Bad Gays

Gertrude Stein is remembered as a novelist, playwright, poet, and, art collector –– and the hostess of a Paris salon that gathered the cream of interwar modernism, including Picasso, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Matisse. A semi-open lesbian, her books include Q.E.D., one of the earliest English-language lesbian novels, and Tender Buttons, a book of poems full of allusion to lesbian sexuality. But in the last years of her life, as a Jew living in Nazi-occupied France, Stein sustained her lifestyle as an art collector and ensured her safety through the protection of powerful Vichy government officials – part of a pattern of involvement in far-right, antisemitic, and fascist politics.  ----more---- SOURCES: Johnston, Georgia. The Formation of 20th-Century Queer Autobiography: Reading Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf, Hilda Doolittle, and Gertrude Stein. Palgrave Macmillan US, 2007. Malcolm, Janet. “Gertrude Stein’s War.” The New Yorker. June 2, 2003. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/06/02/gertrude-stein

Today’s subject is the man who would be King, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, firstborn son of Edward VII, Grandson of Queen Victoria, known to his friends and family simply as “Eddy." Wrapped up in a sizzling sex scandal, he became a prime example of a British royal story: an intellectually dull man, charmless, with neither cultural interests nor creative talents, but who, due to sheer accident of birth, found himself permitted to indulge all his whims. ----more---- SOURCES: Ackroyd, Peter. Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day. London: Vintage, 2018. Cook, Andrew. Prince Eddy: The King Britain Never Had. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2009. Cook, Matt. London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Hyde, H. Montgomery. The Cleveland Street Scandal. New York: Coward McCann, 1976.   Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creat

Born in a violent and difficult childhood in the American South, Truman Capote would rise to the highest levels of literary celebrity, praise, and fame: even joining the highly-exclusive jet set of 1960s and 1970s high society. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966), which he labeled a "nonfiction novel". His works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television dramas. But Capote would be pursued by demons throughout his life – alcoholism, other forms of addiction, and crippling self-doubt which would end up leading him to destroy his own social reputation.  Visit our website at badgayspod.com for an episode archive, T-shirts, and a link to our Patreon. ----more---- SOURCES: Als, Hilton. “The Shadows in Truman Capote’s Early Stories.” The New Yorker, October 13, 2015. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-shadows-in-truman-capotes-early-stories

A man with a passion for the dangerous, subversive, and avant garde; who eschewed the middle brow and loved the urbane and modern. Known in his life not just as a man of taste, but a tastemaker, someone who set the tone for elite cultural society in his lifetime; the white author, critic and photographer Carl Van Vechten became enchanted with the Harlem Renaissance, approached Black cultures as a source of ideas that he could take and exploit, and perpetuated racist stereotypes in his work. Visit our website at badgayspod.com for an episode archive, T-shirts, and a link to our Patreon. ----more---- SOURCES: Bernard, Emily. Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance: A Portrait in Black and White. 0 edition. Yale University Press, 2013. Holmes, David G. “Cross-Racial Voicing: Carl Van Vechten’s Imagination and the Search for an African American Ethos.” College English 68, no. 3 (2006): 291–307. https://doi.org/10.2307/25472153. Sanneh, Kelefa. “White Mischief.” The New Yorker, February 17, 2014. https://www

The composer Benjamin Britten was a central figure of 20th century music; and the national composer that Britain had been searching for since the death of Henry Purcell in 1695. He never shook his Communist and pacifist sympathies –– even as he rose to the highest levels of elite British cultural production. A fervent pacifist, antinationalist, and homosexual –– with a deep, complex, and troubling love of children –– Britten, through the strength of his music and through the nation’s desire to have a musical hero of its own, became an utterly unlikely national celebrity. Content warning: this episode contains discussions of sexual attraction to children. Visit our website at badgayspod.com for an episode archive, T-shirts, and a link to our Patreon. ----more---- SOURCES: Bridcut, John. Britten’s Children. Main edition. London: Faber and Faber, 2006. Britten, Benjamin. Peter Grimes. London: BBC, 1969. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MyBUetbE38&t=1705s. Conlon, James. “Message, Meaning and Code in the Op

