Head Figure Head:
The Search for the Hidden Life of Rick Perry
By Glen Maxey
Copyright © 2011 Glen Maxey
All rights reserved.
ISBN:
ISBN-13: 978-1468025989
DEDICATION
To the courageous gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and questioning young people who will take up the cause and the fight
for full equality for our community.
Always remember what anthropologist Margaret Mead said:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Go out and change the world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to everyone who answered their emails
Cheers to spectacular editors
Kudos to the lawyers
Hat tip to the Graphics Guy
a place in heaven or Hell (his choice) to my Personal lawyer who Held my hand and other things
A Relief for my Legion of friends who no longer have to listen to me talk incessently about this book
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: The Approach
My Coming Out Story
First Contact
Ancient Gay History
Part II: Casual Encounters
Geoff Connor
Joey The Hustler
Dead-End Leads
Bob's Friend
Underwear, Shorts, and Jogging
Coyote Legend
Straight Reporters Investigating Gays
Former Legislator
Two Guys in a Field of Bluebonnets
James
Department of Perry Secrets?
July Heat, Barton Springs
What is "Gay"?
Field Trip to Bastrop
Gay Bars and Gay Downsizing
Jogging Through Craigslist
Loose Ends and New Leads
Prime Source
Part III: Burden of Proof
The Rolling Stone
Flynt Offers $1 Million
Roller Coaster Ride
Up Again, Down Again
An Initial Perry Attack
A Lawyer for Joey
Robby Appears, Disappears
Joey Responds
Focus on Joey
National Enquirer
Talking to Joey's Austin Lawyer
Competition on the Trail
More Non-Progress
The Competition, Again
Restless Natives
The Journalist and Joey's Lawyers
Fox Gnaws on Perry
The Drop-Dead Tactic
Stalled
Success!!!
Failure
Aftermath
Part IV: What It TakeS
Introduction
One of the most discussed and dismissed rumors among Texas political types pertains to whether or not Rick Perry has had homosexual encounters. Most Capitol insiders heard the gossip about Geoff Connor and the rumored near-dissolution of Perry’s marriage to Anita in 2003. Those of us who have been a part of Austin’s GLBT community since the late 1980s have heard other men claim to have hooked up with the Governor. Newspapers and opposition researchers have tried to prove those connections for over a decade, but none of the supposed male partners or their confidantes wanted to go on the record about being fucked by Rick Perry—and inevitably face the scrutiny and public spotlight of a high-profile “outing.”
Of course, millions of Texans are readily willing to admit they’ve been metaphorically fucked by Rick Perry. But few of them have stories that involve $200-an-hour hustlers.
When the rumors began recirculating in advance of Perry’s presidential campaign announcement, journalists started poking into the old stories. Some reporters naturally called me, Glen Maxey, the first and only openly gay State Representative in Texas. I, in turn, activated my political and GLBT gossip circles and started compiling a list of two decades’ worth of Rick’s rumored tricks, and set out to find out the truth.
What began as idle curiosity on my part became an all-consuming investigation, fueled by Perry’s growing hypocrisy on GLBT issues. For most of his career as a Legislator, Agriculture Commissioner, Lieutenant Governor and even Governor, Perry wasn’t overtly anti-gay in his policies or rhetoric. He even signed a hate crimes act in Texas that had been killed in the Texas Senate at the request of the previous Governor, George W. Bush. Yet by 2005, Perry was using homophobia as a tool to pander to the religious right, staging an elaborate signing ceremony for Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage. The hypocrisy of Perry’s blatant efforts to use the lives of GLBT Texans as a political wedge issue while he himself was rumored to be engaging in clandestine homosexual encounters provided ample motivation for me to keep digging and pushing until these stories come to light.
