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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: HIV/AIDS
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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William Aull
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_04.xml
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5.4 June 29, 2020 William Aull, June 29, 2020 PH40_04 01:29:29 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 AIDS (Disease) Hospices (Terminal care) William Aull Liz Bradbury video/mpeg AullWilliam_20200629_video 1.0:|27(12)|56(2)|79(5)|96(4)|113(11)|140(11)|165(16)|186(14)|211(2)|230(10)|253(2)|274(9)|293(7)|312(13)|331(18)|348(2)|367(4)|384(7)|403(8)|422(6)|437(17)|458(6)|479(16)|502(5)|523(10)|538(8)|557(4)|574(2)|595(18)|616(5)|631(2)|656(8)|669(2)|696(4)|711(6)|728(15)|747(7)|768(2)|785(9)|808(14)|823(18)|844(12)|861(3)|878(16)|897(9)|916(11)|937(16)|958(13)|973(19)|992(4)|1009(9)|1028(5)|1049(5)|1070(10)|1091(2)|1112(6)|1131(4)|1148(16)|1169(3)|1184(9)|1203(6)|1220(11)|1243(3)|1260(17)|1281(11)|1304(11)|1323(13)|1340(3)|1361(2)|1378(7)|1397(2)|1418(13)|1441(3)|1458(6)|1477(5)|1498(12)|1519(3)|1534(3)|1545(16)|1560(14)|1577(6)|1594(12)|1615(8)|1642(2)|1657(8)|1688(11)|1713(9)|1734(17)|1759(10)|1780(5) 0 https://youtu.be/BFcTQtrG1UE YouTube video 0 Interview introductory material and consent 0 183 First awareness of the disease I do, it was actually nineteen eighty-seven. I was in a gay men’s leather club in Reading at the time and we had a meeting and we were getting notices that club members that we knew were in one of the local hospitals. 0 273 Caregiving and the beginning of Rainbow Home So in eighty-nine there was an article in the Reading Eagle and the Reading Times that a group of government officials from the commonwealth and several sisters from different women’s religious orders in the Catholic Church were going to establish a personal care home on the grounds of the Wernersville State Hospital because at that time they were starting to lose some people from the state hospital facility.
 ; Catholic Church ; Rainbow Home ; Reading PA ; The Reading Eagle ; The Reading Times ; Wernersville ; Wernersville State Hospital Nursing ; Rainbow Home ; Volunteering 0 638 Illness and death of a loved one My one and only love moved to Philadelphia. I was in nursing school at the time in seventy-two. And Eric and I said, “We’re going to stay in touch.” He moved to Philly for a better job. And then I didn’t hear from him and I’m like, “This is weird, because he’s usually pretty good about staying in touch.” 0 895 Joining the staff at Rainbow Home and redoing the hospital And the next day Sister Mary called me and said, “I want to put you on staff.” And I said, “Okay.” And so we painted and we redid -- because the wards in that building were god-awful colors, we’re talking like brown ceilings and yellow walls. So Sister Cecilia, who should have been a decorator if she wasn’t a nun, did an awesome job. I mean it was very homelike.
 ; 0 976 Life and activites at Rainbow Home And we had a lot of really great times in that building. I mean we had events. We took them on field trips. We took them to Knoebels if they were able to go. I took a couple of them shopping on their own. We celebrated all the holidays. So there was a lot of life and living in Rainbow Home. 0 1096 Religious services and memorials And then the last three years I was also in charge of the pastoral care department because our Episcopal deacon -- and then she became a priest -- got a parish. And so I worked with the clergy. And that was eye-opening, because I had a few that I wanted to say, “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way.” I would have clergy that would refuse to give them anointings on their deathbed. So I cheated. I did it. But I switched the formula that I read. I didn’t say, “I absolve you of all sins and censures.” I said, “May the Lord absolve you.” Depending on whatever their faith was. I was very ecumenical in that.
 ; 0 1164 Relationships and fun activites at Rainbow Home And a lot of the residents -- the residents became close to each other. It was like a family. And I think that Sister Mary said it best. It was the only place where the gay man could pass the mashed potatoes to the straight woman who would pass them to the drug user who would pass them to the whatever. 0 1386 Religious structure of Rainbow Home LB: So this was in a Catholic hospital?
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 ; WA: No. We were ecumenical.
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 ; LB: Oh, okay.
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 ; WA: We just had the sisters there to -- you know, they were the ones that really got it going. And back then a lot of the hospices were being run in Catholic hospitals. One of the big ones was Saint Vincent’s in the Village, in the West Village in New York. That was a very very big -- that was a whole floor of the hospital. Saint Clare’s had a unit. But again the staff obviously was very ecumenical. 0 1653 Funding and facilities for Rainbow Home / local community reception LB: But who was funding that? Was it coming from people’s --
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 ; WA: Donations. Of course I mean their insurance kicked in. And we had a lot of very generous benefactors. Al -- Mr. Boscov donated all new equipment for the kitchen. And we only had to pay the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania $1 a year for rent, and that was set up when Senator Mike O’Pake was in office. So we paid the state $1 a year rent.
 ; 0 1778 Introduction of AZT and its side effects / Health insurance & ; preexisting conditions LB: When you were talking about AZT, was that later? Because AZT had a lot of side effects and stuff. Were you seeing that as well? Talk a little bit about the AZT stuff.
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 ; WA: We weren’t seeing a lot of side effects with AZT. The drug that we saw the most side effects was Crixivan. And that came on later. And the reason that we were trying to figure this out was why are we suddenly -- what’s going on with this drug. 0 2040 St. Joseph's Hospital in Reading / doctors LB: Let’s see. When you were talking about Saint Joe’s, what’s Saint Joe’s? That’s a Catholic hospital?
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 ; WA: Saint Joseph’s was a Catholic hospital in Reading. And Dr. Woodward was on staff there. But the primary amount of our -- if they were local -- were being seen by Dr. DeBenedictis and Dr. Jones because Dr. D was one of the first infectious disease doctors to get into the field. Dr. Woodward came in later.
 ; 0 2312 Funeral services for Rainbow Home patients LB: It was. Let’s see. So were you having funerals there? Did you have anybody that would do the funerals for you or stuff like that?
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 ; WA: We did. We did. Jay Gilbert was one. Jay is very good. Anyone from the Lehigh Valley. Now as far as in Reading, I really don’t remember who they were, because I just remember Jay’s name floating around a lot. If they were from up this way. I’m sure there were one or two down in Reading that were really good about that. Because they knew who we were and what we were.
 ; 0 2388 The toll of working with dying patients LB: It must have been very hard to have people dying and knowing that that was going to happen to people for you. Did that take its toll? Well, apparently it did. But sounded like you did it for a long time. It was really wonderfully gracious of you.
 ; 
 ; WA: Yeah, I mean there were times when I would come home from work. And if we had someone who was actively dying -- and Brenda was on -- for the first two years Brenda was all alone, and then they put a second staff member on. So I had a pager at that point. 0 2663 The story of David Well, I think probably one of the toughest ones for me, and I had a few, was I went down to Jersey to do an assessment on a potential resident. And David was in a nursing home in Atlantic City, so you can picture a nursing home is already not a good sign. So I go in and here’s David, six-one, six-two. Dark brown hair, jet-blue eyes. Laying in a bed. 0 3217 Communicating with families of the deceased We only had one family that really didn’t want anything to do with their son. And I called them when he started actively dying and said, “Are you going to come visit?” “Well, of course we are.” I said, “Well, someone wrote on the admission paper.” And this was how it was worded. When he kicks the bucket don’t call us. 0 3299 The night three patients died WA: Because that was the night I had three deaths an hour apart.
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 ; LB: Oh gosh.
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 ; WA: He was number two. So I had three actively going at once. And my coworker, she was the best. Bev said, “You take care of the three, I’ll take care of the other nine.” 0 3359 Medications and nursing care LB: And what kind of meds were you giving people then? Was this in the eighties or was it mostly -- what kind of (inaudible).
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 ; WA: Primarily their HIV/AIDS but also some of them would have weight loss. There were two drugs. There was Marinol which was synthetic marijuana, but it did not give them a buzz or get them high, it only stimulated the part of the brain that said, “You need to eat.” 0 3475 Mental health for the caregivers And they had a therapist for us. Because once a month we would have a meeting to talk about how we felt in the midst of losing all these guys and gals. So that mentally we were okay. But I knew when Tommy died. I said, “Okay, that’s it.” 0 3557 National Catholic AIDS Network And I had joined -- they are no longer, but I had become a member of the National Catholic AIDS Network or NCAN and we would meet every summer in Chicago at Loyola University on the lake. And we would have workshops, we would have time to just share our stories. But what was really wonderful was the one year -- Cardinal Bernardin was in charge of the archdiocese at that time and very well known for being a compassionate cardinal. 0 3748 Reflecting on age and the passage of time LB: Yeah. How old were you in the eighties?
 ; 
 ; WA: Geez, well, I’m sixty-seven now, so I would say in my fifties, I had to be in my fifties. Late forties, early fifties, I -- at this point (inaudible) twenty-six, fifty-one, let’s see.
 ; 
 ; LB: It was thirty-five years ago, honey?
 ; 
 ; WA: Huh.
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 ; LB: It was thirty-five years ago.
 ; 
 ; WA: Yeah, what can I tell you? That’ll be an edit.
 ; 
 ; LB: It’s okay. I think one of the things is we forget when you’re a grown-up and you’re doing things like that we forget that it was a long time ago when we were kids in a lot of ways, we were in our (inaudible) thirties. What did you say, you’re sixty-seven now? You were born in nineteen --
 ; 0 3832 Starting the AIDS Walk in Reading WA: And Ozzie, who had one of the local bars, Ozzie and I were responsible for getting the first AIDS walk in Reading going. And we worked with -- oh, I can’t. Her son, what’s the name of the farm? Who did you --
 ; 
 ; LB: Rodale. Ardath Rodale.
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 ; WA: Yeah, we worked with -- yeah.
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 ; LB: Talking to Maria Rodale about Ardath Rodale.
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 ; WA: To do the first AIDS walk in Reading.
 ; 0 3908 Changes brought by better medications LB: In about nineteen ninety-three, which is about the middle of the time that you were at Rainbow House, medication really changed. And in ninety-three the worst part about the epidemic really started to fall back a little bit because there were actually drugs that could really prolong people’s lives, it wasn’t so much of a death sentence. Were you noticing a change then? What was it like?
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 ; WA: Yeah. Well, for us it was really great because we had them longer. And for the most part they were doing very well on them. And that was thanks to like ACT UP and other organizations that were really getting up in the face of these drug companies and saying, “Why are you putting these on hold forever?” 0 4043 Involvement (or lack thereof) of the Catholic Church / Priest as a patient t up to New York because I was doing my own stuff down here. The one year the bishop of the Catholic diocese had an anointing service at DeSales and he said, “It’s open to everyone.” So I took a couple of the guys up. And afterwards I said, “Um, how come you never visit?” Question mark. And he goes, “I don’t have time.” I said, “Oh. Really? Oh. Okay.” Because here’s the interesting thing. We had a priest in the house as a patient. And [Claude?], father, had surgery. And he got bad blood. This is before they were doing the big testing. And he was from the Diocese of Camden. So he came up, great guy, we all loved padre, and every morning I would get him up, we did his a.m. care, gave him his meds. And then he and I would go into our multipurpose room and he would do Mass.
 ; 0 4362 Relationship of HIV/AIDS and his experience to the COVID-19 pandemic LB: I wondered if you wanted to talk anything about how you see the relationship of HIV/AIDS and the epidemic then and what you were doing and its relationship to what’s happening now with COVID-19. What do you think about that?
 ; 
 ; WA: Well, I mean I think we need to be aware that this COVID-19 is very nasty. And we have to really look at our brothers and sisters that are HIV-positive and even with the meds they’re immunosuppressed as it is. And this could really knock the socks off of them. They could end up in the hospitals and in ICUs and on vents. 0 4529 Message for viewers in the future LB: Yeah. So we have about fourteen minutes left. But I would love for you to think about somebody’s going to see this thirty years, forty years from now. And you have an opportunity to talk to the future here. Go into the future and tell people what you think they really should know about the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And maybe even talk about -- some people -- and I think David talked about this, but other people that I’ve interviewed, because I think you’re the sixth interview I’ve done, they’re talking about the lack of recognition by elected officials about it for so many years that it was very painful. And you have any insight on that? And then also just to tell people what they should know about this time.
 ; 
 ; WA: Well, as far as the -- I think David covered it pretty good with the elected officials. That for so many years it was ignored. And it’s like it’s their disease, let them deal with it. Then when it started to hit everyone else okay, now we have to do something about it.
 ; 0 4644 Sharing memories of specific patients for future generations I’m going to share a couple of the guys as far as their names and what they did because I think for future generations the name and what they did is something that they need to know. And it’s first names. I mean it’s going to be first names.
 ; 
 ; Andy had a double doctorate in chemical physics. Brilliant mind. Larry was the chief tie department buyer for Lord & ; Taylor. Rich had his own fashionwear. It was called Poshwear. 
 ; 
 ; Jeff was a well known hairdresser in the Washington area. David was a top-notch chef. Leo was a member of the United States Navy with honorable discharge. So he served his country before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
 ; 0 4761 Viewing the AIDS quilt If you get a chance, future generations, to see any part of the quilt, the quilt will tell the stories. You don’t have to know them. We had a quilt showing our fifth anniversary at Rainbow Home at Albright. And we took in an extremely high amount of new quilts. The guys from NAMES Project were like, “We’ve never had this many at such a small gathering.” Well, surprise. Because we were making them. We did a house quilt every year. 0 4902 Concluding remarks Because we would check in on each other constantly after a death. We had a quick staff meeting to make sure that everybody was doing okay. Because our counselor would say, “If you need to talk after a death you know where I am.” So I hope that they never have to face any kind of pandemic like this, this current -- or the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. But if they do, get involved. Don’t sit on the sidelines. That’s it.
 ; 0 MovingImage Bill Aull, for many years a caregiver at the Rainbow Home near Reading, PA, shares his experiences during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s. He reflects on specific patients, the role of Catholic Church in AIDS care, and the operations and services of Rainbow Home. WILLIAM AULL . LIZ BRADBURY: There we go. Now we're recording. Oh, you look great, the light is terrific on you. I have to read you this thing. And it says, "With this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on 40 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 William Aull. Is that the way you pronounce it? WILLIAM AULL: Yes, ma'am. LB: To talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. And let's see. We're meeting on Zoom on -- oh, I'm supposed to say the date. I haven't been saying the date of this. On June 29th, 2020. Forgot to say that on Maria's. So thank you very much, Bill, for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? WA: Okay, William Arthur Aull, W-I-L-L-I-A-M A-R-T-H-U-R A-U-L-L. LB: Okay. And will you please share your birth date? WA: September 26th, 1951. LB: Okay. Do you consent to this interview today? WA: I do. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? WA: I do. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, archives, Web sites, presentations, and other formats? WA: I do. LB: Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts that you'd like to delete or withdraw from your interview from the project? WA: I do. LB: You could also decide to blow off the whole thing if you wanted. Although we hope you don't. Okay. So we're going to just start this out. And the very first question -- I sent these questions to you before -- but the very first thing to just get you going here is to say in the midst of this current health crisis that we're experiencing we want to take this opportunity to look back to those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the nineteen-eighties and the nineteen-nineties. Do you remember the first time you became aware of the disease? WA: I do, it was actually nineteen eighty-seven. I was in a gay men's leather club in Reading at the time and we had a meeting and we were getting notices that club members that we knew were in one of the local hospitals. Reading Hospital & ; Medical Center. But we weren't getting the details of what. So I said, "Well, I'm going to go visit -- name -- and see what's going on." I get over there and they're like, "You have to put this on and this on." I mean I was in full surgical gear. I'm like, "I'm not going to the operating room." "Oh, no, no, they have this disease, we don't know what we're calling it yet, but you have to wear this to go in." "Okay then." Then it was GRID. Then it was this. And then finally everyone said, "Okay, it's autoimmune deficiency syndrome, aka AIDS." I'm like, "Oh, okay." And people were just dropping like flies. So in eighty-nine there was an article in the Reading Eagle and the Reading Times that a group of government officials from the commonwealth and several sisters from different women's religious orders in the Catholic Church were going to establish a personal care home on the grounds of the Wernersville State Hospital because at that time they were starting to lose some people from the state hospital facility. LB: Is that in Reading? WA: Yeah, it was in Wernersville. LB: Oh, Wernersville. WA: Wernersville which was right -- yeah, about fifteen minutes outside of Reading proper. LB: Okay, I'm sorry. WA: That's okay. So one Sunday one of the sisters came to our parish to talk about what Rainbow Home was going to be, what Rainbow Home was going to do. And they needed volunteers. And I thought you know, I could give them a couple hours a week to do whatever. So I talked to Sister [Carol Ann?], who was the volunteer coordinator, and I said, "I have an extensive background as a nursing assistant." Well. LB: Ah. WA: The next day I get a phone call from Sister Mary, who was going to be in charge of the caregiving. Like here it comes. "I'd like to interview you for a position. A paid staff member." "Okay." LB: Oh, okay, yeah. WA: Yeah. From volunteer to pay. So I was going down to visit a friend of mine, [Johnjohn?], who has since passed away. And his partner and he did not live together, but Johnjohn had a zero T cell count but you would have never known he was full-blown AIDS, I mean healthy as an ox, took his meds, rode his motorcycle, went water-skiing, [ski skiing?], the whole nine yards. But his partner couldn't give him his B12 shots. He was deathly afraid of needles. So I talked to Sister Mary before I left, and I said, "Could we just review this?" And she goes, "Yeah." So I would go down once a month and give him his B12s. So I did my interview and she said, "Well, I have to check out your references, etc." She said, "I'll get back to you in a couple days." "Great." So I go down. And at the time I was in the Roman Church. I was Roman Catholic. I'm now Episcopalian. So I stopped at the shrine and I said a prayer in front of a statue of the Blessed Mother and said, "Hey, if I'm going to take this ministry on, could I have a sign?" Johnjohn and I are having dinner. He goes, "You're going to take care of a lot of people with this disease so fasten the seatbelt." And I'm like, "Okay." It's that quick. Like God was not saying -- yeah, you're not waiting around, dude, I'm going to get you in now. So in nineteen-ninty on the Feast of All Souls, which was November seventh -- I'm sorry, November second -- we dedicated Rainbow Home. Now Rainbow Home was open to anyone. And the reason that it was named Rainbow Home was that we had a rabbi on the board, and they were trying to come up with a name, and he said, "Well, in the book of Genesis," and he proceeded to do his thing. And I'm like, "Well, that's kind of cool, I really like that." But we did fly a rainbow flag outside the building. LB: Great. WA: But we had to tell people that it was open to everyone. It was not just the LBGTQ community. In the beginning we would have maybe two or three, the first year, year and a half, two years. Then all of a sudden word got out because people were in the hospitals but they were sending them home and their parents were trying to take care of them. Well, as they progressed in the disease they needed twenty-fourhour care and you've got moms and dads that don't know the first thing about anything other than aspirin. But for the first three years we were just giving basically AZT because that was the drug at the time. And then more drugs would come in. We were a thirteen bed facility. And about three and a half years in we started to fill up. Then we had a waiting list to get in. We took care of anyone with HIV/AIDS but we also would accept cancer patients. So we wanted to make sure that people knew that if they had a loved one who was end-stage cancer that they were more than welcome. And we actually had a mom who had really bad breast cancer who came to spend her last days. And so the guys and the gals in the house referred to her as the housemother. LB: (inaudible). WA: Any medications that we gave were either oral or rectal by -- and that was the only way. If they needed any kind of shot the RNs would come in. We worked with visiting nurses, and they would come in and do them. My one and only love moved to Philadelphia. I was in nursing school at the time in seventy-two. And Eric and I said, "We're going to stay in touch." He moved to Philly for a better job. And then I didn't hear from him and I'm like, "This is weird, because he's usually pretty good about staying in touch." And his mom called me and said, "He's in Reading Hospital in the ER, he's got full-blown AIDS," and this was two years later. And he goes, "They have no beds, I don't know what to do." I said, "Let me -- how bad is it?" She goes, "It's bad." Said, "Well, let me call Dr. Woodward at Saint Joe's and see if maybe I can get him up there." Because I talked to Dr. [Dee?] and I said, "Listen. His mom can't take care of him. Rainbow Home isn't open yet, as you know, because you're one of our medical directors. So what are you going to do?" He says, "Yeah, go ahead, talk to Chris Woodward and see if Chris is willing to take him on." So I called Chris and I said, "Listen. Do you think you could do this for me?" He goes, "Yeah, I've got beds." He said, "I'll get him up here." I said, "Okay." So I called Eric's mom and I said, "They're going to move him to Saint Joe's. They've got beds. Call me when he gets there." Okay. So I went up and I said, "Listen. You've got your own room and you're stuck with me for whatever time is left. I'm going to be staying overnight with you. I clear it with everyone." All the nurses knew, the staff knew. And about the ninth day I'm like, "Okay, he's starting to do the slide." I could see that death was coming to the door and I had to prep his mom and say, "Listen. I can't say when, I don't know how. But he's starting. Okay? So I'm just trying to prep you." And on the eleventh day I was with him and he goes, "I'm ready to go." I said, "Okay. Remember the good times. Know that I will always love you. My love for you is not going to end the minute you leave this world." He goes, "I have a really stupid favor to ask." I said, "Please, there is no stupid favor." He goes, "Do you think they'd get pissed off if you crawl into bed with me?" I said, "Well, if I can get a watchdog at the door." So in walks Sister [Joseph Ellen?] who was one of my nursing instructors. And I said, "I'm going to ask you a favor. This is probably very off the chart. Do you think you could give us maybe fifteen minutes alone? He just wants me to crawl in bed with him and hold him. Okay?" And she goes, "I'll stand watch." She stood outside the door, wouldn't let anyone in. She did call Dr. Woodward, she was still a nursing sister, she called Dr. Woodward and said, "Listen. Eric is on his way. And Bill is in with him. So I'm giving them some private time." And he said, "Just know that I love you. I will always love you. Thank you for being here." I said, "Well, go ahead and take your nap. Okay?" I'm like, "This is not the nap. I get this." And so he just went very peacefully in my arms. And no pain. They kept him. He was high-flying (inaudible) [and?] morphine. They had a drip going. So that was it. I gave him his bath and got him all ready for his trip to wherever he was going. And called his mom and said, "You need to come in." And the next day Sister Mary called me and said, "I want to put you on staff." And I said, "Okay." And so we painted and we redid -- because the wards in that building were god-awful colors, we're talking like brown ceilings and yellow walls. So Sister Cecilia, who should have been a decorator if she wasn't a nun, did an awesome job. I mean it was very homelike. The only thing that was hospital-looking was the bed. But everything else, we had curtains, they had their own TV, they had closets for their clothes. And so we started taking people in. And the first three months, I was on night shift. And then Mary moved me over to days or evenings. And I learned so much about life and living but also a hell of a lot about death and dying. And how some of them would go very peacefully and some of them would fight to the end. And it all depended on their spirit and what was going on. And we had a lot of really great times in that building. I mean we had events. We took them on field trips. We took them to Knoebels if they were able to go. I took a couple of them shopping on their own. We celebrated all the holidays. So there was a lot of life and living in Rainbow Home. And then in ninety-seven after seven years I said, "Okay, I'm done, I can't do this anymore." Because in the beginning I didn't know a lot of the people, but the last three years, a lot of my friends were coming in. And I had to be both a professional health caregiver but I had to cross the bridge and be the friend when the time came. And there were a couple that just got into a spot in my heart that -- forget it. LB: Was this set up as a hospice kind of thing? WA: It was under hospice guidelines. So yeah. It was under hospice guidelines. But it was more a personal care home. But we did fall under hospice. And that's why I was able to assist with medications. And that's what made it really unique. And we had a corps of volunteers that were just absolutely awesome. And a lot of them were parents of guys and gals that were there. And so we told them they had to wait a year, and then they could come back and volunteer. And a lot of them would do that. And then the last three years I was also in charge of the pastoral care department because our Episcopal deacon -- and then she became a priest -- got a parish. And so I worked with the clergy. And that was eye-opening, because I had a few that I wanted to say, "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way." I would have clergy that would refuse to give them anointings on their deathbed. So I cheated. I did it. But I switched the formula that I read. I didn't say, "I absolve you of all sins and censures." I said, "May the Lord absolve you." Depending on whatever their faith was. I was very ecumenical in that. And we would do a monthly memorial service and then we would do a yearly. And that was open to everyone. And a lot of the residents -- the residents became close to each other. It was like a family. And I think that Sister Mary said it best. It was the only place where the gay man could pass the mashed potatoes to the straight woman who would pass them to the drug user who would pass them to the whatever. And some of the stories that they would tell me when I was still working in the kitchen. I would just stand there and I would laugh. I'm like, "I could never share these outside of these walls." Because they were quite colorful. And I do mean colorful. Like I don't think I could put these in a book. No. Not really. LB: Because they were wild stories? WA: Oh, very wild, very wild. But the kind that gave me a better idea what to say and what to use for the memorial service. Because I could write those in the pastoral care part of the chart. And that's what made it such a unique place was that in the beginning a lot of people were like, "Well, I don't want to go there." And then they would be there for a while and they'd be like, "Wow." We had water. Especially in the summer the guys would get their water guns and they'd be outside. Like I'd walk in ready to go to work and I'd be in my scrubs. And everyone's like, "Oh, you got recepted, didn't you [hear?]?" My scrub top looked like I took it right out of the washer and didn't put it in the dryer because Bobby Gordon would like hhhh with the squirt gun. I'm like, "Robert, I'm going to get you for this tonight, trust me. Beware." "You wouldn't do anything." "Oh, wouldn't I? Beware." And that was a great thing. The staff had such a good relationship with the residents. And the residents had a good relationship with the staff. They all respected the sisters that were there. And if we had anyone who was using drugs and they would go out for a day pass, if we suspected that they might have relapsed, we had a protocol where we would just pull a drug test. We didn't pull randoms. They had to really demonstrate. And there were only maybe two or three that fell off. But they had meetings. They had AA meetings, NA meetings that they had to go to. And that was part of the agreement to be (inaudible) into the building. LB: Oh, I'm losing your voice. WA: Am I back? LB: Yeah, now you're back, yeah. WA: Okay. LB: So you were saying they had AA meetings and NA meetings and what else did you say? WA: That was it. NA and AA. LB: So this was in a Catholic hospital? WA: No. We were ecumenical. LB: Oh, okay. WA: We just had the sisters there to -- you know, they were the ones that really got it going. And back then a lot of the hospices were being run in Catholic hospitals. One of the big ones was Saint Vincent's in the Village, in the West Village in New York. That was a very very big -- that was a whole floor of the hospital. Saint Clare's had a unit. But again the staff obviously was very ecumenical. It wasn't all -- Brenda was a staff member, Bev was a staff member, and I was a staff member. So we were the three lay staff members. Brenda worked nights, Bev and I did evenings or days. LB: So these were nuns though that started -- WA: Yes. LB: They started it out of their convent or out of their sisterhood or how did that work? WA: Well, what happened was Sister Mary had her master's and she taught nursing and she worked at the White House down in Washington, which was a big -- it was attached with -- I forget who they were attached with. It was some big organization in DC. But she would do home visits to the guys in Georgetown, mostly Georgetown, I think it was under Whitman-Walker down there. So yeah. And she was on sabbatical. And then Sister Carol Ann was a teacher. She retired. Sister Mary Therese was a teacher and she retired. And forgot. Carol Ann. Sister [Fabian?] was actually the sister that got this started. She's at the Precious Blood Convent in Shillington. And people were asking her about a place, because she was getting phone calls, because she was also a nursing sister. And then Sister [Mary Cecilia?] was a practical nurse. So they all had nursing backgrounds. And back then a lot of the nursing orders were the nuns and the three orders of Catholic brothers that had nursing brothers were the ones that were opening the hospices in their hospitals or their facilities. And everyone just loved them because they were free spirits. They gave of their time and their talent. And we were a big family there. And then when I left and I was the last of the original staff, and all the nuns had left except for one, and she only stayed another year because she noticed it was becoming more of a business than it was what the original meaning and the beginning of Rainbow Home was. Because our mission statement started, "Believing in the worth and dignity of each person as a child of God." That was the beginning of our mission statement. And in the entryway we had this beautiful rainbow with the mission statement printed on it. And then the quote from the book of Genesis was included in that. LB: But who was funding that? Was it coming from people's -- WA: Donations. Of course I mean their insurance kicked in. And we had a lot of very generous benefactors. Al -- Mr. Boscov donated all new equipment for the kitchen. And we only had to pay the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania $1 a year for rent, and that was set up when Senator Mike O'Pake was in office. So we paid the state $1 a year rent. LB: (inaudible) state hospital. WA: Right. LB: Oh, I see, okay, I see. WA: Yeah, it was on the grounds of the state hospital. And we only used the first floor. It was a two-floor, but we only used the first. But yeah, it was -- good times. If you could say good times. I mean a lot of laughter. I mean if I ever write a book people will laugh on one page and cry on the next. And a lot of times I still see two or three families that live in the area. Like we'll just randomly run into each other. And they'll always bring up how grateful they were that they had a place for their son to die with dignity. When churches were saying, "This is God's wrath and all this." And I'm like, "Yeah yeah yeah, okay, bye-bye, you haven't lived it until you see what we do. And that certainly is not the man's wrath." LB: When you were talking about AZT, was that later? Because AZT had a lot of side effects and stuff. Were you seeing that as well? Talk a little bit about the AZT stuff. WA: We weren't seeing a lot of side effects with AZT. The drug that we saw the most side effects was Crixivan. And that came on later. And the reason that we were trying to figure this out was why are we suddenly -- what's going on with this drug. And so I asked Dr. Woodward. I said, "When you're signing death certificates," they always, both of them, he and Bob, Dr. Jones, always put HIV/AIDS as the third. They never put it as the primary. Never. They were putting on a cardiac problem for a lot of them. And it was because Crixivan was causing heart tissue to be eaten. So they put it as primary cause of death [cardiomyelogamies?]. Second was tertiary was always HIV/AIDS. So the parents never had to worry, if they had insurance policies, that it would be refused. And that was a good thing about our docs. And our docs were very good. I mean I'm not a registered nurse but I could do rounds with him. He would give me orders over the phone. I'd write them in. And there was never a problem. LB: Was insurance denying HIV/AIDS care in those days? Talk about that a little bit. Was that something that would happen? WA: What's that? LB: Insurance denial of care. WA: Yeah. Yeah, there were certain companies that flat out would say -- it's like if you see the ads they have now when they say there's no medical questions. Like if you're looking at life insurance. Every one that I've got, the first question is have you been diagnosed with HIV slash AIDS. It's the first question. It's a medical question. So really? I mean no medical question? Do you smoke, do you drink? They're all medical questions. Come on, insurance company. Really? It's a medical question. And I wonder what would happen if someone would check yes. You know what I'm saying? That could be a bit of a -- oh, well, no, we're not allowing you to -- excuse me one second. My doctor. Hello. Yes. All right, thank you. Bye-bye. Okay. LB: I guess what happens is that insurance companies won't insure you for a preexisting condition except for that now you can't do that under the American Care Act as long as we continue to have that act. WA: Right. LB: Yeah. But that wasn't in place in those days. And people need (inaudible). WA: No. LB: Because whoever is seeing this video, hopefully people will look at this. But 30 years from now when both you and I are long gone, or 40 years or 50 years, people are going to look at this and see what we're saying about that time. And they may not understand that people weren't covered under insurance for preexisting conditions. WA: That's right. LB: Let's see. When you were talking about Saint Joe's, what's Saint Joe's? That's a Catholic hospital? WA: Saint Joseph's was a Catholic hospital in Reading. And Dr. Woodward was on staff there. But the primary amount of our -- if they were local -- were being seen by Dr. Benedictis and Dr. Jones because Dr. D was one of the first infectious disease doctors to get into the field. Dr. Woodward came in later. But the majority of them ended up at Reading for some odd reason. And Saint Joseph's would never refuse. The good sisters would be like, "No. We're not going to play the refuse game." I mean I have to say that Eric got excellent care at Saint Joe's. I was very pleased with his care. And sadly, when Leo who was one of the guys, ended up in Reading with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia I don't know what the problem was but the nurses were just kind of like, "He's in that room. If you need anything just let us know. We'll hand it to you." Because I stayed. I did an overnight with him. I worked three to eleven and then I went to the hospital. Because his partner was a good friend of mine. I knew JR for a while. And JR was out West. And I said, "You need to come home because something's up with Leo and I don't know what, I don't know when, I don't know how, but he's in Reading right now." So I stayed overnight. And I must have changed his bedsheets, I'm going to guesstimate, five or six times during the night from the sweats from the meds they were giving him. And he said, "I want to come home. I want to come home. I don't want to die here." And I thought okay, how am I going to handle this, because I don't know what to say to him. And I said, "Let me work on that." That was my out. Because I figured. So I went to work the next day and I said to Sister Mary, "Have you heard from Dr. Benedictis at all about what's going on with Leo?" She said, "Yeah. They got him cleared up." Like two days later he was back with us. But his stay was shortened. So JR had gone on a business trip and I said, "You need to come back." I said, "He's on his way. He's transitioning. And I need you to get here because he's asking for you." LB: He got some kind of infection or something? Was that it? WA: Just residual of the pneumonia. But not as bad. I mean they didn't have to tube him when he was in the hospital, thank God, he wasn't on a vent. Because one of the things that was automatically declared when you entered Rainbow Home was you were a do not resuscitate/do not intubate. They already had to sign DNR/DNI. LB: So most people who went to Rainbow Home were pretty much at the end of their lives then. WA: Yeah. We had a few that even after they closed there, there are two that are still floating around in the area that are doing quite well. And that's when all these wonder drugs came out in the late '90s. But before that it was a mess. LB: It was. Let's see. So were you having funerals there? Did you have anybody that would do the funerals for you or stuff like that? WA: We did. We did. Jay Gilbert was one. Jay is very good. Anyone from the Lehigh Valley. Now as far as in Reading I really don't remember who they were, because I just remember Jay's name floating around a lot. If they were from up this way. I'm sure there were one or two down in Reading that were really good about that. Because they knew who we were and what we were. LB: Yeah. People have told me that I should try to talk to Jay Gilbert. And I haven't had a chance to contact him yet. But apparently he did loads of funerals for people and he was very generous too and didn't charge people or didn't charge people much. WA: Yeah. LB: Must have been hard. It must have been very hard to have people dying and knowing that that was going to happen to people for you. Did that take its toll? Well, apparently it did. But sounded like you did it for a long time. It was really wonderfully gracious of you. WA: Yeah, I mean there were times when I would come home from work. And if we had someone who was actively dying -- and Brenda was on -- for the first two years Brenda was all alone, and then they put a second staff member on. So I had a pager at that point. And I'm like, "Just page me if it gets too crazy." And it only happened two or three times. But I always share this one -- and it is funny. Two of the guys wanted to go to Washington. And two of us were Roman and one was Episcopalian. Dale was the Episcopalian. Tommy and I were the Romans. Well, we went to the basilica shrine for Mass. And it was the high Mass. So you've got the full procession with the incense and everything, right? And Dale being ever Dale, as the thurible bearer was coming by swinging the incense, he looked and he goes, "Mary, I love your dress but your purse is on fire." Not loud. Not loud. Just loud enough for the thurible bearer to hear this. And I'm like, "Oh." And there's this big mosaic of Jesus with his hands up with this angry look. And I'm like, "Oh God, this is it, here comes the lightning bolt." And Tommy looked at him and he goes, "What did you just say?" I'm like, "Don't ask." So when we got back everyone's like, "How was it?" And I'm like, "Ah, it was interesting." So I pulled Sister Mary aside and I said, "Oh by the way, if you get a call from the basilica this (inaudible)." And she just swore and she goes, "Oh God." I'm like, "That's about what I was saying under my breath." Bill had a lot of anger when he first came. And I said, "What can I do to help you get rid of your anger?" And he said, "Just get me out of here for a day." Well, he was still able to walk. So I said, "Okay. How about we go to the mall?" So I drove him down to King of Prussia from Reading and it was close to Mother's Day and I said, "Mother's Day is coming up, how about we get your mom a card and a gift?" Because they would hold funds for them in case they wanted to do something like that. He goes, "Okay." So we got him a card. And his mom loved Oscar de la Renta, the fragrance. So we got her a small bottle of Oscar. And they wrapped it. And then we had the Mother's Day party. And his mother looked at me and she goes, "It's been eighteen years since I've gotten a card, let alone a gift, from my son. What did you do to him?" I said, "We went for a ride. And I endured an hour and a half of rock music." I wanted to take the radio out of the car and just throw it. Because I'm like, "Okay. If I hear one more screaming in my ear I'm going to scream." If I ever do write a book, it's going to be the fun stories. With a little of the sadness in, just to make people realize we are human. LB: Well, feel free to tell me some of the fun stories, because I'd love to hear those now. That's a great one, that's a wonderful one. WA: Well, I think probably one of the toughest ones for me, and I had a few, was I went down to Jersey to do an assessment on a potential resident. And David was in a nursing home in Atlantic City, so you can picture a nursing home is already not a good sign. So I go in and here's David, six-one, six-two. Dark brown hair, jet-blue eyes. Laying in a bed. And I'm like, "What's up with this?" I said, "Do they get you out of bed?" "No." "Do they give you a shower at all?" "When they feel like it." I said, "Are you getting your meds?" "Sometimes." "On time?" "No." "Okay." Now I have to remember I am not a professional nurse. So I can't go out and raise holy you-know-what because that's not going to sit well. All right. So I get the chart. I get the information I need. I get in the car. I get on my phone. I talk to the social worker first. I say, "Get Sister Mary on the phone." And I said, "Mary, we've got to get him up there. Okay. We have got to get him up there." Well, he had been in bed so long that he couldn't walk. They weren't doing any PT or anything. So when the visiting nurse came out I said, "Can I do some range of motion with him just like abduction, adduction, move up, move down, move sidewards?" She goes, "Oh yeah." I said, "Okay." Said, "David, what is one of your goals?" And we always asked them what goals they had because we wanted it to be very integral. Not this is what we're going to do, deal with it. And he goes, "I want to get to church, I want to be able to stand and get in a car even if it's from a wheelchair. I don't care." I said, "Okay, bro, fasten your seatbelts, because I'm your primary care provider. So guess what we're going to be doing." So after his shower we get back in bed, after he was dried off and dressed, and we would do PT. And then I would get a walker and we didn't go long distances but just enough to -- so the Christmas party was coming up. And I said, "What are you going to do for your mom and dad?" He said, "Well, I have a card and a gift." He says, "But I want to walk in the room even if it's with a walker." I said, "Okay, you've got a goal. And we've got time. So let's see if we can make this happen." All right. Christmas party comes. Sure as gunfires, he goes, "Okay." I said, "I'll take you to the door. And you walk in. And I have a chair right next to your mom and dad." And I said reserved. I put a little reserved sign. "So that way you can sit with them for the Christmas party." He goes, "Okay." So the door was closed. And I opened the door. And I said, "Okay. I'm not taking the chair in unless you feel you need it. And you're technically right inside the door like 10 steps." He gets up. He holds on. I said, "Remember. Look up, don't look down. You want central force." Walks in. And his mom and dad are talking and other people are chatting with them. And all of a sudden his mom looks up and she goes, "Uh, he's walking." And his dad looked. He said, "What do you mean he's walking?" "He's walking." And I'm like, "Bye, Merry Christmas. Surprise." She goes, "What did you do?" I said, "What did we do. I just gave him the incentive." New Year's Eve I was going out with my family for New Year's Eve, but I wanted to stop over and wish all the guys and gals a happy New Year. And I was dressed to the nines. I was in black full dress, tails, I was like, "Okay, I'm going out." His aunt, who was a nursing supervisor at Saint Joseph's, and three of his nieces -- I graduated from high school with two of them -- they were sitting in there and were having this cheese tray with [baked champagne?] and they walk in there like oh my God, what are you doing here. I said, "I work here." And David goes, "He's the one that got me to walk and he's the one that bathed me and he's the one that you know," and they're like, "Oh my God." I said, "Welcome, small world, isn't it, gang?" It was a Sunday morning and David always rang to get up about 7:30. I'm like, "Okay, he's not ringing." I'm like, "Well, it's Sunday, let him sleep in." And something in my inside was going like, "Mm, no. Something's not right here." I said, "Are you okay, Dave?" He goes, "I don't feel good." And something told me to lift the sheets and look at his feet. They were as purple as could be. I'm like, "Oh. Okay. I'll be back." I went, I said to Bev, "Uh, Dave is starting the (inaudible) process. So I'm getting the morphine ready if we need it. I'm going to call his parents and say, 'Take your time, it's not imminent, but get the family together because we've started the journey.'" And I went back in. I said, "Are you having any pain?" He goes, "No." Said, "Okay." So every two hours I would just go in and say, "Everything fine?" He said, "I'm really not feeling good now." I said, "Okay. I'm going to start the morphine." And we put it right in the buccal cavity. It was with dropper. It was liquid. So it wasn't intravenously. And he's like, "Can you do me one little favor?" I said, "David, if I can make it happen I got you covered." "I don't want to die laying down." And I'm thinking okay, how else are we -- and I thought okay. I said, "Well, let me see what I can come up with to make that happen." I'm like, "Think quick, Bill. Because we're getting there." So he goes, "You know what song I want you to play while you and I are sitting here having our last whatever time together." And I'm like, "Really? Madonna doing 'Don't Cry for Me Argentine (sic)?'" He goes, "Yes." I'm like, "Okay." So I get the portable tape player and I get the disc and I put it in. And he goes, "I'm ready." I said, "Okay." Gave him a kiss and said, "It's been a fun experience. I'll remember you for as long as I live." And he goes, "Can you just like kind of put me on your right shoulder?" I'm like, "Sure." I'm not going to kill him for God's sake. So I just scooped him up and looked over and said, "Enjoy the ride. Is the morphine working?" "Yes." Went to sleep. That was it. So for six months after no one was allowed to hug me on the right side. I said, "I'm sorry, that's reserved for David." LB: Sweet. WA: You know. And his parents, his dad had just retired the year before from the marine corps as a lieutenant colonel. And I thought Dad is going to be a toughie. And Dad was just the opposite. We only had one family that really didn't want anything to do with their son. And I called them when he started actively dying and said, "Are you going to come visit?" "Well, of course we are." I said, "Well, someone wrote on the admission paper." And this was how it was worded. When he kicks the bucket don't call us. And I said, "He has two brothers, right?" They're like, "Yeah." I said, "Well, where's the other one?" "We don't know." And he was the one that wrote it. But I decided I was going to call the family anyway. Because I was thinking legally if I didn't it could really have turned into a mess. So yeah. LB: So they were okay? They came. WA: Oh yeah. They were fine. They were fine. In fact they were very thankful that I did that, because they were able to get him. They made him physically come. They called him. Because he lived locally. And the dad is like, "You get over here or I'm going to come get you." And I said, "Please. The house is very upset. Because that was the night I had three deaths an hour apart. LB: Oh gosh. WA: He was number two. So I had three actively going at once. And my coworker, she was the best. Bev said, "You take care of the three, I'll take care of the other nine." Because three of them that lived on the other side of our meeting room, party room, whatever, they had to be able to come over, get their meds, take their meds, etc. The guys on our side and our gals were more acute. They were more independent. They did their own laundry, made their own beds, got their own meds. We would give them to them out. But they had to remember to come get them. LB: And what kind of meds were you giving people then? Was this in the eighties or was it mostly -- what kind of (inaudible). WA: Primarily their HIV/AIDS but also some of them would have weight loss. There were two drugs. There was Marinol which was synthetic marijuana, but it did not give them a buzz or get them high, it only stimulated the part of the brain that said, "You need to eat." So there were no side effects. They didn't get high or get a buzz. But they did get the munchies, which was okay. The other one was Megace acetate, which was a liquid, and that was to help with -- morphine for pain. Their antiretrovirals for their HIV/AIDS. And weight gain if they needed it. And there weren't too many. The good news is that we never really lost a lot of them in a very cachexic state. They weren't skin and bones. So we were lucky in that because our docs were really on top of that kind of stuff. And the visiting nurses that came out were absolutely -- we had the same nurse. But if she was off they had backup. But the night that I had the three going, I had three nurses, because one nurse couldn't handle three situations. And they were like, "How are you?" I said, "Oh, I'm just jim-freaking-dandy. I'm going home tonight and I'm having a very stiff drink, maybe two." And they had a therapist for us. Because once a month we would have a meeting to talk about how we felt in the midst of losing all these guys and gals. So that mentally we were okay. But I knew when Tommy died. I said, "Okay, that's it." And not that we counted intentionally, but when I left the administrator said -- usually -- I was told -- because I was going to work at Saint Vincent's in New York. And the sister in charge of the floor said, "After five years you have to go out for a year. You can't stay in here all the time. It's a five-year term and then you have to go somewhere in the hospital for a year and then you can come back." Well, I did it for seven. But I just said, "I can't do this anymore." It started to get to me psychologically and physically. LB: (inaudible) the administrator was going to give you a number? WA: I took care of two hundred sixty-seven. And if (inaudible). LB: (inaudible). WA: Yeah, it was, it was rough. And I had joined -- they are no longer, but I had become a member of the National Catholic AIDS Network or NCAN and we would meet every summer in Chicago at Loyola University on the lake. And we would have workshops, we would have time to just share our stories. But what was really wonderful was the one year -- Cardinal Bernardin was in charge of the archdiocese at that time and very well known for being a compassionate cardinal. Really made other people within the Roman rite look kind of like why aren't you doing this. So he just showed up in regular clerics with his secretary and he went table to table and said, "What do you do? Where do you do it? How are you doing? What can I do for you?" I mean this is a man that could have been the next pope. And that was the night of our memorial service. So that year they asked us to bring a photo if we wanted to of someone that we lost and we loved. And they did a foot washing in the chapel. And ironically the name of the chapel in Latin is La Madonna della Strada, Our Lady of the Streets. And all the music was Taize. So the deal was the person to your right was the person that you would do foot washing with so you would wash each other's feet. Well, the chair was blank. I'm like, "Okay, someone didn't come." All of a sudden who comes over and sits down but the cardinal? So the cardinal and I. And that was the year that Jeffrey passed away, my best friend. He was a hairdresser. He had a very good business in Washington, DC. So Jeff's black-and-white photo went with me. Somewhere on my wall -- no. It's on my other wall right above me. I have a collage of four of the guys that I took care of that really taught me a lot. So once in a while I'll just look up and say, "You guys okay up there?" So far I'm not hearing any bad things. So yeah. LB: Yeah. How old were you in the eighties? WA: Geez, well, I'm sixty-seven now, so I would say in my fifties, I had to be in my fifties. Late forties, early fifties, I -- at this point (inaudible) twenty-six, fifty-one, let's see. LB: It was thirty-five years ago, honey? WA: Huh. LB: It was thirty-five years ago. WA: Yeah, what can I tell you? That'll be an edit. LB: It's okay. I think one of the things is we forget when you're a grown-up and you're doing things like that we forget that it was a long time ago when we were kids in a lot of ways, we were in our (inaudible) thirties. What did you say, you're sixty-seven now? You were born in nineteen -- WA: I was born in fifty-one. Rainbow Home opened in nineteen-ninety and it closed in -- LB: So you were forty, yeah. Would have been thirty-nine when it opened and (inaudible). WA: And Ozzie, who had one of the local bars, Ozzie and I were responsible for getting the first AIDS walk in Reading going. And we worked with -- oh, I can't. Her son, what's the name of the farm? Who did you -- LB: Rodale. Ardath Rodale. WA: Yeah, we worked with -- yeah. LB: Talking to Maria Rodale about Ardath Rodale. WA: To do the first AIDS walk in Reading. LB: (inaudible) oh yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, because the farm is in Berks County after all. So yeah. WA: Yeah, because back then it was Berks AIDS Network and they were there first and then Rainbow Home came in. Yeah. LB: Yeah, it's all related. Everybody's sort of interrelated within that. Because everybody was aware of what was happening to each other and stuff. WA: Right. LB: In about nineteen ninety-three, which is about the middle of the time that you were at Rainbow House, medication really changed. And in ninety-three the worst part about the epidemic really started to fall back a little bit because there were actually drugs that could really prolong people's lives, it wasn't so much of a death sentence. Were you noticing a change then? What was it like? WA: Yeah. Well, for us it was really great because we had them longer. And for the most part they were doing very well on them. And that was thanks to like ACT UP and other organizations that were really getting up in the face of these drug companies and saying, "Why are you putting these on hold forever?" And then finally when they started to come out we noticed that our guys were doing a whole lot better. They were gaining weight. Mentally they were in much better shape. I mean there were a few that we had to give antidepressants to because it was just -- the docs wanted them on something light. I mean it was Ativan, it wasn't anything major, like a lot of antipsychotics, but we noticed that -- and their thriveto survive was -- they didn't look at it as -- they would say, "I'm going to beat this. I'm going to beat this because now we've got the drugs." But it took them forever to get those drugs out. It was only when people started acting up in the streets and saying, "Hey, listen, we've got friends and lovers and family members dying like no tomorrow, what are you going to do about it?" LB: Yeah. Did you ever go to any of those ACT UP things in New York? WA: I did not. I didn't get up to New York because I was doing my own stuff down here. The one year the bishop of the Catholic diocese had an anointing service at DeSales and he said, "It's open to everyone." So I took a couple of the guys up. And afterwards I said, "Um, how come you never visit?" Question mark. And he goes, "I don't have time." I said, "Oh. Really? Oh. Okay." Because here's the interesting thing. We had a priest in the house as a patient. And [Claude?], father, had surgery. And he got bad blood. This is before they were doing the big testing. And he was from the Diocese of Camden. So he came up, great guy, we all loved padre, and every morning I would get him up, we did his a.m. care, gave him his meds. And then he and I would go into our multipurpose room and he would do Mass. LB: So he was a priest that was at Rainbow House. WA: Uh-huh. But when I needed someone anointed [they don't bother?]