This is a story of sex, death and political malfeasance that will make Teddy Kennedy look like Anne of Green Gables. It has everything you’ve come to expect from a Bad Gays story about the English upper classes — psychosexual repression, violence, class prejudice, hypocrisy, the brutality and cheapness of life at the heart of the political system, and plenty of people named things like Rupert, Auberon and Emlyn. =Content warning for child sexual abuse in the early parts of this story= But as ridiculous and kinky as the fruity rulers of Britain are, the story is darker than that. This story is also about the way the law is impervious to the informal networks of power in the British establishment, and how homosexuality was subject to a series of double standards, tolerated in the powerful but suppressed in the ordinary citizen, practiced in private and denied in public. Today we’re discussing the life of a man whose sexuality stole his chance at power, the MP and leader of the Liberal Party, the Right Honorable

This "deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love" rose to stardom playing "classical music without the boring parts" and didn't need to stay in the closet because he wore its entire contents. How could he become an emblem of Middle American family entertainment? The United States of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s was undergoing enormous social change –– the Civil Rights Movement, the Summer of Love, Women’s Lib, the Stonewall Riots, Gay Liberation, and the beginning of the AIDS movement –– and Liberace was an entertainer who appealed to precisely those parts of the country who sought to resist those changes. Hated by classical music critics, he was beloved by audiences precisely because of the openness of his secret and the way he performed a kind of minstrel act that nevertheless won him fame, riches, and glory.   Visit our website for Patreon, T-shirts, and an eopside archive. ----mo

Season 4 –– ! –– with apologies for socially-distanced audio quality. Today's victim was a British colonist and mining magnate who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. An ardent white supremacist – no matter what revisionist historians and the right-wing press claim – he rose from being a sickly child to having a near-complete domination of the world diamond market. Come for the "private secretaries," stay for the Big Hole.  Visit our website for t-shirts, an episode archive, and a link to our Patreon. ----more---- SOURCES: Aldrich, Robert. Colonialism and Homosexuality. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2003. Brown, Robin. The Secret Society: Cecil John Rhodes' Plans for a New World Order. London: Penguin Books, 2015. Jourdan, Philip. Cecil Rhodes: His Private Life By His Private Secretary. London: Bodley Head, 1911. Rotberg, Robert I. The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Fre

Despite beginning his career as a member of the civil service ruling Britain's colonial empire, John Maynard Keynes was also a key member of London's cultural and artistic elite, the Bloomsbury Group, whose libertine approach to sexuality and relationships marked them out from their stuffy Victorian forebears. A patron of art, literature, opera and ballet, Keynes' economic writings would go on to make him one of the 20th century's most influential economists. Huw discusses the life and theories of John Maynard Keynes with Richard Power Sayeed, author of 1997: The Future That Never Happened (Zed Books, 2017). Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.  

The author of the iconic lesbian –– and trans –– novel The Well of Loneliness was born to privilege before consorting with suffragettes and radicals, embarking on scandalous lesbian affairs with singers, and writing the novel whose release and censorship would turn it into "the Lesbian bible" and them into "sapphic Jesus." But what problematic racial politics –– and flirtations with Fascism –– lie lurking in the biography of Radclyffe Hall, who offers a non-gay perspective on early 20th century theories of sexual inversion? Ben discusses these questions with special guest Dr. Jana Funke, co-editor of a critical edition of The Well of Loneliness set to be published by Oxford University Press in 2023.    Visit our website for t-shirts, an episode archive, and a link to our Patreon.   Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.

To close our season, the story of Lisa Miller, an American woman who gave birth to a child coparented with her partner Janet Jenkins, and then left Janet, became a self-proclaimed ex-lesbian, sued for single custody of their daughter, and when the courts decided against her, abducted their child and fled the country with the assistance of well-connected far-right pastors in 2009. Lisa and their daughter, Isabella, are still missing.  Visit our website for T-shirts, an episode archive, and more information about the show. If you have any information on the whereabouts of Lisa and/or Isabella, please contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. ----more---- SOURCES: Ball, Carlos A. The Right to Be Parents: LGBT Families and the Transformation of Parenthood. New York, NY: NYU Press, 2012.   Bollinger, Alex. “A Man Who Helped Kidnap a Lesbian’s Daughter Blames It All on Obama.” LGBTQ Nation, December 5, 2018. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/12/man-helped-kidnap-lesbians-daughter-blames-obama/

