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David K. Johnson is professor of history at the University of South Florida. He is the author of The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (2004), which was made into an award-winning documentary.

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Essential reading.

There's also an interview with the author on the book here on the Teaching Tolerance: Queer America podcast.
 
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rjcrunden | 3 andere besprekingen | Feb 2, 2021 |
Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked A Movement
by David K. Johnson
2019
Columbia University Press
5.0 / 5.0

Gay entrepreneurs responded to and cultivated a gay market long before the Stonewall Riots in 1969. This amazing history chronicles the struggles with both the bodybuilding magazines, and the US Postal Service, who for years repressed and suppressed homosexuals, and it documents the important struggle between the US Federal Government and gays and lesbians into the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, until Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It was only through these publications and gay book services that gay men had a way to connect to each other, or become friends. The magazines were sent discreetly and lists of subscribers were shared, and they found the lists keep growing. There was a need and market for these publications.

The history and struggles are excellent and thoroughly documented. The struggles with the US Postal Service, and the early formations of gay publications and book clubs were my favorite parts. I am grateful for these courageous men and women who fought for our rights, against incredible odds, so gay people could read and share their life stories and fiction books. And to be able to connect to one another, for support and friendship.
Special thanks to Columbia University and David K. Johnson for sharing this ARC for review.
#BuyingGay
#NetGalley
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over.the.edge | Apr 24, 2019 |
This book and a few others from my 'Movements of the 1960s' course really defined my understanding of the world. Been looking all over for a new copy since I lost my last one.
 
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jwamiller | 3 andere besprekingen | Sep 7, 2017 |
In The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government, David K. Johnson argues, “In 1950, many politicians, journalists, and citizens thought that homosexuals posed more of a threat to national security than Communists” (pg. 2). Johnson builds upon the framework George Chauncey established in his monograph, Gay New York, often describing a gay community that grew out of the history Chauncey covered. He writes, “By looking beyond McCarthy and behind the ambiguous term ‘security risk,’ this study reveals that a Lavender Scare – a fear that homosexuals posed a threat to national security and needed to be systemically removed from the federal government – permeated 1950s political culture” (pg. 9). Johnson’s history blends an example of political and cultural history to resurrect a seemingly tangential event from the sidelines of history in order to demonstrate its crucial role in 1950s culture.
Regarding Deputy Undersecretary for Administration John Peurifoy’s revelation of State Department firings, Johnson writes, “News that the State Department had fired ninety-one homosexuals gave credibility to McCarthy’s vague charges and enhanced his public standing. Though he was involved in neither their removal nor the revelation of their removal, McCarthy was soon given credit for both” (pg. 19). Further, “What made the homosexual issue even more of a liability for the administration was how many Americans began to conflate homosexuals and Communists. The constant pairing of ‘Communists and queers’ led many to see them as indistinguishable threats” (pg. 31). To fight this image, Washington, D.C. “codified for the first time the common-law notion of sodomy – defined as any penetration ‘however slight’ of the mouth or anus of one person with the sexual organs of another” (pg. 58). Johnson writes, “Propaganda about the Miller Sexual Psychopath law continually invoked the dangers posed to children; once passed, however, it was used to further criminalize consensual sex between adult homosexuals – both men and women” (pg. 58). Johnson argues that the Lavender Scare represented a significant pushback by Republicans against the New and Fair Deal.
Johnson writes, “By thus expanding the Lavender Scare, enemies of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations thus found a new, more effective way to cast aspersions on the goings-on in Washington. To such conservatives, Moscow ran only barely ahead of Washington as the city they most despised” (pg. 80). The Kinsey Report only added to the cultural battle over sexuality. Johnson writes, “Those who opposed or at least questioned the necessity of the purges would inevitably cite Kinsey to suggest not only the futility but also the danger in trying to effectively quarantine such a large percentage of the population from any work touching on national security” (pg. 88). Johnson concludes, “Though sharpened in the context of the Cold War, both the Red and Lavender Scares were outgrowths of a broader campaign led by members of Congress to halt the expansion of the bureaucracy they had neither the expertise nor the power to control. They were reactions against a major transformation in the role of government and in the city of Washington over the course of the New Deal and World War II” (pg. 97).
Beyond this, Johnson writes, “With the Hoey Committee investigation, the Lavender Scare began to move beyond partisan rhetoric to enjoy bipartisan support and become part of standard, government-wide policy. The avid participation of the Democratic members of the committee suggests that the notion that homosexuals in government posed a threat to national security was becoming part of a national consensus” (pg. 117). Furthermore, “To some people the Lavender Scare was a tactic in a political struggle to turn back the New Deal. To others it was a necessary measure to protect national security and counter what they saw as a nation in moral decline. But to gay and lesbian civil servants, it represented a real threat to their economic, social, and psychological well-being” (pg. 149). Finally, and in response to the sources George Chauncey uncovered regarding pre-World War II sexual dynamics, Johnson writes, “By stigmatizing homosexual behavior and labeling anyone with even one such encounter in their past as homosexual, the purges enforced a rigid homosexual/heterosexual divide. They thus facilitated the demise of an older sexual system based on gender identity and encouraged the classification of individuals based on their ‘sexual orientation’” (pg. 162).
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DarthDeverell | 3 andere besprekingen | Jul 24, 2017 |

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