LGBTQIA+ History [Podcast]

LGBTQIA+ History [Podcast]

 

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Some people might think that the LGBTQIA+ rights movement began with the Stonewall Riots. To be sure, it was a major event – but the movement began long before that. Eric Marcus, host of Making Gay History, joins Alex and Phil as we listen to the stories of longtime actvists Leona and Richard, and do a deeper dive into the origins of the gay rights movement and the seminal events that defined it. We also learn more about the background behind Making Gay History and how sharing our community’s stories can enrich future generations and even help combat bullying.

 

Transcript provided by YouTube:

00:09
Phil: Hey, this is Phil aka Corinne.
00:11
Alex: And I’m Alex Berg and you are  listening to the I’m From Driftwood podcast.
00:15
If you just can’t get enough of I’m From  Driftwood, go check out its YouTube channel.
00:19
The stories have tens of millions of  views and over 100,000 subscribers
00:24
and a new story is uploaded every week. You  can also browse every story its ever published
00:30
since it launched in 2009. Speaking of  stories, let’s get to today’s episode.
00:38
Phil: So on today’s show, we’re talking  at about LGBTQIA+ history. The first
00:44
storyteller we hear from is Leona,  a longtime activist in Philadelphia.
00:50
Leona: When I first came out in ’85,
00:54
I came out into a fairly supportive  area, community. Looking back I now
00:58
know how many of these things were the first  of type of things. Like my first gay pride
01:06
was in ’86. I was at New York gays Pride.  And then something that year you could start
01:13
hearing bubbling up shortly after Pride, a lot  of people talking about what was going to be a
01:18
March on Washington that it was time to stand up  and speak out for rights and to really demand.
01:25
It very much like the civil rights March had  happened years prior in the ’60s that we were
01:32
going to do a similar type of things. And it  was initially, almost like this slow, you could
01:37
hear scurrying and people talking about it. And  then all of a sudden you just fell out this huge
01:43
wave of people saying, yeah, we’re going.  Yeah, we’re going to go, let’s do this.
01:48
A few of us originally said, well,  we have a bunch of us who want to go,
01:52
why would we not get a bus? Let’s see if  we can’t get a bus and fill it. And we were
01:57
thinking one bus and so did some research, we  found one of the bus companies, we hired a bus,
02:03
started selling tickets. This was before the  internet. So there was no way to broadcast and
02:09
advertise it to the general population.  Within 24 hours that first bus was full.
02:15
So we called and got a second bus and that  bus filled almost immediately. And we called
02:19
and got a third bus and we got a fourth  bus. And every time we called another bus
02:23
and people would buy the ticket for  it, we’d call and get another bus.
02:26
And eventually, before it was all said and done,  we had over 20 buses coming out of Philadelphia.
02:32
When we got there and they were lining up the  buses in RFK old stadium to be able to get over
02:40
and get people over to where the marchers going  to start. And everywhere you looked around,
02:45
there was nothing but buses. And it is a feeling  of one of the first times I think that that many
02:53
of us ever got together. I know it ended up being  one of the largest marches on Washington anywhere
02:58
but just that feeling, first of getting there  and seeing that many buses coming in and the
03:02
logistics challenges we were having about  getting everybody to where they needed to be.
03:07
It’s one thing to, to try and get many  people there. But then we had to get
03:10
everybody from the buses through all the Metro  systems and to the start of the March. And
03:16
one is, it was just a matter of cooperation  and everybody helping each other get where
03:19
they needed to be. But just everywhere  you looked around, there was this sea
03:23
of LGBT folks and at that time we didn’t use  LGBTQ+, it was gay and lesbian. But there was just
03:29
everywhere you could see. There was every walk of  life you can imagine was coming over those hills.
03:33
Every walk of life was showing up  and lining up at the beginning of the
03:39
March to get everything together. As we stepped  off and Philadelphia marched off as a collective
03:46
group, somebody had brought down a banner  that said Philadelphia Marches on Washington.
03:51
And a large part of our group grabbed that  banner and took off down the roads together.
03:59
Not only were we taking over the streets,  there were so many of us trying to walk
04:02
together. There was so much going on. We  were spilling over into the sidewalks. We
04:05
were literally just coming down and it  was just this huge force of people that
04:10
just kept moving. We were starting  to push into crowds. We had people
04:14
starting to show up who weren’t expecting  to have an LGBTQ March happening that day.
04:19
And instinctively those of us who were a little  larger, particularly those of us on the rugby team
04:25
started to step out towards the edge of the  sides and really to form that barrier to make
04:31
sure that if somebody tried to come make a run  or try to cut through the March, that they were
04:36
directed in another direction and help keep  people’s space. But really, just that whole
04:41
feeling of just getting everybody to the March,  getting everybody down there, it was a long day
04:48
of activities, but it was just really one of  cohesive support as a community of showing up.
04:55
We got out to the end of the March and we’re able  to get to the capital and to the areas at the end,
05:05
out on the constitutional out the mall. And  seeing that mall just filled with that many people
05:11
was one of those amazing sites and the speakers  and things that… The day was so intense,
05:18
I honestly don’t remember necessarily what anyone  speaker said or when we were done. It was the
05:21
feeling of the eclectic group, the energy that was  there of one that you knew it was making a change,
05:26
making a difference that this was somehow  different than anything that had happened before.
05:31
This was one of those things aren’t going  to go back. They’re not going to go…
05:36
It’s a step forward and it’s a permanent  step forward. There were too many of us
05:40
who are willing to basically show up and  stand up and say, this is who we are.
05:47
This is what we’re doing. We don’t care  who’s around. We don’t care who sees us.
05:50
We are going to say that you really  need to treat us like human beings.
05:53
One of the really great things that came out  of it is, a year later, they decided to create
05:59
National Coming Out Day in October. And it is  absolutely one of my favorite holidays. Basically,
06:03
as that first celebration of National Coming Out  Day was coming together with the different cities.
06:08
Philadelphia, we put together a small  gathering in front of Giovanni’s Room,
06:12
which was about three quarters of the block in  front of a Giovanni’s room, which is the LGBTQ
06:19
bookstore that was there and was able to have  our organization from the student organizations
06:26
come together, many other organizations  were there and people started to show out.
06:29
That was the first of the out the  National Coming Out Day celebrations
06:35
and in Philadelphia, that’s now to become Outfest,  which is the largest celebration in October
06:42
of National Coming Out Day anywhere in the  world. One of the things that was really cool is
06:47
much later, there was an exhibit in the  national archives, which was the first
06:52
ever LGBTQ exhibit ever in the national  archives called speaking out for equality.
