Speaker 1: Hey there, listener, this is going to be the final
Speaker 1: episode of American Shadows. We started up in the summer
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, a weirdly appropriate time to talk about
Speaker 1: the dark parts of the history of the United States.
Speaker 1: It's been three years and seventy eight episodes of me
Speaker 1: vocal frying my way through the conspiracies, disasters, diseases, scandals, scams, murders,
Speaker 1: and bouts of absolute heroics that, for worse or better
Speaker 1: have brought us to where we are today. I wanted
Speaker 1: to take a second to sincerely thank the entire crew
Speaker 1: here at iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild for the means
Speaker 1: and an opportunity to share these stories, but particularly my
Speaker 1: producers Miranda Hawkins and Jesse Funk, who have put up
Speaker 1: with my raw tape and shaped it into something beautiful,
Speaker 1: special things, as well to Grimm and Mild's head of
Speaker 1: writing research formerly Karl Nellis and now Robin Menetter, who
Speaker 1: wrangled the stories into existence to begin with, and Michelle Mudo,
Speaker 1: Alie Stead, and Taylor Haggerdorn who have been on the
Speaker 1: project since day one, along with relative newcomers Cassandra to Albo,
Speaker 1: Alex Robinson, and Jamie Vargas. Y'all have made my job
Speaker 1: easy and I am so excited to hear whatever you
Speaker 1: work on next. And of course, thanks to Aaron Menke
Speaker 1: for building such a strange sandbox for projects like this.
Speaker 1: And thanks to you for listening and saying hi to
Speaker 1: me when I introduced myself every episode, or tweeting me
Speaker 1: about cemeteries, or just following along with us. It's been
Speaker 1: an honor to work with these people and to give
Speaker 1: voice to these stories. I hope that we'll get to
Speaker 1: do more of it in the future, but for now,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. Thank you for being here, for being you,
Speaker 1: for being curious, and now on with the show you're
Speaker 1: listening to. American Shadows, a production of iHeart Rate and
Speaker 1: Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankie. The President had never married,
Speaker 1: and he never would. James Buchanan, a president of the
Speaker 1: United States from eighteen fifty seven to eighteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: is the only president in our country's history to have
Speaker 1: never taken a wife. During his time in office, rumors
Speaker 1: about his private life spread through the halls of the Capitol,
Speaker 1: and those rumors are still swirling today. Buchanan was not
Speaker 1: always single in his early twenties. He had actually been
Speaker 1: engaged to a woman named Anne Coleman, but she broke
Speaker 1: it off before they could make it to the altar.
Speaker 1: She had expressed to her friends that Buchanan didn't treat
Speaker 1: her with the affection she would expect from her future husband.
Speaker 1: After the end of their relationship, Anne was believed to
Speaker 1: have ended her own life. Many people attributed her apparent
Speaker 1: suicide to her fail engagement. For the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: James Buchanan seemed wholly disinterested in wooing other women. Some
Speaker 1: believed that he still held a candle for Anne. However,
Speaker 1: most speculated that he stayed single for an entirely different reason.
Speaker 1: The prevailing rumor in the federal government was that James
Speaker 1: Buchanan was actually queer. Note here that, of course, language
Speaker 1: evolves as time goes on, and the word queer as
Speaker 1: it's used today was not used in the same way
Speaker 1: in the eighteen fifties. However, though it may sound a
Speaker 1: little a historical, we will be using the reclaimed umbrella
Speaker 1: term queer throughout this episode to describe lesbian, gay by trans, queer, intersex, asexual,
Speaker 1: et cetera. People people whose orientations may not have fit
Speaker 1: into these societal norms of the time. James Buchanan certainly
Speaker 1: was speculated to have lived a private lifestyle that went
Speaker 1: against the norms of the day well before he was president,
Speaker 1: and his sexuality was regularly questioned. His political adversaries would
Speaker 1: criticize him for his shrill voice and his smooth, beardless cheeks.
