Gay people can hide, right? It’s a double-edged sword. The book is all about that-the power of secrecy. Can you talk about the role of secrecy in the history of the gay-rights movement? A writer and thinker with a conservative bent, he eschews the term “queer,” objecting to its “radical political connotations.” I met up with him at Annie’s, where we spoke over the music of Elton John and Rick Astley, looking out on rainbow paper lanterns strung across the sidewalk. Himself a gay Washingtonian, Kirchick is a journalist, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and a columnist at Tablet.
Throughout Secret City, such details bump up against momentous historical events: Kirchick traces how homosexuality affected the Alger Hiss trial and the Iran-Contra affair, while making the case that Washingtonians were in the vanguard of organizing for equal rights. Word spread, and Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse became one of DC’s quintessential gay haunts. A brief aside in James Kirchick’s sweeping new book, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, recounts how a Dupont Circle diner became a midcentury gay haven: Two men were covertly holding hands under the table, and a bartender came over to tell them they didn’t have to hide.
