The Deviant's War

April 6, 2020
Historian Cervini’s ambitious and exhaustive debut recounts the life of astronomer and gay rights activist Frank Kameny (1925–2011) and the campaign to end federal discrimination against homosexuals. Dismissed from the U.S. Army Map Service in 1957 for allegedly lying about his 1956 arrest for “lewd conduct” in a San Francisco restroom, Kameny was living on 20 cents per day (“enough for two or three frankfurters and a half a pot of mashed potatoes,” he claimed) when an ACLU-affiliated lawyer agreed to represent him pro bono. Cervini tracks Kameny’s case against the U.S. government through the court system (the Supreme Court denied his appeal in 1961), as he became more and more involved in gay rights activism—cofounding the Washington, D.C., branch of the Mattachine Society, making TV appearances to combat negative stereotypes against homosexuality, and advising other government employees in their own discrimination cases. Weaving the Kinsey report, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s “Sex Deviates” program tracking homosexual arrests and allegations, and the 1969 Stonewall riots into his portrait, Cervini provides essential context, but occasionally overstuffs the narrative with undigested material, including trial transcripts and interviews. Readers interested in the origins of the LGBTQ rights movement will be deeply informed by this meticulous account.

May 1, 2020
An account of the decadeslong struggle for civil rights for gay people, a story that begins at the height of the Cold War. "After World War II," writes historian Cervini, "homosexual arrests...occurred at the rate of one every ten minutes....In sum, one million citizens found themselves persecuted by the American state for sexual deviation." One was Franklin Edward Kameny, a budding astronomer pressed into Army service in 1943, who, come peacetime, fell in love with another man. Arrested for "lewd conduct," he was dismissed from his civilian post with the Army Map Service in 1957. It took him years to find regular employment, time in which he advocated for gay civil rights, speaking before audiences as a member of the Mattachine Society. None other than J. Edgar Hoover took a personal role in suppressing Kameny, among many others; meanwhile, Kameny organized demonstrations against the State Department, which, according to Secretary Dean Rusk, did not "employ homosexuals knowingly, and...if we discover homosexuals in our department, we discharge them." It would take many years--in fact, into the presidency of Barack Obama--before some of the goals Kameny advocated for were reached. Cervini is wide-ranging in his coverage of such topics as the medical classification of homosexuality as deviance and the government's justification for not hiring gay workers for fear that they would be security risks. In the latter case, just before World War I, a gay Austro-Hungarian officer sold military secrets to the Russians, and when CIA Director Allen Dulles went to work at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, he found "everyone still whispering about the homosexual spy who had lost the First World War for the empire." While insightful on such big-picture issues, the author also focuses on individuals who made their identities known in order to protest such misguided policies. A solid contribution to LGBTQ history--and that of civil rights generally. (23 b/w illustrations)

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June 1, 2020

In his debut work, historian Cervini uses the life of astronomer and activist Frank Kameny (1925-2011) as a lens to bring postwar, pre-Stonewall homosexual organizing into focus. He also makes the case for Kameny's pivotal role in formulating a strategy of resistance that would emerge as a core ethic and aesthetic of gay liberation: pride. Kameny was the son of Jewish parents who were recent immigrants, an army veteran, and a first-generation college graduate who was poised to work for the infant U.S. space program when he was fired in 1957 because of his homosexuality. In contesting the underlying logic of his dismissal--that as a homosexual he was vulnerable to blackmail and a threat to national security--Kameny helped create a new homosexual citizen, a figure who demanded an end to class-based discrimination. In arguing for Kameny's influence, Cervini introduces many people, places, events, and organizations that were key to building toward what would become an increasingly loud and proud struggle for gay rights. VERDICT A meticulously-researched deep dive into the life and times of a man whose personality and persistence left an indelible mark on midcentury gay activism, this title is a welcome addition to the history of sexuality bookshelf. [See Prepub Alert, 12/9/19.]--Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc., Boston

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2020
It is widely believed that the struggle for gay rights began with the 1969 Stonewall Riots, but Cervini argues that it actually began more than a decade earlier when a government astronomer named Dr. Frank Kameny, revealed to be homosexual, was summarily fired by his government employer and stripped of his security clearance, which made him virtually unemployable. Kameny decided to fight back, something that was almost unheard of in its time. Indeed, he fought his case all the way to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear it. That was hardly the end of Kameny's struggles, however. In a short period of time he became an almost Zelig-like character in the campaign for gay rights, leading the fight in countless ways. Although not a lawyer, he began representing others, who like him, had been fired by the government. He founded MSW, the Washington, DC, chapter of the Mattachine Society and led it for many years He began lecturing widely and, in due course, became known, according to a Philadelphia newspaper, as the unofficial high priest of Gay Power. His is a fascinating story, and Cervini does it more than ample justice in this insightful, meticulously detailed book. He has clearly done a remarkable job of research, creating an absolutely indispensable, highly readable work of history that belongs in every library.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)