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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/698e17af4ed4f3049ed078b183de6ff1.png
c6386d3a56d5aafff0f82c3ebf790f93
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Title
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Cynthia Rodriguez
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_31a.xml
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5.4 July 20, 2020 Cynthia Rodriguez, July 20, 2020 (Part 1) PH40_31a 01:12:29 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Cynthia Rodriguez Liz Bradbury video/mpeg RodriguezCynthia_2020072020_video.mp4 1.0:|23(8)|44(7)|71(8)|106(11)|141(16)|172(14)|199(2)|222(12)|245(2)|266(15)|291(7)|322(12)|363(4)|386(4)|409(15)|432(12)|451(6)|476(5)|501(17)|528(4)|547(14)|572(10)|593(5)|612(10)|633(15)|654(5)|675(2)|706(5)|731(3)|752(4)|783(6)|800(8)|821(5)|844(3)|863(9)|902(5)|925(4)|948(5)|967(10)|990(15)|1013(13)|1040(12)|1063(10)|1086(11)|1105(14)|1130(11)|1153(12)|1174(7)|1201(13)|1224(10)|1247(13)|1270(14)|1303(7)|1322(6)|1349(11)|1380(16)|1405(12)|1426(14)|1455(8)|1474(12)|1507(7)|1540(11)|1567(5)|1590(12)|1621(11)|1640(5)|1661(9)|1684(16)|1703(4)|1730(3)|1749(11)|1784(13)|1815(5) 0 https://youtu.be/NTfNbI4wEBk YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: Okay. 
 ; 
 ; LIZ BRADBURY: I have this little backup recording where I’ve got the voice recording too just in case the thing doesn’t work or record. And I’m going to read you this, this thing. So with this project the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of -- oh, wait, I didn’t do some stuff. I’ve got to pin you, I forgot to do that, and I forgot to turn off my phone. I’ll start again. Pin video and I got the audio on. Okay. And I just want to be sure my phone is off. (clears throat) I’m sorry. 0 243 Current living/work/school situation LB: Okay. These are just general things. You can talk about anything you want, but just to check in, let’s start with some basic questions and ask who’s in your house with you? 
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 ; CR: My mom -- 
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 ; LB: So you’re -- 
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 ; CR: -- my mum.
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 ; LB: Okay, so that’s cool. You’re both there all the time? Are you working?
 ; 0 368 Missing summer classes because of upcoming surgery LB: So what’s it like being a student? And now, you’re doing everything online, I would assume. Are you taking classes in the summer?
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 ; CR: I did not have to take any classes this summer because originally, I was supposed to get surgery on my left foot, which did not happen because of COVID because they had cut out elective surgeries when the pandemic started. 0 438 Thoughts on Cedar Crest College opening back up/taking classes during the pandemic LB: Do you think that Cedar Crest will open for students, or is it all going to be online? 
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 ; CR: So far, what we’ve heard, but of course, things can change because they’ve been changing so quickly like all the time depending on how it’s going with the pandemic. As of right now, we are supposed to get what they’re calling a hybrid now experience in the fall, which honestly, I’m used to it anyway because I usually pick at least one online class per semester, so that’s a normal thing for me. 0 756 How the pandemic has changed school life/artistic work CR: They really give you opportunities there to even perform at the school. We had, prior to all this going down, like a student showcase every month that we would perform, show what we learned, so I was already performing with my guitar. The theater club held this big show at the end of the semester in our big main theater. 0 945 Keeping mom healthy during pandemic/keeping outings minimal LB: So have you been pretty much staying in, or what have you been doing? 
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 ; CR: Well, definitely like everybody else during quarantine, we stayed put here. We don’t really take any chances. I’m very protective of my mom. Even after green light or not, I don’t care about all that. 0 1075 Receiving government aid LB: Yeah, have you gotten additional money from the government or as you --? 
 ; CR: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s helped a little bit and the fact that we don’t have a mortgage anymore because we’ve had this house forever. All those little things helped a lot. 
 ; 0 1098 Communicating during the pandemic/Keeping busy during the pandemic/Coping with personal difficulties LB: So have you been communicating with a lot of people on media like this or by phone or texting or -- more than you would normally do compared to...? I would guess that you’re very involved with MCC, wouldn’t you say that? 
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 ; CR: Oh, yeah, yeah. But I’ve kept very, very busy. We’ve known each other for a while. You know I keep very busy with a lot of activities and I stay... From the beginning of this pandemic, I made a decision to keep some kind of structure in my life like a schedule because it’s so easy to fall into this rut. 0 1628 Friend who had to leave Italy during pandemic/Knowing people who have contracted Covid-19 LB: Let me ask you something. Do you know anybody that’s had the -- have -- has had the coronavirus or anybody that like [who got that?]?
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 ; CR: Actually, yes, especially in the beginning because I think a lot of people did not... They weren’t taking it seriously, I don’t think, you know? And so I think people were a lot more careless in the beginning because they just didn’t know before everyone’s wearing masks and I don’t think... 0 2165 Protecting self and family from catching Covid-19 CR: I feel like it’s just too new for us to really nail anything down, to really know about it. So with all that, that’s all I need. I just protect myself across the board. I don’t care what’s like -- unless they really learn about it, figure it out, get a vaccine, whatever, I feel we’re going to take these precautions the rest of the year until next year. 0 2330 Participating in the Black Lives Matter movement CR: And speaking of that, the other thing that I got involved with unfortunately, not that I was trying to do that now during COVID, I’ve been part of the Black Lives Matter movement the whole time it’s been around, for seven years now, I think, ish. And since like Trayvon Martin times, been involved with that, been using actually the same signs that I made a long time ago at my old studio, and I wasn’t going to do that. 0 2492 Thoughts on Dr. Rachel Levine/Governor Tom Wolf's handling of the pandemic LB: What do you think about...? And then one of the things we have here in the state of Pennsylvania is that we get to see Dr. Rachel Levine on the news, and she’s the secretary of health. Have you had a chance to see her? She’s transgender, and she is speaking about -- I mean, we really have pretty good leadership in the state of Pennsylvania. Has that affected you, or have you had a chance to see that? 
 ; 0 2668 Frustrations over state opening too soon/People not wanting to take Covid precautions CR: I really wish we had done that longer honestly. I wish we’d have done... I’m just being honest about that. I feel like we opened too soon. I think we went the whole business as usual too soon, and now, we’re seeing a spike. It’s totally going to affect the -- all school for everybody across the board and for the whole country. 0 2958 Concerns over children returning to school during pandemic/for parents during pandemic/caretakers and healthcare workers CR: That’s a big concern for me for people when kids go back to school. I think that’s my biggest concern is kids coming -- basically coming back home and bringing this stuff -- even if they’re not sick, if they don't have symptoms coming home and infecting their parents, grandparents. That’s a big concern of mine. 0 3132 Working at the Allentown Women's Center and concerns for former colleagues CR: I used to work at Allentown Women’s Center for six years, all my best friends work there. Oh, that’s been like a nightmare just worrying about them, and every time I talk to them, not being able to be close to them any time soon, like, “You guys, really be careful,” and it’s -- 
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 ; LB: Are they open? 
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 ; CR: -- and praying for them every day. Hmm?
 ; 0 3308 Uncertainty over how the pandemic will pan out LB: We’re still in the beginning of it too. 
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 ; CR: Huh? 
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 ; LB: We’re just at the beginning of it too. We don’t even know what’s going to happen. I mean if people are looking at this video of you talking thirty years from now, they know what happened. 0 3377 Source of hope during pandemic LB: What’s giving you hope? I mean, what’s the best thing that’s happened out of this, or what’s really giving you hope, or generally, what gives you hope? 
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 ; CR: I think the biggest thing that’s kept me together like mentally, emotionally, everything is probably I’m really grateful for my spirituality honestly. 0 3434 Importance of staying connected digitally/having support systems CR: I think is really important for people to have that support system and a Zoom account (laughs) to really connect with people because it is -- I feel bad for anyone that doesn’t have that connection via... Like if they don’t have good internet or a laptop or whatever, I really feel for them because that’s like the lifeline for most people to the outside world. 0 3521 Using Tinder during the pandemic/Forming a romantic relationship during the pandemic LB: Are you using any dating apps or any queer dating apps or anything? 
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 ; CR: (laughs) Yeah, Tinder is probably not the best --
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 ; LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) 
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 ; CR: (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, I feel like you have to be really, really careful. Shoot, I haven’t done like online dating app [00:59:00] or anything for years. 0 3653 Heightened feelings of loneliness during the pandemic CR: If somebody wasn’t partnered before this went down, this is like -- then it’s been -- I know it’s been tough for people. I got lucky, but I know like that’s -- it is what it is though. Huh?
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 ; LB: I think people who are living alone, completely alone, it’s very, very hard for them. 
 ; 0 3756 Thoughts for the future LB: So we’re pretty much at the end of this. I wanted to just ask you in the future, we hope that somebody -- well, I think people will look at these. These are very interesting artifacts because comparing this to the flu that happened a hundred years ago, a hundred and two years ago, the flu epidemic of 1918, they didn’t have social media then. 0 4154 Wanting to get in contact with old friends from Spain LB: You spent a lot of time in Europe or you were in Europe last year for three and a half months, and I’m sure you have friends in other countries too that -- have you been communicating with those people in other countries about what that -- their experiences were, or was it mostly students that were from here that you were around? 0 4263 Conclusion LB: Yeah. Well, this has been a great interview. I really, really appreciate you taking your time to do this with me today, and -- 
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 ; CR: Thank you. 
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 ; LB: -- I appreciate it very much. 0 MovingImage Cynthia Rodriguez talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting her, her friends and family, her experience as a full time student and her work as an artist and musician. She also talks about prayer and meditation and civil rights activism including Black Lives Matter. Cynthia Rodriguez Part 1 2020-07-20 CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: Okay. LIZ BRADBURY: I have this little backup recording where I've got the voice recording too just in case the thing doesn't work or record. And I'm going to read you this, this thing. So with this project the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of -- oh, wait, I didn't do some stuff. I've got to pin you, I forgot to do that, and I forgot to turn off my phone. I'll start again. Pin video and I got the audio on. Okay. And I just want to be sure my phone is off. (clears throat) I'm sorry. CR: Make sure I don't get interrupted. (speaking Spanish) Sorry. LB: (Spanish), right? CR: Yeah, yeah. LB: Okay, I'll start again. With this project, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I'm here with Cynthia Rodriguez to talk to her about her experiences in the Lehigh Valley community during this time of the COVID-19 epidemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We're meeting on Zoom on July 20th, 2020. So thank you so much, Cynthia, for being willing to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me please? CR: Sure. It's Cynthia, C-Y-N-T-H-I-A, Rodriguez, R-O-D-R-I-G-U-E-Z. LB: Okay. And will you please share your birthdate? CR: Sure, it's 04/29/71. I am forty-nine years old. LB: Okay, and what town are you in? CR: I'm in Allentown, Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. LB: Great. This is the consent portion. So do you consent to this interview today? CR: Yes, ma'am. LB: Okay. Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? CR: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other things we may not even understand now because it'll be -- CR: Yeah. LB: -- in the future? Great. Do you understand that you'll have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview and identify parts you'd like to delete and or withdraw from the project? You can withdraw the whole thing if you --? CR: Yes. LB: So what is your zip code? CR: It is 18109. LB: Okay, and you just stated your age. You said you're forty-nine. CR: Yes. LB: And how do you identify within the LGBT community? So you could say anything about how you identify within the community. CR: I would identify myself as a soft butch lesbian. LB: Okay. And here are some things to talk about, and we can talk about all sorts of different -- and would you say that you're cisgender? CR: Yes. LB: Okay. These are just general things. You can talk about anything you want, but just to check in, let's start with some basic questions and ask who's in your house with you? CR: My mom -- LB: So you're -- CR: -- my mum. LB: Okay, so that's cool. You're both there all the time? Are you working? CR: Yeah, I work part time. I've been mostly working part time since I went back to school as a full-time student. LB: Uh-huh. So what are you doing? CR: I clean part time. I was working at Stonewall for -- as a security for a few years, and that ended this year especially with everything closing. LB: Yeah. So -- LB: And I'm a full-time student. CR: Oh, so you're still a full-time student? LB: Yes, I am right now. I graduated from LCCC with an associate's in general studies, and now I've been -- I'm in Cedar Crest College. I am an art therapy major, and, God willing, I'll be graduating in the spring and going into their master's program in the fall. CR: A master's in Cedar Crest? LB: Yes. CR: Oh, cool. LB: And -- CR: Yeah, I'm planning to do it all the way. I'm going to get -- go for my doctorate after that, hopefully at Drexel in art therapy. LB: Uh-huh. So your master's will be in art therapy too? CR: Yeah, I'm getting a bachelor's in art therapy at Cedar Crest in the spring, then from there immediately, I'll be going into their master's program for art therapy in the fall, so I can get my license to practice. And I plan on continuing my education for art therapy hopefully at Drexel because there are very few places in the northeast that do that, that offer that program for art therapists, so yeah. So my ultimate goal is to have my own practice and hopefully come back to Cedar Crest as a professor. LB: Oh, cool, that'd be neat. Yeah. So what's it like being a student? And now, you're doing everything online, I would assume. Are you taking classes in the summer? CR: I did not have to take any classes this summer because originally, I was supposed to get surgery on my left foot, which did not happen because of COVID because they had cut out elective surgeries when the pandemic started. And by the time they allowed it, it was too late for me to do that since class is starting soon, and there's a long recovery time for the type of surgery I'm getting. It's about a few months of recovery time at least because it's the Achilles tendon. LB: Oh, God, yeah. CR: Yeah, I had it done on my right foot when I had a bone here -- a bone spur removed. I was laid up all summer. That was five years ago, and they said that I would eventually have to get it on my left foot, which that would have been this year because I can only do that during the summer because of school. So since that didn't happen, it's been postponed till next summer after graduation. LB: Do you think that Cedar Crest will open for students, or is it all going to be online? CR: So far, what we've heard, but of course, things can change because they've been changing so quickly like all the time depending on how it's going with the pandemic. As of right now, we are supposed to get what they're calling a hybrid now experience in the fall, which honestly, I'm used to it anyway because I usually pick at least one online class per semester, so that's a normal thing for me. However, if things change, students may have to switch some classes because it's some things -- I don't know how they're going to navigate that as far as classes that we really need to do live, hands-on especially being like an art/psych major, which is basically what an art therapy major is. I can see maybe one, possibly two classes that I can do online. The rest, I don't know because it's -- I'm supposed to take printing, print shop this fall, so I don't know how that's going to work. With the ceramics class, our professor got creative thankfully. He basically sent us home with a bunch of clay and told us to make stuff, and (laughs) he was much more lenient. He was like, "You can be abstract." I'm thinking of course, you know, and we would like video and all kinds of stuff. They do the best they can. We did that for art therapy and -- but for... We'll see. And then for music, I minor in music, it depends on the instructors, which are basically like independent contractors there anyway, that you meet one-on-one. I take an instrument every semester. I have learned guitar, piano there, and this semester, I'm supposed to do drums. I don't know how that's going to work. I did plan on getting my own set anyway, so I don't know. We have to get creative. Maybe they can teach me while I have my drum set in front of the laptop. I have no idea. It's going to be a lot of fun trying to figure it out. Everyone jokes that I'm trying to become my -- a one -- because I sing too, my own one-woman band, so... I love music, and I love having that opportunity at Cedar Crest to learn all these instruments. After this semester for my last undergrad semester, I was planning to learn sax. So if I'm done there, I'll have like four instruments at least under my belt, but -- so things like that. Depending on how they figure that out, I may have to switch classes last minute. Honestly, I'm really trying to stay flexible mentally to be ready for anything and just go with the flow. Because these days, I feel if you don't have that mentality, you can just really go nuts. And I know that that may not vibe with the people that are not too good with change and are so accustomed to like a set schedule and so structured. But you really can't be like that these days. You know, this pandemic I realized, well, you kind of have to go with the flow or you're going to really stress yourself out. LB: Yeah. Do you have a saxophone? CR: No, but I would totally be getting one (laughs) if it all works out well for the spring. Amazon is your best friend during quarantine. LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) in a way, yeah. I was going to say I have a C saxophone, which is a -- CR: Nice. LB: -- which I will be happy to give you for as long as you want. CR: No way, wow. LB: I haven't used it in a long time. I was studying clarinet, and one of the things I found -- and I don't want to be discouraging you -- but if you've never played the saxophone or clarinet before, it's hard to learn it as an adult. Like piano and guitar is pretty -- and -- but like Trish and I, she wanted to learn violin and I wanted to learn clarinet actually, they just -- it's very hard to learn those as adults. You can pick up piano great but -- [boy?]. But anyway, so I have a C saxophone with a mouthpiece and everything. CR: Oh, great. LB: That's a marching band saxophone. So it's not really the jazz kind, but it's like a regular saxophone. And so if you want to have that, I will lend that to you probably forever because I can't imagine -- CR: (laughs) LB: -- as I -- CR: Permanently borrow your saxophone? LB: You could permanently borrow. I can't imagine me needing this and if -- CR: Thank you. LB: -- and I said to Trish, "I wish I knew somebody that needed to borrow the saxophone, I would be happy to --" CR: That would be great, thank you, thank you so much. LB: Get to that point, feel free, and I will lend you. CR: Great. LB: I haven't used it in a long time. I had it refurbished right before when I was using it, but that was a long time ago, so I don't know -- CR: Oh, wow. LB: -- if it works. CR: Yeah, it's been great. They really give you opportunities there to even perform at the school. We had, prior to all this going down, like a student showcase every month that we would perform, show what we learned, so I was already performing with my guitar. The theater club held this big show at the end of the semester in our big main theater. To be onstage with the whole school, I mean it was great. It was great. I felt like a rock star because I have an electric guitar as well, and I was doing that. They're fantastic. I mean we had a lot of... That's going to be the kind of -- like one of the tougher things going back, not really being able to fully enjoy like some of the activities that we had. Like, we have a great theater department. I was heavily involved with that. I was part of their stage crew backstage like painting, building sets. And the biggest thing that I'm warned honestly like with the creative things there was they were going to do this play this past semester called Silent Sky, which I was really excited about. The head of the theater department took me out to lunch last summer when I came back from studying abroad in Spain, and she gave me the script to read and offered me a solo art exhibit in the lobby of the theater to go with this play, like a whole woman-centered kind of exhibit to go with the play. Because the play if you're not familiar with it, it's like that one movie Hidden Figures about the female astronomers or NASA, working in that?. Yeah, it was similar to that. I think it was a true story too. So we had this whole thing. They had just printed -- they had just printed the posters for me for my exhibit right before the school shut down -- LB: No. CR: -- in mid-March. Oh, it was... That would have been a huge break. I was already in the middle of working on these four major, big, installation mixed-media pieces I had set. I got the approval of like the cabinet, the school, the president who -- oh, actually she's -- we're -- really we're real tight over there at the college, Elizabeth. I had her on my radio show that I had there, and she was like, "Oh, I'd love to have you back here as a professor." She's really cool, Elizabeth Meade. But, yeah, I was really excited. I went through this whole approval process. I even had my own art assistant and I was doing all this stuff working with the theater department excited about having the show and a reception and the whole thing and then, boom, then that happens, so we closed. LB: Yeah, that's tough. CR: Yes. LB: So have you been pretty much staying in, or what have you been doing? CR: Well, definitely like everybody else during quarantine, we stayed put here. We don't really take any chances. I'm very protective of my mom. Even after green light or not, I don't care about all that. Because I feel green light does not mean the pandemic is over, which I think people have been confusing the two. Yeah, she's been like grounded for months now. But she goes out like when -- with another immediate family member. I mean, we basically have a hazmat thing on her because we don't want to take any chances. I have an elderly parent, and we're both actually immune compromised. I have diabetes, so I have to watch. It was -- [unless changed?] that it's probably not one of the best things to have during this pandemic right now, diabetes. So I've been really, really careful, very minimal contact to no contact with anybody. And honestly, Liz, it's not even more for me. I will probably survive for the most part, but I don't think she would, so I can't -- I don't take any chances with that. LB: Yeah, (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) -- CR: We keep it very minimal. I don't go to many places other than my part-time job. I clean a doctor's office a couple of times a week, so I was considered essential, so I never stopped working for this cleaning service. I was thankful for that, you know, so... I haven't stopped working throughout the whole time. But fortunately, I get to work by myself, so I didn't have to worry about being around anyone. LB: Yeah, have you gotten additional money from the government or as you --? CR: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.That's helped a little bit and the fact that we don't have a mortgage anymore because we've had this house forever. All those little things helped a lot. LB: Yeah, that makes a big difference. CR: Oh yeah, a big, big difference. LB: It's (inaudible) how that changes. So have you been communicating with a lot of people on media like this or by phone or texting or -- more than you would normally do compared to...? I would guess that you're very involved with MCC, wouldn't you say that? CR: Oh, yeah, yeah. But I've kept very, very busy. We've known each other for a while. You know I keep very busy with a lot of activities and I stay... From the beginning of this pandemic, I made a decision to keep some kind of structure in my life like a schedule because it's so easy to fall into this rut. I would joke about it nonstop when it first started. I was posting on Facebook, but I will be like, "There is no excuse to not wear pants people," you know, like yeah... (laughter) And I've had to push myself, but I would -- especially with school and being online, just it can be like -- you can get lazy. I would make an effort to just keep the routine. I would get up every day, take a shower, brush my teeth, put on real clothes. I didn't want to roam around in pajamas all day. That was a huge, huge thing for me because I know how it's so easy to fall into. It's so easy, so I really made an effort. Even if I was going to stay in the house all day, it didn't matter. We have a yard and stuff. Fortunately, we get to like go outside and not be cooped up all day. But almost from the beginning, I started going to the park more. I go almost every day to our local park just to -- even if it's just to get some air and sunshine. I wasn't going to be cooped up for just -- yeah. I thought that was really important. With the activities, well, school kept me till the end -- almost the end of May, I want to say -- no, like mid-May. That kept me pretty busy because I had six classes, so that's enough to keep you busy for a while. Other than that, after that ended, I realized I had to -- other than working a little bit, I had to do more things, so... During this whole thing, I joined the Red Cross, and I've been in training for one of their jobs, a caseworker but -- that you could do online. That was like a safe job. But now, I want to expand to like in-person stuff, possibly transport blood and things like that from blood drives and things like that. There's like a million jobs they had there, volunteer work that you can do for them. As of right now, what I've been doing lately for them -- to help clients that seek help from the Red Cross. I'm one of their Spanish interpreters now, so that's been -- you know, that's just on the phone or, yes, that can be via Zoom or whatever, but there are plenty of meetings, opportunities. They provide free training on a lot of stuff when you're a volunteer, first aid, CPR, etc., which I'm certified in all that anyway because of prior jobs but... So I did that to occupy my time, and I just felt like I wanted to give back and help the community a little bit in the pandemic. Because you can just get in your head a lot and just feel sorry for yourself about it, and I'm not about that. It was like I just want to get out of my head, help other people, and just be proactive about it, you know? Like, you can be proactive during a crisis like this just like anything else and just do your part. So other than that, I took up learning American Sign Language. I've been taking an ESL course because I love learning different languages, and I've always wanted to learn sign language. So I'm working on becoming trilingual, and I want to practice with other people via Zoom that speak as well. With one, I've been doing that with a friend of mine. So I'm doing that, and, yeah, just I, like, over cope. I do a lot of stuff and play my guitars, keyboard, and writing, doing art. It's a ton of stuff. And I feel like the other thing that I've heard a lot from the beginning of the pandemic that I've never -- I never had to deal with even during the crisis, oh, I'm bored, I'm bored. Boredom seemed to be like a huge issue with people when it first started and I guess even now, but I'm never bored. That's not even part of my vocabulary. (laughs) Like before crisis, after, during, whatever, I still feel like I don't even have enough time in the day usually to do everything that I want to do because I feel like it's really what you make of it. And I can be indoors forever, and I'll never find -- like I'll never not find something to do. I always write a to-do list every day, I've never stopped, I've been doing that for years. I'm also in recovery. So I was a sponsor, and I do step work in Al-Anon for friends and families of alcoholics. I'm not one myself, but you basically follow the same program. So that's kept me busy too as of last about a year or so I've been in it. And so I do that and I'm now the chair the -- the new chair of the meeting every Friday night. So I work on that. My relationship ended that I had almost a year and a half. She was an alcoholic, so I got into Al-Anon to kind of be a support or whatever, but unfortunately, that ended during the beginning of the pandemic. And so that was probably the hardest part for me was dealing with a double whammy, oh, pandemic and a breakup, yay, things are great, so... (laughs) But I have a big support system, family, friends, people from church, and just everybody, so I made it through. The professors were great. Everyone was very patient and understanding about, like, everything. So I got through that. I decided to stay in the program for myself because it's still good. So everybody could use that probably. So I do that. So, as far as communicating with people, I've never stopped. It's been like business as usual just like via the internet, and it's been fantastic, and I had no problems with it. I'm practically in Zoom meetings Monday through Friday with all different people with -- I talk to my advisor, the therapist. And I have a behavior specialist for adult ADHD that I was diagnosed, which would explain all my activity probably a lot, and I'm on medication for that Adderall, so I have a shrink I talk to once a month about that. And, yeah, my sponsor, advisor from school. So I'm basically in the meeting, and plus, I do Zoom things, like I said, with sign language. I do guitar jams with a friend from Georgia who was my roommate in Spain. So I keep super busy like... But that's Monday through Friday, Zooming all week, and I've been involved with a big online lesbian community, lesbians around the country, Canada, and Europe that I talk to regularly almost every day with this chat forum, and we meet via Zoom. So I keep really, really busy with all that stuff. I just have to close this door just real quick so -- LB: Okay. CR: -- just to minimize noise a little bit. (pause) CR: Sorry about that. LB: No problem. CR: I'm just like rattling, but it's been really -- LB: Well, let me -- CR: Huh? LB: Let me ask you something. Do you know anybody that's had the -- have -- has had the coronavirus or anybody that like [who got that?]