. I had his oils. And I said -- LB: Wow. WA: Can you do a quick anointing? He goes, "Yeah." So when he was actively dying he went to Saint Joseph's Hospital. Because Dr. [Crisp?] was following him. And when I went up and I said to one of the nurses, "Has he received anointing yet?" They're like, "No." I said, "Well, can we get a priest to do this?" I said, "He is a priest, I'd really like another priest to give him anointing at least." "I can't get anyone. We've tried several parishes." I said, "Really? Okay." So I called my priest at Holy Rosary. And that was monsignor. And I said, "Listen, here's the situation." It wasn't late at night. He goes, "I'm on my way." And he came up and he gave him sacraments. And I said, "Thank you." So his funeral was in Jersey, so Sister Carol Ann and I decided that we were going to be the militant Catholics at his funeral. So we go, we have our little Rainbow Home pins on. And we always pinned our guys when they left us on their [paths?]. And we would say to the undertaker, "If the family wants it, great, or if you're going to bury him with it, great, but please make sure it doesn't get tossed." Well, I put it far enough down on the side where I didn't think anyone would see it. Well, the bishop did and he said to his secretary, "This is not part of the liturgical vestment." And I just happened to be in ear range. And I said, "Would you please leave that there?" He goes, "Well, that's a rainbow." I said, "Look at it from the biblical end of it." And he left it. So afterwards Sister Carol Ann went up and she said, "You never came to visit him. Why?" "Well, we don't have time to do stuff like that." She goes, "No, but there could be you and twenty-three priests on the altar for his burial." "Well, I could have the local bishop close you down because of the way you're talking to me." She goes, "Oh, please go for it." Nothing ever happened. LB: Wow, I'm sure not. WA: I looked at him and I said, "And this is how you teach compassion (inaudible) bishop." And off we went. I said, "Well, we're probably going to get a phone call." Nothing ever happened. Because years later when you looked at what happened with the pedophilia and they all knew about it it was like oh, look at the names of the -- mm-hmm. Years later. Even though it wasn't HIV/AIDS-related. LB: Yeah, I don't think everybody understands that there's five lobbyists for the Catholic Church in Harrisburg that keep LGBT-inclusive laws or other kinds of inclusive things happening. The Catholic Church pays them to keep those -- to lobby for the lack of inclusion of equal rights laws and stuff. And it's a shame. It's a shame (inaudible) happening. But so we're not running out of time, we still got plenty of time, but I wondered if you wanted to talk anything about how you see the relationship of HIV/AIDS and the epidemic then and what you were doing and its relationship to what's happening now with COVID-19. What do you think about that? WA: Well, I mean I think we need to be aware that this COVID-19 is very nasty. And we have to really look at our brothers and sisters that are HIV-positive and even with the meds they're immunosuppressed as it is. And this could really knock the socks off of them. They could end up in the hospitals and in ICUs and on vents. So it's best for anyone that's immunosuppressed to just stay bunkered down until this is all dealt with in a fashion where if there's a vaccine that the vaccine can be given. But make sure when they do the trials on this that it's not going to really hurt anyone that's immunosuppressed whether it's with HIV/AIDS, cancer, or anything else. And those of us that are healthy really need to check in if we know someone and say, "Do you have enough food? Do you have enough water? Are you okay on your medications?" And David, who's my best friend, David and I are both on the board of FACT. So we're very mindful of that. But I think that's what we need to do. I think we really need to just look out for each other and make sure that our brothers and sisters that are immunosuppressed have everything that they need and that they're not forgotten. LB: Yeah. Definitely true. WA: I think that's very very important. And we as a community need to stand strong. This is the first year we haven't had a Pride celebration. LB: Well, they're going to do it virtually, aren't they? WA: Yeah. So virtual is virtual. Next year we'll be in full swing. LB: Yeah. So we have about fourteen minutes left. But I would love for you to think about somebody's going to see this thirty years, forty years from now. And you have an opportunity to talk to the future here. Go into the future and tell people what you think they really should know about the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And maybe even talk about -- some people -- and I think David talked about this, but other people that I've interviewed, because I think you're the sixth interview I've done, they're talking about the lack of recognition by elected officials about it for so many years that it was very painful. And you have any insight on that? And then also just to tell people what they should know about this time. WA: Well, as far as the -- I think David covered it pretty good with the elected officials. That for so many years it was ignored. And it's like it's their disease, let them deal with it. Then when it started to hit everyone else okay, now we have to do something about it. I would say to the future generations look back at what everyone went through regardless of gender, gender identification, status, etc. How we as a community taught others that if you all work for the common good something good will come out of an absolutely horrific pandemic, where we were losing brilliant minds. I'm going to share a couple of the guys as far as their names and what they did because I think for future generations the name and what they did is something that they need to know. And it's first names. I mean it's going to be first names. Andy had a double doctorate in chemical physics. Brilliant mind. Larry was the chief tie department buyer for Lord & ; Taylor. Rich had his own fashionwear. It was called Poshwear. Jeff was a well known hairdresser in the Washington area. David was a top-notch chef. Leo was a member of the United States Navy with honorable discharge. So he served his country before Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Let me see who else. Danny had a business, was an Irish tenor, so at his funeral I had a friend of mine who's an Irish tenor come in and do "Danny Boy." These are the people that really had great lives ahead of them and sadly we lost them too young and at a fast rate. If you get a chance, future generations, to see any part of the quilt, the quilt will tell the stories. You don't have to know them. We had a quilt showing our fifth anniversary at Rainbow Home at Albright. And we took in an extremely high amount of new quilts. The guys from NAMES Project were like, "We've never had this many at such a small gathering." Well, surprise. Because we were making them. We did a house quilt every year. And the last official quilt showing, several of us from both Berks AIDS Network and Rainbow Home went to Washington and we were quilt monitors. And then myself and two others also did grief counseling. So that was really a fulfilling moment because we had four blocks that we were covering for grief counseling. And if I would see a family sitting there just kind of like not saying anything, very quiet, I would just gently lean down usually to the mom and say, "Do you mind if I just sit here a minute with you in silence? And then if you want, tell me a story about your loved one, tell me. Is it your son? Who was it?" And even through the tears they would come out of tears and they would just like go into this wonderful story about their son or their daughter. And that would give us a chance to get to know them other than what was on the quilt. And making those quilts for us as staff members and volunteers was a way for us to move on so that psychologically and physically we could keep doing the work that we were doing. Because we would check in on each other constantly after a death. We had a quick staff meeting to make sure that everybody was doing okay. Because our counselor would say, "If you need to talk after a death you know where I am." So I hope that they never have to face any kind of pandemic like this, this current -- or the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. But if they do, get involved. Don't sit on the sidelines. That's it. LB: This has really been terrific, Bill. I bet you have a million more stories to tell. And I hope you do write a book about this, because I think you're brilliant as far as that goes. WA: I hope to do that. I hope to do that. Sometime if I can find someone who's willing to -- I know that Kelly is working on seeing if there's someone at Muhlenberg that might want to take that on. LB: To write a book about it? WA: Kelly is a friend of ours. He's a professor. LB: Yeah, Kelly Cannon, yeah. WA: You know Kelly? LB: Yeah. I know. Sure. You mean to write a book about it. WA: To see if someone would be interested in sitting down and working with me on getting the book written. LB: Great idea. This interview will be archived at Muhlenberg, and Muhlenberg has a lot of our -- all the artifacts and stuff. Because we kept all of the stuff when we produced the Valley Gay Press and when we produced -- at all the Pride festivals and a lot of the early Reading Pride festival stuff. Because I had all that stuff. So that's all in the archives at Muhlenberg now. If you have anything like that that you want to go into those archives that's like paper stuff or things that you don't know who would take care of later in life, that Muhlenberg archives will take that stuff. WA: Well, that's good to know. One quick note. I wrote an article about my journey with David. And it got into the NAMES Project when they used to send out the letter, the little -- and then about two years after that, the one doctor that would write back about my journey asked me if he could put that in a book that he and another doctor were writing. So I signed all the documents yes, you have my okay to do this. And then he sent me a copy and he signed it. And there was the little Post-it note. See page six. LB: Oh, great. WA: So that's where the article was. LB: It's great. WA: And somehow in one of my moves I can't find the book and I'm going crazy because I've got to find it. But I still have the story. So if it's okay I'll make a copy. LB: Sure. WA: And get it to you. LB: Great. You can get it to me. I'll send you the information. But you can send it to me right at the LGBT Community Center. They'll put it on my desk when it comes in. We're not really open right now. But I'll send you the contact information. And then I can get it over. Actually right now lots of people are cleaning up because they're stuck at home. So they're finding boxes and boxes of stuff that they want. And we're amassing a lot of those things in the vestibule, in the foyer, of our community center. Stacks of boxes there. And we found two more boxes of things. So it's all stuff that needs to go to -- because we don't want people to forget this, and one of the things they do at Muhlenberg is that they digitally make it so that people can find it online. They don't have to go through every single piece of paper or something. And it's all cross-referenced. It's really brilliant. It's going to be taking a long time for them to do this but it's wonderful that they're doing it, so it's a big deal. WA: Cool. LB: Yeah, it is. So (inaudible) you have anything else you want to say that you think oh, I should have added this in or -- WA: No, but thank you for the opportunity to share my story and my journey through the pandemic and this current -- and I hope that people will listen to the stories that have been told and really think about what's the right thing to do for anything that will come down the road. And if they know someone that is HIV-positive that they will keep them as friends and not treat them as an outcast. We're all God's children. We all deserve to be loved. Whether we're male, female, nonbinary, whatever you want to go by. Accept them for who they are and love them for who they are. Because love should be unconditional. Not if you're this I don't want anything to do with you. LB: Well, this has just been wonderful, Bill. I'm so glad I got to talk to you. I'm so glad David told me to get in touch with you. This is really a wonderful set of stories and very upbeat and very inspirational. So thank you so much. And thank you so much for all the work you did in taking care of all those people that really needed somebody. They needed a friend and they needed somebody who cared and you were there for them. How terrific of you. It's a really good karma. WA: Thank you. And thank you for taking the time to do this. I look forward to hearing feedback from others when this is all done (inaudible) you in person at some time somewhere. LB: I've been at every Reading Pride festival. So I'm always there and will be online watching it this year. But I've also been at every Pride festival at Lehigh Valley as well. So it's part of my thing to have a booth at those. What will happen now is that once this is done and I've uploaded it, they send the transcripts to a program at another college where they have interns who will transcribe it into writing. And then (inaudible) to see it and you can read through it. And you can see the video too. But that takes about 30 days because it takes them a while to do this. And then you can read through it and decide if there is anything that you want to change or strike or rearrange or something. But I have to say that this has just been extraordinarily terrific. So thank you so much for this. And I'm sure everyone will feel this way. So thank you. WA: Thank you. LB: Thanks a lot. And take care, okay? Don't go outside. WA: You too. LB: Bye-bye. WA: Bye-bye. END OF AUDIO 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.
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William Aull, June 29, 2020
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Bill Aull, for many years a caregiver at the Rainbow Home near Reading, PA, shares his experiences during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s. He reflects on specific patients, the role of Catholic Church in AIDS care, and the operations and services of Rainbow Home.
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PH40_04
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AIDS (Disease)
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2020-06-29
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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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6d37fe9762d7a4d362ddede5e5f0ee67
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Mary Foltz
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Thomas Duane
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5.4 June 12, 2022 Thomas Duane, June 12, 2022 (Part 4) LGBT-36 1:46:29 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Thomas Duane Mary Foltz video/mp4 DuaneThomas_202202612_video_trimmed.mp4 1.0:|29(13)|60(8)|81(5)|104(3)|125(5)|146(8)|165(12)|186(14)|209(3)|232(4)|253(16)|276(11)|303(2)|318(9)|339(6)|358(18)|377(13)|396(10)|419(7)|440(17)|457(4)|472(9)|489(8)|516(4)|537(3)|560(8)|575(12)|596(4)|615(3)|640(7)|659(5)|678(15)|705(9)|724(4)|751(2)|768(15)|795(3)|816(13)|835(12)|852(5)|863(14)|882(13)|903(3)|920(5)|937(4)|958(6)|979(9)|996(11)|1013(8)|1036(17)|1059(5)|1082(13)|1101(4)|1118(12)|1139(9)|1166(9)|1183(10)|1204(4)|1227(9)|1244(14)|1261(13)|1280(7)|1301(4)|1322(4)|1341(10)|1362(15)|1385(2)|1404(4)|1427(10)|1450(7)|1477(5)|1492(3)|1509(16)|1534(9)|1551(10)|1574(15)|1599(9)|1618(16)|1641(15)|1660(11)|1675(11)|1698(10)|1717(15)|1742(5)|1759(13)|1778(15)|1801(4)|1816(15)|1837(9)|1860(5)|1883(12)|1908(7)|1929(7)|1954(10)|1981(8)|1996(17)|2017(10)|2032(12)|2057(10)|2084(12)|2111(3)|2132(6)|2153(7)|2180(14)|2203(2)|2226(14)|2239(14) 0 https://youtu.be/3SK7Ws54klc YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MF: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Senator Tom Duane to talk about his life and experiences as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This year our project has funding from ACLS, and Senator Duane and I are meeting on Lehigh's Campus because he came back for the reunion. 
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 ; TD: My first one. 0 129 Transition from City Councilman to State Senator MF: I can also give you digital copies if you wanna share with family, so we'll talk more about that later. So we talked last time, I'm just gonna jump right in about all of your work with city council. And I'm curious if we could move to this sort of transition from city council and your movement into a state Senate. So I'm just gonna start with a basic question, how did that happen? Why were you interested in the Senate? Can you share a little bit of that story? 0 478 Relationship between Democrats and Republicans in Assembly TD: So then Senate majority leader just let it go through, but Senator Bruno, when he became leader, eliminated it, domestic partner benefits. So, I never want to waste an opportunity, I requested that he reinstate it. Because it wasn't just for me, I didn't even have a domestic partner, but the employees, some of whom had already signed up for it, mostly Democrats. I'm not sure about the Republicans at that time, staff members, but it was grotesquely unfair. 0 814 Hate Crimes Legislation TD: Anyway, [coughs] one of the things that had languished in the Senate for a long time was hate crimes legislation. And I believe I talked about my history of -- I had been beaten up in the parking lot of a gay bar. And severely, it was more certainly -- I bruised ribs, bruised a little bit bloody, but the scary thing was I didn't know what they had a weapon or not. And I went to the hospital reported it to police, and they caught the perpetrators. 0 1267 Fighting HIV Misconceptions TD: So before shot person, they had these bills that for -- these past before I got there for police officers, state police, firefighters that if you had to retire because you were ill with AIDS, it was presumed that you got it on the job. Also correctional officers. I think that was the bill where I first it came to the floor. 
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 ; Now these bills had even passed the assembly with Democrats where you would think they would be more enlightened and, it enraged me. And one of the bills said that if someone needed to be transported from a nursing home to a hospital or a hospital to a nursing home. The medical staff from the emergency services were entitled to have the patient tested for HIV and I really couldn't believe it. And actually, this senator was a pretty intelligent senator in this scheme, and I -- so I started debate and I was like what would be different? 0 1873 Work with Incarcerated Individuals / Creating a Rapport with the Other Side of the Aisle TD: So anyway. I've never thought of myself as a very good debater. But I could compete, I found out. And one time there was this bill that said that if someone who – oh they loved incarceration bills. My God, sex offenders, incarceration like all the time. Oh, they had to like -- what else, where else can we put a higher penalty or something, anyway. This bill said that if someone broke parole that they had to no matter what, serve out the entirety of their sentence. 
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 ; And the time, the New York prisons were overcrowded so they were letting people out earlier. People will get out early. If you got a 15 year sentence you could probably get out years before. But if you broke parole you would have to stay. So, I said to the Senate, well how many people would this impact? How many -- well of course he had no idea about that, but he should have. I would have, he had no idea. 0 2165 First Couple of Years in the Senate TD: So, that those first couple of years, a little bit of a blur I guess. And also we, the legislature was always unable to agree on a budget that the governor who then was Governor Pataki, a Republican. They could never agree on a budget. So we would be there all year long at least once a month, we would have to go up for a continuing resolution or sometimes we had to stay for a few days. And in retrospect, I think there was an awful lot of senators that had additional families there. And I think they liked staying there a while longer. 0 2310 September 11th Attack / Primary Day in New York City TD: So, in 2001 was the bombing of the Trade Center and that was in my district, and it was a Democratic primary day in New York City. And I had been out handing out cards for a candidate that I was supporting. And then a little before nine, someone sorta – someone relieved me at that location. 
 ; 
 ; So, I went back to my apartment to have a cup of coffee or whatever because she started six in the morning, when the polls open. And I was listening to the radio, and they said the plane had crashed in the trade center. And they said it was must have been just a small plane and then it was, no it’s a huge plane. And then I turned on the TV and so it was happening. And then I had a view ; I could look out my window and see it. And I really don’t quite know how to talk about it. 0 2860 Other Relationships Made during Time in Senate TD: And my district also has this museum, the Intrepid, it's an old battleship. And the executive director, who my gaydar, that meter was went off the rails with him, couldn't go high enough. He offered to me to offer to Senators to take a boat and go down and look at it from the river, so I did that. He was on my grudge list later on for other reasons, he did eventually come out, you're welcome, I'll tell you what it was. 0 3196 Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act (SONDA) TD: So, after my – so our terms are two years. So, my second term, I was determined to get SONDA to pass, which was Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act, I guess ; it was a gay rights bill. And, I was also determined to include gender identity and expression in it and the bill that passed the Assembly for many years, but it never passed the Senate, even without gender identity/expression. 0 3882 Work Improving Women and Children's Welfare TD: But this senator who was the county exec who did lock us all in because I asked that question, not of him, but of another senator. I asked him to come to New York with me. And I wanted to show him, -- Mayor Giuliani had this policy that if you were on public benefits, you had to work. So, there were, especially women with children who were going to school to try to -- because education is key. But maybe they're going to school at Manhattan Community College or Brooklyn Community College. But they were assigned to clean a park in the Bronx, and children go to school and doing it was impossible. It was impossible for them. And it made it so they just couldn't -- 0 4152 Other Work in the Senate TD: So that's the kinda -- those are the – he voted for hate crimes, he didn’t vote for SONDA. I was very upset about that. And then someone said to me, “Well did you ask him?” And I said [laughs] no because I thought -- it never occurred to me that he wouldn't vote for it. His daughter had a huge influence on him, and I don't think he asked her about SONDA, he asked her about hate crimes. He wasn't in office when marriage came up, but he said that she would have like [swipes hand]. 0 4663 Experiences with Addiction TD: I just hesitated because we haven't talked about this, but there's something very personal that happened with me when I went to Albany that I did. You can decide whether or not you want to use it, I'm fine with it. So I'm in recovery from drugs and alcohol for now 39 years, and I have issues of food and money and people. Not gambling except, I have no problem with slot machines or things like that. But anything involving skill, because I'm an ADHD, I would -- if It was poker or 21, I would never leave because I would have to think about it. 0 5138 Fighting against Abuses of Power TD: One of the bills that I fought very hard for was to make it possible for people who had been abused by persons in positions of authority. And this was not popular among my colleagues, and everyone thought it was, there were a lot of people who said, oh you're just anti-catholic. I'm like, no, and this isn't even just about that. It's about boy scout leaders and coaches and the person down the block, this is not particular, it's not not about them. 0 5976 Mental Health Parity (Timothy's Law) TD: So anyway, parity for mental health not to sell this. You know, when you're in the minority, you really have to can't do like a lot of bills. Because when I was in the majority, I just shoveled out bills for two years. I just, I passed more bills in the assembly health committee. So he couldn't get -- he couldn't keep up with me because –“We can’t pass because the Republicans won't do it”. Well, I was literally shoveling out these bills. 0 6208 Closing Remarks / Reflections
 ; TD: It was well, you know, well, I -- I went to a reunion. I took a picture of me holding this sign because it was three classes because of the pandemic and I left in ’75. I finished over two of my courses about class of ‘76, but it took me until ‘77 to complete those two courses. 0 MovingImage Thomas Duane recounts his time in the State Senate fighting for legislation like the Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act (SONDA) and Mental Health Parity (Timothy's Law), as well as his personal relationships with HIV and addiction. MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Senator Tom Duane to talk about his life and experiences as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This year our project has funding from ACLS, and Senator Duane and I are meeting on Lehigh's Campus because he came back for the reunion. THOMAS DUANE: My first one. MF: For which I'm so happy about, and today is June 12, 2022. So, before we begin the interview, I want to say first thank you for joining me today. And then I just want to go back through some consent questions which you already know, but I'll do them again, so do you consent to this interview today? TD: I do. MF: Do you consent to having the interview transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online and in other formats? TD: I do. MF: Do you consent to the LGBT Community Archive using your interview for educational purposes and other formats, and that could be in articles, on websites, and in presentations? TD: Entertainment too? MF: But you are entertaining. TD: [laughs] Yes, anything, it's an open book, I can send to it all, the only secrets I don't tell are the ones I don't remember. MF: Okay, [laughs] that's probably the same for me. And then do you understand that you'll have 30 days after I give you electronically the transcript of this interview to review it, to identify any parts that you would like to delete, or you could withdraw the whole interview from the project? TD: I wouldn't do that, but I do have to be honest, I did not read the other one yet. So, there's a part of me that's like, oh just let it go, but I responsibly, I probably should read it, so I'm sorry, I haven't done that. MF: You can let it go if you want or review it and just tell me what you wanna do with it. TD: I mean, it's nice to have my own copy of it too so. MF: I can also give you digital copies if you wanna share with family, so we'll talk more about that later. So we talked last time, I'm just gonna jump right in about all of your work with city council. And I'm curious if we could move to this sort of transition from city council and your movement into a state Senate. So I'm just gonna start with a basic question, how did that happen? Why were you interested in the Senate? Can you share a little bit of that story? TD: I had been in the city council for I guess six going on seven years, and my local state senator, a woman named Catherine Abate, was going to give up her seat to run for New York State attorney general. So, there was going to be an open state Senate seat, and it's great that I get to tell my own story. There had been a term limits referendum that won twice in New York City, but I had a few years left that I could have stayed in the city council. So, I just wanna say I did not run for the Senate because term limits were you know, because I love being on the city council, but there was an open state Senate seat. And so much of New York City is controlled by the state. If we passed and this happened -- recently the council passed a plastic bag ban. And because of the rivalry between then Mayor De Blasio and former Governor Cuomo put forward a bag to supersede the city plastic bag ban with different dates, just to, you know. And some of it has always been the case is that way in many states, but some of it was because of the fiscal crisis in the 70s. And at that time, New York City needed the state to help bail them out. Now, the state needs the city to bail it out all the time, but anyway. An open seat and my council district was wholly within it. And people said, why would you ever wanna be in the minority in the Senate, you can't get anything done? And I thought to myself, if you think you can't get anything done, you're not gonna get anything done, and I was like, I'm gonna get stuff done. So, a little outrage in that, right? But I thought that was such a poor attitude, and there had never been an openly gay member of the state Senate. There had been Deborah Glick was in the assembly from 1990, then I got elected in 1990 went to the council, but she was the only out legislator. And I thought it was important to have representation, and I knew that there would be other openly queer people coming into the council very soon, and there's always more work to do. But a number of things which we've talked about had happened and advancement had been made, so I ran for the Senate, and I was unopposed. So that was easy, and I raised money just in case because the best offense is a good defense. And Catherine, the person who I was gonna succeed, she said that they were all asking what's he like? What's he like? Because they knew I had been a member of Act Up, and she said, oh you'll see when he gets there. And so I had to hire staff there. So, I went up a little bit in advance with my then chief of staff to interview people. And there was a state Senator there, who I sort of bumped into as I was, sort of taking a tour around, who didn't wanna shake my hand. Now, it could have been because of HIV. Could also be that he just wasn't a very nice person. He wasn't shaking the hands of Democrats, but it was very off putting, and I was to find out that there was tremendous ignorance about HIV, really shocking. Because I've already sort of gone through it in the city council, and now from 1992, now in 1999 with a whole new group of people, I was gonna have to go through that. And also I'm sure they had all met gay people before, but they weren't on an equal footing, so that was different. And so off I went and I didn't know no better, so I just went. In fact, the first day I was there, I went over to the majority leader, Senator Joe Bruno, and I said, "Hi, I'm Tom Duane a new state Senator succeeding Catherine Abate," And I said "Senator Bruno, I'm hoping that you will restore domestic partner benefits to the state Senate". The reason I had to say that, that I needed to say it was important to say that was that former Governor Mario Cuomo had instituted domestic partnership for all state employees. And because the legislative branch is separate, they can create their own rules. So then Senate majority leader just let it go through, but Senator Bruno, when he became leader, eliminated it, domestic partner benefits. So, I never want to waste an opportunity, I requested that he reinstate it. Because it wasn't just for me, I didn't even have a domestic partner, but the employees, some of whom had already signed up for it, mostly Democrats. I'm not sure about the Republicans at that time, staff members, but it was grotesquely unfair. I think it was very good that I went in without a lot of preconceived notions. Except that I didn't know the Republicans ran the show, but there were some things I was unprepared for. One of them was that the Republicans treated the Democratic senators really badly and under-resourced us, and I could never understand why they were so nasty and mean. And I found -- what I realized was when the Republicans had been in the assembly, they're usually more than 100 Democrats and 50 Republicans. And the Democrats were terrible to the Republicans in the assembly. So the Republican assembly members, their life's ambition was to get into the Senate. And once they got there, they were determined to do back exactly what had been done to them. So I blame the assembly Democrats and their leadership for creating that kind of poisonous atmosphere. And since we have just gone through a new redistricting year in New York State, because the Democrats controlled the assembly, and the Republicans controlled the Senate. Democrats drew their own lines for their assembly districts, Republicans drew their lines. They made them as winnable as possible for their people, both of them. And then they would come together to draw the congressional lines, and they would protect the incumbents. And then there'd be two or three districts where it would be a toss up, where's a fair fight I guess. And the Republicans did everything to stay in power. The way the constitution reads, there's a certain formula by which -- or a range within which the number, the population can be for a Senate district. So many of the Republicans would have say, 270,000 people, I had 330,000 people in my district. So, they made their district smaller, they split up cities, they counted people who were incarcerated in their districts, so that was one of the ways they maintained power. Another way was they flipped Democrats in marginal districts promising them everything. And I was always happy when they lost to tell you the truth because it was greediness that made them, you know. Of course, people want things to resources to come into their district, but I don't think people vote, they should be voting on bringing home the bacon and as it were only. So, the other thing they did was they added an extra seat one year. That must have been the next redistricting year. [laughs] They just added another seat, so they did everything. And when I was still there, six Democrats became independent Democrats, and then started to vote with the Republicans, so they did everything to stay in power. And much later on, I did get to be in the majority for a couple of years, and I treated them like senators. But there was another council member who a couple of years later joined the Senate. We'd been colleagues in the city council he's a conservative Republican, but we liked each other, we worked well together. He wasn't mean to me, I wasn't mean to -- I wasn't mean to anybody by the way, I just found that ridiculous. And another person and I was really -- a Republican that I very much admired that was just a really, really good guy. His name is Senator Ray Meyer, and he represented the Utica area, and he had been a county executive, Oneida County. So, he hadn't been in the assembly, so he didn't have that hatred. And I actually got a bill passed through him. I have to say, when I talk about some of the things that got passed while I was there or maybe some budget things or policy changes. My name was never really on the documents, my name was never the lead sponsor on anything, my name wasn't even on anything. Many things that I fought for would be stuffed into a budget bill or put into some other bill where everything but the kitchen sink was put in there. Because the Republicans did not like the Democrats to ever be able to say I was the lead sponsor on whatever bill it was that was going through. Anyway, [coughs] one of the things that had languished in the Senate for a long time was hate crimes legislation. And I believe I talked about my history of -- I had been beaten up in the parking lot of a gay bar. And severely, it was more certainly -- I bruised ribs, bruised a little bit bloody, but the scary thing was I didn't know what they had a weapon or not. And I went to the hospital reported it to police, and they caught the perpetrators. And a couple weeks later, I called the local police department, and I said, what's happening with my case? And they switched me to the DA's office, and the DA said, they pled out on a misdemeanor. And I was shocked, because I didn't get to confront them, so to speak. And it's not that I wanted them to have a felony, but I wanted to be face-to-face with them. And anyway, so the bill languished for a long time in the legislature because the legislators of color in the assembly and in the Senate, would not remove sexual orientation from the bill. And because of that, the Republicans in the Senate would not pass it. So my first year, 1999, I gave a speech on the floor about what had happened to me and in great detail, which I don't talk about. I was -- this is the Hamptons, which I -- not exactly lovely, but I was visiting someone, it was a Thursday night, we're visiting some people. And I had driven, I probably borrowed a car from my parents or something to a disco as we had then and loud disco as they always are. And there weren't a lot of people there, so the parking lot wasn't very full or anything. But anyway, at a certain point, midnight, 1 o'clock or something, I had decided to leave and I left and I was walking towards my car. And the car pulled up and two of the people got out of the car and they said saying you fag, on and on with epithets, but menacingly. And then they started to hit me, punch me, kick me. And I had some, I guess training about this, I was afraid if I fought back, well maybe they'd pull out a knife or a gun then. So I protected my head as best as I could and I started yelling, but the music was so loud, no one inside could hear. And so they continued to do until someone finally came out and then they ran back to the car and they drove away. And, I was so upset, not only because I didn't get to confront them, but it was as if it never happened, because the state didn't collect data on hate crimes. And that's all I wanted, because I don't think you can really fight. I hate to say hate, because I don't think, the opposite of love isn't necessarily hate at all. But ignorance and intolerance and I guess an entitlement to beat up people that are different than you, or be violent towards them. Boy, think about the gun violence perpetrated today. But anyway, I gave a very, very impassioned speech on the floor about what had happened to me. And it was a really good speech, if I must say so myself, because I pulled it out. Anyway, there weren't cameras in those days in the Legislature. They didn't want cameras. So it's probably a transcript of it. But I say that they were in the City Council there's any film of me making these speeches that I made that were Tom Duane speeches, I call them. But a couple of the senators wept. There was a very conservative Republican senator, an older man who stood up and said we must do something about this. He voted against the bill, when it came up by the way. But in the moment, he was moved by it. And the next year and I think because I was on it, the legislation passed. It didn't have, I was not, my name wasn't anywhere on it, but your name doesn't have to be on something to be associated with something. And really whoever fights the hardest for something, I think is the person who's you know -- the legislation, if you passed the bill in, your name was the first name on the bill, you got a -- and the governor signed it, you would get this sort of frame thing. It was like a diorama of the signature of the governor, the bill, and then a fancy pen and it's framed with glass. It's like a box, and there would be legislators who had them all over their offices. Honestly, I mean, I really didn't care about that at all. I just wanted the bills passed, which was just funny. I'm happy for people that, -- and I'm saying this sincerely that it was something that they were proud of. And so they could hang up something that was, but people couldn't understand why I didn't care about that. So anyway, my name wasn't on it, but it passed. And it was interpreted to include gender identity and expression, fortunately because I hadn't written the bill. I had my own version of a bill, but that wasn't the one that got passed. And the only way the Republicans would pass it was if it increased penalties. And I again, that was not that important to me at all. But if it helps to get it passed then good. But it made the state division of criminal justice keep statistics on hate crimes from around the state. So I was very happy that, that was the case. And that was in my first two-year term in 2000. And, The other thing that happened before I got there-- [coughs] [coughs] This is allergies not COVID. [laughs] [coughs] Snapshot in time. So before shot person, they had these bills that for -- these past before I got there for police officers, state police firefighters that if you had to retire because you were ill with AIDS, it was presumed that you got it on the job. Also correctional officers. I think that was the bill where I first it came to the floor. Now these bills had even passed the assembly with Democrats where you would think they would be more enlightened and, it enraged me. And one of the bills said that if someone needed to be transported from a nursing home to a hospital or a hospital to a nursing home. The medical staff from the emergency services were entitled to have the patient tested for HIV and I really couldn't believe it. And actually, this senator was a pretty intelligent senator in this scheme, and I -- so I started debate and I was like what would be different? Like what would be different, would you ever go to a dentist that didn't wear? This is pre-AIDS, where they didn't wear protective gear. Would you ever be in a hospital where someone was not wearing a mask and washing their hands? I mean ridiculous. AIDS, HIV doesn't spread like that. And at one point you have to stand behind your seat, and you have to talk to the president of the Senate to keep everything civil. So through you Mr. President if I could ask the sponsor -- anyway. But at one point I moved over to hold the hand of another state Senator. And then when I reached for her hand, I moved away from my seat. And they started an -- arms started to come forward because they thought I was gonna hit the Senator whose bill it was, which I would never have done. But I didn't mind that they thought that, in fact the leader of the Democrats said, "oh yeah, Duane took out a couple of people when he was in the council". But I also, and I said this, this is I think what stopped these dreadful bills from happening. I said according to the New York State Department Health AIDS Institute there are only four ways that you can get HIV. Breast feeding, blood transfusions, sharing needles with an injection drug user, or unprotected oral, vaginal, or anal sex. And I think I was probably the first person to say something like that on the floor of the Senate. And the bills passed anyway, but eventually they stopped bringing these bills forward. I don't think they really understood, they just didn't want me to say that anymore. [laughs] I really think that's what it was, because they knew it was coming any time these bills came to the floor in the Senate. In fact, when I left I said and I just want to say one last time [LAUGH]. I got that unprotected oral, vaginal, or anal sex, again, unprotected -- anyway. This is 1999, 2000. And these bills were passing. And because I kind of made fun of these bills, there are other bills that unions wanted. It was sort of like a free giveaway to their members that wasn't getting an increase in their wages or other benefits, but sort of a freebie benefit that it would be presumed that you got HIV on the job. So their unions that came forward that were like the City University of New York guards, or taxi inspectors. And I shouldn't have, -- I wasn't making light of the professions or I was just pointing out how ridiculous this was. And it was particularly ridiculous, because I had fought to get the division of AIDS services bill passed. These bills made it so that if you retired because you had AIDS, you got to kept making three quarters of your salary and got your benefits etc etc. So which I'm in favor of, of course I'm in favor of that. By the way, no police officer, firefighter, or correction officer ever had AIDS. At least they didn't claim they did. So, but it was a benefit of throw away. And so I actually almost had a primary based on my questioning why a taxi inspector or college security officer would need to, why would we presumed that they got AIDS on the job. And because it implies you can get it through the air. And in New York and other places, people who, like someone who was in a correctional facility, if they spit at a correction officer, the correction officer was entitled to have that incarcerated person tested for HIV. And it didn't even actually have to be in the correctional facilities. It could happen just when you were with law enforcement in the outside world. That was something that people went to jail for that. For spitting or just absurd. But then at least this was, -- well I'm just thinking back on that. It was so shocking to me that people didn't get that in 1999 and 2000 that you couldn't casually contract HIV. Anyway, the candidate who was being put up against me didn't qualify for the ballot. So, I end up not having a primary and we became friendly. And I made peace with the union. I explained to them, look, I just think you need to prove that you got it on the job, then I'm fine with it. But I would say, what is the taxis, are they breastfeeding? Are they sharing needles? Are they having unprotected oral, vaginal, or anal sex? Like, what is in their job description is there that would make it so that they would contract HIV? I did eventually do a bill that was sort of an omnibus bill that said that, in order to get the benefit, you had to get basically a note from your doctor, that you got it on the job. Which maybe if you were a nurse or a doctor or a physician's assistant, in a commercial facility maybe, but still very unlikely. So, and then the other thing I did was I introduced a bill that said that if there's some sort of a dust up between incarcerated person and a correction officer that the incarcerated person was entitled to have the correction officer tested. Which of course was not in favor of either, was to make the point of how absurd it was. But I just, I remember saying that that bill got the emergency, I was like what would be different, what would be different? I mean, I could sort of understand if you would want to know before, though that's ridiculous also. Because you should always be wearing protective gear and people were already transporting people with HIV all over the place, all the time. Maybe that would make a little bit sense. But after the fact, and this was to come up again, by the way, in a sexual assault. If someone was accused of a sexual assault, they were subjected to mandatory testing. And first of all it's wrong because innocent till proven guilty. But also what you would immediately have to do is to give the person who's been assaulted the prophylactic drugs right away. Before you would even have the results of the test, that was the most important thing. And I did later on, as part of HIV/AIDS bill, get in that the state would pay for that. Because prior the victim would have to pay to have their prophylactic treatment and their testing being done. So it was just very very illogical, their approach and of course it also criminalized people with HIV. And in the same way that incarceration is not treated appropriately as often a mental health issue, they were mistreating HIV as well. And I hope they weren't doing it just to pander but I also hope or wish that they knew better. So anyway. I've never thought of myself as a very good debater. But I could compete, I found out. And one time there was this bill that