Spy gays
In another reversal of the Biden administration’s expansion of federal protections for LGBTQ+ Americans, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has eliminated language in internal documents prohibiting the surveillance of individuals or groups based solely on their sexual orientation or gender identity, Bloomberg reports.
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The terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” which were added to the list of protected groups and individuals at the guide of the Biden administration, acquire been removed.
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Language in the manual now reads, “OSIC [Open Source Intelligence Collection] Personnel are prohibited from engaging in intelligence activities based solely on an individual’s or group’s race, ethnicity, sex, religion, region of birth, nationality, or disability. Th
Once clubby U.K. spy service seeks gay recruits
Britain's home spy agency wants queer recruits to know: It's time to come out of the closet.
After shunning them for decades over worries of blackmail, MI5 is now asking homosexual and lesbian people to consider a career as a spy, promising the chance to fight terrorists, protect their country — and earn a decent salary, plus benefits.
As part of an ongoing recruitment drive, MI5 is already wooing women, minorities and people with language skills. The fact that they're now reaching out to Britain's gay community is long overdue, said Peter Tatchell, a London-based queer rights activist.
"Until a decade ago, gay people were seen as a security threat, and as recently as two decades ago, they were being witch hunted and sacked from the security services," he said Monday.
"It was part of the Cold War mentality that saw security threats, traitors, and spies everywhere," he said. "Gay people were regarded as vulnerable to blackmail, even if they were unlocked and out about their sexuality."
‘They're not John le Carre’
The spy agency is shakin
Top LGBTQ+ Spy Movies & Series From London Spy to Atomic Blonde
Quantico ()
Named after the FBI training center in Virginia, Quantico follows the young FBI recruits training in Virginia. All are hiding a covert and one of them is suspected of being a sleeper terrorist. MI6 officer Harry Doyle (Russell Tovey) joins as part of an exchange program between the Covert Intelligence Service and later trains as a CIA recruit at the Farm. (Apple TV, Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, Disney+)
MOVIES
Ungentle ()
Fans of Ben Whishaw (and who isn't?) will also hope for to check out Ungentle. Huw Lemmey's film short examines the connection between British espionage and male homosexuality, displaying overlaps in their skill sets during midth-century Britain. The film is narrated by a unreal, composite spy figure with narration by Ben Whishaw. (Mubi)
Skyfall ()
“There’s a first time for everything,” Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) sighs. “What makes you ponder this is my first time?” Bond (Daniel Craig) replies without
By the late s, the East German secret police (the Stasi) started to see Germany’s gay subculture as both a threat and an opportunity for intelligence work. Western espionage services had long sought to exploit this subculture, recruiting agents and informants from Berlin's gay bars and cruising locales. After 20 years of run-ins with gay Western agents, Stasi officials began to recruit their own male lover spies, men who they hoped could use their sexuality as a means to meet new contacts, penetrate Western society, and gather intelligence.
Join us for a talk by Samuel Clowes Huneke, author of States of Liberation: Queer Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. He will attention on how both Eastern and Western intelligence agencies sought to recruit same-sex attracted men because they believed that they were naturally more conspiratorial and would thus make better agents. They also came to see the class-crossing lgbtq+ subcultures of German cities, especially Berlin, as perfect sites from which to extract information about politics and military matters. Huneke explores previous