? CR: Actually, yes, especially in the beginning because I think a lot of people did not... They weren't taking it seriously, I don't think, you know? And so I think people were a lot more careless in the beginning because they just didn't know before everyone's wearing masks and I don't think... You know, the weird thing is -- well, not like funny, funny, but when this all started months -- maybe by the beginning of March, I already definitely could tell that it was going to be bad. I knew like for some -- like I knew it was going to get to this point, and people thought I was being paranoid including my ex-girlfriend and her mom. It's funny like as this was all approaching and I just saw the signs, and I remember talking to them about it. Like, I was, "This is going to be -- this is really going to be bad. This is going to big. I think everything is about to change really soon," and they were like, "Oh, no, no, don't worry. This is just going to pass by like Y2K." (laughs) LB: Oh. CR: I was like, "Y2K? I don't think so." (laughter) I'm like, "I don't think so. I think this is really going to hit everybody like they're not expecting it." Because I was watching Europe and everything, and I knew it was going to be bad. I knew something big was coming, and I had a friend from school who was kind of stuck in Italy for a minute. Because the way -- I went to Spain last spring, it was her turn this summer, and she was in Rome, and I felt so bad for her. I had a bad feeling that it was going to be very short-lived, and she had been planning for this for a year and so excited, and then halfway through the trip, they sent her home. They cut off all study abroad programs, and I'm like, "Wow, I had a good time last spring." I was there three and a half months. That was fantastic. She had to come home because that was just when Italy was closing basically, and if she wouldn't have left when she did, she would have totally been stuck over there, you know, so... I remember already by mid-March, I had started getting masks and all kinds of stuff. And I remember getting -- giving my ex and her mom supplies just before all this started, and they thought I was just being paranoid, which I kind of am naturally anyway, but it was really coming in handy, you know? I remember bringing them -- towards the end, I brought this box. I'm like, "I'm calling it -- this the anti-COVID box." I brought them a bunch of -- this was, yeah, like before mid-March -- a bunch of latex gloves, masks, sanitizer before they all started going off the shelf, and I remember they laughed at me. They were like, "Oh, no, this is --" I'm like, "Hold on to this. Trust me, you're going to need it," you know? LB: Yes. CR: And what happens? I was thinking to myself afterwards ; I'm like, I'm sure they're sitting around thinking, yeah, she called it. LB: Yeah, she called it. CR: (laughs) Yeah, so... LB: So you know people who've had it or...? CR: Oh, yeah, I was going to tell you -- LB: Yeah. CR: Hold on one second. (pause) CR: Sorry about that. It was really scary in the beginning. Probably, oh, gosh, almost a month, going -- so it started in mid-March, it all got shut down. Maybe almost for a month, one person after another who I knew what was starting to get it, some really, really close friends. And I think it was just coupled with the breakup and trying to finish school online, everything was so chaotic. Now, of course, they're going to be totally ready and prepared all summer, but it was so sudden and everyone -- and they just had to adapt, we all had to adapt right away in such a short period of time. The professors were going nuts like, "How are we going to do this?" It was just all so new in the beginning, and just with everything else, the life stuff, it was crazy. I had a slight breakdown at first, like emotionally between that and friends getting sick and then I was getting worried about getting sick and my mom, so really buckling down, and we're not going anywhere. It was a really kind of a state of panic almost in the beginning. And I had some really close friends from other states getting it. My one friend, she's still recovering, she lives in -- originally from Alabama, one of my best friends, and she is in Kansas. She's a professor of biology there. I'm pretty sure she got it at her school. She got very sick from corona, and she was already immune compromised. Now, she's still dealing with the after effects, like the stuff that it dealt. She no longer has corona that I know of, but it did some damage with the other stuff that she has, so she's still dealing with that. Last time, she was at the Mayo Clinic. LB: Oh, my. CR: And my friend from Georgia that I mentioned before, my guitar buddy who I met in Barcelona, Spain, with -- we've kept in touch forever, like in touch since then with each other. She got it twice, and she's young, a young, heathy girl in her twenties. I feel like people are really... They have this illusion that, oh yeah, well, I'm not immune compromised, so I'm not... No, no, no, this is hitting and killing some healthy, young people out there. There's a sixteen-year-old I know from -- that my sister-in-law knows that -- a local person that died from it, a teenager. A friend of mine from church had several family members die from it. My brother had some friends in New York City that he grew up with and already knew for a long time that died from it. It just seemed like at least several times a week, we heard that somebody passed away. So when people got sick, we got really scared. I have one cousin -- and unfortunately, a lot of them are usually people that work a lot with the public. One cousin of mine, we were worried about her going back to work again. She works in a nursing home, and she got it pretty bad. And she had to stay home for a while. Luckily -- I don't know how she didn't get the rest of her family sick, but somehow, she didn't. She was isolated pretty well. So from all these people who are sick, their whole -- I would hear about their whole... It's not just when you're sick like at home with loved ones. You're not just under quarantine, but you're like under quarantine under quarantine because it's like you have to literally isolate yourself in your little bedroom with your cat or whatever, which now dogs and cats are getting it too apparently, you know? But -- LB: Yeah, but it doesn't make them sick, and they can't give it to anyone else, so it's kind of a weird thing. Like they're carriers -- CR: It is weird. LB: -- you know? I don't think -- CR: And like -- LB: -- not really a danger I think to humans -- CR: It's -- LB: -- or to the pets, kind of an odd -- CR: Hopefully not. I mean it's like you hear... I feel like we still don't even know enough about it -- LB: But that is better -- CR: -- to know everything and then I heard that there's more than one strain. I mean you never know like... And it hits everyone differently, different -- it's just so crazy. I feel like it's just too new for us to really nail anything down, to really know about it. So with all that, that's all I need. I just protect myself across the board. I don't care what's like -- unless they really learn about it, figure it out, get a vaccine, whatever, I feel we're going to take these precautions the rest of the year until next year. (sighs) Because I'm supposed to graduate in the spring ; I'm really hoping. I don't see that happening honestly, but I'm really hoping things go back to normal. I've waited so long, like over (laughs) 20 years to go back to school, to be able to walk that stage again with a four-year degree, and do the whole thing, cap and gown, etc., like the whole... I'm really, really, really excited about doing that like I did at LCCC. And I really want my mom to be able to be there, so... Like in my family, we're doing everything we can to keep her safe and healthy. LB: So that's your biggest concern is to keep your family healthy and safe? CR: Oh, yeah. That's been my number one priority. I feel like when a pandemic like this happens, which is like what, around your ears, it really makes you... I feel that the whole quarantine time -- at least for me and I hope a lot of people took this opportunity to do that. Maybe it's because -- (coughs) excuse me -- in recovery or I've always been really spiritual because of my church or whatever it maybe. I took a lot of time to reflect about things, about life, you know? LB: Mm-hmm. CR: That's when you really realize what's important. And I think not being able to go out and about and be so distracted as we usually are, and be stuck with family or whatever, like more time than you're usually used to, to get to know each other and to really just reflect on what's most important. This is a really big, rude awakening, kind of harsh reminder especially for those people that have lost people. There have been like entire families almost wiped out in this stuff, and it's really heartbreaking and sad. And I think with the time off from not being in school or at work or whatever it's been for people -- I feel like that definitely was an opportunity for people to change a lot of things. And speaking of that, the other thing that I got involved with unfortunately, not that I was trying to do that now during COVID, I've been part of the Black Lives Matter movement the whole time it's been around, for seven years now, I think, ish. And since like Trayvon Martin times, been involved with that, been using actually the same signs that I made a long time ago at my old studio, and I wasn't going to do that. I wasn't going to jump in to any rallies or anything any time soon. Under normal circumstances, I would have been to everything. I've been doing that for a long time, but it's -- but it was, of course, like a real concern and... But like my mask and I never take that off outside, and I really stayed. Like, I kept my distance from people. People got too close, I mean I got paranoid. I'm like, "Back up, like immunocompromised" you know like --? LB: Yeah. CR: So I've been really super careful about that. But I've been to a couple of rallies: one for George Floyd and the one from -- for Allentown that happened recently. So I've been involved -- pretty involved with that and a whole bunch of people in both rallies and just involved with a lot of the local organizations. I've been a member of Make the Road PA for some years now. LB: (inaudible) CR: I did some stuff for them. So still doing my activist thing with all that. Unfortunately, that was something that was completely for me -- this shouldn't be unexpected I guess, but that was an unexpected thing to deal with I felt like in the middle of all this going on, but I don't know. I guess everything happens for a reason, and there has been some change happening, which is good, more than I've seen the whole time I've been part of that movement. I think like any other -- like everything else, I feel like some things have gotten a little out of control. I feel like some real good, legitimate change whether it's doing any kind of reform [and things?], it's great. But when it goes to the -- starts going to the direction like, "We're going to take out the seventh episode of The Office" and stuff like that, it's like come on. That's not like -- you know that's not what it's about. Yeah. LB: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.. What do you think about...? And then one of the things we have here in the state of Pennsylvania is that we get to see Dr. Rachel Levine on the news, and she's the secretary of health. Have you had a chance to see her? She's transgender, and she is speaking about -- I mean, we really have pretty good leadership in the state of Pennsylvania. Has that affected you, or have you had a chance to see that? CR: Yeah, I've seen her. Yeah, she seems pretty cool I think. I think she's been harassed a little bit especially during -- with now... I think she's been doing a good job, and this is kind of dumb, like just focusing on the fact that she's a trans woman. Like big deal, you know what I mean? As long as she's doing her job, I don't care what she is, you know what I mean? It's like... That I don't get. I don't think it has anything to do with somebody's job performance -- LB: [Work?]. CR: I think a lot of people just use that as an excuse for their hate speech or whatever they need to do but -- yeah. So I don't have any problems with that. Honestly -- I'm going to plug in my laptop soon before it dies. Hold on. LB: Okay. CR: I'm in the living room trying to get (inaudible). All right. I know like our governor, Wolf, right? LB: Yes. CR: Yeah. He's been under some fire with the way he dealt -- honestly, I like him. I like the way he's dealt with it. I was all okay with the whole shut down and everything. Sure, and probably because it was easier for me ; I was already an essential worker and going to school or whatever. But to me lives come first. I'm sorry, but it's like we can deal with all that later. If we don't take care of this, it's not going to matter. Nobody is going to be around for it, then we won't have to worry about anything. But I totally agree with the way he did it. There's a reason why we're one of the states that had the lowest like the COVID, what, the report of how many cases we have and all that. They said we dealt with it pretty good. I know we're spiking a little bit now, but it's not like Florida or the way New York City was. It could have been way worse, and I think because he did what he did that it's not like Florida. I know it's inconvenient and this and that, but you do what you have to do. I mean this is... How often do we deal with this? I really wish we had done that longer honestly. I wish we'd have done... I'm just being honest about that. I feel like we opened too soon. I think we went the whole business as usual too soon, and now, we're seeing a spike. It's totally going to affect the -- all school for everybody across the board and for the whole country. I feel like this is dragging out probably way more than it should. And to tell you the truth, Liz, I knew it was going to be like this. I knew back in like March when everybody thought I was being paranoid, I knew that it was coming, it was going to be bad, and that it was going to drag on because that's how we are in this country. Like Americans, we are so stubborn and so just dumb when it comes to this kind of stuff and -- LB: You think that that's like your most frustrating thing? That it's really frustrating that you go out and people aren't wearing masks or like that and --? CR: Yeah. I knew they were going to turn it into some kind of rights thing. Like, these people had come out and -- oh, it's disgusting and comparing it to -- it's making it like a civil rights issue. It's like, "What are you doing?" and, "Oh, like we have a right," or like a sign that I saw, My Body, My Choice. Like, no, you don't get to steal like the prochoice movement's stuff for your stupid, like I don't want to wear a mask campaign. I feel like this has really brought out -- this pandemic, a lot of people's true colors, like a lot of people's true color. Like you can see. And I think it's really sad. I feel like... You can just see the people are just out there just for themselves. Like, they're just showing that they just have no concern or care about anybody else but themselves, you know? LB: Mm-hmm. CR: And it's just so selfish what's going on right now. Like when people get sick and they're like, "Oh, that's my problem," whatever. I'm like, "No, any time anybody's sick now anymore, it's everybody's problem. That's the whole point." I mean you have to be careful. You have to like think about other people. You just can't go out there hacking away or whatever and thinking that people aren't going to think you're sick with COVID. Everything has changed. I feel like a lot of people don't want to accept the new normal. Like it sucks, it's not ideal, nobody wants to live like this right now, but unfortunately, it's reality, and the more we realize that, I feel like the quicker we'll get this over with. But I feel like they're just unnecessarily prolonging it being stubborn and going out with signs like, "Let me play golf, let me go get my haircut." (laughs) It's just so ridiculous. LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) really, really being cut back. (laughs) I mean just play golf if you wear a mask because now like I want to be able to play golf and not wear a mask, you know? We're like, "Just for [heaven sakes?]," you know? CR: Yeah, yeah. It's like, whoa, I'm so glad you have your priorities straight, you know? (laughter) LB: No kidding. CR: I mean it's just like it's not for themselves especially for other people you're going to be around. It's like, do you want to see your parents or grandparents again? The more you do that, the more you have to isolate from your loved ones because then you can't be around them. You're like literally putting people in danger unnecessarily, and that's terrible. And I've heard left and right, stories about, oh, like older people passing away because they were around people they probably shouldn't have been around, and a lot of them are their close relatives. I really feel that people don't realize they're like killing their own relatives by doing -- not following these precautions. We have a responsibility to take care of the most vulnerable people in our society. You've got to be a little considerate. That's a big concern for me for people when kids go back to school. I think that's my biggest concern is kids coming -- basically coming back home and bringing this stuff -- even if they're not sick, if they don't have symptoms coming home and infecting their parents, grandparents. That's a big concern of mine. I mean kids are great, but honestly, I'm staying away from them this entire time. (laughs) I've really avoided them at all costs. I know that sounds terrible, but -- LB: [Like with their family?] -- CR: -- that's how I feel. LB: I mean everybody knows that. You take your kid to day care, they're going to get a cold. CR: Oh, yeah. LB: This is far more contagious than a cold or the flu, the regular flu. I know a person who's a pediatrician who was asked by some of her parents of the patients she has, "Well, can I take my kid to daycare?" She said, "Well, if you don't mind them getting it." Here's the thing ; I mean you think that they don't get a cold, they don't get every single infection, everything from the head lice (laughs) to infections to poison ivy, to -- well you name it, your kids are infected if it's in day care of if it's in school. That's why -- you know? CR: Yeah, I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that. I mean, you've got to love them, but it's like they're literally, little germ buckets walking around right now, and I just can't -- I can't deal with it literally. (laughs) I avoid them like anything right now but... I really, really feel for the parents that have to navigate that whole thing, their life with parenthood and the pandemic. That must be awful, especially the parents that I know, especially the single mom parents that don't have that option. Oh, you can't take them to daycare, they don't have school, what do you do with them? They have to go to work especially the ones -- like my one ex that works at a -- what is it, like a nursing home environment, that whole thing. She's the caretaker forever, and these people are constantly worried about bringing stuff home to their kids, you know? LB: Right. CR: And very, very... The best people I know, I know a lot of caretakers, a lot of therapists and everything, and they're all struggling with that. Most of the closest people I know are in health care, so of course, that was a big concern. That was a big worry having so many loved ones in health care like the women's clinic. I used to work at Allentown Women's Center for six years, all my best friends work there. Oh, that's been like a nightmare just worrying about them, and every time I talk to them, not being able to be close to them any time soon, like, "You guys, really be careful," and it's -- LB: Are they open? CR: -- and praying for them every day. Hmm? LB: Are they open? CR: Yeah. They've been open since the beginning. They're considered essentials, women's health. They do abortions, but they do like GYN health care. They've been -- LB: A lot of trans health -- CR: -- about forty years. LB: Yeah. CR: Yeah, now the past... It's been a few years now. They have a whole trans health initiative. I'm proud to say that I got them into -- I put them on the gay map, so to speak, in Lehigh Valley a long time ago back in... I was working -- started in 2005 till 2011 when Jenn Boulanger was there, and I got them to PrideFest, and I was translating a bunch of things in Spanish. I was in charge of -- the bilingual counselor there, I was in charge of the Spanish-speaking patients since we got them -- we started this whole LGBT initiative thing, and so, yeah, they've grown a lot. They've grown a lot in their services, but yeah, being at a doctor's office, like that's been really scary. All my best friends are there, and it's already bad enough with that kind of business. It's already a risky field to begin with. Like prior to the pandemic, it was -- when I was there, it was hard because of protestors, and you get threats. You get bomb threats, you get that kind of stuff all the time really, so they were already in danger even before this but then the pandemic comes rolling around, and then you have to worry about your friends getting sick. That's been stressful. So I always check in with them all the time about that because, yeah, I'd be devastated if anything happened to any of my girls there. Yeah, because those are the best women I know ever, and we've been through a lot together, so... Like I said, this really makes you think what's important and you end up -- I don't know if you've done it, but I know especially in the beginning, you got used to quarantine and everything, I was reconnecting with people I hadn't talked to for a while -- LB: Yeah, absolutely. CR: -- you know? Yeah, and you wonder like, who's going to survive this, who's not going to survive this. In the long run when it's all over, like who's going to be left? I started thinking about stuff like that. LB: We're still in the beginning of it too. CR: Huh? LB: We're just at the beginning of it too. We don't even know what's going to happen. I mean if people are looking at this video of you talking thirty years from now, they know what happened. They may not know what the individual experiences for people would be, but they know what's going to happen with regard to this and how it's going to change the world, and we don't. And people who think that this is going to be back to normal, I mean we had employees at the center or other people that we're working with us would say, "Well, you know in September..." Actually, somebody just asked me to do a training in September, I said, "Well, I can't --" What I said was, "If I can absolutely guarantee that a person at risk won't be at -- there won't be any risk for someone who has high risk there, yes, I'll do it in person." Well, I know that's not going to happen, so there's no way that that's going to happen. Nobody can foresee that. Unless they came out with a vaccine tomorrow that eradicated the entire thing, well, that's going to happen, you know? CR: Right. LB: It's just not, so anyway. What's giving you hope? I mean, what's the best thing that's happened out of this, or what's really giving you hope, or generally, what gives you hope? CR: I think the biggest thing that's kept me together like mentally, emotionally, everything is probably I'm really grateful for my spirituality honestly. And I did this prior to all this happening. I pray and meditate every single day, so I'm very grateful for that. I've been attending church online, visiting several actually in the area, the Gregory Edwards Church and mine. My spirituality, I feel like, and the program recovery, it's given so much comfort so that that's helped a lot. I feel very blessed and lucky to have that and also my support system. I think is really important for people to have that support system and a Zoom account (laughs) to really connect with people because it is -- I feel bad for anyone that doesn't have that connection via... Like if they don't have good internet or a laptop or whatever, I really feel for them because that's like the lifeline for most people to the outside world. The support system I have that I've made for myself from people from school, from church, from other like mental health professionals. Honestly, I feel that we're all going to have -- I think we're feeling the effects of it already especially from quarantine, and I've talked about this with them. I think we're all going to have some form of PTSD from this thing, you know? And I feel like everyone can benefit from some kind of professional help when this is all over or even more like during because it's a lot. It's a lot especially for people like me that are... Well, I'm kind of an ambivert I guess. I can do both like still stay at home and be introvert and extro-- but I am mostly extroverted. The quarantine, that's probably the biggest thing like being out there and hanging out with people and being around people and hugging, and just the whole very people person and [there be?] -- LB: Are you using any dating apps or any queer dating apps or anything? CR: (laughs) Yeah, Tinder is probably not the best -- LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) CR: (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, I feel like you have to be really, really careful. Shoot, I haven't done like online dating app or anything for years. Fortunately being involved, I think being involved in so many circles really improves your chances of dating. But luckily, even after the break, I'm thinking, oh, cool, so dating is not going to happen any time soon. But fortunately, somebody from my recovery group -- we were friends before, we're kind of seeing each other now. So I guess I'm like in a rebound relationship now you can say, so I got lucky with that. And we've kind of screened each other like physically and everything. She works by herself, a caseworker, so it's worked out. It's really worked out that we were able to like get together and know that we're safe because we're -- we've been isolating. (laughs) So I got lucky with that. But, yeah, I know that's not usually the case with most people, and I really hope that people aren't doing that too much. And if they are, I don't really know how you could do that safely at this point and not consider like -- LB: That's why they say -- CR: -- the people (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) -- huh? LB: -- right now, you're your own best friend. CR: Yeah, yeah. (laughs) Absolutely. Yeah, you have to be safe like that especially these days. LB: Sex during corona, you're your own best friend is the -- CR: Seriously, yeah, because it's like -- because in the end -- that's all the things I considered. Like in the end, I'm thinking, is it really worth hooking up with someone right now and then taking that home to your relatives? LB: Yeah, (inaudible). CR: Is it really worth it in the long run? I'm like, nope. So, yeah, it's tough. If somebody wasn't partnered before this went down, this is like -- then it's been -- I know it's been tough for people. I got lucky, but I know like that's -- it is what it is though. Huh? LB: I think people who are living alone, completely alone, it's very, very hard for them. CR: Sure. LB: It's an off thing. I say that to Trish every day. I say, "We're so lucky that we get to be here. We're also so lucky that we have a big enough house that we don't have to be in the same room every day," you know? CR: Right, right, right. (laughs) Definitely, oh, my gosh, and I think that was a big thing too I heard was -- I forgot what country it was. That definitely the corona has gone down and it's going back to normal, and divorce rates are up because people just got so sick of each other, you know? LB: Well -- CR: I could see that. LB: -- a lot of people are looking at their smaller apartments, like people who lived in New York City that were very in small -- like the lodge that I just sleep there, are really looking at different kinds of living arrangements. I don't know if I can ever -- maybe I can never imagine. What if I get stuck doing this again? I have to move to the suburbs, or I have to have more of a communal living situation where a group of people are living together so that they don't have to be alone. They said that like every pet in the -- all the dogs and cats that were in, the strays, everybody adopted them because -- in all the places because people didn't want to not have anything to hug. And I think it was a big deal. I think a big deal. So we're pretty much at the end of this. I wanted to just ask you in the future, we hope that somebody -- well, I think people will look at these. These are very interesting artifacts because comparing this to the flu that happened a hundred years ago, a hundred and two years ago, the flu epidemic of 1918, they didn't have social media then. On the other hand, they didn't really know how dangerous it was, and that's why so many more people died. I mean fifty million people died in that flu epidemic and for a lot of -- one of the reasons is that people weren't sharing information. They weren't telling each other really how they were communicating and how they had to do distance and stuff. You weren't allowed to talk about that really. I think for a lot of us who are concerned about other people, the biggest frustration is elected officials who are leaders who were saying to people, "Well, so what if people die? Go ahead and open. It's only fourteen thousand children that are going to die," that kind of stuff. So that makes us all nuts but.. And it's ridiculous because there's no finite number. We have no idea what this is going to do, and we also know that there has been indication that people -- scientists have said if every single person in the United States wore a mask for three months, this would be over. CR: Mm-hmm, yeah. LB: Right? CR: Yeah. LB: Literally, it would end it. It would end the thing. But people won't wear their masks ; it's crazy. But anyway, what I wanted to ask you is people would be looking at this, so now you're talking to the future and you're going to tell them. Tell them one -- a couple of phrases about sort of what's happening and what you hope is going to happen and to just communicate the feeling of -- like your feelings about how things are now and maybe some hope and what you'll hope it's going to turn out to be and that kind of stuff. What would you say to them? CR: Well, to kind of piggyback on what you just said, I realized that when it first started, like everything shutting down in mid-March or whatever, in some countries, this was already winding down in some places. I think already in China, like it was already winding down, and it wasn't really a long time overall when you look at it because they were really strict with themselves about that. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen here any time soon. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's not already the country where it lasts the longest because of so many people fighting it. They wouldn't even put up with that in other countries. They haven't as far as I know like the protesting about wearing masks and all that. Yeah, I feel that this has really, like I said, been an opportunity to really -- to unite and just fight this together and just follow what we're supposed to do. But honestly, I feel that it has divided us as well unfortunately, and I can't say that I'm surprised by that. It's really disappointing. That combined with other things that we already had here that we're dealing with. Don't even get me started on our so-called leadership of the country. I think that's a huge, huge part. They have not set a good example in how to deal with this crisis, and I feel that it says a lot. Like whatever the leaders are doing, they're leading by example or they're supposed to be, people are going to follow that. And I've literally heard, I'm sure you did too, on the news, I literally heard people saying like on the beach, "Well, the president doesn't wear a mask, why should I?" That says a lot, and I feel like things would have been one hundred percent completely different if we had somebody else there who would have spotted this a long time ago. It should have been taken care of like the end of last year honestly. If that would have happened, things would have been totally different. So I feel like we were not prepared for this at all, but we should have seen this coming a mile away. Unfortunately, we haven't, we didn't, and this is the result of that but I'm hoping that... And I think sadly, it's going to take another serious wave for it to really kick in, for a lot of people to really realize it especially the people that are still saying, I don't know why, that it's -- I don't know where they're getting this information from, that it's a hoax. People have been dying and getting sick. I feel like they're the ones that need to get sick or have someone around them to really understand. I don't wish this on anybody, but it's like, what is it going to take, you know? LB: Right. CR: So it's been really scary. And it's almost like you have to walk on eggshells and have this constant stress over you all the time. Like, am I going to get it? Am I going to bring this home today? It's like we shouldn't have to live like that, and it doesn't have to be like that. But hopefully, we'll get through it, and a lot of lessons I'm hoping we'll learn to be better prepared, hopefully to have better leadership in the figure. We do have an election -- a big election coming up, so I hope that's reflected in the upcoming elections. If it's not, then it's like, have we really learned anything? So I think there are so many lessons to be learned with the pandemic on a very, very personal level, on a level like your community. It takes a village, you know?LB: Yeah. CR: National level, international level. I mean so many lessons. You need to take this opportunity to really reflect on so many things and not act like it's business as usual because it's not, and it's not going to be for a long time. LB: Yeah. You spent a lot of time in Europe or you were in Europe last year for three and a half months, and I'm sure you have friends in other countries too that -- have you been communicating with those people in other countries about what that -- their experiences were, or was it mostly students that were from here that you were around? CR: Mostly students, but that's a good question. I did make some friends over there mostly from the university. I was -- actually became good friends with my professors that I ended up hanging out with early -- like we hang out with them and fellow artists over there that I worked with. It's a shame ; I haven't gotten in touch with them. I should even if it's just via WhatsApp or whatever. That's been a great source of -- for communication. Yeah, I'm going to check up on them with that because I know Spain was in a major lockdown, major lockdown, but they seem to have done pretty well with it as well. That's what I noticed. The ones that had that most strict lockdown, quarantine procedures are the ones that came out better off in the long run, you know? I really wish we could have done that here. I knew we wouldn't be able to, I just -- I knew. There would just be too much of a hassle, too much ruckus with all these crazy groups going out there on the steps of city hall with -- or wherever it was with their guns and what -- it's so ridiculous. I'm just -- I can't -- you know like -- yeah. I think that's just really dragging it out, and we'll eventually learn the hard way, so... LB: Yeah. Well, this has been a great interview. I really, really appreciate you taking your time to do this with me today, and -- CR: Thank you. LB: -- I appreciate it very much. You do get that thirty day -- we'll try to get the transcript. This goes to a college, a transcripts groups that they transcribe this into writing so that you can look at it then you have some time to look at it and stuff. I can't imagine that you would want to take anything out. Everything you said was brilliant -- CR: Thank you. LB: -- needless to say. And let me give my best wishes to your mom and take care of yourself, and I really appreciate all of that. and I appreciate all the stuff you've done over the many, many years that you've done. I think we've known each other for at least twenty-five years. CR: Oh gosh, yeah, yeah. LB: So yeah, and you've always been there working on this stuff and always very, very vocal and very... And one of the things I was thinking about because I have the same quality as you, is artists are never bored. You always have something. CR: (laughs) Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. LB: Especially since we have the internet where we can show our art on the internet. So it's like, -- CR: Oh yeah. LB: -- well, nobody can see the work I'm doing. You can -- CR: Yeah. LB: You work all the time, and maybe in some way, kind of cool that you get the time to just work and work. I've made two paintings yesterday, so I really do understand it. CR: Excellent, yeah. LB: Thank you very much. I'm going to stop the recording here. CR: Sure. LB: Thanks -- CR: Okay, yeah, no -- END OF VIDEO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:12:30
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Cynthia Rodriguez, July 20, 2020 (Part 1)
Description
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Cynthia Rodriguez talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting her, her friends and family, her experience as a full time student and her work as an artist and musician. She also talks about prayer and meditation and civil rights activism including Black Lives Matter.
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PH40_31a
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
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2020-07-20
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Kristen Leipert
Interviewee
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Christina Peyroux
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_33.xml
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5.4 Unknown Date Christina Peyroux, July 29, 2020 PH40_33 00:44:33 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Christina Peyroux Kristen Leipert video/mpeg PeyrouxChristina_20200729_video.mp4 1.0:|27(2)|58(8)|81(11)|102(14)|127(13)|156(6)|177(4)|194(4)|217(8)|242(9)|261(5)|284(12)|309(2)|330(14)|351(5)|372(13)|397(9)|418(7)|437(8)|458(12)|481(7)|502(14)|519(16)|540(10)|561(9)|584(12)|607(7)|626(12)|651(5)|672(13)|693(11)|716(15)|739(13)|762(7)|783(15)|804(5)|823(4)|840(4)|861(12)|876(4)|893(12)|916(7)|929(15)|948(7)|959(5) 0 https://youtu.be/IrX6vj-n6qE YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction KRISTEN LEIPERT: My name is Kristen Leipert and I’m here with Christina Peyroux to talk about her experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the Covid-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. We are meeting on Zoom on July 29, 2020. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start can you please state your full name and spell it for me?
 ; 
 ; CHRISTINA PEYROUX: Yes, my name is Christina Peyroux, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-A Peyroux P as in Paul, E-Y-R-O-U-X as in x-ray.
 ; 0 139 How the pandemic has affected home life and working in the Lehigh Valley Health Network KL: This is a really general starting question and you can take it wherever. How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your life and this could be your work life, personal life, social life, sex life, anything.
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 ; CP: First off, I graduated college in Washington, D.C. and then I moved back to Pennsylvania to live with my grandmother. I am a registered nurse, so I started nursing this year, she finished nursing this year. She retired. 0 291 Starting nursing job before Covid-19 pandemic KL: So you graduated this year?
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 ; CP: May 2019.
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 ; KL: Were you still in school when this started and then got the job or was it kind -- I don’t know how that works because now I’m fascinated, now it’s like I’m just asking you this for me.
 ; 
 ; CP: That’s fine, absolutely, my hospital does this program for nursing students where you can be something called a technical partner, sometimes known as nurse aides, throughout nursing school so that you maintain a job and then you can be an internal hire. So I already had the job upon graduating[...] 0 505 Experience living with grandmother KL: Yeah, so you’ve been protecting your grandmother but has she also been -- I mean she’s obviously a good person that you can bounce your whole day off of and I bet she is just I was going to say loving everything you have to say to her, but I don’t know if that’s the right word.
 ; 
 ; CP: Yeah because, it’s funny because, you know, we’re two generations apart and in the nursing or any medical field that’s huge I mean every five years they come out with new studies let alone sixty years. 0 589 Socializing during the pandemic KL: I was going to say because you’re working, and you know so like your social life are you like maintaining friendships, I don’t know, video friending?
 ; 
 ; CP: When you’re in nursing school you don’t really have a social life. The on-running joke is like choose three: eating, sleeping, social life, and good grades. You can’t have it all. So usually, nine times out of ten your social life is what is nonexistent and it’s really unfortunate because when I was in college, you know it’s, you’re focused. 0 757 Exercising during the pandemic/taking care of self during the pandemic KL: I had a question and now I don’t remember it. Oh so you’re active in sports are you trying to get outside now, do you -- I know those are like the mental things I think that during this time are probably like super helpful.
 ; 
 ; CP: Yes, I actually for the first time since I was like four years old decided to not be on a team sport after college, I am working out like by myself. 0 867 Spending time with girlfriend during pandemic CP: And I’ve also been able to spend more time than I thought with my girlfriend. She actually moved to Virginia after college but then Covid hit and her job became remote, so she actually moved back to PA to live with her parents which is a like an hour or so from me. So on times when I have like a few days off or long weekends, I go there or she comes here. 0 929 Positive results of the pandemic KL: What other positive things have come out of it, do you have any like fun hobbies or no you’re just?