said that if someone who -- oh they loved incarceration bills. My God, sex offenders, incarceration like all the time. Oh, they had to like -- what else, where else can we put a higher penalty or something, anyway. This bill said that if someone broke parole that they had to no matter what, serve out the entirety of their sentence. And the time, the New York prisons were overcrowded so they were letting people out earlier. People will get out early. If you got a 15 year sentence you could probably get out years before. But if you broke parole you would have to stay. So, I said to the Senate, well how many people would this impact? How many -- well of course he had no idea about that, but he should have. I would have, he had no idea. So, the senator that I like so much was actually the acting as the president of the Senate and he banged his gavel down. And he said we're locking the doors. He said we were all being punished. And we all had to stay locked in this [laughs] chamber and if you wanted to go to the bathroom you were escorted by a sergeant at arms. And I would like to be remembered as the person that made them close the doors. But I was remembered for asking if I could choose which sergeant would accompany me [laughs] the bathroom. I just didn't know that something -- in my -- as an elected official I have some, in that role I have some control over my blurting. But sometimes it just gets away [laughs]. So that got in the papers. Listen to me still now, I'm like [sighs deeply]. Like I -- But something else interesting happened with Senator Joe Bruno who changed rather dramatically. While I was there, but he liked me in the same way that Peter Vallone, and the council of conservative Catholic elected official maybe open their eyes. And one time he called me into his office and he said you're pretty smart, but sometimes your tongue is a little sharp. Because I would ask senators questions, Republican senators questions about their bills and they were so used to not being challenged and they were all one house bills or mostly of one house bills. So, they didn't pass the assembly, but they were so used to not having questions asked. They usually couldn't answer my questions and I was prepared for every bill that came up on the agenda with lots of questions, especially when I was gonna vote against it. And so he said your tongue is a little sharp, and what he was saying was "Don't make my guys look stupid". That's mean, he didn't say that's mean, but I have said that is being mean. So from then on -- by the way none of the Democrats picked up on this. They continued their questioning, I just would stand up and I would speak on the bill. I would just list all the reasons why I was opposed to it. I would -- I guess RBG, not that I'm comparing myself, but she always said that she would start off with what she thought the other side would say when arguing a case. And she would answer those questions first. So that's kinda what I did was I answered my own questions, that either would have tripped up the Republicans or would have maybe pointed out the absurdity of it. And I -- so I just spoke, but in a very polite manner. And then my relationship with the Republicans became much much much better. And so he gave me very good advice and I was very fond of him. Even though I believe he tried to entrap me later on, when he was in trouble with the feds over something. But he was senator of his word. And if he couldn't do something, he would say it's just not the time. But he would tell me he was honest about that and I appreciated that. So, that those first couple of years, a little bit of a blur I guess. And also we, the legislature was always unable to agree on a budget that the governor who then was Governor Pataki, a Republican. They could never agree on a budget. So we would be there all year long at least once a month, we would have to go up for a continuing resolution or sometimes we had to stay for a few days. And in retrospect, I think there was an awful lot of senators that had additional families there. And I think they liked staying there a while longer. And I also think that people that came from underserved neighborhoods, food deserts, etc. That they got some extra time than to do shopping and all that because I did. I bought my toilet paper and paper towels and because it was cheaper than Manhattan. Remember one time pulling -- I had a shopping cart in the trunk of my car and a senator said, "why do you have that shopping cart?" and I wanted to say to him "because I'm smart". But I explained to why I had it, so that I could buy bulk items more inexpensively not at Walmarts, but I did go to Kmarts and Targets. There was a huge target in Saratoga, it was like a Super Target. And unlike in New York City, everything's always picked over, the shelves were always full and pristine. I had to -- I was not chasing interns around their desk. And I was also unfortunately eating at receptions and then eating also. So I started to gain weight, which made me unhappy and I look -- and my exercise, it just disappeared. I just, worked all the time, and when I didn't work, I once a month I would go to Target once a month, TJ Maxx once a month or have to [laughs] parcel it out for these little adventures. And living like an American, unlike a New York City person. You know with cars, you throw it in the trunk ; I lived in my car. I still have that habit, snacks, beverages [laughs] in my car, an extra toothbrush, anyway. But we were there all year long. So, in 2001 was the bombing of the Trade Center and that was in my district, and it was a Democratic primary day in New York City. And I had been out handing out cards for a candidate that I was supporting. And then a little before nine, someone sorta -- someone relieved me at that location. So, I went back to my apartment to have a cup of coffee or whatever because she started six in the morning, when the polls open. And I was listening to the radio, and they said the plane had crashed in the Trade Center. And they said it was must have been just a small plane and then it was, no it's a huge plane. And then I turned on the TV and so it was happening. And then I had a view ; I could look out my window and see it. And I really don't quite know how to talk about it. And New Yorkers, you -- the only time we really talk about it is right around 9/11. Even though we all experienced it and it was terrible. I didn't know a lot of people that worked there. They're mostly people in financial services who lived in the suburbs, but I knew some of the law enforcement people. Some of my local firefighters, I knew Father Michael, who is sorta famous. Who was the chaplain to the firefighters, and gay. And probably should be canonized. There's a movement, but they probably won't because he was gay. He's a lovely man. I remember, you know I was in Chelsea, but at a certain point I saw the second tower go down. I was still in my apartment, but then I went out on the street and there were people just covered with 9/11 dust and there were phone booths or street phones in those days. There was no cell service because they were just too jammed or, so people were waiting [in] line to call their families to see that they were alive. One of the things that I did at one point was, and I don't know how we did it, but I got the other elected officials, we came together, we tried to reach out to as many people as we knew who lived down in Tribeca and Battery Park City in the financial district. And we, we sorta made a gathering in a city owned park. It was asphalt or basketball courts just above Canal Street. And it was very moving, because that was the first time that a lot of these people saw each other. And I guess it was a week later. Time is very-- I remember in the way day by day. In retrospect I wish kept a diary. But earlier the sound of the sirens. Of course there were no survivors. So there was but the police sirens and ambulances, fire trucks and just went on and on and they were posters up all over, just 8.5 by 11 printed out sheets. Have you seen this person all over Lower Manhattan? All over the Village, all over Chelsea? Have you seen this person? This person. It was really, really heartbreaking. I had, I would call a particular cousin of mine who lived in New Jersey. And she and her husband knew people in the Trade Center and asked me if I could help to find them, it was not finding anyone. And I heard an NPR announcer on the radio say a couple days later, she said it's another achingly beautiful day in New York City. Because it was every day was bright and sunny and cool and beautiful New York City days. And this terrible smell of this thing that was burning. And I went down there. And there were people, -- the Trade Center was so huge that the firefighters are just volunteers who were like digging through the rubble. They almost look like ants on an ant hill. That's how huge the footprint was, of how this had happened. And you could see, the particles in the air. And anyway I didn't -- it was a very stressful time. And we were called back to Albany. We hadn't done a budget yet. We didn't do a budget at all that year. We never got a budget done at all, kept going back all the time. But the first time, yeah, we went back in the same way that the US Congress passed the Patriot Act bills that only Barbara from the San Francisco area, for the Bay Area, Barbara Lee voted against them. We have been seeing similar kind of bills like roving wiretaps and I voted against all of them. I was the only one that voted against all them, a couple people had voted against like one or two of the bills. But I really, -- why are we restricting our freedom when allegedly what everyone is saying they hate us because we were a democracy and freedom. Which is debatable also, but why are we passing those to restrict people's rights? And the minority leader of the Senate made a speech about how the Trade Center was in his district and I know this isn't a -- yeah, not a big deal, but he did used to represent it, but in a redistricting year and the democratic leader, got to choose their own leader, their own district. Everybody else was just whatever the republicans gave them. So he had opted to not have the Trade Center to have more of Brooklyn in his district. And I was really furious about that, you could say I used to, I know people -- whatever and I was just shocked. And I didn't say anything, but I did lose my temper with him after. Ordinarily I wouldn't lose my temper about something like that, but it was a very difficult time and that primary day was canceled. The canidate I was supporting who had the momentum would have won the council seat and ended up not winning when they voted again. But the smell was still going on. That primary day, it was raining and, and so the smell was still there, but it was different. And I remember someone on his palm card, he was saying to me, can't you do something about that smell? And I was like, no I can't do anything about that. I was gonna say something else I think about the whole, that it was on primary day and so I ended up voting for the primary day that didn't count. The one that did count, then there was a runoff. I voted a lot that year, but we also went to Albany a lot that year, as I say, we never passed another budget. So, we just worked off the budget from the year before. And my district also has this museum, the Intrepid, it's an old battleship. And the executive director, who my gaydar, that meter was went off the rails with him, couldn't go high enough. He offered to me to offer to Senators to take a boat and go down and look at it from the river, so I did that. He was on my grudge list later on for other reasons, he did eventually come out, you're welcome, I'll tell you what it was. I think let's, we'll take a moment from the heaviness and I'll tell a lighter story, so he came out eventually. And, when Governor Paterson stepped in, when Governor Spitzer stepped down, there was an email exchange between Governor Paterson and this guy where he said, "I'll do everything, anything I can to help you, especially if you end up running against Andrew Cuomo," and he said, "because I'm a gay and I can be helpful and I'm a gay, but I'm not a gay like Tom Duane". Not a gay like Tom Duane. And I said, I have that, he deleted it. Probably not because of the, "I'm not a gay like Tom Duane," probably because it was an anti-Cuomo thing, and little did he know that actually Andrew Cuomo at some point just started to completely control what Governor Paterson, the worst governor New York City has ever had, was doing. So anyway, I'm not a gay like Tom Duane. And because I was a Senator, when marriage passed, because of my involvement, I got invited to some classy weddings. And I went to a couple of them, but I was invited to his wedding and I did not attend and I did not send a gift. And the other thing about him was that, I had a bad feeling when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were running for president and people would say to me, "Well you don't think Donald Trump could really win," and I would be like "I -- yeah, no I do," but people would freak out. So, I stopped saying it and I just said. [shurgs] But he was every news, TV news thing led off with him, every newspaper, there was something about him on the front page. And he was, as the president of Viacom said, he was paid a lot of money for the networks and for you know. And Americans are very -- I would say you know, TV is the beginning of social media and its evils. Because and especially by then there were all these other news stations that people were watching. But I was invited to her victory party which was very close to where I lived. It was at the New York convention center, and I lived just a few blocks from there and I didn't go, I just had a bad feeling. With the point of the story is, so this newly married couple were at Hillary's headquarters, when they realized that she lost, they walked over to the Trump headquarters and said whatever you want. And they got stuff. And a little later on I was walking down my block and it was fairly quiet day and they lived in a loft building just a half a block away from me. And there were all these cars parked, all these secret service looking and police cars, and I realized that they must be having some sort of a party or something. They were having a party for this Ambassador Grenell that was appointed one of the only openly gay people in Trump administration. Who was just a right wing, like he was sent to Germany too. Where he loved, the President of Austria. Loved all these despots and he was our-- Angela Merkel was like the beacon of the free world at the time, and that's where they sent him. So they were having a party for him. That's another point of that story. Maybe we'll come back to 9/11, but I am very upset still about those bills that got passed because they can be so misused. And we see on the federal level, I mean that everyone gets to see that. Everyone gets to see how those laws have been just used to do terrible things, and to really take away civil liberties. That the president can say we're at war without even going to Congress, if the president wants to. Unheard of in our democracy. So, after my -- so our terms are two years. So, my second term, I was determined to get SONDA to pass, which was Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act, I guess ; it was a gay rights bill. And, I was also determined to include gender identity and expression in it and the bill that passed the Assembly for many years, but it never passed the Senate, even without gender identity/expression. So, the assembly built didn't have that wording in it, and this is a case where money is poisoned politics. A lot of wealthy, New York, white guys started spreading money around. They made a deal with Governor Pataki that they would make no endorsement in the gubernatorial race if he would be supportive of SONDA passing. I guess Joe Bruno was on board. By the way, in the meantime, I got to meet and became a little bit friendly with Joe Bruno's gay brother. And, later on I did a couple of things where they weren't really getting along and I got them, I put -- got them sort of back together, speaking with each other. But I -- my bill included gender identity/expression. The bill that moved through the Assembly, that landed in the Senate did not have that in it. And I believed that the bill could pass that would not make any difference, if it includes gender identity, no vote, not one vote would change. Mostly people wouldn't even notice it was in there and if they did, they were gonna and there were no voters they were voting no anyway. And the yes people were not gonna not vote for it because it was in there. So I was very upset, and I went to Joe Bruno and I said we need to put this in because if we don't put it in, it's gonna be a decade before it can't -- it won't go on its own. And he said to me you have a point there and I think he would have done it. But these rich guys were too afraid that it might not pass, they didn't wanna have to, the assembly, have to pass the bill again with extra language in it. And so I put an amendment on the floor when the bill came up, something else terrible had happened. No, no, what is it? Well, but he was not a party, I'm telling you. I was playing chicken with the bill. I wouldn't commit to supporting it if it didn't include gender identity and expression, which is not. And Marty Connor, who had been our leader, was dethroned and David Paterson became the new minority leader and these three gay men asked if I would sort of make an introduction to him officially. And one of them was something I've known for many years. It had not been a perfect relationship, it was a political relationship. He represented real estate interests, but he also helped a lot of queer organizations. Then there was the head of the statewide LGBT Organization, it took me a minute to think of it. It's not just [inaudible], but I blocked it out, The Pride Agenda, it was called The Pride Agenda. It was -- I think they had like used a brand or something to come up with that name so that--anyway, just put the initials in. But anyway, The Pride Agenda. The head of The Pride Agenda and this other wealthy gay man, and on the way up, Ethan said to me, "Well, but if the bill comes up, will you vote for it?" I said, "Of course I'll vote for it, of course I will". And one of them went to the press to the New York Times and they called me and asked me, so it made me look like a liar. I was so upset, like why did they do --? It was terrible, I was very -- I knew it was a tactic, Of course I would vote for it, but I did put an amendment on the floor. Most of the democrats voted for it, but I was very angry. I knew it was going to pass anyway, there was no, it was going to pass. The deal had been made, the deal had been cut. So I said, I think some angry words about people that didn't wanna put gender identity and expression. And when the celebration afterwards, there were some people that wouldn't shake my hand, you know congratula -- Mind you, I was the one that you know -- I was the only Sen -- I like -- hate crimes. My name was not on the bill, but there was no doubt, that I was pushing it the force behind it, yeah, other people wanted it, but I was annoying about it. And then one of them started to call my campaign donors and told them not to give me money anymore. It's all right, there were enough people in the world that I could raise enough money to keep going. But I just thought that was -- because for as long as I can remember, I had been, I'm passionate about the rights of people who we would, now say non-binary, regardless of their gender identity/expression. It was just something I always, I don't know I can't imagine any other -- feeling any other way. And so I was really upset. It took 20 years, not 10 years. It took 20 years to get it passed. And there was something wonderful that happened. I was out of the Senate, and it got passed when Governor Cuomo was governor and he was signing at the LGBT center. And I had stuff with Governor Cuomo prior to this which I'll probably talk to you about. A lot because he broke my heart. Anyway the Executive Director Glenda Tessa, who I love, of the center was making introduction to assembly members. And senator so and so, and council member, borough president. And then our own former New York State Senator Tom Duane and they're like, [inaudible] gave me a standing ovation. And even though I couldn't get it passed, they knew how much I fought to try to make it happen. I'm very grateful for that. All right let's move out of this. So then when the governor with whom I'd had stuff with and had not spoken to me at all for years, he saw the reaction so he couldn't not say something. So he said "I know Tom Duane. We go way back, you know my father had AIDS." and I thought -- because I'll tell you there'll be more -- this big relationship, and non-relationship with Andrew Cuomo and I was a supporter of his father's. What about us? But anyway when they do the ceremony thing and he does a letter. And he gives a pen away as he's signing his name and somebody go up there and get a pen. So I went up and I got a pen from him and as I was walking away, he turned and he said, "Are we okay?" I said "Yes governor, we're okay". I had to forgive him. I didn't know about all the stuff that was to come out afterwards. But at that time, I forgave him for the way he had treated me really after marriage passed in New York. But sometimes say for some elected officials, it's just business and I know that and I wouldn't take things personally. But I work better with people that had a core, even if they were for the death penalty or they're anti. If this was something, well then we could talk about it. But if someone's just doing it because they were pandering or afraid for their district. They're not gonna change their mind if they already know better. The fact when marriage passed, there were many Republicans hugging and kissing me who hadn't voted for because they were afraid to. But they were so happy that it passed. And so a whole other story with the governor to wanting to make the 11 o'clock news. I kinda have lost my place in the world now. SONDA, everyone mad at me. You know later on when I was in the majority I passed our safe schools act. It was called the Dignity for All Students Act which I couldn't get passed when I was in the minority unfortunately. But it included gender identity and expression, and no one said a word about it. The couple of people who were voting against it were voting against it anyway. And just to prove my point that it really -- not a story except for the people who were impacted or wouldn't be held by anyway. So my second term was SONDA. Now it sounds like that's all, [laughs] I didn't only do queer stuff. I did a lot of other stuff too. I used to say I spent 85% of my time doing you know, when I get 15% of press for it. The 15%, I just spend it on queer stuff. I get 85% [laughs] of my press on that. But this senator who was the county exec who did lock us all in because I asked that question, not of him, but of another senator. I asked him to come to New York with me. And I wanted to show him, -- Mayor Giuliani had this policy that if you were on public benefits, you had to work. So, there were, especially women with children who were going to school to try to -- because education is key. But maybe they're going to school at Manhattan Community College or Brooklyn Community College. But they were assigned to clean a park in the Bronx, and children go to school and doing it was impossible. It was impossible for them. And it made it so they just couldn't -- I used to see women they jump, they run into McDonald's on the way to their classes at Manhattan Community College. And I guess they must have asked a family member to watch their children or something like that. So, how anxious they were to have a better life. But there was a program -- so Mayor Giuliani said they have to go work in par -- not even with working in parks or anything of course. But not because you're poor and you need money to get by on. And mothers would make the best choice. Sometimes they wouldn't make money so they could keep the whole family on Medicaid. Otherwise, they would lose their benefits, they'd lose their food stamps, they'd lose their rental assistance. So they were kinda trapped. But going to school, which is work would not have threatened their remaining having benefits for the family while they went to school. Anyway, I asked Senator Mayer to come to New York because I knew he would understand this. And I brought him to -- there's a group at Hunter College Welfare Rights [Initiative] that really got me engaged in this issue. So we visited with them, we went to Bronx Community College, we went to Hunter, we went to private university as well. And also, we had a meeting with this group called the New York [City] Partnership which is the umbrella group for New York business people. And he was very engaged in what was going on and what people were saying. And when we met with the partnership people, they said look, nothing wrong with cleaning parks, but work study and internship is giving people skills for jobs that we actually have and wanna fill. So, they were very supportive of it. And I remember Senator Mayer saying, are these real jobs? And they are real jobs. They got real jobs, challenging jobs, important jobs. But work that does help to move along in your work life and your career. And he said at what point, "Well aren't we like giving them an extra advantage? What about Joe at the gas station?" Well Joe he can go to community college that's-- but we're making it impossible. So he said, so are we giving this special treatment? I said no we're just not holding them back. And it was like a light, and then he really really got it. And he liked it so much that he started a program up in his district, up in Oneida. And I met the people who were running it and of course they were lesbians. I don't know if he knew [laughs] but yeah, my gaydar was off the charts. But that was thrilling that he liked it so much and he believed. So he was a conservative Republican, but he believed that government actually could help people because he was county exec. Not a mistreated Republican assembly member and he brought it to his county because it really helped people. So that's the kinda -- those are the -- he voted for hate crimes, he didn't vote for SONDA. I was very upset about that. And then someone said to me, "Well did you ask him?" And I said [laughs] no because I thought -- it never occurred to me that he wouldn't vote for it. His daughter had a huge influence on him, and I don't think he asked her about SONDA, he asked her about hate crimes. He wasn't in office when marriage came up, but he said that she would have like [swipes hand]. But there's a whole story about who convinced senators to vote for marriage. And often times it was the spouse, and the family, the kids. In fact, there was this show on Showtime about first ladies and for years and years I said to people -- because Barack Obama, he was in favor of marriage equality when he was a Senate, state senator in Illinois. He checked the box with the gay organization you know, the political group asked a question. But then he backed off when he was running for president. But I said, I'm sure there was some morning when Michelle said "Barack, me and Malia and Sasha. We are not gonna talk to you until you come out in favor of this and on this." You know it's fiction. But it's a very similar saying that it's exactly the way it was with Michelle Obama saying, one of the kids, you know. Not understanding, how could you not vote for civil rights. How could you not be for this? It was a very similar situation. So I know what's going on the White House and I always thought Joe Brun -- I'm sorry, Joe Biden just blurted out that he was for marriage. This television fictional makes it seem as if he was sort of-- that Michelle went to him and asked him to do it. Who knows what really happened. Anyway. Because who doesn't love Michelle Obama, who would never run for president, but I would vote for her in a heartbeat. After 9/11, similar to how veterans got special benefits in New York State, different tax breaks. And also, the spouses of police officers and firefighters who died in the line of duty. I'm applying men, mostly men. That a whole other story of women fighting to get into the fire department particularly. But there are a lot of bills that gave benefits to spouses. And the senator who was the chair of the committee, was the codes committee, that the bills would go through before they came to the floor. He was very conservative. He was very much in favor of the death penalty. I believe he was a former state trooper, and he was a lovely man, and a gentleman, and would listen to critique. So, for instance, there'd be a bill about something having to do with sexual assault, but it never made it never made a differentiation. That's not the right word, but. An 18 year old, and a 16 year old or a 15 year old, is different than a 40 year old, and a 13 year old, but the laws never would make any -- there was no delineating in any way. And when I raised that with him, he -- it gave him pause for thought, and he started to modify the bills a little bit when he could. So, I was happy about that because I knew kids, you know, [inaudible] kids that -- stories like -- this one boy was having a relationship with another boy who was -- one was 18, the other one was 15, lived with his grandmother and his grandmother turned in the 18 year old. He went to Rikers, he went to serve time and get on the sex offenders list. And the level of the sex offender list that you get with the 1, 2, or 3, it depends on how much money you have and what lawyer you have. There is no -- and in New York City, it's impossible to not live near a school, it's impossible. And they're not allowed to live in public housing. And believe me, I do know something about sex offenders and some can go into remission and not reoffend, but you kind of never know. So, a sex offender should never be in a room with a child alone ever. And if they are then it's trouble. But there are ways that people can not reoffend. In fact, I visited a New York State correctional facilities where they had a program for sex offenders. And I was very prepared to think it was not going to be a good program. And in this particular facility, which was run by a woman, it was in Oneida actually, was really, really good. And I got to see the men who first arrived and first started the program and the denial they had about what their offense had been. And then I got to see a group that was ready to finish, and about how they took responsibility for what they had done and new tools to use to help them to not reoffend. But they were all concerned about getting jobs and a place to live when they got out. And the other interesting thing was none of them were victimized when they went back into general population and their other facilities if they had been through this program. There was another program which I didn't get to visit, which I heard wasn't that good, but I was very, very impressed. And it's an area that I know about, and I'll probably talk about. The other thing that I did was I would vote for these bills that gave benefits to the spouses of people who were killed in 9/11 [coughs]. And now of course it's also people, the long term effects of the spouses. But I said, look, I'm voting for the bill, but next year could you add domestic partner in? And he said yes, just don't tell anyone else. I was like fine with me. So there are a lot of things that I made no noise about, but I just got it done. I mean, they had money for HIV/AIDS that came from the federal government. They don't know what to do with it, so they would give it to me to help them to give it around the state where I knew groups, but they would give me money to give away. So, I recall when I say, "Someone is gonna call you and they're gonna tell you how to get $100,000. It's gonna come to you from the state, but do not thank me, just do whatever they say". The Republi -- really all but one liked me, but nobody liked him either. And anyway, so I was able to do things quietly and that was fine. I just wanted to get things done. And by the way, the SONDA, the gay rights bill, my name was not on that bill. It wasn't my bill, but a Republican was the lead sponser. There were no Democrats on the bill. It was always given to a moderate Republican to make them seem moderate, that they with the lead sponsor of these bills. Didn't always help them, but just a funny way to do business, very un-senatorial. I just hesitated because we haven't talked about this, but there's something very personal that happened with me when I went to Albany that I did. You can decide whether or not you want to use it, I'm fine with it. So I'm in recovery from drugs and alcohol for now 39 years, and I have issues of food and money and people. Not gambling except, I have no problem with slot machines or things like that. But anything involving skill, because I'm an ADHD, I would -- if It was poker or 21, I would never leave because I would have to think about it. And I know that because I'd never been to the track before, and Saratoga is a big, you know. They have trotters and we all went on a trip there all the senators and a couple of them knew how to read the score cards. What race is the horse in, they knew who the jockey was, what was the place where they had competed before. And they explained it all to me and I went and I bet and I won, I won and I won, and I placed and I won and I won. I was anxious they weren't gonna get -- because they came to the tables that they were going to get there in time and I didn't want to leave. And as I went out I said, I must never come here again [laughs]. So gambling fortunately, I mean there's no skill involved buying lottery tickets fortunately [laughs]. I guess they share their strategies with those cards to see whether or not they won or not. Anyway, I am also a recovering sex addict, sex and love addict, romantic obsessive, but I'm a garden variety sex addict. When I got elected to the Senate, I said to myself, I don't want to take this with me, I don't want to take this with me. And so I went to a five day outpatient program and I learned a lot, and was able to not completely recover, but it was, let's say harm reduction was much better night, so to go to 12 step meetings. And then I went to, it was my first week in Albany, my staff person, my counsel Mark, who I just love and miss. So, the first week I have to say, I won't be here next week because I'm going to a five day workshop on sex addiction because I'm a sex addict. Anyway, yeah, he went along fine. But that summer, that September, I went to a two week program in Los Angeles and when I finished that program, I never -- I've been sexually sober since then. And sometimes with anorexia, they went from being not an anorexic to being anorexic. But the people at this place when I was talking about what happened in the correctional facility. The place that I went to, they had all trained in the hospital in California called Delano. And there are two tracks in Delano, one was for sex offenders, and one was for garden variety. And at one point they just said, "We're only gonna do sex offenders, so the garden variety people had to go someplace else". And so they started this institute where they also trained therapists, so that's where I went. But they were very tough, you had to say the things that -- I mean, I did not -- my behaviors were not particularly offender behavior. I did have sex with people, but I always used condoms, which of course laws often don't differentiate between [inaudible]. But I was very rigidly since 1983 about safe sex with anyone I had sex with. Anyway, one of the groups, there were just three of us. They were very small, and the place was just starting out, so it was affordable. But there was a man there who molested some of his children and some of his grandchildren. And I have a history of abuse in my family. And he got to hear from me, the impact it had on me, but I also heard his story and his grandfather had molested him. So hopefully he would break the chain, anyway. But the good thing was I was in Albany and I would go to anonymous drugs and alcohol meetings, and I would go to anonymous help group, to help, to say recovery from my sex addiction. And they didn't know who I was, which was great because most of the meetings in New York City, many of them are at the center where people would-- So I was anonymous and it was great. It wasn't until much later on that they found out. And being a senator from Upstate is a much bigger thing than New York City because they would say, "You're a senator like Joe Bruno?" But anyway, they did not know, and I didn't say what I did for work and it was great. The good thing about going to this place was when I left there, the shame that I'd been feeling my whole life lifted, and I realized that I had been living my whole life with carrying this burden of shame that I didn't realize I had until I didn't have it. So right now what's happening is I'm feeling shame because I'm talking about this at all. There's nothing to be ashamed of, there's no reason, but it's a physical thing, it starts here goes up and my face turns a little bit red, and I can feel that I'm having a shame attack, but there's nothing I said to be -- and I'm glad I know that so I'm not carrying that burden. It was such a great burden to be able to unload, you know because-- anyway. So that's why I -- when I went to the correction facility with the people that had been offenders, I kind of had a lot of knowledge about it. It became very -- actually, I thought I might go into the field when I left office. I haven't, but I might still someday. But anyway, it was a great place to recover. And then when I was in New York City I didn't care who saw me go into whatever room. If they saw me they saw me, they didn't, you know what I mean, maybe it was meant to be that way and it's a disease. And I don't know why I was too ashamed to go for such a long time and I was in other groups where people are anonymous. So, I mean who else is there, the same anonymous people. Who are they going to say -- So I don't know why I wasn't able to do it sooner, but I was able to do it when I was able to do it, and I was very glad about that. One of the bills that I fought very hard for was to make it possible for people who had been abused by persons in positions of authority. And this was not popular among my colleagues, and everyone thought it was, there were a lot of people who said, oh you're just anti catholic. I'm like, no, and this isn't even just about that. It's about boy scout leaders and coaches and the person down the block, this is not particular, it's not not about them. I think it does make you crazy and saying, Well, this has bankrupted a lot of diocese. No, they go into bankruptcy on purpose to delay having to give depositions and things. It's a tactic, they transfer the money to a high school or a cemetery, that's how they say it's their bankrupt. They don't go bankrupt because they're paying anything out there, they're delaying that. So since then, New York, they actually did pass it, and I'm really happy about that. But then it was a huge celebration, my God, I was like, -- everybody hated me, but they're all these heroes. Again, I am thrilled that it passed and it gives you a year window opportunity. I don't know actually what my bill said from the time that you reasonably could have recovered the memory. So like a therapist would have to certify sort of, that you recovered the memory and it was for a year from then that you were able to take some action. And it was very important bill, and it did get me on the O'Reilly Factor. Bill O'Reilly, who I was eligible to be yelled at by him. And it's funny because at the time, the irony, that I was on the show about positions, people in positions of authority misusing it with power and sexual inappropriateness. But he sits higher than you do. And then I said, yeah, your eyes is so much bluer in person than in TV, which kind of threw him off his game. So in that one he said, "Well, I agree with you, but some would say you're only doing this because," -- like I said, "Well, then you did just say that". And you'd be surprised at the number of people who I didn't think would be Fox News watchers that actually said, I saw you on TV. I went on something else against the first Iraq war and I signed some advertisement, a full page in the newspaper. Remember newspapers, full page in the newspaper, and there was something in it that said something about Nazis and if I had seen that, I wouldn't have signed it. So anyway, I went on his show because I was opposed to the first Iraq War, and he said "What, why did you sign that letter?" And I literally said, "I don't know, why did I sign that letter?" An then he got a little bit thrown off, and the guy who he had on who was very opposed to this group that was the anti-Iraq War was like a wacko. And so I seem perfectly normal so that went pretty well. But I did notice some things, in Fox there were attractive women in knit dresses, and they seem sort of important, and I would introduce myself, and I didn't know their names and they were very annoyed that I didn't know their names. Because many of the women political experts are very attractive women which was then is still the case. But one of the shows with O'Riley, I heard that this very low level employee, it was her birthday. So, Bill wanted a cup of coffee. So she came on the set with a cup of coffee and I said, "Bill, it's her birthday today". So what could he? He didn't even know she existed. His coffee appeared cause he wanted it, but he made him say, happy birthday [laughs]. And I was asked to go on another time, and I didn't know why the producer was hysterical that I wouldn't go, and she really wanted me to go. And it turns out she was the woman that came forward, that had been horribly harassed ; the last one in a long line of harassers. So that's why she was so -- and I don't know, there's a certain energy that people who have been victims have that I can tell. And they would often come to discuss some issue. Not that issue but I knew what they really wanted to do was talk about that issue. But the other thing is that New York just passed a bill, adult survivors of sexual abuse by persons in positions of authority. And when I first went to the Senate, all the assembly members in the Senate went to Albany Medical Center to get a physical. I was like, why are we getting special treatment? I thought, why doesn't everyone get a physical? Well, I found out because senators and so many people were not necessarily dropping dead in their seats, but there's a lot of older people, but they wanted to have everyone's medical records in case they had to be brought there for treatment while they were in Albany. So I went to get my physical assessment and everything and talk about, yeah, you know all the things. Mental health, HIV, the list goes on and on, HPV. So, I am sitting on the examining table with the doctor and telling him my health history and all of a sudden, I felt an erect penis pushing up against me and I did exactly what textbook, I made believe it wasn't happening. I just -- like it couldn't be happening, but it was happening. And when I went back to my office, I immediately told my council about it. So, I did tell someone right away and then I raised it in therapy, in a group therapy, I brought it up. And then when I left office, I was on the board of the anti-violence project but nearly at a fundraiser for them, I might tell a story about what happened in the parking lot at the gay bar and at this particular fundraiser, I started to tell that story and I said, wait, I wanna tell you a different story. And I told that story, and the executive director -- and I said, I've always regretted that I didn't go up and confront him because I'm sure he's doing it to other people and it escalates. And I didn't do it, so shame on me. Anyway, she said, I'll go with you. So when this bill passed, I called her, she's [inaudible]. I said, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go do it, I'll do it publicly because I can, because anything that I could be shamed about and that I might even feel shamed about, my way to deal with it is to just yell it out kind of. And then other people, I feel like it might give them courage too to do it and why can't I -- I'm able to do it. I'm very grateful for that gift. And so of course I don't talk about my addictions. [laughs] Of course it's on film for the world, but I'm very selective about who I tell, and sometimes I tell someone that I think needs to hear it. So not only do I recruit people to be open about their queerness, but I sometimes recruit people who I think they need the help of a support group to deal with an addiction problem. So that's very important. That said, so I've moved twice since then, and I kept his name and the papers and I knew exactly where they were. And in the most recent move, I had no idea what boxes they were in. This move was a very bad experience in the middle of the pandemic. And I looked and I looked, and I finally found it. And so I know, now I have his name and he's still in Albany and he's still practicing so I can still -- I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. Whether I'm gonna go see him first. I don't know what I'm gonna do. But I'm gonna do something with it because -- this is the other thing, Republicans didn't let Democrats have hearings, but they let me have forums, which for all intents and purposes were exactly like hearings. They filmed them and witnesses, just no other senators would ever go to them because there was controversial topics. One of them was on survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and story after story after story. And yeah, this is not absolutely true, but it's sort of a kind of thing, that men are so angry and would yell at me, why isn't this bill passed? And the women would usually weep. And as an anger and a sadness, two of my big emotions, I understand that. But it turned out also my counsel Mark had been the victim, he recovered the memory, he was the victim, horribly victimized by a priest, horrible. Like taken away to a cabin with other boys, and they would all be afraid he was gonna have them sleep with him, and he would take them to porn stores, just terrible, terrible. And he's so bad that he was defrocked before it was being done, but it was very rough for Mark to deal with it. And the gift is that because he was there, he helped me a lot to have these things because these stories needed to be told. But he went to the priest to the cemetery where he was buried, and he was standing by his grave and his nose started to bleed and he never had a nosebleed before. So anyway, the democratic assembly member who carried my bill with the one year window of opportunity to report in addition to going forward, her son had been a victim of abuse. So now interestingly she had a daughter who was a lesbian, but she was against marriage. Anyway, but she kept weakening the bill and weakening the bill, and she was very upset. She'd come to the me and I would say, "Did they tell you it would pass if you weakened it?" And she said, "no," so I said, "Why are you weakening it?" Maybe if something was gonna pass. Because it's a whole story about how parity for mental health got passed, which I may rush through later on but I said, "Marge, why are you doing that?" And the most vocal opponent in the assembly who, I'm Pollyanna, I never think anyone's ever doing anything wrong. He turned out he was horrible, everybody who had worked for him, he had to not run for re-election. He was --nand then I realized why they were all opposed to it, because of the statute of limitations. If you eliminated that for this crime. There were so many of these guys, maybe women too, but guys that were liable to be -- and that's why they were blocking it. And I also think, spoiling my book, that marriage, when marriage finally did pass. I believe that Governor Cuomo went to the cardinal and said to the cardinal, you know what you let marriage pass, I'll never let this bill go through. And conveniently the cardinal was out of town when marriage passed and the bill went nowhere until in the Senate the Democrats had a majority large enough so that even if the governor vetoed it, they could override his veto and that's how it got done. No, I don't know that's true. Like I don't know that Michelle Obama at the breakfast table story is true, but I believe that that was that he made that deal. So anyway, parity for mental health not to sell this. You know, when you're in the minority, you really have to can't do like a lot of bills. Because when I was in the majority, I just shoveled out bills for two years. I just, I passed more bills in the assembly health committee. So he couldn't get -- he couldn't keep up with me because --"We can't pass because the Republicans won't do it". Well, I was literally shoveling out these bills. Anyway, I'm still a minority and I wanted parity for mental health and in New York was called Timothy's Law And every day on the floor of the Senate, you know, there'd be like 10, 20 pieces of legislation that we would vote on and my council and I we always we did our homework, and I knew what I was gonna vote yes and no on and why. But I would pick out one bill, and make it about Timothy's Law because it had to be germane to the issue at hand what the bill was addressing. So say it was a veterans bill, I would stand up and I would say, you know, "Veterans, they deserve respect and of course we should provide this benefit. But you know, when a veteran passes away in the line of duty, people in the family are very sad and they can get depressed, but unfortunately they can't get any help because we haven't passed Timothy's Law". And it became like a guessing game, people try to guess which bill it was. I was gonna do that on, and usually it wasn't the one they thought, but I did that every day, every, every day that I was there, I did it and finally it passed, and it just didn't have enough behavioral health and didn't have substance abuse treatment, that was to come later. But at least it had parity for general mental health and as a consumer, although my insurance did cover it, but not all insurance covered it. So anyway, he had a press conference and he invited me to it. And never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever did the Republicans when the bill passed, invited a Democrat to stand with them. And I was invited with three other -- well Joe Bruno and three other Republican senators who ostensibly where, you know, the powers that wanted the bill passed, and there was me. And he really had to, you know, he, he said thanks to Tom Duane basically. Not thanks to Tom Duane being so annoying, but you know it worked. And that's how I got things done and all that, I just did things differently. You know, I just -- I would figure out some way to get it done and that was a good one, and it got the job done so. MF: Well I wonder if that's not a good place to stop for today-- TD: For all of our mental health. MF: I just also love that story because it really shows your tenacity. TD: Nothing if not. Some would say stubborn, I would say dogged, determined, and tenacious. Yes, thank you. It's sometimes stubborn. MF: Well, that's a good quality too. Well, I just want to say thank you again for meeting with me and hopefully we can do this again and talk a little bit about marriage. Yes, because it's a tragedy and a cele --, it's everything. MF: It's a big story. TD: And it's Andrew Cuomo too. It's got everything. MF: Well we have to do another one of these. So thank you again. TD: It was well, you know, well, I -- I went to a reunion. I took a picture of me holding this sign because it was three classes because of the pandemic and I left in '75. I finished over two of my courses about class of '76, but it took me until '77 to complete those two courses. So, it was perfect for me, and I was a griffin, so, I did know students from '77, which was the thing, I think I love being in griffin, which is a residence hall counselor. I really loved that that duty or whatever -- wasn't -- didn't feel like work. Let's just say that. It was, it was great. But I did feel out of place in the beginning and then, you know, as I did in the Senate, I just, I just made it comfortable in my own way. I made it comfortable, and a lot of it was about revealing things about myself which sort of opened the door for them to reveal things too. So I may come back to some more reunions. MF: If you do you should -- I hope you'll call me. TD: Oh 100% yes. Are you kidding? Yes, absolutely. Well, I did talk about you, I said I'm here to do an interview with Mary Foltz. I said, I can't believe it. She's a lesbian feminist and gender studies in the English department and she has tenure. Because when I asked if you had tenure, and you said, "yes I have tenure," I almost fell out of my seat. I couldn't -- at Lehigh, what? So, but it's not a bit -- I mean they're better, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done here, well everywhere. But you know, it starts from the conservatives. But anyway, I had my picture taking holding the sign, and then I -- the President was watching the whole thing. So I did -- I nod and walked over to him, and I said, "Can I have a picture with you?" Because my older brother is very active in the alumni association, and he was on the board here. And if he goes around, you know, there's a traveling show with other graduates to help alumni to loosen up their checkbooks. And so, I made sure that I had that picture and I sent them to him just to prove that I was here because I had never come before. Maybe Lehigh/Lafayette game from time to time back -- I told you in '85 I think when the Ethan Felson tried to start something but-- and I didn't come for the game, I came to be [inaudible]. Like you want to go to the Lehigh/Lafayette game. Yes, absolutely. So anyway-- MF: Well, we will schedule another interview, and again, thank you so much. So glad that you came to visit us at Lehigh. TD: [goes to shake hands] We'd better do that first right. Remember gloves? 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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Thomas Duane, June 12, 2022 (Part 4)
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Thomas Duane recounts his time in the State Senate fighting for legislation like the Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act (SONDA) and Mental Health Parity (Timothy's Law), as well as his personal relationships with HIV and addiction.
