Every now and then, I found out something exciting. Something that I didn’t previously know about. Something that probably lots of people know about already, but I didn’t!

When this happens, I simply have to share.

So today what I found out, was that the US Navy once wasted a shitload of money trying to “find Dorothy.”

It was the 1980s. The Navy was on a mission to crack down on all those darn homosexuals, and boy were there a lot of gay men to purge! They spent a bunch of money sending operatives to gay bars to try and catch gay men in the act of being fabulous. These henchmen noticed that a lot of the gay sailors would refer to themselves as a “friend of Dorothy”. The overwhelming genius of the Naval Intel service decided they would henceforth find this “Dorothy” woman and make her give up names of all the gay sailors she knew, so they could discharge them from the Navy.

Figuring that “Dorothy” was some kind of 1980s Grindr in woman form, who put gays in touch with other gays, the Intel service kept sending their henchmen to gay bars to try and crack the case about where to find her. However, they were never able to locate “Dorothy”, and in the process, wasted a bunch of taxpayer money posing as gay men out on the piss.

If you haven’t by now guessed, “Dorothy” was just a reference to Dorothy Gale from The Wizard Of Oz, and stating that one was a “friend of Dorothy” was just gay code to reveal to another gay man that you were dtf.

Just for those wondering, they didn’t worry about lesbians, with the Vice Admiral at the time stating that “Experience has shown that the stereotypical female homosexual in the Navy is hard-working, career-oriented, willing to put in long hours on the job and among the command’s top professionals.”

FUCKING LOL.

Love, Akika, Friend of Dorothy.