 ; 
 ; CP: Positive: my grandmother has a pretty large property and she has a large house for being here by herself for so long. She bought a house that would be able to comfortably live her, her son’s family and my mother’s family. So she has enough room for eight people in this house. 0 1063 Wondering about future work/staffing prospects CP: I wonder how life is going to be like in the future after all this kind of calms down? I think it’s made a lot of business owners and a lot of people realize what jobs aren’t really needed per se. And I don’t want to say needed for lack of a better term, but there are a lot of people that I feel like their staffing is going to drop, because they realize that they can function without it. 0 1131 Working at full functioning capacity during the pandemic at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest branch KL: So now has your unit gone back?
 ; 
 ; CP: Yes, we have. We are at full functioning capacity. I mean think about it, people who were intending to come into the hospital for all these things got delayed, now everybody’s coming in all of a sudden and everybody’s coming in worse because everybody delayed it. 0 1240 Taking care of mental health during the pandemic KL: Well some of our categories are about social life and personal pursuits which gardening is now your new. And then mental and physical health.
 ; 
 ; CP: Yes, on that note my therapist was like, who I’ve been seeing for years, is like maybe you should start journaling, and I’m really not the kind of person that opens up a journal at the end of the day and says “today I did this,” I’m just not that kind of person. 0 1351 Taking precautions because of Covid/Being mindful of potentially effecting the health of others CP: I’ve also had to invest in other gear, like other uniforms, because they’re getting used so heavily. I’ve bought other like scrub caps, yeah, I’ve gone through a lot of stuff. And my floor, they try to keep completely free of anyone who has the virus. They send people to my floor who are immunocompromised, so my floor is like relatively safe unless I get floated somewhere else. So I bring everything home, we have a shower on the first floor, I hop right in the shower, I throw my uniform right in the washer and she stays upstairs the entire time. 0 1643 Wearing a mask during the pandemic CP: Someone else might literally die from it, so people come up to me because they see me and like, they know I’m a nurse, and they’re like “so what about these masks, do you believe they work, blah blah blah”, and I tell them straight up front I’m like “I’m wearing my mask for your benefit. I’m wearing my mask, not because I think I’m going to get sick, and I’m afraid of me getting sick, but because if I have it or I get it and I pass it to you, you might die”. 0 1884 Changed work routines at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest branch during the pandemic KL: Now I’m totally asking you, are you tired talking about this yet. Do they have Covid patients? I mean how is that for you every day go into work, I mean everything’s isolated, but do you get daily briefings of what’s going on?
 ; 
 ; CP: So when Covid originally started and all the procedural units that were like ours, but couldn’t be customized into a medical surgical, like a generalized floor, a lot of their staff was either furloughed or floated, and they had staff posted at every entrance to the hospital scanning temperatures for every staff member and every visitor. 0 1971 How working during the pandemic has affected nursing career moving forward/may affect the nursing career in general CP: There are people in the nursing profession for like I said 60 years and they have never experienced anything like this. And I was right on the end, the tail end of normalcy, so I’ve seen both worlds. And like I said, there are nurses who have been in this profession for years and they’re like we’re all on the same level - now there’s no seniority with this. One has no practice with all of this, it’s just everybody’s trying to help each other survive. 
 ; 0 2113 Comparisons between the AIDS epidemic and Covid-19 pandemic KL: But I mean you know listening to some people saying how you know people didn’t want to take care of people that had AIDS in the beginning, you know like all this stuff and having to suit up when going into their brother in a hospital room and like the nurses not wanting to take care of them so the family had to do it, you know, and it’s interesting to see that comparison or just yeah all of this you know.
 ; 
 ; CP: Yes, and you make a valid point. Like, when we learned about the AIDS crisis, that happened and the nursing care that was provided, or even in some cases not provided, it’s, I’d like to think, very different from how we’re handling it today -for the better. 0 2211 Finding humor when nursing KL: What a sad conversation, anything fun you want to talk about?
 ; 
 ; CP: I mean I don’t know. It is what it is, this is my life now. That’s another thing I think nursing really, like a lot of the people if you ever have nursing friends or colleagues that were nurses, their view of life and their sense of humor are vastly different from common Joe, just because, I mean at the end of the day or night when we give a report and we’re like all of our patients are alive, like that’s great! 0 2360 Communicating with LGBTQ community members digitally CP: I think that during Covid, a lot of people in the LGBTQ community have found each other over long distances, because they’ve been forced to, because you weren’t able to see your normal web of people in person. You were forced to use a lot more social media or long distance things which almost eliminated the distance. 0 2501 Looking forward to going to LGBTQ businesses/LGBTQ community events after the pandemic CP: I am looking forward to going to more events with people, like from the community. Like I miss, like D.C., there’s so many LGBTQ friendly bars or dance floors, clubs, anything, you name it. I miss that and I do go to like Pride whenever it’s available but it’s nice that we have been able to like enjoy ourselves and have pride in ourselves without the big fanfare and the big parade. 0 MovingImage Christina Peyroux discusses her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic including how it has effected her job in nursing and living with her grandmother, a retired nurse. Christina Peyroux 2020-07-29 KRISTEN LEIPERT: My name is Kristen Leipert and I'm here with Christina Peyroux to talk about her experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the Covid-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. We are meeting on Zoom on July 29, 2020. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start can you please state your full name and spell it for me? CHRISTINA PEYROUX: Yes, my name is Christina Peyroux, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-A Peyroux P as in Paul, E-Y-R-O-U-X as in x-ray. KL: Will you share your birthdate? CP: Yes, 11/22/1996. KL: This is the consent portion. Do you consent to this interview today? CP: I do consent. KL: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable format? CP: Yes. KL: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats? CP: Yes. KL: Do you understand that you'll have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts you would like to delete and/or withdraw your interview for this project? CP: I understand that. KL: Okay and this project has been approved by Muhlenberg College's Institutional Review Board and you may contact Dr. Erika Iyengar with any questions and if you want her email address I'm happy to give it to you. CP: Okay. KL: All right, so you are where are you currently located, your zip code? CP: Let me think, 18104. KL: This is a really general starting question and you can take it wherever. How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your life and this could be your work life, personal life, social life, sex life, anything. CP: First off, I graduated college in Washington, D.C. and then I moved back to Pennsylvania to live with my grandmother. I am a registered nurse, so I started nursing this year, she also finished nursing. She retired, she's been a nurse for 60 years, so we kind of helped each other transition into and out of the profession. So I was born here but now I've moved back. My life has changed because my grandmother, being an eighty-two-year-old woman she's immunocompromised and I still work at the hospital. So I have to completely change my habits of what happens when I come home from work where I keep dirty clothes goes right into the washer, our water bill has gone up. Different cleaning or rather different ways of cleaning my shoes, so I've had to kind of think outside the box in order to still do my job and keep her safe as well. KL: So you work at the hospital? CP: I work at Lehigh Valley Health Network yes and obviously Covid-19 has affected my work life drastically. My unit is actually a step down cardiac unit, we handle people who are going for pacemakers and cardiac procedures of the like. And most of our people are elective surgeries, people don't usually come to the hospital and end up on our unit unless it's planned. And since Covid was like raging people weren't doing these elective surgeries, people weren't choosing to come into the hospital I mean as they shouldn't, it was good because we could keep people who were like really really sick in the ICU and other patients who really didn't need intensive care could come to our unit. So we turned into like a generalized what you would say a medical surgical unit. So I got patients that I really had no previous training on it was a great learning experience but it was also very nerve wracking because when you came into work every day you had no idea what you were going to get. KL: So you graduated this year? CP: May 20. KL: Were you still in school when this started and then got the job or was it kind -- I don't know how that works because now I'm fascinated, now it's like I'm just asking you this for me. CP: That's fine, absolutely, my hospital does this program for nursing students where you can be something called a technical partner sometimes known as nurse aides, throughout nursing school so that you maintain a job and then you can be an internal hire. So I already had the job upon graduating, I had already signed a contract, I had signed a two year bonus for ten thousand dollars all they said you just have to graduate. You've got the job all you've got to do is pass your boards which was a huge lifesaver for me because I know a large portion of my classmates while they were in senior year of nursing school studying for tests, studying for their degree were like well now I've got to find a job, it was a huge help for me. So I was already on that unit and when I had graduated May 2019 Covid obviously hadn't happened yet. When I started actually my orientation process in July 2019 we didn't, we were not affected by Covid yet, so I was completely on my own like a full functioning nurse off of orientation, had my degree when Covid happened. So they had to let us go and to be on our own and to like practice fully functioning by ourselves without someone like directly observing us when Covid started really ramping up. So it was a huge challenge I just (break in audio) people who are in school this year so drastically affected because their second semester, their clinicals were probably all cancelled. I know a lot of people couldn't get their nursing degree because the testing centers were closed so everything's been pushed back. So once again there's a nursing shortage. What's next. KL: Oh my gosh. So yeah amazing. So you've gotten to, you had like that experience of doing what you want to do let's say and then suddenly all new things to learn. That's a good start to your career. CP: Yeah, I feel like I had just kind of gotten secure like I can take care of patients now and then the rug was pulled out from under me so to speak. KL: So you have obviously still been working showering five hundred times. CP: I'm grateful, because people their life turned upside down, they don't know how they're going to pay bills. I mean I'm just out of college because I'm living with my grandmother I'm already done with my student loans, I bought my first car, huge like milestones that I would not have been able to complete had I not been living with my grandmother, had I not kept an essential job and had I not planned ahead of time and had the foresight to like really attack bills while I could. KL: Yeah, so you've been protecting your grandmother but has she also been -- I mean she's obviously a good person that you can bounce your whole day off of and I bet she is just I was going to say loving everything you have to say to her, but I don't know if that's the right word. CP: Yeah because it's funny because, you know, we're two generations apart and in the nursing or any medical field that's huge I mean every five years they come out with new studies let alone sixty years. I come home and I talk about a situation she's like, "When I was your age what we used to do." And it's just really funny to hear the differences and there are nurses on my unit that are kind of in between our stages. So I'll go to them and I'll be like do you ever remember doing this, this or this were you around during the days where on night shift you did this, this, or that. It's very interesting and it's a great talking point. KL: I mean you've obviously been like very aware of protecting her. CP: Yes. It's a complicated life but it's made it interesting and I accept the challenge, I appreciate it. KL: So I don't know do you, what else? CP: What else? KL: I was going to say because you're working, and you know so like your social life are you like maintaining friendships, I don't know, video friending? CP: When you're in nursing school you don't really have a social life, the on running joke it's like choose three eating, sleeping, social life, and good grades. You can't have it all. So usually nine times out of ten your social life is what is nonexistent and it's really unfortunate because when I was in college you know it's you're focused, I had the nursing major degree, I actually have a Spanish for Healthcare certificate which is almost a minor, I think I was like one class short of it actually being a minor. So I was really focused on school, I had jobs, I was on the varsity soccer team and I was on club rugby, I had a lot going on. So really my school and my sports were my social life, I didn't really have one. So after graduation I was like wow I can actually hang out with my friends, we can go places, we can do things, and then I had about five months of that and then Covid hit and now we're back to I don't have a social life because there's nothing open anymore. But I am video chatting, I am calling, texting, obviously you hang out with people at work while you're at work but it's entirely (break in audio) so I'm looking forward to when things open up again and you can go places like go to a park and just be outside and people watch and go to a restaurant, meet up with friends, you know that kind of thing. I actually miss -- from D.C., I miss having the ability to just bar hop. [Near here?] I lived on the same block as three different bars so if you wanted to go out and some place got boring you could walk down the street. If you needed to go somewhere that was far away you could just call an Uber or a Lyft, much less or I should say there are not as many people who drive for those programs around here. So, like the one day I pulled up Uber or Lyft just to see if there was anyone even around and I don't think Uber had anyone and I think Lyft had one person. I'm kind of in culture shock in that aspect but I'm getting through it. KL: Yeah that's always interesting. I had a question and now I don't remember it. Oh so you're active in sports are you trying to get outside now, do you -- I know those are like the mental things I think that during this time are probably like super helpful. CP: Yes, I actually for the first time since I was like four years old decided to not be on a team sport after college, I am working out like by myself. I was going to the gym but obviously that's kind of changed now, I'm lucky enough to have a huge driveway so I actually work out outside in the driveway, I can go for a run, there's lots of trails around here. I'm enjoying the fact that I can choose when and what I want to do when I work out which isn't the case when you have any kind of sports team usually. And I'm also enjoying the fact that I'm just like you know what I have a lot of errands to run, I can't work out today, like no required practice and I believe it or not am really enjoying that and I don't know maybe I could go back to like an adult recreational league in the future but as far as now is concerned I'm really enjoying me time because for a long time, I mean sports, school, it wasn't me it was what I was doing, so I think what Covid taught me to be honest was just be which I've enjoyed because obviously my work life is very busy, so when I get home it's nice to just be. And I've also been able to spend more time than I thought with my girlfriend. She actually moved to Virginia after college but then Covid hit and her job became remote, so she actually moved back to PA to live with her parents which is a like an hour or so from me, so on times when I have like a few days off or long weekends I go there or she comes here. So able to spend a lot more time with her than I would have been, had this pandemic not happened, so you know. KL: That's good I'm glad it worked out. Like a lot of people have been saying that you know, I mean of course you know it's taught people to really just slow down and kind of take care of themselves or realize how taking care of themselves, like what that means to them. CP: Most definitely. KL: So that's good. What other positive things have come out of it, do you have any like fun hobbies or no you're just? CP: Positive, my grandmother has a pretty large property and she has a large house for being here by herself for so long. She bought a house that would be able to comfortably live her, her son's family and my mother's family, so she has enough room for eight people in this house. So it's a very large house, obviously many beds, many bathrooms, multiple stories, and she has the yard to support it. So I've been really trying to help her clean the house, get rid of extra stuff she doesn't need, work on the yard, it's a lot of upkeep. I realized that in the process I don't want a big yard when I grow up or a big house, it's a lot of work and I'm really -- you know like to each his own, I'm proud of people for doing that if that's what they want but like I don't need that and that's okay. KL: Yeah, I hear you there. CP: I feel like when I was a kid my mom was like I just cleaned the floor oh my god how did it happen I'm like well yeah it happened. But now I'm the person saying oh my god I just cleaned the floor how did that happen. KL: I mean I get that, being home all the time now I have two children and it's like just I'm like working and then I walk to do whatever, I get water and I'm like where are there dishes, it's never ending all the things. But it's also been nice to just be like I'm working and now it's ten o'clock in the morning let's go for a walk and then I'll get back to work afterwards, like there's something about this you know like yeah. CP: I wonder how life is going to be like in the future after all this kind of calms down, I think it's made a lot of business owners and a lot of people realize what jobs aren't really needed per se. And I don't want to say needed for lack of a better term but there are a lot of people that I feel like their staffing is going to drop, because they realize that they can function without it. I feel like a lot of businesses have found a way around it. Like I know for example there are a lot of places who are suddenly creating outdoor seating when they never had it before, because people are requesting outdoor seating they're not going to eat inside, to each his own. But it's very interesting because people are like throwing up tents and then buying extra tables and they're like oh we have ten tables outside now. I don't know, I kind of hope they keep that stuff. KL: So now has your unit gone back? CP: Yes, we have, we are at full functioning capacity. They need to think about it if people who were intending to come into the hospital for all these things everybody's coming in all of a sudden and everybody's coming in worse because everybody delayed it. So, length of stays are longer, the amount of people getting treated raises exponentially. It's also forcing people out sooner because they don't want people to stay into the hospital too long. Like they're goal is to get up and walk the same day, that night of as opposed to just rest. And I know you know a couple of generations back you would have same day surgeries that people come in for in the morning and they leave that afternoon people would be in the hospital an entire day before, have the surgery and then be in the hospital an entire day after. We've drastically changed things. KL: Yes, that's interesting, I mean do you think that people probably do better at home or they're more comfortable at home or it depends on what they have? CP: It depends on their whole (break in audio) take that into consideration, we have special nurses to do case management for that. But I mean if they have a support system they'll probably thrive better in the hospital or at home than at the hospital, there's less noise for sure, more rest ability, better healing capabilities, yes. KL: I don't know, anything else, I'm trying to look at my list of subjects. CP: I can't think of anything off the top of my head. What are your other questions, it might trigger something? KL: Well some of our categories are about social life and personal pursuits which gardening is now your new. And then mental and physical health. CP: Yes, on that note my therapist was like, who I've been seeing for years, is like maybe you should start journaling and I'm really not the kind of person that opens up a journal at the end of the day and says today I did this, I'm just not that kind of person, I know it works for a lot of people, it's just like my job is so busy like I don't want to think about it when I get home. Like I leave it at work for a reason. So I bought these books and it's like three thousand questions about me, three thousand would you rather and I fill those out and that's my version of journaling, because it asks you questions that you would not think about. Some of them are like surface value that you just know the answer right off the top of your head, and others you really have to think about. And she like we go off of those deep questions and it's like what made you think today kind of thing. That's my form of like that keeps me sane, that keeps me grounded. KL: I purposely did not look at your stuff that you filled out on the form so I wouldn't be asking you those things that you wrote about. I feel like you know when you talked about well living with someone who you have to be careful with health wise I know someone who's a doctor and yeah I mean she just like showers at work, puts real clothes on, goes home, showers when she gets home, changes, you know there's just like a process that's a new process really that you wouldn't have done before. CP: I've also had to invest in other gear like other uniforms because they're getting used so heavily, I've bought other like scrub caps, yeah, I've gone through a lot of stuff. And my floor they try to keep completely free of anyone who has the virus, they send people to my floor who are immunocompromised, so my floor is like relatively safe unless I get somewhere else. So I bring everything home, we have a shower on the first floor, I hop right in the shower, I throw my uniform right in the washer and she stays upstairs the entire time period and I'm just like hey I'm out of the shower now, the stuff's in the washer, you can come down we can have dinner. KL: I feel like, yeah there's like a lot of mental pressure on, you know, someone like you who's just like in a hospital all the time. To just worry about everyone else around you. CP: Yes, you try to limit your interactions with people too especially when you're just coming home from work, like if I have to get gas, I try to use the pump farthest away from people. If I have to go shopping, I like to try to give people an extra wide berth, but you know I try not to go shopping or get gas on days that I had just worked in the hospital. I do what I can because I'd want people to do that for me as well. KL: I went to a doctor recently, a dermatologist and you know I had to take my mask off and I thought oh my gosh it was like my first time really doing anything and then I'm like of course like for anything that she needs to see I've got to take my mask off. And you know she was saying too that not that she ever really stopped working but because nothing was emergency unless it was, she would come in. And she said at first it was just like even though she'd see a few patients during the day, and it wasn't a lot of work and she was just looking at people's faces and then she'd go home and she said she would be totally done, like mentally done just from the fact that people were taking their masks off in front of her. You know how quicKLy that mental -- that's changed for just being like normal being close to people and suddenly that's like something scary, that just takes your energy. CP: It does, it really does. It's definitely taxing. KL: I mean I thought about her saying that and I was like yeah and she is afraid to see her parents and like they live in Pittsburgh and because she'd have to do like a two week quarantine and then stay with them you know it would just be like this extended time of vacation that she can't afford to take. Or, you know, is willing to do that or just be around them because they're immunocompromised and yeah like the mental energy, for like just the day to day everything and then to add that, you know. CP: I think the terrible or most stressful I guess you could say is god forbid something were to happen who you interacted with you'd be like was that my fault. And obviously you're never going to know who gave who, like if you had it, people go round they have no symptoms. Like you know what I'm saying, I think that right there is what is the most detrimental to people's mental health because I mean like I wear the mask because whoever I'm encountering might be immunocompromised. I feel confident that I'm young enough, I'm healthy enough, I don't have any comorbidities should I get it I would probably have like a fever, an upset tummy and body aches for like a day, think it's like a 24-hour bug and be fine. Someone else might literally die from it, so that's when come up to me because they see me as like they know I'm a nurse and they're like so what about these masks, do you believe they work, blah blah blah, and I tell them straight up front I'm like I'm wearing my mask for your benefit. I'm wearing my mask not because I think I'm going to get sick and I'm afraid of me getting sick, but because if I have it or I get it and I pass it to you you might die. And that really makes it very simple and makes it very clear for people. And that might seem very abrupt and very like grim but honestly that's what people understand when it's stressful and it's all complicated and that's the easiest way for me to explain it to people. KL: Would you have worn a mask beforehand like in your unit normally on a regular just like checking people, no? CP: Only if they had some form of virus, illness, that required something called droplet precautions. So if they had the flu we would go in with a mask and goggles and that's our droplet precautions. If they were actively coughing we would ask if they would be willing to wear a mask when we came into the room or if they're doing a breathing treatment during it we would actually have to gown up and we'd put on scrubs and we'd put on bootees as well as the mask and the goggles and then we'd go in the room. And you know everyone that has a cough, everyone that has a breathing treatment now we're treating as if they might have Covid even if they've tested negative because they might have picked it up in the interim. It's stressful, it obviously costs a lot of money and time and energy and supplies. But I mean for the mere fact that I'm going in this room, that room, all day long I'm going to do it because like I said if I get it it probably won't be as detrimental but other people in the hospital they are, I mean obviously they're there because they're sick, they're not choosing to be there because it's fun. Then the people who have to wear the N95s that would be normally people who wear N95s or would require it would be in special rooms called negative pressure rooms. And you would hardly ever need to actually use it for that intended purpose for things like tuberculosis. Like you don't see it very often anymore and the fact that they ran out of negative pressure rooms like the first day that we went into red phase was kind of mind boggling to me because it was almost like you always learned about it but you never actually saw it happen. And now we have to wear those any time someone's having a breathing treatment because they just might have it. KL: So are you at the big hospital, you're at Cedar Crest? CP: Yes. KL: Now I'm totally asking you, are you tired talking about this yet. Do they have Covid patients? I mean how is that for you every day go into work, I mean everything's isolated, but do you get daily briefings of what's going on? CP: So when Covid originally started and all the procedural units that were like ours but couldn't be customized into a medical surgical like a generalized floor a lot of their staff was either furloughed or floated, and they had staff posted at every entrance to the hospital scanning temperatures for every staff member and every visitor. Now when we opened things up again and we opened those units they are now only scanning visitors because they don't want as many staff members sitting at those desks, they want to open up the units again. So now we get a text message every morning that says this is your health screen, have you been in contact with anyone, do you think you have it, do you have any of these symptoms, are you feeling any different? If the answer is no to all these questions, you're cleared for work today and we do that every single day that we go into work. And yeah, it's changed things. KL: I feel like this is good for you at the beginning of your career -- maybe I'm making this up but it's like such an experience that you've probably again only talked about in classes and then you just get to experience it. CP: There are people in the nursing profession for like I said 60 years and they have never experienced anything like this. And I was right on the end, the tail end of normalcy, so I've seen both worlds and like I said there are nurses who have been in this profession for years and they're like we're all on the same level now there's no seniority with this. One has no practice with all of this, it's just everybody's trying to help each other survive. KL: Yeah and I wonder like moving forward how much of this is just going to inform everything about your career moving forward or you know change how all this works totally. CP: I am sure it will because in the future when they're in classes or they're in textbooks when they're rewriting stuff they're going to talk about the generation that dealt with the pandemic, or they're going to talk about the new nurses that started right before, during, right after, like a hundred percent. Like there's going to be an era almost as if it were like talking about a generation like Millennial or Gen Z but there's going to be something, there's going to be an era of nursing pre-pandemic, like an era of beginning of nursing like kind of when it started getting scientific, pre pandemic, post pandemic, there's going a hundred percent. Not necessarily before to really people think it was kind of like I was part of the generation that did bed baths with a washcloth and a basin and I used a washcloth. Like those are the two defining lines. But most definitely there's going to be so when did you start nursing before or after, yeah. KL: I know so you know this project it's doing forty years of public health with the interviews, so it's from like AIDS and HIV to Covid-19, so we have I think ten of these interviews that are with people who you know talking about AIDS and the AIDS epidemic and so like the comparisons have been interesting. But I mean you know listening to some people saying how you know people didn't want to take care of people that had AIDS in the beginning, you know like all this stuff and having to suit up when going into their brother in a hospital room and like the nurses not wanting to take care of them so the family had to do it, you know, and it's interesting to see that comparison or just yeah all of this you know. CP: Yes, and you make a valid point like when we learned about the AIDS crisis that happened and the nursing care that was provided or even in some cases not provided it's I'd like to think very different from how we're handling it today for the better. But it's just interesting because that's the only thing that really pops up in comparison, and I just think that the world kind of grew up a little bit in-between, or at least we all tried to. KL: What a sad conversation, anything fun you want to talk about? CP: I mean I don't know it is what it is, this is my life now. That's another thing I think nursing really like a lot of the people if you ever have nursing friends or colleagues that were nurses their view of life and their sense of humor are vastly different from common Joe just because I mean at the end of the day or night when we give a report and we're like all of our patients are alive, like that's great. Like that's our status quo as opposed to yeah, I got all these assignments done, or I graded all the paperwork. We are just very, we're trained differently, our mind works differently. Things don't really shock us [38:00] to an extent like when you talk about some person went into the hospital for something our immediate brain goes to well what did they do to -- what happened to cause that rather than oh my gosh that's crazy, because we're just used to it. KL: Like the sad things but also like so much that comes out of it you know like helping people and being with people and you know I would think like those relationships. I'm like an archivist, right, I just spend a lot of time in people's papers or now with the LGBT archives I'm lucky enough to meet people who I've already looked at their papers and then either I get to meet them in person or watch an oral history. And yes, you know, I have liked never cried from like both from sadness and like joy and happiness about any archives of like ever until these. It's like that description of yes there's just you know life right life stories it's like joyful and terrible and it's like everything. CP: I think that Covid a lot of people in the LGBTQ community have found each other over long distances, because they've been forced to because you weren't able to see your normal web of people in person. You were forced to use a lot more social media or long distance things which almost eliminated the distance. Like now I talk to people that I wouldn't normally talk to because it's normal for me to text people five minutes away and an hour away or lives in the next country. Like everything is digital now which isn't necessarily good or bad it's just it's forced people in the community to find others in the community through technology. Now I know for me who personally doesn't like human interaction to an extent, I like my time period to have me and be alone, I'm also when I'm comfortable very extroverted. But it allows people to interact more comfortably I think so I think people have found support in people that they never would have met or encountered prior to this because they have nothing else. They can't find people any other way so now that they're choosing to use electronic platforms, digital platforms they are finding so many more people. KL: Yes, I totally agree with that, even you know for me and seems like my work life. I've totally contacted people that I never would have seen, you know, around campus or that I've said hi to but just been like oh my gosh I'm going to email you let's talk. CP: Yes, it's interesting. KL: All right so we're coming to the end so if there's anything else that you think that you forgot to say, or you want to talk about? CP: I'm trying to think. KL: I asked you so many medical questions. CP: I am looking forward to going to more events with people like from the community. Like I miss, like D.C. there's so many LGBTQ friendly bars or dance floors, clubs, anything, you name it. I miss that and I do go to like Pride whenever it's available but it's nice that we have been able to like enjoy ourselves and have pride in ourselves without the big fanfare and the big parade. Which you know everybody loves a good parade but I'm looking forward to really ,really is relish the right word, like really really enjoying it when it comes back. Not necessarily taking it for granted because I think a lot of people did for a long time and I was really only coming into like actually fully enjoying it and getting to know my place in the community and what I understood. And I really didn't have a chance to be me at all these different functions until after college and obviously the five-month period before the pandemic hit. So I'm looking forward to it when everything calms down and it's safe for everyone again just because I will be so much more grateful for it, because I recognize that we could not, that there was a time where we couldn't have had it, or there was a time where I wish that we had it and we couldn't because I missed it because of this or that. That's it. KL: Great, I love it. All right well thank you so much for your time to do this, it's been great, totally fun. All right I'll stop recording and then I'll say goodbye to you in a normal way. END OF VIDEO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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00:44:33
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Christina Peyroux, July 29, 2020
Description
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Christina Peyroux discusses her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic including how it has effected her job in nursing and living with her grandmother, a retired nurse.
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PH40_33
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
Date
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2020-07-29
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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9e9dd8136998d8358647841d48a4350b
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
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In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
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Alanna Berger and Blaise Liffick
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_07.xml
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5.4 July 28, 2020 Alanna Berger and Blaise Liffick, July 28, 2020 (audio only) PH40_07 01:32:29 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Alanna Berger and Blaise Liffick Liz Bradbury audio/avi BergerAlanna_20200728_FullAudio-Video.avi 1.0:|2243(5) 0 https://youtu.be/ZlP_cAVyt9Y YouTube audio 0 Interview Introductions BLAISE LIFFICK: B-L-A-I-S-E L-I-F- “F,” as in “Frank,” I-C-K.
 ; LIZ BRADBURY: Alanna, could you say your name once again, because I forgot to turn on the other backup audio recording? So, say that again and do that, so it’s on there.
 ; ALANNA BERGER: All right. Alanna A-L-A-N-N-A Berger B-E-R-G-E-R.
 ; LB: Great, and can you please share your birth dates?
 ; AB: 7-20-54.
 ; BL: 3-30-53. 0 104 Connections to LGBTQ+ Community LB: Okay. And how do you identify within the greater LGBTA community?
 ; AB: Allies.
 ; BL: Definitely.