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LGBT-36
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2022-06-12
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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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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Mary Foltz
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Thomas Duane
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5.4 February 17, 2022 Thomas Duane, February 17, 2022 (Part 1) LGBT-22 1:52:55 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Thomas Duane Mary Foltz video/mp4 DuaneThomas_20220217_video_trimmed.mp4 1.0:|27(15)|46(10)|79(14)|106(3)|123(2)|140(5)|159(5)|176(2)|197(2)|218(17)|239(7)|262(5)|279(15)|292(13)|311(10)|330(11)|351(14)|372(12)|391(14)|416(7)|439(16)|460(4)|489(13)|506(5)|527(4)|546(11)|565(10)|586(11)|611(7)|630(16)|651(8)|670(9)|691(10)|710(7)|727(13)|752(13)|773(16)|790(14)|811(16)|834(8)|859(10)|876(3)|891(15)|908(16)|933(4)|956(14)|971(3)|988(9)|1003(14)|1022(10)|1043(4)|1064(9)|1087(12)|1104(9)|1119(6)|1142(14)|1165(7)|1190(11)|1207(11)|1232(10)|1251(12)|1272(15)|1295(7)|1318(15)|1335(6)|1352(13)|1369(16)|1388(2)|1405(11)|1428(5)|1449(8)|1462(4)|1485(12)|1500(9)|1521(3)|1540(6)|1557(13)|1580(10)|1603(7)|1626(7)|1645(18)|1666(10)|1685(16)|1708(13)|1727(11)|1746(13)|1769(9)|1790(5)|1807(9)|1824(8)|1841(14)|1860(4)|1875(10)|1896(13)|1921(16)|1940(14)|1969(3)|1990(3)|2011(9)|2028(10)|2055(5)|2074(8)|2093(2)|2114(9)|2133(5)|2154(12)|2177(13)|2208(11)|2225(14)|2256(16)|2279(16)|2306(12)|2325(12) 0 https://youtu.be/zRHi6rmXYA0 YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I’m here with Senator Thomas K. Duane to talk about his life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley and beyond -- including New York, importantly -- as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This year our project has funding from ACLS and we are meeting today at the Senator’s office in Manhattan on February 17th, 2022. So, thank you so much for your willingness to speak to me today.
 ; 
 ; THOMAS DUANE: It’s a pleasure and I’m glad that -- I think I’m the more difficult person to tie down but I’m glad we were all able to get tied down together. I’m very happy to be here and talk. 0 221 Early Years of Life / Catholic School Days TD: I was actually born in a hospital in Chelsea, a French hospital. It’s now affordable housing, so I’m happy about that. But it was a hospital, and it had the maternity wing. I only say that because when I ran for office, I could truthfully say I was born in Chelsea. But my parents at the time lived in Queens, in an apartment that my aunt had formerly lived in. But I was the cause of them moving to Flushing. 0 1261 High School / Early Explorations with Sexuality TD: So, I went to an all-gay high school -- no, it was an all-boys high school. Actually, my freshman year, there was a student, Richard Sullivan, who I think he was more sophisticated and more worldly than I was. I think he had a girlfriend, like a real girlfriend, in his freshman year. But he knew there was something different about me, and I knew there was something different about me. 0 1638 College Prospects / Early Experiences with Politics TD: I remember one of the reasons I came home from having had left home when I was an adolescent was that I was like, “If I can just make it to going away to college, then I’ll get out of here, and so I better go back so I can leave.” And I applied to a bunch of different schools. Some, I think, were reaches. One, I applied to Dartmouth. I didn’t go up to the school to have an interview but I was interviewed by the alumni in an office building in Midtown Manhattan and I got on the elevator to go to the interview and the elevator started to go, and it dropped 30 floors right before the interview. 0 2012 Attending Lehigh University TD: Anyway. So, I knew that if I started to smoke cigarettes, I would be smoking cigarettes. If I started to drink, I would drink. If I started to smoke pot, I would smoke pot. And if I started to have sex, I would have sex. And 17, that’s when the dam broke. And I don’t think this is the reason I went to Lehigh, but Lehigh was not known as a druggie school. It wasn’t. It was not, not a druggie school, let’s just say that. But it was more well-known for its consumption of alcohol. It was a big frat school. And I guess, honestly, I think I was trying to please my father by going there. 0 2518 Relationships at Lehigh TD: So, that was all wonderful. But at the age of 17, I came out sexually and politically, started to. Politically slowly, sexually pretty, in a way, slowly, also. But I’m actually a little bit bisexual, and I actually was out at one time as a bisexual in the Columbia Spectator, which is the Columbia University newspaper because I went to a pro-bi rally and so, they said, “Openly bisexual councilmember.” And I think bisexuals have it really hard. So, I always identified gay, but I don’t have a perfect Kinsey score. And I knew I would end up with a man, but I have to be -- anyway. So, I was sleeping with men and women then. 0 2964 Joining Social Justice Organizations / Getting Politically Educated
 ; TD: So, I started to go to Gay Activist Alliance meetings in New York City. I would take the bus into the city. I both went for the politics and to meet boys, truth be told. There’s nothing wrong with combining that. I think that’s one of the reasons ACT UP was so very successful. And I met these two, Rick and Ron, I think, and they were librarians and they had an organization they founded called Le-Hi-Ho, which is both a great name and an unfortunate name, all at the same time. 0 3279 Coming Out to Parents / Being Out at Lehigh TD: 
 ; Oh, I told my parents I was gay -- oh, I can’t remember now, was it freshman or sophomore year? I will remember this but can’t remember now. I think it was after my sophomore year. And they were very upset about it. And actually, my younger brother also said he was gay, but I was the older, I was probably the bad influence on him or something. The brother a year older than me at one time thought he wanted to be a Maryknoll missionary. 0 3678 Staring an LGBTQIA+ Group at Lehigh TD: As I recall, I think Phil might have been, or he was threatened one time, pretty much. We got threatening phone calls. I wrote letters to the Brown and White, “How dare you presume that everyone is heterosexual,” these lines that I picked up from all these political books that I had read. And I asked to create, I think it was Lehigh Homophile. Homophile, what kind of word is that? I guess it was just a word that I just -- actually, Le-Hi-Ho, which was Ron and Rick’s group, it’s both a great name and kind of a funny name, homophile is just not a great name at all. What are we, in Greece? They wouldn’t even say it there. I don’t even know where it came from. 0 4608 Organizing at a Young Age TD: Anyway, you know what? In my life, now, people have said to me, “How do you organize?” Because I was, from a very early age, organizing. And I said, “Well, you just start doing stuff and you try to get others to do it with you. That’s basically how it’s done.” In addition to joining every club in my high school, I was thinking back on this, I also was very active in my parish team clubs, not because I was so into the parish, but it was just another way to not be home and my brother, John, of course, was the head of it but I was the program director, so I was in charge of putting together dances. And I did things like that. 0 4837 Graduating from Lehigh / Returning to Be a Speaker TD: But I wanted to leave. And so, I really tried. The first summer, I didn’t want to go home and I wanted to be with my then-boyfriend for that first year so I took classes. And then, after my sophomore year I took classes that summer, also. And I was thinking about the various jobs. I worked at a luncheon in New York when I was 17, which I actually loved. I have to be around people when I work. 
 ; 
 ; So, I took six courses or something. I tried to take additional courses so I could get out sooner. I took courses, summer courses. And I just needed to take two more classes. It took me two years, but I did. So, I left at the time of the students in the class of ’75 were graduating, but I’m actually class of ’76, and I got my degree in 1977, and my parents were very happy I got that. 0 5300 Leaving for New York / Political Beginnings TD: I had to leave Lehigh. I needed to get out. And I came to New York. But I continued on a path of working during the day and doing community and LGBT. I think it was miracle we started to say lesbian and gay, which was a step up from saying gay and lesbian, but anyway. I continued being active in the queer community and non-queer community and my life went on. 
 ; 
 ; There’s something that happened a little while ago and I think it started with when I was telling you about acting gayer than -- maybe I’m ashamed to say that I was acting gayer than I would normally act. I feel in a way that’s a terrible thing to say, because another thing that, from my childhood or my adolescence that I remember is to be very, very careful about how I walked. 0 5767 Choosing Battles TD: Because as a gay person -- and this was big when I was in elected office -- you have to choose your battles because I was always the only one. If there’s two queers, well, then they can take turns and then other people start to do it. When you’re the only one, I would talk to everybody. When I talked with people, “We’re the only people. We have to decide every day whether or not to come out.” And I mean that. 0 6056 Being Out Unapologetically
 ; TD: I do want to talk about all the rest but it’s amazing to me that at Lehigh now, that there would be an affirmative effort to get queer people into fraternities and sororities, like unbelievable to me. Even when they started having the lounge for the LGBTQ community, I can’t imagine the people were joining fraternities and sororities up until very recently, being open about who they were with their sexual orientation. 0 6277 Impact on LGBTQ+ Community at Lehigh University MF: I just want to say, listening to you talk about it, you were compelled at Lehigh, to be an out student, it felt like a calling to you. And I just wrote a brief history of LGBTQIA-plus activism on campus and I went through the Brown and White and I went through the yearbooks. 
 ; 
 ; To my mind from what I’ve been able to find, Rick Balmer, James Hopkinson were involved with that early Le-Hi-Ho, but what I’ve been able to find, you were the first out person on campus that was advocating for a public group, not a support group, public group for gay students at that time, at Lehigh. 0 6611 Closing Remarks TD: I think that’s great. I’m thrilled. Really, the world is changing, and I tell students, “You’ve got to hang on to what it is and build on it because it could slip away. It could slip away and don’t let that happen.” What I say about Lehigh, even though it wasn’t a real recognized group, “Never give up the franchise,” but I did give up the franchise. But if I could have, I would have, even if there was one member, just to keep it alive. Maybe there’s no need -- there is still an ACT UP, but there’s a lot of organizations that I’ve been a part of, Queers for Economic Justice is one. 0 MovingImage Thomas Duane recounts the early years of his life, his relationship with sexuality and time at Lehigh University, as well as his early interactions with activism and politics. MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Senator Thomas K. Duane to talk about his life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley and beyond -- including New York, importantly -- as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This year our project has funding from ACLS, and we are meeting today at the Senator's office in Manhattan on February 17th, 2022. So, thank you so much for your willingness to speak to me today. THOMAS DUANE: It's a pleasure, and I'm glad that -- I think I'm the more difficult person to tie down, but I'm glad we were all able to get tied down together. I'm very happy to be here and talk. MF: Me, too. Thank you so much. And just a few -- TD: Talk about me. Me, me, me, me. MF: That's what we're here to do. TD: Who doesn't want to talk about...? MF: To start, would it be possible for you just to state your full name? TD: Sure. Thomas K. Duane, D-U-A-N-E. The K stands for Keen. And I was born January 30th, 1955. My mother was born January 31st, 1925. And when she had me the woman in the next bed said, "Couldn't you have waited another day?" And she said, "Oh, no. I couldn't." But anyway, so I'm very much like my mother in many ways. So, I am 67 which I cannot believe. That I'm even alive is completely miraculous but I love Ariana Grande, and Taylor Swift. I don't act my -- in my head, I'm younger. But I'm on Medicare, I'm firmly ensconced in Medicare at the age of 67 now, which I am very much in favor of. Which, when I saw some people who supported a former president, they said, "What do you think about the government running Medicare?" And they said, "That's terrible. The government will mess up Medicare. That's an awful idea." Here I thought to myself, "Why don't they teach civics in school anymore?" Okay. MF: I want to hear more about that. But first, I just want to go back over consent. Before we started the interview, you signed a consent form. TD: Yes, absolutely. MF: I just want to confirm, do you consent to this interview today? TD: Yes. MF: Do you consent to having this interview transcribed and digitized, made publicly available online? TD: Yes. MF: And do you consent to our LGBTQ Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats such as articles, websites, publications, et cetera? TD: Yes. I was going to make a joke, but I'll just say yes, absolutely. It would be my pleasure. MF: And I do want to remind you that after we transcribe the interview, you'll have 30 days after I deliver it to you electronically to review it. And you can identify things you want to delete, or you could withdraw the whole interview from the project, if you wanted to. TD: Let's hope we don't go down that road. [laughs] MF: We won't put it online until we get your final approval. TD: If I don't say a name and then I think, "Oh, I'm just going to go and use the name," maybe you could flash that name up? [laughter] Okay. MF: Well, I think we're ready to start. Since oral history is a life arc, I'm going to ask you if you'd be willing to tell me a little bit about the early years of your life. TD: I was actually born in a hospital in Chelsea, a French hospital. It's now affordable housing, so I'm happy about that. But it was a hospital, and it had the maternity wing. I only say that because when I ran for office, I could truthfully say I was born in Chelsea. But my parents at the time lived in Queens, in an apartment that my aunt had formerly lived in. But I was the cause of them moving to Flushing. I was raised a Roman Catholic. And for various reasons, I've had to say that I may not be the poster boy for Roman Catholicism, but I'm infused with it, let's say. Actually, one of the classes that I teach, I talk about whether religion belongs in politics and government and public policy. And everyone says, "No, no, no," I said, "So, no giving money to churches that have pantries? No programs run by religious institutions for formerly incarcerated people?" So, it's a very complicated issue. Anyway, and so I think my Roman Catholicism did, and continues to inform my worldview because I moved from masses being said in Latin. I have two older brothers, I had one younger brother who has passed away, who's also gay. He died of a brain tumor in his mid-thirties. So, we were four boys. My two older brothers were kind of perfect. Great grades, lots of friends, very good at athletics. And then, there was me. Maybe this is telling about my personality, my brother who's an Irish twin, he's a year-and-a-half older than I am, when he was moving from first to second grade, I was really only eligible to go to kindergarten, but I was born in January of 1955 and I did go to kindergarten in a public school -- Catholic schools didn't have kindergarten -- for a few days. But I demanded to go to first grade and somehow, I don't know how I convinced my parents to do this, but my local parish, which is St. Andrews, did not have any room, so I went to a neighboring parish called St. Michael's to their first grade. And it was incredibly traumatic. It was -- the nuns there -- I was in the first grade. I remember the uniforms we wore. But every day, there were children crying, and children being hit, and having their hands hit. It was just a nightmare. And fortunately, my local school had an opening so I went to St. Andrews. I don't know whether you can tell, I got all tense talking about that, like I remember that so clearly how sad it is for the kids that were stuck there. But I got out and I went to St. Andrew's where, not that no one ever got hit, but I think my parents made it clear that none of us were ever to be struck or anything. The classes were huge. There were 53 children in my class and there were three first grade classes. And I think it was ranked in smart, medium, not so, which is horrendous. But fortunately, I was at least in the smart class. Both my brothers were really high achievers, and I was above average, but I was not a rockstar. And I'm an ADHD, which will become clear as this interview goes on. [laughs] Of course, I didn't know that. I actually did know until I was in my forties, but it explained an awful lot about my life. I'll tell one story of something that happened. It was maybe the fifth grade, I believe. And we were supposed to do an art project over weekend of making a clown face and we were supposed to -- and I missed the instructions, I think -- it was supposed to be tiny little pieces of construction paper glued down so it was made a mosaic clown face. But mine, I tore big pieces of paper. And I do love contemporary and modern art, so maybe I was a little bit ahead of the rest of my class. That's what my clown was made of, big, torn pieces of construction paper. But I was called in front of the class, shown to everybody this is wrong and terrible. And then, this particular nun said in a voice that kids who went to Catholic school will recognize, in a very loud whisper, allegedly only so I would hear it, but such that the entire class heard it, she said, "You come from such a nice family, and none of us know what's wrong with you." And that has stuck with me. It's one of the things I have in my head. I had it in my head, even though I loved doing art and drawing and crayons and paint, after that, I didn't, until I was in a therapy group and the co-director was an art therapist. I guess I recounted this story and she said, "There's no such thing as doing art wrong." I was in my forties or my fifties. And so, then, I went to see her a few times, not because -- I mean, I love art therapy, but I was already in therapy, I had plenty of therapy my whole life -- but if I could sit there and make art while I talked with her, so I could speak with her. And so, it was, "Oh, no such thing as making art wrong." And of course, I kind of knew that because I love museums. And in fact, at Lehigh, they had a borrowing program where you could borrow paintings from the library, I guess? I don't know, I guess they were from the library, and you could hang them up in your dorm room. And I did. It was a Degas, I believe I had, in my freshman year. I guess I was a little non-binary as it came to my approach to art. Anyway. Of course, I also tried out to be an altar boy and you had to memorize everything in Latin and I failed the first time. I didn't make the cut. So, it took two tries for me to pass the altar boy test. Which is true of a lot of things. It takes me a while to get things, but once I get it, I've really got it, because I think I learn a little bit differently. Of course, it was kind of a disgrace that I didn't make it right away. And then they got rid of Latin anyway, so seriously. I'm not going to go through the whole thing of what altar boys would say in Latin. I could, but I'm not going to. But the place I'm going to is, just packed with children in Flushing, Catholic, Catholic, Catholic. Actually, the closest Catholic high school where I lived is a school called Holy Cross, where I ended up going. But I actually didn't want to go there. I wanted to go to Fordham Preparatory School, which was in the Bronx, which was a subway and two busses away, and my parents, they did not want me to go. It was a good school, and so, I got in, but they wouldn't let me go there. My home life, my family looked really good on the outside. We were one of our parish's first families, in a way. We were really well put-together when we went to mass on Sundays and other things. I mean, except for me. I probably wasn't in lockstep with everyone else. But anyway, my home life internally was not particularly happy. My parents had a very difficult marriage, and this is one of those things in therapy where I now have to get over talking about some of the things in my childhood is not telling secrets or telling on my family. So, they liked to drink, my parents. And they caused problems in our household. And my parents were also very controlling and I was very hard to control. I actually tried to run away when I was little, on more than one occasion. I actually did run away from home, if that's what it's called when I only stayed away for a few weeks, when I was maybe a junior in high school, I think. And I did finally come home, and I made amends to my parents because I realized how horrible it must have been for them, no matter what was going on at home, awful it must have been for them to not know where I was and what was happening to me. So, as an adult, I realized that. But my home life was not that happy. And the other thing is, my father was a coach of all things athletic. And the Catholic church was so virulently in the lives of families and children who went to Catholic school, that we had our own sports league, the Catholic Youth Organization leagues, and my father coached baseball and we all played -- my brothers and I -- every Saturday, sometimes Sundays, we'd play in season, baseball, basketball, football. It was like another day of school for me. I mean, sports, it's one of those things it took me a while to get good at it. I never really got really good at it, but I got okay at all of them. It just took me awhile, like with everything else to get good at it. But it was difficult. There wasn't much freedom and being in organized sports leagues. And I actually was not bad at all, but when my father was around, for some reason, I kind of know in retrospect what the reason was, but I would be really terrible at sports when he was there. It had to do with some shame stuff that was happening with me, which I'm sure was compounded by my, though I didn't know it, being gay and different than everyone else. So, I was pretty good when he wasn't around, when he was around, I was terrible. But it was sort of valuable that I learned how not to be afraid of the ball as a boy, and not to throw like a girl, and all these things. And I also learned to make sure that I walked in a way that was like the way the other boys walked, as well. And in elementary school, and in high school, it took me a couple of years, always, to get comfortable and to make friends. I really had to get the lay of the land first, before I could step out and be myself. I was just going to say, "shine," so I'll say shine. Did I shine? I don't know whether I shined. There were eight or nine classes of each class, so there'd be eight or nine freshman sophomore classes, and there was an honors class which both of my brothers had been in. And yes, you guessed it, I was not in the honors class. I was in the second honors class, such a disgrace. But I manipulated my way around that one, too, because I decided to take Latin for four years. And so, that separated me from my class in some ways. And so, I took some classes with the boys in the honors class. I'm pretty good at -- I should say, how do you think I got elected? That's how I got elected, doing things like that. But I actually strongly believe that my grades improved when I was with the more higher achieving, more expected to be high-achieving students. And so, I strongly believe that it's important that there be a diversity of students in every way, including how quickly they pick things up. The thing is, Catholic school, now that I think about probably impacted my experience at Lehigh and how I learn is that for instance, the clown story, remaking the art, if the nun -- I'm pretty sure her name was Sister Mary-Margaret, God rest her soul, or Sister Margaret-Mary. I can't remember which. But anyway, she may have given the instructions of the tearing of little paper, but I may not have gotten it. And I didn't know that you could ask to have an assignment, or directions repeated. But even if I did, in Catholic school, you couldn't ask anyway. But often, I would come into class having had done the wrong pages in the math book because I didn't always catch the assignment. I broke my leg in the fourth grade -- I'm telling too much about my life story, you'll never get out of here. This interview is going to go on forever. Anyway, I broke my leg in the fourth grade, and I had a near public elementary school teacher come to my house every day for an hour, and when I went back to school, I had finished all the books of that grade within that one fall month. It was probably October, maybe September or something, because I broke my leg at the end of the summer, early fall. So, I was already done with everything. So, the fourth grade was a breeze because I'd already done everything. But because I was with -- that's the other thing I strongly believe, because everyone learns differently, and lots of students, including myself, it would have been helpful if I always knew that I could count on being able to sit with someone one-on-one, just for a little bit of time to catch onto things. And I'm not sure, I try to make sure that to do that because I do some teaching. And I always say, "There is no stupid question. The only stupid question is the one you don't ask. But really, you can ask anything and I'll repeat anything. It's fine. It's fine." And I really do feel that way. Anyway. And it can be done without holding back the class, but I digress. So, I went to an all-gay high school -- no, it was an all-boys high school. Actually, my freshman year, there was a student, Richard Sullivan, who I think he was more sophisticated and more worldly than I was. I think he had a girlfriend, like a real girlfriend, in his freshman year. But he knew there was something different about me, and I knew there was something different about me. I don't think I was really fully aware that it was that I was gay. But anyway, he caught on to it and he started to pick at me a little bit. And this was something I had learned at a much younger age, I challenged him to a fight. And so, out we went one day after school to the Carvel, right by Utopia Parkway, only Queens would have Utopia Parkway, and we had a fistfight. And I feel like, I don't know whether it was the whole school there, but there was a big crowd watching this fight. And we fought and fought and punched and wrestled and whatever until we were just too tired to do it anymore. And he had a bloody lip, and I had a black eye, and that was it. We became sort of friendly after that. But nobody ever picked on me either, because -- and I know this is wrong and I would never advise this to children, I would never say -- sometimes it's just better to have the fight, even if you're going to lose because nobody wants to fight. So, if you fight with one person even if you lose, no one else wants to fight with you because no one really wants to fight. That's not true in every case, and I know there are better ways to diffuse problems. But anyway, that's what worked for me. And it worked for me when I was in elementary school, too. But one of the things -- and this is from when I was very young in elementary school because I was a big kid and I learned how to stand up and fight for myself in the play streets or wherever it was, but I was a little kid. I felt terrible for the children. It wasn't necessarily that they were gay, but overweight, or, I don't know, didn't dress -- when they got made fun of or pushed around, I was a little kid, I was kind of helpless to do anything about it and it just really stuck with me about how horrible and unfair it was for them. So, I would try to be friendly, but I couldn't really protect them. Or, I didn't know how to, I guess. But I felt some kinship with them. But I was able to pass and hang out with the normal boys. Four years of high school. When I was a freshman -- okay, we're going into an R-rated territory, here. Maybe it's only [PG]. There was a football player who, to this day, I can remember that I had a crush on him, and I think he had a crush on me because one time we were alone in the locker room after having showered, and he started chasing me around the locker room with a towel and fooling around. He was running after me and I think, oh, I should have let him catch me. What was I thinking? But from then on, at a school dance, he would bring his childhood sweetheart -- he actually married her and they had many children and he worked with the New York City Uniformed Services. My older brother John was an assembly member from the part of Queens we grew up in and I know where this person lives. I always hoped that my brother would send me door knocking on his block so I could knock on his door. [laughs] But when I would see him at the school dances, he would introduce me to his girlfriend who has become his wife, and I'm not going to say her name, but let's just say her name was Mary. It wasn't Mary. "This is my girlfriend, Mary, it's nice to see you." But he would turn beet-red. And I think he continued to a combination of both like me and was has a little embarrassed that he had maybe shown his cards, if you will, that we liked each other. The things I remember from high school. He was very popular, too, in the school. Very popular. Academically, he did well, but he also was a good football player. So, I was playing sports on Saturdays all the time still through high school, but I also joined a lot of different clubs and organizations in the school because I didn't really want to go home that much. And as I say, I also picked up swimming. So, in the CYO, Catholic Youth Organization, I was on the swimming team and my best thing was distance swimming. I loved it. I loved the water. But when I think about it, sometimes I say I was really great and everything my parents didn't like, so I was best at the sport that my father was not that involved with. I'm always a little rebellious, that Tom Duane. I'm sure there's more to say about high school. I remember one of the reasons I came home from having had left home when I was an adolescent was that I was like, "If I can just make it to going away to college, then I'll get out of here, and so I better go back so I can leave." And I applied to a bunch of different schools. Some, I think, were reaches. One, I applied to Dartmouth. I didn't go up to the school to have an interview but I was interviewed by the alumni in an office building in Midtown Manhattan and I got on the elevator to go to the interview and the elevator started to go, and it dropped 30 floors right before the interview. So, I went into the interview in not really peak condition, but I didn't say anything about the elevator. I probably should have. But they said to me, "Well, if you got into Dartmouth, would you go?" And I'm like, "I'm not sure." Well, I wasn't sure because the goddamn elevator -- it had nothing to do with Dartmouth. [laughs] It was a near-death experience. Anyway, But Lehigh was on the list, and Colgate, and Oberlin, and Middlebury, although I also really kind of wanted to go to Hunter, but it was more important that I should leave home. And so, I got into these schools, but I decided to go to Lehigh. And I don't know I decided to go there because I knew what it was like. Oh, the thing I was going to say, I was fortunate enough to live from Latin mass, and then folk masses, and revolutionary theology, the missionaries that would be in Latin America that were politically organizing, as well, and they really -- so, now there was something in my Catholicism that I really could hold on to. And I guess I didn't really have a political point of view. My father was Republican. He was an Independent who voted Republican, and my mother was -- Kennedy was a saint on that side of the family, and the Kennedys, they also for a long time -- many of them still do it for me. I admire them. Every family has terrible stuff, I guess. I guess even then, I was interested in political -- where was I going with this? I just got sidetracked. Oh, liberation theology. The thing that changed me dramatically, and I wish I could say it was a raid on the Black Panther Party or something, but what it was, was the shooting of the students at Kent State had a huge impact on me. I thought, "Oh my gosh, soldiers will shoot students?" My whole worldview changed. And that was, I think, the biggest thing. I also loved Bobby Kennedy. I said I was born in 1955. I would listen to a transistor radio under my pillow, and not just pop music, which to this day, I like, still. I like other kinds of music, too. Look at me defensively saying that. I like pop music, what can I say? I still like pop music. I sometimes still listen to American Top 40. I want to keep up and I like that music. Anyway, but I was huge for Bobby Kennedy Jr., and I was listening under my pillow with the transistor radio when he won the California primary, and I was listening when he got shot, and all alone in my room -- well, I shared a room with one of my brothers -- but with the transistor radio, and again, that had a huge impact on me. And then, Martin Luther King's assassination, Bobby Kennedy, and JFK was huge. When he was assassinated... My grandmother, my mother's mother, who was the adult in my life who saved me, but for her I don't know what would have happened, but she was the one with completely, totally, unconditional love. And I would say I could do no wrong with her but that's not accurate. I did do things wrong. But the way she corrected me was to say, "Well, maybe this would be a better way to do it." She was so gentle with it. And my mother's mother lived pretty close to us. There'd be lots of times when my grandmother would say to my mother, "Why don't I take Tom to my house for a few days?" And that was like, I was on my way to heaven then. It was really great. They say one adult -- I really believe this -- can make all the difference in a kid's life. She was the one. Anyway, she passed away right after JFK died, of cancer. She had breast cancer, but we were told it was throat cancer, just because that's how it was done. I didn't realize for years and years later, no, she didn't have throat cancer, she had breast cancer. And it was terrible. I remember, it was awful. Because the way they treated breast cancer then was just horrendously -- just awful. Of course, because it was women -- I now know if it had been a man, they never would have treated someone the way they treated women who had breast cancer. It was just awful. Anyway. So, I knew that if I started to smoke cigarettes, I would be smoking cigarettes. If I started to drink, I would drink. If I started to smoke pot, I would smoke pot. And if I started to have sex, I would have sex. And 17, that's when the dam broke. And I don't think this is the reason I went to Lehigh, but Lehigh was not known as a druggie school. It wasn't. It was not, not a druggie school, let's just say that. But it was more well-known for its consumption of alcohol. It was a big frat school. And I guess, honestly, I think I was trying to please my father by going there. As one therapist said to me, "You should stop worshipping at the altar of your father." And so, I guess I was worshipping at his altar. So, off I went to Lehigh. I requested to live in a dorm that was mixed classes and that was co-ed. That meant that the girls, the second year that women were admitted to Lehigh. So, there were maybe 300 women and 3,000 men on campus. But I lived in a dorm where some of the women lived. There were other dorms that were women only. But anyway, they lived in one half. M& ; M was the name of the dorm. And the men were on the other side. It was mixed classes. I kind of thought, "No one here is going to smoke pot or anything." The first day, literally, as I was going into my first dorm room, I was walking by a door two doors away from mine and walked by someone who you just knew he was a football player and he said to me, "You want to come in and smoke a joint with me?" I wasn't even there an hour. So, first of all, he was someone I should be terrified of, right? But of course, I was down to smoke a joint. It was unbelievable. I was like, "I didn't think there was any marijuana in all of Lehigh." That's not true. In fact, one time later on, I was sitting in the room and there was an article in the Brown and White that said, "There are no drugs in the Engineering School," and I was sitting in the room, and everybody was an engineering student except for me and they were all smoking pot. So, that stereotype didn't really work. It was not that true. I was from the get-go a problem drinker, although you couldn't tell. I had, I guess what you would call a wooden leg, and just much later on in my life I did go into recovery which I've been in now for almost 40 years, 30 something years. It saved my life. But I was just getting started then. And generally, in college, I did well. Some things I did really well in and some things not so much. And as I now know, it's that ADHD thing, if I was interested, I did great. If I wasn't interested, I got by. And I was an American Studies and an Urban Studies major. I had a double major. I don't know how, but I didn't have to take statistics. I don't know how I made it that I didn't have to take statistics as an Urban Studies major, but I did not. I would love to take statistics now as an adult, but I think I knew it wasn't going to be a match made in heaven then. But anyway, I didn't have to take it. And my oldest brother, Jimmy, my father is Jim, my brother is Jimmy, and he has a son named James who went to Lehigh, was a Griffin, which people at Lehigh know the Griffins are residence halls counselors, I was a Griffin, which was so much easier. I was a Griffin. And I made it. I got in. Now, my brother was head of the Griffins but I don't think he got involved in my -- of course, I had the same last name but I mean, I think, as I said, drugs were -- you could be thrown out for smoking a joint, I think. But as I say, I was pretty good at -- I mean, look at me. Do I look like someone who would smoke a lot of pot and drink too much and maybe experiment with -- no, I have an angelic face. So, maybe that got me. Anyway, I was chosen to be a Griffin and I chose the floor, it was the dorm at the very top of the hill. This is something that I hope someone will flash the name of this dorm, it was the dorm at the very highest, it was above Richards, and not near M& ; M, it was as you're facing the mountain to the left. I have great calves as a result. I had pretty good calves to begin with, but they really got great there. Anyway, there were two smaller floors. And so, my brother suggested that, if I was going to get that floor, that I ask that this other guy, Bruce, be a Griffin on the floor above me. He was a year older than I was. And I actually loved being a resident hall counselor, a Griffin. And at the time, freshman had to write themes. All their freshman year, every semester, they had to take an English class where they had to write a theme every week, I want to say. It didn't matter what school they were in. And they would come to me to help with their grammar and their spelling, because I took Latin, I was pretty good at that stuff then. Maybe I'm still okay at it. But I was pretty good. And so, I helped them with their writing. I think back on that, because I wanted to be a teacher, which I didn't become for a very long time, but maybe that started to show then. And they really liked me and trusted me. This is going to make me start crying, because I didn't know whether they were going to, because I'm different. And something that I know now that I'm kind of proud of is that kids and adolescents and young people and animals feel safe around me. And I could have not been that way at all, but it is that way. And I think they felt really safe around me. And in fact, a couple of them wanted to experiment with pot, and they asked if they could smoke pot with me because they felt safe doing that, which was another -- I mean, if Dean Quay is -- oh, he doesn't care anymore. But in a way, it's a huge compliment that they wanted to smoke pot, but they wanted to do it safely, and they asked if they could smoke pot with me. So, I helped them with their themes. I don't know. And I also participated in a dance marathon, which I came in third or fourth place. But I lasted the whole time. I came back, and they were the most amazing cheering support group ever for me in that. So, that was all wonderful. But at the age of 17, I came out sexually and politically, started to. Politically slowly, sexually pretty, in a way, slowly, also. But I'm actually a little bit bisexual, and I actually was out at one time as a bisexual in the Columbia Spectator, which is the Columbia University newspaper because I went to a pro-bi rally and so, they said, "Openly bisexual councilmember." And I think bisexuals have it really hard. So, I always identified gay, but I don't have a perfect Kinsey score. And I knew I would end up with a man, but I have to be -- anyway. So, I was sleeping with men and women then. But I'm going to go back to freshman year because there was something huge happening. So, also on my floor there was someone who had transferred in as a junior from another school. And he lived in the Valley, but he stayed in the dorm. And he'd been to another college, and he had had a girlfriend there. But we hung out together. There was a little group of us, freshmen, and people of all classes, we hung out together. And at some point, I realized that I was falling in love with him, and as far as I knew, he was straight. And I remember walking on campus with him the first semester and I said -- I don't know what to call him, let's say his name is Larry. That wasn't his name. I don't know how I got the courage to do this but maybe this is just how I am. I said, "You know, Larry, I think I've started to develop some feelings for you." I knew it was risky. And then he said to me, "Oh, well, I'm starting to have feelings for you, too." And we went on to have an affair. So, it was my first relationship. And I was really in love with him. I was, unfortunately, incapable of sustaining a relationship. That was on me. But he really loved me. And I really loved him. I just, for reasons that had to do with why I've been in therapy since the age of 21, was just unable to sustain the relationship. And we had to hide it. So, if my roommate was not there, then we would, you know, and if his roommate was not there, if someone went home for the weekend, one of our roommates, who knows whether we were -- actually, one time, I thought I saw -- I did see his roommate when I was campaigning for the city council, and walking along right by Manhattan Plaza, which is where a lot of people in the Performing Arts live. I don't think he lived there, and I'm forgetting his name right now, which is just as well. And he was walking down the block and I said "will you sign the petition" and I realized I know this guy and I think he might have been gay, but it didn't occur to me then. My gaydar is pretty good. My lesbian-dar is pretty good. My bi-dar is all pretty good. Not the best in the world, but I can compete. But I just never gave it any thought. We were so afraid. And he was kind of shy. Anyway, it's just how ironic. And who knows, maybe he did -- he probably did -- I'm sure people knew. Dorm room doors were not that thick anyway. So, I fell in love. But I never went home during the summer. I took courses at Lehigh. I didn't want to go home. And my goal was to try to graduate in three years, which I almost made it, but not quite. And I guess it must have been the summer after my sophomore year, but it was during -- let's see, I got there in '72-'73, so '74-'75 was when I met Phil, and Bruce, and Craig. So, the other Griffin who was upstairs and had a small floor, but we treated him like we were just one happy family, was gay, and I helped him come out. I actually do recruit. I do. Or at least I invite. So, he actually is gay, and actually, there was girl at Lehigh that I said something about, that maybe it was too much for people, and I remember her saying, "No, I don't think so." And of course, later on, after I left school and I had kept in touch with her, and she came out as a lesbian, so maybe I -- I was able to be out. I always think about this. Not everybody was able to be out, and I was able to be out there. It was a gift. I'm never critical of people's struggles about coming out, but for me, it was almost like I had no choice. Anyway, after my sophomore year, our relationship didn't last past that first summer, unfortunately. And again, it was on me. Have I said that enough, that it was my fault that we didn't last? But it was that summer that I started to become gay, politically, way more than I had been. And