Speaker 1: Most of the rumors about him, however, revolved around his
Speaker 1: very close friendship with one William Rufus King, a senator
Speaker 1: from Alabama. A King and Buchanan met in eighteen twenty one,
Speaker 1: after Buchanan was first elected to Congress. For over a decade,
Speaker 1: they lived in a board house together four Congress's single members.
Speaker 1: As the years passed, more and more congressmen moved out,
Speaker 1: until only King and Buchanan remained. The only time they
Speaker 1: altered this limming arrangement was when they each accepted different
Speaker 1: diplomatic positions abroad. The nature of King and Buchanan's relationship
Speaker 1: was the frequent topic of societal gossip. Politicians would hurl
Speaker 1: slurs like aunt nancy and aunt fancy at them, both
Speaker 1: of which were rude slang terms for gay men. Some
Speaker 1: in Washington even referred to them as mister Buchanan and
Speaker 1: his wife. Aaron Brown, who was one of Buchanan's political rivals,
Speaker 1: wrote a letter railing against Buchanan and King's relationship, calling
Speaker 1: King Buchanan's better half. Many years later, President John Tyler's
Speaker 1: wife recalled Buchanan and King as being Siamese twins. They
Speaker 1: were very noticeably joined at the hip. What still exists
Speaker 1: of Kings and Buchanan's correspondence with one another was cautious
Speaker 1: and cryptic. However, not many of their letters actually remain.
Speaker 1: Many were lost when the king estate burned during the
Speaker 1: Civil War. King also destroyed any letters from Buchanan that
Speaker 1: were marked private or confidential, a meaning that Buchanan's more
Speaker 1: personal letters can never be read for confirmation of the
Speaker 1: true nature of their relationship. There are, of course, historians
Speaker 1: who believed that King and Buchanan were not lovers, but
Speaker 1: were instead very close friends. Regardless of whether or not
Speaker 1: James Buchanan was queer in the mid nineteenth century, it
Speaker 1: wasn't so thing that could have barred him from taking
Speaker 1: office legally speaking. However, as we'll see, that would not
Speaker 1: always be the case. Eventually identifying as anything but straight,
Speaker 1: or even just being accused of it could preclude someone
Speaker 1: from holding any job within the federal government. I'm Lorn Vogelbaum,
Speaker 1: Welcome to American Shadows. The bar was alive with raucous
Speaker 1: laughter and music, and the man at the piano played
Speaker 1: a different tune for every guy who walked through the door.
Speaker 1: The Chicken Hut was an unassuming bar in downtown Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Technically its name was Leon's Restaurant, but none
Speaker 1: of its clientele called it that. A regular restaurant by day,
Speaker 1: the Chicken Hut transformed into the city's most popular gay bar.
Speaker 1: By night, the Hut served as the epicenter of social life,
Speaker 1: where DC's queer men throughout the nighte teen forties and
Speaker 1: fifties packed tight on weekend nights. It was a haven
Speaker 1: where they could openly be themselves without fear of repercussions.
Speaker 1: The Hut, popular as it was, was only a haven
Speaker 1: for white, middle class queer men. Black men were not
Speaker 1: welcome at the bar, even after d C officially desegregated
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three. Women also did not frequent the
Speaker 1: Chicken Hut or any queer men's bars heard that matter,
Speaker 1: instead choosing to congregate at a single lesbian bar a
Speaker 1: few blocks away. D C's queer community had grown significantly
Speaker 1: leading up to the fifties. Between nineteen thirty and nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: the city's population had doubled. The New Deal had created
Speaker 1: a significant number of new government jobs, and the influx
Speaker 1: of employees to the district included a number of queer people.
Speaker 1: They built a rich social life for themselves, holding picnics
Speaker 1: at the Botanic Conservatory and roller skating parties in front
Speaker 1: of the Lincoln Memorial. Much of the city's gay social life, however,
Speaker 1: entered around Lafayette Park, which had been a famous spot
Speaker 1: for gay men to cruise since the eighteen hundreds. The
Speaker 1: Chicken Hut was located only steps from Lafayette Park, finding
Speaker 1: itself in the exact right location to provide a home
Speaker 1: to roost for the gay white men of the city.