06:57
And the very first thing you saw when you walked  into that national archives at the constitution
07:03
center, and [inaudible] was a picture of the  group in Philadelphia with a big sign that
07:08
said Philadelphia Marches on Washington. And  at the very edge, there’s a woman who’s there
07:13
with a maroon and keel blue rugby shirt on who  isn’t me, but it’s one of my teammates who was
07:20
there. And that was the start of our group,  where we had formed up to put all that set there.
07:28
I know I was within five feet of that picture.  It was one of those things that you just will
07:31
never forget the site of seeing that many people  show up after being told for so many years that
07:37
we didn’t exist. We were the  outcasts, we were the ones that were
07:42
going to be scorned on, never be  able, accepted anywhere. And to see
07:49
hundreds of thousands, I believe they ended  up with almost a million. I don’t remember
07:52
the exact count of people but it was one  of the largest marches in Washington ever.
07:56
And to see that there, it didn’t  surprise me be because what I saw was,
08:00
just this huge wave of energy of  people saying, it is time for us to
08:05
stand up and come together and make this a part  of, we are part of this country, we are part of
08:12
this community. We are part of who’s here.  And that it is definitely time for a change.
08:17
Phil: I mean, Alex, this story building you  with pride. I was welling up with a pride
08:21
as I listened to this story, because you can feel  it coming off of Leona as she was talking and
08:26
you could just see her being like, I was  there while this happened. This is a part
08:31
of history. This has been documented. And I was  literally five feet from this amazing exhibit.
08:36
Alex: Well, I think the thing that really  crystallized it all was when she said she
08:39
doesn’t even remember, it’s such an extraordinary  breathtaking moment that she couldn’t even absorb
08:45
all the speakers. To me, I understood that kind  of visceral reaction to something that it’s all
08:50
just happening around you. And it was also  just a reminder that we’re at a stage where
08:54
I think to a certain extent, we almost  take something like Outfest for granted.
08:57
Even she was, the turnout for the March  was unexpected to her and that these things
09:02
aren’t institutionalized and that they’re  carried on because there is the momentum
09:06
and investment from the people who are part  of them. So it was just really cool to hear
09:10
it come together. And then also, a reminder  that as she was describing the different buses,
09:15
when you’re in the midst of something,  you don’t know how big it’s going to be,
09:19
or how much of an action it’s going to be, or  you don’t wake up in the morning and you say,
09:22
I’m going to be part of this huge historical  event when you’re participating in these
09:26
marches and such. And so it was really cool to get  to go to the front lines through her perspective.
09:30
Phil: Yeah. I think the other  thing that was amazing was,
09:33
she talks about how there was so much of a  cohesiveness amongst the group because they
09:37
were all there with this common cause in their  hearts. So they just found a way to make it work
09:42
and to make sure that everyone got from the buses  to where they wanted to go and where they were
09:45
marching. The amount of cohesiveness amongst the  collective was, I just think it’s fascinating.
09:53
Up next, we have Richard, a New York  City based activist who participated
09:58
in a number of public demonstrations in the  ’70s on behalf of queer and trans rights.
10:03
Richard: It must have been about 19, probably  71, maybe ’70 I’m bad at dates but in that time
10:10
period. And I was a part of the Gay Activists  Alliance in New York and the mayor of New York at
10:19
that time, John Lindsay was very much a liberal  but liberals even at that time were people who
10:27
would quietly try to help but would never be  public. And we knew that it was important for
10:34
gay rights, that it’d be public, that, that  little quiet sh on the side wasn’t sufficient.
10:40
So the Gay Activists Alliance had  a many month campaign to do that
10:46
to John Lindsay. And on one of these  occasions, it was gay pride week of
10:50
that year. And we decided to harass  him, I think is probably the right word
10:56
for that entire week. John Lindsay at that time  was, it was early primary season. John Lindsay
11:02
was going to run for president. And so, he had  this big fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall.
11:09
We were going to do two things. We were going  to certainly have tickets outside loud, pickets,
11:14
shouting, screaming, but we also had managed  to get a half dozen or five or six tickets
11:22
to the event itself. We were going to do  a disruption inside Radio City Music Hall
11:27
as well as this demonstration outside. The  way this was going to work. It was the world
11:34
premier of the film Hot Rock. So it was in  conjunction at that at Radio City Music Hall.
11:40
So of course, before the film though, they were  going to do speeches. So first, out on the stage
11:45
was a very popular liberal comic, comedian at the  time by the name of Alan King. So he came up to
11:52
the mic, did a few jokes and then introduced mayor  John Lindsay. He steps to the side, John Lindsay
11:58
comes out, steps up to the microphone. And as  he begins to speak, not all of us inside but
12:05
one person, the first one being, I believe Cora  [inaudible 00:12:10], stands up and starts yelling
12:12
“John Lindsay, what are you going to do about  the oppression of gays in New York City?”
12:16
Of course, there are cops and security people who  are going for her immediately to get her out of
12:20
there. We all had very popular at the time for  some really ridiculous reason was these handheld
12:27
sirens, which somehow were supposed to  protect you from a mugging or something.
12:32
You could pull pin on the siren and it would go  off. Each of us had one of those. So as they’re
12:38
almost about ready to grab Cora, she pulls  the pin, throws the pin in one direction
12:42
and the siren in another, and of course  gets led out of Radio City Music Hall.
12:49
John Lindsay comes back and  starts again. The second person,
12:53
stood up and did the same routine. And there  were four or five of us who were able to do that.
12:58
It forced John Lindsay off the stage to replace  by actually a cartoon, which was preceding
13:05
the film that they were showing. So a bunch of  our people also wound up being in the balcony.
13:11
And as we were doing this down below giving John  Lindsay a hard time, they just took a bunch of
13:17
flyers and went over the seats and  that raining down from the balcony.
13:23
I think I remember Radio City Music Hall in  particular, among a host of other actions
13:29
that we did because it just had everything in  there. It certainly had a just cause. It had
13:37
a sense of power in it. It had theatrics in it.  It had a certain cleverness in how we did it.
13:44
When I tell stories about that as we call them  various actions, I think what I’m trying to say
13:52
is, aside from the fact that it’s a  lovely memory that I like to remember,
13:56
what I’m trying to say is  that we had a great deal.
14:00
There’s a great deal of fun  in standing up for yourself
14:03
for any of the issues today,  whether it’s LGBT rights or others,
14:08
do it, it sets up your life in a way that you will  enjoy and be proud of. So get out there and do it.
14:17
Phil: What struck me about this story was this,
14:20
talking about John Lindsay and some of the  allies or the LGBTQ community at that time
14:26
and how they were quietly, they were  stealthy being allies. They weren’t
14:30
outright in their actions, in their words, with  standing with the community. His thought was,
14:35
that just won’t work. In order for us to really  have change, we need outright displays. We need
14:39
you to actually publicly support the community  and come out and say that you’re with us.