An essay on the Smiths frontman whose music and lyrics turned the abject aspects of the identities of so many queer teenagers into something that made them stand out and shine – and whose focus on working class cultures of masculinity began to turn towards the far right.  Visit our website for T-shirts, an episode archive, and more information about the show. ----more---- SOURCES: Bret, David. Morrissey: Scandal & Passion. London: Robson Book Ltd, 2004.   Goddard, Simon. Mozipedia: The Encyclopedia of Morrissey and The Smiths. 8/29/10 edition. New York: Plume, 2010.   Jonze, Tim. “Bigmouth Strikes Again and Again: Why Morrissey Fans Feel so Betrayed.” The Guardian, May 30, 2019, sec. Music. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/30/bigmouth-strikes-again-morrissey-songs-loneliness-shyness-misfits-far-right-party-tonight-show-jimmy-fallon.   Morrissey. Autobiography. 1 edition. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2013.   Reynolds, Simon. “Pale Ire.” Bookforum, March 2014. https://www.bookforum.com/print

In 1992, Aileen Carol Wuornos, an itinerant sex worker, was arrested for the murders of seven men in or near Volusia County, Florida in 1989 and 1990: all of them shot while Wuornos was on the job, all of them shot at point-blank range. She became, in the view of the public, according to the filmmaker Nick Broomfield, who made two documentaries about her and about the media storm that surrounded her, a "man-hating lesbian prostitute who tarnished the reputations of her victims,” a useful foil for family-values string-em-up-dead politicians who wanted to show that they were tough on crime–and an unlikely lesbian hero. Visit our website for T-shirts, an episode archive, and more information about the show. ----more---- SOURCES: Barrett-Ibarria, Sofia. “How Serial Killer Aileen Wuornos Became a Cult Hero.” Vice (blog), September 19, 2019. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbm3j4/how-serial-killer-aileen-wuornos-became-a-cult-hero.   Broomfield, Nick. Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. Documentary,

At the height of his career, today's subject was a national hero in the UK, knighted by George V. His life ended as a traitor and a pervert, executed by hanging in Pentonville Prison before being thrown in an unmarked grave in the prison yard, his body covered in quicklime. His name was Roger Casement, and we'll talk about his rise and fall, Britain’s hypocritical relationship with imperialism and colonialism, and secret black diaries full of "gentle thrusts" and "splendid erections."  Visit our website for T-shirts, an episode archive, and more information about the show. ----more---- SOURCES: Achebe, Chinua. An Image of Africa: And the Trouble with Nigeria. Penguin Great Ideas 100. London: Penguin Books, 2010.   Dudgeon, Jeffrey, and Roger Casement. Roger Casement: The Black Diaries : With a Study of His Background, Sexuality and Irish Political Life. Belfast, Northern Ireland: Belfast Press, 2016.   Goodman, Jordan. The Devil and Mr. Casement: One Man’s Battle for Human Rights in South America’s Heart of

Philip Cortelyou Johnson may be more responsible than anyone for the shift from Modernism as a new way of living to Modernism as an elite bauble. Born into immense power and privilege, he was a deeply committed elitist, and dilettante fascist, who used his money and connections to whitewash his youthful (and ongoing) embrace of Hitler in specific and far-right politics in general. As a key curator and preacher of the Modernist gospel in the United States, he was central in divorcing the style from its egalitarian political aspirations. In response to criticism, he said: “I am a whore. Very well paid.” Visit our website for T-shirts, an episode archive, and more information about the show. ----more---- SOURCES: Fixsen, Anna. “The Power and Paradox of Philip Johnson.” Metropolis, December 3, 2018. https://www.metropolismag.com/architecture/philip-johnson-biography-mark-lamster-interview/.   Goldberger, Paul. “A New Biography of the Architect Philip Johnson, the ‘Man in the Glass House.’” The New York Times, De