Speaker 1: The Hut's most well known member was its piano player,
Speaker 1: known as Miss Hattie by the bars regulars. Howard would
Speaker 1: play jaunty show tunes in popular songs of the day,
Speaker 1: often rewriting the lyrics to make them more body. Whenever
Speaker 1: Howard played a particularly scandalous line, the bar's patrons would
Speaker 1: shout out, did you hear that Miss Blick? A Miss
Speaker 1: Blick referred to Lieutenant Roy Blick, who served as the
Speaker 1: head of the Metropolitan Police Department's Morality Division. The taunt
Speaker 1: entered into the local queer vernacular, but in reality, Roy
Speaker 1: Blick and his division weren't anything to laugh at. They
Speaker 1: were charged with cracking down on anything considered to be
Speaker 1: a sexual perversion, which at this time included homosexuality. Places
Speaker 1: like the Chicken Hut and Lafayette Park were under intense
Speaker 1: scrutiny as the police kept an eye out for anything
Speaker 1: they might consider to be immoral. In nineteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: the US Park Police began a program called the Pervert
Speaker 1: Elimination Campaign. Blick and other officers would patrol cruising spots
Speaker 1: like Lafayette Park, arresting anyone they suspected of being queer.
Speaker 1: By nineteen fifty, two hundred men were arrested under this program,
Speaker 1: while five hundred others were apprehended. They were questioned and fingerprinted,
Speaker 1: and then their names were added to what was called
Speaker 1: the pervert file, which was kept by Lieutenant Blick himself.
Speaker 1: One in four men detained at Lafayette Park was believed
Speaker 1: to be a government employee. If their names were published
Speaker 1: in the newspapers, and they often were, it would ruin
Speaker 1: their reputations and careers. DC's queer community wasn't just being
Speaker 1: smoked out of their chosen recreational spots. They were also
Speaker 1: being systematically purged from the federal government's payroll. Beginning in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, the government started their official campaign to
Speaker 1: weed its queer employees out. In June of that year,
Speaker 1: a Senate Appropriations Committee condemned quote the extensive employment in
Speaker 1: highly classified positions of admitted homosexuals, who are historically known
Speaker 1: to be security risks. A Queer people were often conflated
Speaker 1: with communists, as both were believed to be immoral, psychologically disturbed,
Speaker 1: and godless of Following this report, the Secretary of State
Speaker 1: set up a personal security board for the State Department.
Speaker 1: Within the next three years, the State Department quietly fired
Speaker 1: ninety one employees who they determined were queer. In June
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty eight, things got even more difficult for
Speaker 1: the queer residence of DC. President Harry Truman signed the
Speaker 1: National Miller Sexual Psychopath Law, which codified the act of
Speaker 1: Quote sodomyn. The smallest of sexual acts between people of
Speaker 1: the same sex could result in a twenty year imprisonment
Speaker 1: or one thousand dollars fine, which would be the equivalent
Speaker 1: of over twelve thousand dollars today. The first two men
Speaker 1: to be arrested under this law were in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: The government cracked down on the queer community changed DC's
Speaker 1: gay social scene entirely. A government employee started to avoid
Speaker 1: popular spots like the Chicken Hut and Lafayette Park Optic,
Speaker 1: instead to fly under the radar at less obvious venues.
Speaker 1: Gay men stopped telling people where they worked and fearing
Speaker 1: that their private life would get back to their superiors.
Speaker 1: And as bad as it had become for queer government
Speaker 1: employees at the tail end of the nineteen forties, the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties would be even worse. The government's purge was
Speaker 1: only getting started. At that time. Very few people knew
Speaker 1: who Senator Joseph McCarthy was. He was not yet the
Speaker 1: man who would embark on a manic quest to eliminate communism.
