0:00

Hey there, listener, this is

0:03

going to be the final episode of American

0:05

Shadows. We started

0:07

up in the summer of twenty twenty, a

0:09

weirdly appropriate time to talk about the

0:12

dark parts of the history of the United States.

0:14

It's been three years and seventy

0:17

eight episodes of me vocal frying my way

0:19

through the conspiracies, disasters,

0:21

diseases, scandals, scams,

0:24

murders, and bouts of absolute

0:26

heroics that, for worse

0:29

or better have brought us to where

0:31

we are today. I wanted

0:33

to take a second to sincerely thank the

0:36

entire crew here at iHeartRadio and

0:38

Grim and Mild for the means and

0:40

an opportunity to share these stories,

0:43

but particularly my producers

0:45

Miranda Hawkins and Jesse Funk, who

0:47

have put up with my raw tape and shaped

0:50

it into something beautiful, special

0:52

things, as well to Grimm and Mild's head of writing

0:54

research formerly Karl Nellis

0:56

and now Robin Menetter, who wrangled

0:58

the stories into existence to begin with, and

1:01

Michelle Mudo, Alie Stead, and

1:03

Taylor Haggerdorn who have been on the project

1:05

since day one, along with relative newcomers

1:08

Cassandra to Albo, Alex Robinson, and

1:10

Jamie Vargas. Y'all have made

1:12

my job easy and I am so

1:14

excited to hear whatever you work on next.

1:17

And of course, thanks to Aaron Menke for

1:19

building such a strange sandbox

1:21

for projects like this. And

1:24

thanks to you for listening and

1:26

saying hi to me when I introduced myself every

1:28

episode, or tweeting me about cemeteries,

1:31

or just following along with us. It's

1:33

been an honor to work with these people

1:36

and to give voice to these stories. I

1:39

hope that we'll get to do more of it in the future,

1:41

but for now, I'm Lauren

1:44

Vogelbaum. Thank you for being

1:46

here, for being you, for

1:48

being curious, and

1:51

now on with the show you're

1:56

listening to. American Shadows, a production

1:59

of iHeart Rate and Grimm and Mild

2:01

from Aaron Mankie. The

2:11

President had never married, and

2:14

he never would. James

2:16

Buchanan, a president of the United States from

2:18

eighteen fifty seven to eighteen sixty one,

2:21

is the only president in our country's history

2:23

to have never taken a wife. During

2:26

his time in office, rumors about his private

2:28

life spread through the halls of the Capitol, and

2:31

those rumors are still swirling today.

2:34

Buchanan was not always single in

2:37

his early twenties. He had actually been engaged

2:40

to a woman named Anne Coleman, but

2:42

she broke it off before they could make it to the altar.