14:44
It’s not okay for you… it’s like being with  somebody on the down low. I don’t know how else
14:48
to put it. It’s like, I’m going to love you  off to the side. I am not going to love you
14:53
publicly. And it’s the same thing it’s like, love  me publicly, love me so that everyone knows that
14:58
you’re with me. And because that’s where change  is going to come. We know how important it is
15:03
to have allyship. And that allyship it needs  to be public and it’s support. It’s just…
15:09
Alex: It just too all reminds  me so many of the issues that we
15:13
have fought through for throughout history,  it’s sort of they keep on iterating. We’re still
15:19
people who are to the left, who purport to  be allies. We’re still trying to push them
15:23
further. And so it reminded  me of that. And obviously,
15:27
today we have the most perfect guest to continue  talking about the amazing moments in history.
15:32
Phil: And here to help us with that is a  host and the founder of the wildly popular
15:37
podcast, Making Gay History.  Please welcome Eric Marcus.
15:41
Eric: Hi Phil. Hi, Alex. Delighted to be with you. Alex: Well, the delight is ours because
15:46
we’re so excited to talk to you.
15:47
Phil: I totally agree, you cannot take  the delight, Eric [inaudible 00:15:50].
15:49
Alex: Okay. There’s none left for me.
15:53
Phil: It’s none. So first things first,
15:55
Eric, how are you doing right now in  these crazy times we’re living in?
15:59
Eric: That’s such a good question. I would  say pretty discombobulated. We just wrapped
16:07
up a season of the podcast and it really  helped to be totally focused on my work
16:11
because there was just no chance to think  about how discombobulating things were and
16:14
how frustrated and angry I was feeling about  people who’ve not gotten vaccinated and about the
16:19
politicians who are encouraging people to not get  vaccinated, even though they’ve been vaccinated.
16:25
It just feels like we live in very crazy and  depressing times in this country. And even
16:31
as positive as I feel about our current president  and many of the progressives elected to Congress,
16:37
there are such strong forces working against  the greater good. And I don’t feel very hopeful.
16:43
I think I would feel differently if I were  at the beginning of my life in my ’20s or
16:48
’30s. But at this stage of life, it feels  like I have seen some these cycles before.
16:54
This is worse than a lot of what I’ve seen  in the past. And it’s hard to feel hopeful.
16:59
Alex: Yeah. I like the word  discombobulated because I feel
17:02
like that just speaks to everything.  Sometimes I say, I feel very scrambled
17:06
because that’s the feeling. Well, for  our listeners who may be new to you,
17:12
can you tell us a little bit about yourself  and exactly what you do on Making Gay History?
17:17
Eric: What we do on Making Gay History is we  bring LGBTQ history to life through the voices
17:22
of the people who lived it, drawing mostly from  an archive of more than 100 interviews that I did
17:27
over 30 years ago for a book of the same  name. That was an oral history book.
17:32
I used broadcast quality equipment of the  time, assuming that someday someone might
17:37
want to mine my archive. And in 2008, I had an  opportunity to turn my collection over to the
17:42
New York Public Library with an agreement  that they digitized the entire collection.
17:46
And in 2015 when I was trying to figure out  what to do next as a 55-year old journalist
17:51
who needed a job and nobody wants to hire a  55-year old journalist, I read a wonderful
17:56
book called Life Reimagined by Barbara  Bradley Hagerty, who was one of my favorite
18:00
NPR correspondence since Left.  And it was a li a book about
18:06
how to reimagine your life when you’re having  to make a change. And it was really helpful.
18:11
And one of the things she recommended was  look at your assets, whatever they’re.
18:15
And I had this huge asset of a large  collection of audio tape, 300 hours worth with
18:22
amazing people. Many of whom were at the very  start of our movement in 1950 and even earlier.
18:29
And so, what started out as a small education  project, we were going to provide short clips
18:34
of my audio recordings to anchor lesson  plans and resources for K through 12
18:41
educators turned into a podcast. We launched  in October 2016. So it’s nearly five years.
18:47
We have produced more than 90 episodes, over  the course of nine seasons, we’ve had 4.5
18:52
million episode downloads in 200 countries and  territories around the world. Now, compared to
18:58
big podcasts where a little podcast but compared  to what we anticipated, we thought by the end of
19:03
our first season, we had 25,000 downloads. We were  so excited. So to be at 4.5 million downloads its
19:10
pretty exciting. Also, the feedback we get  from all over the world is really something.
19:15
So I’m a journalist principally, I’ve written  a dozen books. Most of my career was in print
19:19
until I switched over to audio but what I do  is tell stories, mostly other people’s stories.
19:24
Phil: And you do so very well, I have to say.
19:26
Eric: Thank you.
19:27
Phil: 4.5 million downloads, okay, that  is fantastic. I mean, Making Gay History,
19:35
this podcast is a huge success, I mean, we here  at I’m From Driftwood are massive fans of it.
19:41
It’s an incredible podcast. And I know  it’s based off of the book you originally
19:45
wrote. How did the idea for turning your book  research into a podcast really come about it?
19:50
Eric: It wasn’t my idea. A lot of my career,  wasn’t my idea. I was commissioned to write the
19:56
original making history book, we didn’t use the  word gay in the first edition. I was commissioned
20:01
by an editor at Harper and Rowe who asked me  to write an oral history about the gay lesbian,
20:05
civil rights movement about which I knew almost  nothing. I thought our movement began in 1969.
20:09
Having no idea that the first gay rights  organization was founded in Germany in Berlin in
20:14
1897. And that our US history dates back to 1924  when there was an organization founded in Chicago.
20:21
But I really dated to 1950 when the Mattachine  Society was founded and the movement slowly took
20:27
off in the US. So the book wasn’t my idea, so the  podcast began as this small education project.
20:35
I met with Deb Fowler at History UnErased,  which is a nonprofit organization that develops
20:41
K through 12 LGBTQ inclusive American  history resources and does a lot of
20:46
trainings with educators. And they had asked if  they could use short clips from my archive. So,
20:52
I hired my next door neighbor, who is a audio  journalist, radio journalist Sarah Birmingham
20:58
because I knew saw, had done this work. She  worked for the BBC and for NPR in Arkansas.
21:02
So I said, “Can you cut tape?” She said, “Sure.”  She said, “What do you got?” So she started
21:06
working on a couple of pieces. My goal was to  get down to about six minutes for each piece.
21:12
And when she got to 18 to 20 minutes,  she said, “I think this is a podcast.” So
21:16
she said, but I don’t know enough about  podcasts to do a podcast. So I’m going to go to
21:21
podcast school. So over Labor Day, 2016,  Sarah went to podcast school five days
21:28
and at the end of the weekend of classes,  there were a couple of experts who were
21:32
brought in to listen to the student’s  work and to comment and give them advice.
