The Deviant's War

The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. The United States of America is a 2020 historical non-fiction book by LGBTQ culture historian Eric Cervini focused on Frank Kameny, widely considered the “grandfather of the gay rights movement”.[1][2][3] The Washington Post wrote, “Kameny may be responsible for more fundamental social change in the post-World War II world than any other American of his generation.”[4] Cervini delves into the life of astronomer Kameny, who was a pioneer in early homophile movement for LGBTQ rights in the decades leading up to the 1969 Stonewall riots, and beyond.[2] Gay Pride, unnamed until the 1970s, was argued in concept by Kameny to the Supreme Court of the U. S. in 1961.[3] In the 1970s, Kameny scored numerous victories, one being the decision to strike homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s manual of mental disorders; “the singular accomplishment that made all future LGBTQ progress possible”.[4][5] Through a “painstakingly detailed” investigative look into Kameny’s activism—that set him up to be “ostracized and targeted by everyone from his neighbors to the FBI”—Cervini extrapolates for insight into the experiences of other LGBTQ people of the time.[2][3] Cervini’s “exhaustive” research used declassified documents, and forty thousand personal documents, and tells Kameny’s story including the closeted gay subculture, coupled with the government fear that LGBTQ people were communists and/or security risks.[5][3][6] He faced enormous challenges as LGBTQ people faced the same social disdain and institutionalized hatred “faced by blacks and Jews, buttressed by centuries of religious bigotry” but were more loathed.[7] He also covers other key figures in early LGBTQ history including Jack Nichols, Barbara Gittings, Jim Fouratt, Randy Wicker, Marsha P. Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera.[4] In doing so Cervini shows the many intersections of the early LGBTQ rights movement to the Black Freedom Movement, the New Left, lesbian activism, and trans resistance.[6]

Background on Kameny

Kameny, a World War II veteran, earned a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University in 1956.[2] He taught at Georgetown University and was then hired as a supervisor by the U.S. Army Map Service.[2] They then fired him for being gay and barred him from government work.[2] He sued for cause and fought a series of appeals, and spent the rest of his life in aid of “the homosexual minority” founding and running various societies—including as a “prominent spokesman for the Mattachine Society, America’s first explicitly gay rights organization”—while struggling with internalized homophobia.[2][5] He organized responses to the systematic “purges” during Senator McCarthy’s “witch-hunts”.[8] Through Kameny and other activists, the institutional homophobia, and belief that homosexuality was an illness, changed.[3] Post World War II through the 1950s over a million Americans were arrested for charges such as kissing or holding hands with a person of the same gender identity.[3] Kameny was inspired by the civil rights movement but Cervini treats the two movements distinctly instead of finding the intersectionality of race and sexuality.[2]

Cervini posits much of the strategy Kameny used came from the Civil Rights Movement, including the idea of respectability.[3] The book fairly covers the long divide within the LGBTQ culture between a more conservative assimilation approach versus the liberal ideas of celebrating diversity and fighting for equality.[4] Kameny’s “Gay Is Good” slogan came from Stokely Carmichael’s “Black is beautiful”.[3][4] Bayard Rustin, the black gay man who worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, inspired Kameny’s protests.[3]

Background on Cervini

Cervini, who started his research at Harvard University by studying the roots of the Washington D.C. chapter of the Mattachine Society—founded by Kameny in 1961—graduated in 2014 and got his PhD from University of Cambridge in 2019.[3][8] He found researching difficult at times as some of the queer history was not linked, or available.[3] He created an online archive of his research, for free at The Deviant’s Archive, and posts on his Instagram about queer history.[3]

References
  1. Cervini, Eric, 1992- author. The deviant's war : the homosexual vs. the United States of America. ISBN 978-0-374-13979-7. OCLC 1119765233.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. Kalman, Audrey. "The pre-Stonewall fight for gay rights in "The Deviant's War"". Daily Emerald. Retrieved 2020-07-18.
  3. Juzwiak, Rich (June 22, 2020). "New History Book Illuminates Gay Liberation's Great Debt to the Civil Rights Movement". The Attic/Jezabel. Retrieved July 18, 2020.
  4. Kaiser, Charles (June 12, 2020). "Review | How a stubborn ex-federal employee launched the gay rights movement". Washington Post. Retrieved July 17, 2020.
  5. Luhrssen, David (June 25, 2020). "The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. The United States of America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), by Eric Cervini". Shepherd Express. Retrieved July 18, 2020.
  6. "Charis Books and The Invisible Histories Project Host 'The Deviant's War' Virtual Book Tour". Georgia Voice. May 27, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  7. Adams, Michael Henry (June 7, 2020). "The Deviant's War: superb epic of Frank Kameny and the fight for gay equality". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  8. Cutarelli, Chase (June 17, 2020). "'The Deviant's War' Reveals the Link Between Civil Rights and Gay Rights". Study Breaks. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
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