 ; LB: Okay. And so, you don’t identify as LGBT part of the community, other than allies, so that’s great. And I want to say, since we’re talking about this -- because I’ve had other people who are part of the extended family of our community. So, explain why you are part of this community and why I see you as part of this community and your support of the community that you’ve done? I can see you’re wearing your t-shirts, so go ahead and mention that. (laughter) 0 250 Background on Silent Witness / Peacekeeping in Harrisburg
 ; LB: Could you also just briefly explain what Silent Witness did? Because that was such an important part, and somebody will look at this and they may not know that stuff.
 ; AB: Right. With Silent Witness Peacekeepers, we had originally gotten involved with the Silent Witnesses from the MCC Church in Harrisburg. And Westboro Baptist Church was coming to town and they needed help and Blaise and I ended up getting involved. We went through their training and it was at the showing of “Jim in Bold” at Penn State -- or at William Penn Museum, in Harrisburg. And it was such an amazing experience to be involved in that. [...] 0 670 Current Lives
 ; LB: I really appreciate it. So, one of the things we usually start out with is -- let me find my startup questions. Uh-oh, one, two, three. Here it is. Okay. So, you just recently moved, didn’t you? To a new place?
 ; AB: Yes
 ; BL: Yes.
 ; LB: Are you hating that or loving it?
 ; AB: Well, we’re --
 ; LB: Or something in between?
 ; BL: Mostly loving.
 ; LB: Good, good.
 ; AB: Yeah, it’s a brand-new house and so, we’re working out some of the kinks, but it’s in between two of our kids. 0 801 Communication in the COVID Era
 ; LB: Okay. Well, dogs matter because the animals really matter. Certainly true and I’ve talked to -- this is my fifteenth COVID interview and I did ten HIV/AIDS interviews for people who lived through the AIDS epidemic too. This was all crammed into this short amount of time, but the people have been vastly different, in terms of the people I’ve been talking to and I’ve just been talking to somebody who’s really alone, who really doesn’t even have a dog. So, it’s an interesting thing to have some people who have large numbers of people in their house and other people -- how different that is for them. So, are you communicating with your grandkids and your family and stuff online? Are you doing Zoom stuff with them or -- 0 1035 Passing the Time LB: Yeah, good. So, let me see here. Yeah, some of this stuff is -- now, you’re probably too existential for this. You are really thinking about the questions instead of people going “ahhh”. So, like I just talked to somebody who was 22, they just graduated, and they were so cavalier about everything. And this is a trans kid who just graduated from Moravian and is going into graduate school at Lehigh and had to leave Moravian at the end and, you know, went -- but their parents don’t support them. So, they couldn’t go home. So, they had to go into -- this is the interesting story. They had to go with a friend to her house, with her parents, in Massachusetts and this young person has been there for five [00:18:00] months with these people. [...] 0 1159 Dr. Rachel Levine So, what do you think about Rachel Levine? We want to talk to everybody about that, because we love Rachel Levine. 
 ; BL: You know, we love Rachel. She’s just terrific. And we’ve known her for quite some time.
 ; AB: Yeah, we met her -- because I was going back in my mind when I saw the question. We met her at a GSA summit. Do you remember those? That Louie Marvin had started. 0 1465 Dr. Levine as a Role Model/Hero BL: Well, the other thing I’d like to say about Doctor Levine is what a great role model she’s been for our daughter, Ashley. 
 ; LB: Oh, great.
 ; BL: You know, Ashley went -- her story has evolved over the last decade or so and I know that she has viewed Doctor Levine as her role model. And a really good one. And I know Ashley has greatly benefited from that a lot. 0 1586 Biggest Concern about the COVID Pandemic LB: [...] Yeah, I take a lot of time trying to explain that to people when I’m training, that this is just one of the worst things you can do. And in fact, I’ve had young trans people say that their names are even more important than the pronouns, it’s really the name is what I’ve had several people say. So, what’s your biggest concern about the pandemic? 0 1995 Making Health & ; Safety Decisions / Keeping Busy LB: [...] So, you’re staying in or are you going to the grocery store or are you just ordering stuff or what’s the deal?
 ; AB: We started off just ordering stuff online and then, you know, we started going to the six a.m. senior hour.
 ; LB: I understand that, yes.
 ; AB: Around here, it’s been fairly good, in terms of the stores we go to, people are wearing masks, they have the plastic up in front of everybody. And so, that helps with the confidence level. 0 2416 Other Frustrations with the COVID Pandemic LB: [...] Okay. I just want to say that I say this is my -- I’ve interviewed twenty-four people and every single one has said that their biggest annoyance and biggest anger is that people aren’t wearing masks and they’re not taking this seriously. Everyone has said that. So, universally, among the progressive people of the world, we all are just pissed off. Like, we had to go to a doctor’s appointment and every person we passed on the street -- because we hardly ever go out, we’ve only been out a couple of times. I realized that person’s wearing a mask, that person’s not wearing one, that’s all she said about every single person. It’s our thing. But what other kinds of frustrations or [00:41:00] fears -- but frustrations I think would be what you would say. And there’s been some small frustrations, I think, too. 0 2892 Virtual Learning
 ; BL: I had to do the second half of the last semester online. And it was tricky. And I know the students found it difficult. You know, this was not a format that most of them wanted and many of them found challenging. And particularly students with any kind of issues in terms of how they learn, et cetera. It’s extremely challenging. And boy, I’m so glad I got to retire at the end of the semester, but I feel terrible for my colleagues who I know are so frustrated about, you know, what they are being forced to do. And, I know that [00:49:00] my colleagues in your field, for instance, how in the world do you teach woodworking if you can’t be in a woodworking lab? 
 ; LB: Yeah, it can’t be done. 0 3152 Knowing Individuals with COVID LB: [...] So, that’s a terrible story about Ashley and had you known other people that have had it or have been --
 ; AB: Friends. The daughter of one of our friends was in New York. She was a chaplain and she came down with COVID and she was really sick for about a month.
 ; BL: But recovered, she totally recovered. 0 3422 Re-evaluating Educational Choices for Children AB: You know, and if [00:57:00] somebody lives in Montana, one hundred miles away from the nearest case of COVID, have at it. Open your school and go for it. In an area where, you know, you haven’t flattened the curve yet or it’s still kind of -- you know, I think it’s a big risk. My daughter’s school district has decided to start with online, virtual classrooms. And then reevaluate it every month.
 ; LB: That’s wise. 0 3557 Thoughts on the Black Lives Matter Movement LB: Sure, yeah. It’s a Legionnaires’ kind of thing. It could be. So, do you want to say anything about Black Lives Matter? Because I’m asking everybody about that. You know, we can’t talk about COVID without talking about that and without talking about politics because it’s the deal. 
 ; BL: It is one of the frustrations that we can’t be out on the street with them.
 ; LB: No kidding, no kidding. 0 4040 Importance of Fighting for Intersectionalities AB: Well, the other thing too is the intellectual level. While everybody in the country is up in arms about Black Lives Matter, the whole idea of intersectionality comes into play. Because while everybody’s yelling about this, Trump is taking away healthcare for LGBT people. You know, here’s where the news is focused, so, let’s take away these rights from LGBT people and put more kids in cages. And so, that whole divide and conquer thing. 
 ; BL: And misdirection. He’s good at that. 0 4434 Motivations for Documenting Oral Histories / Remarks for Future Viewers LB: Yeah, all right. So, one more thing that I hope that -- this archive project is really fascinating and we’re having a wonderful time with Muhlenberg [01:14:00] and Lehigh University working on this too. So, they’ve done a bunch of older LGBT people talking about all this stuff that happened. I often thought that all the stuff we did to pass all our ordinances nobody would know about that. And I’ve been talking about that a lot. And they transcribe it and it’s really terrific and it’s all searchable and you can get it in all the papers that we say, like, “Why are you doing this stuff?” And now, it’s all in the archives and all digitalized and, you know, all the Valley Gay Presses that I made, one of the things that happened was, I was talking to Kristen Leipert, who I’m actually working with now on these things that I’m doing, like last year. 0 5101 Closing Remarks
 ; LB: Good for you. Well, that’s a terrific note to end on. Thank you so much for saying that. Thank you so much for talking to me. You’ve been very inspirational. 
 ; BL: Thanks for asking us in.
 ; AB: Yeah, it’s amazing.
 ; BL: We’re very honored.
 ; AB: Yes, very honored and it’s wonderful seeing you again.
 ; LB: It’s great to see you too. I will give Trish a hug. I’m going to turn off the recorder now. Oh, whoops. Wait, oh no. 0 Sound Blaise Liffick and Alanna Berger talk about how the current COVID19 pandemic is affecting them. They talk about their recent move to be nearer to their adult children, Blaise’s retirement from teaching college, and how the end of the semester was remote learning. They discussed their many years of commitment to civil rights and the support of the LGBT community through the Silent Witness programs. They talked about the LGBT people in their family and how COVID-19 has affected their work and health from having the virus. Alanna Berger 2020-07-28 BLAISE LIFFICK: B-L-A-I-S-E L-I-F "F," as in "Frank," I-C-K. LIZ BRADBURY: Alanna, could you say your name once again, because I forgot to turn on the other backup audio recording? So, say that again and do that, so it's on there. ALANNA BERGER: All right. Alanna A-L-A-N-N-A Berger B-E-R-G-E-R. LB: Great, and can you please share your birth dates? AB: 7-20-54. BL: 3-30-53. LB: Okay. And you're in what town? AB: We are in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. LB: Okay. So, this is the consent portion. Do you consent to this interview today? AB: Absolutely. BL: Yes. LB: Okay. And do you consent to having this interview be transcribed, digitalized and made publicly available online, in searchable format? BL: Yes. AB: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes and other -- in other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations and other formats we may not even know about yet? BL: Yes. AB: Yes. LB: Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts you would like to delete and or withdraw from your interview and withdraw your interview from the project? AB: Yes. BL: Yes. LB: Great, can you tell me what your ZIP Code is? AB: 17055. LB: Now, they also want to know, even though you've already given your date of birth, what your ages are. It says -- AB: I'm sixty-six. BL: I'm sixty-seven. LB: Okay. And how do you identify within the greater LGBTA community? AB: Allies. BL: Definitely. LB: Okay. And so, you don't identify as LGBT part of the community, other than allies, so that's great. And I want to say, since we're talking about this -- because I've had other people who are part of the extended family of our community. So, explain why you are part of this community and why I see you as part of this community and your support of the community that you've done? I can see you're wearing your t-shirts, so go ahead and mention that. (laughter) AB: Well, as I was growing up, I've always known gays and lesbians. My father had a gay cousin. When I went away to school at the university of Maryland, as part of the women's center, I think it was half straight women, half lesbians. We had gay friends on campus. So, I've always known people, but it wasn't until the -- we got involved in with the Silent Witness in Harrisburg, that we really became advocates. And at that point, we became part of the Silent Witness and we changed it to Silent Witness Peacekeepers Alliance. But we also got involved with Advocacy, which is where we met you. Especially in the Freedom to Marry movement. And so, we felt it was really important for straight people to stand up and deal with homophobia, just like it's important for white people to stand up and deal with racism. And so, that's been part of our journey. It became a spiritual path in some respects with Silent Witnesses. And over the course of time, you know, we used to say, "Oh, well, we're straight, our kids are straight." You know, and now we have a daughter who identifies as bisexual and a daughter who is transgender. And we also have a daughter whose gender expression is more male. So, we've learned so much about the community. I now have a nephew who came out a few months ago. So, you know, and Blaise has a niece who came out. I mean, so -- LB: Yeah, you're in the thick of it. AB: Now, yeah -- BL: We have a lot of connections. LB: Could you also just briefly explain what Silent Witness did? Because that was such an important part, and somebody will look at this and they may not know that stuff. AB: Right. With Silent Witness Peacekeepers, we had originally gotten involved with the Silent Witnesses from the MCC Church in Harrisburg. And Westboro Baptist Church was coming to town and they needed help and Blaise and I ended up getting involved. We went through their training and it was at the showing of "Jim in Bold" at Penn State -- or at William Penn Museum, in Harrisburg. And it was such an amazing experience to be involved in that. And they kept asking us to help until we ended up helping in 2005 with a Pride Festival in Harrisburg and it was one of the worst days of my life to see such a large group of forty -- fifty protestors. And it was so awful, I had nightmares. And we decided we wanted to do something more than just stand there with signs. And so, we kind of went back to the drawing board and worked with the original Silent Witnesses. We came up with the strategy of upholding the rainbow umbrellas. And, you know, Blaise had the -- BL: Safety vests. AB: -- safety vests. And we changed the strategy of the counter-protestors to actively escorting people past the protestors. And that strategy was so effective. Within a couple years, people would say, "I never saw the protestors. Where were they?" Even though, when you look at the pictures, you can see their great, big signs behind our umbrellas. You know, it was still, you know, something that really made people feel safe. Just a couple weeks ago, I was on a Zoom call and somebody said, "Oh, and you have to know Alanna Berger. She created this group that back at Lehigh Valley Pride, when the protestors walked into the festival, she was there. And I felt safe." You know, this is so many years later and we still hear that. BL: Yeah, but our main job, of course, is to stand between the street preachers at LGBT events and prevent any kind of confrontations from happening, that would spoil the event. And, you know, we try actively to keep any kind of confrontation from happening, so that there aren't any arrests and that everybody has their right of free speech. And everybody can enjoy themselves at the festival. LB: I'm so glad you did that and it was an education for me as well and I think one of the things I really found out about it was, the biggest danger was not really -- the scary, bad people were bad, and the LGBT people, for the most part, could move through that, because we're used to it. But the straight people that were our allies wanted to confront the anti-people and the anti-people, we knew, had made a living from suing people who had physically confronted them. They would taunt them into a physical confrontation. And I think, you know, I've been -- this Reading Pride Festival which just happened, which I don't really know how that worked, but that was the first time I haven't been at any one of the Pride Festivals in Lehigh Valley or Reading Pride. I didn't even watch it. So, I forgot that it was on. But I've been at all the main Pride Festivals and the anti-presence dwindled out. And I think it was because of you. I think it really was effective to just quietly ignore them that it was really -- BL: We like to think that. LB: Well, I think it really -- BL: We're happy to take credit for some of that. LB: I will be happy to give you credit for that, because I absolutely think that the last thing these folks wanted was for people to ignore them. BL: Well, it was also important to us to be a symbol to the LGBT community. To stand up for them and to actually stand in front of these protestors and make it clear that we aren't going to accept what they had to say either, you know? Just because we were silent, didn't mean that we weren't sending an important message. LB: That's really good. BL: And that message was being LGBT is okay, you know? LB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. BL: And we were going to protect their rights as much or even more vociferously than we would the street preachers for their right and free speech and expression of religion. And that was one of the reasons we chose rainbow umbrellas to be a really large symbol. You know, something people can see from a distance and know that people are standing up for them. AB: Yeah, at the very beginning, we recruited straight people to help us because we felt members of the LGBT community should be able to enjoy the festival. They needed to be inside the festival and so, we've recruited straight people. I remember at one point I was giving a presentation to Common Roads Kids, prior to the Harrisburg Pride. And they asked me how I could do this work. And I said, "Well, I'm straight. What these guys say means nothing to me." I said, "If they were attacking Jews, I might feel differently." And then right after that, the Westboro Baptist Church started going after the Jewish community. And suddenly it was like, "Oh no." You know, so I think that's why I know it's important work, you know? LB: Yeah. AB: When I think about the Holocaust and it's like, "Well, they came for the gays first and then they came for the Jews." So, for me, I could not stand idly by in the blood of my neighbor. And I thought it was really important that we all have to stand up for each other and let us do the heavy work, while you all be in the festival and learn and network and, you know, see who all is there. We got all these resources together for the community, let us deal with the street preachers. LB: Yeah, well, you did a great job. Thank you very much for doing that. AB: You bet. LB: I really appreciate it. So, one of the things we usually start out with is -- let me find my startup questions. Uh-oh, one, two, three. Here it is. Okay. So, you just recently moved, didn't you? To a new place? AB: Yes BL: Yes. LB: Are you hating that or loving it? AB: Well, we're -- LB: Or something in between? BL: Mostly loving. LB: Good, good. AB: Yeah, it's a brand-new house and so, we're working out some of the kinks, but it's in between two of our kids. LB: Oh, well that's good. AB: And two of our kids with grandchildren. So, it was really wonderful at first, before COVID. Because we were getting to spend so much time with the grandkids. And, you know, so, that part's been really fun. Since COVID, we went through a period of isolation because my son-in-law had to go back to work. And my daughter's working from home. And they were afraid that -- you know, they didn't want to infect us. And Blaise's son is also working from home and -- but his boys spend time with their mom and his son didn't trust that they wouldn't do something. So, we haven't really been able to see them either. Yeah, the house is great. I mean, we've got all this extra time now to fix it up. BL: And one of the reasons we moved up here is I retired. And so, getting closer to the grandkids was a priority. We also wanted more of a townhouse situation, so there wasn't any yard to take care of. And they were building some new stuff, fairly near where our grandkids are, our kids and our grandkids. And so, that was the major emphasis. But we really like this area. LB: Oh, good. BL: It's worked out well for us in a lot of different ways. LB: Good. So, it's just you two in the place? BL: Yes. LB: Because I -- BL: Us and our dog, Brighid. LB: Okay. Well, dogs matter because the animals really matter. Certainly true and I've talked to -- this is my fifteenth COVID interview and I did ten HIV/AIDS interviews for people who lived through the AIDS epidemic too. This was all crammed into this short amount of time, but the people have been vastly different, in terms of the people I've been talking to and I've just been talking to somebody who's really alone, who really doesn't even have a dog. So, it's an interesting thing to have some people who have large numbers of people in their house and other people -- how different that is for them. So, are you communicating with your grandkids and your family and stuff online? Are you doing Zoom stuff with them or -- BL: Oh, yeah. AB: Yeah, we had a situation after the kids went to virtual learning -- after the grandkids went to virtual learning. I was Skyping with the grandsons, trying to help them with their homework, because mom was still -- you know, she was still working. And their dad wasn't home, so I would Skype, so that they could share their screens and I could see what they were looking at and I would help with their homework. And that was frustrating, but also fun. You know, because at one point, you know, I would say something to one of the boys and he'd say, "Yeah, I could do this faster, but I really like being on the phone with you." But one day, he just -- he was sitting there and then he just started staring out the window and tears were just rolling down his face. And he said, "I hate COVID. I may never see you again." And I started crying and Blaise started crying. And I called my daughter and I said, "You know, we've been isolated alone, separately, how do you feel about us coming over?" And so, we started going over, wearing masks and all that kind of stuff, for a while. And then we just kind of -- you know, things have improved in Cumberland County. So, I go over several times a week now, to see them. But yeah, that was -- we were having some Zoom chats with our kids. And then some other political things happened and we -- the kids don't agree with each other and so, we've kind of cut those down to just smaller -- because we have six kids. He had three, I had two and then we adopted Ashley. And so, you know, it's a large group of kids. And we just do them individually now. BL: But we also get together weekly with a group of friends. LB: Oh, that's great. BL: We have actually started doing that in person, once a month. And we've been doing that for, what? Two years? AB: Two years. BL: And then when this hit, we decided, "You know what? While, we're not going to do what we used to do once a month, we're going to get together on a weekly basis and just check in with everybody. Make sure everybody's okay and, you know, if there's anybody in need, we'll find a way to help." And we've continued that now. The group has dwindled own to just a core few. But I still feel it's important to have that face-to-face contact, if not, person-to-person. While talking to people on the phone is nice, seeing them is just better. LB: It is. BL: And it's been important for me to be able to see people and keep in touch with them that way. LB: Yeah, good. So, let me see here. Yeah, some of this stuff is -- now, you're probably too existential for this. You are really thinking about the questions instead of people going "ahhh". So, like I just talked to somebody who was 22, they just graduated, and they were so cavalier about everything. And this is a trans kid who just graduated from Moravian and is going into graduate school at Lehigh and had to leave Moravian at the end and, you know, went -- but their parents don't support them. So, they couldn't go home. So, they had to go into -- this is the interesting story. They had to go with a friend to her house, with her parents, in Massachusetts and this young person has been there for five months with these people. And I said, "Well, are they there now?" I was talking to him and he goes, "Well, they went on vacation and she had to go back to school." I said, "You're alone in the parents' house? Where are you?" And he said, "It's Hampton, Massachusetts. It's in the middle of the woods." I said, "Well, do you go out for walks?" He said, "No, there's bears." (laughter) And then I said, "What are you doing inside?" and he said, "You know, I'm doing this stuff." And he was so calm about everything. I thought, "Okay." And this is a tough situation, you know, in a lot of ways. He goes, "Well, my cat is here." You know, so, he was just -- I thought, "This is a person." You know, I guess maybe it's a little bit of the effect of being 22 and thinking, "I've got my whole life to forget about this." BL: Well, yeah, they're pretty resilient at that age. LB: Yeah, yeah. And for those of us who are old, we're thinking, like, "Am I ever going to stop being angry?" And I was just talking to a good friend, just the last person I spoke to, and she said, "I'm angry all the time. I was never like that before. I was pissed off all the time." So, I said, "Yeah, it's going to be hard to stop doing that, if we can ever stop doing that." So, you're not working. So, you don't have to be worrying about being laid off and that's a good thing. You have family around. So, what do you think about Rachel Levine? We want to talk to everybody about that, because we love Rachel Levine. BL: You know, we love Rachel. She's just terrific. And we've known her for quite some time. AB: Yeah, we met her -- because I was going back in my mind when I saw the question. We met her at a GSA summit. Do you remember those? That Louie Marvin had started. LB: Yeah, yeah. AB: And we met Doctor Levine and we were so blown away by her presentation. We went up afterwards, you know, stood there looking like groupies. And got her contact information. And she has been such a powerful resource, even way back when. You know, because Blaise had done the Safe Zone training. And would get trans kids and needed advice. I used her as a resource for the class I taught at Lebanon Valley College. And when I saw that she was appointed by Governor Wolf, I was like, "Oh, the best person ever." LB: Yeah, I know. I know, lucky. AB: And, you know, with COVID, I watch the news -- the broadcasts of Doctor Levine and Governor Wolf, just to see her. Because she is so calm. She is just grace under fire. And I am just -- wow. We would not be where we are today in Pennsylvania, if it wouldn't be for her. BL: I wish there was somebody nationally who had her depth of understanding and compassion. Doctor Fauci is great, but he doesn't get to say much anymore and -- LB: Right, well, that's the thing. BL: We really need that. The country really needs that. And so, I think Doctor Levine has been just tremendously helpful to this state and has done an extremely important service for us. Aside from all that, I think she's just a wonderful person all the way around. And I find her completely trustworthy. Just in anything that I've heard her say or read that she's said, that I question. And it's not that I will take everything she says as gospel, but, you know, it's pretty close to it. LB: Well, I think certainly we're in the position where, you know, we don't know anything about -- this is an illness that -- I just read an article in the New York Times that said it'll be, you know, thirty years before we really understand everything about this. But the thing you can count on from her is she's not making this stuff up. She's not just saying this stuff for political clout or this would sound good or Governor Wolf is telling her to say it, you know? BL: Yeah, well, politics doesn't have anything to do with it for her. LB: Right. BL: It's just science. AB: Exactly. BL: And, you know, thank God she's as brilliant as she is. You know, she understands this stuff and can present it to us in a way that is easy to understand. And it's such a shame what's happened to her in terms of the bully online, the trolls, as it were, that just won't get past their prejudice to listen to the science. LB: Right, it's true. AB: Yeah, but the fact that, you know, when she was first appointed, I thought, "Oh my gosh, you know, a trans woman." BL: Yeah, it was a brilliant appointment on the part of the governor. LB: Yes, it was very, very smart. And, you know, how terrific that there was someone with the kind of credentials that she had and the kind of extraordinary presence and calm. I mean, this is the person who, for the most part, is not really bothered by this crap that she has to endure. The worst thing about it is not that it's happening to her, it's that for the transgender population and for our particular transgender young people who are seeing it happen to her. And it scares them because they think, "If this could happen to her, then it could happen to me." And I think I've said to our other employees -- we have now, 14 employees at the center, and I've said, "One of the things we have to emphasize is that heroes have to take crap. They always do. You know, people who are major civil rights leaders, they don't just coast through. They always have crap and one of the reasons we admire them is because they can put up with -- if it was easy, everybody would do it, you know? We wouldn't get to admire those people. BL: Well, the other thing I'd like to say about Doctor Levine is what a great role model she's been for our daughter, Ashley. LB: Oh, great. BL: You know, Ashley went -- her story has evolved over the last decade or so and I know that she has viewed Doctor Levine as her role model. And a really good one. And I know Ashley has greatly benefited from that a lot. LB: Well, that's good. That's great to hear. (Inaudible). AB: Even when you talk about heroes, you know, at one point, the street preachers would focus on us, you know, and I was a faithless Jew and Blaise was Professor Yuck and Reverend Reprobate and, you know, they would focus on us and leave everybody else alone. And so, I think that might be part of the hero's role is to take some of that crap. BL: Be the lightning rod. LB: That's a good point. AB: I hate to see it happen to Rachel, though, because of what you said. With other, trans kids being afraid. Ashley has gone through a lot of trauma recently because of the trans people who were murdered. You know, I think there was three within a two-week period. LB: Yeah, it was horrible. AB: And that was just as traumatic for her as well. So, trans kids, the whole thing with dead naming is one of the reasons why we ended up adopting her, was because she was afraid that she would be buried under a marker that had her dead name on it. So, you know, it was one of the reasons, but it's one thing that when they dead name somebody, that just is so frustrating. Yeah. LB: Yeah, I take a lot of time trying to explain that to people when I'm training, that this is just one of the worst things you can do. And in fact, I've had young trans people say that their names are even more important than the pronouns, it's really the name is what I've had several people say. So, what's your biggest concern about the pandemic? BL: Well, mine generally is how many idiots there are out there who don't take this seriously and are going to keep it going as a consequence. And that it's already -- you know, if they had just paid attention in the early month, the first month when this was coming out and done the right thing then, we'd be done with it by now and schools could open this fall safely. And instead, we're taking a crapshoot with our kids' lives. You know, I understand the economics of having the schools closed and yet, the economics don't mean a damn thing to me if what we're trading is people's lives. And so, the fact that this is going to continue for probably at least another six months, if not a year, because these people would not pay attention and would not listen to the experts, would completely denigrate the science, is just really angering. And just drives me crazy. AB: Yeah, and I think that's one thing that maybe because of the work we did with Silent Witness Peacekeepers and the amount of research we put into the idea of, you know, civil liberties and freedom of speech and all that sort of thing, that it's not what people think it is. Yes, we have civil rights, but we also have civic responsibility. And people are completely ignoring that aspect of it. Like you said, in the New York Times, there was a great article on the cult of selfishness. LB: Right, I saw that, yeah. AB: And how people are just all about themselves. They're narcissistic that, you know, they feel that wearing a mask is their right or not wearing a mask. BL: That's oppression for Pete's sake! AB: Yeah, the oppression is just -- BL: You know, it makes no sense. And it disturbs me the number of people who are like that. LB: Yeah, that's true. AB: Yeah, the number of people I've taken off my Facebook list. LB: I know, it's just very depressing, isn't it? BL: Yeah. AB: Yeah. LB: It's so hard. AB: I've dropped friends who had idiots commenting on their Facebook posts because I don't want to see it on Facebook right now. It's just more than I can stand watching that. But I think also for me and bringing this back to the LGBT community, the fact that, for instance, all the Pride Festivals have been cancelled or postponed, you know, I think back to the early days. I think it was, like, 2006, there was some problems at Harrisburg Pride, the organization was falling apart. And one of the things Blaise said was, "We have to make sure the Pride Festival keeps going, because if we don't, the street preachers are going to take credit for it." LB: (laughs) AB: And it was -- BL: So, we ended up getting involved in the organization as well. AB: Yeah, I became vice president. LB: Oh my gosh. AB: And that's what I'm thinking this summer, that the protestors and the street preachers are going to claim victory, that it's God's wrath that all these Pride Festivals had to be cancelled. And it's not true and that upsets me, and I know how important it is for the community to be at a Pride Festival. You know, all these many years that we've gone to a Pride Festival and, you know, there are people who go to every Pride Festival, every weekend. I mean, they just travel around the country going to Pride Festivals and it's so important. A safe place for them to be and they are missing out this year. I can't wait for the virtual one from you guys. LB: Yeah, it's going to be on TV even, too. So, we don't have to worry about -- and frankly, it's already made, or it's put together for the most part. We're adding things into it. I'm not involved with that. But, you know, I've done my part of it. But we don't have to worry about the kind of depressing tech issues that could happen. Which is devastating in, I think, a lot of ways. And of course, I'm not that great at pop culture, because I'm kind of isolated, but there are actually people I know that are going to be at the -- you know, that are older people. Suzanne Westenhoefer, great, you know, we couldn't afford to have her otherwise. Holly Near is going to be at our thing. AB: I know. LB: But then all of our kids, they have no idea who either of these people are. But then they have this whole set of people that they know and RuPaul people and stuff. And it really is quite an exciting thing. It was also about twenty-five percent of our budget that we make from that. Well, we're doing okay with it. AB: Okay. So, let's put down donations to the Bradbury/Sullivan Center... LB: Oh, no, it's that and the gala and we had to postpone the gala to the spring. We hope that we can have it then. But, yeah, that was a big thing. And, you know, we employ 14 people. So, it's scary for Adrian to have all these wonderful people that have jobs and then think, "Okay. If you screw this up, Adrian, I can't eat." And that doesn't apply as much to me because I'm pretty much part-time. Well, I am part-time and, you know, I don't make that much money. But it's a lot of pressure, and plus, he's doing a lot of national stuff. You know, we've been on the lawsuits against Trump and stuff like that, for trans health and it's been a big deal. So, you're staying in or are you going to the grocery store or are you just ordering stuff or what's the deal? AB: We started off just ordering stuff online and then, you know, we started going to the six a.m. senior hour. LB: I understand that, yes. AB: Around here, it's been fairly good, in terms of the stores we go to, people are wearing masks, they have the plastic up in front of everybody. And so, that helps with the confidence level. BL: We've been slowly, you know, going out, just a little bit more. We're not eating out ; we don't go to bars anyway and that sort of thing. But grocery store and an occasional short trip of some sort to, you know, our local hobby store so that we can keep busy. LB: I know what you mean, yeah. BL: But we really have limited our excursions, severely. LB: Yeah, that's what you have to do. And so, what are your hobbies? AB: Blaise picked up -- BL: I've been doing woodworking. LB: You are? Because, you know, I'm a bigtime woodworker. BL: What's that? LB: I taught woodworking and furniture design in college? BL: Oh, did you really? LB: Yeah, I have a degree and a master's degree in woodworking. BL: Oh my gosh, well, now we know who to call. LB: I got every tool. BL: I'm just doing real amateur stuff. I'm hand carving wands and, like, wizard staffs. LB: Sure, I understand. BL: I've started trying to do figural carvings, but I'm such a novice at it, they're not very good. So, it's going to take a lot of practice. Of course, I got a lot of time now. So, that was the idea, you know, that this would be something to fill some time. AB: Yeah, and I knit. And so, I've been knitting up a storm in my spare time. And I've still actually -- I'm a Healing Touch Certified Practitioner. And I've still been able to see my clients virtually and doing distance healing. I have apprentices who are still -- you know, we just do Zoom. And I've still been able to do some of that, which was only part-time to begin with. But it seems to be keeping busy. There are many days where it's like I realize I've just spent two hours scrolling through Facebook. LB: I know, it's hard to not do it. And you keep wanting to find something good. You want to find something that's -- BL: Yeah, if only. LB: It's so hard. AB: So, we've started watching movies, our old favorites, you know? And the tragic thing is, as we're watching them, there's usually something that is poignant in a way that it hadn't been before. Like, we were watching O Brother, Where Art Thou? And I had forgotten about the scene with the Ku Klux Klan. You know, so, this is, like, post-Black Lives Matter, you know? LB: Yeah. AB: And it's like, "Oh." LB: No kidding, yeah. AB: Or we were watching The Princess Bride and Fezzik asks the Man in Black, "Why do you wear a mask?" "Well, I find it rather comfortable, I think we'll all be wearing them some day." LB: Oh, geez. Oh, man. AB: Okay, there's a quote. LB: No kidding. AB: So, there's something, you know -- really re-watch Xena, the whole scene and it was like, "Oh my gosh." You know, fighting warlords and it was like, "Yeah, that's what I feel like so often." LB: I know, yeah. AB: What would Xena do? LB: Yeah, we like -- AB: Get her chakram and cut their head off, you know? LB: No kidding. We like to watch British mysteries. So, we watch all the BBC stuff. BL: Yeah, we're into that. AB: That's next. LB: But here's the problem with that, and I have maintained that this is the case, there's one or two tiny exceptions, but if there's a queer character, they're going to die. They're going to be the person that gets killed or they're going to be the murderer. Almost always. And, you know, there's, like, one episode of Father Brown where that doesn't happen. I mean, I'm talking, we've seen everything for, you know, way back to the old -- it absolutely happens. AB: Well, and that was part of my class. Yeah, I mean, we talked about that in part of my class about how that was always the case, up until recently and even now, it's mostly lesbians getting killed off in shows. And, yeah, so, that part is also -- it's like the ensign fodder on Star Trek, you know? LB: Yeah, right. Ensign fodder, that's great. Now, we were watching Death in Paradise, which is actually a fun show to watch, and it's got a lot of people of color, and you know, it's beautiful and everybody seems pretty happy and it's all about Caribbean Islands and stuff. And it's pretty light-duty. It's not really -- there's not a lot of graphic violence in it. But we were watching it and then there was a character and I thought, "Well, he's gay, so, he's going to be the killer." Because the person was already dead. And then the main character comes in, and he's the detective and he says the person's name and he says, "Is not the killer." And it's that guy and he's the gay guy. They said he's not the killer and then he says, "But you're not really him and you are the killer." And I'm like, "Oh, the gay guy's the killer." I mean, I had hope and then it was gone. It was just gone. There is a few shows that have -- there is one that has -- the Ms. Fisher series has a lesbian character in it through the whole time and it's supposed to be at the time of World War I, so, it's interesting. But her girlfriend gets murdered and she's accused of being the killer. Often that's the other thing is that they're accused of being the killer. Once in a while they get off, but it's horrible. It's just horrible. It always happens. And we still watch them because we love that genre. But it's very tough. And you run out