Pride Month Profiles: Dr. Frank Kameny
Born in Queens, New York in 1925, Franklin “Frank” Edward Kameny knew from an early age that he wanted to study science, specifically astronomy. He started academic journey in his teens as a student in physics at Queens College before being called up to serve in Europe during World War II. After the war, he enrolled at Harvard University where he earned his PhD in astronomy.?
He taught for a few years in Boston and eventually relocated to Washington, D.C. to teach in the astronomy department at Georgetown University before taking a role with the US Army Map Service. With the Army, he was at the heart of the space race that was intensifying between the US and the USSR. When he assumed his position in July of 1957, the USSR was just months away from launching Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, changing the trajectory of the space race globally. Frank was closer than ever to living his dreams of becoming an astronaut and advancing his country’s efforts on the bold new frontier. However, Frank had a secret that would eventually ruin him.?
The years following the end of World War II were plagued by a period of paranoia and hypervigilance against foreign and domestic threats, often perceived out of blind fear, fueled by McCarthyism, a concentrated political effort of Senator Joe McCarthy to weed out alleged Communist spies from interfering with US affairs. The “Red Scare” as it came to be known, ravaged Washington and left fear and many false accusations in its wake. A product of the Red Scare was the lesser known but equally as damaging Lavender Scare which sought to identify and eliminate all homosexuals from holding any positions in the federal government.
In 1953, President Eisenhower solidified this call to arms against homosexuals when he signed an Executive Order 10450 which made “ dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct” which included what he deemed as “sexual perversion” legal grounds for firing any federal government employee.
Hundreds if not thousands of gifted queer people were eliminated from their jobs because of this order, dozens of whom ended their own lives from the shame of being publicly outed and/or ostracized by their families and communities as a result of the scare.?
Not only after he started his role with the Army, the US Civil Service Commission charged with investigating and executing EO 10450 turned their suspicions toward Frank. He was subjected to an invasive investigation which pressed him for details about his personal relationships with men. Frank never denied his sexuality but didn’t validate their claims either, saying these matters “have no relation to his performance in the position for which he was hired.” Frank was fired.?
He was devastated to say the least. His dreams were dashed and his reputation was in the gutter. He tried and failed to get other jobs in his field but was denied because he couldn’t obtain the secret clearance required for the type of work he was qualified and trained for. (There was this belief that rose to prominence during the scare that homosexuals couldn’t be trusted with security clearances because they were more susceptible to sexual blackmail by malignant agents which was widely believed but never proven.)
In the throes of his destitution, Frank decided to fight back, beginning a fight that he would wage the rest of his life.?
Frank started by taking legal action against the government and agencies who he felt wrongly terminated him from his role. He lost, time and time again, but his fight went all the way to the Supreme Court who declined to hear his argument ?that discrimination against homosexuals was as unsound as discrimination on the basis of race or religion. Despite the setback, Frank’s case is regarded as the first civil rights claim based on sexual orientation to be brought to the Supreme Court.?
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Regarding the case, Frank said “In World War II, I willingly fought the Germans…In 1961, it has, ironically, become necessary for me to fight my own government, with words, to achieve some of the very same rights, freedoms, and liberties for which I placed my life in jeopardy in 1945.”
Frank continued to mobilize and advocate in different ways. He co-founded the Washington DC chapter of the Mattachine Society, an early gay rights group, which championed many causes for queer people across the District. He was instrumental in the society’s picket line outside of the Kennedy White House in 1965, considered one of the first gay rights protests, predating the Stonewall Uprising by four years. Frank can also be thanked for his role in pressuring the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses which it ultimately did in 1973. Thanks to Frank’s work, the Civil Service Commission ended its policy broadly banning gays and lesbians from federal service in 1965 ushering the way for EO 10450 to be formally repealed completely in 2017.?The slogan "Gay is Good" (inspired by the "Black is Beautiful" phrase of the civil rights moment) became his rallying cry for his efforts for acceptance.
Throughout all of these efforts, Frank did something that many queer people at the time wouldn’t or couldn’t do: he used his own face and name. He bravely attached himself and his reputation to his legal actions and activism to bring queerness into the public eye.?
Frank never got to be the astronaut he dreamed of being or even work in the scientific field again after he was fired in 1957, but in 2009 he received a formal apology from the U.S. government for the original job dismissal.?
He died at the age of 86 on October 11, 2011, National Coming Out Day, leaving a legacy that continues to impact so many queer people today.
Sources:
Born Again Academic Not Armchair Revolutionary
8 个月GRANDFATHER OF GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT Part I. Like myself, Frank Kameny was a native of Queens, New York. In 1948, he received his BA in physics from Queens College, where I graduated as first urban studies major in 1974. It is worth noting he had not been activist until he lost his job at Army Mapping Service. I first met Frank through Gay Activists Alliance -- a politically neutral single-issue gay and lesbian rights organization formed in aftermath of Stonewall rebellion -- a watershed moment condemned by the Mattachine Society and its Washington, DC president Kameny. I became reacquainted with Kameny around time of 1973 founding of National Gay Task Force, the organization Frank represented when Barbara Gittings and others joined?in efforts to provoke American Psychiatric Association into modifying its view of?homosexuality. Frank and I were rejoined when he and I set a standing wreath near the graveside of TSgt Leonard Matlovich, while attendees watched the coffin of this once-upon-a-time-racist gay decorated Vietnam war vet lowered into ground at Congressional Cemetery in 1988.
Born Again Academic Not Armchair Revolutionary
8 个月GRANDFATHER OF GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT Part II. Contrary to popular press reports, and gay and lesbian activists repeated claims that?homosexuality?was removed from DSM in 1973,?homosexuality?continued to live on in specified and "not otherwise specified" sections until DSM-V cut it out in 2013. The perpetuation of removal myth by Kameny and his acolytes led to complacency by people in general, and gay and lesbian community in particular, on account of their having been misled into believing that psychiatrists could no longer treat?homosexuality?as mental?illness.? Kameny argued that homosexuals faced more severe discrimination than Blacks because the federal government did not help them and actively discriminated against them. He said that gays and lesbians would fare worse due to the success of the Civil Rights Movement. Some call him the "grandfather of the gay rights movement."