2:45

She had expressed to her friends that Buchanan

2:47

didn't treat her with the affection she

2:49

would expect from her future husband. After

2:52

the end of their relationship, Anne was

2:54

believed to have ended her own life. Many

2:57

people attributed her apparent suicide

2:59

to her fail engagement. For

3:02

the rest of his life, James Buchanan

3:04

seemed wholly disinterested in wooing

3:06

other women. Some believed

3:08

that he still held a candle for Anne. However,

3:11

most speculated that he stayed single for

3:14

an entirely different reason. The

3:17

prevailing rumor in the federal government was

3:19

that James Buchanan was actually

3:22

queer. Note here that,

3:24

of course, language evolves as time

3:26

goes on, and the word queer as

3:28

it's used today was not used in

3:30

the same way in the eighteen fifties. However,

3:33

though it may sound a little a historical, we

3:35

will be using the reclaimed umbrella

3:38

term queer throughout this episode to describe

3:40

lesbian, gay by trans, queer,

3:43

intersex, asexual, et cetera. People

3:45

people whose orientations may not

3:47

have fit into these societal norms of

3:50

the time. James Buchanan

3:52

certainly was speculated to have lived

3:54

a private lifestyle that went against

3:56

the norms of the day well

3:59

before he was president, and his sexuality

4:01

was regularly questioned. His

4:03

political adversaries would criticize him

4:05

for his shrill voice and his smooth,

4:08

beardless cheeks. Most

4:10

of the rumors about him, however, revolved

4:12

around his very close friendship with one

4:14

William Rufus King, a senator

4:16

from Alabama. A King and

4:18

Buchanan met in eighteen twenty one, after

4:21

Buchanan was first elected to Congress. For

4:24

over a decade, they lived in a board house together

4:26

four Congress's single members. As

4:29

the years passed, more and more congressmen

4:31

moved out, until only King

4:33

and Buchanan remained. The

4:35

only time they altered this limming arrangement

4:37

was when they each accepted different diplomatic

4:39

positions abroad. The nature

4:42

of King and Buchanan's relationship was

4:44

the frequent topic of societal gossip.

4:47

Politicians would hurl slurs like

4:49

aunt nancy and aunt fancy at

4:51

them, both of which were rude slang

4:53

terms for gay men. Some

4:56

in Washington even referred to them as mister

4:58

Buchanan and his wife. Aaron

5:00

Brown, who was one of Buchanan's political

5:02

rivals, wrote a letter railing against

5:04

Buchanan and King's relationship, calling

5:07

King Buchanan's better half. Many

5:10

years later, President John Tyler's wife

5:12

recalled Buchanan and King as being Siamese

5:15

twins. They were very noticeably

5:17

joined at the hip. What

5:19

still exists of Kings and Buchanan's

5:22

correspondence with one another was cautious

5:24

and cryptic. However,

5:27

not many of their letters actually remain. Many

5:30

were lost when the king estate burned

5:32

during the Civil War. King

5:34

also destroyed any letters from Buchanan

5:36

that were marked private or confidential,

5:39

a meaning that Buchanan's more personal letters

5:41

can never be read for confirmation

5:43

of the true nature of their relationship. There

5:47

are, of course, historians who believed that

5:49

King and Buchanan were not lovers, but

5:51

were instead very close friends.

5:54

Regardless of whether or not James Buchanan

5:56

was queer in the mid nineteenth century,

5:59

it wasn't so thing that could have barred him from

6:01

taking office legally speaking.

6:04

However, as we'll see,

6:06

that would not always be the case. Eventually

6:09

identifying as anything but straight,

6:12

or even just being accused of it could

6:14

preclude someone from holding any job

6:16

within the federal government. I'm

6:19

Lorn Vogelbaum, Welcome to

6:21

American Shadows.

6:29

The bar was alive with raucous laughter

6:31

and music, and the man at the piano

6:33

played a different tune for every guy who

6:35

walked through the door. The Chicken

6:38

Hut was an unassuming bar in

6:40

downtown Washington, d C. Technically

6:43

its name was Leon's Restaurant, but none

6:45

of its clientele called it that. A

6:48

regular restaurant by day, the Chicken

6:50

Hut transformed into the city's most

6:52

popular gay bar. By night, the

6:55

Hut served as the epicenter of social

6:57

life, where DC's queer men throughout

6:59

the nighte teen forties and fifties packed

7:02

tight on weekend nights. It was a haven

7:04

where they could openly be themselves

7:06

without fear of repercussions. The

7:09

Hut, popular as it was, was

7:11

only a haven for white, middle

7:13

class queer men. Black

7:16

men were not welcome at the bar, even after

7:18

d C officially desegregated in nineteen

7:20

fifty three. Women also

7:22

did not frequent the Chicken Hut or any

7:24

queer men's bars heard that matter, instead

7:26

choosing to congregate at a single lesbian

7:29

bar a few blocks away. D

7:31

C's queer community had grown significantly

7:33

leading up to the fifties. Between

7:35

nineteen thirty and nineteen fifty, the city's

7:37

population had doubled. The New

7:40

Deal had created a significant number

7:42

of new government jobs, and the influx

7:44

of employees to the district included a

7:46

number of queer people. They

7:48

built a rich social life for themselves,

7:51

holding picnics at the Botanic Conservatory

7:53

and roller skating parties in front of the Lincoln

7:55

Memorial. Much of

7:57

the city's gay social life, however, entered

8:00

around Lafayette Park, which had

8:02

been a famous spot for gay men to cruise

8:04

since the eighteen hundreds. The

8:07

Chicken Hut was located only steps from

8:09

Lafayette Park, finding itself in the

8:11

exact right location to provide a home

8:14

to roost for the gay white men of the city.