Through my initial investigation, Perry’s campaign ramped up and he surged to the lead in the national polls. That further complicated matters: suddenly potential sources thought they had a story to sell. Why should they tell me when some tabloid might pay a higher price? Before I could get my best source, his lawyers, and a publisher to come to terms, Perry plummeted in the polls. By the time he couldn’t remember the third federal agency he’d eliminate, my story seemed dead in the water. Rick Perry managed to singlehandedly strangle his own campaign, and in the process he more or less smothered my potential tell-all about his homosexual proclivities.
What follows is the story of my failed efforts to expose Rick Perry’s homosexual encounters in the national press. It’s the tale of simple curiosity aroused by a reporter’s questions about a past alleged sexual scandal and of how complicated it is to find the answers to those questions. Over the course of my efforts to discover Rick Perry’s secret homosexual past, I learned a lot about not only many of his alleged former partners, but also the difficulty in exposing them to the wider public, particularly in a state where so many individuals’ jobs and livelihoods depend on not incurring the wrath of Texas’ longest-serving governor and his massive network of cronies, appointees, and henchmen.
It’s also the tale of the growing visibility of the GLBT movement in Texas, and the tension between the right to privacy of public figures and the potential forfeiture of privacy when hypocrisy about sexuality is used as a political tool.
When I started my investigation, the first question I asked myself was, “Can I prove that Rick Perry has had sex with men?” The second question I asked was, “Will I ever be able to share this research widely enough to affect the candidacy of a hypocritical candidate?”
Because you are reading this, you just became at least a part of the answer to the latter question.
Part I: The Approach.
Late in the spring of 2011, an editor at National News Outlet read an article on Politico.com that mentioned the old rumors about Rick Perry’s sexuality and how those stories would resurface if he ran for President. The editor had been told about these rumors a political conference, so when he read that Perry’s team was “more than prepared for a re-airing of unsubstantiated rumors,” that was like waving a red flag in front of an angry bull.
My Coming Out Story
But before we delve into stories about Perry’s homosexual encounters, first let me provide some background on my own place in Texas GLBT history. In 2003 I retired after six terms as the first (and still only) openly gay State Representative in Texas. Before holding office, back in the mid 1980s I was a closeted legislative aide for a Texas State Senator, Oscar H. Mauzy. At the time HIV and AIDS had exploded on the scene, roiling up considerable political turmoil in conservative Texas. From my closet, I had stepped out slightly to become an activist, but initially only to help the first men in Austin who were identified as infected. In late 1985 the Commissioner of the Texas Department of Health called for a new rule allowing for the permanent quarantine of Texans “suspected of being infected” with this new gay related immune deficiency, later to become known as HIV and AIDS.
My boss represented Oak Lawn, the Dallas gay ghetto. When gay leaders in Dallas called Senator Mauzy for help blocking this rule, I handled their calls. When I told Mauzy that someone needed to organize the opposition to the TDH rule proposal, the Senator replied dryly, “That someone is you.”
I organized the hearing before the Texas Department of Health, and we won the issue. The proposal was withdrawn. That result garnered lots of press, and I stepped in front of a bank of national network television cameras to talk about the victory. Later that night, while watching the news, I was shocked to see “Glen Maxey, Gay Activist” in yellow letters superimposed over my chest. I had, in a flash, been outed to the nation, to the Senator, to my own mother, and everyone I knew. Sen. Mauzy was running for the Texas Supreme Court in 1986, and at the end of the year I would be out of a job when his Senate term ended. In the ensuing weeks, every job offer I had from other State Senators evaporated. In Texas in 1986, “gay activist” was not a prime job qualification.
When you are given lemons, you make lemonade. Seemingly overnight I went from being a closeted staffer to being the leading openly gay GLBT activist in Texas. Within a year, local gay and lesbian leaders from across Texas formed an advocacy group. When our organization needed a staffer, I stepped forward and was hired as the first full-time lobbyist and Executive Director of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas—now Equality Texas.