21:35
And one of those people was Jenna Weiss-Berman,
21:37
who was a partner in one of the  hottest podcast, production studios
21:41
anywhere, Pineapple Street Studios. She’s also a  lesbian and she absolutely loved the two pieces
21:48
that Sarah shared. She shared a clip from Wendell  Sayers and a clip from Dr. Evelyn Hooker two key
21:55
people in the early… Oh, well, Hooker is very  key in the early days of the movement as an ally.
22:00
Eric: And Wendell Sayers just has an  extraordinary story, an African American man
22:05
who was in his mid 80s when I interviewed  him in the story that he told me, it was
22:08
about going to the Mayo clinic in 1919  to be diagnosed as a homosexual. That’s
22:13
how his story starts. But he also went to the  Mattachine society convention in Denver in 1959.
22:18
And so, Jenna heard these pieces  and she said, “What can I do?”
22:24
And she took us under her wings  and because we had a deadline
22:30
tied to a grant, a Kevin Jennings from the Arcus  Foundation, he’s now the executive director of
22:35
Lambda Legal, was the founder of GLSEN. We had  to have something out by the end of October.
22:42
So these are the challenges of the grant.  So we had been planning something else,
22:46
which were these short clips, which were going  to also have on the website for our magazine.
22:52
But I asked Kevin if we could shift  directions and do this as a podcast,
22:55
but we still had to have something about the  end of October. So we launched the Making Gay
22:59
History podcast with a fully fledged website in  five weeks, which is crazy. But I really wanted
23:06
this website, a fully fledged website where the  episodes could reside besides being available,
23:11
whether podcasts are available so that we could  provide additional information in archival photos.
23:16
So that students who wanted to learn more or  educators who wanted to use it would have a place
23:20
to go. I don’t recommend starting a podcast in  five weeks, I produce another podcast, it’s called
23:26
Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust  for Yale University, fortunate enough video
23:30
archive for Holocaust testimonies. And we  took two years. I don’t recommend launching
23:35
a podcast in five weeks because then you have  to keep doing it. Although we didn’t expect to
23:40
go beyond the first season, we had no plans. It  may look like we did but we didn’t have plans.
23:44
Alex: It’s really something to hear that  you had no plans and I am just so struck by
23:50
the foresight that you had also  to record everything at broadcast
23:53
quality, just to be thinking so far in  advance and also about preserving these
23:58
stories that otherwise we would not have these  voices. I mean that to me, it blows me away.
24:04
Eric: It blows me away too. But I think back  to my 30-year old self and what was I thinking?
24:10
But I remember vividly asking my former boss  at CBS News, a guy named Jake Curtis, who was a
24:16
creator of weekend edition and morning edition for  NPR. I asked him what his colleagues at NPR used
24:23
and he referred me to one of his  colleagues and I bought what they used.
24:28
I must have thought that these stories and  I’m not 100% sure but I must have thought
24:32
that these stories would have value one day. I  didn’t realize how rare some of these interviews
24:36
would be because many of the people I’ve  interviewed died soon after. Chuck Rowland,
24:40
for example, one of the co-founders of  the Mattachine Society. I think there
24:44
are two extended interviews with Chuck  Rowland, and mine is one of the two.
24:48
But there are some people who I didn’t get to  interview and I just want to tell you about one
24:51
of the people I didn’t get to interview but we got  to uncover a recording, the only recording of her
24:57
Ernestine Eckstein you may not know her name.  But if you’ve seen any of the photographs of
25:01
the protests in front of the white house in 1965,  there was an African American woman wearing white
25:08
cats eye framed sunglasses. Her hair is done up  in a [inaudible 00:25:13] like Audrey Hepburn.
25:14
She’s wearing a white blouse, a dark skirt and  pumps and she’s carrying a protest sign. It was in
25:20
March organized by Frank Kameny and  Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen
25:23
and Kay Lahusen was taking photographs. So I tried  to find Ernestine Eckstein and could not find her.
25:30
It turns out she was still alive  but she had left the movement,
25:33
the homophile movement in the  late 1960s, moved to California
25:37
and got involved with the black feminist movement.  But Ernestine Stein, wasn’t her real name.
25:42
So I didn’t know that, most people in  those days used pseudonyms for their
25:46
gay rights work or their homophile work.  But my executive producer, Sarah Birmingham
25:51
found in the bowels of the New York Public  Library, a 1965 interview with Ernestine
25:56
Eckstein. She was 25 years old, it was conducted  by Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen and it is
26:03
extraordinary. So we did a podcast episode drawing  on that interview with her Ernestine Eckstein.
26:08
And just a few weeks ago, Ernestine’s niece  contacted me. She didn’t know anything about her
26:16
aunt until she started researching and she wanted  to know why the family never spoke about her.
26:21
And she found the interview from the  podcast and listened to her aunt’s story
26:27
and was so excited to learn that she had  this aunt who had done this important work.
26:33
I called her the prophet of the movement but she  talked about how she thought the movement needed
26:39
to unfold, how it was similar to and different  from the black civil rights movement and what
26:44
our movement, the homophile movement, could  learn from the black civil rights movement
26:48
and how it had to change before it could
26:51
take inspiration from the black civil rights  movement, that we first needed to be visible.
26:56
So, as you talked about coming out and  I had not heard anyone from that period,
27:01
talk about the importance of visibility in coming  out until I heard that interview with Ernestine
27:05
that we thought might be out there. And one of the  other things was an interview with Bayard Rustin.
27:11
So we knew that Bayard Rustin who was  Dr. Martin Luther king Jr’s mentor,
27:15
and was the principal architect of the March  on Washington for jobs and freedom in 1963,
27:20
we knew he was gay. We also knew that  he gave a speech at the University
27:24
of Pennsylvania in 1987, where he talked  about his sexuality. We couldn’t find it.
27:29
But through a series of coincidences, our  executive producer, Sarah Birmingham knew a woman
27:35
who had kids the same age as Sarah did  and they were at the same elementary
27:38
school down the block from where we live.  And she had grown up in the same building
27:42
as Bayard Rustin and his partner Walter Naegle  and was in and out of their apartment as a kid.
27:49
Well, Walter Naegle is still  alive, Bayard surviving partner.
27:52
And it turns out that Walter Naegle had  recorded all of Bayard’s interviews and speeches
27:59
during the 10 years they were together. So we  did a whole episode of Bayard Rustin talking
28:03
about out his sexuality, its impact on his  involvement to the black civil rights movement,
28:07
how he was thrown out twice, how he found his way  back and planned the March on Washington, what the
28:11
FBI tried to do in blackmailing them, suggesting  that he was having a relationship with Dr. King.
28:18
It’s so interesting. And it’s history that we’re  not taught in no small part because he was gay.
28:23
He was kept in the background. But I think about  what it would’ve been like when I was an eighth
28:27
grader or 11th grade, when American history is  taught, if that had been included as part of the
28:32
civil rights story. Now that’s an interesting  story and kids would love hearing that story.