8:17

The Hut's most well known member was its

8:19

piano player, known as Miss

8:21

Hattie by the bars regulars. Howard

8:23

would play jaunty show tunes in popular

8:26

songs of the day, often rewriting

8:28

the lyrics to make them more body. Whenever

8:30

Howard played a particularly scandalous line,

8:33

the bar's patrons would shout out, did

8:35

you hear that Miss Blick? A

8:37

Miss Blick referred to Lieutenant Roy

8:40

Blick, who served as the head of the Metropolitan

8:42

Police Department's Morality Division.

8:45

The taunt entered into the local queer vernacular,

8:49

but in reality, Roy Blick and his division

8:51

weren't anything to laugh at. They

8:54

were charged with cracking down on anything

8:56

considered to be a sexual perversion,

8:59

which at this time included homosexuality.

9:02

Places like the Chicken Hut and Lafayette

9:04

Park were under intense scrutiny

9:06

as the police kept an eye out for anything

9:08

they might consider to be immoral. In

9:11

nineteen forty seven, the US Park Police

9:14

began a program called the Pervert Elimination

9:16

Campaign. Blick and

9:18

other officers would patrol cruising spots

9:21

like Lafayette Park, arresting anyone

9:23

they suspected of being queer. By

9:26

nineteen fifty, two hundred men were arrested

9:28

under this program, while five hundred others

9:30

were apprehended. They were questioned

9:33

and fingerprinted, and then their names

9:35

were added to what was called the pervert

9:37

file, which was kept by Lieutenant

9:39

Blick himself. One

9:42

in four men detained at Lafayette Park was

9:44

believed to be a government employee. If

9:46

their names were published in the newspapers, and

9:48

they often were, it would ruin their

9:51

reputations and careers. DC's

9:54

queer community wasn't just being smoked

9:56

out of their chosen recreational spots.

9:58

They were also being systematically purged

10:01

from the federal government's payroll. Beginning

10:04

in nineteen forty seven, the government started

10:06

their official campaign to weed its

10:08

queer employees out. In

10:11

June of that year, a Senate Appropriations

10:13

Committee condemned quote the

10:15

extensive employment in highly classified

10:18

positions of admitted homosexuals, who

10:20

are historically known to be security risks.

10:23

A Queer people were often conflated

10:25

with communists, as both were believed

10:28

to be immoral, psychologically disturbed,

10:30

and godless of

10:32

Following this report, the Secretary

10:34

of State set up a personal security

10:36

board for the State Department. Within

10:39

the next three years, the State Department quietly

10:41

fired ninety one employees who they

10:43

determined were queer. In

10:46

June of nineteen forty eight, things got even

10:48

more difficult for the queer residence of DC. President

10:51

Harry Truman signed the National Miller

10:54

Sexual Psychopath Law, which

10:56

codified the act of Quote sodomyn.

11:00

The smallest of sexual acts between people

11:02

of the same sex could result in a twenty

11:04

year imprisonment or one thousand dollars

11:06

fine, which would be the equivalent

11:08

of over twelve thousand dollars today. The

11:11

first two men to be arrested under this law

11:13

were in Washington, d C. The

11:16

government cracked down on the queer community changed

11:19

DC's gay social scene entirely.

11:21

A government employee started to avoid popular

11:24

spots like the Chicken Hut and Lafayette Park

11:26

Optic, instead to fly under the radar

11:29

at less obvious venues. Gay

11:31

men stopped telling people where they worked and

11:34

fearing that their private life would get back

11:36

to their superiors.

11:38

And as bad as it had become for queer

11:40

government employees at the tail end of the nineteen

11:42

forties, the nineteen fifties would

11:45

be even worse. The government's purge

11:47

was only getting started. At

11:58

that time. Very few people knew

12:00

who Senator Joseph McCarthy was.

12:03

He was not yet the man who would embark

12:05

on a manic quest to eliminate communism.