Around the same time our GLBT political movement started in Texas, Rick Perry was elected to the Legislature and came to Austin in 1985 as a new Democratic State Representative from a rural west Texas district centered around Haskell County, Texas. I noticed him, but not because of his politics or stature. For the most part, Perry was a small-town cotton farmer and legislative back-bencher. What I do remember distinctly is that I thought he was the hottest, tightest-Wrangler-wearing cowboy legislator that a closeted gay guy would want to have around as eye candy. In fact, in 1989 I participated in a straw poll with the female lobbyists (being, naturally, the only openly gay male lobbyist at the time) to pick the legislator with the best buns. I nominated Perry, and he won unanimously.
But back to the story at hand.
First Contact
The editor at National News Outlet assigned a reporter, hereafter “The Journalist,” to check out the rumors and stories about Perry’s sexual dalliances. Having already built a solid reputation as a determined investigative reporter, The Journalist was just the person to doggedly chase down decades-old rumors about the potential GOP candidate’s past. He started with an old blog post on Burnt Orange Report, a website started by University of Texas students. In 2004 BOR detailed rumors surrounding Perry’s homosexual encounters. (The post has since been deleted.) The Journalist contacted BOR’s current publisher, Karl-Thomas Musselman, who referred him to me.
When my phone rang, I was relaxing in my small apartment in Central Austin. It was The Journalist, who was calling to ask what I knew about Perry’s sexual past. I offered to tell him what little I knew, adding that the stories had already been told to dozens of reporters since the 2004 BOR post and to various opposition researchers, most recently during the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, when Bill White ran a tough campaign against Perry but still came up short.
My answer to The Journalist was, “I know two things. I know the same things that everyone else has heard about Rick Perry, Geoff Connor, and Anita Perry’s divorce attorney. And I know what random gay men told me in late 1989 and 1990.”
Ancient Gay History
By 1990, I was the most prominent and visible GLBT activist in Texas. I was on television almost weekly addressing GLBT issues and engaging in huge debates on HIV/AIDS legislation at the Capitol. About this time, I was also volunteering for the efforts in Travis County (which includes Austin) to support Ann Richards’s gubernatorial campaign.
As I told The Journalist, during those early years of public GLBT advocacy, on multiple occasions gay men asked me about Rick Perry while I was out socializing and networking in local gay bars. They would always start with something like: “Hey, aren’t you Glen Maxey, the guy who works at the Capitol?” After I confirmed my identity, they followed with an oft-repeated inquiry: “Do you know a representative named Rick Perry?” I’d reply that I did, often with a comment about his bubble butt or some other gay-oriented remark. They responded in several ways. “Well, I’m messing around with him.” Or, “My friend is hooking up with him.” This happened at least four times in Austin’s newly opened gay bar, Oil Can Harry’s, and I distinctly remember the men calling Rick Perry by name.
Because my policy was (and still is) not to “out” people, and Rick Perry was at the time a harmless legislator as far as the gay Lobby was concerned, I would always reply “lucky you” or some other dish remark. It never occurred to me to note the guys’ names and I don’t remember any of them being men known to me before the conversations.
I told The Journalist these stories and said I would give him a call if anything else came to mind. But his inquiry planted a seed. I thought about Perry’s decidedly right-wing detour since his first term as Governor, his growing anti-GLBT agenda and willingness to use the community as a wedge political issue, and his willingness to associate himself with people and organizations that have a history of inflaming bigotry against GLBT individuals. I started to wonder what I could do to find the evidence supporting the truth of the two stories. If anyone had the Rolodex and gay gossip network to prove these rumors, it was me. I have been around Texas politics for over forty years. I had worked on over a hundred campaigns, from precinct chair to President, worked as an aide to two Texas Senators, as a gay-rights lobbyist, and served six terms in the Legislature. (I had even been elected as the last Travis County Inspector of Hides and Animals in 1986. I ran as a lark, succeeding the previous inspector, who had been elected 90 years earlier in 1896—then I helped abolish the office.)