ENCORE: Secret City with James Kirchick

About this episode

James Kirchick discusses his book on the hidden history of the gay community in Washington D.C.

James Kirchick joins Ron Steslow to discuss his book Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington (01:55) Why he wrote the book (06:43) The interwoven political history and gay history in Washington (14:33) The melting pot of the gay community and why it was seen as a threat (19:55) The trope that whatever is bad must be gay (31:51) The Lavender Scare (35:53) The tension between the gay loyal foot soldiers of Ronald Reagan and courting the religious right (49:00) What was challenging about writing the book You should read Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington: http://bit.ly/3wgiORk Follow James Kirchick and Ron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jkirchick https://twitter.com/RonSteslow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Ron Steslow

Guest: James Kirchick

Topics covered

• gay history
• political history
• Washington D.C.
• Lavender Scare
• Reagan era
• gay community

Keywords

• gay Washington
• political history
• Lavender Scare
• Reagan
• gay community
• Secret City

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington

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