12:08

He was simply an inocuous first

12:10

term senator from Wisconsin. That

12:13

all changed, however, on February

12:15

ninth of nineteen fifty. On

12:17

that day, McCarthy gave his now famous

12:20

speech in which he claimed to have

12:22

a list of two hundred and five communists

12:24

in the State Department. He never actually

12:26

disclosed the names that were on this list, but

12:29

that didn't matter. The fear

12:31

he stoked with these allegations would snowball

12:34

into what we know today as the Red

12:36

Scare. On February

12:38

twenty, McCarthy gave a six hour speech

12:40

to the Senate to expand upon his claims.

12:44

However, at this time he reduced his list

12:46

of known communists to only fifty seven.

12:49

McCarthy wasn't always the most consistent.

12:51

The number of communists who had allegedly

12:54

infiltrated the State Department would change several

12:56

more times. No matter

12:58

how many there were, Carthy believed

13:00

that every single one of them was, in his

13:03

words, mentally twisted in

13:05

some way. One of the manifestations

13:08

of that mental aberration was he believed

13:10

homosexuality. During

13:12

McCarthy's speech, he said that one of the communists

13:15

on his list was a flagrant homosexual

13:18

who had a huge network of queer

13:20

communist connections. Quick

13:22

to dismiss any suggestions that the State Department

13:25

posed a security risk. A press release

13:27

was sent out denying the fact that the agency

13:29

employed any communists. However,

13:32

they summarily fired two hundred people,

13:35

and just one week after McCarthy's

13:37

inflammatory speech, the Deputy

13:39

under Secretary of State testified

13:41

to the Senate that they had indeed fired ninety

13:44

one queer employees in the previous three

13:46

years. The number

13:48

ninety one became shorthand for

13:50

the homosexual threat looming over

13:53

the nation, and it was

13:55

considered to be a threat today.

13:57

When we think of the Red Scare, we mainly

14:00

of communism. However, that

14:02

wasn't everyone's primary concern.

14:06

Of the twenty five thousand letters

14:08

that McCarthy received from scared American

14:10

citizens, only one in four

14:12

were about communism. The rest

14:15

condemned the perceived sexually

14:17

deranged homosexuals who were lurking

14:19

in the government. Rumors

14:21

even started spreading that the Soviets were

14:24

finding blackmail targets in the United States

14:26

government by using a secret list of homosexuals

14:28

that had been compiled by Hitler, and

14:32

so began the Red Scares lesser

14:34

known sibling, the Lavender

14:36

Scare. In March

14:38

of nineteen fifty, the first Senate

14:41

subcommittee was formed to investigate homosexuality

14:43

in the federal workforce. One

14:46

of the people to testify to the subcommittee

14:48

was none other than Lieutenant Roy Black, who

14:50

claimed that there were five thousand gay men

14:53

and women in DC and that three thousand,

14:55

seven hundred of them worked for the government. The

14:58

numbers had no basis in reality, but

15:00

they were widely reported by the press regardless.

15:04

Based on all of this, the Senate started

15:06

an in depth investigation of the government's

15:08

employment of quote, immoral

15:11

perverts. They beheld a number

15:13

of hearings. Out of all of them, not a

15:15

single one involved interviewing anyone from

15:17

the queer community. Congressional

15:20

members did not fully understand queerness

15:23

and therefore didn't fully understand

15:25

what they were investigating. After

15:27

hearing that there were people who were neither

15:30

entirely homosexual or heterosexual,

15:32

one senator asked if there was a quick

15:35

test like an X ray that discloses these

15:37

things. Such ignorance would characterize

15:40

how they moved forward with their investigations.

15:43

No evidence emerged during these hearings

15:46

that queer employees were ever blackmailed

15:48

into exposing state secrets, but

15:51

in the end that didn't matter. Congress

15:54

eventually determined that queer people were

15:56

threat simply because their deviancy

15:59

made them morally weak. Between

16:03

April and November of nineteen fifty

16:05

three, hundred and eighty two people were fired

16:07

from their federal jobs. The

16:10

vast majority of them never even had access

16:12

to sensitive government materials. However,

16:16

many had prior charges related

16:18

to homosexuality, which, in the

16:20

eyes of the politicians of the day, meant

16:22

that they were polluting the moral integrity

16:25

of the government. As

16:27

one might imagine, these mass layoffs

16:29

had a grim effect on DC's queer

16:31

population. People began

16:34

moving to new jobs and new cities.