A fraud and liar of epic proportions: a dashing art forger whose difficulties selling his naturalistic work in the Modernist-dominated 20th century art market, and experience of persecution as a gay Jew in Central Europe during World War II, fueled the creation and sale of millions' worth of fake Picassos, Matisses, and other masterpieces: some of which are still hidden in major collections and museums.  ----more---- SOURCES: Forgy, Mark. The Forger's Apprentice: Life With the World's Most Notorious Artist. Scott's Valley, CA: CreateSpace, 2012. Keats, Jonathon. Forged: Why Fakes are the Great Art of our Age. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013. Martinique, Elena. 'Elmyr de Hory - The Story of the Most Famous Forger in Art History.' Widewall.Ch, June 19, 2019. https://www.widewalls.ch/elmyr-de-hory-art-forger/ Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music is by DJ 

On the "complicated" side of "evil and complicated" that makes up our show's motto, we present the story of the gravely-voiced Congressman who blazed trails for gay political involvement at the highest levels of power in Washington, only to spend the latter part of his career selling out the left to finance capital and excluding trans people from fights for non-discrimination legislation. Whip-smart, funny, and always ready with a biting comeback, Barney Frank came to embody the transformation of the Democratic Party away from the working class and towards a suburban party preoccupied with shallow diversity rather than true racial and economic justice. ----more---- SOURCES: Aloisi, James. “Louise Day Hicks: ‘You Know Where I Stand.’” CommonWealth Magazine, October 16, 2013. https://commonwealthmagazine.org/politics/012-louise-day-hicks-you-know-where-i-stand/.   Battenfeld, Joe. “Barney Frank Resurfaces, to the Dismay of Bernie Sanders.” Boston Herald, January 29, 2020. https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/01/2

The Anglo-Irish aristocrat, politician and statesman Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry: better known, like Bjork or Madonna, by his mononym - Castlereagh. A Whig politician, he was hated by the populations of both England and Ireland for his support of vicious repression against liberal, reformist, and radical politics and activism. Lord Byron put it best: "Posterity will ne'er survey / A nobler grave than this: / Here lie the bones of Castlereagh: / Stop, traveller, and piss." Like our show? Support us, buy cute shirts, and check out past episodes at www.badgayspod.com/ ----more---- SOURCES: Ackroyd, Peter. Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day. London, UK; New York, NY: Random House, 2017.   Bew, John. Castlereagh: A Life. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012.   Hyde, Harford Montgomery. The Strange Death of Lord Castlereagh. London, UK: Heinemann, 1959.   Kiernan, Victor. The Duel in European History: Honour and the Reign of Aristocracy. London, UK: Zed Books Ltd., 201

The United States of America's first gay – and worst – President. This bumbling slaveholder collaborated with the Confederacy, promoted the racist Dred Scott decision at the Supreme Court, and cohabited in Washington with a dashing Alabama Senator who, in the words of President Andrew Jackson was the "Aunt Nancy" to his "Aunt Fancy."  ----more---- Like our show? Support us, buy cute shirts, and check out past episodes at www.badgayspod.com/ Sources: Baker, Jean H. James Buchanan: The American Presidents Series: The 15th President, 1857-1861. Macmillan, 2004.   Balcerski, Thomas J. Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King. Oxford University Press, 2019.   Buchanan, James. Inaugural Address, March 4, 1857: https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-4-1857-inaugural-address   Katz, Jonathan. Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality. University of Chicago Press, 2001.   Watson, Robert P. Affairs of State: The Untold History of Presidential Lo

A man variously known as the “Iron Hedgehog” and a “malignant Dwarf”, but also as charming, courteous, and, most importantly “a good party man,” a man who held the position of the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs - the head of the NKVD during Stalin’s Great Purge - Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov. ----more---- Like our show? Support us, buy cute shirts, and check out past episodes at www.badgayspod.com/ Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929-1940. London: Verso, 2003.   "Gay in the Gulag." Libcom. https://libcom.org/history/gay-gulag   Getty, J. Arch, and Oleg V. Naumov. The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.   Getty, John Arch, and Oleg V. Naumov. Yezhov: The Rise of Stalin’s “Iron Fist.” New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.   Lewin, Moshe. The Soviet Century. London: Verso, 2005.   Montefiore, Simon Sebag. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. London: Hachette UK, 2010.    Weston, Fred. "From Emancipat