I did a lot of things. There was a gay bar in Allentown, go figure, which I went to when I was in what turned out to be in my final year at Lehigh. I went there with Craig, and Bruce, and Phil, and maybe Cindy, who was the only woman in our group. We were lucky to have any women since there was so women there in our little queer group. So, I guess I need to separate a few things, even though they were happening at the same time. So, I started to go to Gay Activist Alliance meetings in New York City. I would take the bus into the city. I both went for the politics and to meet boys, truth be told. There's nothing wrong with combining that. I think that's one of the reasons ACT UP was so very successful. And I met these two, Rick and Ron, I think, and they were librarians and they had an organization they founded called Le-Hi-Ho, which is both a great name and an unfortunate name, all at the same time. But because they were librarians, they had every gay book imaginable, and they had lots of contemporary political books that had been written by gay activists. And I read them voraciously. Actually, these books were actually the -- I'd like to think of myself as a feminist, I like to think of myself as someone who's tried to both fight against racism, though I know I made mistakes, but my intentions I think have been good. I started to read. I read every feminist book I could get my hands on. One of them was Jill Johnson who is very funny, and she had a column in the Village Voice, and she wrote, she never capitalized any letters, and I don't know, she was not that great with sentences, but she was so funny, both her column and the books that she wrote. And many years later, I met her at a literary agent's house because she was Jill Johnson's agent and I was in the city council at the time. And she was with her partner, who was from Denmark, and I was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm meeting you," because I get kind of gushy with people. I was like, "I love you," whatever. And she said, "And the most important thing to me is that we can get married," and I was like, "Oh my God, Jill Johnson wants to get married?" She was totally opposed, are you kidding? I was shocked. But of course, it was so they could be together. But I was like, "I can't believe this, I thought we were post-marriage." But anyway, it was still a thrill to meet her. And she just stands out. I read Kate Millett books, and I want to say Audre Lorde, yes, I did, but there was a white woman, I can't remember her name. And I listened to records that were produced by Redwood Records, which was a lesbian record label. I hope I'm ascending towards becoming a lesbian, that I haven't peaked and I'm on my way down now, because I'm a girl boy, I call myself. You know some women are more comfortable around men, and some men are more comfortable around men, I am a man who is most comfortable when there's lots of women around. In fact, my first job in New York City was working for six creative people at an ad agency, six women. It was all women copywriters and art directors, and I was their administrative assistant and I loved that. Of course, they loved it, too. I don't think I caused that to happen, but it was a happy coincidence. I read the autobiography of Malcolm X, that just really stands out. Manchild in the Promised Land, many other books having to do with Black liberation. I was aware of the Young Lords, which was a Puerto Rican, it was like the Black Panthers, but they were for people who were Puerto Rican in New York. So, all of this liberation literature, I just devoured it. And then, who knew there was a whole treasure trove of gay stuff, too. And so, because of Rick and Ron, I got to read a ton of those books, too. And it all informed my point of view in the world. Very important to me, all those books. Anyway, so that was happening the summer before -- this will be my third year at Lehigh. Oh, I told my parents I was gay -- oh, I can't remember now, was it freshman or sophomore year? I will remember this but can't remember now. I think it was after my sophomore year. And they were very upset about it. And actually, my younger brother also said he was gay, but I was the older, I was probably the bad influence on him or something. The brother a year older than me at one time thought he wanted to be a Maryknoll missionary. So, the Maryknoll priest used to send someone to visit our house on a pretty regular basis, and as my mother tells the story and this is true, it became very clear that my brother John did not want to be a Maryknoll missionary, that I wanted to be a missionary. I have met priests from that order who are gay, but they're not very gay positive. There are other Catholic priest orders who are more positive. I digress. But it maybe just tells you something about my character -- not character, but where my interests -- because again, it was liberation theology. [Inaudible] So, I told my parents that I was gay and they said, "Well, if you continue to be gay then we're not going to pay for you to go back to school," and I said, "Okay." And I went out and I got a cab driver's license and I rented an apartment in Jackson Heights, and all of a sudden, they realized that I really wasn't going to go back. So, then they went, "Well, wait a second, okay, we'll pay for you to go back. [laughs] But under three conditions." And the three conditions were, I had to speak with the chaplain at Lehigh, I had to go see a psychiatrist, and there was a professor at Lehigh who was sort of a liaison to students who thought they might be gay. And so, I agreed to that. I went to psychiatrist and he was like, "There's nothing wrong with you." I mean, there was, but gay was not the thing. And then, the chaplain at Lehigh... MF: [Duke Lusher?], I think it was. TD: Yes. Not a big deal to him, either, so I passed that test. And then, I went to see the professor who was the liaison to the gay students and I seduced him. I wasn't really interested in having -- it was just a one-night stand or a two-night stand, but it wasn't a match that was going to be made in heaven. Again, that's something else that all of us would have been thrown out of the school for. But anyway, I'm not sure, maybe he had sex once when he was much younger until I came along. But a few months after that, he met another professor from another school, and as far as I knew, they lived happily ever after since then so you're welcome, Professor. So, I passed that test, too, a little bit too much. I got an A-plus there. [laughs)] But in my senior year, I was out, out, at Lehigh. And I cannot say it was particularly well received at any level, administration, faculty, or students. And ironically, there were two associate deans of student affairs both of whom were gay. One was African American, one was white, and they were both gay. In the closet, but gay. And I'm not saying that they couldn't have, they would have lost their jobs. And I'm pretty sure that my freshman English teacher was a lesbian. I am absolutely sure that she was a lesbian, actually. So, no one go back and look at my transcripts to see who all these people are who was in the administration. Or maybe they don't care, but I don't want to out them. And I know that this woman, she was, of course, a woman not tenured. She taught writing and English. Her favorite book was Moby Dick. She loved Moby Dick. I think I took another English course with her besides the course where we had to write themes. But I lived off campus with Bruce and Craig and Phil and a couple of other people, women, who were friends of ours. I'm jumping ahead, but we used to have great parties with disco music, and everybody wanted to come party. The same people who might have wanted to beat us up under other circumstances wanted to come to the party and they would be doing the Bump with whoever would bump with them. And she came to a couple of those parties. I made sure to invite her and she came. She was a very serious woman, but she still came to the disco parties that we had. But the reason Craig and Bruce and Phil and I lived together was -- I don't know why I didn't continue as a Griffin, because I did love it. I left, probably, while people still liked me. So, it's best to leave when people are sorry to see you go than pushing me out the door. So, I lived off campus with them because Bruce and Craig were thrown out of their fraternity, Theta Chi, which was half ROTC and half hippies. It was a very non-binary fraternity. But they threw them out. And Phil was being a fraternity brother where you don't live there but you socialize there, so you go to parties and you take your meals there, you just don't live there. And he was banned, also, from that fraternity. And we hung out with each other openly but it was the first time that I experienced a bias crime, I guess you could say. I was never physically assaulted. As I recall, I think Phil might have been, or he was threatened one time, pretty much. We got threatening phone calls. I wrote letters to the Brown and White, "How dare you presume that everyone is heterosexual," these lines that I picked up from all these political books that I had read. And I asked to create, I think it was Lehigh Homophile. Homophile, what kind of word is that? I guess it was just a word that I just -- actually, Le-Hi-Ho, which was Ron and Rick's group, it's both a great name and kind of a funny name, homophile is just not a great name at all. What are we, in Greece? They wouldn't even say it there. I don't even know where it came from. Anyway, the name was not the reason they turned it down. The mission was the reason they turned it down. There was one lesbian member, Cindy, and another person who's gay, but at the time he was saying he was bisexual. Meanwhile, I was a little bi boy who was saying he was gay. But really, I am gay. I'm gay with just little bi overlays. We wouldn't get to have an organization. We weren't allowed to. And I can't even remember all the ways, but there were lots of ways that I tried to make the point that I was gay, like bringing it up in class when it wasn't really -- oh, and one time, Margaret Mead came to Lehigh and spoke in that hall where the wrestling takes place, that wooden -- it's a beautiful old building. It was the athletics center and they had wrestling in it. I think, in retrospect, why wasn't I going to wrestling matches? I mean, that would be like soft porn for me. But I rarely went to them. Lehigh was known as a great wrestling school. Who knew? Who knew? It's a good thing I didn't know. [laughs] Where was I going with that? Oh, Margaret Mead came. So, she was speaking and it was packed. And it must have been around an alumni weekend, or lots of parents there also. And then, she was taking questions from the audience, and of course, I threw my hand up, and I said something like, "What do you think about the way gay communities are growing around the country?" And something, whatever it was, she had gay in it, right? And she was a little flustered by this question and there was [gasps] from the audience. But me, I just put it right out there. And of course, in retrospect, she was a lesbian and she came out. You're welcome, Margaret. You're welcome. [laughs] MF: So, this is Mary Foltz, and I'm back with Senator Duane and he was just telling us a little bit about trying to organize a group for gay students at Lehigh, Dean Quay shot that down, that group didn't come to be supported by the university and sharing some stories about his friends at Lehigh, and I'm going to turn that back over to you. Are there other Lehigh memories that have come to mind? TD: Lehigh, the community of women was very small, still, compared to men, and for parties, women had to be imported. It's a terrible way to say it, but basically, there just weren't enough women to go to the fraternity parties, that sort of thing. But Phil in particular and I, not so much Craig and Bruce, they were African American and so there's a whole other layer of, I want to say discrimination is not really quite the -- it is appropriate but there's probably a more appropriate word to use, which maybe I will later. But Phil and I, we did things that were gayer. We did more stereotypical gay things to make the point than we were, just to make the point that we were gay. And we had a lot of fun doing that. [laughs] There was a certain kind of jeans that gay guys wore that had this yellow stitching. I got my hair cut in New York with this feather cut. There were also these cork shoes, they were sandals with a heel, but they were made out of cork with straps. We would wear those, or we'd take turns. Someone had a pair ; I think maybe Craig did. Anyway, we would wear gay clothes. I know that sounds weird, what's gay clothes? But I don't know. As I say, whenever I had the chance, I brought up something gay, especially in that last year when I was at Lehigh. And when I was a freshman, there was some other freshmen that I was kind of friends with and I think they wanted to be friends with me. I hadn't sought them out, but I knew that they wanted to be my friend. But what happened by being open about being gay is that there were some students who would continue to hang out with me or with us but then there were other students who would not. And the ones that would continue to hang out were both gay and not gay, and the ones who -- it's funny, I don't know what's happening, because now my face, I feel like it's having a shame attack, for some reason. I didn't say anything shameful, so thanks, Dad. But I can just feel all of a sudden it goes like this and my face turns red. You know what I think? I think it was I had a shame attack about dressing up and acting gay, which is just such a historic thing. So, it's hard to be gayer than I am, but I still have stuff around it. Anyway, where was I going with that? And so, there were students who would not be seen with us because they were gay and they thought by being near us they were -- and there were straight people that thought that people might think they were gay if they hung out with us. But then, there were gay people who may not have been out, but they hung out with us, came to our parties, or whatever. And heterosexuals, too. Maybe there were lots of questioning people, too, I don't know. But that is something I've noticed in my entire life, like when I was first elected to city council and I put together -- I'm always making groups. I tried making a group of city council employees who were gay and we didn't get many people to come. And I remember saying to them, "Has it been your experience that you sometimes don't want to be seen with me because people will think you're gay?" And they were like, "Yes, it's crossed our minds." And this is in 1992 in New York City working, and I'd been openly gay since, what, '74, whatever it is. Anyway, maybe schools that have gay-straight alliances maybe have helped with that, but I'm pretty sure it continues to happen. And I've also been thinking, even when I talk about any opportunity to bring up gay -- and I say "gay" because that's what we said then. When I move into the future, I say -- I actually prefer to say, "queer," which when I learned to say queer, I was so good with that because it's so inclusive. But because of gay-straight alliances, and I would have younger staff members at the newspaper and they're like, "That's an awful thing." So, then it was back to LGBTQIA-plus, which I always thought meant HIV-positive for years, but it doesn't, it just means et cetera, et cetera. So, sometimes I say LGBTQIA-plus-plus, because I'm living for a very, very long time with HIV, probably since 1982. Anyway, but I say gay, which I would never say now, contemporarily, but then, yes. We were sexist and I'm sorry about that. But that's just the way -- I'm educatable, let's say that. But I do know some of these students that I was acquainted with who were a little more reticent about being my friend. And when I think back on it, it didn't really hurt my feelings. I think I instinctively understood that they just weren't there yet. And there would be students that, for whatever reason, we might bump into each other on campus or something, and I'd know if a student asked me questions -- and this is something later on, in the '70s, actually, when I was in New York, I was a member of this organization called The Chelsea Gay Association, which I may or may not get up to, but we used to have rap sessions with police officers in the '70s. Saturday morning, we would get up and go to the precinct and we would talk with the police officers about what it was like to be gay, to try to make sense of it because the cops were not so great with the gays, you know what I mean? They were not our best friends. But we did that. And I would say, "If someone asks you, 'How did you tell your parents?' they're asking that question because they're wondering how are they going to tell their parents?" So, chances are -- maybe a person can say, "I have this friend who wants to tell their parents," or something. But it's a tell, I guess. And so, I was militantly, avowedly, determinedly gay in so many ways, but I was also not always that way. And I was approachable. But our group never really got bigger. We were tops, maybe five people. And we had meetings. Even though we weren't recognized we had meetings, we just created them ourselves. One time, we invited a group of lesbians from Reading to come and all of us be together. And I remember this so clearly, because I had read all this feminist and queer literature -- we didn't call it that -- well, actually, some people did say "queer," I guess. But anyway, I remember asking, "What do you read?" And they said, "Well, we meet and we read Ms., and we discuss it." And that's what lesbians in Reading, Pennsylvania, could do at that time. And they were, God bless them, hedging my bets, or Goddess bless them, that they were out enough to see us. I don't know how out they were in Reading, but they found each other. There were five or six, maybe. And we were all kind of desperate to find kindred spirits. And Lafayette started a little gay group, and we met with them, and it also was mostly men, male. Thank heavens, because we all got to sleep with someone different. [laughs] We'd all been through each other so we had to move out to new territory. It was a lonely existence. Oh, there was that bar in Allentown. We didn't go there that often. No one had a car. Anyway. The gay bar in Allentown. There was no Uber. I'm not saying that there was some romantic liaisons between Lehigh and Lafayette queers, I'm not saying that. There might have been some, let's say that. Perhaps there was some interaction. Anyway, there was Moravian, Muhlenberg, there was the Cedar Crest, and the unfortunately named Beaver College, which eventually, thank someone that they changed their name. I mean, you can only imagine at Lehigh -- the testosterone. But anyway, I know that we met students from all of those schools who were gay, but I can't remember whether they had any organized or sub culturally organized, or under the radar organizations. I kind of think they don't but maybe they did. I hope they did. But if they didn't, I hope they found each other. Anyway, you know what? In my life, now, people have said to me, "How do you organize?" Because I was, from a very early age, organizing. And I said, "Well, you just start doing stuff and you try to get others to do it with you. That's basically how it's done." In addition to joining every club in my high school, I was thinking back on this, I also was very active in my parish team clubs, not because I was so into the parish, but it was just another way to not be home and my brother, John, of course, was the head of it but I was the program director, so I was in charge of putting together dances. And I did things like that. From the age of 15, 16, put together ski trips to Vermont with two busloads of teenagers, and I'd arranged for the rooms and the ski lift ticket. How was I doing that? I don't know. I was just doing it. I don't even know whether I could do that now, but I did that then. So, I would create organizations and I did that later on in life, too. And I did that in high school with some people, we founded an organization called "Students for a Christian Society." We couldn't have it SDS, so we made it SCS. It's just liberation theology, that's what we were using as our blueprint for how the organization and what we were going to be for. But we used to do a reading and recreation program at a Catholic school in Harlem on Saturdays. We would go when we were in high school and we'd work with these elementary school kids and help them with reading. I put that together. And I worked. I worked for my father some of the time when I was younger. He was a stockbroker. But I also worked at a camp for developmentally disabled children, so it was mentally retarded children, who were called emotionally disturbed children, who I now know were autistic, but at the time, they were referred to as emotionally disturbed, which seems like it was their parents' fault, if you said that. But anyway, it was these two populations of kids and I was a counselor at that camp. They didn't really belong together, there was no reason to put them together. But anyway, we all had one, and I liked that. That was, again, under the auspices of the Catholic diocese and I met some people there. And I combined those people with the people from my Catholic team club and my high school friends, and that would be these groups that would be going and doing things. That's just what I did. And so, at Lehigh, I was a Griffin, I was a DJ, and I'm sure that I talked about gay stuff on my show. I played, obviously, records, too, it was a big thing. But I had to get a license. I don't even think you need a license to do it anymore, I had a radio license. One night a week I had a radio show. And I also joined an organization that went out and volunteered all over the place. I was a very active person. And as I say, I got some really good grades, and I got some really not so great grades. But I wanted to leave. And so, I really tried. The first summer, I didn't want to go home and I wanted to be with my then-boyfriend for that first year so I took classes. And then, after my sophomore year I took classes that summer, also. And I was thinking about the various jobs. I worked at a luncheon in New York when I was 17, which I actually loved. I have to be around people when I work. So, I took six courses or something. I tried to take additional courses so I could get out sooner. I took courses, summer courses. And I just needed to take two more classes. It took me two years, but I did. So, I left at the time of the students in the class of '75 were graduating, but I'm actually class of '76, and I got my degree in 1977, and my parents were very happy I got that. I believe Henry Kissinger spoke at the commencement when I actually graduated, which fortunately there was no Q& ; A. Fortunately for everyone there, there was no Q& ; A with Henry Kissinger at that graduation. And I was happy that I graduated also. I took a psychology course at NYU and I can't remember what the other two courses at NYU were -- anyway, I got my degree. I'm privileged. My parents paid for my college education and they paid for my books. But in terms of spending money, my parents were very strange. I also worked. I worked at the Lehigh University Bookstore. And I think I owe them an amends because I may possibly have taken a few things without paying for it from there. Oh, Julie Brinker. So, I went back to Lehigh around 1985 because my brother, my parents were going to a Lehigh-Lafayette game and I was like, "I want to go," and they were shocked. Like, "You never want to go to Lehigh," because I heard about this guy there who was trying to start a gay organization. So, they all went to the game and I sought him out. I just don't remember his name, now. Oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I'll think of it at some point. Anyway, same thing happened with him. There was a little group and then he graduated and there was nothing. That was the '80s. I don't really know. It wasn't until I was contacted by this woman in the alumni office, Julie Brinker, who is a lesbian, and she reached out to me, and I think one time before, I was invited to speak at a class at Lehigh, which is a very interesting experience. But shout out to Julie Brinker. She's left. She works, I think, for the public television stationed there, now. But she reached out to me so I have signed a thing, Lehigh is going to get at least 15,000 dollars when I die, no rush. But I'll add whatever was it that I may have taken from the bookstore. I just know I did. I don't even remember, maybe was a few albums, I can't remember. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But I worked there to make money to, I guess, smoke and drink pot and party. I was very busy. It's really hard to drink and use drugs and organize at the same time, which is one of the reasons I gave up. I just didn't have time for it. When I spoke at Lehigh, maybe it was two times before I went with Julie Brinker, maybe when I was first elected or something to the council, I don't remember the circumstances, but Lehigh was the first place I ever went and spoke at. It was the early '90s where if it's a queer audience, I would sometimes say, "How many of you have been the victim of a hate crime, a homophobic hate crime, or had someone yell epithets and you were afraid that you might be physically," and everyone raised their hand. I don't think I've ever experienced someone who didn't raise their hand that that didn't happen to them. And I asked the same question at Lehigh, but I said, "How many have done that?" And several students raised their hands. And that was the first time I had ever experienced that, these students actually acknowledged that they had beaten up gay people or had verbally threatened gay people. And I don't really know how I handled it. I think just by them doing it and me being there maybe made them think again about not doing that, but I don't exactly remember. It was a little hazy. I was sober and everything by then, it's just it was a while ago, so I don't remember. But anyway, Julie Brinker, many times she would come to New York, we would have breakfast together, we would talk and talk about Lehigh and what was going on. And no one from Lehigh ever reached out to me with the exception of when my father, my brother. I have stuff with my father, but I love my father. I've forgiven him for all this stuff and I love him and he taught me many great things. And I love my brother, Jimmy, but I don't think he's ever smoked pot in his life. I know he's never smoked pot in his life. He doesn't have the same kind of history as I have, let's say that. Until you all reached out to me to do this, since Julie left, I haven't heard a word from Lehigh. And I'm not sure, I don't want to speak on her behalf, but she was good. She got me. If she'd stayed on, we still had plans to try to put together a bigger people that had come out after they left Lehigh to try to get us all together, but I think they didn't know, in that office, how valuable she was. And I'm not surprised. So, Lehigh, they have a lounge where everyone if they're not he/him, or she/her, and his, and hers, or they/them, which is just mind-blowing from the way it was when I was there. Which, of course, interestingly -- I shouldn't say -- it's a heterosexual student body, administrative people, many of them, I think, were heterosexual [inaudible] the ones that I was there that wouldn't let us have a gay group. It wasn't they wouldn't let us have a gay group, but two of them were gay guys. Ironic. I had to leave Lehigh. I needed to get out. And I came to New York. But I continued on a path of working during the day and doing community and LGBT. I think it was miracle we started to say lesbian and gay, which was a step up from saying gay and lesbian, but anyway. I continued being active in the queer community and non-queer community and my life went on. There's something that happened a little while ago and I think it started with when I was telling you about acting gayer than -- maybe I'm ashamed to say that I was acting gayer than I would normally act. I feel in a way that's a terrible thing to say, because another thing that, from my childhood or my adolescence that I remember is to be very, very careful about how I walked. And I'm a very stiff walker because I was terrified to walk gay. And I came out as a relatively young age for a time, but sometimes, I think that people who, they couldn't or wouldn't hide that they were too fem or too butch, if they were gay, or lesbian, or nonbinary, that they just were who they were, are, have an easier time later on in life because they get the bad stuff over with when they're younger. As I say, dancing, it's hard to dance when you're trying not to dance gay. And I didn't want to dance gay in front of the football player and his girlfriend. And that's true. It is absolutely true that I really did everything I could to minimize that. And I'm sure that lasted through my early days in college, even as I was coming out, there was some shame in the community, I think, while there's such horrible discrimination against, particularly people of transgender experience or expression, and non-binary people. So, I'm feeling a little ashamed of myself both because, thanks Dad, because I dressed and acted gay, more gay, more stereotypically gay, for a while. Not every day, every once in a while. I'm not saying that defensively, just sometimes you just had fun with it, but we didn't live to do it or anything. But the way I explained it, I feel there's that, "Oh, my father wouldn't approve of that," but it's also that I think I feel terribly that I was disrespectful towards people who were able to be who they were and didn't -- so, I'm sorry about that. And I've noticed since I said that that it's been hard for me to make eye contact, which is something I do. So, I'm a 67-year-old queer, I've been gay since I was 17, and militantly gay since I was 18-and-a-half or something, and yet, I still have stuff. My life went on. I became active in politics and I became the Democratic leader for the area that I lived in, it was an elected position, I had to run in a primary, an actual election in. And I ran and lost for public office. And I ran for the city council and I disclosed my HIV status. It was really sort of the first thing I sent out to people in the district, and there's a much longer story that goes with that. So, I hope I get a second chance to keep going because there's a big part of my life with that. And I went on. I think the same thing holds true for when I was at Lehigh, people went, "Why did you do that? Why did you try to start a homophile, why did you do that?" Because I had no choice. It was my calling. I don't think I really understood this until I have a friend who was a police officer and openly gay, which is tough. I also have one of the first female firefighters who is part of the lawsuit, and these are very, very brave people to be out in uniform services many years ago. But anyway, my friend Don said to me -- because, politically, you would think that I would be someone who didn't like the police at all, but I'm not. I'm like, "Listen, most police, they want to get the guy, they want to help people. I want to help people. And most elected officials are good and some are terrible. Most cops are good and some are terrible. And some ditch diggers are good and some are terrible. Some doctors are good and some are terrible. It's just the way it is." And he has a very interesting story because -- I can't remember whether his mother or his father had a blood transfusion and passed it to his other parent, and they died of AIDS. So, he was gay but his parents died of AIDS as a result of a blood transfusion. I was explaining to the students in a class that I teach how people divided the world between innocent victims and non-innocent, so they were innocent victims. He wasn't like that. We weren't like that at all, at all. But that would be it, they were innocent. Anyway, he said, "I became a police officer because it was a calling. It was like a vocation," like a person wanted to become a priest or a rabbi. It was a calling. And I think it was my calling, too, where I was able to do it so I did. But I had no choice. [inaudible] well, maybe, yes, but it doesn't feel that way to me. It's just, I can't imagine not doing it and I regret any of the times when I had an opportunity and I let it go by for whatever reason. Because as a gay person -- and this was big when I was in elected office -- you have to choose your battles because I was always the only one. If there's two queers, well, then they can take turns and then other people start to do it. When you're the only one, I would talk to everybody. When I talked with people, "We're the only people. We have to decide every day whether or not to come out." And I mean that. Even when you're out, you have to decide to come out. If you say something at work, "I have a date tonight with," or, "I went to see my partner's family," or, "I went to see whatever play it was," and say something to indicate -- but you have to think about whether or not we should say -- and I hope that's not the way it is for younger people, that they don't have to think of it that way. But people in my generation, I think we do think about it. And I when I was younger, I was, absolutely, like, "Is this the moment that I choose?" And Lehigh, I sought them out, but I let some go by, too. I couldn't do it all the time. But I would have to be like, "Is this that important?" And I also would have to make the decision when I was -- and this is particularly true -- in the city council and in the Senate, when I was in the minority for most of the time, the Democrats were in the minority. So, for instance, I represented the Trade Center at 9/11, and bills were getting passed for the spouses of people who were killed. And I voted for those bills but I went -- there was a particular Republican senator who, as much as I'm against the death penalty, it's as much as he's for, but he was a real gentleman. And these kinds of laws would go through his committee. And so, I went to him and I said, "Next year, could you add domestic partners to this list?" And he said, "Yes, but let's do it quietly." And I just wanted to get it done. I didn't have to make a big thing. I knew he was gettable. I don't mean that in a good way, that he would understand. Even if he'd never vote for gay marriage, but he thought that was fair. I knew he would think that was fair. So, there were times when I did things like that, just to get it done. But then, there were other times when I had to make a scene. And I'm an anger, not a fear. There was a time when there was this thing where people would choose the colors that they were, "I'm a fall," or "I'm a spring," "I'm a winter," there's certain colors of clothing that people would wear? We went through amazing times. Maybe that still happens. Anyway, some people are a fear, some people are -- I'm an anger. I'm not a fear. I'm an anger. I'm an anger and I'm a sad. Those are my two predominate -- behind my anger is a lot of sadness, I would have to say. I can't even get to fear because the other stuff is so big. So, I am pretty fearless. I just am. Oh my God, I'm about to say something good about myself, but I used it. I was able to, so I did. Not everybody was and I did even at Lehigh. And I tried to stop, sometimes. I'm never going to stop. I can't help myself. I think I ran for the student government at Lehigh, by the way. I lost, but I ran. And I lost. What was it called? Was it senate? Was it the Student Senate? Which was one of the demands when my brother, who was three years -- when everybody else was demonstrating against the Vietnam War they were demonstrating that freshmen didn't have to wear this little cap called dinks and they were demonstrating to be allowed to have a student government. That's what their thing was. So, yeah, I ran for the senate but I was overreaching. But I did lose the first time I ran for public office. So, maybe if I had run again, I would have won the second time around. But I was openly gay at the time that I ran. Anyway, I don't know. I must have run a very bad campaign. I do want to talk about all the rest but it's amazing to me that at Lehigh now, that there would be an affirmative effort to get queer people into fraternities and sororities, like unbelievable to me. Even when they started having the lounge for the LGBTQ community, I can't imagine the people were joining fraternities and sororities up until very recently, being open about who they were with their sexual orientation. I may be completely wrong about that, but I don't think so. People came out once they were there but I think even that would be hard to come out in some fraternities. Because there's a fear. And sororities, too, there's, "Oh my God, we let a queer person in. Now everyone's going to think all of us are." I'm sure that goes on to this day. I live in New York City and there is discrimination and there is stigma attached to being queer here, and certainly HIV, which is a whole other thing. So, it happens here. And Lehigh is a little behind New York City, I think, politically, in many ways. So, people say that what I did was brave and how did I? But people that are doing what they're doing at Lehigh now that are going to join a fraternity or sorority being open about who they are, good for them. That's brave. And I think, New York, if I really was going to really continue to be active? I'm a left-wing, they barely let me stay in the Democratic party. I'm very, very, very progressive and I always got endorsed by the socialists, even though it's not as large as it is now, the group that AOC -- where am I going? So, I would go to Alabama or Mississippi where it's much harder to be gay, that's where you can get married and the next day get fired. I'm not even sure Pennsylvania has a Civil Rights bill. I don't know. So, people, they take risks. Sometimes before I go to bed, I might watch this TV show called "House Hunters," and once in a while, they have a gay couple. But they're living in Texas. I think, "Oh, are they out to everybody in Texas?" You know what I mean? Maybe they work in places where it's no big deal, but still, it's braver to be gay in Texas -- I've been to Texas -- than it is to be in New York City. I love New York, what can I tell you? And I have an affordable apartment, so I don't think I'm going to go to Mississippi. But those are the brave people. And a young person who will still come out, it's a political act. It's a big deal. And yeah, I came out sexually, yes, but the bigger thing was to come out politically. MF: I just want to say, listening to you talk about it, you were compelled at Lehigh, to be an out student, it felt like a calling to you. And I just wrote a brief history of LGBTQIA-plus activism on campus and I went through the Brown and White and I went through the yearbooks. To my mind from what I've been able to find, Rick Balmer, James Hopkinson were involved with that early Le-Hi-Ho, but what I've been able to find, you were the first out person on campus that was advocating for a public group, not a support group, public group for gay students at that time, at Lehigh. And for me, you and others in your friend group, Rick Balmer, and Hopkinson before you, you laid the foundation for that inclusivity that comes into our present twenty-first century at Lehigh. We have the Pride Center, we have Spectrum. I see a direct line from what you did at Lehigh to what my life as an out professor has been like at Lehigh. And I'm so grateful to actually be sitting with you today, face-to-face, and hearing you talk about what it was like for you to be there. I just want to say thank you at the end of the interview, today. And I hope I get to do a second interview because I want to hear about politics in New York City. TD: Absolutely. You're welcome. And thank you for saying it. And one of the reasons it's so important, I knew when I left there wasn't going to be anything anymore. And I was sad about that. And that's why I went in the '80s to see that guy, and when he left, there was nothing. But I couldn't stay there forever. I couldn't stay in office ; you have to leave it to someone else. But you're saying that, I don't -- not that I let people down by leaving, because that's what you're supposed to do, but thank you for saying that. I didn't really ever think of it in those terms. MF: People remember you. In other oral histories, "Oh, have you talked to Tom Duane?" "There was a student that was trying to get this group going, you might know him. He was a New York City Senator." Your name keeps coming up, for Bob Wittman, for Frank Whelan, for Rick Balmer, certainly, they've mentioned you. And the students that came after that started the Human Diversity League, I think that was [Jonathan Glennon?], maybe Ethan Felson. TD: Yes, yes. MF: It was Ethan Felson? That group was around, then it got resurrected. And then, in the '90s, there was a Les-Bi-Gay group that was there in the '90s. TD: Vaguely remember that. MF: So, people kept trying. And they really were building, whether they knew your name in terms of your Lehigh history -- I'm sure everyone knew your name because you were a New York State Senator -- but whether they knew your history at Lehigh, they were building on that. You were pushing the administrators at that time to sanction a group, to support a group on campus, and that did eventually happen by the time it was the twenty-first century and other students came building on what you did to make a reality. And Lehigh is absolutely transformed and changed, today, because of your efforts and other students' efforts that came after. TD: I want to say thank you. Thank you. It was also -- I want to say it was my privilege. But I'm happy to hear that and it makes me happy that I did what I did. So, thank you for saying that. You're going to come up in therapy next week. [laughter] And it's so thrilling -- are you tenured? Oh my God, that's -- because women at CUNY -- that's a whole other story. I have to be observed because I'm not a tenured professor and the woman who was going to observe me, I was like, "I'm so thrilled, a tenured woman professor from the school," and she said, "I don't have tenure." And I said, "Oh." I hope she's on the tenured track. I'm not going to get to vote on it. But actually, when I disclosed my HIV status -- which we'll talk about -- it was one of the things that we tested about coming out was whether a professor should tell the head of the department they had HIV when they were being considered for tenure. That's for another day. MF: Oh, yes. I can't wait to hear more about it. TD: It's a big thing. When did people start telling the head of the department that they were queer? When did that start? MF: I put it right on my resume. TD: Good. MF: Like, "I did a lesbian organizing project, and here I am." TD: I'm sure you thought about it, because you were coming out, but you were going to do it no matter what, right? There was no stopping you. But it still was a decision that not everybody makes. MF: Yeah. TD: I think that's great. I'm thrilled. Really, the world is changing, and I tell students, "You've got to hang on to what it is and build on it because it could slip away. It could slip away and don't let that happen." What I say about Lehigh, even though it wasn't a real recognized group, "Never give up the franchise," but I did give up the franchise. But if I could have, I would have, even if there was one member, just to keep it alive. Maybe there's no need -- there is still an ACT UP, but there's a lot of organizations that I've been a part of, Queers for Economic Justice is one. They went out of business. I'm like, "No. Don't do that. Even if you're going bankrupt, just reorganize and don't give it up." It was something I started when I was in office, which if you read the history of it, my name is not mentioned because I'm an establishment -- am I bitter and angry about it? [laughs] There were three of us who did it, someone else in my office, and suddenly, he's the only one, the one who wasn't working for government -- the three of us created it and then we sent it on its way and it went, but if you read about its founding, we're not in there. That's why I have to write that... MF: You have to write that book. TD: I have to write that book. I have to write that book. MF: Well, I'm going to be in touch with Bruce, and maybe we can schedule a follow-up. I know you have a busy schedule, but I loved that. TD: And how is that possible? I'm the busiest, retired, unemployed mostly person that I know. I don't know how. I think I just can't help myself. I remember Gloria Steinem saying this one time, she was speaking at some event, I can't remember what it was, and her thank you for whatever award, and then she started giving us phone numbers to call about this and that, and then she said, "I just," and I thought, "I know exactly what that's like." [laughs] She couldn't help herself. Good for people like us. MF: Yes. We need people like you. TD: Like us. MF: Like us. Like us. I will be in touch and I just want to close the interview by saying, once again, thank you so much. TD: It's been a pleasure. It was great speaking with you. 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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Thomas Duane, February 17, 2022 (Part 1)
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Thomas Duane recounts the early years of his life, his relationship with sexuality and time at Lehigh University, as well as his early interactions with activism and politics.