16:37

Those who remained were unable to trust

16:39

one another for fear of their identities being

16:41

exposed. The queer

16:43

government employees stopped going to popular

16:45

spots within their community. Some

16:47

wouldn't even attend parties unless they knew

16:50

every single person who would be there. Gay

16:52

men and women started to pose as each

16:54

other's partners when the need arose. The

16:57

governments prejudiced towards its queer employees

17:00

would only continue to grow. On

17:02

April twenty seventh of nineteen fifty three, when

17:05

President Eisenhower signed an executive

17:07

order banning anyone who exhibited

17:09

a sexual perversion from working for

17:11

the government, and homosexuality

17:13

was definitely considered a sexual perversion

17:16

at this time. Only the year before,

17:18

the American Psychiatric Association had

17:20

officially categorized homosexuality

17:22

as a sociopathic personality

17:24

disturbance. The lavender

17:26

Scare purge was eradicating almost

17:29

every job opportunity that had previously

17:31

been available to gay men and women. The

17:34

prospects for the queer community were grim.

17:37

It would take the dedication of a number of

17:39

brave people who were willing to risk their

17:41

livelihoods and reputations for justice

17:43

to be served.

17:55

In July of nineteen fifty seven, Frank

17:58

Cammeny was just another bright

18:00

eyed new hire for the government. After

18:02

finishing his doctorate at Harvard, Frank had

18:05

been recruited as an astronomer for the U.

18:07

S. Army Map Service. His

18:09

future was promising. He had secured

18:11

an enviable job and was doing meaningful

18:13

work. He even harbored hopes

18:16

of becoming an astronaut one day, as the

18:18

possibility of space travel became more

18:20

and more of a reality. However,

18:24

everything came crashing down for Frank

18:26

in October of that same year, when

18:28

the government learned that he was queer. Frank

18:31

had known that he was gay since he was young. He

18:34

had lied about his orientation to enlist in the army

18:36

during World War II, and had continued

18:38

to keep it under wraps as the world became

18:41

more and more hostile to queer people. Still,

18:45

Frank had managed to find a foothold in the DC

18:47

queer community after moving there in nineteen

18:49

fifty six, visiting bars like the Chicken

18:51

Hut and immersing himself in the local culture.

18:55

His involvement in the DC gay scene

18:57

isn't what brought the government's attention to his secutional

19:00

orientation, though in August

19:02

of nineteen fifty six, Frank had been arrested

19:05

for quote lewde and indecent

19:07

acts while in San Francisco. He

19:09

paid the fines required of him, and after

19:11

a six month probation period, the state

19:14

of California changed his records to not

19:16

guilty, case dismissed. Unfortunately,

19:20

the bloodhounds of the lavender Scare

19:22

were not so easily dissuaded from their

19:24

cause. Only a few months

19:26

after he had been hired, the government got

19:28

wind of the San Francisco incident and fired

19:30

him. In January of nineteen

19:33

fifty eight, Frank was told that he was

19:35

barred from ever working in the federal government

19:37

again. This made him extremely

19:39

unattractive to private sector employers

19:41

as well. With his doctorate

19:43

in astronomy and with the space race looming

19:46

on the horizon, Frank should have been

19:48

an extremely desirable candidate for

19:50

almost any job he could have wanted. But

19:53

not even his educational pedigree could

19:55

combat the prejudice against queer people

19:58

in the nineteen fifties. But in

20:00

the span of a couple of months, Frank had become

20:02

virtually unemployable. He

20:05

was reduced to living off of mere pennies

20:07

depending on the generosity of the Salvation Army.