Speaker 1: He was simply an inocuous first term senator from Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: That all changed, however, on February ninth of nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1: On that day, McCarthy gave his now famous speech in
Speaker 1: which he claimed to have a list of two hundred
Speaker 1: and five communists in the State Department. He never actually
Speaker 1: disclosed the names that were on this list, but that
Speaker 1: didn't matter. The fear he stoked with these allegations would
Speaker 1: snowball into what we know today as the Red Scare.
Speaker 1: On February twenty, McCarthy gave a six hour speech to
Speaker 1: the Senate to expand upon his claims. However, at this
Speaker 1: time he reduced his list of known communists to only
Speaker 1: fifty seven. McCarthy wasn't always the most consistent. The number
Speaker 1: of communists who had allegedly infiltrated the State Department would
Speaker 1: change several more times. No matter how many there were,
Speaker 1: Carthy believed that every single one of them was, in
Speaker 1: his words, mentally twisted in some way. One of the
Speaker 1: manifestations of that mental aberration was he believed homosexuality. During
Speaker 1: McCarthy's speech, he said that one of the communists on
Speaker 1: his list was a flagrant homosexual who had a huge
Speaker 1: network of queer communist connections. Quick to dismiss any suggestions
Speaker 1: that the State Department posed a security risk. A press
Speaker 1: release was sent out denying the fact that the agency
Speaker 1: employed any communists. However, they summarily fired two hundred people,
Speaker 1: and just one week after McCarthy's inflammatory speech, the Deputy
Speaker 1: under Secretary of State testified to the Senate that they
Speaker 1: had indeed fired ninety one queer employees in the previous
Speaker 1: three years. The number ninety one became shorthand for the
Speaker 1: homosexual threat looming over the nation, and it was considered
Speaker 1: to be a threat today. When we think of the
Speaker 1: Red Scare, we mainly of communism. However, that wasn't everyone's
Speaker 1: primary concern. Of the twenty five thousand letters that McCarthy
Speaker 1: received from scared American citizens, only one in four were
Speaker 1: about communism. The rest condemned the perceived sexually deranged homosexuals
Speaker 1: who were lurking in the government. Rumors even started spreading
Speaker 1: that the Soviets were finding blackmail targets in the United
Speaker 1: States government by using a secret list of homosexuals that
Speaker 1: had been compiled by Hitler, and so began the Red
Speaker 1: Scares lesser known sibling, the Lavender Scare. In March of
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty, the first Senate subcommittee was formed to investigate
Speaker 1: homosexuality in the federal workforce. One of the people to
Speaker 1: testify to the subcommittee was none other than Lieutenant Roy Black,
Speaker 1: who claimed that there were five thousand gay men and
Speaker 1: women in DC and that three thousand, seven hundred of
Speaker 1: them worked for the government. The numbers had no basis
Speaker 1: in reality, but they were widely reported by the press regardless.
Speaker 1: Based on all of this, the Senate started an in
Speaker 1: depth investigation of the government's employment of quote, immoral perverts.
Speaker 1: They beheld a number of hearings. Out of all of them,
Speaker 1: not a single one involved interviewing anyone from the queer community.
Speaker 1: Congressional members did not fully understand queerness and therefore didn't
Speaker 1: fully understand what they were investigating. After hearing that there
Speaker 1: were people who were neither entirely homosexual or heterosexual, one
Speaker 1: senator asked if there was a quick test like an
Speaker 1: X ray that discloses these things. Such ignorance would characterize
Speaker 1: how they moved forward with their investigations. No evidence emerged
Speaker 1: during these hearings that queer employees were ever blackmailed into
Speaker 1: exposing state secrets, but in the end that didn't matter.
