Us!: Empowering LGBTQ+ and Allied Youth Through Music, Media, and Community,” and provided multiple opportunities for GenOUT’s members to engage with new concepts, ideas, and experiences.
From field trips to mentoring opportunities to an end-of-camp performance, it becomes clear when speaking to those familiar with the GenOUT experience: it is not your traditional summer day camp.
“The title of the camp references the anthem that GMCW has sung for many years,” Heins said. “‘Make Them Hear You’ from the musical ‘Ragtime’ encourages us to share important stories — stories that honor the fights that we’ve been fighting, the rights that we have won, affirmations that we seek for every human being, and the focus on media — specifically developing young people’s understandings of the kinds of media that they can access and use to share their voice.”
The camp offers singing and dancing lessons, creative writing exercises, LGBTQ+ history lessons, and open discussions about identity — providing an outlet for students to figure out who they want to be and find their voice.
“What this camp does, I believe, is it helps foster young people’s voices and not only encourages them to speak, but to give them the skills to speak in a way that will be heard meaningfully,” Heins added. “I have noted that youth in queer choruses like GenOUT have said that singing in a chorus allows young people to express themselves more honestly and with greater passion than other forms of expression. They’ve also said that singing with others that understand you on a very deep, profound level, makes the expression much easier and more beautiful. I think that experience is what really makes this a special opportunity for young, LGBTQ and allied people.”
Ostovitz echoed Heins’s sentiment, emphasizing that the space GenOUT provides allows her to feel empowered in ways more than by creating leadership skills that will help her later in life. GenOUT has allowed for her to see the humanity and similarities LGBTQ youth all face in a straight world.
“Joining the chorus and being in this camp, it really gives people a chance to see that every person is going through the same experience you are, on a level of finding your own identity and being confident in that,” Ostovitz said. “It really, really serves a purpose by showing there are still queer people. They’re not fizzling out — young people are queer. We want to use our voices to express what we feel and how things are affecting us, and I think that using music to do that is probably one of the most powerful ways to do that.”
In addition to allowing for internal growth and honing their singing abilities, both Ostovitz and Heins pointed out the other valuable skills students learn while in the GenOUT program. Ostovitz explicitly highlighted the mentorship program GenOUT has with GMCW, and how it has helped students like her figure out their future.
“Because we are so connected with GMCW, we run a mentorship program where, if you want to explore career, identity, whatever, we can connect you with somebody from GMCW,” Ostovitz said. “You get to spend a whole semester with a person working on your voice or your career or your what you want to do in higher education. It’s not only for things related to your queer identity, but it’s also just for life. It’s really cool.”
This year’s theme, centering around media and the many ways people can share their voice, was highlighted through the camp’s field trips to two legacy media organizations — WAMU and NBC Washington — and a discussion with staff from the Washington Blade, including Publisher Lynne Brown and International News Editor Michael K. Lavers.
“GenOUT provides a chance to get to know people from all around this area, but it also connects you to older folks, It connects you to people from the past, as well as we learn about LGBTQ history,” Heins said. “I think a camp specific thing is we want young people to understand how they can share their stories beyond just talking to their friends. There are these forms of media that are out there to share your stories, to have your voices heard, and to have a sense that these media are there for everyone. It’s not just a thing for people aged 21 and over. That was something that Lynne and Michael from the Blade were sharing with; that anyone can write in a letter to the editor. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be published, but that anyone has that opportunity. And I think that’s a great way for them to say the Blade is open to you to share your voice.”
The concept that there are people who want to, or may need to hear queer voices represented is one that is not lost on Ostovitz.
“There is something Thea says that has kind of integrated into our chorus — that someone out there needed to hear you, needed to hear your voice, needed to hear your story,” Ostovitz said. “That’s something that I kind of live by in this chorus, where I’m like, ‘I believe that there is someone out there that needed to hear this song for whatever reason, whatever it did for them. And I’m hoping to learn how much more can this chorus do for not just our little community, but how much more can it do around the world or the country — especially now.”
Living in the political center of the U.S., Ostovitz explained, has impacted how she approaches her identity, her education, and the urgency of using her voice — both as a student and as a young queer person navigating an increasingly hostile national climate.