28:38
So, as a short gay Jew from Queens  that I’ve had the chance to bring
28:44
forward the story of one of the most important  black civil rights leaders in history.
28:50
Feels me about such a sense of pride and  I feel so privileged to have done it.
28:54
Phil: I’m blown away right now.
28:55
That’s just incredible. What you’re  doing it’s just simply incredible.
28:59
Eric: Thanks.
29:00
Phil: Most of the world knows about Stonewall,  there’s been a lot of focus put on that. And in
29:07
your opinion, what event in queer history should  get as much coverage as Stonewall would you think?
29:12
Eric: Well, Stonewall is a seminal event.  It is an important, it’s a key turning point
29:18
in the movement. No question about that.  It didn’t spark a movement. What it did,
29:24
one could say it sparked a movement, what it  did is it sparked the gay liberation phase of
29:29
the movement because the movement has had a number  of phases. What it did most importantly it was, it
29:36
blew open what had been a small, mostly localized  movement and made it a national movement.
29:43
So at the time of Stonewall there were between 40  and 60 homophile organizations across the US with
29:49
maybe 400 active members in those organizations,  people who would call themselves activists.
29:54
But by the end of 1970, there was  somewhere between 1200 and 1500
29:59
organizations with thousands of young people  in particular, who had been drawn into the
30:04
movement from the women’s movement, from the black  civil rights movement from the anti-war movement.
30:10
But if not, for all the organizing that had  taken place before Stonewall, it couldn’t
30:15
have happened because the first two meetings that  were held right after the Stonewall uprising were
30:20
organized by the president of the local chapter  of the Mattachine Society, dates back to 1950 and
30:25
the local president of the Daughters of Bilitis,  a lesbian organization that dates back to 1955.
30:31
So I always say that it’s the  organizers who will inherit the earth,
30:35
is if not for the intensive organizing that took  place in the months and years after Stonewall,
30:40
Stonewall wouldn’t be what its become. The  other key turning points. So when we look at
30:45
starting points, turning points, it’s  always more complex than a simple moment
30:50
in time because we can actually trace even  the Mattachine Society’s founding in 1950
30:55
back to 1924 in Chicago, where there was  a short lived gay rights organization.
31:01
And then all the way back act  to Magnus Hirschfeld in Germany,
31:04
because the guy who started the organization  in Chicago was a German immigrant who knew
31:09
about Magnus Hirschfelds sexuality Institute  and his gay rights organization. And the guy
31:14
in Chicago inspired Harry Hay, who was one of  the founders of the Mattachine Society in 1950.
31:20
So, it’s very hard always to identify  singular events. But if we had to,
31:24
Stonewall is a key event, the founding  of the movement to 1950 is a key event.
31:29
Another one on the order of Stonewall but very  different is the AIDS crisis. We would not be
31:36
where we are without the experience of the AIDS  crisis, because one of the most important aspects
31:43
of our movement has been visibility. And what  the AIDS crisis did is that it made hundreds
31:51
of thousands of gay men in particular visible,  and then also lesbians very visible since many
31:57
lesbians wound up running organizations  and taking care of the men who were dying.
32:01
And it showed the world that we were human beings.  We weren’t critters that lived under rocks.
32:07
And we organized in very important ways  and learned all kinds of things about
32:11
raising funds, starting organizations, mobilizing  the public, being out in the media. So the AIDS
32:18
crisis was as key and as pivotal in some ways  as Stonewall. But each is very different.
32:24
Alex: As you were talking about Stonewall,  I was thinking, I’m also a journalist and
32:28
we love to find a neat package for stuff,  we love to treat things like they are so
32:33
perfect and linear. And I always think about how  a lot of times when I’m talking to editors or
32:38
especially pitching straight  editors stories about LGBTQ topics,
32:42
they always want to talk about who’s the  one person who set off the entire movement.
32:46
There’s something, so I guess, seductive  about the idea of there being one person.
32:51
Eric: Yeah. It’s seductive and reductive.
32:53
Alex: Yeah.
32:53
Eric: Black civil rights, mark  Luther king and Rosa Parks.
32:58
And those stories are reduced to shorthand  sentences like Stonewall where pride began.
33:04
Well, there was an organization  called Pride founded in LA in 1966.
33:10
So Pride didn’t begin at Stonewall, I’m sorry,  Stonewall. Stonewall. Wasn’t the first time there
33:14
were conflicts between the police and gay people,  there was competence, cafeteria, and any number
33:19
of other things that were never documented.  It was Barney’s Beanery in LA, it’s just…
33:24
You’re right, we do want to simplify things.  And if we were to explain the history of the
33:29
movement in all its complexity, you wind up  with a book like mine, making history was
33:35
550 pages and that was already reductive, it’s  just a sampling the stories. But I do think that
33:42
it’s important to emphasize how messy history is,  how complex it is and that no one person started.
33:49
They may have had the idea to start  something but it wasn’t one person who
33:54
through the first brick at Stonewall or  Harry Hay, was somebody who came up with
33:58
the idea for the Mattachine Society. But  there were other people who inspired him.
34:02
Alex: Well, on that note, what is the biggest  myth or misconception about LGBTQ+ history that
34:08
you hear? I mean, it could be a platitude  like how we reduce stories and people
34:13
into these linear tellings, or it could even  be a misperception of an event that happened.
34:19
Eric: I think we have to talk about  Stonewall. That is the one event that is often
34:24
misinterpreted, misunderstood. I’m involved with  another organization that I founded and chair it,
34:30
it’s called the Stonewall 50 Consortium.  It’s an organization of organizations that
34:34
develop programming, exhibitions and education  materials related to LGBTQ history and culture.
34:39
We started it for Stonewall to organize all of  the cultural and educational institutions here
34:43
in New York who are planning program. There were  hundreds of events and we helped organize that
34:49
or at least inform everybody of everything, we  weren’t actually organizing the events. And one
34:54
of the things we did was produce a Stonewall  fact sheet, just a several pages, it can be
34:59
found at stonewall50consortium.org is a Stonewall  fact sheet on the basic facts around Stonewall.
35:07
Because so many of the journalists during  Stonewall 50 were writing stories about
35:12
Stonewall that were just… they were fiction  based on early accounts that were fiction in
35:18
and of themselves. So there’s so many myths that  grew up around Stonewall, but I’ve almost given up
35:23
trying to counter those myths. I’ve been writing  about it since my book was published in 1992,
35:30
but I feel like I’ve had some success with the  help of one of my friends at the New York Times,
35:35
got them to stop talking about Stonewall, being  the start of the modern gay rights movement.
35:40
I mean, what was not modern about protests in  front of the white house in 1965? What was not
35:45
modern about taking a case to the US Supreme Court  in 1959? So the biggest myth that I’ve had to
35:51
counter is that Stonewall was the beginning of our  movement, because what that does is, it discounts
35:56
all of the courageous things that hundreds of  people did in the years prior to Stonewall.
