Bob Connelly is an adjunct professor at American University, where he teaches LGBTQ+ media representation and history. Along the way, he got to know Frank Kameny, who in 1957 was fired from his job with the Army Map Service because of his sexuality. Kameny subsequently led the fight against the government’s homophobic employment policies and helped found the DC chapter of the Mattachine Society, a gay-rights group. He also created the slogan “Gay Is Good,” seen on picket signs back in the day. In a letter to President Kennedy, Kameny wrote, “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.” Kameny died in 2011. Here, Connelly remembers him.
“It was December 2008. Two days before class, I invited Frank to speak to my students. We’d been studying his activism all semester. I emailed everybody and asked that a couple students meet us to escort him to our classroom while I parked. Nobody wrote back, and I was really nervous.
“There’s a driveway where you can pull in from Nebraska Avenue, but no parking lot there. This is a man who’s 83— I’m thinking, ‘I can pull into that driveway, but I can’t leave my car and take him up, so I hope someone’s going to be there.’
“Every single student was waiting outside. It was 32 degrees, yet they were there, and they brought friends.
“They took him to the classroom, and he was magnificent. He sat there with this legal-sized pad with a list of things to talk about. He’d come to an end of one story, then check that off. Then he’d tell the next story and check it off. He had a very scientific mind, so he was ticking the boxes. [Once] I had to interview him for a documentary. I said, ‘I’ll be there at 2.’ He said, ‘Make it 2:03.’ I had no idea why, so I arrived at 2, then sat in my car and waited three minutes to go ring the bell. So he was very meticulous.
“After Frank’s talk to my students, I said, ‘Are there any questions?’ Nobody asked a question, so I asked Frank, ‘Is there anything that, above everything else, you want to be remembered for?’ He said, ‘I want to be remembered for the phrase “Gay Is Good.” ’
“I went and got the car from the parking garage. The students walked him down to the street. I drove Frank home—he lived less than a mile away, ten minutes back and forth. When I got back, I said to the students, ‘Why didn’t you ask any questions?’ They looked at me like, ‘We did not know what to say. We were so mesmerized, we couldn’t open our mouths.’
“That’s when you realize you’re being a catalyst for the stories that are really important, especially to LGBTQ+ youth. I want the pioneers to be remembered.”
This article appears in the May 2026 issue of Washingtonian.
Samantha is an Editorial Fellow at the Washingtonian and a senior at American University, studying Political Science and Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies. She lives in Washington, D.C.