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LGBT-22
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2022-02-17
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Mary Foltz
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Thomas Duane
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5.4 April 2, 2022 Thomas Duane, April 2, 2022 (Part 3) LGBT-31 1:38:15 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Thomas Duane Mary Foltz video/mp4 DuaneThomas_20220402.mov 1.0:|31(5)|64(14)|87(11)|114(5)|139(3)|168(5)|187(9)|208(6)|231(7)|250(7)|269(17)|294(4)|313(17)|334(16)|353(4)|380(9)|401(5)|422(14)|451(5)|472(16)|495(13)|520(7)|547(6)|576(12)|601(8)|622(12)|643(11)|664(13)|687(10)|706(9)|727(6)|752(7)|769(13)|792(14)|821(7)|846(7)|869(6)|892(10)|921(6)|944(5)|965(5)|984(4)|1009(6)|1032(5)|1055(5)|1078(6)|1097(5)|1116(13)|1141(3)|1160(12)|1185(12)|1210(16)|1237(7)|1260(7)|1287(4)|1304(10)|1327(3)|1352(13)|1373(3)|1392(5)|1417(6)|1438(13)|1461(10)|1484(14)|1507(13)|1534(16)|1557(11)|1580(16)|1603(4)|1628(9)|1649(4)|1678(17)|1709(13)|1740(11)|1769(7)|1790(8)|1817(11)|1834(15)|1861(9)|1884(10)|1911(11)|1940(6)|1967(5)|1994(16)|2019(9)|2046(12)|2071(5)|2094(15)|2119(4)|2144(2)|2177(2)|2206(4)|2227(11)|2252(13)|2277(17)|2300(15)|2333(4)|2366(16)|2377(10) 0 https://youtu.be/uMdnRN9RYm8 YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here again with Senator Thomas Duane to talk about his life and experiences as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from ACLS, and today we are meeting again at his offices in Manhattan, and it's April 2nd, 2022. So earlier we signed a consent form. I'm just going to go back through some consent questions. Do you consent to this interview today? 
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 ; THOMAS DUANE: Yes. 0 364 Motivation for Running for City Council
 ; MF: Well, we're so glad to talk to you again today. And yesterday we ended in 1991. We talked about your runs for city council and your successful run for city council. And I want to start today, I know we're going to move into your work on city council, but I just I wanted to start with why did you run for city council? What were the issues that mattered to you that inspired that run? Could you talk a little bit about, you know, why city council? Why did you decide to run? 
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 ; TD: Well. There was no openly gay member on the city council when I ran in ‘89, you know, sort of around ‘85 and somebody actually ran very many years before that, Jim Owles is his name, and also lost. But the person who ran before me, David Berg, did very well. And, I just thought it was important that there be an openly queer person on the city council and the district after ‘89 was drawn to make it more… to give a better shot -- to give to make the odds better for a gay person to win. 0 906 Joy of the Journey TD: And this is a terrible way to talk about this, except for it's kind of the right way, but it's inappropriate, but it's perfect, you know, and I even say this to my students, oh, my gosh, if anyone ever sees this. But I do preface it by like, I know this is inappropriate and I just-- but, you know, I need to explain something to you as you move forward in life. I said it's the joy of the journey, which is a which is a 12-step slogan. 0 1100 Concentrating on Supporters TD: And I oftentimes tell people running for office that, you know, we can always talk about the orgasm part, but I do say, like be present in the moment while you’re doing this because this really is like the, you know, this is -- I mean, it's best to win, it is better than losing, but it's really being present, you know, as it goes through. And just concentrate on the people that are unexpectedly for you, not the people that you thought were going to be for you, but aren't, you know, focus on the ones that are for you. 0 1451 Unfair Press Coverage / Fashion Sense TD: And I just I complained at one point, I believe, about how, you know, I always noticed that when women elected officials are covered in the press, even though they're trying to be better now, but the press would always talk about what they were wearing or what their hair was like. And I used to get that, too. 0 1590 City Council Endeavors / Setting Regulations MF: You do have that cool factor. I want to talk about -- So you get into office 1991. What's happening on city council at that time? What are the big issues that you're facing with city council? What are you fighting for at that time? 
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 ; TD: Well, I think people. Like me, maybe originally think that you get elected to house the homeless and feed the hungry. And that is something that is always there. It's something, you know, I'm always fighting for. But it was also about sidewalk cafes and discothèques and, you know, quality of life issues, which was [inaudible] because there were things that I hadn't really noticed before, for instance. Whether you call them peddlers or vendors, but people on the street who would put their wares out on the sidewalk, some people really hate that. I never even really noticed. I just thought, you know, it came with the territory. In fact, right across the street from where I live, there were people who would put things out. 0 1921 Discothèques TD: Noise complaints at the time, discothèques, discos were very big and they were both gay and non-gay and they tended to be concentrated in my district and some of them, many of them, you know, absolutely no problems and nobody complained about them. But sometimes when a place would become less in and say sort of a way that these places where first it would be gay, then it would be slowly but surely more heterosexual, white, heterosexual, and then it would mostly become people of color, be it was, say, urban youth. And but the responsibility for how a disco was many, many owners of these places licensed it out to promoters. 0 2161 Loftdwellers / Ensuring Habitable Real Estate/Living Conditions for New Yorkers TD: Again, I had a lot of especially, I then, but in my district I had a lot of loft dwellers who had moved into manufacturing or commercial spaces and had fixed them up and they had to fight landlords to be allowed to stay. So, there was a whole battle over saving tenants who were lofts. And I got even more when I was elected to the Senate because I got all of SoHo and TriBeCa where there were, you know, even more of these lofts. 0 2642 Fighting for Tenants TD: But, of course, I was fighting for a lot of other, you know, you know, on behalf of tenants. And I got you know, I passed a bill and again, this has been improved upon after I left, but it made it illegal for a landlord to discriminate against someone based on how they paid their rent. So people are probably familiar with the Section Eight program. So it would be illegal to discriminate against someone because they paid their rent with a Section Eight voucher. 0 2754 Division of AIDS Services (DAS) TD: So I like that bill a lot, actually, and I'm glad that it got built upon. You know, another bill to make it so that buildings would have the lighting outside to make the streets safer. And but, you know, the two -- maybe the two things that I'll be most remembered for. Maybe the two biggest things. One was, I'm putting -- there was an agency that was started by Mayor Ed Koch and continued through Mayor Dinkins. And it put within our city human resources department where people get their entitlements or their benefits, government benefits, something called the Division of AIDS Services, DAS. It’s now called HASA, [HIV/AIDS Services Administration]. At the time, it was DHS, and when Mayor Giuliani was running for office, he said that he'd heard from people that it didn't work that well. 0 2947 Speaking Against Homophobic Comments in Council TD: And really, I was able to only because of my press visit, you know, when I said earlier where, you know, because it was the case, but it's also having a seat at the table. I'm sorry. I should have said that. That's maybe the most important thing that changes everything to have a seat at the table. And so my being there was very helpful. And I had had a. When I first got elected to the council, the chair of the health committee had been there for a very long time and was kind of an old fashioned gentlemen, I’ll say. He was quoted in the papers as saying that gay rights caused AIDS. 0 3341 Creating Fair Treatment for HIV/AIDS Patients TD: Well, the battle continued to stop the you know, reconfiguring, reforming the Division of AIDS Services, you know, and one of the things that happened was by… Well, every year in the budget, everybody in the council would fight to stop the mayor's cuts to the Division of AIDS Services. So that was very important and they were very sensitive to that. And that was very you know, that's no substitute for a seat at the table kind of thing. So not just because of being gay, but the HIV was very powerful for making that be a reality that everyone then cared a little bit. I mean, many of them did care about the Division of AIDS Services, but they cared maybe just a little bit more now that they understood the stakes are so high that, you know, there was a possibility of under, you know. 0 3847 Battling for Domestic Partner Benefits TD: The other thing that I'm probably very known for was a battle to provide domestic partner benefits, which would only go to city employees. You couldn't mandate that private employers would provide domestic partnership benefits. But previously there had been a bill where there was just a registry, and that entitles you to visit whoever it was in the hospital and I don't even think you got benefits, but it was just a place to sort of recognize your relationship in some way. 0 4131 Advocating for Community-Created Land and Zoning Plans / Attempting to Create Affordable Housing TD: But, you know, I also was a big champion of communities being able to create their own land use and zoning plans. So there was in the new city charter which made 51 city councilman was there something in there that said that a community board could bring forward their own land use and zoning plan. They had to go through, you know, reviews and hearings and everything for the plan. And then the City Planning Commission would have to decide whether or not to accept it. 0 4365 Chelsea Planning Committee TD: And the Chelsea Planning Committee had been, it was a combination of, like, small business owners and people who cared deeply about preservation because we expanded the Chelsea historic district and housing activists and just, you know, average citizens in Chelsea that all wanted to sort of preserve the character of the neighborhood. And everybody got everything they wanted except for the people who were fighting for low income housing, really, more or less my team, are the ones that got blocked out. 0 4633 Keeping Records / Sign-on Letters TD: Oh. I'm trying to think if there's -- I mean, I could list, you know, a whole number of things that I did that were, you know, really very good things, just not very high profile. But let me say I also did something. There were a few things that I started. We used to cut out – this is me with scissors -- cut out newspaper articles if I was in it, and we kept them in scrapbooks, and we also kept every letter that we wrote about anything, because a lot of them could be, you know, reused in a way. 0 4745 Community Boards TD: And the other thing I did was elected officials go to these community boards, which I've talked about. Over 50 members from neighborhoods that make advisory just, you know, resolutions to be sent to elected officials and to the city government, sometimes even to state. And I would -- and what would happen is a good staff member who you would send to that community board, would they say, and the council member did this, the council member did that. 0 4984 Learning New Things While on Council / ConEd TD: And I, I feel strongly -- I want people to be able to do that. And one of the reasons I love being on the city council is we had lots and lots of public hearings on the city council. And I loved learning new things. And, you know, I know a lot about a few things and a little about a lot of things but I know not very much at all about a lot of things. And I would learn things in a [inaudible] they worked in the constituent issues where if they were focused on an issue, I would say go for it because I could be the mouthpiece for it. But it made me smarter too. 0 5174 Transforming Real Estate for Community Organizations TD: You know, there was a, you know, real estate wasn't doing that well in the early nineties. And there's this city owned building. It had been a library and the city wanted to sell it. And the local community board… and I supported this wholeheartedly because it had to go through city government, set aside for some kind of social services group. So, I mean, you could be the coalition for the homeless. It really could have been -- it turned out to be God's Love We Deliver, which is fine. And so they've been there ever since. They don't just -- God's Love We Deliver is a food delivery program for people with AIDS, that was much needed. And, you know, in the days of HIV and AIDS where there is -- when it was wasting disease. 0 5411 Closing Remarks MF: Well, I apologize, but we're going to have to stop because our video camera has -- we've taken up all of storage space.
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 ; TD: This is what happens with my relationships, too. They get tired of me. [laughs] 
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 ; MF: But we're not tired of the you we just ran out of the ability to save the interview. 
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 ; TD: Well. 0 MovingImage Thomas Duane describes his time in the New York City Council, advocating for the LGBTQ+ community, fighting for the Division of AIDS Services (DAS), and working to ensure habitable living conditions for New Yorkers. MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here again with Senator Thomas Duane to talk about his life and experiences as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from ACLS, and today we are meeting again at his offices in Manhattan and it's April 2nd, 2022. So earlier we signed a consent form. I'm just going to go back through some consent questions. Do you consent to this interview today? THOMAS DUANE: Yes. MF: And do you consent to having this interview transcribed, digitized and made publicly available online and in searchable formats? TD: Absolutely, yes. MF: And do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes that could include films, articles, websites, presentations or other formats? TD: Does that mean they'll know I'm gay? MF: Yes, it does mean that. TD: All right. All right. MF: So that's a yes. TD: Yes. MF: And then just like the yesterday, you'll have 30 days to review the transcript and then decide if you want to pull the interview. We'll just delete it. You could delete parts of the interview or you can contribute the whole thing. Okay. TD: Yes, I got this thing. Will, I really read it? You know what I mean? Right. You know, let's say best efforts to read it, but I doubt I'll take anything out. But you never know. MF: Well, you'll have the opportunity to do that. And we won't post it -- TD: Read like, a couple of hours about me, but I mean. MF: Well, you'll have that offer. So we ended -- TD: Call my therapist like "hello?" MF: Yeah, well, your therapist could review the draft. [laughs] So yesterday I was just so grateful to talk to you yesterday. And thank you so much for talking with me again today. TD: I think it's important that people know that every day that I've been filmed, I have been late. I have arrived late. I do have a lateness issue, but it's been a little extreme so. Usually it's best to tell me an hour before, like lie about the time. But then I'm not always that way. It's just it's an occasional thing. It's part of my ADHD, which I didn't find out I had til I was in my forties. I don't know what I have talked about that, but my therapist at the time said, you know, you might have ADHD and his wife, who is an art therapist, has ADHD. Or A.D.D. or whatever. It's, you know, it's a spectrum, I guess. And he's said why don't you go see Dr. so and so, he's an expert in the field. So, I went to see him and he gave me a test. Fortunately, no homework. He just asked me questions. I answered them and then he said that is the highest -- or you are off the charts. It was like the best grade I ever got in an exam. And but it just made -- then I was like, oh. Because my default is "I'm stupid and lazy and can't follow directions". And that's, you know. It's because of my, you know, the way I learn things. And, you know, I'm not stupid. I mean, I don't think I'm the smartest person in the room usually, but, you know, I can compete. I'm not lazy. Like I got elected to office, it's not, you know. But I don't really follow directions very well. That is true. I mean, sometimes I do, but I mean, like, you know, how to set up something, you know, a new TV or something just to tear it up because it's written by people who already know how to do it. Like, I need someone to write it who's, like, doing it, you know, learning how to do it. Like, I am. So as soon as I, you know, explain to me, show me. Don't do it for me, but let me do it and, you know, make mistakes. And then once I got it, I got it. But it just takes me. I don't know whether you should. I could stay longer. I need to look at it in a different way. But did -- because the first year after that, I really I cried a few times. I think, you know, that's what it is. Because, you know, my family used to say, you don't stick to anything, which I guess is which is a combination of all of, you know, I didn't get as good grades as my brothers and, you know, I get an A in something and they'd be like, oh you're going to get an A in that, why don't you get an A in everything. Like, you don't know how hard it was to get that A. And I, by the way, I did like I was -- I just wasn't the top class. It was like this second class out of nine. But, you know, so it was a -- you know, even though it was very good, it was a self-esteem issue that I couldn't, you know, measure up. And I sometimes say, you know, I exceled at everything that my parents hated. So, you know, anyway, but that was important information for me because then I knew sometimes when someone tried to explain something to me that I would say, you know, we'll tell you a little bit about it and let me ask questions. And then after, if there's more that you think I should know, then tell me then. But if you just keep going, I'm just going to get lost and, you know, keep stopping this question. So let me just do it this way. We'll save a lot of time. It really, you know, it helped. And then people got used to my way of figuring things out, you know, anyway. MF: Well, you were on time today, I just wanna say. So, and we were the ones that were behind. TD: Because I took the subway, which is just one stop. Although I don't want to support the subways and boost the ridership. Ordinarily, I would walk here, but then I'd be all sweaty when I arrived. So I thought it would be better if I was cool, calm, and collected when I got here. Anyway... MF: Well, we're so glad to talk to you again today. And yesterday we ended in 1991. We talked about your runs for city council and your successful run for city council. And I want to start today, I know we're going to move into your work on city council, but I just I wanted to start with why did you run for city council? What were the issues that mattered to you that inspired that run? Could you talk a little bit about, you know, why city council? Why did you decide to run? TD: Well. There was no openly gay member on the city council when I ran in '89, you know, sort of around '85 and somebody actually ran very many years before that, Jim Owles is his name, and also lost. But the person who ran before me, David Berg, did very well. And, I just thought it was important that there be an openly queer person on the city council and the district after '89 was drawn to make it more-- to give a better shot -- to give to make the odds better for a gay person to win. And, it's a tough question in a way, because I'm going to sort of preface it with something else. I had a -- he's still alive, but he's just not living in New York. Had a very good friend who is a police officer. And when I was campaigning in 1989, I bumped into him on the street. I knew him a little bit from the neighborhood, but I didn't know he was a police officer and he asked me a lot of questions. And I guess I did okay. And then he said, you know, I'm a police officer. I said, oh, no, I didn't know that. And he you know, in the course of the conversation, he said, you know, I was called to do this work to be a police officer. It's more or less a vocation, like some become a priest, or a minister, or rabbi. It just it called me, it pulled me. I didn't really have any choice. And that made a lot of sense to me. And it's not that I had never run for something before, obviously I'd run for district leader. And I'm sure I think I ran for, I may have run for something at Lehigh, but I wasn't like [inaudible]. Well, I would -- I always thought of myself as not very competitive, but actually I think I'm bloodthirsty competitive. I mean, I don't know if I could have hurt people, but like, I'm, you know, focused and determined. But I did have all this community experience, you know, neighborhood issues and also the LGBTQIA things and the HIV crisis, the AIDS crisis was still raging. So, I feel as if I was called to do it. And on some level, I just knew that I could. And it's hard. I talked about, you know, I ran and then I lost, but I ran again. And it is a special, you know, club of people who are willing to do it again. So, I feel like the pull was very strong to do it. And so I think that's why I feel like I had no choice in a way. But I also was very aware that, you know, I could get a lot done and everyone could do an awful lot without a title, you know, without a public office. But it's a helpful tool, you know, so that was -- I also factored that in that it would be a good way to bring attention to things that I cared about. And I like people. And actually, I was a painfully, pathologically shy child. And whenever I started school and really, you know, elementary school and high school and Lehigh, in the beginning I would be very shy, not -- I don't know whether I was afraid or not as time went on. But until I got the lay of the land and then I could, you know, come out as myself. But there is something a little, you know. I mean, I have a few very good friends that know everything about me. And if they don't, it's just because, you know, I forgot. You know, we just didn't talk about it, but I would speak with him about it. But I think I was able to overcome this shyness. And it's sort of easier if there's just something between me and you. I don't have to be on a stage or something. But, you know, if I'm campaigning and I have to go up to strangers like I'm going to hand them a flier or someone else is going to like the reason that I'm doing it. So, it's not just, oh, all of a sudden, you know, we're really good friends, although I really like people a lot. So, the shyness, it's a paradox, you know, and I -- and it does account for some when I talk about my sort of intimacy issues and, you know, close sort of romantic relationships, you know, it does kind of make sense then also. But I also have this, you know, I said I've said that, you know, children, teenagers, animals feel safe around me. And I feel I love that about myself. I feel like it's a gift. And I also, I'm very empathetic and I can take in people's pain like I'm someone that people can talk to about something painful in their lives. But, in a way that I want to say, it doesn't take a toll like I'm able to do it. It does a little bit take a toll on me when I think back on it. But it's more the toll is more like, you know, it's like sort of like an even deeper empathy in a way, you know, with how brave it is for people to go through the things that they go through. And, you know, I am the keeper of many, many, many, many secrets. And I'll go to my grave, you know, people who are queer, people who maybe -- people living with HIV, people who had a person in their family who died of AIDS. But they don't tell people. But that also translates into other, you know, people who are, I don't wanna say outliers because there's never just one person. But you know someone who there's something unique and special and you know about them or, something that's happened to them or someone in their family that they. It's painful for them to share, but it's important. And I'm open to hearing about that. And I don't, I won't ever tell anybody about it. I'll sometimes if I see you again, I'll repeat back to you what you told me. And I realized some people would get startled and I would be like, No, no, no, no. I'm just telling you, you know, I just want you to know that I remember what you said. Like, I saw you. And I'm only telling you that I remember our conversation and what that was. And sometimes that impacted what I ended up fighting for in office too, things that had happened with people and I think I was always that way. And I think it's something my, certainly my mother, you know, in her good moments, of which there were many, but not all. Something that she did reference about me, that she did know that about me and, so I feel fortunate also. And I brought that into my political life, my community activist life, and then my my political life and running for office. So, I was called to do it. And really, I feel like I had no choice. I just had to do it the next thing that I was supposed to do. And this is a terrible way to talk about this, except for it's kind of the right way, but it's inappropriate, but it's perfect, you know, and I even say this to my students, oh, my gosh, if anyone ever sees this. But I do preface it by like, I know this is inappropriate and I just-- but, you know, I need to explain something to you as you move forward in life. I said it's the joy of the journey, which is a which is a 12-step slogan. And it really is the joy of the journey. And I see, you know, if you have a goal and you're going towards it, they be present and like enjoy your way to it and maybe you end up going in a different direction because something has happened along the way. But when you achieve whatever it is that you wanted to achieve, it's kind of like having an orgasm. Like the good part is the foreplay. Then, you know, when you get there, when you have the orgasm, it's over. So, and then you have to think about what's next. So, I just urge you to, you know, enjoy this part of it as you go towards whatever it is that you are going towards. And I'm not sure I always did that, you know, that I stopped to do it and I have kind of learned, or I'm better at not giving advice when it's not asked for. And, you know, there are two kinds of advice. Someone might ask, do they want confirmation of what they already think, or do they really want advice? And I often ask them, do you want me to, you know, agree with you? Or say, that's fine, you know, or do you really want my advice? But I got to meet Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and I talked with her a little bit and she's just as amazing as you would think she is. And she didn't know who I was, and she talked to me anyway. She's just so smart and just so nice and open and, like, I love her. And, when we stopped talking, she was kind of walking, we were on a platform together. And I went over to her and I said, You know, I don't I really I don't usually give people unsolicited advice. But I said, you know, ask some your staff to make sure that you put aside a half an hour or an hour to write down what's happened in that day, because you'll probably remember it, but I always wished I had kept a diary of what happened. And because it's going to be very important in you're living during amazing times. So, I don't know whether she did it or not. And, you know, I didn't even know, I kind of knew I should. So it's fine if she doesn't, and she actually because of social media and many other things, there'll be more of a record of, you know, what her life is like, but, there's also always an internal thing that goes on and like, I'm very good at sharing that about myself. She's very good about sharing personal things about herself, but there is always sort of another level to everything. So that was it. And I oftentimes tell people running for office that, you know, we can always talk about the orgasm part, but I do say, like be present in the moment while you're doing this because this really is like the, you know, this is -- I mean, it's best to win, it is better than losing, but it's really being present, you know, as it goes through. And just concentrate on the people that are unexpectedly for you, not the people that you thought were going to be for you, but aren't, you know, focus on the ones that are for you. And, you know, you have to be kind to the ones that for have a reason, you know, aren't. But don't worry about them right now. Just focus on the people that are supporting you, especially the people who are. Don't take for granted people who are, you know, of course, what they would be for you. But, you know, also concentrate or give, you know, I've taken the feeling good about the people who support you, who you never thought were going to support you or came to help you just -- and you don't know why. That and, if you don't believe what you're saying about an issue, people -- I believe people can tell you're not telling the truth. And so the only thing is that I also learned is that I usually wouldn't take it unless there's a press conference and take a question from a reporter. But in those cases I would practice before, but I had a very good consultant later on. His name is Margot and he, whenever I ask him about a difficult issue, he would always start off with, What do you think? What do you think? You know? And then we could talk about a way to frame it in a way that people could hear it. So I didn't change my position at all, but I was able to explain, give my, you know, position and explain it in a way that people could hear it. Because I also had another wise professor at the JFK School who said, I only do that, just I mean, I'm honored to have gone there. It was a wonderful experience. It really was. And just there was so much wisdom. And he said, and I can't remember why. Okay, I'm a ground. Oh, that politics is oftentimes like the art of telling people something that they can't hear or that they don't want to hear in a way that, you know, they are able to hear to the best of their ability, that you can say it to them, you know, in a way that they can hear it, even if they don't agree with you. So there's a way to tell people things that they may not agree with, that you know, makes it easier for them to hear. And I think that I did that because I had that big experience with, like, the national press when I was running in '91 that whenever possible, I knew what my positions were on things. But I did try to think of the best ways to say it so that people could hear it and understand it. And, you know, many times it's something that, you know, it's personal, the reason that I feel a certain way and I was fortunate my district was pretty progressive in some ways. I think I was more progressive than they were, but I think they liked that I was a little bit more progressive than they were, you know, because they had other responsibilities, you know, protecting whatever their families or, I don't know, their businesses or whatever it maybe I did something that might not seem like it would be in the best interests of their family. But on the other hand, I think that they sometimes wanted to be altruistic and wanted me to do that on their behalf, even if they themselves couldn't do it and I was in a position to do it. As I say, my face is turning red. For some reason I'm having a shame attack about I'm saying good things about myself. So this is what happens. I have a shame attack, which is something. Thanks, Dad. It starts here and it comes up, and then my face turns red. And I didn't say anything I should be ashamed of, but it just it's an automatic, you know, response. And I lived with a lot of shame in my life. And it wasn't until there was an absence of shame in my life because of work that I had done and myself to get, you know, psychologically, spiritually better. It wasn't until I had a lack of shame or that I realized when I was feeling shame because I lived with shame almost all the time, which is kind of a heavy burden. But I, you know, I moved on through it, but I am glad that I figured that out, that, that I don't have to take on shame that doesn't belong to me, even if my body doesn't always reflect that like I know here. But this just red, you know, I'm Irish, so, you know, red. You can really see it. Anyway. MF: I can't see it. You're a little flushed, but you're glowy. TD: And it's because I of my COVID beard, which I never had before. I was, you know, the clean shaven, wholesome, dressed like a Republican elected official. Even though I was for [laughs] -- some of my best friends -- I know people are no - I know people who are Republicans. But you know, I'm a very, very liberal Democrat. So, but I dress you know, I dress like every other elected official, you know, dressed. And, you know, I think it's a nice tie. Right? I have pretty good taste in ties. MF: I love your tie. TD: And I said it's a little too fall-ish for this since we're talking in the spring but still I think I hope it's popping. MF: It's popping. TD: And I just I complained at one point, I believe, about how, you know, I always noticed that when women elected officials are covered in the press, even though they're trying to be better now, but the press would always talk about what they were wearing or what their hair was like. And I used to get that, too. You know, people would comment on what I was wearing and my council, nobody who I love. I just loved him. He is a heterosexual. And he noticed very early on that that was something that happened. And, you know, it's not something that I didn't push back against it. It just was -- it wasn't worth the fight. But it made me very, again, you know, empathetic towards what women have to go through. And it also I mean. Well, I mean. Comments about things like that. I often -- people of color get comments like that, too, you know, like heterosexual white males, men who I realized have stuff too. Sometimes their lives are not easy, but that's not really usually commented on what their tie was, what shirt they were wearing, you know what I mean, or what if they got a haircut? It's not -- but anyone who's not, it's something that comes up as a description of them as if, you know, I want to make sure that it's presumed that you're, you know, a heterosexual white male unless you, like, say things to make it obvious that the person is not that, you know, anyway. I digress. But I was called to do it because I have such a great fashion sense. No, I did represent FIT, Fashion Institute of Technology, which I love, but, oh. One time I was in the elevator at FIT going to a community meeting and there was some students from FIT and I just get to, like, an off-price store and bought a pair of shoes and I -- so I was out with these kids, and I said to him, What do you think of these shoes? They're like, Oh they're cool. And I -- yes. That made my day. Yes, I could still have, you know, that cool factor. So, anyway. MF: You do have that cool factor. I want to talk about -- So you get into office 1991. What's happening on city council at that time? What are the big issues that you're facing with city council? What are you fighting for at that time? TD: Well, I think people. Like me, maybe originally think that you get elected to house the homeless and feed the hungry. And that is something that is always there. It's something, you know, I'm always fighting for. But it was also about sidewalk cafes and discothèques and, you know, quality of life issues, which was [inaudible] because there were things that I hadn't really noticed before, for instance. Whether you call them peddlers or vendors, but people on the street who would put their wares out on the sidewalk, some people really hate that. I never even really noticed. I just thought, you know, it came with the territory. In fact, right across the street from where I live, there were people who would put things out. And it's a bit of a complicated issue, which you can never say never say something is complicated because. Even if it is. There are laws covering which you can vend and where you can vend. But if you are selling used books or magazines that's protected by the First Amendment, you can't tell someone like that to move. You can say you have to be a certain number of feet away from a door to a store or a subway grate. So there are regulations about where you can do that. And, you know. A lot of these people are, you know, somewhat marginalized. And I was not -- and I was empathetic towards everyone to put them out of business. But I remember going out with a measuring tape with some people from a block association, you know, to be sure that they're within the regulations. And I had to be, you know, the law is the law, you know, and if I don't like the law, then I should, you know, fight to change it. And so quality of life issues was, you know, a huge thing. There's an area in my district, the meatpacking district, which for it was really exactly what it's called, Meatpacking district. You would see, you know, cows was hanging from these things outside, which is now a historic district. So they've kept these sort of overhangs over the buildings in many places. But the only people who were there were the people who worked in the meat industry. And many of them were in the butchers union, I know. And but there were also a couple of gay bars opened in that area so then there were gay people there and then sex workers and I'll just say in this case, predominantly non-binary sex workers, whether they still had male genitalia or not, sort of started to move away from Times Square because this is an issue that came up. Tom Duane and Rudy Giuliani [inaudible] which I'll get to, but a lot of the sex industry stuff was moved out of Times Square and moved into the Meatpacking District and the area right around it, which is 14th Street and that part of Village got gentrified even a little bit more. And more people started to live in Manhattan who had children, used to be they weren't that many children who lived in Manhattan. And so there are people who probably didn't like seeing that, you know, transgender sex workers. You know, providing their services in a place where their children might be able to see it and you know, I understand that. And I have empathy towards the sex workers because no one does that because that's what they want to do. They're doing that because that's all. It's the only way to make money. And but the law is the law, you know. So that's really how I would respond to it. And I would torture young people who I was hiring. And I would ask them that question if a constituent calls to ask what can be done about sex workers, you know, near where I live and my children see it and, you know, they would always start off at the place that I would have started. Well, you know, job training programs, and [inaudible] is available to transgender -- I mean, maybe slightly better now. But, you know. And yes, I agree. However, the law is the law, you know. And so that was tough that that kind of issue. Noise complaints at the time, discothèques, discos were very big and they were both gay and non-gay and they tended to be concentrated in my district and some of them, many of them, you know, absolutely no problems and nobody complained about them. But sometimes when a place would become less in and say sort of a way that these places where first it would be gay, then it would be slowly but surely more heterosexual, white, heterosexual, and then it would mostly become people of color, be it was, say, urban youth. And but the responsibility for how a disco was many, many owners of these places licensed it out to promoters. And so it was very much the responsibility of the promoters on how the clientele was that they brought in. And sometimes they just didn't care, you know? And that was when problems, of course, but there was a just a huge movement to get rid of discos. But of course there were a lot of people in my district who went to discos too. So that was very difficult and I had to sort of try to craft legislation that would have enough for everyone to hate and enough for everyone to like. And it was -- one time when Debra Glick, my friend, who had been elected to the assembly, so she was the first openly gay person elected to the state legislature, had an article because -- or an op-ed I think or something. There was a news story on SONDA, I think the nondiscrimination law had passed. And in the times and the same day, there was an op-ed for me, it was a Saturday. And, you know, you don't write the headlines, but the headline was Save Our Discos exclamation point. Oh, did I get letters like he or she's doing this really substantive stuff and you're trying to save the discos? You know, it was like, couldn't you have run my op-ed on a different page? And I did go after bad disco operators. So, but the weird thing is now, and you had to have a cabaret license and if you had just a normal bar and you didn't have a cabaret license that would permit dancing, you could be fined, etc., you know, and too many fines and you could be knocked out of business. Now you can dance anywhere. Like they eliminated the entire cabaret part of the licensing laws. You can -- because big discos are no longer like a thing, you know? And that what people really objected to was the loud noise that young people made when they were leaving. And it would be late because, boy, stay open until 4:00 in New York. So they were you know, that was disturbing to people and I understand that. And more and more decided to have children in these lofts because they were large. They were mostly in Flatiron or the far west side of Manhattan, where there's a lot of brownstones and families who didn't. So, you know, their children would be awakened. Anyway. So, I did have some of course, I feel badly for them also, and their property values are tanking. And I'd be like, Oh, if only I had some money, I'd buy it from you. You know, prices are terrible. No one's real estate ever went below what they bought it for, but it just stopped going up. But I did think sometimes, like, did you look out your window when you moved in? Like, did you not see this was like an industrial block before you moved in and you know, now and that is a big problem in New York. Again, I had a lot of especially, I then, but in my district I had a lot of loft dwellers who had moved into manufacturing or commercial spaces and had fixed them up and they had to fight landlords to be allowed to stay. So, there was a whole battle over saving tenants who were lofts. And I got even more when I was elected to the Senate because I got all of SoHo and TriBeCa where there were, you know, even more of these lofts. But for many people, they moved in when it was cheap, you know, but then the different things happened. You said people would maybe when a new tenant came in and the people who had been living there would sell everything that they had done to fix up the loft to the incoming tenants, they might be more well-heeled than the original artist or whoever who had moved in, so they had paid more in a way for their space. And also as these buildings became legalized, because there were certain things that a landlord would have to do. So, this is an issue that I have to work on, and I'm glad to do it, though it was complicated. Landlords had to bring the building up to residential code, which is different than, you know, commercial or manufacturing. And at that point, then the tenants up until that point, tenants would have to would not be given a rent increase and they would only get rent increases that went along with all other apartments that were rent regulated at the the rent increases would only ever be the same percentage as regular apartment units. And the landlord was required to keep the building habitable. Anyway, so that that -- I can come to Lehigh and give a whole lecture on loft dwelling and what happened with lofts in New York City. Because, you know, in New York City, just many of these places are just not used for manufacturing anymore. In fact, right here where my office is, this building I think was always an office building. And Chelsea was like this along Sixth Avenue. And now we're on Eighth Avenue where the nicer real estate would be on the corners, and the mid-block was where the factories were. And that's a throwback from the 18th century because, you know, fancy people or, you know, would be on the avenues and the stores would be nicer and the avenues and the offices would be nicer. And the avenues of mid-block is where manufacturing everywhere in the garment center. And they actually made a lot of garments here. There's not quite so much of it anymore and a lot of these buildings have been converted to office buildings and some were converted to residential buildings. So but it is important that every place is habitable for people, whether they live someplace and they work someplace. I mean, I represented -- you know, factories have to maintain certain standards. It was in New York City where there was the terrible fire where the ladies garment workers were locked into there. They couldn't get out. And that's what led to some of the the making sure that there was, you know, egress for everyone and that they were habitable, that there was water so people could wash up and use the bathroom. And, you know, many different rules and regulations came into place after that. So, you know, there is -- I represent an area where there is that history also, and I represent even more of that area when I was a state senator. I picked up even more territory. So, you know, that terrible, horrible tragedy did lead to better working conditions. But the truth is, I can look out the window here and there's still some sweatshops here and I can tell where they are by the windows. And we could go into greater depth on how, you know, I can tell that. But it's also similar to places that are, you know, they're... They seem to be massage parlors, but they don't say they're massage parlors. They say they'll, you know, rub down or they used other words. They don't say massage because you need a license to be a massage therapist. And they really just to cover for people where people are doing sex work and many of them have been trafficked or... There's a whole host of reasons why women, not only women, but mostly women get trapped into that and, when I was in the Senate, I was able to pass a bill that did something positive for the people who had been trapped into really indentured servitude. And to have to do whatever it is they were told to do, and we'll talk about that at another point. But, you know, people also didn't like to have prostitution in their buildings. And I did just say prostitution. I sense that people [inaudible] one of the floors of this building is used for prostitution. So, there'll be sex workers there and people appropriately didn't like that there were strangers coming in and out of the building. So, you know, I don't even want to say legal -- In a way, I feel like there should be no laws about sex work except when someone is harming someone. It's the same way I feel about choice. Like there should be no laws. The laws should be silent, but there should be laws to protect people who are being hurt. And there already are, but there should be more. And that's the way we should do things that are very important to me, that people have autonomy over their own bodies. And if they're being forced to use their bodies in a way that they don't want to or they're not being protected. You know, sometimes I've worked with the people organizing, people worked in the house, wants to make sure that they had appropriate safety gear, masks. And anyway, I feel very strongly about that. But we should be silent on the way anyone is using their bodies aggressively go after we mostly go after women almost completely to try to control what they can do with their bodies. And I think the law should just be silent on that. I don't think that was a particularly popular view in my district that I probably never led with that because the law was the law and you weren't supposed to be, you know, having sex work going on in a building. I had constituents who -- RASP, residents against street prostitution. And I was just saying like, So you don't care if it's indoors, you just don't want it on the street? Yes, that's what they didn't care. They just didn't want the sex work happening on the street. They wanted it behind closed doors. So they're very, you know, a lot of gradations of like, so many levels of like where people are on on sex work. And of course, nobody ever wants to talk about sex. It's a whole big issue, like how you really shut things down or off as soon as I start to say something about sex. Like just stop, we're not talking about sex anymore. Not that I did that often, but I did it more of this in the state Senate than on City Council. But, of course, I was fighting for a lot of other, you know, you know, on behalf of tenants. And I got you know, I passed a bill and again, this has been improved upon after I left, but it made it illegal for a landlord to discriminate against someone based on how they paid their rent. So people are probably familiar with the Section Eight program. So it would be illegal to discriminate against someone because they paid their rent with a Section Eight voucher. But also, we have a program for seniors that, depending on what their income is, the rent in their apartment is not allowed. When the rent is increased, the city will make up the difference of the seniors' income, which it offers is very static. And then people from the Division of Aid Services, which we'll talk about also, they're paid the city pays their rent. So this bill needed that. Now, no one can discriminate. The law that I was able to get passed said, if you got any kind of city tax abatements or any kind of favorable, the recipient of, you know, something from a city program that, you know, made your cost less, they were the ones who couldn't discriminate. So the city gave them something or the state gave them something that brought down their cost. Well, they are not allowed to discriminate now. No one's allowed discriminate based on who how people pay their rent. But at the time that was it was sort of the first step towards prohibiting discrimination against people who were poor. So I like that bill a lot, actually, and I'm glad that it got built upon. You know, another bill to make it so that buildings would have the lighting outside to make the streets safer. And but, you know, the two -- maybe the two things that I'll be most remembered for. Maybe the two biggest things. One was, I'm putting -- there was an agency that was started by Mayor Ed Koch and continued through Mayor Dinkins. And it put within our city human resources department where people get their entitlements or their benefits, government benefits, something called the Division of AIDS Services, DAS. It's now called HASA, [HIV/AIDS Services Administration]. At the time, it was DHS, and when Mayor Giuliani was running for office, he said that he'd heard from