Speaker 1: Congress eventually determined that queer people were threat simply because
Speaker 1: their deviancy made them morally weak. Between April and November
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty three, hundred and eighty two people were
Speaker 1: fired from their federal jobs. The vast majority of them
Speaker 1: never even had access to sensitive government materials. However, many
Speaker 1: had prior charges related to homosexuality, which, in the eyes
Speaker 1: of the politicians of the day, meant that they were
Speaker 1: polluting the moral integrity of the government. As one might imagine,
Speaker 1: these mass layoffs had a grim effect on DC's queer population.
Speaker 1: People began moving to new jobs and new cities. Those
Speaker 1: who remained were unable to trust one another for fear
Speaker 1: of their identities being exposed. The queer government employees stopped
Speaker 1: going to popular spots within their community. Some wouldn't even
Speaker 1: attend parties unless they knew every single person who would
Speaker 1: be there. Gay men and women started to pose as
Speaker 1: each other's partners when the need arose. The governments prejudiced
Speaker 1: towards its queer employees would only continue to grow. On
Speaker 1: April twenty seventh of nineteen fifty three, when President Eisenhower
Speaker 1: signed an executive order banning anyone who exhibited a sexual
Speaker 1: perversion from working for the government, and homosexuality was definitely
Speaker 1: considered a sexual perversion at this time. Only the year before,
Speaker 1: the American Psychiatric Association had officially categorized homosexuality as a
Speaker 1: sociopathic personality disturbance. The lavender Scare purge was eradicating almost
Speaker 1: every job opportunity that had previously been available to gay
Speaker 1: men and women. The prospects for the queer community were grim.
Speaker 1: It would take the dedication of a number of brave
Speaker 1: people who were willing to risk their livelihoods and reputations
Speaker 1: for justice to be served. In July of nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: Frank Cammeny was just another bright eyed new hire for
Speaker 1: the government. After finishing his doctorate at Harvard, Frank had
Speaker 1: been recruited as an astronomer for the U. S. Army
Speaker 1: Map Service. His future was promising. He had secured an
Speaker 1: enviable job and was doing meaningful work. He even harbored
Speaker 1: hopes of becoming an astronaut one day, as the possibility
Speaker 1: of space travel became more and more of a reality. However,
Speaker 1: everything came crashing down for Frank in October of that
Speaker 1: same year, when the government learned that he was queer.
Speaker 1: Frank had known that he was gay since he was young.
Speaker 1: He had lied about his orientation to enlist in the
Speaker 1: army during World War II, and had continued to keep
Speaker 1: it under wraps as the world became more and more
Speaker 1: hostile to queer people. Still, Frank had managed to find
Speaker 1: a foothold in the DC queer community after moving there
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty six, visiting bars like the Chicken Hut
Speaker 1: and immersing himself in the local culture. His involvement in
Speaker 1: the DC gay scene isn't what brought the government's attention
Speaker 1: to his secutional orientation, though in August of nineteen fifty six,
Speaker 1: Frank had been arrested for quote lewde and indecent acts
Speaker 1: while in San Francisco. He paid the fines required of him,
Speaker 1: and after a six month probation period, the state of
Speaker 1: California changed his records to not guilty, case dismissed. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the bloodhounds of the lavender Scare were not so easily
Speaker 1: dissuaded from their cause. Only a few months after he
Speaker 1: had been hired, the government got wind of the San
Speaker 1: Francisco incident and fired him. In January of nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: Frank was told that he was barred from ever working
Speaker 1: in the federal government again. This made him extremely unattractive
Speaker 1: to private sector employers as well. With his doctorate in
Speaker 1: astronomy and with the space race looming on the horizon,
Speaker 1: Frank should have been an extremely desirable candidate for almost
Speaker 1: any job he could have wanted. But not even his
Speaker 1: educational pedigree could combat the prejudice against queer people in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. But in the span of a couple
Speaker 1: of months, Frank had become virtually unemployable. He was reduced
Speaker 1: to living off of mere pennies depending on the generosity
Speaker 1: of the Salvation Army. But Frank, however, disheartened and downtrodden,
Speaker 1: would not go quietly. He approached the Washington d c.