36:02
What most kids learn at school now, if  they learn anything about our history,
36:06
Stonewall, Harvey Milk, gays in the military,  marriage equality and that’s it. Did I mention
36:13
AIDS? Maybe AIDS but that’s it, that’s all  they learned and that’s if you’re lucky.
36:18
Phil: I have to ask, is there something  or someone that you want to cover that
36:23
you haven’t covered yet for Making Gay History?
36:26
Eric: That’s a really good question. I was  just thinking we’ve just come off a season
36:31
where we covered me six part audio memoir of the  first dozen years of the AIDS crisis through my
36:36
personal story, didn’t expect to ever do that. So,  no, at this point I deal in the past. I don’t…
36:45
My last interview for the book was done in  2000. I’ve done some recent interviews for a
36:50
recent season of the podcast. So there were  a couple of people I really wanted to find.
36:55
So, I mean, they’re not famous. They were  people whose lives intersected mine. There was
37:00
a woman, a social worker who gave me my  test results for my first HIV test in 1988,
37:06
up the block from where I live at the Chelsea  New York City Department of Health clinic. And
37:13
when I got my test results from  her I was very surprised to find
37:16
out that I was negative. She gave me  a slip of paper with her first name
37:20
and my code number. It was an anonymous test and  there were good reasons to get anonymous tests
37:24
back in 1988 because of the stigma around AIDS  and the danger of losing your job or insurance.
37:31
I didn’t know that I say… It was a huge moment  in my life to find out that I was going to live at
37:36
age 30 when I thought I might very well die.  And going through some of my files, I found
37:43
that slip of paper just a couple of years ago  with my birth certificate and my old passports.
37:50
So, I must have thought that was important. And  the name that was written on that slip of paper
37:54
was Solveig S-O-L-V-E-I-G. I didn’t  know if it was a first or last name.
38:00
So I started looking for Solveig two years  ago when I found the slip of paper. And I
38:05
wanted to find her for this current season of  the podcast because I wanted to interview her
38:10
to let her know how important she was to  me. There’s this beautiful moment with her,
38:14
with me and my then partner that has always stayed  with me. And I found her, I used social media. I
38:23
tweeted out for my account I’m looking for a  woman named Solveig who worked at the New York
38:30
City Department of Health clinic in Chelsea in  1988, who gave me my test results. Can you help?
38:37
And someone came back with a person  named Solveig in an article who turned
38:42
out not to be her. And then a couple weeks  later, I tweeted again and the researcher
38:47
who works with History UnErased my education  partners contacted me. He said, I found her.
38:53
And he found an article from this magazine  in 1988 that she’d been interviewed for,
38:58
with her full name, about being the person who  gave test results at a clinic in New York City.
39:04
And then I asked my genealogist, because we  worked with a genealogist if he could track
39:08
down where she was because she married and she’d  moved. One of the two numbers he gave me was her
39:14
cell number. And I left a message. And within  three seconds she called back and she said,
39:20
“How did you find me?” She was living in Florida.  She’d just moved there three months before.
39:25
And we had this incredible conversation.
39:27
So that was a really important person for  me to find from my own personal history,
39:31
because she meant so much to me.  And I included the interview in
39:34
the final episode of the six part  series that we just concluded,
39:39
which can be found at makinggayhistory.com  or wherever you get your podcast.
39:43
Phil: Yeah. Don’t worry.  We’re going to let you plug.
39:45
Eric: No, I’m not [crosstalk].
39:46
Phil: Yeah, you should plug.  It’s just such incredible work.
39:50
Eric: Thanks. But in terms of famous  people or people from the past,
39:54
I wish I gotten the chance to  interview Leonard Bernstein. He died,
39:58
well, I’ll tell you the story. I had tried  to interview him for Making Gay History. I
40:02
knew about his support for the gay rights  movement. He conducted this, so in 1983,
40:07
I’m jumping around, you’ll forgive me. In 1983,  there was a big fundraiser. The first fundraiser,
40:12
big fundraiser for the gay men’s health crisis  at Madison square garden in New York City.
40:17
Gay men’s health crisis bought out 17,000  tickets for the Barnum & Bailey Circus. And
40:24
Leonard Bernstein conducted the circus orchestra  for the Star-Spangled Banner and then a famous
40:29
opera singer sang the Star-Spangled Banner. Harry  Labone the Broadway star was the MC. In there’s
40:37
videotape of Leonard Bernstein walking across the  floor of Madison Square garden and being cheered.
40:43
So, one of my neighbors on  69th Broadway where I lived,
40:46
worked with Leonard Bernstein, she was a  [inaudible 00:40:49] and she produced his
40:50
records. And I said, “Alison, do you think we  could get to Leonard Bernstein?” And said, “Let
40:54
me try.” Because he was closeted and she got back  to me and said, “No, he doesn’t want to do it.”
40:59
So around the time I was just finishing up  the manuscript in 1990, ’91, she called me,
41:06
she said, “He’s thinking he might do it.”  She said, “Is it too late?” I said, “No,
41:11
it’s not too late.” Because I was also  thinking it would be making news by him
41:14
coming out in my book. I’m not beyond thinking  about marketing and he died two weeks later.
41:20
So I missed him and I don’t think he… he didn’t  give an interview to anybody about his life.
41:26
So I’m sorry I missed that one.  I also think there must be lots
41:29
of other interviews out there with people I  don’t know about that I hope we can discover.
41:32
Phil: Yeah. You somehow have a knack for finding
41:38
all of these stories, the obscure ones, finding  out more about the ones that we know. I mean,
41:43
so I don’t doubt that you’ll find more that  you didn’t realize you were looking for-
41:48
Eric: [inaudible]
41:49
Phil: -dropped into your lap. It’s  pretty incredible. I found this
41:54
article in Time Magazine and it was  written in 2019. It was talking about
41:59
the importance of teaching LGBTQ history in  schools. And you were quoted in the article
42:05
saying, I see education as leading the  edge of the LGBTQ civil rights movement.
42:11
And I know that the podcast is being used to  teach queer history in school. Can you expand
42:18
on what you know about how it’s being used and  what do you think about how it’s being used?
42:22
Eric: It’s being used in all kinds of different  ways. Some teachers assign specific episodes of
42:29
the podcast to their students. Some of them  have me in their classes as a special guest.
42:34
They sometimes supplement their education about  the black civil rights movement for example,
42:38
with the interview, with, Bayard Rustin. They draw  on materials from History UnErased which can be
42:44
founded UnErased.org. They’ve created materials  that use Making Gay History audio to anchor
42:50
these lesson plans and resources.
42:53
So it’s being used in a variety of ways.  In New York City, we’ve just been given an
42:57
allocation from the city council to develop  a pilot program for middle school students.