of stuff. Particularly if you binge it. You watch a whole bunch of this stuff. Star Trek: Voyager, we do like that. So, let's see, what else can I ask you here? We said that, we said that. So, you're staying in. Okay. I just want to say that I say this is my -- I've interviewed twenty-four people and every single one has said that their biggest annoyance and biggest anger is that people aren't wearing masks and they're not taking this seriously. Everyone has said that. So, universally, among the progressive people of the world, we all are just pissed off. Like, we had to go to a doctor's appointment and every person we passed on the street -- because we hardly ever go out, we've only been out a couple of times. I realized that person's wearing a mask, that person's not wearing one, that's all she said about every single person. It's our thing. But what other kinds of frustrations or fears -- but frustrations I think would be what you would say. And there's been some small frustrations, I think, too. BL: Yeah, I don't feel as active. And I know I could go out for a walk and of course the heat's been keeping us in lately. And I really should go out for a walk and I think what's keeping me from doing it is that first fear is that, "Who am I going to run into?" LB: It's true. BL: And, you know, am I actually going to be safe doing it? And intellectually, I know I am. But mentally, you know, I've gotten to the point now, where I'm afraid of people. You know, it's not logical. It's purely an emotional response, but you know, I've become very much a homebody. And that does worry me a little bit because my mother was agoraphobic and from the time she was younger than me, she rarely went out of the house. And I don't want to be that. You know, I don't want to fall into that trap, because it's important for our health that that doesn't happen, and we get out and do things. And so, I know I'm not moving enough. I hope it doesn't become such a habit because of this, that it becomes a lifelong habit from here on out. But frankly, I'm nervous of going out. LB: Me too. AB: Yeah, and I think I mentioned earlier about Ashley having COVID. LB: Yeah, so, let's talk about that. AB: And the frustration especially that she's feeling. Because she has expectations of the -- BL: Health providers. AB: -- health providers, that they are not meeting. And then she was originally sent to the E.R. because she's on estrogen because she's transgender and the doctor was as concerned about COVID as she was about a blood clot in her lungs, pulmonary embolism. And when they decided it was COVID based on -- you know, they ruled out the blood clots and they decided it was COVID, she was sent home because it wasn't that severe. And it took a couple of weeks for her to actually start feeling better, but now she's starting to show signs of having had a stroke and cannot get adequate help, cannot get her doctor to listen to her, to understand what she's going through. And I think there's a frustration that, you know, the healthcare system is so overwhelmed that how do they give individualized attention, when they're suddenly confronted with so many cases. And they don't know what to do about it. And you have somebody who has other conditions. They talk about other things like, "Okay, if you have high blood pressure and diabetes or some kind of lung compromised or all these other kinds of things." But who's looking at transgender people with COVID and what are their unique, you know, situations. And so, that's one of my biggest frustrations is that we've been able to stay healthy. I have gone into a couple of doctor's appointments. They were extremely cautious. They were specialists, you know? So, they weren't overwhelmed. They weren't part of the frontline. We cancelled dentist appointments because that's probably where Ashley got it. Her endodontist walked into the room without a mask on and so, that's probably where she got it. So, we did end up cancelling our dentist appointments. But we're okay there. That wasn't an emergency. But the frustration with the medical system, I think that's why I go to Doctor Levine, because I can trust her. I know what's going on. You know, too bad she can't be my doctor. LB: No kidding, yeah. AB: My conviction is, are we going to be able to trust medical professionals going forward? You know, assuming that they don't all die from COVID. That's kind of huge. Especially since we're transitioning to Medicare and that sort of thing. LB: No kidding. Yeah, we went to the doctor yesterday and it was the skin doctor. So, it was a specialist kind of situation. We both went because we both had stuff. We had to go, and we went into the waiting room and all the chairs were just piled up in the corner. There were no chairs and it was an odd look, you know? It was a thing that, you know, if we get past this, we'll never see that again. It was so bizarre. And the people were great, and we felt really safe, because they know how to clean things, you know? They're good at that. But it is true that Trish just had to go to the dentist, but the dentist was literally with a mask and a plastic thing and, you know, she looked like she could have wrapped her whole body with -- and Trish said, "You will not be scared if you have to go to the dentist. I've never seen anything so remote control as the people." So, yeah, that's the thing, because when you see somebody without a mask, it makes you agoraphobic. I can understand that. I have that feeling too. Like Adrian said, "Well, maybe we can open in September." And all I was thinking was, "I'm not going. I'm not going." I said, "I'm not going unless you can guarantee me that I'm not going to get it. I'm not doing it." And I do trainings to hundreds of people. And they were asking me to do one in September and I said, "Only if you can guarantee that a high-risk person could not be in any risk at all." Well, they can't do that. So, you know, I said, "I'll do a Zoom." It's actually easier to do these interviews. The only thing that's weird about it, and you may or may not have done this, that you have no idea whether there's anyone out there. I did a training of, like, two hundred people and I said, "Well, I hope -- and I got done at the end of 90 minutes and I said, "I hope it's actually still working and the power just hasn't gone off and I'm just talking to myself." But, you know, anyway. BL: I had to do the second half of the last semester online. And it was tricky. And I know the students found it difficult. You know, this was not a format that most of them wanted and many of them found challenging. And particularly students with any kind of issues in terms of how they learn, et cetera. It's extremely challenging. And boy, I'm so glad I got to retire at the end of the semester, but I feel terrible for my colleagues who I know are so frustrated about, you know, what they are being forced to do. And, I know that my colleagues in your field, for instance, how in the world do you teach woodworking if you can't be in a woodworking lab? LB: Yeah, it can't be done. BL: I know they're just trying their damnedest to figure out how to make it a worthwhile learning experience and they're just really frustrated. You know, my field, computer science, yeah, we can get away with it, for the most part. There are some things that I found really hard to present because it's such a non-dynamic medium. And in terms of the tools we have available right now. Now, I know that's going to change. You know, next year, there is going to be a lot of development for new products that will make teaching online easier and they're going to be good. So, that the next time, it won't be so awful. But boy, it has forever changed the face of education. Particularly at the university level -- college and university level. And this is going to have a huge impact on how that whole field works from now on. LB: It's pretty interesting, I've talked to a number of college professors, I think three so far, in this group, and they're all really different. Because some of them were already doing distanced learning classes and they were pretty set up for it and one of them I'm about to interview on Thursday, right from the minute it happened had to rewrite every single thing she did. Everything she did was discussion classes and there was all this presentation by the students and everything and she said, "I don't know how to do this. I don't even know how to use the tools." So, I know she pulled it off, but she's at East Stroudsburg. And she's going to be moving right into the semester right away and it's very hard. So, yeah, what a tricky thing to do. And then you didn't even have to walk at the graduation. You just waved. BL: Yeah, yeah. AB: Yeah, well, Blaise is a computer scientist. So, you know, already, he's technologically savvy, but, you know -- BL: That doesn't mean it was easy. LB: No kidding. AB: So, I feel bad for people who don't have a background in computer science. LB: Sure, well, anybody who has to rewrite a class in the middle of the class -- people don't understand how hard it is to get these things in place. I taught woodworking at State University of New York for the first part of my career and a different life. And it couldn't be done. You would have just shut it down. There's no way that you could -- it's like you can't take this stuff home to do as homework either. So, now, ceramics people gave people clay and told them to take it home and that happened at Cedar Crest apparently, that they just said, "Here's a whole bunch of clay, make stuff." What a strange thing to do, really, because that doesn't really work. You know, you can't really do it that way. So, it's sort of a fake thing. So, that's a terrible story about Ashley and had you known other people that have had it or have been -- AB: Friends. The daughter of one of our friends was in New York. She was a chaplain and she came down with COVID and she was really sick for about a month. BL: But recovered, she totally recovered. AB: Seems to be recovered and another friend who had moved to New York also recovered. She was really sick for about two months, was not hospitalized, but just took a very long time to recover. But also, you know, so, we haven't really known anybody personally who died from it. One of his daughters works in a nursing facility in Baltimore -- outside of Baltimore and she's been really lucky. One employee tested positive, but showed no symptoms. And nobody in their facility had COVID, at least as of right now. So, that was, you know, pretty lucky. And my nephew works in Country Meadows with people in the dementia unit. LB: Oh, golly. AB: He said, you know, as much as he complains about having to wear a mask and shield and all the protective gear, he said, "We still don't have a case." LB: Wow. AB: So, we've been probably among the lucky ones in regard to that. LB: There's a facility in Allentown -- outside of Allentown. It's something Gardens, I think. And Steve Ziminsky was telling me that his former roommate is there now, and he has a pretty serious heart condition, so he can't do very much. Not very old, he's in his 60s. And they had one hundred people who tested positive. BL: Oh my. LB: And it's not a very big facility, including him. Including this guy. And I don't know how many deaths they had. I don't think they were telling. But one hundred people and a lot of them were a significant numbers of care workers too. So, that's a lot of stuff. So -- BL: That's a very high-density situation. AB: Right. LB: Yeah, and -- BL: You know, once it gets introduced, it's going to spread like crazy. LB: Sure. Well, I have a friend who is a pediatrician and she actually had it and was very, very sick, but she said that, you know, the parents have said, "Well, do you think it's okay for my kid to go to daycare?" And she said, "Has your kid ever gone to daycare and not gotten sick from something that -- you know, they're going to get it. They're going to get it." And so, I just read an article in the New York Times today that said -- and I don't know if I believe this, but that younger kids don't seem to be as likely to get it. Particularly children under five. And it's even possibly because when they cough and sneeze, when they're around other five-year-olds, they don't spew out as much as we do when we sneeze, as big as adults do. It seems unrealistic to me. It seems like an unrealistic thing. There's some other factors that have to do with receptors in little children's bodies that aren't as big, I guess, and they're not as likely to latch onto viruses. But it's not like kids don't get the flu. So, I don't know what that's about. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Go ahead. AB: And looking at the data, you know, because they keep pointing to data from Germany and, I don't know, Sweden and Israel and, you know, it's like, "Oh, they had no problem." They also didn't have the same number of cases that we have. Israel did have problems opening with COVID and the kids. And I think it's -- yeah, they may not be getting COVID, but whether or not they spread it, whether they can carry it home is another thing that we don't know. LB: Right, we don't know. That's really the thing. AB: You know, and if somebody lives in Montana, one hundred miles away from the nearest case of COVID, have at it. Open your school and go for it. In an area where, you know, you haven't flattened the curve yet or it's still kind of -- you know, I think it's a big risk. My daughter's school district has decided to start with online, virtual classrooms. And then reevaluate it every month. LB: That's wise. AB: His son's youngest is going to be going to school, but he has learning disabilities. And those are the kids they're bringing back and they're going to -- BL: In a hybrid. AB: In a hybrid system. I think two days a week, appropriately distanced and all that kind of stuff, to see how they do. Because they're the ones who are really suffering from the virtual classroom. So, yeah, I don't know, it's kind of -- you know, do I want to risk my grandkids for an experiment? LB: No kidding. Yeah, you know, I was talking to Steve Ziminksy, he was a school -- he was a music teacher in Allentown School District for many, many years. And he was telling me about things that I hadn't thought of and one of them is that a lot of Allentown schools are not air conditioned. So, what they do is, if it's really hot, they take the kids that are in the hottest rooms and they put them all down in one big, air-conditioned room, like the auditorium. Well, that's not an option. And he said, "How are they going to do that? What are they going to do when it's ninety degrees on September, you know, fifteenth?" Well, tough luck kids. Some of you get to be in air conditioning. AB: That could have been factored into my daughter's school situation because they don't have air conditioning in their elementary schools. That could have been a factor in their decision not to bring the kids back. But air conditioning is still -- LB: Yeah, if you don't have filters. AB: If the air conditioning works, that could spread it through the whole school. LB: Sure, yeah. It's a Legionnaires' kind of thing. It could be. So, do you want to say anything about Black Lives Matter? Because I'm asking everybody about that. You know, we can't talk about COVID without talking about that and without talking about politics because it's the deal. BL: It is one of the frustrations that we can't be out on the street with them. LB: No kidding, no kidding. BL: I mean, it's driving me nuts that I can't go downtown and help. Alanna and I and I'm sure you as well, since we were teenagers have been fighting for equal rights. It's frustrating, first of all, that we still have to do it. But, you know, after fifty years. But still, that's our first instinct is to go out and, you know, hold signs ourselves and protest. You know, there's no question in my mind that this can be a watershed moment. Whether it's going to be a positive one or a negative one is yet to be seen. I think the current administration is doing everything they can possibly do to make this as bad as it can possibly get. They are taking the exact wrong approach and clearly making things worse, rather than any attempt to make them better. You know, it is so easy to demonstrate that black folks and others of color are so oppressed, and they have been for four hundred years. And while the oppression is somewhat subtler these days, it's still there. And we have got to get past that, or we will never reach the potential that this country could reach. AB: You know, I actually lived in North Carolina when I was younger, and it was a really difficult time. My father was invited to join the Ku Klux Klan. And they apparently didn't realize he was Jewish. We had black maids and watching that and participating in that oppression. You know, the signs that said, "Colored only," or "Whites only." You know, growing up with that was painful. And then, you know, coming back to the north -- because we were damn Yankees down there, but then coming back to the north and the race riots in the high school where I was at, you know, in the seventies. And then, you know, fast forward to -- it was about the same time we started the Freedom to Marry work. We also got involved in anti-racism work. And so, that was around 2004. I know the people we were doing it with just didn't understand the anti-racism. "I'm not racist" kind of thing. And I had worked and collectively owned and operated an anti-profit community restaurant, a Kosher restaurant, in the seventies. And it was like, that went off for me. We were anti-profit. We weren't non-profit. We were against the machinery that made money on food. You know, that made such outrageous profits on food. And so, for me, suddenly that made sense to me. And it's like, to be anti-racist means you are against the system. And it took me even longer to figure out what those systems were. And as an individual, they are so hard to deconstruct. You know, there's nothing I can do as an individual about the property taxes that cause people of color to be isolated in poor school districts. And so, understanding that and explaining that to people -- and that's what actually has caused the civil war in our own family is that some of them -- "But I'm not racist." It's like, "That's not the point." And trying to explain that to people who don't want to hear it, you know? "Well, how can you tell me that I've benefited from white privilege? I have no money, you know, I have all these problems. How can you say I benefited from white privilege?" "Well, let me walk you through some of the exercises." Because we have done a lot of work and it's so distressing to be fifty years from Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior and say, "Oh my gosh, you know, we are no farther, except that so many people are paying attention now." LB: It's true. AB: Almost every company that I do online business with has sent me emails, outlining specifically what they are doing to educate their employees. They're donating to the right organizations, they are setting up, you know -- BL: Well, they're strengthening their policies. AB: Yeah, but they're also setting up opportunities for young people of color, so that they can, you know, be mentored and get skills and things like that. So, beyond the protests, I feel like there is hope that this time, we're going to make it work. And the continuing protests hopefully will hold people's feet to the fire. So, it's -- BL: It's all we can hope for. AB: Yeah, we can't let our guard down. LB: No, that's for sure. BL: But it's real frustrating that we can't be more actively involved. LB: No kidding. And we had this thing in Allentown, I don't know if you know that whole thing that happened in Allentown where the person was arrested for being sick and then kneeling on his head. And, you know, it happened five blocks from this window that I'm looking at and I couldn't go to it. And Adrian was there. He actually was there at midnight and he texted me and he said, "This is happening." And I know he did that because he wanted to know if I wanted to come over. I mean, I was just down the street and I said to Trish -- and then they had another protest the next night. And I said, "I think we should go to this." And the look on her face, because she's very, very at risk. And she's worried about me. And I had very severe lung issues when I was a teenager, so, I don't know, you know, whether that would affect me or not. I've been breathing wood dust my entire life too. So, I don't know, but she's really, really at risk and she has lupus and a lung disease and all sorts of stuff. So, I really deliberated and then I looked at the pictures. I could see the thing that was happening. It was live. And I could see these kids and they were chanting and yelling without masks on. Not a lot of them, but a couple of them. And I thought, "I can't do it. I can't do it." BL: You know, it's -- LB: All I have to do is be right next to somebody who's shouting out and I understand that passion. I understand why they want to chant and yell and stuff like that. But -- BL: Yeah, really want to be there. It's tearing us apart that we can't participate. LB: I understand it. I understand. Wow, it's very tough. And -- AB: Well, the other thing too is the intellectual level. While everybody in the country is up in arms about Black Lives Matter, the whole idea of intersectionality comes into play. Because while everybody's yelling about this, Trump is taking away healthcare for LGBT people. You know, here's where the news is focused, so, let's take away these rights from LGBT people and put more kids in cages. And so, that whole divide and conquer thing. BL: And misdirection. He's good at that. AB: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I'm hopefully more than anything. That's where I have hope is that we are going to actually start doing things. And if we can get a lot of these old white men out of office, you know, and I hate to say -- I don't want to limit it to Republicans, because I'm not sure the old, white Democrats are doing much better. Their hearts are in the right place, but they don't have the fire. But that whole notion of this patriarchal, you know, daddy thing. That daddy knows best and he's punishing the kids and, you know, mom has to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and, you know, that is -- we got to stop that somehow. And, you know, I'm kind of on the fence with AOC. You know, her recent preaching was just brilliant. LB: It was brilliant. It was totally brilliant. And Trish was playing it and she goes, "Sit down and listen to this." And I said, "Okay. That was brilliant." And every single person that I know that listened to it said, "Okay. That was brilliant." And, you know, even the criticism didn't make any sense, you know? BL: Right. AB: Right. LB: Well, she shouldn't be talking out. And that's the biggest danger I think, is when we have people that say, in sort of the guise of, "Well, you have to be able to -- I mean, everybody needs to be calm and self-care and stuff like that, but don't push self-care so far that you're not doing anything, you know? That you're not speaking out and that you just accept this. That you accept things and that things happen for a reason." Yeah, because there's racists. Well, we're going to change it, you know? They happen for a reason that's stupid. So, let's fix that reason. But it's very tough. I think it's very tough right now for people like us too, because we're -- BL: It also seems like we're at a period of history where a lot of confluences are coming together. And I do have a little bit of hope that, in fact, this is going to bleed over into the election and beyond. And have enough momentum to actually carry us forward, rather than backwards. I'm not entirely optimistic about it, but I've got that sort of hidden hope that, you know, there's going to be such a backlash from all of this nonsense, that we are in fact going to make progress this time. But, you know, we've kind of felt that way before. You know, when we got us out of Vietnam we thought, "Oh yeah, you know, we're going to beat the, you know, industrial complex." AB: The military industrial complex. BL: The military industrial complex. AB: We got Nixon impeached, yes. LB: I know, it's like this. BL: Yeah, and that we're going to start taking care of people. Well, didn't quite happen, did it? So, you know, I'm cautiously optimistic in that respect. I do have kind of good feelings about this next election that we are in fact going to be able to make some massive changes. But boy, do we got to get out -- LB: Yeah, I tell you, the thing that is most positive for me was seeing that a lot of the Black Lives Matters protests and the people who were protesting within this, it's very energy-charged and a lot of them were young people. And the young people vote is what brought us to Obama. And which did not bring us to Hillary Clinton because there wasn't that college student vote. And right now, college students are really pissed off. And they need to understand that it doesn't have to be this way and even their college loan things and stuff and the plans that -- it is true that the plans -- the Biden campaign has some very good steps that are probably from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, for paying off student loans and stuff. Which these young people have to recognize is this has to be done, and it's not even that much money. I mean, really, in the grand scheme of things, it helps them to be able to have more disposable income, which kind of takes care of taxes and stuff. And it ends up balancing it out. So, that -- BL: My two big agenda items are that and the universal healthcare. LB: That's true. BL: If we don't get universal healthcare passed, we are just never going to get anywhere. I really think that the whole medical system is a disaster. You know, it started when they started deregulating it and allowing it to make profit, et cetera. And it's real easy to show all the other countries that have universal healthcare, how much better their societies are. How much better protection everybody has. LB: And the direct relationship of COVID's proliferation, because people didn't have healthcare and because they were sick, they couldn't take days off and you know how that continued to happen. Yeah. BL: Well, anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we're going to have a big year. LB: I hope so. I hope so as well. BL: God help us if we don't. LB: Yeah, all right. So, one more thing that I hope that -- this archive project is really fascinating and we're having a wonderful time with Muhlenberg and Lehigh University working on this too. So, they've done a bunch of older LGBT people talking about all this stuff that happened. I often thought that all the stuff we did to pass all our ordinances nobody would know about that. And I've been talking about that a lot. And they transcribe it and it's really terrific and it's all searchable and you can get it in all the papers that we say, like, "Why are you doing this stuff?" And now, it's all in the archives and all digitalized and, you know, all the Valley Gay Presses that I made, one of the things that happened was, I was talking to Kristen Leipert, who I'm actually working with now on these things that I'm doing, like last year. And I was talking about the LGBT March on Washington in 1993. And I said, "Well, Trish and I went together to that and we've been together for several years. About six years by the time we went to that." And then I said, "We both were at the 1987 march, but we weren't together there." And Kristen goes, "Yeah, I know." And I said, "How do you know that?" And she said, "Because I read all the papers as I digitalized them, and I read all the stories and I know everything about your life. (laughter) Great, somebody does. So, she said that she knows everything. And then she'll says things like, "I found this video of the first Pride Festival. Who can you identify in the thing?" So, I'd watch the whole two-and-a-half-hour thing and I said, "Well, there's me way in the back." Because they only did the front. They only videotaped the front and I named a lot of people that were there and stuff. And it was very interesting to see, you know, I think all those people look the same as they do now, even though it was, you know, twenty-seven years ago and I'm the same. I still have those pants, you know, that kind of stuff. (laughter) Which always happens to me. I actually said, like, "Is that me? Oh yeah, I remember those pants." (laughter) But the whole thing has been very terrific and one of the things I hope and one of the reasons for this is to collect information from people who are talking about what's happening now, so people in the future can look back at this and say, "These are real people and how this was affecting them." And we don't have that for the flu epidemic of 1918, when my grandmother died. My grandmother died of the flu in 1918. So, what do you want to say to people thirty years from now or forty years from now or fifty years? BL: I hope life is better. LB: Just a soundbite. A soundbite. AB: Yeah, you know, a young person called me about the Defund the Police Movement and, you know, she had a questionnaire and we walked through the questionnaire and I talked about how I've been doing this work for 50 years and I really thought it would be solved by now. You know, when I was a teenager, I thought this would all be a thing of the past and it's not. And I go back and forth between anger and despair. And the one day I was talking to my grandson and he wanted to know about history. And so, you know, we were talking about history and he said, "Well, I'm really afraid the world's going to fall apart." He said, "This anti-racism work," he said, "I need to get involved in that." He's nine. "I need to get involved in that anti-racism work." He said, "I feel bad that I can't save the world." And it was like, "Oh my gosh, that's how I feel. And I said to him, "You know, I often feel like that, but what got me through was the idea of think globally, act locally. Change your own little part of the world." And, you know, I raised my kids to be, you know, anti-racist. And, you know, my daughter married a black man and our son married a Vietnamese refugee. We have a transgender daughter. And so, we've got this conglomeration of culture and ethnicity in our own little family. And so, they don't care about skin color and things like that. And we started Silent Witness Peacekeepers, you know? LB: Right. AB: And we created that in our own little part of the world, and we made such a difference. And so, if everybody does that, if everybody does their part, then maybe we will change the world. And that's what I told the young woman. I said, "I don't want to make any assumptions. You sound like you're young." I said, "We thought we were going to turn over this utopia to you guys and you still have to do the work. And you know, we're here to help. We can't be out there anymore marching, but we're more than willing to support you in the ways that we can." And so, if somebody is watching this thirty years from now and the world is a much better place, yay. BL: Yay. AB: If not, you know what? Ask -- BL: Sorry about that. AB: Yeah, because we're more than happy to, you know, listen when they complain and give them advice if they need it and do whatever we need to do. BL: Yeah, obviously, we've always felt it's incumbent on all of us to take positive steps toward a better future. And not just complain. But, you know, take an active role, as much as you can. You know, not everybody has to be out there on the street. But as much as you possibly can to support that movement forward. I hope to God it's better thirty years from now. And if it isn't, we're sorry. We're doing everything that we can think of to do. I'd like to think that the last three years or so in particular, have been an aberration that doesn't get repeated. Unfortunately, I also know from history and looking back thirty years in the past, what they did then that has continuing repercussions now, in a negative way. And I hope that the steps we're taking now lead to more positive than negative. And by the time thirty years from now -- you know, universal healthcare in particular, I think, if that hasn't become a reality, I just don't have any hope for the country at all. If they haven't done more to make reparations for the centuries of oppression of people of color, I don't have any hope for this country. AB: Or the indigenous people. BL: Yes, them as well. As a country, we have to own what it cost other people to make it what so many people think of as the greatest country in the world. Yeah, we're not the greatest in many, many ways. AB: No, right now we're the third world banana republic. LB: No kidding. BL: I think the ideals of the country are wonderful, you know, the phrase that all men are created equal is probably one of the greatest phrases ever written. And yet, even at the time it was written, they didn't mean it. LB: It wasn't true, yeah. BL: We have to mean it. And if another thirty years goes by and we haven't made great strides in meaning it in this country, then I'd say the experiment's a failure. But I'm hoping that's not going to be the case. Obviously, I'm trying to do whatever I can. And we all are, in this family for sure, trying to do what we can to live up to those ideals. And to make sure that nobody feels like they're on the outside. AB: And that's assuming we haven't fried the earth. LB: And then there's that. BL: Yeah. AB: Yeah, I remember being part of the first Earth Day. LB: Me too. AB: I was in high school. We formed the Clean Earth Association and we got permission to have an assembly. And, you know, we were out there educating in 1970. You know, and I started habits back then. Like turning off the water when I brushed my teeth. And every time I do that, I think I've been doing this since 1970. LB: Well, we're doing what we can do. We've got a history of doing what we can do. And we do have to recognize that, you know, if you look back to the 1950s, it's pretty much a sucky time. You know, the McCarthy Era and rampant Jim Crow and, you know, pre-Martin Luther King. And the beginnings of the Vietnam War and witch hunts and terrible government. And certainly, the incarceration of LGBT people. BL: Yeah, one of the things I've always said to Alanna is, particularly when we were working on the issue of same-sex marriage, was I'd like to keep Susan B. Anthony in mind. She worked her entire adult life, into her nineties, trying to get them the vote for women and it didn't happen in her lifetime. But it did happen. LB: Yeah, it's true. BL: And, you know, what's to say, you know -- I can't even think of the saying that I want to project at this point. But, you know, just because it's not going to be effective in our lifetime, doesn't mean we are free from the responsibility of trying to make it happen in our lifetime. LB: That's true. BL: And that's something that I've always lived by, that I've tried to pass on to my children and obviously we're trying to pass it on to our grandkids. AB: Yeah, the ethics of the fathers. You may not finish the work in your lifetime, but neither are you free to desist from it. BL: I knew she'd know the quote. LB: Good for you. Well, that's a terrific note to end on. Thank you so much for saying that. Thank you so much for talking to me. You've been very inspirational. BL: Thanks for asking us in. AB: Yeah, it's amazing. BL: We're very honored. AB: Yes, very honored and it's wonderful seeing you again. LB: It's great to see you too. I will give Trish a hug. I'm going to turn off the recorder now. Oh, whoops. Wait, oh no. BL: Don't tell me you didn't record it. LB: So, I just did this entire recording with forgetting to do the video of this. But I did do the audio. Thank goodness. I missed Blaise Liffick and the wonderful Alanna Berger. Both of them from Silent Witness talking about brilliant things. We have the entire audio recording. They will make the transcript from this. So, there will be a written transcript from this as well. Oh, does this suck big. I'm very, very sorry. Maybe I'll come back to you, because everything you said was brilliant. Maybe when you go, you'll go, "Oh, I forgot to say this thing." (laughter) BL: Anytime, Liz. LB: Oh, no, not anytime. This is so tough for you to do this. But you did a wonderful job and I really, really appreciate it. I can't believe I didn't do that. I even looked at the thing and said, "Is the thing on?" But the red light wasn't on. What a fool. Well, I've only done that -- this is the first time I've done that in all of these. But I did get the audio. But luckily, I said, "Oh, I don't have the audio on. Let me turn it on." So, that was good. I might have to come back and do you again. Maybe next week. BL: We could sit and read the transcript, how's that? LB: You could, maybe. Maybe do that. (laughter) No, that would be wrong. That wouldn't be good. Well, think about -- I think that the things that you said were brilliant and I did get all of the audio of it. And I'm so terribly sorry that I messed this up. BL: Oh, it's fine. LB: I can't believe it. AB: And you are recording now, right? LB: Yes, I'm recording both of the things now. So, say that thing that you said at the end of the statement that you said about -- AB: Oh, from the Pirke Avot the ethics of our fathers. You may not complete the work in your lifetime, but neither are you free to desist from it. LB: Well, that was brilliant. That was the gist of the entire interview, which is in the audio. Thank God I got the audio. I'm sweating because I've messed this up. So, anyways, well, I do have the audio, thank God. So, I do have the transcript for that, and I think that will work, because people will look at it and stuff. Thank you. And I actually think that we have a -- and I'm going to encourage them to do this, to be sure that you're on this. This is an ongoing grant through Lehigh University that they have been doing these oral histories. And they've done a number of people. It takes them a lot longer to do these things than it takes me to do it. They have a team. But they've done, I think, ten people and they're doing me now. And I said, "You can't do it all in ninety minutes, because I have a lot of things to say and I have another interview next Monday. But I think that they should talk to you particularly about the stuff you've done for Silent Witness and your lives too, because you've had such a significant life and I'm going to make them do this, since I screwed this up. So, they're going to get in touch with you in the next round of grant stuff. And I'll force Mary Foltz to do this. She's a wonderful interviewer. Much better than I, because I can't shut up and she'll let you actually talk. And I think that your life experience has been so significant and I think that's a very, very important thing for us to be able to include into the oral history, because your involvement with the LGBT community has been extraordinarily significant. Our Pride Festival and the -- and now, we're running it through the center. It's been twenty-seven festivals and the circumstances of the anti-LGBT and the anti-preachers that would come were getting worse and worse. To the point where it was one time we had a guy that set up next to our booth, while we were trying to get to sign and he just screamed through a megaphone the entire time of the entire festival. And it was impossible to actually engage people because of that. And that wouldn't have gone away. That was before when you started to do something. AB: Yeah, and that was something that -- you know, we did a lot of research on -- and we worked with the Harrisburg Police. The Harrisburg Police were great back then, as were Parks and Rec. Through so many of the lawsuits, they had great advice for us. And we also worked with Steve Glassman. We studied Supreme Court cases on freedom of speech. We followed, you know, who the street preachers were. And, you know, looked at their lawsuits. And so, we actually did a lot of work to get where we were. You know, for instance, we would take these packets of information with us and show them to the police beforehand, because we'd always meet with the police. And, you know, well, they're not allowed to interfere with this, because that was a Supreme Court case decision. And so, the police went, "Oh, really?" You know, so, those were the kinds of things that, you know, we were able to do. We were more than just a pretty umbrella. LB: Oh, no, I was there. I remember it and I remember a couple of Freedom to Marry things that were particularly hard when you weren't there or when you weren't there. Not Freedom -- not just Silent Witness, but you particularly weren't there. And sometimes the other Silent Witness people didn't quite know how to convince the police that the preacher with the megaphone standing behind us, doing the presentation, was not really supposed to be doing that. And how they were breaking the rules. BL: We have a particular knowledge set that is hard to pass on. LB: It's really important to be able to have that and to have the presence to convince people, you know, you're going to get in trouble if you do it the wrong way. AB: Yeah, but Doctor Blaise Liffick was able to get through to the police in ways that a lot of other people can't. LB: Yeah, thank you for doing that. AB: So, his thirty-nine years of teaching at the college level really came in handy. LB: Okay. Well, I'm going to stop this now, for real. AB: Okay. LB: And stop that, for heaven sakes. And I just wanted to say I'm going to stop the recording now. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. audio This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:32:28
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Alanna Berger and Blaise Liffick, July 28, 2020 (audio only)
Description
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Blaise Liffick and Alanna Berger talk about how the current COVID19 pandemic is affecting them. They talk about their recent move to be nearer to their adult children, Blaise’s retirement from teaching college, and how the end of the semester was remote learning. They discussed their many years of commitment to civil rights and the support of the LGBT community through the Silent Witness programs. They talked about the LGBT people in their family and how COVID-19 has affected their work and health from having the virus.