people that it didn't work that well. That's true. You know, like many government agencies, it was a little slow to action. And, you know, maybe people with AIDS were in more dire need of services. I'm not sure that's 100% true. I think it might also have been kind of empowered gay white men who had never had to be involved with entitlements or benefits that way. But for whatever reason, it was not running smoothly. So when Mayor Giuliani got elected, he wanted to totally eliminate the division of AIDS services. So huge battle demonstrations, arrests, ACT UP. And I was on the council to save DAS. And even though they said, Oh, we [inaudible] it didn't really work that well. But the thing that Mayor Giuliani, first of all, he beat an African American person. And I believe there was... There was definitely racism involved in that, similar to the backlash, I think from President Obama where people are like, oh my God, you know, we have a black mayor, or we have, you know, a black president and that like whips them up into a frenzy, anyway. But Mayor Giuliani backed off eliminating the Division of AIDS Services, not because he cared about people with AIDS, but sort of people who consider themselves moderate to liberal. You know, Democrats, some of them had voted for Mayor Giuliani and he didn't want to lose their votes because they know, That's terrible. He's cutting a program for these people who are suffering and poor. So he backed off and then he started to have meetings on how to restructure the Division of AIDS Services, which was just another way to get rid of it. And we had to fight against that. And on the city council every year, I actually get everybody in the council to -- there was a committee that had dealt with the General Welfare Committee to push back against making cuts to the agency. And really, I was able to only because of my press visit, you know, when I said earlier where, you know, because it was the case, but it's also having a seat at the table. I'm sorry. I should have said that. That's maybe the most important thing that changes everything to have a seat at the table. And so my being there was very helpful. And I had had a. When I first got elected to the council, the chair of the health committee had been there for a very long time and was kind of an old fashioned gentlemen, I'll say. He was quoted in the papers as saying that gay rights caused AIDS. And it was it was maybe April when it started that January. And I remember because I remember I was going to the Museum of Natural History and it was that that lovely pastel green and pink that everything is before, you know, it pops out. So I was at the Museum of Natural History is very close to Central Park anyway, so I was enjoying how beautiful Central Park was before going to the museum to meet with government people. And I think we had beepers in those days, but my office had called ahead to the museum and you know, to telling the story. So by the time I left, I had to have like a, you know, something prepared to respond to this and the speaker of the city council, someone named Peter Vallone who's old fashion man, but he did allow the gay rights bill to be voted on before I was there. But he always wanted all the council members to get along. He you know, he was the kind of person very nice, never swear or anything. He would often be home, you know, he'd have dinner with his family every night. Just an old fashioned guy. And I'm sure the people around him, I'm sure they said this is a problem. So he got the council and everything was, you know, Williams. So he got Councilmember Williams to back off that. And Councilmember Williams was to have a press conference where he would say that he was whatever, sorry. He said that he didn't -- he misspoke, that gay rights didn't cause AIDS or whatever. So the press conference happens and I'm watching, and he backs right back into gay rights caused aids. And he didn't really disagree with that. So then I was left with, you know. And, you know, Peter Vallone he just wanted it to get [inaudible] was, you know, and-- Well, I couldn't let that sit. Yeah, of course. I mean, I just couldn't. And I remember going to ACT UP and they were very angry with me. I mean, of course, they spoke out against it publicly, but they wanted him thrown out of office. And, uh, anyway, what happened in that case was, this is before the days when there are cameras in the legislative body, so there wasn't a camera. Or if there was, it wasn't -- the local public television station would have a camera crew there, maybe covering the council meetings. But I'm not sure that the tapes even exist like it would today be on YouTube, but nobody ever moved away from their seats to make a speech in the council. Even voting you voted from your seat. Even the speaker didn't move away from his seat except for to stand at a podium right next to his seat with the council. President ran the show. He was the parliamentarian or she was the parliamentarian. It happened to be a he. It was someone actually who I knew and who had been supportive of me when I ran for city council. And I reached out to his office and I said, look at the beginning of the meeting, I want you to recognize me because I'm going to come to the front of the council chamber and make a speech. And he did that and there were no microphones or anything. And there are ways to see speeches made by time to read when he's angry. But this was one of those speeches about what a terrible thing it was to go after a community that and this is, you know, 1992, like people were still dying. There was no cure, very few treatments. And it really, you know, you know, I think I said it, you know, how dare you kick people when they're already down? Anyway. I was angry and I made a very angry, impassioned speech about it. And, you know, actually the same something which happened to everyone like. Applauded. You know. And he never said that again. Yeah. Somehow the I guess the speaker of the council, they just found out I was going to do something because ACT UP was always doing something and I was a member of ACT UP. So they had the council staff, many staff. It was going to fill up all the seats in the balcony so that there weren't enough seats for the public. But some ACT UP people still got in there and when I finished my speech and then they started throwing condoms. This was not my -- like I said, this is not part of my plan. And I remember there was one of the counselors, the Reverend Wendell Foster came up to me and he said, you know, like you make a great sermon and, you know, everybody likes it. They're moved by the issue. Just leave it like that. I was like, I agree, you know, and I'm going to be very happy. I won't be shy to tell you, other occasions like that don't make Tom mad moments in legislative bodies. [break in audio] MF: We are back. We just had some technical difficulties with our video camera and Senator Duane had just finished telling us about Councilperson William's homophobic comments about HIV, to which he responded powerfully. And we're in the middle of a conversation about what he's most known for as a councilperson in New York City. So I'll turn it back over to you. TD: Well, the battle continued to stop the you know, reconfiguring, reforming the Division of AIDS Services, you know, and one of the things that happened was by-- Well, every year in the budget, everybody in the council would fight to stop the mayor's cuts to the Division of AIDS Services. So that was very important and they were very sensitive to that. And that was very you know, that's no substitute for a seat at the table kind of thing. So not just because of being gay, but the HIV was very powerful for making that be a reality that everyone then cared a little bit. I mean, many of them did care about the Division of AIDS Services, but they cared maybe just a little bit more now that they understood the stakes are so high that, you know, there was a possibility of under, you know. You know reforming it they would possibility of its being eliminated and I think it was 1997. I was able to -- I had written a law at some point that put the Division of AIDS Services, which was a sub agency of our human resources agency. To put this Division of AIDS Services in law two enshrined in law and two have very specific elements to it, timeframes for when someone could get services. At the time, Mayor Giuliani was making people who got public benefits or entitlements. They had to go to this place for a health check up, in this place for see if they were employable. So they had to go to all these different places before they could get help, you know, even food stamps, but any kind of public benefit. And so people with AIDS had to do all of those things, too. So this made it so they didn't have to go to all these places. Now I'm trying to remember the thing that he's made, he was something reviewed for that employment review, something which he, of course, contracted out to private people who were not sensitive to people who were having difficulty surviving at all. You know, this is true. It's a whole history that people who were women who needed public benefits. They were required to work for it. Which. Just despicable and something that actually was able to make a little bit better when I was in the Senate. But they had to fulfill a work requirement. And basically, as you say, it made it really hard for them to go to school and to, you know, to get ahead. It was just grotesquely unfair and it's punitive anyway. You know, an advisory committee. And, you know, if you are entitled to Medicare or Medicaid, which everybody was because they were generally poor. All of that happened in one place. You know, find a place to live, find a place to get health care. And it had to all be done within a certain time period. And the places that they were set to live had to be in good shape. And then also clients were given a stipend of $200 extra a month, of which the thought was $100 of it was for food because HIV/AIDS was called wasting disease. It was very hard for people to keep any weight on because they had gastrointestinal issues that came along with it and other things. So an extra dose for food. And then the other $100 was to buy tokens. I think this was pre-Metro cards. So tokens to take the subway to doctor's appointments or, you know, whatever. But it was just a little extra money to live on because their needs were, you know, great. And so anyway, Mayor Giuliani, at some point, I guess he finally gave up trying to, you know, get rid of the Division of AIDS Services. But I wanted to make sure no one could ever try to do it again. And I did get that bill passed, and it was passed by the council unanimously. And it's actually a model like every agency, like a child services. Everyone should have, you know, these benchmarks that they have to meet and, you know, the level of care that they had to me. The other thing was the ratio of clients to caseworker. We also put into the bill and so it was a, you know, collaboration between, you know, the, the activist community, my colleagues in government, but also the unions, because the people who provided these services in agencies were union workers at various levels, the caseworkers were one union, the support staff was another local in the same union. So anyway, everyone had to sign off on it. And we did do that and it passed unanimously, which meant that even if Mayor Giuliani had vetoed it, we would have just overridden his veto. So he didn't even bother. So that was a very important victory. And the agency's still there today. I mean, it's been changed in certain ways, and I don't follow it, you know, precisely. Maybe I just, you know, I'm a control freak, so I have to let things go, you know, even with the way things are, but not that anything was wrong with it or anything. But there could be and I would be upset. But anyway, another thing that I was able to do and Christine Quinn and people from ACT UP were very helpful with this. There was a time in the nineties, probably '92, '93, when there was a tremendous number of people from Haiti who were trying to get to the United States. And, you know, the rule for Cubans is if they touch, you know, land, they're allowed to stay here. But no, that didn't go for Haitians. So, Haitians who came and however they were detained, you know, had to go through a process to be allowed to stay here or in which I don't know what percentage were allowed to. It was a lot of people I know, but the people with HIV were sent to Guantanamo Bay. And of course, women have families, too. So there were all these Haitian people in Guantanamo Bay, because they had HIV. And so we went to Mayor Dinkins, first as a political person, I believe, and then we went to the person who headed up Human Resources Agency to ask if they would say to the federal government, We'll take them in New York and let them come to New York, get them out of Guantanamo Bay. We'll get them here. We'll put them up with benefits. And, you know, you know, people were -- many people like me were able to work at everything. And just because HIV did mean that you were, you know, going to be a burden on, you know, society. But anyway, we did it and they came to New York. So, you know, it was quiet because it wasn't something -- just better to get it done. We didn't have to write -- I don't know. I don't know whether, you know, there was any press around it or anything. But it wasn't-- it certainly wasn't a huge story. We just wanted to get them out of there to bring them to New York. So it was really just a very good thing, you know, for people all around. My chief of staff, Chris, other people in the office and people in ACT UP and, you know, the mayor's people and just, you know, the unions, everyone just came together and made it happen. And so, that was something I'm proud of. Am I turning red yet? The other thing that I'm probably very known for was a battle to provide domestic partner benefits, which would only go to city employees. You couldn't mandate that private employers would provide domestic partnership benefits. But previously there had been a bill where there was just a registry, and that entitles you to visit whoever it was in the hospital and I don't even think you got benefits, but it was just a place to sort of recognize your relationship in some way. But I introduced a bill that said whatever married people received in terms of public benefits or whatever responsibilities they had as a result of being married, domestic partners would be treated equally. Now, it just -- it was sweeping. It just said if it says marriage, it's domestic partnership also. So I had that bill and I actually got everyone, including the speaker, Peter Vallone, to sign off on it. And Mayor Giuliani got wind of it, and he substituted a bill where he had his staff go through the entire -- all of New York City laws and all of the administrative regulations. And so what he did was anywhere it said married, he put in domestic partner. And the problem with that is any time anything new happened, you would have to make sure that they remember to put domestic partner in, whereas mine was just it was presumed. But anyway, he put his bill in and that's the one that we passed. So I'm not quite sure what the politics of that was. My bill is better so but anyway, it was sweeping domestic partnership for city, and they said all the benefits that married people got now were provided to domestic partners. And the thing that people -- and I had to explain to my colleagues, in some cases to the public, you know, for instance, health benefits. Health benefits aren't like a reward you get for being married. Health benefits are something that's part of your compensation. It's so people who had domestic partners and didn't have spouses were being discriminated against because they weren't getting the same benefits and they weren't able to bring their loved one, or family onto their benefits and pay for it the exact same way that married couples do. So it wasn't without its complications because, of course, you know, any compensation it's complicated [inaudible] IRS or state and city tax people. But, you know, there are certain tax advantages to being married and what compensation and how much money you're making. You know, it's factoring, you know how much money you make, and with tax free, with domestic partners, it was more complicated than that. And so, as I recall, I think we made it. Maybe it was, I hope what happened was that, whatever that penalty was that people would have to pay because they had someone on their health care plan would be absorbed by the city. I'm pretty sure we did put that in as well with whatever maybe even Mayor Giuliani put it in. I can't remember it. I'm sorry that I have to go back and research, but it was a good bill because there were people that tried -- they just wanted to expand a little bit, the registry thing. And I was like, No, no. Like everything, everything that we'd already gotten a little bit. We'd already got the registry so you could visit someone dying in the hospital, which is great, but it's not. It's not everything by anything, you know. So, it was very helpful. And even though Brushy for rent regulated tenants was in existence, it was helpful for people who lived together in any kind of housing, you know, co-ops and condos or, you know, anything. So I was very happy about that. And again, it didn't mandate the gender of the person. Heterosexuals could be domestic partners. In fact, many, many, many heterosexuals signed up to be domestic partners. So it was a non-discriminatory domestic versus bill. And so there was that one and the Division of AIDS Services those would the kind of two big sweeping things I guess that I would be maybe known best for. But, you know, I also was a big champion of communities being able to create their own land use and zoning plans. So there was in the new city charter which made 51 city councilman was there something in there that said that a community board could bring forward their own land use and zoning plan. They had to go through, you know, reviews and hearings and everything for the plan. And then the City Planning Commission would have to decide whether or not to accept it. Because in the past, all zoning, land use and zoning changes sweeping or tiny were only done by the City Planning Commission. So this wasn't at the grassroots get involved in it also and I had helped author this thing called the Chelsea Plan and that was-- it was the first one written. It wasn't the first one passed, but it was the first one written. But I was very pleased when that passed the city council and I had to make some compromises on it which, you know. It's not that I won't answer them, but it's not entirely relevant to this. But there was a give and take on it. Let's just say that. if something was going to be [inaudible] and there had to be areas that had to be [inaudible]. So that was the battle. But I also -- there weren't any programs to create housing, affordable housing for very low income people. And so there was something in this that if there should ever be such a program that that kind of housing would be built on city owned land, which, regrettably, after I left office, the community. One of the things it did was, all of the these buildings in Flatiron that were used as garages or that were lots used for parking. The owners of those buildings could build residential housing on those sites. So there were lots of empty lots in the in Flatiron between let's say Sixth and Seventh Avenues in the in the high teens and the twenties. So, it was high income housing that was built there unless you know someone took the public benefit. But most of them didn't take a tax break from the city or anything. So now there are all these sort of more well-heeled people in the first sight that came up was in that area where they could build, where the city -- was the promise was that they would build low income housing and people in the neighborhood did something incredibly dishonest of these new people who moved into those nice places that were only living there because the zoning had been changed and the residential buildings went up there. And they had, you know, thousands of people sign a petition that says, you know, do you want a park? Like there was no description of what the park -- you know, what it was. So, of course, who doesn't want a park? But it was on the site where this housing should be built in. It was terrible. Just terrible because, yeah, we always need more open space, more green space, but they said, Oh, it's such a long walk to parks. Well, this is on, uh, 20th Street. And just three blocks south is the beginning of Union Square, and three blocks north is Madison Square Park. And then there's two huge parks on the west side now, like, you know, could we build some new housing here? And by the way, Chelsea was the kind of neighbor that would want that in Hell's Kitchen also. So it was I don't know, I guess there were, you know, concessions made where they were going to build housing for low income people elsewhere. But it was like they just don't want been living here, you know, and I'm not going to torch the park or anything, but I try not to go down that block because it just makes me mad because it was -- I made a good deal, you know, it was a it was a very good pact. And the Chelsea Planning Committee had been, it was a combination of, like, small business owners and people who cared deeply about preservation because we expanded the Chelsea historic district and housing activists and just, you know, average citizens in Chelsea that all wanted to sort of preserve the character of the neighborhood. And everybody got everything they wanted except for the people who were fighting for low income housing, really, more or less my team, are the ones that got blocked out. And when I talked earlier about Jane Wood's Way, Jane Wood was like, I'm sorry, Jane, because you stuck with the coalition and we got the plan through and we didn't get this affordable housing. And that was really, really it was really important. Anyway. The people, they were so weird. They're like, well, there are all these other sites where you get of affordable housing. And yes, there were a couple of city-owned sites that the city was going to eventually renovate that were kind of eyesores, that some of them had people living in them and they weren't in great condition, but they were going to -- in fact, they are now -- make them, you know, make the buildings better or. And the families that leave will, you know, be able to go back in. But they also had this is building at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 14th Street called the Vermeer, and they had that as like an affordable housing site. And there are lots of other places. This was just like a huge example because this gigantic building and I was like, I don't -- that is not affordable housing. It was an eviction co-op. We used to have non-eviction co-ops where you couldn't get rid of the tenants if they didn't want to buy when the building was converted to a co-op. This was not one of those buildings you either bought or you were thrown out. So this was not affordable housing. You couldn't -- these places were going for hundreds of thousands of dollars, these apartments. This is just one example, but there are other buildings like that and I'm like, This map is a lie. Also, not only is it do you want a park a lot, you know, so too is this map. And then when they came to me, I bet you think we're just hideous gentrifiers. And you know what the truth is? I did lie. I said, Now, why should I think that, I'm open? I wasn't. I wasn't. So, yes. But I didn't want to not meet with them. And I didn't. But I didn't have an open mind. I was angry with them, you know. But I still met with them and I tried. And I didn't try that hard. And I had a staff member who that was his area that he -- his responsibility was to... That part of the district was one that he served on behalf of my office. And, you know, he felt the way I did. He didn't bother hiding, he didn't bother to try, you know, make believe that these people were, you know. That there was something terribly wrong with these people, from my point of view, I certainly felt there was something terribly wrong with me, but I was like, You would not be living here but for this planet. This is like the only concession we got for this, because other places we had to accept bigger buildings, you know, but in order to get, you know, maintain more low-rise areas in Chelsea and also to expand the historic district. So, you know, the trade off in those days was that you had to give some other places where you could build larger buildings, of which one is, say, 23rd Street, where you can build taller buildings, anyway. I don't know. So, but I did love getting the Chelsea plan passed, and I did it by bringing all of the members of not all that it, but several members of the Lanier Studio City Council gave them a tour of Chelsea, where it's so important to us, you know, to be able to see the sky and have light and air, etc. And also a few members of the New York City Planning Commission, including the city planning commissioner, who was familiar with the area. But he's the person with whom I actually had to negotiate so that it would be acceptable to the City Planning Commission and then get passed by them and then go on to the city council and get passed. So and then other communities have done that since then. So it's kind of a missionary feel, missionary to help people to come out and missionary people to, you know, to create their own land use and zoning plans. Oh. I'm trying to think if there's -- I mean, I could list, you know, a whole number of things that I did that were, you know, really very good things, just not very high profile. But let me say I also did something. There were a few things that I started. We used to cut out -- this is me with scissors -- cut out newspaper articles if I was in it, and we kept them in scrapbooks, and we also kept every letter that we wrote about anything, because a lot of them could be, you know, reused in a way. You know, if we were writing, I'm ready to express my extreme dismay with something or I'm writing to, you know, support in the strongest possible manner. But so there was a certain, you know, style that you could copy. So, on many different topics, so the people in the office didn't always have to be reinventing the wheel when they wrote letters on my behalf. And I also invented sign on letters where I would write a letter about some issue and I would get all of the other elected officials that represented whatever area or building or whatever institution that was to sign on to it. So, they would be more powerful that all of our names are on it. And that was kind of in its time doing maybe, but I didn't invent it, but I certainly used it an awful lot. And sometimes funny things happen, sometimes a staff member in another office would like try to rewrite it and someone else would rewrite it. And then it would be incomprehensible after everybody made their edits and I would just rewrite it. They couldn't -- that was it. Like you sign it that the way is now, or not it all. So anyway. And the other thing I did was elected officials go to these community boards, which I've talked about. Over 50 members from neighborhoods that make advisory just, you know, resolutions to be sent to elected officials and to the city government, sometimes even to state. And I would -- and what would happen is a good staff member who you would send to that community board, would they say, and the council member did this, the council member did that. But I always said Councilmember capital 'C', [inaudible] capital 'M', I didn't say councilman, councilwoman, council member because I -- to the best of my ability, I tried to make things gender neutral. Sometimes it's impossible, you know, like, if you're a fellow at a university like, what's the, you know. But, you know, firefighter, police officer, Medicare, you know, there's many -- most things you can make gender neutral. Anyway, instead of having the staffers to say that the councilmember was this. One of the things that we did since the last time here, since last month when you had your last meeting, I would have everyone write a report on like what they had done in the area that they covered for me or the issues that they specialized in. And it served two purposes. Well, of course, everyone in the office then could see what everyone else was doing in a formal way, and also, if they needed to use something like that in the area, they had it. But also we would hand it out to everybody in the community board. There was eventually, you know, people who were like, I don't want to do paper. I would have it on my website, so they didn't have to. But you know, people still like paper those days and they were planting two trees for everyone they cut down, I'm sure. I hope so. I promise. So all the wonderful and amazing things I have done in there would be in this report. And then, you know, the staff member, you know, I'd ask them maybe to just go into more detail on one or two things, so they didn't have to, you know, just be saying. And I would do the same thing because I would take -- and then there'd be questions and answers, but it saves a lot of time and people could read it at their leisure, and people loved it. And then all the other officials that are doing it and I'm not sure that the staff members of these other elected officials are so fond of this this sitting but that was the other thing you know. I just, I always felt it was so important to be really very respectful and really, you know, try to be nonhierarchical to the best of my ability with staff members of an agency, with the city or government or who works for another elected official. And I do know that there was something special that accrued to me because I had a title and, you know, which people used in different ways. But I used it mostly, I think as a megaphone that people sort of had to listen to what I had to say. So there was that. But, you know, it's a problem with sexual harassment. Like people, it could be that I don't know the power I have over someone, you know, and they don't know if they could say no or that, you know, I'm being inappropriate. So, but I mean, I tried never to do that either. And I don't know whether I always said this even when I was in the council, but I felt very strongly that. And now even when I teach, I see, you know, if I say something that's insensitive or that you seem, you know, that you don't like what I said, I want you to please tell me because I want to be able to either apologize or say I could have said a better way or say, you know, this is how I made it. But, you know, I want to be able to address it and not just leave it there. And I, I feel strongly -- I want people to be able to do that. And one of the reasons I love being on the city council is we had lots and lots of public hearings on the city council. And I loved learning new things. And, you know, I know a lot about a few things and a little about a lot of things but I know not very much at all about a lot of things. And I would learn things in a [inaudible] they worked in the constituent issues where if they were focused on an issue, I would say go for it because I could be the mouthpiece for it. But it made me smarter too. I learned something new and it was to become very important later on in my senate district, a power plant was being repaired. Like I really didn't know that much about how power plants were being retooled, which, you know, probably are again now. But I learned, you know, I could tell you all of that particulate matter and the percentages and it like beyond all of that. And I will tell you, -- it's when I was in the Senate. But I will tell you anyway. So the law puts aside money for a community to argue with the utility to make a fair playing field, which of course it's not. But still, there's money to fight back against a power company, a utility company. And there was a ConEd plant, and I don't hate ConEd as much as everyone else in the -- the city's old. All the infrastructures old, things happened. But, you know, it's not -- it's their fault, but it's not like, you know, deliberately making things fall apart, buy anyway. But I appreciated people's anger at it. But I also appreciated the other side that, you know, we don't know what's happening with every pipe and everything in the city anyway. We couldn't get one of the like the environmental organizations to help us because many of them were attorneys who worked for law firms, which in this case, ConEd hired all of those law firms to be to work for them. So there was a conflict and they couldn't do it. And I remember before I started yelling at someone, I said, this is like so bogus, like you're on the board of the, you know, the Natural Resources Defense Fund, and you can't help us. I mean, come on. Like, don't you see what's happening here? And we did finally find, you know, a not-for-profit legal group that did help us. But, you know, we were, like, hanging out there because they couldn't these other groups couldn't take positions on things because they were compromised. Very smart of ConEd, you know, when many times an issue or the thing no matter what, they'll hire like all of the good lobbying organizations and in a way co-op the -- not co-op but, you know, it's there's usually a power imbalance in these kinds of situations. And even well-intentioned people who wanted to do good things for the environment, they have now put themselves in a position where they can't do anything. So that was a lesson I learned. And that was when -- it could have happened when I was in the council, it just didn't. I just happen to have a power plant that really impacted my Senate district. But there are other things. You know, there was a, you know, real estate wasn't doing that well in the early nineties. And there's this city owned building. It had been a library and the city wanted to sell it. And the local community board-- and I supported this wholeheartedly because it had to go through city government, set aside for some kind of social services group. So, I mean, you could be the coalition for the homeless. It really could have been -- it turned out to be God's Love We Deliver, which is fine. And so they've been there ever since. They don't just -- God's Love We Deliver is a food delivery program for people with AIDS, that was much needed. And, you know, in the days of HIV and AIDS where there is -- when it was wasting disease. And now they provide meals for other people as well that have, you know, difficult health issues, cancer or something. So anyway, they're a good group and they took it. And I really, you know, like that. That community board that I represented the area where they were the community board did this and said something. So I mean, not every neighborhood would do that because, you know, who knows who would want to move in there. But it turned out to be some of the people that wouldn't reject you, but even if it was, it would have been okay with this community board. So there were those kinds of things. You know, sometimes it would be, you know, a facility for a -- not a facility that's a terrible word. There was-- oh well, on the same block. I was very supportive of a place called Safe Space, which is on 46th Street. At the time, Port Authority was still a place where young people lived ; runaways, throwaways. And John Wright, who is part of this organization, came forward with a proposal where a church that wasn't using one of their buildings was willing to give it to this organization Safe Space so that kids could drop in there during the day. It was not zoned so they could stay overnight, but they could go there during the day and shower and get a meal. And there were, you know, social services, if, you know, to try to help these kids because they did whatever they could to survive and find some place to spend the night, you know, and they used to call the Port Authority the port. It's not really the same there. Kids aren't there in the same numbers that they were then. But I was very happy to support their putting Safe Space in. And then there was another building I supported where, you know, it was sort of like a "no must, no fuss" place for people with AIDS where, you know, they would bring meals in to people. It was not like the most luxurious place, but it was certainly way better than a SRO, which is single room occupancy which oftentimes, was just dreadful. I mean, sometimes they were okay, but mostly they weren't. So this was a nice place and I supported that being put there. So I like being able to help bring social services into neighborhoods and to work with them. Whether they were willing to accept it off the bat or were they a little bit reticent or, you know, and I was generally very supportive of them. And a couple of times they were for whatever reason, there was a reason that I couldn't support it and I wanted something different. But mostly I was helpful in helping organizations get their projects through if they were helping people with problems, basically. MF: Well, I apologize, but we're going to have to stop because our video camera has -- we've taken up all of storage space. TD: This is what happens with my relationships, too. They get tired of me. [laughs] MF: But we're not tired of the you we just ran out of the ability to save the interview. TD: Well. MF: So what I'm going to I'm going to just end on the audio and then what we'll do is we'll transcribe the audio and then we'll have the video as our backup, which has a majority of what we talked about. I think we have room for another interview or two because we haven't really gotten to the Senate yet. And I'm hoping you'd be willing to do another interview. TD: Yes, when, it's my reunion? Was it May or June? I don't know what your deadline is or-- you know. MF: No we have no -- we're ongoing, so yeah. TD: Oh so definitely around that I'll try to make my way a little bit earlier and we can do it then. But also I think now I don't have to make that vlog anymore. It's all here my whole life. [laughs]. So, you know, that as told to book is totally unnecessary now. I don't need the ghostwriter anymore because I used to that book that I'm never going to write with all your -- should I name names? [laughs] Anyway, when you come here, next time I'll have a plan. If you bring your son too we'll make sure it's something that, you know, he would enjoy, too, because, you know, he's my demography. MF: He would love to come. I mean, he's been asking us all kinds -- what did you do? Where did you eat? Where do you go? You know? So he would love that. TD: And there's, you know, lots of on Broadway off-Broadway stuff. We'll do something . MF: That would be wonderful. We would love that. Okay. So I'm going to be in touch with you and Bruce to set up something. And I just want to say thank you so much. This was wonderful today. TD: Well, thank you. It's been great. Like, it's been great. I'm very glad we're doing it. And even though it's very hard to talk about myself. Like I felt a little hung over when I got home last night, you know, spending so much time to talk about my stuff, I was like, ugh. And the person I'm dating is a flight attendant, so I couldn't really discuss it with him. And so I was. Anyway, it's just weird to, you know, speak at great length about how wonderful I am. But I'll have to put in some things when I wasn't so wonderful. I'll have to definitely find some of those things. Things that I -- well, right when I stop teaching one class in a public high school when I was in office. Right towards the end instead of asking about sex and drugs, which they were always asking about, this question ; Was there ever a bill that you regretted, you know, that you voted for? And I was stunned by the question. Like nobody -- kids ask the greatest questions, like even reporters when they'd asked me about my HIV disclosure, they never asked as good questions as the kids did on World AIDS Day when they would ask me questions. For instance, when did you find out you had HIV? 1988. But, they didn't ask, how long have you had HIV? And the kids knew to ask that, you know, how long do you think you had been infected with HIV and, you know, definitely before 1985, but I think before 1982. Well, 1983 is when they started to say to use condoms, and it's all use from then on. So it was probably before 1983. Anyway. But kids knew how to ask, you know, better questions. So was ever -- like who asked that? It's a great question. And I was like, whoa. And I really, really, really had to think about it. And I finally was like, no, but I did change my mind about a couple of things, you know, and the truth is, is in those cases, I don't know which was the right position, you know. And many of them, not many, there weren't that many -- guns. I changed my position on guns and crossbows, because there was a bill that came up that said that like 15-year-olds could hunt with crossbows, they could get a license to do that. And I would vote against -- well actually I love animals, you know. And maybe the third time I did, a Republican came over and he said, [inaudible]. And I said, Why? He said, Because they're doing it anyway, and in this way, they have to take a class. And I thought to myself, they are doing it anyway. And this way they do have to take a class. So now they learn you don't injure the animal. That's the worse thing. Kill it. You know what I mean? But it was, Are we encouraging people to do it? I don't know. But they were doing it anyway. So at least now, if they hadn't taken the course, they would get in trouble for that. So anyway, so it was a couple of bills like that, you know, and sometimes gambling is a tough one, also. You know, I hate gambling. I don't have that addiction because it's not here. And actually slot machines, that sort of thing, you know, that it'll be like you're going to spend $30, you know, win or lose, you know. But if it was 21 or poker, like, I would be one of those people that would see the sun because, you know, I have that ADHD. It's because it's uneven focus. That's what it really is. It's so, you know, and sometimes even when I'm looking at stuff on the computer, like I can't, like it's 2 hours later so. [laughs] No, that's for me. You know, Saratoga is right by Albany, and they have pon -- the trotters. And, you know, the riders and all this. So anyway, all the Senate Democrats, we all went to the track and I had never been to the track before. And on the way there, there are a couple of senators who knew a lot about gambling and knew a lot about horse racing. And they showed me there's this --I haven't looked at it since it's been maybe 15 years now. I only looked at it once. But they had little things at the top that tell you like where the horse has won, or how long it's been in, who the jockey is. Like, I can't remember all the little pieces of information that they tell you. So it's time to start betting, and I bet and I win, and then I win, and then I win, and then I place and then I'm scared that the person isn't going to get to our table in time to take my bet. And then, you know, after nine races or something, well, time to go. And I didn't want to leave. And as I walked in, I was like, I must never come here again, because I, you know, I picked that, you know, of course, the first time you do anything, you know, I don't know what it's the second time, but because it was my first time, you know, the universe made it so that I would be a winner. But because it had, you know, there was focus involved. Well, this is better cold, but it has a couple of unnatural things in it. But it's delicious. Like three calories. MF: Oh, yeah, we love it. We have it at our house. TD: Oh, you do. You do. MF: Oh, yeah, Sparkling Ice is delicious. And then we will take this on the ride home now, and guzzle it with glee. TD: It's incred -- I mean, who knows? Well, one time there was a frozen yogurt. They said a pint was 90 calories. Well, as it turned out, that actually was not true about this particular -- they went out of business like. And I think they did less than the amount of fruit juice in it at some point. I didn't really notice but I've noticed people commented on it. It's still tastes lemony to me. MF: Well, I'm going to I'm going to stop the interview now. TD: Oh, me too. I'm talking about Sparkling Ice. MF: We're talking about Sparkling Ice, people in the future are going to want to know what you and I both enjoy drinking. TD: I don't mean for it to be a commercial and I am sorry if I -- that I badmouth it because I really don't know the facts, but it is delicious. MF: I'll just say thank you again. TD: Thank you. Thank you. MF: I can't wait for the next interview. TD: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it too. Thanks. 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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Thomas Duane, April 2, 2022 (Part 3)
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Thomas Duane describes his time in the New York City Council, advocating for the LGBTQ+ community, fighting for the Division of AIDS Services (DAS), and working to ensure habitable living conditions for New Yorkers.
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LGBT-31
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2022-04-02
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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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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Mary Foltz
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Thomas Duane
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5.4 April 1, 2022 Thomas Duane, April 1, 2022 (Part 2) LGBT-37 02:11:22 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Thomas Duane Mary Foltz video/mp4 20220401_DuaneThomas_video_edited.mp4 1.0:|26(13)|49(11)|67(20)|79(4)|89(9)|100(14)|112(10)|123(13)|134(7)|146(6)|159(14)|172(15)|182(12)|194(6)|208(8)|220(15)|230(16)|241(4)|256(5)|269(7)|283(8)|296(3)|307(16)|320(11)|331(7)|342(13)|357(5)|368(5)|382(17)|392(14)|406(15)|417(16)|428(6)|438(14)|453(10)|467(8)|481(3)|491(10)|503(3)|515(5)|528(6)|541(12)|551(12)|562(9)|577(6)|589(4)|601(13)|613(8)|624(9)|638(13)|651(15)|664(19)|678(4)|694(15)|705(12)|719(7)|732(10)|743(6)|758(5)|773(4)|785(7)|800(17)|816(7)|828(15)|840(9)|850(11)|862(15)|876(12)|889(17)|899(16)|911(15)|928(7)|941(13)|958(4)|975(8)|988(15)|1001(13)|1017(7)|1028(2)|1040(7)|1053(22)|1065(5)|1079(3)|1088(12)|1101(5)|1110(16)|1122(7)|1136(11)|1147(8)|1160(15)|1175(3)|1188(8)|1201(13)|1216(4)|1229(9)|1238(18)|1250(9)|1267(11)|1281(7)|1292(4)|1305(18)|1318(8)|1329(9)|1341(19)|1355(6)|1368(8)|1383(15)|1398(13)|1412(8)|1425(3)|1437(12)|1450(3)|1460(17)|1471(3)|1482(8)|1495(10)|1509(9)|1525(14)|1536(17)|1551(11)|1562(17)|1578(10)|1590(9)|1603(12)|1618(8)|1632(10)|1649(15)|1662(13)|1677(12)|1694(18)|1718(11)|1724(15) 0 https://youtu.be/hYIjUzZjMtA YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Senator Thomas Duane to talk about his life and experiences as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This year, our project has funding from ACLS, and we are meeting at the offices of Senator Duane in New York City in Manhattan, and it is April 1st, 2022. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with me today. 
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 ; THOMAS DUANE: I'm happy to. I mean, I like that Lehigh likes me now. You know what I mean. Because they didn’t like me so much before. So now it’s like, they like me, they really like me. 0 141 Life after Lehigh University MF: Oh, me too. So last time we talked, we really spent a lot of time talking about your youth and then your college career at Lehigh, so I thought we could start today. Maybe you just tell me a little bit about post-graduation. What was your life like once you graduated from Lehigh University? Tell me about that time period in your life. 0 452 Joining the Chelsea Gay Association And I continued to work at that ad agency. But in 1977, so I had lived there for maybe a year or so. And I saw fliers go up on telephone poles, not trees. I knew not to do that. But you know, any place where you could tape a flier and it said lesbians and gay men and meet your neighbors, and it was this small group of people who were starting something called the Chelsea Gay Association, which is the first neighborhood based lesbian and gay organization in the city, in the world. 0 795 Community Organizing in the Chelsea Gay Association So, anyway, you know, our existence was, I think, important. And one of the things that had gone on was there were gay bars along the waterfront on the west side in Chelsea. So in the high teens and the low twenties, and gay men would walk through Chelsea and also up through the Village and then west to these bars. And there was a New York City public housing project, Fulton Houses and the people who live there, many of them had originally lived in Chelsea and through urban renewal, they ended up living there. 0 1004 Serving on the Local Community Board/Importance of LGBTQ+ Representation in Community Organizing So that was pretty, you know, amazing. And I just love that story because she was also a member of the local community board, which was with like these planning boards. Then they were advisory and in the [inaudible] 50 in each of them. And so the one that covered Chelsea in Hell's Kitchen, Clinton was board for, and Helen Gilson was on that board and another woman whose husband was the president of the Longshore or had been president of the longshoremen workers, longshore workers. And she lived in a, you know, a low rise building on 10th Avenue in Chelsea. You can see the building she lived in. 0 1200 Working with the Chelsea Coalition on Housing/Jane Wood/Tenant's Rights And anyway, I also got active in other things in the neighborhood. There was a very powerful tenants rights group called the Chelsea Coalition on Housing and, different than Michael McKee's group, and they didn't always get along that great. But Chelsea Coalition on Housing was associated with the Metropolitan Council on Housing, which still exists. 0 1425 Bella Abzug/Organizing with the Local Democratic Club And in 1982 my Democratic club would have been a very strong Bella Abzug supporter, was a very strong Abzug supporter. And for instance, I didn't work on her ‘76 campaign for the Senate. I'm sure I voted for her, but I knew people – I actually knew one of the people who ran her campaign, an openly gay man who became a journalist Doug Ireland. 0 1690 Running for District Leader So anyway, so the West Side is reform. And I worked on Bella’s campaign and then she lost, and the club went for Cuomo, but Koch won that race. And then in 1982 there was a gubernatorial race. I may be getting my years a little confused. Maybe, I'm not sure anyway. Because I feel like Ed Koch was in office for maybe two terms already. 0 1906 Struggles with Addiction [...] The only thing that was going on that really nobody or very few people knew about was that I drank every night and I smoked a lot of pot also. And I had used a lot of drugs and I had – I drank a lot in college and I continued to do that ‘till 1983 ; I got sober. So, because I just couldn't do it. I couldn't hold down a job, be the, you know, district leader and do community activism, you know, gay and not gay, and then go out at night and, you know, drink and smoke pot or whatever. Something had to go. 0 2191 Forming the Gay Democratic District Leaders/Importance of Terms as District Leader It was actually pretty convenient to be working for my father and to be a Democratic district leader. And I think there were three other openly gay district leaders in Manhattan and all guys because it's a male and a female. So. Well, there were women who were lesbians. They were now. 