43:03
That’s eighth graders who are learning  American history. We’ll do that in two parts.
43:07
I will do presentations, especially  tailored presentations for eighth graders.
43:11
And we’ll also do professional  development training with the educators.
43:15
One thing about our history is that you  can’t just dump it in the lapse of educators.
43:19
Most have no background in this history. So  for example, let’s say you want to expand
43:23
on teaching the black civil rights movement  to include Bayard Rustin. It’s not introducing
43:28
an entirely new history and it’s also one  that’s not fraught in the way that LGB well,
43:33
it is these days because of the crazy  people but that’s a whole other story.
43:38
Other story, but related, teachers are  often very nervous and principals as well
43:43
and superintendents are very nervous about  teaching this history because they’re afraid
43:47
of the blow back they’ll get for religious  reasons and from the conservative right. So
43:53
they need education about how teach this material.  For example, what happens if you’re teaching the
43:58
history and a kid comes out in class and another  kid says, “That’s disgusting, I hate gay people.”
44:04
Or you get a parent who says, “I don’t want my  child learning this it’s against the Bible.”
44:08
So, teachers have reasons to be nervous or they  don’t get full support from their administrators.
44:13
So there’s a huge professional development piece  that needs to go a little along with providing
44:16
these resources. And there are efforts going on  in organized ways and states where there have been
44:21
laws passed, requiring teaching LGBTQ inclusive  American history like California and Illinois,
44:27
Massachusetts as well. So there’s a long way  to go. I think we’ll see more and more of this.
44:32
But why I say it’s the cutting edge of our  movement, is that it’s teaching a whole generation
44:36
of kids, not just the LGBTQ kids but all kids that  LGBTQ+ history is part of the American story. And
44:43
I know anecdotally it’s a more effective tool  to reduce bullying, to teach kids about LGBTQ+
44:52
history and to teach them not to bully. They know  it’s wrong. I mean, you can do as many lectures as
44:58
you want on not bullying kids but how do you teach  them to have respect for their LGBTQ+ classmates?
45:05
If you know that they have a rich and  proud history, it makes them human.
45:09
So that’s why think education is so  important to go along with all the
45:13
other things we’re still fighting for but you  start with teaching American history the way,
45:18
well, if not the way it happened exactly  because so hard to know exactly what happened.
45:24
If we start by teaching some of our  history, it will have a huge impact.
45:27
Alex: The work that you do, it sounds  so fascinating to be immersed in all of
45:32
these stories. It also sounds very personal. And  certainly your ninth season, which you mentioned
45:37
about your own coming of age during  the AIDS crisis sounds incredibly
45:41
personal. Is it therapeutic to certainly revisit
45:44
stories about yourself and your own life, but is  it therapeutic to revisit all of this history?
45:49
Eric: Well, when I first did the original  interviews, it was therapeutic because
45:53
it made me feel better about myself to  know that I had a proud history. I didn’t
45:57
know when I started my work and it certainly  has inspired me. Any number of stories have
46:02
inspired me when I don’t feel confident, I  can fall back on the stories of my ancestors.
46:07
In terms of revisiting my personal history,  it’s a mixed bag. Some of it’s very painful.
46:14
I have been having wild dreams now that I stir  the bottom of my brain and some of it’s rough,
46:21
it’s painful to revisit some of its helpful, I’m  still in therapy. So I’ve had a chance to talk
46:26
with my therapist about some of it. And certainly,  no one gets to the stage of life without having
46:30
regrets. And it was, I’ve had a chance to talk  about regrets and put them in context in a way
46:35
that I might not have if I hadn’t been in  therapy and if I hadn’t revisited the past.
46:40
So, it’s doing this recent season has helped me  reflect on my own life. And a sad aspect of it
46:48
is how many people are gone and how much I miss  some of them. I had a chance to talk about my
46:54
grandmother in the season of the podcast, who  I was closest to than anybody in my family.
46:59
And it just makes me miss her  more. She’s been gone for 15
47:03
years or 16 years, but also thinking about all  of the men in my life and boyfriends who died and
47:12
thinking about how young we all were and how they  didn’t get to have lives beyond their 20s and 30s.
47:20
So I’m glad I did it. I have  no regrets about it. I’m not
47:24
keen on the idea of revisiting my past anytime  soon other than in my dreams. And even then,
47:31
if I could take a pill that would give me  dream free sleep, I might very well do it.
47:35
Phil: Understood. I understand that sometimes
47:37
that processing in the dreams  is just not a restful night.
47:40
Eric: No, it’s not. It’s like I  said, whoa, where did that come from?
47:43
Phil: It’s like, please, I just want to  sleep. I just want to be knocked out.
47:46
Eric: Yes.
47:48
Phil: I totally get you on that. So I hear  from our producer that Making Gay History is
47:54
being made into a play. And that it’s amazing.  So can you tell us a little bit about that?
47:59
Eric: Well, the Making Gay History play exists  already. We had our premier just before the
48:04
COVID shutdown. We had 10 performances at  the Provincetown Playhouse. It was adapted
48:08
by Joe Salvatore, who’s a professor at NYU who  specializes in documentary theater and he adapted
48:15
the Making Gay History podcast and book into  a one-act play, it’s called Making Gay History
48:20
before Stonewall, 20 characters from the book and  podcast and one additional character that’s me.
48:28
So the 21st characters and me and all the actors  in the play that I saw, all the actors played me.
48:33
They rotated. So I’ve been an African  American lesbian, a straight white boy,
48:38
an Asian American, a gay boy, it was fascinating  to watch. It was thrilling. It was… I cried to
48:45
see these people come to life and because its  documentary theater, it comes from their actual
48:50
transcripts with all of the inflections  and breaths and they studied the tapes.
48:56
So, I had the chance to work with the students on  characterizing them physically because I met all
49:01
of these people and it was beautiful. We were  sold out for the public performances. And then
49:08
we did two performances for high school and middle  school students. And the students were fascinated.
49:15
There was one of the questions  we asked the students was,
49:18
who would you like to know better? And  there was a young African American middle
49:21
school student in the front row and she said,  “I’d like to know more about that black guy.”
49:26
I said, “Which one?” She said, “I don’t…” I  said, “Bayard Rustin?” She said, “Yeah.” And I
49:30
asked them how many of you studied the black civil  rights movement? Every hand went up in the room.
49:34
I said, how many of you knew who  Bayard Rustin was before today?
49:38
Not one of them. So I see the play as well as  an educational tool. For one thing, it has lots
49:45
of characters. So for a theater department,  it means lots of kids can be in the show.
49:49
And our hope had been before COVID hit,
49:52
was to license the play to one of the  big Broadway licensing houses. And then
49:55
they would license it to high schools  and community groups and organizations
49:58
across the country. We’re just re-engaging in that  process now because all of those licensing houses
50:02
essentially shut down because of COVID  because nobody was performing anything.
