Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer star as Washingtonians forced to hide their blossoming connection in a hostile and homophobic D.C. The show captures the consequences of love, religious identity struggles, race relations, and how someone can be both used and beloved at the same time. An extremely powerful performance by Jelani Alladin weaves into the love story of Jonathan and Matt's characters, offering a perspective to an era and community we rarely hear from. 

As someone who had their own gay awakening in Washington D.C., it's pretty cool to see the city I grew to love find its footing as a gay hotspot. I recognize locations from my college days and laugh knowing how much secret gay activity went on in the infamous Foggy Bottom, where my very queer-friendly campus still sits. It isn’t hard to put ourselves in their shoes, but having the extra connection to the city made this show even more important for me to watch. 

The show follows wide-eyed Tim (Jonathan Bailey) falling for macho manly Hawk (Matthew Bomer) during the McCarthy era of cutthroat politics. Their performances, as well as the insanely steamy hookup scenes, make this show a worthy watch. But the queer experience of the 50s, when this show takes place, deserves special attention. I felt entertained, educated, and grateful for those who came before me thanks to Fellow Travelers. 

Let’s Watch Washington

Lindsey Graham and George Santos aside, the queer community has been thriving in DC for nearly a century and Fellow Travelers embraces that. Although undercover, due to America's homophobia that was amplified by threats from pro-communist leadership, it’s fascinating to see the characters compartmentalize their sexuality for the sake of their careers. It's something I’d never think about sacrificing, I can’t separate myself from this tentpole part of who I am. But for Tim and Hawk in this show and other closeted gay people in the 50s, being associated with a ‘known’ gay person was a career death sentence. So burying romance, killing the idea of a true happy ending, was the only way a lot of these people could move forward. 

An interesting part of this time period was that people were encouraged to out each other for the sake of protecting the country. Incentives for outing other closeted people bred a firestorm of mistrust around the city of D.C. and the queer community at large. We see how the government tried turning queer people against each other. We see the consequences of this in episode one when Matt Bomer’s one-night stand is offered as a sacrifice to bury a higher-level politician’s scandal. Self-preservation vs selfishness is a big theme in the show. And quite literally people would receive lavender slips in their work mail if they were suspected of being anything other than straight. You’d be called for a humiliating public hearing and a total invasion of your privacy, outside the office, would begin. 

A Dangerous Past

The series goes on to explore how invasive and disturbing the government treats ‘suspected’ gay people. They refer to us as mentally disturbed, forcing our community to delve into underground meetups and open secret clubs. While they seem fun on the outside like a 20s speakeasy, partying with an aura of threat is never a vibe to strive for. These ironically secret yet inclusive bars would get raided if the police bribes weren’t accepted. Officers would fully break into your home, dig through your personal items, and even take note of the number of mattresses you share with your ‘roommate’. Other ‘suspected deviants’ were subjected to intimate questioning with a lie detector test, asked personal questions about their sex habits, and were put under a homophobic microscope to crack. These resilient people were always living on the precipice of getting caught, which makes me more appreciative to be able to hold another guy’s hand out in daylight today. Back then, it was dangerous to even go to an apartment party hosted by a suspected gay person, let alone an underground nightclub that narrowly permits PDA. Being careful is paramount and watchful eyes, which benefit from outing you, are always lurking in seedy 50s DC. 

Reality Lurks 

The reality of that time in America, when being gay was enough to disgrace a family and folks turned to conversion therapy for an impossible ‘cure’, is sadly not too far off from the place we exist in today. Thankfully young questioning and queer folks can be educated and learn that there are safe places for them to thrive. With protections for marginalized groups like women and queer community being stripped by Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court, it’s hard to see how far we’ve come from the events in Fellow Travelers. But I see how hard the people then paved the way for us, and I’ll continue being unapologetically gay in their awesome honor. I hope you join me in doing the same.  

The true tragedy in this already sorrow-filled mini-series is the time jump between the 50s and 80s when the AIDS crisis was ravaging the gay community. From government negligence to a bureaucratic hatred of queer people, research on HIV and AIDS was at a minimum for years. This led millions of queer people, an entire generation of people, to feel the wrath of this seemingly unstoppable disease. When it’s finally understood how HIV can be passed, avoided, and somewhat managed, the characters are in a place where their time together is short. It’s a heartbreaking watch to see the future they could have had, represented by the happy same-sex couples walking past them in bustling San Francisco before more medical complications push the two to dire circumstances. There’s a movie trope called ‘bury your gays’ which calls attention to the fact that queer characters usually end up dying in movies and television. Given the subject matter and real-world inspiration, I don’t consider Fellow Travelers as falling short as that trope suggests. 

Claps for Jelani Alladin

Another character deserves quite the spotlight, Marcus Gaines played by Jelani Alladin. A Black journalist who endures desegregation in D.C. and the terrible loopholes white business owners would jump through, he turns their prejudice into his power by writing of the atrocities. Propelled to more prominent writing opportunities, Marcus struggles with how the white-centric Washington Post is hammering down his creativity and experiences. He also is juggling a tumultuous relationship with an incredibly talented bar singer, Frankie Hines played by Noah Ricketts. Frankie's femme personality and look make Marcus question his identity further, made only more complicated by the crackdown on gay people during that time. Marcus learns to never sacrifice his voice, love the wonderful femme Frankie, and support Tim through his woes with Hawk. The performance delivered by Alladin, capturing the unspoken shame many men of that era must’ve felt for being different, is insightful and powerful.   

So go watch Fellow Travelers and learn about queer history. So many people were wiped from the planet during the apex of the AIDS crisis and their stories shouldn’t be lost with them. Whether you know it or not, queer folks 50 years ago are the reason we can be here today.