Sputnik was orbiting the Earth and the space race had begun. Although the U.S. government needed astronomers like Frank Kameny, he was fired by the Defense Department for his sexual orientation. In 1957, when most men would have retreated in shame, Kameny began a series of legal appeals and became a prominent spokesman for the Mattachine Society, America’s first explicitly gay rights organization. Working with declassified documents, Eric Cervini recounts Kameny’s story against the backdrop of the era’s gay subculture and government fears that LGBT people were security risks. During the 1970s, Kameny scored many victories in his campaign, including the American Psychiatric Association’s decision to strike homosexuality from its manual of mental disorders.
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