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PH40_07
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
Date
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2020-07-28
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audio
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/362f9fe6218381dce5e5e4c8b7358ef1.png
f11e0591fc1a1dd33ddd11bb56f63fee
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
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Brian Jones
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_09.xml
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5.4 July 9, 2020 Brian Jones, July 9, 2020 PH40_09 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- ; COVID-19 (Disease) Brian Jones Liz Bradbury video/mpeg JonesBrian_20200709_FinalEdit_video.mp4 1.0:|31(14)|56(8)|91(8)|128(5)|163(15)|180(5)|199(5)|218(5)|241(5)|260(9)|281(9)|312(3)|331(15)|354(2)|393(9)|416(11)|437(4)|458(18)|565(5)|584(5)|601(16)|622(9)|649(8)|674(6)|701(8)|718(17)|751(12)|770(4)|805(14)|820(6)|845(18)|870(5)|895(15)|926(4)|957(7)|980(13)|1007(13)|1034(9)|1061(4)|1092(6)|1147(8)|1168(7)|1191(8)|1220(10)|1239(7)|1260(2)|1297(4)|1320(5)|1339(5)|1360(15)|1395(4)|1418(16)|1443(11)|1458(2)|1471(5)|1482(15)|1491(17)|1508(6)|1527(7)|1546(5)|1569(7)|1590(5)|1609(8)|1628(14)|1647(13)|1668(3)|1687(4)|1736(2)|1755(15)|1784(14)|1809(17)|1830(5)|1857(14)|1880(2)|1893(6)|1926(3)|1971(3)|2014(6)|2071(3)|2100(11)|2131(2)|2164(13)|2201(8)|2236(7)|2285(2)|2324(8)|2361(13)|2384(10)|2409(6)|2446(4)|2475(8)|2514(9)|2541(8)|2572(6)|2607(2)|2636(11)|2667(10)|2700(5)|2731(11)|2766(7)|2797(10)|2830(5)|2857(10)|2886(13)|2925(2)|2948(4)|2973(12)|3010(5)|3051(5) 0 https://youtu.be/6PlrM8a4hxg YouTube video English 48 Interview Introductions LB: Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do and I’m going to pin the video on you. So, that’s good, and so that every time I talk and I go “uh-huh” it doesn’t flash back to me because that would be bad. (laughter) So, now we’re on record, that’s good, and we’re on the audio, record, so that’s terrific. [...] 0 206 Connections to LGBTQ+ Community
 ; LB: And, okay, so now -- we have some demographic questions on this. So, what we do want to do is ask people how they identify themselves in the LGBT community. So, do you identify as a gay man or a trans person or a bi person or what do you think? Anything you want to say.
 ; BJ: I identify as a cisgendered gay man. 0 271 Work Life LB: So, we’re going to ask a bunch of questions. And frankly, I’ve got all these prompts. I sent you all of that information. I don’t have to ask you these things individually. And, in fact, I think it’s a little confusing. So, I think you should just talk about how you feel about it and what you think. So, like, you know, have you been -- it looks like you’re at work, so you’re working, so why don’t you talk a little bit about work? 0 454 Status of MCC Lehigh Valley During COVID
 ; LB: [Yes?] [inaudible] [I’ll say?]. So, in terms of this stuff -- oh, wait a minute. That’s not what I want to do. In terms of this stuff, what are you doing at -- because we sort of imagined these interviews as somebody looking at this 30 years from now and they’re saying what was it like during the COVID stuff? So, what are you doing there at the church? Is everything the virtual -- are people coming in at all?
 ; BJ: We --
 ; LB: Are you starting to see anybody there? 0 948 Virtual Worship Services / Changing Modalities LB: Yeah, so do you think that might continue after you’re vaccinated and not a danger, perhaps, maybe, you know?
 ; BJ: I hope so. I’m a firm believer that the model, [00:16:00] the church model that most churches have been following for the last one hundred years, this twentieth century model of how you do church, hasn’t been working for forty years. 0 1064 Connections to Individuals with COVID / Being an Essential Worker
 ; LB: Yeah. How ‘bout you pers-- well, okay, so let’s segue into this. I know a lot of people -- and this is not true for me but I know a lot of people who don’t know anybody that was sick from coronavirus-19. Have there been people -- and I don’t want you to HIPAA them, you know? But I would guess that because the community in the church has a lot of outreach and personal relationships that there have been people who --
 ; BJ: There have been. I personally have lost three people in my family -- 0 1398 Communicating with Family & ; Friends
 ; LB: Yeah. So, do you have other people in your family that you have to sort of help to take care of or is it not that kind of circumstance?
 ; BJ: No, it’s not really that. Everybody is pretty much in clusters, so, you know, my mom and my stepfather and my sister and her kids, they all live in the same house. And, you know, my brother and his family are altogether. And my grandmother who lives with my other cousin. [...] 0 1702 Finding Queer Community During the COVID Era / Finding Ways to Pass the Time LB: Yeah. So, we have all these questions on this list about, you know, like, do you -- are you still finding queer community and stuff. Again, you’re not having any trouble with that. You’re always around all that. 
 ; BJ: [laughs] No, I’m not -- but I see it. I can see it in the people who walk through the door, partially because the queer community, for so many of our folks, is their family.
 ; LB: Right. 0 1894 Working During the COVID Pandemic LB: Do you find, like, right now, there -- I think the world is also divided into two sets of people and it’s people who are working way less and then working actually more.
 ; BJ: Yeah. 0 1987 Switching Things Up / Facing Discrimination
 ; LB: (inaudible) (laughter) absolutely. And so, (coughs) and wait a minute, let me cough a little bit here. (laughter) So, do you think that, I mean, you’re talking about how this has affected you and how -- you’re talking about content that you’re doing and doing more outreach to people. What could you describe as, like, the one thing that’s totally different that you’re doing before that turns out that it works pretty well? I mean, you’re talking a lot about outreach but you were already kind of doing that at MCC through Zoom or whatever you were using as a visual platform. What do you think about that? 0 2121 Getting Zoombombed
 ; BJ: [...] But it seems to be working. I mean, we got our first Zoom bomb last week on bible study. So, somebody knows about it. (laughs)
 ; LB: So, tell about that because people -- 0 2474 COVID's Effect on Mental Health LB: And that’s definitely the case. So, yeah. So, for you, personally, you think this is a -- and you’re sort of expressing this, that this is influencing your mental health, I would guess. It’s certainly doing mine.
 ; BJ: Oh, absolutely. You know, when this first started -- I’m a fairly even-keeled person. I’m well put together, I’ve -- you know, everybody has their issues but I can deal with a lot of stuff. [...] 0 2824 Dr. Rachel Levine / Politics LB: And I think -- now, one of -- things we’re lucky about in our community and in our Lehigh [00:51:00] Valley and also in the whole state of Pennsylvania is we have a wonderful secretary of health in my opinion. And it’s been positive and I think it’s been positive for -- have you felt that way? I mean, to have Dr. Rachel Levine speaking as a trans woman but also speaking as the incredible voice of science and reason.
 ; BJ: Yeah, for me it has been -- Dr. Levine has been just a voice of reason and of competence.
 ; 0 3141 Black Lives Matter Movement LB: Okay, great. Well, I do want to talk about Black Lives Matter and I’d love to hear what you want to talk about because I think in the world, in the United States today, we’ve got political issues, we’ve got this terrible pandemic, and we also have some very significant race issues that people need to be talking about. And so, what do you want to say about that? I mean, people may not know that 30 years from now and they may not understand that, so let’s talk about that.
 ; 0 3783 Intersectionality of Being Black & ; Gay in the Lehigh Valley BJ: I had not been that angry before. Like, I remember saying to Goudy that -- Goudy is the pastor at MCC Lehigh Valley. And I remember saying to them, “I can’t do this right now. I can’t be here right now because I’m about to pop.” (laughs)
 ; LB: Yeah.
 ; 0 4259 Finding Hope LB: I appreciate that. So, I guess that we’re at the end here and, you know, if you want to go on, that’s -- or I’ll give you some more time to say whatever you want to say. But I did want to ask you, you know, sort of in the end thing: what’s the thing, you know, what’s giving you hope, what kind of hope and strength are you getting from anything now that we just talked about all the annoying people that -- [laughter] [calling you?] up with their they’re desperately hav-- I have to feel good because -- so, I’m going to talk to Brian, so -- [laughter] 
 ; 0 4573 Allen High School GSA / 2000 Pride Festival LB: That’s great. Well, I, you know, I think of you as a very young person because I knew you when you were so young. [laughter] And did you go to Allen High School? You went to Allen High School.
 ; BJ: I did, I did. 0 5215 Importance of Visibility & ; Community
 ; BJ: -- and open. You take the lumps that you’re going to get and you just keep on moving. I mean, it’s -- and I would ask you a question. Do you know, do you and Trish understand -- I know you do ; it’s just philosophical -- but I really think that what y’all do, what we do, what people like Steve Libby do, you know, what we do is life and death.
 ; LB: Yeah.
 ; BJ: Literal life and death.
 ; LB: I do know that’s true. 0 5434 MCC Lehigh Valley / Faith Community
 ; LB: Oh, you’ve done a great job at MCC. You know, I’m still recommending people to go to MCC. People will call me up and they’ll say -- and they’ve done this for years, because I’ve been answering the info line for twenty-two years. People call up and they’ll say, “I want to meet more people in the community.” Or, “I want a support group.” Now, we have support groups sort of now but not for just -- and I say, “You really need a support group or you just need to meet more queer people? [laughter] [Like?], meet other lesbians, for example.” And I’ll say, “You know, how do you feel about church?” “Yeah, I don’t have any problem with that.” “Okay, well, why don’t you go to MCC?” “Because they have to be nice to you there. It’s [work?]. (laughter) And they’ll shake your hand and then you can sit in the back.” And also, it’s every week. So, it’s not like, well, if I don’t have the nerve to do it this week -- 0 5737 Making Connections in the LGBTQ+ Community BJ: I would love to get your perspective on this. Even before COVID, had you been getting a sense that the LGBT community had -- I’ve kind of been getting the sense that the LGBT community had been coming -- disjointed. Not disjointed but -- that’s not the word I want to use. Disconnected. So, long-time institutions within our area closed over the last couple years. So, in cases like Diamonz and, like, 12th Street, what was it called? The bar on Twelfth Street.
 ; LB: Candida’s. 0 6468 Closing Remarks LB: [...] So, anyway, we’ve gone over the time but I loved talking to you! (laughter) And I’m so grateful that you’ve done this and it’s been wonderful to walk down memory lane, back to twenty years ago when we were --
 ; BJ: Twenty years ago! 0 MovingImage Brian Jones talks about the current COVID19 is affecting him and his family, his work at Metropolitan Community Church of the Lehigh Valley, how it is affecting LGBTQ people, Black Lives Matter issues, and what gives him hope Brian Jones 2020-07-09 LIZ BRADBURY: -- also, I'm recording on the computer and I can see that's going. I'm going to start the audio recording now, too, and that's good. So, I'm going to read you this stuff. This is the same stuff that I sent you in an email and it's -- oh, turn off my phone. (laughs) BRIAN JONES: [Well, my?] phone's on silent. LB: Okay, that's smart. I have to turn mine off because I'm still -- I don't like to turn it off until I get you, in case you have to call me. So, there you go. And I'm going to pin you. So, let's see, how do we do that pinning thing? Wait a minute. BJ: Think you -- LB: Yeah, that's what I'm going to do and I'm going to pin the video on you. So, that's good, and so that every time I talk and I go "uh-huh" it doesn't flash back to me because that would be bad. (laughter) So, now we're on record, that's good, and we're on the audio, record, so that's terrific. So, with this project, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. And, let's see, I did all the stuff I'm supposed to do. My name is Liz Bradbury and I'm here with Brian Jones to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley community during this time of the COVID pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archives. Our project was funded from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. We are meeting on Zoom and this date is Thursday, July 9th, 2020. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today, Brian. And to start, can I please ask you to state your full name and spell it for me? BJ: My name is Brian Jones, spelled B-R-I-A-N J-O-N-E-S. LB: Great. And what is your birth date? BJ: June 5th, 1984. LB: Okay, and I also want to ask you: so, you're in Bethlehem now, I can tell by the background. BJ: Mm-hmm, [that's?] (inaudible) LB: Is that correct. I'm just going to write that in. Okay, that's good, because we have to put that in the metadata. Okay, so now, this is the consent part. Do you consent to this interview today? BJ: I do, yes. LB: Okay, wait a minute. Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? BJ: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, archives, websites, presentations, and other formats? BJ: Yes. LB: Yes. Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript, which means delivery to you, to review your interview and identify parts you would like to delete or change or withdraw your whole interview? You think, oh, I hate this, I'm going to -- but please don't do that -- withdraw it from the project. BJ: I -- yes, I do. LB: Okay. BJ: Yeah. LB: And, okay, so now -- we have some demographic questions on this. So, what we do want to do is ask people how they identify themselves in the LGBT community. So, do you identify as a gay man or a trans person or a bi person or what do you think? Anything you want to say. BJ: I identify as a cisgendered gay man. LB: Okay. Okay, what's your ZIP code? BJ: My home ZIP code? LB: Well, yeah, where you live. BJ: Where I work? Oh, I never know that. LB: No, where you live. BJ: Oh, where I live -- LB: Where you -- BJ: -- 18052. LB: Okay. And how old are you? BJ: I'm thirty-six. LB: Okay, and I've known you a long time, Brian. BJ: Yeah, since I was at least fifteen. (laughs) LB: Yeah. How do you identify with the -- oh, I already asked you that. Okay. And so, in general, what -- so, I don't have to write that. Oh, I see why that's going -- this is my first COVID interview, so that's why I'm going slow here. BJ: Okay. LB: So, we're going to ask a bunch of questions. And frankly, I've got all these prompts. I sent you all of that information. I don't have to ask you these things individually. And, in fact, I think it's a little confusing. So, I think you should just talk about how you feel about it and what you think. So, like, you know, have you been -- it looks like you're at work, so you're working, so why don't you talk a little bit about work? BJ: Okay. Well, I work for Metropolitan Community Church of the Lehigh Valley in Bethlehem. And it's a congregation that primarily serves the LGBT community here in the Lehigh Valley. And I think, like a lot of organizations, non-profits, everybody, (laughs) we're doing the best that we can with the situation. LB: Yeah. BJ: It has been very interesting, difficult, disconcerting when your job is about community, when your everything that you do revolves around a community of people gathering and being able to support each other through the gatherings, whether it be during a Sunday morning service or a program that's after -- throughout the week or whatever it might be. When that is what you do, primarily, when you lose that, your communal identity suffers and goes through changes. You as a professional who is responsible for helping to create community, you kind of go through a -- what's your purpose, what am I doing, how do I do this kind of thing? So, it has been, work has been quite interesting for me, personally, at MCC Lehigh Valley, trying to maintain the ship, trying to keep things moving and going, but also mourning the loss of that connectivity, of those things you look for, too, throughout the week. LB: Right. BJ: It has been very -- it's been more isolating for me than I thought it was going to be. At heart, I am extreme introvert. (laughs) So, I'm used to -- I'm very, very comfortable being alone. I'm very comfortable being in isolation. But this is a whole 'nother ball game. (laughs) LB: [Yes?] (inaudible) [I'll say?]. So, in terms of this stuff -- oh, wait a minute. That's not what I want to do. In terms of this stuff, what are you doing at -- because we sort of imagined these interviews as somebody looking at this 30 years from now and they're saying what was it like during the COVID stuff? So, what are you doing there at the church? Is everything the virtual -- are people coming in at all? BJ: We -- LB: Are you starting to see anybody there? BJ: We are -- so, when we were in the red phase and the yellow phase, we were primarily doing everything online. And we are still doing almost absolutely everything online. Our worship services, we actually added another service in the week that we do online, on a Thursday. And all of our educational stuff is online. Since we've moved into the green phase, we have opened up the worship service to an extremely limited number of people. So, we only allow twenty-five people into the space and they must maintain social distancing. They don't come in until fifteen minutes before the service begins and as soon as it's over, they are out the door. And they are spread out throughout the sanctuary. That is the only real time that we have numbers of people come into the space. LB: They're wearing masks and stuff? BJ: Yeah, they're all masked. So, they're only in one Sunday, one day a week, on Sundays. And, you know, we did all the measurements and stuff in the sanctuary and we pretty much came to the conclusion that to give six foot radius around a person or a couple or, you know, whatever it might be, we really can only fit, max, thirty people into this space. It's a large room but when you count in twelve feet around somebody, it's a completely different ballgame. So, we -- they're masked, they come in, they sit, they're assigned seats, so that we, you know, we put them, we put the people where they can maintain social distancing. They're not able to get up and just go do what -- you know, it's a massive cultural shift, specifically for this community, which -- you know, the LGBT community is a close community. When you get in your pockets, you become really close to people. LB: Sure. BJ: And it's quite interesting to watch everybody have -- people who look at each other as family having to maintain that distance. You know, and in the Christian church context of things and how we handle worship, I'm the worship director, the musical workshop director here. And it's weird, you know? Music and singing and whatnot is very important to the Christian experience and act of worship and they're not allowed to sing. So, it's very, very weird to have people in a sanctuary when you are -- I've been doing this since I was a kid. I mean, we've known each other since I was a teenager. LB: Right. BJ: And I was doing it before I met you and I think I met you when I was fifteen. LB: Yes. BJ: So, I've been doing this for a long time and I have never led worship in a sanctuary with people in a room where they weren't singing back at me. LB: Yeah. BJ: Or they weren't doing the liturgy or anything like that. So, they're prohibited from doing that. I'm the only person in the room, when we're singing, who's singing. LB: Yeah, yeah. BJ: So, it's very interesting. It's a very weird experience. It's changed a lot and, you know, the process that we're trying to figure out right now is how do we maintain a sense of community with one another? And, you know, we're trying to get there, we're struggling, just like everybody else is. LB: Yeah, yeah. BJ: You know? And the options for people in a church setting, the options for people have quadrupled because they're all at home. So, you can, if you want to watch a worship experience, you know, places that were -- you know, we don't like using the words competition but we're, you know, it's a reality. And places that were never competition for us before are now competition for us. So, we're dealing with all that stuff. LB: I don't know that people in the future will understand what you mean by that but you're talking about, like, there's television church things that people can watch. BJ: Yep, and there's television church, there's, like, professional televangelist kind of church stuff. But, at the same time, the church around the corner from us, you know, who was not online four months ago is online now. LB: [Yeah, that's a good point?] -- BJ: So, you know, every church that is still trying to maintain has all -- every church has become a broadcast church. So, you know, people and places and things you had never seen before, you now can see and you're dealing with that. So, the need to improve your content, the need to -- it's conversations we have never had before, the need to improve your content, improve your quality, to improve, you know, what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like are real conversations that we're having at the local church level -- LB: Right. BJ: -- you know, that megachurches would have. But at the local church level, when you have a congregation of maybe 100 people, you're not really having that conversation. But now, you are, so -- LB: Right, it's pretty interesting. It's a different thing. Of course, megachurches are now in that circumstance where they were broadcasting and then everybody's broadcasting -- BJ: Yeah, yeah. LB: -- so I wonder if that's influencing them, too -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- some ways. BJ: Yeah. LB: It's a whole different story. BJ: But the other thing is that what it has done for us, though -- I mean, we've had our online presence for a while. LB: Right. BJ: We were well-positioned to make this change, to be able to facilitate this change, and to facilitate it at a level, a quality level that other churches our size really couldn't do and a lot of them still aren't able to do it. But we can do multiple cameras and, you know, all that different kind of -- so, we have that going for us. But what it has done -- you know, our focus had been so much on the Lehigh Valley but we now have people who are engaging with us and worshipping with us who are in Poland and who are in Germany and who are in Canada and who are -- you know, so we're getting people from all over the place who are engaging with MCC Lehigh Valley. LB: Yeah, so do you think that might continue after you're vaccinated and not a danger, perhaps, maybe, you know? BJ: I hope so. I'm a firm believer that the model, the church model that most churches have been following for the last one hundred years, this twentieth century model of how you do church, hasn't been working for forty years. LB: Sure. BJ: And it became this -- not to get political but it became this capitalist kind of numbers game and that's what the value was, and how many people you'd get through the door, not, you know, how -- that's what it became. And when it becomes about that, it actually stops becoming about people and it actually stops becoming about what you're supposed to be doing. So, I think what has happened with COVID is that it has peeled back layers of institutionalism and systems that are about power and things like that. It's pulled back those layers of things and it's exposed you for who you actually are and what you actually can do. And it's making you, as a -- it's making us, as a community and as -- the church as a universal -- have to really step back and reexamine how we do what we do. LB: Yeah. BJ: And I think for the better. I think for the better. LB: Yeah. How 'bout you pers-- well, okay, so let's segue into this. I know a lot of people -- and this is not true for me but I know a lot of people who don't know anybody that was sick from coronavirus-19. Have there been people -- and I don't want you to HIPAA them, you know? But I would guess that because the community in the church has a lot of outreach and personal relationships that there have been people who -- BJ: There have been. I personally have lost three people in my family -- LB: Really? BJ: -- to COVID, yeah. LB: Oh, my gosh. BJ: The realities for minority communities -- LB: Yeah. BJ: (inaudible) Black communities, you know, those numbers that were coming out from the Black community about the spread of COVID, they weren't false statistics. The Black community has been hit really hard by COVID. LB: Yeah. BJ: And I lost a cousin, Eddie. I lost another cousin, Jaime. And I lost another cousin, [Sheila?]. LB: Oh, my gosh. BJ: Yeah, it was -- it's been very -- it's been a hard few months, because, you know, I've never mourned this way before. And in part, because in my family I'm a spiritual leader. I'm not just one for MCC Lehigh Valley but I'm a patriarch in my family already. And so, when something happens, I respond to those things. If there's a funeral in the family, well, somebody's going to call me to provide some kind of -- either music or song or help lead the service or whatnot. So, you know, I've done, so far, at least 10 funerals that were COVID funerals. LB: Yeah. BJ: I generally, in a year, might do fourteen or fifteen funerals. I've already done seventeen funerals this year -- LB: Gosh. BJ: -- ten of which were COVID funerals, three of which were my family. LB: Oh, golly. BJ: And eight of those funerals, eight, maybe -- I've been keeping these numbers in my head. Nine of those funerals that I did were on Zoom. LB: Yeah. BJ: (laughs) So, you know, it's a whole 'nother -- the thing that I will say about what COVID has done to my family and me personally is that it has taken away the ability for family to be family when you absolutely need family to be family, you know, when you got to watch your grandmother cry at a funeral through a Zoom video, it's a little -- it's tough, you know? LB: Right. BJ: So, I personally have lost three people. I know -- and they were -- so, in my family altogether that I know of, eight people have had COVID. Three of them did not make it. The other five have made it, two of which are really -- they're on the other side of it but it really is a beast for them. A couple of them, my two cousins who were positive for it, they didn't even know they were positive for it. Like, they didn't even -- they had no symptoms whatsoever. And because they were all in the same house, they got tested and they were positive, but nothing. They never had a symptom, never had any issues, nothing. But my uncle and my other cousin really struggled through it. Really struggled through it. So, yeah. LB: So, are you, in your own household, are you by yourself in your household, do you have other people in your household? What's -- BJ: It's just me, my husband, and my dog. LB: Okay. (laughter) Okay. BJ: Yes. LB: So, the two of you -- does he have to work, too? because you have to go out -- BJ: Yeah, we're both essential employees. So, I'm essential by nature of the church work. But I can work -- I can satellite from home more often than I can't. He works in warehouse work. LB: Oh. BJ: So, he goes in every day. My husband is the hardest working guy I know. Goes in every single day. And he was working for another company in the Lehigh Valley that he actually was a higher-up in. He was in, like, a management level. And when COVID first hit, the company didn't seem to be taking it seriously. And, you know, they were starting to get cases in the warehouse but they weren't reporting them, they weren't telling the employees that they were getting the cases. But then, the employees all knew because they all know each other. So, they would all -- like, somebody would get test, would be tested positive. And, you know, they would send a Facebook message to folks, "Listen, I tested positive for this. I'm going to be gone for a while." But nobody in the higher-ups would say anything. So, he and his department, a person in his department, tested positive -- that he was running. So, it was his department of, like, six or seven people. This person tested positive, had been close to all of them, and called out -- the company did not tell them but they knew because the person told them. So, they all quarantined themselves and they -- only two of them went back. My husband decided he's not -- they're not taking it seriously. LB: Did you say that your husband tested positive or he was tested? BJ: He was tested and he was negative but he stayed in quarantine because the person who had contracted it -- so, you know, he decided he just -- he wasn't going back there. He wasn't staying there. So, he moved to another warehouse where he is not a higher-up anymore. He's just a grunt at this point. But, you know, this place where he's at now, they're taking everything seriously, they have all the PPE, they have all the cleaning, the sanitizing stations and all that different kind of stuff. So, yeah, so we have -- it's just us and, you know, we both realize that because we both have to go out for work, him more than me, you know, he realizes that he's exposed, even with all the protection that they can give. But we've developed a whole system at home on how to come into the house and how to, you know, sanitize yourself and, you know, before you come in and get your clothes off and all that different kind of stuff, so -- LB: Right, yeah. BJ: -- just become a way of the world, I guess. (laughs) LB: Right, it has. We hardly go out at all. But if we bring things in -- I mean, once in a while, I have to go to the Center, I have to -- we had to go to a doctor's appointment or something like that. We come in and we take off all our clothes, wash all our clothes. BJ: Yeah. LB: It's -- you have to do that and -- BJ: What we do, like, we try to order as much into the house as we possibly can and try to avoid going out any more than we absolutely have to. LB: Yeah. BJ: You know? LB: Yeah. So, do you have other people in your family that you have to sort of help to take care of or is it not that kind of circumstance? BJ: No, it's not really that. Everybody is pretty much in clusters, so, you know, my mom and my stepfather and my sister and her kids, they all live in the same house. And, you know, my brother and his family are altogether. And my grandmother who lives with my other cousin. And so, everybody is all together. The weird thing is that everybody, my mom, my sister, they're all essential employees. So, my mom works for -- she's a care worker and my sister is, also. And my brother is a warehouse worker at my grandmother's, where my cousin, she's a nurse. So, everybody, we're -- everybody's out. And we're not just out but they're out in places where they can very well be exposed, so -- LB: Golly, that's really -- BJ: Yeah. (laughs) LB: I guess you're the perfect first interview to have. (laughter) I was afraid, you know, people, like, "Well, yeah, I'm not really going out" and -- BJ: (laughs) No. LB: (laughs) So, are you using, like, video technology with your family, too, like other people? BJ: Not really. We've been doing -- we've been mostly text and phone. LB: Yeah. BJ: You know, if we see each other, you know, my mom will come over to the apart-- to where we live but won't come in. So, we'll, like, we'll sit out in our yard and just chat. Or my brother and his kids will come over and the kids'll just run around the yard and we'll all sit out and grill or whatever. But we're trying to, like, maintain those familial relationships but also -- you know, it's weird to not be able to give my mom a kiss. LB: I know. BJ: (laughs) It's so weird. I think that might be the hardest part of it. Like, there are two people in the world who I -- when I see them, I must absolutely embrace them. LB: Yeah. BJ: And it's my mom and my husband and it's been so, like, so weird to not be able to do that. LB: Yeah, yeah. BJ: Yeah. LB: Yeah, I think, actually, if you can -- I think about people