Amazon Is Making a TV Series About the Birth of the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement

Eric Cervini’s The Deviant's War, an award-winning book about a seminal figure in pre-Stonewall LGBTQ+ history, is getting the limited series treatment, as Variety first reported.

The bestselling history tome, which follows the story of early gay civil rights activist Frank Kameny, will be adapted by playwright Matthew López (The Inheritance) for Amazon Studios and Plan B Entertainment, a production company owned by Brad Pitt.

Kameny, an astronomer with a Ph.D from Harvard, was arrested by a pair of police officers for cruising in a public restroom in 1956 and charged with “lewd conduct.” A year later, he was hired by the U.S. Army Map Service, only to be fired months later after being confronted about his arrest record and refusing to clarify his sexual orientation.

Kameny devoted the remainder of his life devoted to activism, from protesting with the Mattachine Society, an early homophile group, to speaking out about the erasure of LGBTQ+ activism in history books during the final years of his life. While Kameny is a central figure in the book, The Deviant’s War also explores other crucial figures in early LGBTQ+ activism, like Ernestine Eppenger, Barbara Gittings, Sylvia Rivera, and Marsha P. Johnson.

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I read The Deviant's War last year. It is very good and an easy read, and full of history that MOST people, including queer ones, are unfamiliar. Hopefully, they don't fuck this up!