50:05
Eric: But we did have our first high school  premier at Deerfield High School and Deerfield,
50:10
Illinois outside Chicago. And it was during  COVID last November and the kids all performed
50:14
socially distanced wearing masks and they were  amazing. They were just amazing. And to see these
50:20
people come to life who I knew and then to see  myself, my 30-year old self portrayed on stage,
50:26
that was bizarre, but it made me feel I can die,  that I have left something that will be of use.
50:35
I hope to future generations and that I’ve  carried forward the stories of these people
50:39
who entrusted me with their stories.  But so many of the people I interviewed,
50:44
were afraid that no one would ever remember  their contributions to the movement.
50:48
Alex: Wow. I mean, that just sounds surreal  and just watching your own story and the work
50:56
that you’ve done playing back at you,  I mean, it sounds almost immeasurable.
51:00
Eric: It was and I had friends and family  come to every single performance. I went to
51:04
every single performance and also to have  it happen, we closed on March 8th and the
51:11
city shut down the following week. Really New  York should have been shut down the week before
51:16
at least but then the play wouldn’t have  happened but it would’ve saved many lives.
51:20
So in any event, we’re just moving  forward with this again and I hope
51:23
that the play gets to be performed all  over the place. So I interview the kids,
51:27
I talked to the kids at Deerfield High  School to ask them what it meant to them
51:30
and it was mostly straight kids and they were  outraged that they hadn’t learned this history.
51:35
Alex: Well, it sounds like obviously  one of the big things that you
51:38
hope for your work in the future is that it  makes this educational impact. What about
51:43
the legacy of your podcast? Have you given that  any thought, what do you want the legacy to be?
51:47
Eric: The legacy is the stories themselves  that they will reside somewhere. Right now,
51:52
the original recordings are at the New  York Public Library they’ve been digitized,
51:54
so they will exist as long as the New York Public  Library does. Our podcast, I believe our website,
51:59
which includes our podcast is categorized  with a library of Congress and ultimately,
52:05
we have a new LGBTQ+ museum that will be opening  here in New York, I serve on the founding board.
52:10
And I would like for a copy of my collection to  reside there along with the recordings of all the
52:16
podcast episodes so that they’ll be available to  people to listen to for as long as this technology
52:21
and our society supports the technology  because God knows where we’re going.
52:29
I made all kinds of assumptions about people going  into this work. I walked into a room with Shirley
52:36
Willer, who was the president of the Daughters of  Bilitis in the mid 1960s. She was a mountainous,
52:42
she was huge, sitting in a wheelchair,  chainsmoker, a close cropped hair, thick glasses,
52:48
butches Butch could be self-describe big Butch.  And I thought, how am I going to interview this
52:52
person? And she was dear and there were tears. And  she was so human and I made assumptions about her.
53:02
The first time I met Sylvia Rivera,  I thought, oh my God, I’d never met
53:07
a self-described drag queen before. And  Sylvia was in scare drag, partial drag.
53:13
And I thought I can’t do this. And then she  invited me into her warm kitchen where she had
53:17
potted chili on the stove and her boyfriend  was in the next room. She introduced me and
53:22
then her friend Rennie, who was as butch as she  was fem introduced herself. And again, humans.
53:28
So I went in with all sorts of my own prejudices  and assumptions about people and what they
53:33
were like and learned to listen, to listen to  people’s stories and to listen to their hearts.
53:41
I’m very quick to judge. I’m very  much my grandmothers grandson.
53:45
Oh, she was judgemental. And I had to set that  aside and just listen to people’s stories.
53:53
Alex: You’re here. I feel like I  always have to check myself about
53:57
making assumptions about people.  So that resonates with me a lot.
54:01
So where can our listeners go to find out more  about you and all things Making Gay History?
54:05
Eric: Well, Making Gay History the podcast  is available wherever you get your podcast,
54:10
you can also find it at makinggayhistory.com  where you can listen to the podcast and also see
54:15
archival photos. And there are links to lots of  additional information from each of our episodes.
54:20
You can also find me at Making Gay  History on Twitter at Making Gay History,
54:24
spelled incorrectly so we could fit the whole  name in. I’m at Twitter @EricBMarcus. We are
54:30
also on Instagram at Making Gay History  podcast on Facebook, Making Gay History.
54:34
And also my other podcast, Those Who Were  There: Voices from the Holocaust, you can
54:38
find us at thosewhowerethere.org or wherever you  find your podcast. We also did a documentary,
54:42
we did a couple documentaries, one, drawn  from the Holocaust podcast called The Last
54:46
Time I Saw Them about the experience of people  being separated as children from their parents.
54:52
Tough documentary to do. And also worked on the  documentary with the brilliant Cheryl Furjanic,
54:58
which is a New York Times Op-Docs documentary  called Stonewall: The Making of a Monument.
55:04
So all kinds of things, and you  can find the Making Gay History
55:06
play information about it on the website at  makinggayhistory.com and my Wiki page and
55:11
just Google Eric Marcus. And that just blows my  mind, again, coming from the background that I do,
55:18
my grandparents are all immigrants, I grew up  in a very modest household and to have done
55:24
work that now is so available and  so used and accessed is thrilling.
55:30
Phil: Well, Eric, if they can’t find you,  they’re not looking and they should be looking.
55:33
That’s insane. What a  pleasure to have you on today.
55:38
Alex: Thank you so much.
55:39
Phil: Such a fantastic conversation.
55:40
Eric: Oh, thank you, Phil. Thank you,
55:42
Alex. I really am delighted. And I so respect  the work that you do at I’m From Driftwood.
55:53
Phil:
55:57
The I’m From Driftwood podcast  is hosted by Phil aka Corinne.
56:01
Alex: And Alex Berg and is  produced by Anddy Egan-Thorpe.
56:04
It’s recorded as a program of I’m From  Driftwood, the LGBTQAI+ story archive.
56:10
Phil: Its mission is to send a life saving message
56:12
to queer and trans people  everywhere. You are not alone.
56:16
Alex: I’m From Driftwood’s founder and  executive director is Nathan Manske.
56:20
Its program director is Damien Mittlefehldt.
56:22
Phil: Our score is provided by Elevate Audio.
56:25
Alex: The stories you heard today are available in
56:27
their entirety plus thousands  more at imfromdriftwood.org.
56:30
Phil: You can also follow us on  Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
56:34
Alex: Or subscribe to our podcast  wherever you get your podcasts.
56:38
Phil: This program is supported in part by public
56:40
bonds from the New York City  Department of Cultural Affairs.
56:43
Alex: In partnership with the city council.
56:45
Phil: Additional funding is provided by the  Humanities New York SHARP grant with support
56:50
from the National Endowment for the Humanities  and the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
56:54
Alex: Thanks for listening y’all.

This post was previously published on YouTube.

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