who are living alone -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- all the time and how must -- how that's just so hard. BJ: We, at MCC Lehigh Valley, one of the main reasons we decided that we had to at least open up the worship experience to a select -- a small number of people -- because there are so many people in the LGBT community who are, even in the best of times, isolated. LB: Yeah. BJ: And to be completely isolated from everything must be very difficult. I was talking to my guitar player here and -- single guy, lives alone, and I was asking him, you know, "How is this? How's it been?" He was, like, "It's been extremely hard." And he's someone with -- who does not have any emotional circumstances or anything like that and he's, like, "This is really hard on your mentality. It's really, really hard." So, I can't imagine. I really can't imagine going through it without anybody. LB: Yeah, I can't either. It's so hard. I mean, I have a sister who -- I taught her how to use Zoom so that I could talk to her. And I became aware, I said to my -- to Trish, "I have to talk to her more" because she's by herself and she's -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- so much older than I am, so she's really by herself. BJ: Yeah. LB: She does have friends where she is and she can go to their yard and stuff like that. But, yeah, it's tough. BJ: It's tough. LB: Yeah. BJ: It's tough. LB: Yeah. So, we have all these questions on this list about, you know, like, do you -- are you still finding queer community and stuff. Again, you're not having any trouble with that. You're always around all that. BJ: (laughs) No, I'm not -- but I see it. I can see it in the people who walk through the door, partially because the queer community, for so many of our folks, is their family. LB: Right. BJ: I mean, for so many of our folks. And I don't think we still -- I think we like to think, a lot of the times, be in this -- in 2020 that people are -- that things are somehow better than they were 20 or 30 years ago. And in many, many, many ways they are. They absolutely are. But people still lose their families, people still lose friends and, you know, all that different kind of stuff by affirming who they really are. And the need for the LGBT community to be community is still a primary need. It's still a primary need for us to be family for each other. So, that loss of not being able to go to Stonewall or not being able to go to, you know -- it's a big loss. LB: Yeah, right, right. BJ: It's a big loss. LB: Yeah. Yeah, it really is. So, are you doing anything that's -- besides, you know, your behavior is different, are you doing different things? You're thinking, like, let's start a new hobby because we can't go out and do these things. Seems like you've got a lot of stuff that you do, so I would guess that that's not something that you're doing, I don't know. BJ: I'm just getting better at trying to, well, trying to get better at the things I already know how to do. So, like the broadcasting -- creating content and broadcasting stuff and learning how to use all of those different softwares and things like that. I'm just trying to dig into that because I think it's going to be a vital part of where we go for the next couple years, you know? And so, that's what I'm doing. But I did, because we did just move to Whitehall and we have a little spot at our place that has a little garden nook. So, I decided, well, I got some time and let's get dirty. So, I started a little garden there. So, that's something new for me that I never did before. (laughs) LB: Do you find, like, right now, there -- I think the world is also divided into two sets of people and it's people who are working way less and then working actually more. BJ: Yeah. LB: You think you fall into either of those categories? BJ: I've been doing this at MCC for fifteen years now and I've worked really hard. LB: Yeah. BJ: I've never worked harder than I am working right now. LB: Yeah, yeah. BJ: I've never put in as much time as I'm putting in now. I've always done more hours and more time than what I'm supposed to do in a week. But the need is so high right now and, like I said before, my work has been to keep the ship running and keep us online and keep the content coming and all the different kind of stuff. So, it's just from one service to the next service, it's just trying to produce the next thing and produce the next thing. I mean, we're literally producing right now what amounts to two-and-a-half hours of television. (laughs) LB: Yeah. BJ: And that doesn't sound like a lot but that's a lot. (laughs) That's a lot. You know, there are people whose full time job is just to do one hour of something. (laughs) LB: Sure, half hour. BJ: Yeah. LB: (inaudible) (laughter) absolutely. And so, (coughs) and wait a minute, let me cough a little bit here. (laughter) So, do you think that, I mean, you're talking about how this has affected you and how -- you're talking about content that you're doing and doing more outreach to people. What could you describe as, like, the one thing that's totally different that you're doing before that turns out that it works pretty well? I mean, you're talking a lot about outreach but you were already kind of doing that at MCC through Zoom or whatever you were using as a visual platform. What do you think about that? BJ: What is new that we're doing that is working well? LB: So, I'm, like -- so, like, at some point, you might be going, like, let's try to do it this way and it turns out, wow, that turned out to be great! (laughter) Let's do that! Let's do more of that! Because we're finding that at the Center. We're finding certain things that we didn't -- like, we didn't think we'd be able to do any arts and cultural things. It turns out that that's been huge. The book club has gone from, like, six people to fifteen people. BJ: Oh, wow. LB: So, we've added all these other, like, author reading events and we have a poetry club now and, you know, where people talk about reading poetry books because they've been very, very successful. It's turned out to be very successful to do that. We have so many things we can't fit them into all of our social media platforms -- BJ: Okay. LB: -- which is interesting. BJ: Oh, I wish there was more that we were doing in that way. I mean, we have shifted most of the things that we were already doing as far as people connecting to each other to Zoom or to online, our Sunday schools, our education -- all of that stuff is online. I think we're surprised that that's working, just by the -- like, our bible study stuff, just by the nature of what it is it kind of feels like it's better to be in the room to be able to do it. But it seems to be working. I mean, we got our first Zoom bomb last week on bible study. So, somebody knows about it. (laughs) LB: So, tell about that because people -- BJ: I was not part of it. I was not there. I got the email after the fact. But we got what a lot of minority communities are getting with these Zoom bombs. So, we got at least -- I think it was some -- I think [Gaudi?] said something like ten people -- LB: Wow! BJ: -- chimed into the Zoom and they were writing, on the screens, anti-LGBT sentiments. LB: (inaudible) and this is in bible study? BJ: This was during our bible study. LB: Oh, gracious. BJ: So, what happened was they closed the Zoom meeting down and then they started it up again and created a waiting room so that nobody could just come in. And, you know, we did a check in with everybody who was there to make sure that, you know, they were okay -- LB: Yeah. BJ: -- and spent some time decompressing from that and then went back to bible study. You know, again, this new reality, people have really figured out how to be shitty. (laughs) LB: No kidding. No kidding. And, you know, just to put this in context, because I appreciate you talking about this, but, I mean, this is the sanctuary. This is the church. This is where people are supposed to go and feel totally supported and accepted and safe. And then, somebody does this in the bible study, for heaven's sakes. I mean, it's like a joke, you know? Like, if it wasn't so horribly serious and terrible, it could be like this joke. Guess what happened in bible study today? (laughter) You know? BJ: You know, Liz, the thing that -- I have seen people act their absolute best during this. I've seen humanity at its, like, okay, okay, here we go. And then, I've seen, like, just absolute depth of evilness through all of this. LB: Yeah, yeah. BJ: So, yeah, nothing really surprises me anymore. LB: Yeah. BJ: In fact, I -- this could be part of the conversation because I -- part of what I think COVID has done is also desensitized some of us to some of this stuff because there's such an onslaught of it that you just, oh, okay, just another day -- LB: [Crazy?] thing, yeah. BJ: Yeah. You know, a year ago, something like that had happened at MCC Lehigh Valley, the alarm bells would have gone off and, you know, all the wagons would have circled and all that. And right now, yeah, like, there was no -- there was, I think because so many of us are exhausted, (laughs) there was no, like, real -- there was a response, we dealt with it, we did what we had to do, we kept moving on. But normally, we would have, like, an outcry. LB: Yeah. BJ: And -- LB: So, did you think that that happened because you had posted the Zoom connection, the Zoom link in a public place and then people just got through it? Or -- BJ: I think so. LB: -- somebody that you send it out to actually leak it or somebody, like, in their household or something leak it? BJ: It could have been a bunch of things. You know, this happened -- when did we do -- we had Susan Wild -- LB: Oh, yeah, that was just last week. BJ: Just this past week. LB: Yeah. BJ: So, Susan Wild, congresswoman for this area, what I kind of think happened was we posted that and we sent that out to a bunch of places. LB: Yeah. BJ: And I believe that Susan Wild's offices sent that out, as well. So, I think that got our Zoom account out to a bunch of places. (laughs) LB: Got you on the radar. BJ: Yeah, got us on the radar of people. LB: All over the country, really -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- which is a very significant -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- yeah. BJ: And you never, I mean, people who like you are on your mailing list and the people who want to see you gone are on your mailing list, you know? LB: Right. BJ: So, everybody gets everything. So, it could have been a number of things. LB: Yeah. What a shock. I didn't even know that happened, you know? BJ: Yeah. LB: That's what I'm saying, because, like, you're right, if this had happened, like, two years ago, we would have been all coming out and doing (laughter) [if somebody had?] come into the church and done a -- well, I've done that! BJ: Yeah. LB: Trish and John are like -- "What is -- Liz and Trish doing in the church?" Said, "Well, you guys got, you know" -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- "got the anti-people out there," so we're there, you know? BJ: Yeah. LB: That's what we'll do. And now, we're, ah, what the heck, [it's happening?]. BJ: (laughs) Yeah, you know? LB: Gosh. I guess -- BJ: How things have changed, yeah. (laughs) LB: Yeah, there are times when -- and, I don't know, I guess we have to realize that this kind of discrimination happens to people all the time. And the older you are, the more you know -- [in this?] -- where it's happened. BJ: Yeah. LB: And that's definitely the case. So, yeah. So, for you, personally, you think this is a -- and you're sort of expressing this, that this is influencing your mental health, I would guess. It's certainly doing mine. BJ: Oh, absolutely. You know, when this first started -- I'm a fairly even-keeled person. I'm well put together, I've -- you know, everybody has their issues but I can deal with a lot of stuff. And I do not have a history of panic attacks or anxiety attacks or anything like that. When this first started for, like, the first month, I was not sleeping and part of it was -- I mean, every time I would try to doze off, I could feel my heart start racing and everything started, like -- and just anxiety to fall asleep because, like, if I fall asleep and I -- if I fall asleep, it's going to get me. (laughs) You know, it's that kind of thing. LB: Yeah. BJ: I'm going to wake up tomorrow and things are going to be completely different. The first couple months were really hard. The number of times having to hold my husband to sleep at night because he's, you know, breaking down, you know? And I had my breakdown, too, my crying fit, mostly wrapped around our families because we're very close to our families and not being able to go see them was really difficult, and worrying about them. It did very much wear on my mental health for a while. Now, I'm better. I think it's had time, the shock of it all has had time to settle in, and the reality that this is life for the time being has had time to settle in. The thing I think I'm struggling with right now that I'm trying to get under control for myself, just for my own personal day-to-day, is trying to get over being angry. because I don't know about you but -- LB: Oh, yeah, I'm furious. BJ: -- I am -- LB: I'm angry all the time, yeah. BJ: -- all the time. LB: Yeah. BJ: How in the hell did we get here? LB: Right. BJ: How did this happen and how do we have such ineptitude in our systems and things that should be dealing with this stuff and the anger of the ignorance of people. LB: Right. BJ: Of the lack of empathy and compassion. LB: Yeah. BJ: You know? This is a time capsule, right? So, the number of people who during this pandemic that have just decided that selfishness is the way to go. LB: Yeah, shocking. BJ: That not being concerned about the other person is good, that -- you know, and I work in the church community. And, you know, MCC Lehigh Valley is a very progressive, inclusive congregation. But I can tell you that from -- in the church world, church universal not MCC Lehigh Valley but just church universal, you know, you got some wing bats. (laughs) You got a lot of them who, for some reason, they can't deal with science, they can't deal with just the realities of how the world works because it's contrary to what a book says, which is not true in the first place but -- LB: Right. BJ: -- (laughs) but they've convinced themselves of that. So, you know, if the doctor is not a spokesperson for God so I'm not going to listen to what the doctor says, you know? Are you -- what? (laughs) LB: Yeah, yeah. BJ: It's, like, what? LB: Yeah, what? Yeah. BJ: It's, like, what? LB: Yeah. BJ: So, you know, a lot of this, I firmly believe that a lot of this insanity that we're dealing with -- my grandmother used to tell me that church folk are the worst folk. (laughter) And I've worked and been in church all my life and I agree with her. So, a lot of what we're dealing with in this country, in this Christian country -- LB: Yeah. BJ: -- if we didn't have so many self-righteous religious folk, we might be in a better situation. (laughs) LB: Yeah. It's interesting in that people don't always understand the concept of faith -- so, faith doesn't mean you just believe in things that aren't true just because you want it to be that way. (laughter) You know? BJ: Yeah. LB: And I think -- now, one of -- things we're lucky about in our community and in our Lehigh Valley and also in the whole state of Pennsylvania is we have a wonderful secretary of health in my opinion. And it's been positive and I think it's been positive for -- have you felt that way? I mean, to have Dr. Rachel Levine speaking as a trans woman but also speaking as the incredible voice of science and reason. BJ: Yeah, for me it has been -- Dr. Levine has been just a voice of reason and of competence. LB: Yeah. BJ: And, for me, her being a trans woman is just icing on the cake for me. But I'm just happy that there is an adult in the room. (laughs) You know, I'm happy that our -- the governor has put someone in a position that knows what they're talking about and is not going to be bent by needing to be liked or needing to meet some political agenda or anything like that, is just going to tell you, from what they know, from their expertise, what is real and what is not. And Dr. Levine has been that in Pennsylvania. And thank God for her because, you know, looking at some of these other places, some of these other states who have just sheep (laughs) in leadership positions? LB: I think that's a generous way of describing -- BJ: Yeah. (laughs) So, you know, Dr. Levine has been just competence. That's all I'm looking for right now: somebody who is competent. LB: Yeah, I just read -- now this is a little bit of -- partisan, but I can say that the candidate who is running against the President of the United States had -- and there's a meme that says, "I will read you my positions on all of these issues." And the response at the bottom is, "You had me at 'I will read.'" (laughter) So, you know, I mean, there is something to be said for somebody who is a leader, whether it's Governor Wolf here in Pennsylvania or Dr. Rachel Levine who gets up and, you know, "Where are the kits?" We're looking to somebody who'd come forward and say, "Okay, calm down." BJ: Yeah. LB: "These are the situations. Yes, this is hard." And if you look at the history of -- you know, the recent history of the last two hundred years, when we have people who are in leadership and they can calm the people down, they can say, "We have to work hard" -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- "we have to work together." BJ: Yeah. LB: "And this is dangerous but we're going to deal with it." BJ: That's just -- LB: "And I'm in it with you." That's what we want! That's all we want! BJ: It's -- LB: And [we're going to take that?] from either side of the aisle but we're not getting that. BJ: It doesn't matter which side. No, I mean, the -- I was, when the pandemic first started, I would occasionally be going to MCC or from MCC. And where I was living before, I had to go by Bucky Boyle. And I would occasionally just go to Bucky Boyle and sit there and look at the river. And I remember, distinctly remember the day that former President Obama put out his support for Biden, for the candidate, that I pulled over and he came on live. LB: Yeah. BJ: And he just looked at the camera and started talking. And he was talking about the pandemic, he was talking about all this different stuff, and I distinctly remember my body changing. I distinctly remember my shoulders relaxing and my jaw stopped being tense and I'm, like, oh! LB: Yeah. BJ: This is what a leader actually sounds like. This is what somebody -- this is how you tell people, you know, this is going to suck but we can make it. This is how you do it. I'm, like, that's all we need -- I don't need to like you. (laughs) I just need you to tell me that we know what we're doing, you know? And we don't have that. We don't have that right now. LB: We're in the middle of a time, and we're coming to the end of this, but -- and, you know, we can go for a little bit longer. I actually have more time. It depends. But I know that you've got a lot of stuff to do. BJ: I got a little time, yeah. (laughs) LB: Okay, great. Well, I do want to talk about Black Lives Matter and I'd love to hear what you want to talk about because I think in the world, in the United States today, we've got political issues, we've got this terrible pandemic, and we also have some very significant race issues that people need to be talking about. And so, what do you want to say about that? I mean, people may not know that 30 years from now and they may not understand that, so let's talk about that. BJ: So, this brother, George Floyd, is executed in the streets -- and long execution. They -- not -- the people who murdered him didn't even have the decency to end his life quickly. LB: Yeah. BJ: He had enough time to use his few last breaths to call out to his mother, to call out to his dead mother. And when I saw that part of it -- the reality for a Black man in this country is it doesn't matter where you are class-wise. None of that matters. George Floyd could easily have been me, very easily, you know? And I don't know a Black person in this country who has not had a bad experience with law enforcement. I've had my share of them and most people who know me know my character and who I am and they would be surprised of how I personally have been treated by -- some of my experiences with the police. George Floyd is executed. We see it. We see the nonchalance of those who were involved in it, that this guy is just another number, is just, is -- this is -- you could see in that, this is something y'all do on a regular basis, isn't it? This is the way you treat people on a regular basis. And I think part of the reality that we're facing right now is that the reaction to the execution of George Floyd is not simply about George Floyd. This is not about one man. He just happens to be the light for the gasoline, a light that we've lit a few times before. But we -- let me be right back, because my computer's getting ready to die. I'm at four percent, so -- and I want to finish this thought. Give me one second. (laughs) LB: Okay. (pause) BJ: Okay, there we go. Oh. (laughs) So, what we're seeing right now is all of it. I mean, what you're seeing right now -- I've been Black all my life (laughs) and I have seen the Black community respond before. I've never seen anything like this. I've asked my grandmother, you know, "Has it been worse?" She's, "Yeah, it's been a lot worse." But she's never seen the Black community respond like this. And, you know, she lived through civil rights and Jim Crow and all that different kind of stuff. So, she's, like, "I've never seen the response on a community level." And I think part of it is COVID. LB: Yeah. BJ: Because we're all at home. LB: Right. BJ: So, we all have so much -- we have time to sit with this stuff and decide whether we're going to sit with it. LB: Right. BJ: And, you know, I think we are in a -- I think we have reached a turning point. And I do firmly believe that this system, this government, this way of living for the last 400 years of oppression and -- under oppression under white supremacy that very much still exists. I mean, very -- I mean, you can drive down Eighth Street in Allentown right now on the south side and there's a house over there that has a flag hanging out of it with swastikas on it. You can -- right now, you can drive over there and see that. This is a reality. But I think the reckoning has arrived. I don't think there's a way around this. If you don't do it now, it's going to be a bigger problem. If we don't fix this now, it will get fixed one way or the other. And, you know, I have never seen my community respond like this. I've never seen parts of the white community respond like this, all over the place, you know? Everybody knows that this is a real thing. LB: Right. BJ: Even those who pretend like it's not. LB: Yep. BJ: You ask them, okay, so, you talk about pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps and just getting over some things and -- because you did it. You were able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps in your life and do -- let me ask you this question. Would you want to still do everything you did through your life but be Black while doing it, knowing the reality of this country? LB: Yeah. BJ: And I don't think those folks would answer in the affirmative, "Yeah, I'd happily be Black and still try to do what I did." So, I think there is a reckoning coming, you know? I was talking to a friend of mine here at the church who is a woman of color. She's Asian, woman of color. And , you know, she said, "We all deal with discrimination. We all deal with the oppression of living in a country that's modeled off of white supremacy. We all deal with it." LB: Yeah. BJ: But she said, "You know, the one thing that all of us other minorities know" and that they have conversations about is at least they're not Black. (laughter) Because they know full well that it would be a heck of a lot harder (laughs) if they were Black. LB: Yeah. BJ: You know? And they deal with their own stuff. But I think there's a change coming. I am heartened by the response of people. I'm not surprised by the outrage of others. It's going to be what it's going to be but I firmly believe that if we don't deal with this now, if we just don't deal with the ugliness of who we actually are as a country now, it's going to get a heck of a lot worse. LB: Right, right, right. BJ: So, yeah, it's been rough. It's been -- you know, I had to take a week off shortly after the George Floyd incident happened because I hadn't -- you know, talking about being angry? LB: Yeah. BJ: I had not been that angry before. Like, I remember saying to Goudy that -- Goudy is the pastor at MCC Lehigh Valley. And I remember saying to them, "I can't do this right now. I can't be here right now because I'm about to pop." (laughs) LB: Yeah. BJ: And nobody here has ever seen me pop. So, like, I -- and the reality for -- I am -- here is the line that I walk. I am an openly Black -- well, openly Black, yeah. I'm openly Black. (laughs) I'm an openly gay Black man in the Lehigh Valley. LB: Right. BJ: The Lehigh Valley, it's a really good experiment of what supremacy looks like, (laughs) in real time action, you know? There is no Black community here. There are Black people. There's no Black community. And that's not by accident. You don't -- I still always wonder how we are 45 miles from Philadelphia, one of the densest populated cities in the country in relation to Black folk with a huge Black populations and how there are very few Black folks, respectively, in the Lehigh Valley. LB: Yeah. BJ: You know? Those lines of delineation are really, really strong in the Lehigh Valley, you know, where urban life ends and rural life begins, it is clear as day. It's, you know, and there's no passing through it. So, my experience is that I'm an openly gay Black man who works in a religious institution that is a predominantly white religious institution of people who belong to a minority group but also belong to the majority group who don't always understand how they benefit from their privilege simply because they belong to a minority group. LB: Right. BJ: But the difference is you can walk out of this place and be a white person and not be an LGBT person, you know what I'm saying? You can take those clothes off if you want to. LB: Yeah. BJ: I could walk through west end Allentown in a rainbow thong and streamers out of my hair and sparklers going off and just Pride-d out. And when they make the phone call, the phone call is going to be, "There's a Black guy walking down the street, causing a ruckus." LB: Right. BJ: I doesn't mat-- I could be as -- as I want to be. And that's the reality. That's the reality for so many people in this area. And it's a rough one to be in. So, I had to walk away from the church for a week or so, you know, trying to manage my own stuff. Also, this is going to be a little weird, but trying to manage my own stuff but also trying to -- how do I say this? The people that have been the hardest to deal with through this are not the -- your conservative -- LB: Right. BJ: I know where they're at. LB: Yeah. BJ: For me, it has been the white liberal progressives who have been the hardest to deal with with this because they don't understand you may be white, liberal progressive but you're still white and you still benefit -- LB: It's still racist. BJ: -- from the privilege, yeah. You still have all of that -- there's no way you don't. LB: It's racism. BJ: Yeah. LB: It's impossible not to be a -- BJ: Impossible. LB: -- racist in this country. BJ: It's impossible and -- LB: It's impossible for anybody to not be a racist, no matter -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- what their race is because we're -- BJ: It's hard. LB: -- constant-- there's so much societal racism. BJ: And it's systemic. LB: (inaudible) BJ: It's been written into our -- the core of who we are as a society to not trust each other and to not -- you know, in the back of our heads, it's always there. It's always there. You know, my biggest frustration, I think that first couple weeks after all of this happened was the number of people, the number of white folk who I had not talked to in maybe years who either texted me or called me to ask me if I'm okay and ask me what they can do -- and I'm, like, I know you mean well. LB: Yes. BJ: I know you mean well. But I'm not your personal Black man. Like, it's I'm not the guardian of the gates. If you really want to help, there are plenty of places where you -- don't reach out to me for me to tell -- to do the work to tell you how to do the work. LB: Right. BJ: Figure it out. (laughs) So, that was, like, my -- I said to a couple friends, said to my friend, [Cirie?], who is [Ciriya?] Lang, who is a professor over at Lehigh, "If one more person texts me, I'm going to lose my shit. I'm going to lose it." (laughs) They mean well but good Lord. (laughs) LB: Yeah. BJ: Oh! LB: Yeah. (laughs) And unfortunately, in real life, it's harder to unfriend people. BJ: Yeah. (laughs) LB: I just want to -- BJ: (laughs) You know, I do think -- I hate social media. I despise it. You know, I say all the time it's where the devil goes to cry. But the thing I do appreciate about it is that so many people have no filter when it comes to social media and they don't think that there are consequences to the things that they say or post or do. I am grateful for the number of people who have shown me who they are, you know? It's the same people who I can see on a -- or see in person who will smile in my face and tell me that they care or love me or whatever. And I gotcha. Okay. (laughs) Okay. You know, I'm grateful for that. (laughs) LB: Yeah. (laughs) But we're back to reality and -- BJ: Yeah. (laughs) LB: Yeah. Now what are you going to do? Yeah. BJ: Yeah, yeah. LB: I appreciate that. So, I guess that we're at the end here and, you know, if you want to go on, that's -- or I'll give you some more time to say whatever you want to say. But I did want to ask you, you know, sort of in the end thing: what's the thing, you know, what's giving you hope, what kind of hope and strength are you getting from anything now that we just talked about all the annoying people that -- (laughter) [calling you?] up with their they're desperately hav-- I have to feel good because -- so, I'm going to talk to Brian, so -- (laughter) BJ: I think that what I -- I said it earlier. I have seen the best of people throughout this, too. Seen the worst but I've seen the best come out of people. I've seen a generation of younger kids who I am excited about, you know, this -- eighteen, nineteen-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, twenty-one-year-olds, these kids are, like -- LB: Yeah. BJ: -- they've got their stuff together. And they have talked out a bunch of stuff with one another that my generation has not, your generation has not, and they've been frank with each other. And they have the ability to not be -- they have the ability to see that the king has no clothes on, you know what I'm saying? They have this -- they know that the stuff that they've been taught, that they -- in school is crap. LB: Yeah. BJ: They know this. They do a bunch of their own work. So, that in and of itself has given me some hope. LB: Yeah. BJ: And, you know, I'm only in my late thirties at this point and I'm -- I think these kids could take over. (laughter) LB: Yeah. BJ: Yeah, I'm happy to just go, "Hey, you can -- go ahead. You guys do what you want to do." LB: Yes. BJ: So, that has given me hope. That's absolutely given me hope. LB: Yeah, yeah. BJ: The closeness of my spouse has given me hope, as well. We've always been very close and always depended on each other and always supported each other throughout all different kind of stuff but I'm very lucky. I'm a very lucky man to have met the man that I can fully confide and leave stuff with, you know? And the line of work that we do, it's nice to have somebody in your corner who gets it, you know? Who gets it and who you can put stuff down with because people don't really comprehend how much we got to carry. And being able to have somebody who you can trust with you is nice. So, that gives me hope that I will actually be able to survive this (laughs) with some sense of completion, like I'm still put together. So, yeah. LB: Yeah. BJ: So, those two things, I don't know about -- I'm really excited about this new crop of kids. Really