Speaker 1: Chapter of the ACLU, and with their help, he became
Speaker 1: the very first person to challenge the government on their
Speaker 1: discrimination against hiring queer people. The courts dismissed his case
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty nine and again in nineteen sixty. In
Speaker 1: January of nineteen sixty one, Frank filed his case with
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. He had no attorney, but still felt
Speaker 1: compelled to march into battle for the sake of his
Speaker 1: and his community's equal rights and for their livelihoods. Two
Speaker 1: months later, the Supreme Court declined to hear his case.
Speaker 1: Frank even wrote to President Kennedy, appealing to the president's
Speaker 1: famous line asked, not what your country can do for you,
Speaker 1: but what you can do for your country. Frank wrote
Speaker 1: that he simply wanted to serve his country, but that
Speaker 1: his country had made it impossible for him to do so.
Speaker 1: He never received a response. After seeingly exhausting all avenues,
Speaker 1: Frank probably should have given up. Most people would if
Speaker 1: they were in his shoes, but thankfully Frank didn't know
Speaker 1: when to quit. Across the country, in California, people had
Speaker 1: taken notice of what was happening in d C many
Speaker 1: years before Frank began his fight. In response to the
Speaker 1: government's blatant discrimination, the Mattachine Society was founded in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1: It was the first large scale queer society in the
Speaker 1: United States, and soon it would be leading the fight
Speaker 1: against the lavender scare Back in DC. Frank Hammany knew
Speaker 1: he had almost run out of options, and so he
Speaker 1: approached the problem from a different angle. In nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: Frank established a DC chapter of the Mattachine Society. Within
Speaker 1: a few months, he became president of the organization. The
Speaker 1: Mattachine Society of Washington, or MSW, took a bold approach,
Speaker 1: loudly declaring that queer people were deserving of the same
Speaker 1: basic rights as their straight counterparts. They didn't hide underground,
Speaker 1: but instead showed their faces and spoke for themselves instead
Speaker 1: of hiring straight representatives. In nineteen sixty three, Frank became
Speaker 1: the first openly gay man to testify before Congress. The
Speaker 1: MSW advised on a number of legal cases, including one
Speaker 1: filed by a man named Clifford Norton. Clifford had been
Speaker 1: caught in Lafayette Park and was subsequently fired from his
Speaker 1: position at NASA after working there for fifteen years. After
Speaker 1: his dismissal, the MSW and the ACLU helped Clifford pursue
Speaker 1: legal action. On July first of nineteen sixty nine, a
Speaker 1: judge determined that the government had to prove a rational
Speaker 1: connection between an employee's private affairs and their dismissal, and
Speaker 1: that NASA had failed to do so. As a result
Speaker 1: of this ruling, Clifford received one hundred thousand dollars from
Speaker 1: the government and a generous pension. Clifford Norton's case set
Speaker 1: a precedent that would be integral to shaping public policy
Speaker 1: and eventually ending the government's discrimination against their queer employees.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three, a federal court in San Francisco
Speaker 1: cited the Norton case in a ruling that forced the
Speaker 1: government to change their approach to how they handled their
Speaker 1: queer employees. Eighteen months later, the Civil Service Commission changed
Speaker 1: their regulations, erasing the words immoral conduct from their list
Speaker 1: of reasons that an employee could be fired. The queer
Speaker 1: men and women could once again work for the United
Speaker 1: States government without fear of losing their jobs for who
Speaker 1: they were, and the first person that the commissioner called
Speaker 1: about the new changes none other than Frank Cammeny. There's
Speaker 1: more to this story, and stick around after this brief
Speaker 1: sponsored break to hear all about it. Queer people could
Speaker 1: no longer be dismissed from the government payroll for their
Speaker 1: sexual orientation. However, that same rule did not apply to
Speaker 1: the United States Armed Forces. The military continued to weed
Speaker 1: out queer service members, but sometimes their ignorance of gay
Speaker 1: culture worked against them. In October of nineteen eighty, a
Speaker 1: twenty one year old by the name of Mel Doll
Speaker 1: enlisted in the Navy as an electrician. He was stationed
Speaker 1: at the Great Lakes Naval Station with no issues. He
Speaker 1: had revealed that he was gay during his enlistment interview,
Speaker 1: but it hadn't seemed to make a difference to his acceptance.