“Being so close to the political center of the country and also a student at the same time has not been the easiest thing in the world as of late,” she said. “You’re thinking a lot about ‘Oh, I wonder if this program in my school will still exist next year,’ because a lot of the funding for physics and science programs in general has been cut. So I’m fortunate enough that Maryland has been pretty good about going against this administration. And so being in this chorus gives me a second to step back from my academics and just go somewhere for the two hours of rehearsal.”
For Ostovitz, just having those two short hours a week to focus on music — without thinking about the political climate that paints her and her choir peers as nefarious for being LGBTQ — provides solace.
“Everybody else is going through the same thing as I am, but we’re all also working towards the same goal, which is acceptance and uplifting of everybody and everyone — no matter who they are,” she said. “It kind of settles you down and grounds you. And then you just make music with people, and it’s really like a stress reducer for me.”
“Is it too trite to say that that would make people feel less alone, knowing that it’s not just a DMV thing, but that there are queer people all over?” Heins asked Ostovitz.
“No, it’s not — for sure,” Ostovitz responded. “It was a bit eye-opening.”
“A lot of us are fortunate enough to have families that support us enough to trust us and help us be passionate and mean what we do with the work that we do in this chorus — because it is optional,” Ostovitz added. “It is optional to have the courage that we have to practice and commit as much as we do, and the fact that we have a whole organization backing us on that is pretty cool.”
“We often say that we sing for those who can’t sing in a chorus like ours,” Heins said. “We sing for people who don’t have the freedom or the option to live their authentic lives. I think that’s very powerful.”
“It’s a very unique experience to be surrounded by so many people that get it,” Ostovitz said. “It’s a very joyful experience when we perform our big shows at the Lincoln Theater, being part of that production is also a very unique experience. So I think everything about this chorus is very joyfully unique.”
“I feel very proud, and I feel very inspired,” Heins said. “I feel inspired by the young voices. I feel a sense of inspiration in my own music-making, when I am able to take a piece from its very beginning all the way to the stage in a polished form. And I feel that sense of pride in knowing that I’ve helped this group of young people develop their confidence to do really amazing things.”
“GenOUT sang 22 times last year, which for any chorus is a big deal, but for a youth chorus coming from thither and yon, it is really a big deal,” Heins added. “I’m just really inspired and proud, and know that when I am in a nursing home somewhere and these folks are still out working and I know the country will be in good hands.”
Virginia
Walkinshaw wins Democratic primary in Va. 11th Congressional District
Special election winner will succeed Gerry Connolly
On Saturday, Fairfax County Supervisor James Walkinshaw won the Democratic primary for the special election that will determine who will represent Virginia’s 11th Congressional District.
The special election is being held following the death of the late Congressman Gerry Connolly, who represented the district from 2008 until 2024, when he announced his retirement, and subsequently passed away from cancer in May.
Walkinshaw is not unknown to Virginia’s 11th District — he has served on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors since 2020 and had served as Connolly’s chief of staff from 2009 to 2019. Before he passed away, Connolly had endorsed Walkinshaw to take his place, claiming that choosing Walkinshaw to be his chief of staff was “one of the best decisions I ever made.”
The Democratic nominee has run his campaign on mitigating Trump’s “dangerous” agenda of dismantling the federal bureaucracy, which in the district is a major issue as many of the district’s residents are federal employees and contractors.
“I’m honored and humbled to have earned the Democratic nomination for the district I’ve spent my career serving,” Walkinshaw said on X. “This victory was powered by neighbors, volunteers, and supporters who believe in protecting our democracy, defending our freedoms, and delivering for working families.”
In addition to protecting federal workers, Walkinshaw has a long list of progressive priorities — some of which include creating affordable housing, reducing gun violence, expanding immigrant protections, and “advancing equality for all” by adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the Fair Housing Act.
Various democratic PACs contributed more than $2 million to Walkinshaw’s ad campaigns, much of which touted his connection to Connolly.
Walkinshaw will face Republican Stewart Whitson in the special election in September, where he is the likely favorite to win.
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