excited about it. LB: Right. Pretty great. It's a whole new world -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- and it's all through different -- in terms of how they deal with sexual orientation, gender identity, how they talk about things, how they understand things, how they write about things, how they talk about race and ethnic background and how they talk about everything, it's really very positive. BJ: How they reason with each other. LB: Yeah, it's very -- BJ: Like, it's not just, you know, it's not just "I'm right, you're wrong." But they take time and invest in conversation with one another, with people who they have very differing views on -- you know, unlike us, who sit on Facebook and, "Here's this article that I did not read and I think it" -- you know, (inaudible), you know? They're not like that. In fact, that's enough hope for me right there. (laughs) LB: That's great. Well, I, you know, I think of you as a very young person because I knew you when you were so young. (laughter) And did you go to Allen High School? You went to Allen High School. BJ: I did, I did. LB: Yeah. BJ: I went to Allen. LB: So, I'm remembering, and maybe I'm wrong about this, but you -- in the 2000 Pride festival, do you remember that? It was raining horrendously. BJ: Oh, that -- oh, my God, I remember that, yeah. (laughs) LB: You had that -- and you had a booth there because you -- BJ: I -- LB: -- talking about starting about starting a Gay-Straight Alliance, weren't you? At Allen High School? BJ: Yes! LB: Yeah. BJ: I -- LB: because I -- for the booth -- BJ: -- yeah, I wanted to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at Allen. This was before -- LB: Rachel -- BJ: -- Rachel -- LB: -- Zane. BJ: -- yeah, Rachel Zane. Rachel was there but Rachel was working at the school at that time. LB: Yeah, yeah. BJ: But I didn't know Rachel and -- because I literally just had this conversation with Rachel, like, a year ago when Goudy and I went to the Gay-Straight Alliance to do a presentation. And, you know, I said, "I tried to start a Gay-Straight Alliance back in, like, 2000, 2001." LB: It was 2000 -- BJ: Yeah, some -- LB: -- 2000. BJ: -- somewhere -- yeah, and got a bunch of pushback, so -- LB: Yeah, remember that. BJ: So, I had the booth, I had all different kind of stuff going on, and -- LB: It was the hurricane. It was -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- during a hurricane. BJ: Yeah, it was -- LB: And it rained horrendously, to the point where you didn't have a tent, so you're standing out there with a card table, which was mine, by the way, and I still have it. (laughter) And then, you ended up standing in our -- and I said we have to get this kid back over here, because you were in high school then. (laughter) And we come back over and we're just standing in the tent. It's just torrentially raining and people are just -- you know, and Governor Rendell, he was running for office and he was on the stage. There were still 800 people there. BJ: Yeah, while -- LB: But -- BJ: -- all the mud is getting deeper -- LB: -- right, the mud is -- like, sinking in the mud. BJ: (inaudible) LB: Crocs are just stuck in the mud in the middle of the field and -- BJ: That was back when we -- when Pride was in that -- LB: Yeah. BJ: -- baller area on the other side of -- LB: We were in the other side. BJ: -- [near Beech?], right? LB: Yeah. BJ: Yeah. LB: That was the last time I think we had it there and -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- Allison [Homm?] was the chair of Pride and she was trying to fix stuff. It might have been 2001. But we were -- she was, like, ordering people to bring hay in so that they could put it on the mud -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- because we couldn't get our cars out. BJ: Yeah. LB: And it was, yeah, so I -- BJ: It was (inaudible) LB: -- always -- and I said -- you know, people say, well, so-and-so started the first Gay-Straight Alliance. I said, "I thought Brian Jones did." But I do remember there was a lot of pushback. There was a lot of pushback -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- for the principal. We couldn't even -- BJ: I remember I -- so, this was back in 2000. Remember Borders books? And -- LB: Yeah, yeah. BJ: -- Borders bookstore? Well, they have a LGBT section in Borders books and I'm -- my little gay self, I went into Borders books, went to the gay section and found a guide to being a LGBT person. (laughter) And I start all this different kind of stuff. And I pulled out this guide and I opened it up and looked at, you know, there was a section in there that said, "How to start a Gay-Straight Alliance." LB: Yeah. BJ: I went, okay, I can find that. I can find an advisor ; I can find a room. I've always been a person who can galvanize people and get -- you know, it's what I've always done. So, I got a teacher who was able to give me a room. I got -- and all the bylaws for the school said to start a group -- was that you needed an advisor, you needed a room, and the group had to be open to anybody. LB: Right. BJ: It couldn't be exclusive. So, I went to start it and next thing I know, I'm talking to a school counselor. Then the school counselor wants me to talk to the vice principal and then the vice principal wants me to talk to the principal. And the principal wants me to talk to the superintendent. And this went on for months. For months. And I remember calling you -- LB: Yeah. BJ: -- and contact with you and -- LB: Mr. Ziminsky was the guy who told me to talk to you. BJ: Yeah. Steve Ziminsky or Steve Libby? LB: Yeah, Steve Ziminsky. BJ: Okay -- LB: Because he (inaudible) BJ: -- that makes sense. LB: -- [was?] the music teacher. BJ: Yeah. LB: Now, there's this guy, he's a great musician and he's a kid and he's doing this great job and you need to work with him. And so, "We'll do that. [Call us?]." BJ: And we tried. LB: Yeah. BJ: I mean, that went on for almost -- I want to say almost six months of getting the runaround. And then, by that time, I was -- so, by the time 2001 came around, I was becoming a senior in high school, getting ready for going to school, trying to finish my senior year, and I'm, like, ah! I, you know, (laughs) so I kind of just let it go. LB: And I'm actually going to be interviewing Ian Wagner, and he was the one, with Rachel Zane, who actually made it go. But even after they finally got that to go, I remember this so clear because they called us in for this. They would have the announcement that the Gay-Straight Alliance was going to meet. And the person who was reading the morning announcements would say the GSA. BJ: Yeah. LB: They wouldn't say gay. They wouldn't say the word. And so, everybody thought it was the Girls Scouts of America. (laughter) They just kept saying -- like, they have a Girl Scouts thing here? What the fuck is that, you know? BJ: Like, the -- Ian was able -- I don't -- I think I know Ian -- LB: Yeah, he's on (inaudible) BJ: I think we've met each other. I think I know him. But he -- they were able to get that started -- I think it was, like, the year after I left. LB: I think it was the year after. But the thing about it was that Rachel was committed to starting it. BJ: Yeah. LB: So, if you can have a teacher who is -- in effect, it's the teacher that's doing it and the -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- kids are doing it. And I know that's so because I was a college teacher and, you know, you can have a kid who -- like, we had a lot of different situations where kids would come to us and they'd say, "Well, I'm trying to get this thing to happen and I have this petition," something like that. And I would say to them, this happened at Liberty High School, and I said, "Let me talk to them. Let me just talk to the principal first." So, then I would threaten the principal (laughter) like, "You can't say no to this kid." BJ: Yeah. LB: "It's the law!" I did that to [Muller?], I did that to Moravian, too. BJ: Yeah. LB: And I screamed at the person who was the dean of students because they said that they had brought kids in telling them they had a Gay-Straight Alliance at Moravian and they didn't. BJ: And they didn't. LB: And then, the person says to me, "Well, he can start one." I said, "So, you're telling me that you want a freshman kid who is being harassed" -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- "publicly by their RA to start their own group after you told him, 'You should come here because there's a group'?" BJ: Yeah. LB: I mean, come on! BJ: Oh! LB: That's not okay! And every time they say, you know, "Well, it's up to the kids to do it" -- it is very hard for the kids to do it. BJ: Really hard! LB: You have to have -- BJ: It's fucking -- LB: -- yeah. BJ: I remember being -- LB: And you were so tenacious about it. I remember that so well. BJ: I was on -- I was one of the few out gay kids in that -- I mean, and Allen is a school, even then, of three thousand, four thousand -- LB: Yes, [in the thousands?]. BJ: -- kids. LB: Yeah. BJ: And I was one of maybe five or six kids in the whole school who were out. LB: Yeah. BJ: You know? And I felt like, I always have felt like, okay, this is a part of my responsibility -- LB: Exactly, yeah. BJ: -- as a, as who I, you know, who I am. So, I took on the responsibility. LB: Yeah, that's right. BJ: And the thing that they never said: they never said no. LB: Right, they just -- BJ: They never said no. LB: -- passed you on forever. BJ: Yeah. LB: "Well, we have to talk to the school board. We have to talk to the superintendent. Well, next month, we'll talk to the superintendent." BJ: Yeah. LB: "Next week, we'll have this. Let's, well" -- and then, all of a sudden, the facilitator doesn't want to do it anymore because -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- they've been threatened. BJ: Yeah. LB: And that happened at Pen Argyl High School, [Adrian?] -- and that was a lot later but Pen Argyl High School, they ended up -- ultimately, the superintendent made -- and the school, the counselor -- we actually talked directly to the legal counsel for the whole school district, who told them they have to let it go because it's against the law to say no. And the superintendent came to the kids, this is so fascinating. The superintendent comes to the kids, this is at Pen Argyl, and says to them, "You really, you're doing a great job. I support this one hundredpercent. And by the way, I'm a lesbian." Superintendent says that. And then she gets fired. BJ: Oh! LB: She gets -- so, what does that say to the kids? BJ: Oh! LB: I mean, here's this person who is that level and they come out in a perfectly normal thing, like, "I want you to know that it gets better, I'm a lesbian, I have a great relationship, don't worry about it, every -- you know, I support you." And then she gets fired. The superintendent gets fired. BJ: Well -- LB: And then the teachers see that and they think holy crap, I'm not going to be the advisor for this group. They're going to fire me if I do this. BJ: Well -- LB: It's -- that's how you keep people down, by doing that. BJ: -- but you also keep people up by being visible -- LB: Yeah, you do. BJ: -- and open. You take the lumps that you're going to get and you just keep on moving. I mean, it's -- and I would ask you a question. Do you know, do you and Trish understand -- I know you do ; it's just philosophical -- but I really think that what y'all do, what we do, what people like Steve Libby do, you know, what we do is life and death. LB: Yeah. BJ: Literal life and death. LB: I do know that's true. BJ: And, you know, we would not be having this conversation right now if -- and you don't know this, but if I had -- if people like you and Steve and Goudy hadn't walked into my life, I would be gone. LB: Yeah. Well, I mean -- and that goes for the people that helped me and everything like that, too, and that we've got this whole relationship. And it's what you're talking about, that family of LGBT people that -- and frankly, with regard to LGBT people, which is different than racial minorities -- racial minorities cannot hide their racial minority. But there's also the fact that most LGBT people don't have parents that are LGBT, so they don't really know -- and the one other group that's similar to that that I found when I do trainings and stuff is young people who have disabilities. And their parents don't always -- don't understand them because they don't have those disabilities. And the relationship -- I actually did a training one time. It was a whole bunch of kids that happened to show up to it that all had mental and physical disabilities. Mostly mental disabilities. And when I was talking about that aspect -- because, you know, you never had to go home and say to your parents, "Mom, Dad, I've got something to tell you. I'm Black." They probably knew. BJ: Yeah, they figured that out. (laughs) LB: But they probably figured it out. Now, it doesn't make it any easier because you're right -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- you're wearing a badge every minute that everybody can see and the ingrained racism of the United States is impossible to deny. But these kids, when I was saying it to these kids who had these disabilities, they were totally nodding their head. And I hadn't really thought about it and then I'm looking at them going, oh, yeah! They're in the same situation because Trish, who worked at a rehab hospital said, you know, "Kids who have -- they would get head injuries or something like that and it would change their demeanor or they'd be in a wheelchair, their families would just give them up." And that's what happens to us, that's -- you know, to LGBT kids. And so, it's our responsibility, as part of the LGBT community, the [adult?] community, to take care of the younger generation. It's our responsibility. If we're not going to do it, we can't count on their own parents to do it. BJ: Yeah, and -- LB: And in general, I think that's true for all kids. Kids can't always count on their parents to take care of them. Other people have to help them. BJ: Yeah. LB: It's a part of the deal. And so -- BJ: And that need for, that wagon circling thing, that need for -- that familial thing that we have all -- that so many of us have lost, places like your organization have been that. We've tried our best to do that. And -- LB: Oh, you've done a great job at MCC. You know, I'm still recommending people to go to MCC. People will call me up and they'll say -- and they've done this for years, because I've been answering the info line for twenty-two years. People call up and they'll say, "I want to meet more people in the community." Or, "I want a support group." Now, we have support groups sort of now but not for just -- and I say, "You really need a support group or you just need to meet more queer people? (laughter) [Like?], meet other lesbians, for example." And I'll say, "You know, how do you feel about church?" "Yeah, I don't have any problem with that." "Okay, well, why don't you go to MCC?" "Because they have to be nice to you there. It's [work?]. (laughter) And they'll shake your hand and then you can sit in the back." And also, it's every week. So, it's not like, well, if I don't have the nerve to do it this week -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- I can always think -- I can go -- BJ: There's going to be another one next week. LB: -- I can do another one next -- not like monthly or we're having a dance and then we're not -- BJ: Yeah, yeah. LB: -- having another one till next year. Or the Pride festivals: one gig and then there's not another one until next year. And I said, "MCC." And I remember one time, somebody -- I won't tell you who it is but it's somebody you know in the church who said -- I was doing something at MCC when we were -- when you were at the soap -- or whatever that factory place was on Fourth Street, when you're on Sixth Street. And we were working on a project and something and (inaudible) and she was a board member. And she said, "Do you realize that you said that to me? (laughter) I called you for that reason? Like, I don't know anybody. Said, 'Why don't you go over to MCC?'" And she, like, you know, ended up with a whole career thing there. (laughter) And now she has a partner who she's married to and that was a long time ago. And I said, "I say that to a lot of people." (laughter) And I do because that -- and also, that people have, you know, spiritual violence to them all the time. BJ: Yeah. LB: And people who get a life from church can often have their church treat them like crap and that they need a church that really is going to support them. And I think that MCC -- I just referenced somebody. Somebody just called me. It was a therapist and the therapist said that the kid was very, very religious, from a very religious family, and they needed a religious community to support them. And I said, "Call Metropolitan." And she said, "I called this church. It was a United Church of Christ." Not yours but -- not the one there but in another part -- and the pastor who answered the phone said, "Yeah, the pastor that you really should talk to is the other guy and he's on vacation. I'm not the one." In other words, "I hate gay people." BJ: Yeah, yeah. LB: You know, the other guy is tolerant of them, so -- and I said, "You don't need to call a church that is willing to allow queer people to be in the church. You need to call a church who's going to understand exactly what this kid is talking about." BJ: Yeah, and that is a big part of that -- see, it's an important context to have because there are a lot of churches in the area who are open and affirming, who are reconciling, who are -- and a lot of them get that as a badge of honor. LB: Yeah. BJ: That doesn't mean diddly-squat, you know? It doesn't mean -- LB: Oh, doesn't, no. BJ: -- doesn't mean a thing. There are those -- I got to give -- there are those who -- where that means something -- LB: Yeah. BJ: -- but they're fewer than, yeah, and fewer than you would think. LB: Yeah. BJ: And, you know, so many people in our community who have been raised in a faith tradition, who have been raised in a Christian tradition, who have never been told that they're loved by their Creator as they are. LB: Yeah! BJ: Is amazing to me and we see it -- I mean, you can see the visceral reaction of people when they hear that for the first time. LB: Right. BJ: And it changes their lives. And a lot of times -- we have this conversation often because a lot of times, we get people who come to the door who might come to the door one time. They might come to the door one time and they'll sit in the sanctuary and they will just cry through the whole thing. LB: Right. BJ: And we won't see them again. And what we had to come to terms with was all this person needed in their life was to be told that what they believe, how they believe they were created, is affirmed by the divine. (laughs) That's all they needed. And be okay with that. LB: And they're not the only one that thinks so. There's this whole church of people that -- BJ: Whole community. LB: Yeah. BJ: Whole community. LB: This church community looks just like my church community, so -- BJ: Yeah. And can I ask you a question? LB: Sure. BJ: I would love to get your perspective on this. Even before COVID, had you been getting a sense that the LGBT community had -- I've kind of been getting the sense that the LGBT community had been coming -- disjointed. Not disjointed but -- that's not the word I want to use. Disconnected. So, long-time institutions within our area closed over the last couple years. So, in cases like Diamonz and, like, 12th Street, what was it called? The bar on Twelfth Street. LB: Candida's. BJ: Candida's. LB: Candida's. Yeah, except I know why both of those places changed. They closed and it wasn't because they didn't have business or anything like that. It was -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- Candida was, you know, in her late 70s and she wanted to retire. And, quite frankly, the person who ran Diamonz had some issues that got -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- didn't have anything to do with -- well, I think, for me, I'm not seeing that because we just -- BJ: No? LB: -- got this -- I'm not seeing that because we had just started this community center and it's -- we've got 14 employees now. And, you know, when we started out, it was, like, me and Adrian and Trish and Adrienne saying, "Let's try to do this." And before that, we ran it out of our house for years and years and years. BJ: Yeah. LB: And so, actually, I'm seeing this enormous amount of work we're doing. So, I guess I see what you mean. I think that there is -- and it's interesting that I'm doing a lot of historical stuff because I just interviewed all of these guys about HIV/AIDS and a couple of women and -- in the eighties. And there was an LGBT community center on Hamilton Street in the eighties -- BJ: Wow. LB: -- that was called the Lambda Center. And then, because of AIDS, it became the AIDS Services Center -- BJ: Okay. LB: -- which was in Bethlehem. And that ran for a long time, into the nineties until -- and then, it was absorbed by St. Luke's. But what happened was that things with regard to AIDS changed because of actual ways to save people's lives and stuff like that. So, I've actually been looking at this, because I came to the Lehigh Valley in 1987, I've been looking at this continuum. And somebody in the community named Dixie White, I don't know if you know her, but she was a -- Dixie died a couple of -- BJ: Weeks ago. LB: -- weeks ago, a few weeks ago, and she was a major activist in the seventies and I knew her quite well. And she gave me a lot of her papers and stuff about stuff that she did in the '70s and what they tried to do in the seventies. And so, I mean, that's really -- we're really talking about, you know, more than forty years ago and this continuum. And those things wax and wane. BJ: Yeah. LB: And a lot of it has to do with people who age out, you know? They get to a certain point where they're saying, okay, [I can't -- this?] -- I have to say that for me and Trish, the fact that Adrian came along and said that he would run the Pride festival, and here's this guy in his thirties -- I mean, he wasn't even in his thirties. He was late twenty-something. I'm thinking thank God he's doing this because who else would do this the way that we're doing it? We're not getting paid, we're putting a huge amount of our own money into it for the most part, we're doing all of this work. It's constant work and we can't do this forever. BJ: Yeah. LB: And then, somebody comes along and says, "I'll do it." So, I think it's not unlike that circumstance that happens in schools frequently where there can be an enormously successful Gay-Straight Alliance because there's, like, two really active students and a facilitator that are so into it. When Adrian was at Muhlenberg College, the Gay-Straight Alliance had seven hundred members. BJ: Wow. LB: And when he left, there were forty-five members. And forty-five isn't anything to shake -- I mean, that's plenty. BJ: Yeah, yeah. LB: So, when -- but, you know, you have somebody who's really dynamic and they figure out ways to do it. And it waxes and wanes and I think that that happens. I think that there is a feeling or there has been a feeling since the last presidential election of fear and despair, which is changing now. I think that people are saying we have to come together, we have to fight -- that sometimes people feel complacent after the continuation of marriage or, you know, after the legality of marriage equality and people are sort of thinking, okay, we've got this now. BJ: Yeah. LB: And then, you know, then all these other things happen. And so, we have to recognize that that -- and that happens, you know, that happened with -- in the civil rights movement where desegregation happens and the end of, for the most part, the end of Jim Crow laws and you have the really significant civil rights movement with Martin Luther King and all of those thing happen and then the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1965. And then, white people starting to think, oh, well, that -- Black people aren't discriminated against anymore. One of the things that -- what I was thinking about when you were talking about people being so aware of the Black Lives Matter movement and the terrible things, the George Floyd stuff, the Breonna Taylor, all of those different things is -- one of the things that's great about it is social media because people can whip out their phone and take a picture of it -- BJ: Yeah. LB: -- so that somebody can say, "Well, oh, that doesn't really happen." But, like, yes it does! Here it's happening and six people took a picture, watched this happening, and had a picture of, you know, peaceful Black Lives Matters protesters being beaten up by police in riot gear for no reason at all. BJ: Yeah. LB: And you can't look at that and go, well, that wasn't really happening. And that actually happened during the civil rights movement, too, where people were seeing on television, you know, peaceful people marching and then, you know, guys with dogs and, you know, police with dogs and with fire hoses really harming those people and saying, well, how can you justify that? This is real discrimination. And so, one of the good things now, I think, and it can be dangerous, but one of the good things now is that, I mean, we had a Supreme Court decision that was pretty significant. I was able to -- Trish is famous for watching the SCOTUS blog. She watches that blog and the minute the stuff comes off -- this happened with the American -- Care Act. The real information, I put it on the internet as fast as possible (laughter) because I want to break the news before anybody else. So, we have the opportunity to do that kind of information when before we had to rely solely on the news and they often get it wrong or they got it -- it was tainted or -- we know that news isn't always honest now. And there's -- you know, Fox News has been around with their fake news for years and years. But so was the Hearst company in the 1930s. BJ: Yeah, yeah. LB: So, I mean, that's nothing new. But now we have an opportunity to share information. Some of it's wrong. Some of it's tainted. But we also have a way to share information with each other in terms of saying, okay, you cannot argue that this thing that happened to George Floyd is wrong. BJ: Yeah. LB: I mean, this happened. It was wrong. There is no justification for it. And you can turn back and say if you're trying to justify this, you are being -- or if you're trying to justify that transgender people shouldn't have healthcare, I don't want to be your friend anymore. You can't say you love me and then do this thing. BJ: Yeah. LB: And it is kind of -- it can be divisive and it can draw a line in the sand. But it also can make people aware that we can't just agree to disagree when it comes to inequality and racism and homophobia and transphobia. We can't just agree to disagree. That's not a legitimate thing to say. Only people of privilege will ever say that. BJ: Yeah, yeah. LB: And so, I think that, you know, I've been doing this gig a long time. A really long time. I was running the Gay-Straight Alliance when I was in college and that was, oh, in the seventies. So, I see this. It's a roller coaster. And I think that people can be -- one's experience can be, oh, God, I can't get anybody to do anything and why is this happening? I have seen that happen, go, you know, like a roller coaster for so many years that I expect it to be a roller coaster. So, I think, you know, it's unrealistic, and I know you know this, it's unrealistic to think it's always going to just get better and better and better and better. BJ: Oh, yeah. LB: It never happens. BJ: Never works that way. Never works that way. LB: And, you know, look at the history of MCC. It's been around for thirty years, more than thirty years. BJ: Almost forty at this point. (laughs) LB: Forty? Yeah. BJ: Almost forty. LB: And the, right, and all the incredible things that have happened and the successes that's happened. And then, you know, parts that were hard and parts there's disagreement, it's the way human beings are. I mean, that's, it's, yeah, but look at how MCC has continued after all of this time, I think, and how many people have been positively supported and helped by MCC. It's extraordinary -- BJ: Yeah, it's -- LB: -- something to be really proud of. BJ: -- it's, you know, I -- that need for that community thing, that need for the ability to do this, right? (laughs) To do -- LB: Sure. BJ: -- you know, and I wonder, in the future, how much of this kind of stuff is going to be important, even more so in building local community and keeping the stories together, keeping the history together, and being able to have conversations with each other that other people can see and be a part of. LB: Right. BJ: You know? It's going to be very important. Very, very important. People are going to need to see folks who are in either a leadership position or just a part of the community engaging with each other and, you know, this is -- I think you're onto something here. (laughs) LB: Oh, definitely, and this was a grant that we got and it was some -- Adrian and some of the people from the archives wrote this grant and then they said, "Now you have to do it." (laughter) And I said to these guys -- and I have to tell you, Brian, that we've been working on these archived interviews for a while and Lehigh is doing some from some of the older people who are the LGBT people in the community. And it took them about a year and a half to do 10 interviews. Then Adrian came to me -- and they have a team, too -- and then he comes to me and he goes, "Well, here's the grant," and something and I said, "This is 30 interviews, (laughter) two months." BJ: Oh, my gosh! LB: I haven't even -- and I said, "And I don't even know how to use the Zoom yet!" (laughter) So, I said to him -- he said, "Can you get it done?" because it's parameters in the grant and I said, "Yeah, I can get it done." But for every -- but nobody else could do this because you got to know people to be able to do this and -- BJ: Yeah, yeah. LB: -- so, anyway, it was -- been funny. But I did point out and I said there's a lot of paperwork with these things, too. We have to fill out forms and they have to be uploaded and stuff like that and it goes to the archives. So, I have to fill out forms to be sure that it's uploaded the right way. So, anyway, we've gone over the time but I loved talking to you! (laughter) And I'm so grateful that you've done this and it's been wonderful to walk down memory lane, back to twenty years ago when we were -- BJ: Twenty years ago! LB: -- getting really wet and -- (laughter) that was a classic -- I think that was a really classic -- BJ: That was, I -- that was horrible. (laughs) LB: It was horrible! BJ: That was still -- it was memorable, though. People still showed up. They still came out. LB: And the hilarious thing about it is I remember Steve Black saying this from the stage, he said, "We're so -- we're in this terrible situation where we're" -- the name of the hurricane was Alison, was Hurricane Alison. BJ: Yeah, yeah. LB: And we said, you know, the head of our -- the Pride festival was Alison. (laughter) She's our own hurricane. She's still around doing stuff, too. BJ: Yeah, yeah! LB: So, you know, I mean, I see posts from her every day and they're very, very progressive and interesting. BJ: Yeah. LB: So, anyway, it's been wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much. They will send you this and I'm going to turn this off now, so -- BJ: Okay. LB: -- there -- END OF VIDEO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
Duration
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01:48:57
Dublin Core
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Title
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Brian Jones, July 9, 2020
Description
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Brian Jones talks about the current COVID19 is affecting him and his family, his work at Metropolitan Community Church of the Lehigh Valley, how it is affecting LGBTQ people, Black Lives Matter issues, and what gives him hope
Identifier
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PH40_09
Subject
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-;COVID-19 (Disease)
Date
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2020-07-09
Format
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
Publisher
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.