Was fdr gay
“In 1919, Navy Secretary [Josephus] Daniels – whose crusade against sin went far beyond banning wine in the officers’ mess – became concerned about lgbtq+ behavior among sailors in Newport, Rhode Island.
“This was almost 75 years before ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and almost a century before being gay was removed as a barrier to military service. Then, homosexuality was a very serious offense.
“Daniels ordered the base commander to sanitize things up, and the solution he found was to set up a sting operation, using modern sailors as bait. To be certain the men they entrapped were indeed homosexuals, the recruits – some as young as 16 – were allowed to submit to fellatio – and praised for their ‘zeal’ in the investigation when they did so. As assistant secretary of the navy, FDR had signed off on the sting while Daniels was abroad, but denied knowing the sordid details.
“The case erupted…. Headlines laid the scandal at Roosevelt’s feet, with the story on the front page of the New York Times declaring the details to be ‘unprintable.’”
— From “The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR, and the Untold Story of the Partnership That Defined a Presidency” by These photos come from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum. They all fall under public domain, as per the organization's website. Eleanor Roosevelt's name may ring a familiar bell for history lovers. She was the First Lady of the Joined States and wife to President Franklin D. Roosevelt! Therefore, it may be surprising to learn of her long rumored romantic relationship with Lorena Hickok. The women met when Hickok, a prominent news writer, was tasked to document articles about the President and his wife. It is thought that the two soon caught feelings for each other, and Hickok left the newspaper because she feared she was compromising her journalistic integrity4. However, the women didn't separate after she left her job -- instead, she moved into the White House and started working as a staff member4. For obvious reasons (Roosevelt's marriage and homophobia), their romantic relationship was never publically confirmed. However, the two women did divide a strong bond, as evidenced in their many, many letters3 -- two of which are featured Ienjoyedwatching Ken Burns' The Roosevelts: An Intimate History last week, keeping in soul that these PBS documentary series are usually a heavy bit of American myth-making, sanitizing some data in offering a particular version of history. Still, there are a not many things just too glaring to hide or manage with discretion in 2014, though Burns arrogantly thinks he can. How could we not hear about the scandalous anti-gay witch track beginning in 1919 in Newport overseen by then assistant secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt? As detailed in historian John Loughery's 1998 publication The Other Side of Silence, Navy sailors were recruited to entrap other men to have sex with them, with the undercover "operatives" engaging in sex to orgasmic completion -- oral, and yes, some anal -- with the men they entrapped, and logging all of this in their have reports. At first, the sting focused on men in the Navy, in an attempt to disinfect up what was seen as "moral conditions" at the Newport base, but it soon expanded to the civilian population in Newport and resulted in the arrests and sometimes imprisonment of 17 sailors and a prominent Episcopal Navy chaplain. When the methods of In Bros, which may or may not be the first major gay rom-com, Billy Eichner’s character is working on another massive first, opening the first major LGBTQ history museum. As part of that job, he spends much of the film discussing whether various historical figures were gay, including Abraham Lincoln and the ancient Egyptian pairing of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum. (In both of those cases it depends who you request, and what you indicate by “gay.”) Those of us who haven’t been watching The First Lady on Showtime (which is a lot of us) may be surprised to hear Eleanor Roosevelt among these names. In truth, at one point, the movie refers to her outright as “lesbian first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.” She was? In order to get some answers, Slate spoke to Susan Quinn, author of Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Heather Schwedel: I think it will be news to some people to hear the feature casually describe Eleanor Roosevelt as a lesbian. Susan Quinn: I can tell you a little bit about how I came to the conclusion that she did have a romance affair, a very essential love affair, wit .
Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok
About the couple:
Was Eleanor Roosevelt a Lesbian?