Speaker 1: That would change. In nineteen eighty one, Mel decided to
Speaker 1: enroll in cryptography school to further his skills for the Navy,
Speaker 1: which required an updated security clearance. During his interview. For
Speaker 1: the security clearance, Mel took all of the usual questions
Speaker 1: about communist sympathies in stride. When he was asked about
Speaker 1: his sexual orientation, Mel admitted that he was gay, seeing
Speaker 1: no issue in the matter. Unfortunately, unlike when Mel had
Speaker 1: first enlisted, it was now a problem. In January of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, the Department of Defense had instituted a
Speaker 1: new policy that required any service members who had ever
Speaker 1: participated in home sexual acts to be immediately dismissed. So
Speaker 1: after his interview, Mel was told that the Navy was
Speaker 1: considering discharging him. In January of nineteen eighty two, Mel
Speaker 1: was given an honorable discharge because of his sexual orientation.
Speaker 1: No civil rights groups were willing to take on the
Speaker 1: Department of Defense, and so Mel was forced to take
Speaker 1: matters into his own hands. He walked three thousand miles
Speaker 1: across the United States to raise both money and awareness
Speaker 1: for his cause. The media quickly picked up on Mel's
Speaker 1: walking crusade, interviewing him as he went. He told the
Speaker 1: press that he was far from the only gay service
Speaker 1: member at the Great Lakes Naval Station. Naturally, this sent
Speaker 1: the higher ups at that naval station into a frenzy
Speaker 1: to expose and dismiss them from the Navy. During their investigation,
Speaker 1: the Navy discovered that their queer enlistees referred to themselves
Speaker 1: and other gay men as friends of Dorothy. Gay men
Speaker 1: had been using the term friends of Dorothy for years.
Speaker 1: Some say that it dates back to the nineteen forties
Speaker 1: as a reference to the character Dorothy in the movie
Speaker 1: The Wizard of Oz. Others say that the term originated
Speaker 1: from other women who ran in gay circles, Dorothy King
Speaker 1: or perhaps Dorothy Parker. No matter the origin, it had
Speaker 1: entered into the popular lexicon by the nineteen eighties, and
Speaker 1: queer men were using it regularly. The naval investigators, however,
Speaker 1: didn't understand the phrase friends of Dorothy was actually coded
Speaker 1: language that just meant gay. They, in their ignorance, instead
Speaker 1: believed that a woman named Dorothy was the head of
Speaker 1: a huge, organized ring of queer military men. So naturally,
Speaker 1: the Navy tried to hunt down this mastermind named Dorothy.
Speaker 1: They frequented gay bars, asking if any of the men
Speaker 1: there knew Dorothy. They interrogated all of the gay men
Speaker 1: they discovered in the ranks of the Navy, doing their
Speaker 1: best to uncover Dorothy's identity. Throughout the nineteen eighties, the
Speaker 1: military discharged one thousand, five hundred gay men a year.
Speaker 1: The elusive Dorothy never turned up. In nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton signed Don't Ask, Don't Tell into effect, allowing
Speaker 1: closeted queer people to remain in the military. In twenty ten,
Speaker 1: Barack Obama changed that legislation to allow openly queer people
Speaker 1: to serve. Throughout all of these changes for queer service members,
Speaker 1: Dorothy never ended up revealing herself. American Shadows is hosted
Speaker 1: by Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was written by Alex Robinson
Speaker 1: and researched by cassandrad Alba. The fact checking by Jamie Vargas.
Speaker 1: It's produced by Jesse Funk and Trevor Young. The executive
Speaker 1: producers Aaron Menke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn
Speaker 1: more about the show, visit griminmild dot com and four
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.