20:11

But Frank, however, disheartened

20:13

and downtrodden, would not go

20:15

quietly. He approached

20:17

the Washington d c. Chapter of the ACLU,

20:20

and with their help, he became the very first

20:23

person to challenge the government on their discrimination

20:25

against hiring queer people. The

20:28

courts dismissed his case in nineteen fifty

20:30

nine and again in nineteen sixty.

20:33

In January of nineteen sixty one, Frank

20:35

filed his case with the Supreme Court. He

20:38

had no attorney, but still felt compelled

20:40

to march into battle for the sake of

20:43

his and his community's equal rights

20:45

and for their livelihoods. Two

20:47

months later, the Supreme Court declined

20:50

to hear his case. Frank

20:52

even wrote to President Kennedy, appealing to

20:54

the president's famous line asked, not

20:56

what your country can do for you, but what

20:58

you can do for your country. Frank

21:01

wrote that he simply wanted to serve

21:03

his country, but that his country had

21:05

made it impossible for him to do so. He

21:08

never received a response. After

21:11

seeingly exhausting all avenues,

21:13

Frank probably should have given up.

21:16

Most people would if they were in his shoes, but

21:19

thankfully Frank didn't know when

21:21

to quit. Across

21:31

the country, in California, people

21:33

had taken notice of what was happening in d C

21:36

many years before Frank began his fight.

21:39

In response to the government's blatant discrimination,

21:42

the Mattachine Society was founded in

21:44

nineteen fifty. It was the first

21:46

large scale queer society in the United

21:49

States, and soon it

21:51

would be leading the fight against the lavender

21:53

scare Back

21:55

in DC. Frank Hammany knew

21:57

he had almost run out of options, and

22:00

so he approached the problem from a

22:02

different angle. In nineteen sixty

22:04

one, Frank established a DC chapter

22:06

of the Mattachine Society. Within

22:09

a few months, he became president of the organization.

22:12

The Mattachine Society of Washington, or

22:14

MSW, took a bold approach,

22:17

loudly declaring that queer people were

22:19

deserving of the same basic rights as

22:21

their straight counterparts. They

22:24

didn't hide underground, but instead

22:26

showed their faces and spoke for themselves

22:29

instead of hiring straight representatives. In

22:32

nineteen sixty three, Frank became the first

22:34

openly gay man to testify before Congress.

22:37

The MSW advised on a number of legal

22:39

cases, including one filed by

22:41

a man named Clifford Norton. Clifford

22:45

had been caught in Lafayette Park and was

22:47

subsequently fired from his position at NASA

22:49

after working there for fifteen years. After

22:52

his dismissal, the MSW and the ACLU

22:55

helped Clifford pursue legal action. On

22:59

July first of nineteen sixty nine, a

23:01

judge determined that the government had to prove

23:03

a rational connection between an employee's

23:05

private affairs and their dismissal, and

23:08

that NASA had failed to do so. As

23:10

a result of this ruling, Clifford received

23:12

one hundred thousand dollars from the government and

23:14

a generous pension. Clifford

23:17

Norton's case set a precedent that would be integral

23:20

to shaping public policy and eventually

23:22

ending the government's discrimination against their queer

23:24

employees. In nineteen

23:27

seventy three, a federal court in San Francisco

23:29

cited the Norton case in a ruling that forced

23:31

the government to change their approach to

23:33

how they handled their queer employees.

23:37

Eighteen months later, the Civil Service Commission

23:39

changed their regulations, erasing

23:41

the words immoral conduct from

23:43

their list of reasons that an employee could

23:45

be fired. The queer

23:48

men and women could once again work for

23:50

the United States government without fear

23:52

of losing their jobs for who they were,

23:55

and the first person that the commissioner

23:57

called about the new changes none

23:59

other than Frank Cammeny. There's

24:03

more to this story, and stick around after

24:06

this brief sponsored break to hear all about it.

24:18

Queer people could no longer be dismissed

24:20

from the government payroll for their sexual orientation.

24:24

However, that same rule did not apply

24:26

to the United States Armed Forces. The

24:29

military continued to weed out queer

24:31

service members, but sometimes

24:33

their ignorance of gay culture worked against

24:36

them. In October of nineteen

24:38

eighty, a twenty one year old by the

24:40

name of Mel Doll enlisted in the Navy

24:42

as an electrician. He was stationed

24:45

at the Great Lakes Naval Station with no issues.

24:48

He had revealed that he was gay during his enlistment

24:50

interview, but it hadn't seemed to make a difference

24:52

to his acceptance. That

24:54

would change. In nineteen eighty one, Mel

24:57

decided to enroll in cryptography school to

25:00

further his skills for the Navy, which required

25:02

an updated security clearance. During

25:05

his interview. For the security clearance, Mel

25:07

took all of the usual questions about communist

25:09

sympathies in stride. When

25:12

he was asked about his sexual orientation, Mel

25:14

admitted that he was gay, seeing no issue

25:16

in the matter. Unfortunately,

25:19

unlike when Mel had first enlisted, it

25:21

was now a problem. In

25:24

January of nineteen eighty one, the Department

25:26

of Defense had instituted a new policy

25:28

that required any service members who

25:30

had ever participated in home sexual acts

25:33

to be immediately dismissed. So

25:36

after his interview, Mel was told that the Navy

25:38

was considering discharging him.

25:41

In January of nineteen eighty two, Mel

25:43

was given an honorable discharge because

25:45

of his sexual orientation. No

25:48

civil rights groups were willing to take on the

25:50

Department of Defense, and so Mel

25:53

was forced to take matters into his own hands.

25:56

He walked three thousand miles across

25:58

the United States to raise both

26:00

money and awareness for his cause.

26:03

The media quickly picked up on Mel's walking

26:05

crusade, interviewing him as he

26:07

went. He told the press

26:09

that he was far from the only gay service

26:11

member at the Great Lakes Naval Station. Naturally,

26:15

this sent the higher ups at that naval station into

26:17

a frenzy to expose and dismiss them

26:19

from the Navy. During

26:21

their investigation, the Navy discovered

26:24

that their queer enlistees referred to

26:26

themselves and other gay men as

26:28

friends of Dorothy. Gay

26:31

men had been using the term friends of Dorothy

26:33

for years. Some say that it dates

26:35

back to the nineteen forties as a reference to the

26:37

character Dorothy in the movie The Wizard of

26:39

Oz. Others say that the term

26:42

originated from other women who ran in

26:44

gay circles, Dorothy King or

26:46

perhaps Dorothy Parker. No

26:49

matter the origin, it had entered into

26:51

the popular lexicon by the nineteen eighties,

26:53

and queer men were using it regularly. The

26:56

naval investigators, however, didn't

26:59

understand the phrase friends of Dorothy

27:02

was actually coded language that just

27:04

meant gay. They,

27:07

in their ignorance, instead believed

27:09

that a woman named Dorothy was

27:11

the head of a huge, organized

27:13

ring of queer military men. So

27:17

naturally, the Navy tried to hunt down

27:19

this mastermind named Dorothy.

27:22

They frequented gay bars, asking if

27:24

any of the men there knew Dorothy. They

27:27

interrogated all of the gay men they discovered in

27:29

the ranks of the Navy, doing their best

27:31

to uncover Dorothy's identity. Throughout

27:33

the nineteen eighties, the military discharged

27:36

one thousand, five hundred gay men a

27:38

year. The elusive Dorothy

27:41

never turned up. In nineteen

27:43

ninety three, Bill Clinton signed Don't

27:45

Ask, Don't Tell into effect, allowing

27:48

closeted queer people to remain in the military.

27:51

In twenty ten, Barack Obama changed

27:53

that legislation to allow openly

27:56

queer people to serve. Throughout

27:59

all of these changes for queer service members,

28:01

Dorothy never ended up revealing

28:03

herself. American

28:09

Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum.

28:12

This episode was written by Alex Robinson

28:14

and researched by cassandrad Alba. The

28:16

fact checking by Jamie Vargas. It's

28:18

produced by Jesse Funk and Trevor Young. The

28:21

executive producers Aaron Menke, Alex

28:23

Williams, and Matt Frederick. To

28:25

learn more about the show, visit griminmild

28:28

dot com and four more

28:30

podcasts from iHeartRadio. Visit the

28:32

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

28:34

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.