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 ; But anyway, the four of us put a group together called the Gay Democratic District Leaders. 0 2773 Selling Ads for Gay Publications And there was another line of story that I was going to tell you, but I'll tell you about [Brashear?] and maybe the other one will come back to me. Well, when the AIDS crisis began — actually, when it first began, I was working for a gay publication, two publications actually, the New York Native, which was a fledgling gay newspaper, and Christopher Street, which was kind of a premium, was a literary magazine. It was great. It was one of those publications like Gay Community News out of Boston that I just loved and I couldn't wait for it to arrive in my mailbox. I read every word. 0 2993 Assisting with Stage Productions So I learned a lot about print production and then I worked for a TV production company. I had a lot of jobs, a lot of jobs. I had a lot of jobs, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. I was going to say that and there was nothing to be ashamed of, but I paused for a second. And it was because one of the jobs I had, which actually was really a great experience and this was through, his name is [Lyle Salgas], and he was the person that I was with. 0 3218 Proudest Moments/AIDS Crisis//Chelsea AIDS Committee MF: Well, you were going to talk about one of your most proudest moments. 
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 ; TD: Oh, yes, am I leading up to the Braschi decision? 
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 ; MF: You are.
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 ; TD: So anyway, [inaudible] suggested I go work for my father, which I did. 0 3555 Braschi v. Stahl Associates Co. I have a [inaudible] story to tell. It's also kind of – I'll tell you the story. So I was very good at – No, I was very good at helping judges get elected. And once they got onto the civil court, to then get elected to the Supreme Court. So every once in a while I would go to court to sit next to my friend Jim West when one of his clients was at risk of losing their apartment. 0 4179 Marriage Equality/Life After Office And so. One of the judges, actually, his son is an openly gay assembly member, from Staten Island, and now I believe he's a surrogate court judge out of Staten Island, Matthew Titone is his name. And his father, was on a court of appeals. So it was amazing that we won that case, you know, But we did. And it's been very useful. And I don't want it to go away because of marriage, because I think we should be able to, queer or non queer it doesn’t matter, say, choose our own families. And, you know, put it together, you know, build it however you want to, using whatever institutions there are or not, you know. And I don't want that to go away. 0 4425 LGBTQ+ Openness in Media/Scouting Potential Donors & ; Campaigning Anyway, although I just have to say, I was recently looking at The Times, Sunday, and like there was gay stuff all over, of course, there was the Academy Awards and it was gay gay gay. You know, I don’t know whether it was the gayest. Certainly wasn’t the least gay there if there was. But and like many stories of, you know, the the real estate section, they always had a gay couple fixing up the country house or, you know, or a designer who acknowledges that they're gay. 0 4744 City Council Run So I'm a community activist and Braschi, that case – we won that case when I was running for the city council the first time. The race that…this is a race that my friend David Rothenberg had run against an incumbent council member – four years… in 1985, and at the time there were 35 councilmembers in New York City, and the council districts were like huge. They were like between the size of, say, a state Senate district or a congressional district, they were like big. 0 4956 Discovering HIV Status But I found out my HIV status. Which didn't surprise me at all, but it was not something I, you know, I didn't tell people, Oh, I'm sure I have HIV or anything, but I was sure I did. And then when I actually got confirmation that I did have it, I really only told a couple of very close friends. 0 5881 Disclosing HIV Status So in '91, anyway, I decided that I was going to disclose my HIV status when I ran in 1991, and I started to put things in motion. It was sort of like, you know, a snowball effect. I told more people, I like joined the HIV positive caucus of Act Up. I know it's anonymous, but I went to HIV recovery meetings, you know, people of substance abuse and that but specifically for people living with HIV. 0 6857 Effect of & ; Reactions from Disclosing HIV Status And there was a tremendous media… it got a lot of press, you know, nationally even. So, you know, I got from like this little, you know, neighborhood kind of, you know, city council race to like, all right, now you have to learn to talk to the national media, you know what I mean? So it was – so I'm not – I became very unafraid to talk to the press after this, you know, because nothing could have beaten this. So – well marriage maybe, not beat it, but equal it. 0 7684 Closing Remarks MF: Well, I felt like this was a good place to end. We sort of have talked about your movement post-graduation, work in tenant associations, advertising and magazines a little bit, and then really your political career through a city council run and loss to a city council win. Tomorrow could we start with what happens with the win? What are you doing on city council? Would that be a good place to start? f 0 MovingImage Thomas Duane talks about his life after Lehigh University organizing in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, time in office as a district leader and city councilmember, and his experiences as the first and only openly gay, HIV-positive member of the New York State legislature. INTERVIEW WITH THOMAS DUANE APRIL 1, 2022 MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Senator Thomas Duane to talk about his life and experiences as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This year, our project has funding from ACLS, and we are meeting at the offices of Senator Duane in New York City in Manhattan, and it is April 1st, 2022. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with me today. THOMAS DUANE: I'm happy to. I mean, I like that Lehigh likes me now. You know what I mean. Because they didn’t like me so much before. So now it’s like, they like me, they really like me. MF: It's true. We do really like you. And really we're very grateful to speak with you. And I want to just start today by -- you signed a consent form before we're starting the interview, and I just want to ask a few questions verbally about consent. Do you consent to this interview today? TD: I do. MF: Do you consent to having this interview transcribed, digitized and made publicly available online? TD: Yes. MF: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes and other formats that might be articles, websites, presentations? TD: My reality show? MF: If you make one. TD: Yes, I consent to all of it. MF: And then I just want to remind you that you'll have 30 days after I send you -- I'll send it electronically, the transcript of this interview for you to review, and you can decide then, Oh, Mary, I don't want this in the collection and we'll just delete it. You could say I want most of it. Just delete this part and then we'll do that. Or you can contribute the whole interview. TD: Thank you. I can’t think who I'm angry with right now, you know, because I might say something that I would want to take out later on, but no one's coming to mind right now. But you never know. You know, it's like pushing the send button when you're angry, you know, with an email without showing it to someone first, you know. MF: So you have time. You'll have time to review the whole thing. TD: And I'll try not to be catty, you know, grudgey -- MF: Well, you’ll have time to review it TD: -- because I'm Irish, so that's a thing. MF: Oh, me too. So last time we talked, we really spent a lot of time talking about your youth and then your college career at Lehigh, so I thought we could start today. Maybe you just tell me a little bit about post-graduation. What was your life like once you graduated from Lehigh University? Tell me about that time period in your life. TD: Well, the truth is I left Lehigh in 1975, so I'm class of 1976, but I didn't get my degree until of 1977 because I left in ‘75 and I had two more courses to do. And it just it took me a little while to get those done. But, I consider myself class of ‘76 and there's a big reunion this year. And my oldest brother -- also went Lehigh -- is, when I was a freshman, he was a senior, but he's going to be there because they're doing a whole bunch of classes, I guess because of COVID. So he told me that ‘75,’76 and ‘77 will be there. So I'll see maybe some of the freshmen that I was a Gryphon too. I'll see some of the people I was in class with, you know, the graduates of ‘75. And then I'll see so many 1976 people, possibly. It would be my first Lehigh reunion. Yes, it would be. See how far we've both come me and Lehigh. So what happened? You know, I wanted to leave Lehigh. You know, I like a good fight. So in retrospect, you know, I may have been, oh, woe is me. You know, they treat us poorly, or whatever. But, you know, that's not how I am. So I don't believe that's actually what it is. I think what it is is I want it to go to work. And I wanted to live in Manhattan and I wanted to be gay. Really, you know, like big gay, like a lot of gay and… I’m just I'm headstrong that way. And, you know, in my early life I have a brother between my oldest that went to Lehigh and then I have a brother who's sort of my Irish twin who's a year and a half older than I am. And I probably was continuing this thing of wanting to not fall too far behind his progress in life. And I did have a younger brother who passed away, which I'll talk about at some point, because that was part of my later life anyway. I think I just wanted to work and I went home that summer and I got a job at an ad agency and for $175 a week -- no excuse me, $135 a week. That matters just because of something else that happened. And I save money because I really just wanted to get out of my house. So first I shared an apartment with someone that had gone to Colgate with my older brother John. And it was like a six story walkup, but it was like seven flights up. I don't know how they worked that out. The building is still there, actually, it’s on East 49th Street. And I paid $100 a month for that. And it was, you know, the sink was the shower, it was one of those old buildings. But it was fine. It's great. I wasn't great. But I mean, I was like 20, I guess. And then I saved up some more money and I got an apartment in Chelsea. And the reason I took this apartment in Chelsea, because I looked in the East Village and I looked in the West Village and I looked in Chelsea. And in the East Village, the only apartments I saw either had the bathroom in the hallway. I guess I was just a little too suburban, you know, to do that. So. And then there's another one was just when I saw that you couldn't pick up your mail and mailboxes would get stolen, I thought, I think maybe, you know, in retrospect, they probably might have done it. But, you know, things work out the way they’re supposed to, and I couldn't really afford anything decent in the West Village. And then I found this studio apartment in Chelsea for $175 a month and, I was home. And I continued to work at that ad agency. But in 1977, so I had lived there for maybe a year or so. And I saw fliers go up on telephone poles, not trees. I knew not to do that. But you know, any place where you could tape a flier and it said lesbians and gay men and meet your neighbors ; and it was this small group of people who were starting something called the Chelsea Gay Association, which is the first neighborhood based lesbian and gay organization in the city, in the world. I don't know whether in the world, but there's nothing else like it. And I was not a founding member, but I was a founder because the fliers were actually for the first meeting. And I went to it and I immediately became active in it. And we were not political, not political, but of course our existence was political. It's just that we existed, but we did a lot of amazing work. And just to please my friend Lillian, actually, who I convinced to move to Chelsea, my friend Phil, who I went to Lehigh with, he was one of the students who'd been thrown out of Theta Chi and. [Bert Lazar?] and Arthur Goodman and Michael McKee. And they were all organizers in various ways, but Michael McKee was a tenant organizer. So I learned a tremendous amount from them on how to organize just by organizing with them. And the truth is, we would have our steering committee meeting because we were nonhierarchical and we would do everything by consensus. And then we would smoke pot and we would go around and put out fliers for the next meeting. And we did some incredible things. We had raps at the police station so people would go every Saturday morning. I know Saturday morning, early and there'd be maybe four of us and four or five of them or three. Anyway, and we would just talk. It was the 10th Precinct, which was the Chelsea precinct, which was almost lost at the time. We fought to keep this police precinct is very, you know, as Chelsea's own police precinct. But when I think about that, you know, years later, when my friend Christine Quinn was the executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Violence Project, now the Anti-Violence Project. They had had a good relationship with the police and actually that the Anti-Violence Project was an outgrowth of something that happened with the Chelsea Gay Association, which I'll tell you about. But anyway, there had already been a little bit of a relationship being built between the police -- the New York Police Department and the gay community. I will probably would use whatever the words that we were using at the time. Although, you know CGA just sounded better. That's why we kept it as the Chelsea Gay Association. We really didn't want, you know. Anyway, they started to have a pretty, you know, an okay relationship with the Bias Crimes Unit and with the Sex Crimes Unit. And then when Christine Quinn came in, they had a really good relationship with the NYPD. But when I think about it, we were already developing like this little relationship with them way back then. And we did something like game night where we would play board games just kind of just to bring people together. And we all marched on Washington. There was, you know, I should remember this. It was either for the ERA or was pro-choice Washington march. I believe it was the ERA, actually. Anyway, but we marched as a group. So even if this nonpolitical group would march with our banner. And we had a street fair every year and we put out a newsletter and I may think of other things that we did. And then there were a couple of -- an Upper West Side Group was formed and then an East Village group was formed. It was really just -- this is in the 1977-’70. They weren't that many LGBTQIA organizations at all. You know, there'd been a lot of splits… the GAA and, you know, LFL. I should say, the Gay Activists Alliance, Lesbian Feminist Liberation was an outgrowth of that in New York City. But they were not really functioning the same way anymore, for whatever reason. You know, the activism seems to go on its own cycle. So, anyway, you know, our existence was, I think, important. And one of the things that had gone on was there were gay bars along the waterfront on the west side in Chelsea. So in the high teens and the low twenties, and gay men would walk through Chelsea and also up through the Village and then west to these bars. And there was a New York City public housing project, Fulton Houses and the people who live there, many of them had originally lived in Chelsea and through urban renewal, they ended up living there. There's also a big Latinx population in Chelsea, Latinx people. Which people don't think of [inaudible] development as having white people, but they actually they did. In Brooklyn there are a lot of Italian people that, you know. Well, they were very -- they weren't as segregated as they seem to be now. Anyway, the head of the Tenant’s Association was a woman named Helen Gilson, whose husband was a longshoreman, or what I would say these days, a longshore worker. But she was the president of Tenant’s Association and she was, you know, a big, you know, tough woman who, like many other Irish people, vacation in the Rockaways in the summer in those -- in these shacks, which there aren’t that many left. But anyway, I just remember that I read the Irish teenagers and I mean, I don't know up until what age they were, but they were beating up the gay men who were walking to the bars and, you know, pretty seriously. So under the auspices of the Chelsea Gay Association, I organized, and everybody helped, a forum on like crime in Chelsea. And we invited Helen Gilson to come to this event, this forum. And people talked about how, you know, the police, of course, we talk about how, you know, this history of gay people being beaten up who were, you know, walking at night, late at night to these bars. And I guess and what probably coming out of the bars to or walking in the other direction. And Helen Gilson, who we invited, was there. And I cannot say that she was like a big gay liberation situation at all, you know, And towards the end of the forum, when after she heard all these stories, she stood up and she said…something. She said, Well, you're not my cup of tea, but I don't think you should be beaten up either. And that was huge, huge. And I love that because it's an old fashioned you know, my grandparents used to say not my cup of tea. But when she said that it was a very powerful moment and she was the head of the Tenant’s Association. So she put the word out, no more beating these guys up, and it stopped. So that was pretty, you know, amazing. And I just love that story because she was also a member of the local community board, which was with like these planning boards. Then they were advisory and in the [inaudible] 50 in each of them. And so the one that covered Chelsea in Hell's Kitchen, Clinton was board for, and Helen Gilson was on that board and another woman whose husband was the president of the Longshore or had been president of the longshoremen workers, longshore workers. And she lived in a, you know, a low rise building on 10th Avenue in Chelsea. You can see the building she lived in. And the first openly gay person actually served on that board, Jean O'Leary was her name, who was of kind of legendary in the New York lesbian and gay history. She was a first in a lot of ways and a complicated person as well. But when she stood up at the community board and said, I'm, you know, a lesbian, right. Yeah. Rosemary and Helen, really, you know, but it was huge progress that she was on that board. And then, you know, other – I eventually started serving on that board in 1982, I think. And you know, it made a difference that there was a gay person even on this neighborhood sort of advisory thing on land use and zoning and who should get permits for like liquor licenses or outdoor cafes or just a whole host of different things, they make advisory opinions on. Elected officials listen to them. You know, they don’t always do what they say, but they listen to them. And other gay people were on it, this time with it. There are also some closeted gay people on it, and I may have bragged about my lesbidar and my gaydar in an earlier interview, but it's pretty good. So I was – I think I would say 100% accurate. As time went on, people did come out, some of them took a very long time. And you know, similar to what happened at Lehigh. I think maybe there are also, in retrospect, maybe some of them or a couple of them didn't want to get that close to me. I think they were friendly like any board member would be, but they weren't. They didn't want to seem to be too much of my friend, or something, I guess you could say. And I’m trying to remember when someone else gay joined. I can't remember right now. And I may have mentioned it, I [inaudible] around. And I think I'm still having that – I know I'm still having a memory thing. And I'm sure that I saved papers and, probably, I don't know how much of it was saved. But the minutes of every board meeting and the attendance and, you know, all those things. And anyway, I also got active in other things in the neighborhood. There was a very powerful tenants rights group called the Chelsea Coalition on Housing and, different than Michael McKee's group, and they didn't always get along that great. But Chelsea Coalition on Housing was associated with the Metropolitan Council on Housing, which still exists. It's called Met Council and it's a tenants rights organization, and it was led by a woman named Jane Benedict. So the Coalition on Housing was led by a woman named Jane Wood, though they would both say we do not lead this group. You know, there's a big membership here, and yes, you know, you maybe you know our names, but that we have no leaders. And that is true except for they had a wonderful way of organizing. When I ran for office, they both supported me. The groups couldn't make it, you know, a political endorsement. But personally they did. And other people from that council and also the Chelsea Coalition on Housing. And they're gone now. And the friends that I know who were giving that I knew from then who were active in the tenants rights community, you're talking about how when the Janes were gone, like they were the greats. And actually on 19th Street, there's a street renamed Jane Woods Way. And I can’t remember whether I did it, or whether Christine Quinn did it when she was in office. It was probably Christine Quinn, I think Jane was alive for a lot of the time that I was in the city council. But anyway, she's memorialized there. And I still walk – If I’m with someone that maybe I haven't walked by or anything before. I always point it out. And when I was in office, when I would – I would often think, like, ‘What would Jane do, you know?’ And I was also a very good friend of a woman named Susan Cohen, who is active and who eventually went to law school and then worked for a judge who was, of course, fair, but if you were a tenant, you wouldn’t want to appear before him. And she went on to become a legal services attorney helping poor people with their housing. And she also was a tremendous influence on me. And, you know, Michael McKean, we didn't really get along with Met Counsel. His group was. Neighbors and Friends, I have to check the name of it. But later on they joined together and it was their Tenant Unit Coalition. And at the same time, Mario Cuomo, the governor at that time, put together a group called the Tenant Advisory Council. So TUC stayed together in order to get people out TAC. And we used to laugh about that. But actually I got appointed to that to the governor's – then Governor Cuomo's Tenant Advisory Committee. And that is important for, something I’ll talk about in a little while called the Braschi decision, which is actually the thing that I worked on that I'm most proud of. And it was before I was even elected to public office, I was in a party office at that time, and then I got active in my local Democratic club. And in 1982 my Democratic club would have been a very strong Bella Abzug supporter, was a very strong Abzug supporter. And for instance, I didn't work on her ‘76 campaign for the Senate. I'm sure I voted for her, but I knew people – I actually knew one of the people who ran her campaign, an openly gay man who became a journalist Doug Ireland. Previous to this, she had been elected to Congress. And there's an old story about Bella and through redistricting, she was thrown into a district with another progressive Democrat. She'd beaten a sort of hacky kind of conservative Democrat, Farbstein was his name, and she beat him. And then. Ryan was the name of the progressive one who was the Congressmember for most of the West Side. And in the redistricting, I guess it must've been in 1972 to probably take effect in ‘74 or something like that. They were thrown into the same district and she had to run against Ryan and she lost. And it turned out that Congressmember Ryan was dying of throat cancer. So when he passed away, then there was a race between his wife, Priscilla Ryan, and Bella Abzug, and Bella won that race. So then she had a congressional seat, although it divided people on the West Side. It divided the progressives and the reformed clubs, Democratic clubs, which were very important in those days on the West Side. For years to come, people wouldn’t know what side each club was on and in some cases clubs, you know, broke into two were called reform clubs, which. [Inaudible]. Reform clubs – we believe that, reformers, that people shouldn't wear two hats. So if you are a council member, you should not also be a Democratic district leader, Democratic state Committee member. And the same holds true for the Assembly and for Congress. And so to be endorsed by the reformers, you were not allowed to wear two hats. Regular clubs, someone could have brought in as many hats as they wanted, and they would pitch battles between the regular and the reform clubs on the West Side. Most of the West Side, with the exception of Hell's Kitchen, Clinton, was reform – became reform. The reforms being the regular Democratic clubs, and Hell's Kitchen being the only one that wasn't. And that was the advice of Jimmy McManus, whose family beat Tammany Hall and that's a real big... I worked on Bella's ‘77 campaign for mayor and the runoff in that mayoral contest because Bella ran and Herman Badillo and – there was actually – it was a very multicultural race in many ways. But the two winners were Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch. So, you know, until very recently that there would be a runoff and so was Cuomo against Koch in the runoff. And Bella and her supporters were with Mario Cuomo because Bella didn't like Ed Koch very much, even though was from the Village, and from a reform club that had beaten a regular club down there, in fact it had beaten like one of the most famous regulars of all time, Carmine DeSapio was his name, and Ed Koch, and it could have been the woman that I had been running against for the city council the first time Carol Greitzer, would be defeated the regular. So anyway, so the West Side is reform. And I worked on Bella’s campaign and then she lost, and the club went for Cuomo, but Koch won that race. And then in 1982 there was a gubernatorial race. I may be getting my years a little confused. Maybe, I'm not sure anyway. Because I feel like Ed Koch was in office for maybe two terms already. Anyway, he announced he was running for governor and Mario Cuomo, who had been lieutenant governor to Governor Hugh Carey at the time, who wasn't running for reelection, also was running. They ran against each other in the Democratic primary. And my club had elected and gotten elected because the former leader of the club ran for a civil court judgeship in one. So they elected someone in the club who is gay but not really out. He was gay, but not really out. And he became a Koch supporter and tried to pack the club for Koch supporters. So the leadership of the club were desperately looking for someone to run, and they asked me to run. But it's interesting. I'm not going to say that the membership of my club were – let's say it was made up of people who would have been members of the American Labor Party and people who were reformers. And they made up the membership of this club, which had defeated a regular club years before, and they lived in a three way race one time with the regular club, which was run by Social Democrats. And for anyone who is a student of this kind of history, the Social Democrats are not Democratic socialists. The Social Democrats were in favor of the United States being in the Vietnam War. They are, still are virulently anti-communist. And they ran this other club, Chelsea [inaudible] Democrats. And there was even a third group that was the old regulars, and they were supported by, of all people Roy Cohn. And so there's a three way race, but our district leaders won. One of whom is the person who went on to become the judge. And anyway, they were just looking for someone to run for district leader. And the other person's name was, [Ardale Brown?]. And he ran, and I ran, and I beat him. So then I became district leader in 1982 and I served as a Democratic district leader until 1988, I guess, or ‘89 when I ran for the city council the first time. And I have to say I turned it into something like I would go to a meeting and I'd say, I'm the Democratic district leader, and nobody really knew what that was, but it was something. And, you know, use what you got. That's my – that's the philosophy I live with. And I advise other people if they ask me if I used to do the same thing, if you got it, use it. I was just, you know, I had a day job. The only thing that was going on that really nobody or very few people knew about. Was that I drank every night and I smoked a lot of pot also. And I had used a lot of drugs and I had – I drank a lot in college and I continued to do that ‘till 1983 ; I got sober. So, because I just couldn't do it. I couldn't hold down a job, be the, you know, district leader and do community activism, you know, gay and not gay, and then go out at night and, you know, drink and smoke pot or whatever. Something had to go. So, I actually was just telling someone about this who thought she might have an issue with drinking this thing that she said, you know, If I have one, I can't stop. And I very much know about that. When I first started working, if I had a drink at lunch, which sometimes people did even, you know, what I was at that time, which is called a group assistant, was like an administrative assistant. Like if I had a drink, like I could focus on nothing. But when was I going to have another drink after that? So I knew not to start drinking ‘till I finished all of my chores and tasks for the day. So that's when my drinking would start later on. And I drank maybe slightly earlier before I was the more active I became, the later my drinking would start, anyway. And I was in a relationship with someone. And I -- Who, to this day I love and you know, I think many politicians, many people, but I think many politicians have some intimacy issues. You know, I’ve had some rough things happen in my childhood, and so in a way, I don't think I was able to fully commit to him in the way that I wish that I, I just wasn't able to. And we're friends to this day, but he left right around the time, about a year into my sobriety. And it's funny because I go to a support group about it, and remember hearing this Irish guy from New Jersey speaking of a time and he's like, and I was a year sober and I thought, I had nothing in common with this guy, you know. He lived in New Jersey, he was, you know, was working on Wall Street. But I haven't worked on Wall Street but he was married and had kids and he said, yes, I you know, I feel great. You know, it's been a year. I haven’t been drinking and I feel great. And she said, yeah, that’s because you're the same goddamn son of a bitch now than you were when you were drinking. And I thought to myself, Oh my God, I am the same the same goddamn son of a bitch that I was when I was drinking. And so he – eventually he left, which was the smartest thing he ever did. And he also told me that I should go work on Wall Street because my father had a very small brokerage firm. It was like three people, four people, and I did. So I started to work in Wall Street for my father, which, you know how much I wanted to please my father. I went to Lehigh, I, you know, I went to work for him and I thought I was nothing like him, but I'm very much like him. But there was some stuff between this and childhood in which I have long ago forgiven him for. And I know he loves me. And sometimes I'm still very angry with him because he made it difficult for me to be really present and, you know, all-in on a relationship. And so, you know, I feel like for the most part, I probably hurt most of the people that I was in relationships with. And I wasn’t always such a great person when I was using and even after I stopped for a while because I actually picked up other addictions, which I may or may not talk about in this interview, but I probably will because I just can't help myself. It was actually pretty convenient to be working for my father and to be a Democratic district leader. And I think there were three other openly gay district leaders in Manhattan and all guys because it's a male and a female. So. Well, there were women who were lesbians. They were now. But anyway, the four of us put a group together called the Gay Democratic District Leaders. Like we created an organization which is really just a letterhead. And we had a meeting with the governor and we got him to appoint some people to positions in his administration. As I say, like, you know, I was very good at making something out of nothing. And I, like the others of us, are as well. Sadly, you know, two of them have passed away. One is still alive, he's a professor at Hunter, actually. So, I have to tell you why being on the governor’s task force is important. And I'll say now why the district leader thing was important. So the leader of the Democratic Party in Manhattan was an assembly member named Denny Farrell. Obviously not a reformer because you couldn't be a district leader or assembly member if you were a reformer. But he ran against Jimmy McManus, who I mentioned before, who is the regular from Hell's Kitchen. And this is right before I got elected in a very hotly contested race, Denny became the leader. He was an African-American man from I believe Inwood. But anyway, from the way Upper West District there. So but the deal he made with the reformers who supported him was that he was going to put together an independent judicial screening committee. And so this screening committee was made up of people from bar associations. Two thirds of them were from bar associations, and one third were from community organizations. But the way it worked was, say, if it was someone from the, you know, African-American – I’m sure it’s called the Black Bar Association, the whoever was president of that would appoint someone. So they sort of arm's length to try to take some of the politics out of it. Which later on it didn't matter, politics would creep in. That’s the women's bar, Italian bar, Irish bar, the every bar, you know, had members. But there was a fledgling lesbian and gay bar. So I fought to get them on. And then I also fought to get a gay community group on as well. And because I asked to serve on the Judiciary Committee of the New York County Democratic Committee. So I sat on this Judiciary Committee with other district leaders, and there was a woman from the Lower East Side, Ruth Bekritsky. I mean, I don't know whether I should…There’s actually a story that goes with that too. Anyway, she was a conservative Democrat, but still a conservative. And she said something about abomination when we were discussing the bar association. And I was like, well, that would mean I'm an abomination. But she didn't she didn't say No you’re not, you know, but she didn't say you are. She is – she became a little bit neutral at that point. Years later, her granddaughter worked for Andrew Cuomo when he was attorney general. And I did some forms with the attorney general at that time. And she was coming out of his office, and I told her the story about her grandmother. You know, My how things have changed because, you know, she's a young woman, not at all like that. But, hey, maybe I didn't change this woman's view, but maybe I gave her a little something to think about. And I worked with her. You know, I worked with her. I spent my whole life working with people that necessarily weren’t the most queer-friendly people in the world. And the club she came from was actually the club from which Shelly Silver, who was the speaker of the Assembly for many, many years until he was convicted in a corruption thing and went to jail, and he recently died. Anyway, he was actually a pretty liberal speaker of the Assembly, but that was his club and it was based down in Grant Street in Manhattan, where the apartments, the very same kind of apartments as the apartments I live in now. Anyway, it made a difference, and I helped manage the campaigns, especially with my friend Susan Cohen, of many kind of – I just can't have a political point of view. So instead of saying very, very liberal or very, very progressive, I would just say very, very, very fair. That was my code for... So we started to be able to elect some openly gay judges, which made a tremendous amount of difference and really a tremendous difference in Manhattan. And Manhattan was kind of led in that way. And also, we elected some very, very good judges, some smart, progressive judges, including this woman, Carmen Ciparick, who was until recently on the Court of Appeals and who was the first Puerto Rican American woman to serve on the Court of Appeals. And Governor Cuomo, former governor should have made her the chief judge, because the chief judge, you know, she retired ; she actually passed away. He should have put Carmen in that spot, but he didn't. He put a man in that spot and she was only – she was going to have to retire in probably less than a year. So why didn't he just let her have another.. you know. Will not even le – I don’t even want to say let her, let us have someone else, you know, to look up to. Anyway, interestingly, I had not worked on her civil court case, but the next civil court, I mean. The next level up is Supreme Court in New York State. Those sort of housing court and then there's civil court, Supreme court, which handles larger cases, Appellate division court of Appeals. And the court of appeals is the highest court. And then there's another track of criminal court judges and family court judges as well. And we have a hybrid system of elected and appointed judges as well. Anyway, when she ran to be Supreme Court judge, it's a complicated process, but the judicial delegates are elected in Democratic primaries and they all meet and they decide who to put on the Democratic line to run for Supreme Court in Manhattan ; basically combined with the Bronx, but there are too many people throwing chairs at each other, so they wised – they decided to break it into two different court districts. Anyway, whoever is on the Democratic line wins. But the attorney for the Democrats forgot to put these three people, their names on the Democratic line in time. So we really had to hustle. We got them elected on the Liberal Party line, which doesn't even exist anymore. So she was one of those judges. And interestingly, before that, when I had been called to jury duty, I served on a case where she was the judge and actually it was after that, because they ask, Do you know anyone here, the A.D.A. or the judge. I did. She said, Oh yes, I know – yes I know Mr. Duane. They ask if anyone was ever been a victim of a crime. And because I had been the victim and survivor of a violent anti-gay attack, so. But anyway, I stayed on that case. So I was active in politics getting Democratic judges elected. Good Democratic judges elected, I think. Or at least I was one of the people that worked to make that happen. And that was to become very important later on. And there was another line of story that I was going to tell you, but I'll tell you about Braschi and maybe the other one will come back to me. Well, when the AIDS crisis began — actually, when it first began, I was working for a gay publication, two publications actually, the New York Native, which was a fledgling gay newspaper, and Christopher Street, which was kind of a premium, was a literary magazine. It was great. It was one of those publications like Gay Community News out of Boston that I just loved and I couldn't wait for it to arrive in my mailbox. I read every word. Anyway, I was working there as I was selling advertisements and selling advertising sales. I had had – the first ad agency I worked for was a huge ad agency called [inaudible] International. And, you know, they had all these clients that, you know, were horrible, like the Army and Nestlé and De Beers Diamonds. And anyway, I worked for a group of six creative people, three copywriters and three art directors, and they were all women. And I was their administrative assistant and they loved it and I loved it. It was great. I mean, it's just the whole concept of it, I thought was just, you know, I just – I loved it. And eventually, you know, a couple people left and men came on, but that's how it was when I started. Now, I worked for another ad agency in print production, which is totally different then it is now. In those days, people put actual typed print down as the ad copy. There were no computer-generated suitable for publishing print. It was done by hand with X-Acto knives and had to fill in the page. And the photos because this place I worked, they had many different things, but including Eastman Kodak, although we had their fabric division. Smile, it's easier with Kodel. And at one point we showed the models and I had a one day modeling career, which I'll try to track it down and hold it up in front of the camera. I look pretty good too. I was in my early twenties, so yeah I was a model, and Cody Cosmetics. Anyway, you actually had to send plates, you know, to print off of, around the country to all the magazines. And you had to send these other things called proofs, which were the primary colors, but they would use those to match the color that – as it was supposed to appear on the air. And we had to, you know, figure out how to get it to everybody in time for their deadlines. Because the deadline for a magazine is not, you know, it's like six weeks before, you know. So anyway, I got a lot of experience doing that. It's nothing like that, of course, anymore. People won't even know what I'm talking about. But it was pretty challenging. So I learned a lot about print production and then I worked for a TV production company. I had a lot of jobs, a lot of jobs. I had a lot of jobs, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. I was going to say that and there was nothing to be ashamed of, but I paused for a second. And it was because one of the jobs I had, which actually was really a great experience and this was through, his name is [Lyle Salgas], and he was the person that I was with. We lived together for six years and I – He knows that I'm sorry that I wasn't present for him because he really did a lot to help me in my life in many ways. And he really loved me and I really did love him. I just couldn't, I just couldn't maintain it. Like I still loved him, but I guess with the intimacy I just couldn't maintain. Anyway, his best friend was a lyricist for Broadway shows, and at one point, whose name is Robert Lorick, who's passed away, sadly, Robert Lorick and a musical – a composer Henry Krieger, who wrote the music for Dreamgirls. But they were working on a show called Tap Dance Kid and, I worked for them as a, not as an assistant producer, though I did get a couple people to invest in the show, but is it really a production [inaudible] gopher? But I got to watch the whole process and one of the things I had to do is to help them find a space to practice in, and I found a studio on 48th Street called Act 48 and they had studio spaces, you know, at the piano so people could rehearse. But the other part of it was a dance school for tap, jazz, and ballet. And so Tap Dance Kid was rehearsing there and Dreamgirls was being created at the same time also. So, I got to know two of the women who were to go on to be in the Dreamgirls Broadway show because they helped with the demo and Tap Dance Kid. So this place I got the Act 48 Studios. At one point, they were looking for a night manager. So I signed up for that job. I loved that job, of course. And because I could still work on the show during the day and do this job at night, and I got free jazz and tap, and I would have gotten ballet lessons, but I did not take those. But I did take the jazz lessons for a while. I long ago hung up my shoes, given them away. No it was not the career for me, but it was fun, you know, and night manager and it was above a topless bar on 48th Street, which is so New York, you know. So I really had a lot of great experiences in New York. I think at that time I think I was actually still drinking, etc., during that time, but functioning. I was going to tell a story about – this alcoholism in my family, we’re Irish. Other groups, too, I’m just saying. As my friend Chris [inaudible]’s father used to say, You know, they're Irish, they drink, they're gay, they have HIV. He was funny, not – it's funny in the moment. It's funny, I promise. So, where was I going with that? I’m having an [omicron?] moment. MF: Well, you were going to talk about one of your most proudest moments. TD: Oh, yes, am I leading up to the Braschi decision? MF: You are. TD: So anyway, [inaudible] suggested I go work for my father, which I did. So, I was working the Native and Christopher Street, and that's when the news started to break about this cancer that gay men were getting and the papers started covering it. The Times didn't cover it until much later. It was history about that. The writer who wrote the first article was Lawrence Altman, the writer about it for the Native was Larry Mass ; he's a friend of mine. And whose partner Arnie Kantrowitz, I just found out passed away from COVID. So I need to send a note to say I really loved him and he was ahead of his time writing about AIDS. And you know, it was when they didn't know how it was transmitted and, you know, people with AIDS, they were - many of them would like die immediately and then maybe it would be a couple of days. But there were very few treatments for them, and it was a terrible time. And many hospitals didn't want people with AIDS. So emergency rooms would get backed up with gay men on, you know, gurneys and health care professionals wouldn't go into their rooms. And if they did, they like, wore hazmat suits. And anyway, I mean, things got marginally better over time when people found out how it was transmitted, and you couldn't get it casually. People still think you can get it that way but, medical professionals pretty much knew that's not how you get it. Although if you brought food to someone who was in the hospital because they had AIDS, like, you know, lots of times it’s like a big like fruit basket or something, and the patient obviously can't eat all of it. So, you know, they put out the nurse's station, but nobody would eat it, you know, if it had been in the room. Even later on, there's such fear around it. But many times in rent-protected apartments, rent-stabilized or rent-controlled apartments, if the person whose name is on the lease died, the surviving life partner was not entitled to stay in the apartment. So a couple of things would happen. The family of the deceased would come in and take everything because everything would belong to them. And the landlord would be nailing an eviction notice to the door. And, you know, it was terrible. And I remember a lot of families that they found out they're gay, he died of AIDS because they hated – they would think that this was the person who gave it to them. It's just terrible. And so there was an attorney at the local legal aid office, Russell Pearce, and he called me up one day and he said, I hear like you're a good person to go to organize stuff in Chelsea. And he said, we're going to mount legal challenges to this and try to protect the rights of surviving, who he then called life partners, to remain in their apartments when the person whose name on the lease dies. So, you know, I was all in and I created a very small group called the Chelsea AIDS Committee, and we put together a demonstration on this issue. There was someone in Chelsea who is being evicted from his tenement, his walk up. Michael Brown was his name. And one of our members Franklin, which he is no longer with us unfortunately, on sheets in big blood red letters, we put ‘Chelsea AIDS Committee’ on it and we organized and we got a lot of people and groups in the neighborhood to support it. And I went to the police station and Oh it's just a little neighborhood, you know, demonstration, but, you know, we're going to need a permit to use. He needed a permit for any amplified sound. But, you know, you just need an amplification permit just for the Saturday afternoon, whatever it was. Anyway, so we have this demonstration, we closed down the street. It was the front page of Newsday, which used to publish in New York City at the time, and it was in all the other papers. It was the lead story in all the local network news, you know, all the networks had local news stations. So at the time there wasn't cable or anything, so it was the lead story on all the news, it was huge. And that although Michael lost his – he lost his case, but there was another case. There are many cases and another there was an attorney who specialized in these cases ; his name was Jim West. And he would take on these cases even though a lot of the people were, you know, had too much money to be eligible for legal aid, but didn't have a lot of money. And he took on these cases and… I have a [inaudible] story to tell. It's also kind of – I'll tell you the story. So I was very good at – No, I was very good at helping judges get elected. And once they got onto the civil court, to then get elected to the Supreme Court. So every once in a while I would go to court to sit next to my friend Jim West when one of his clients was at risk of losing their apartment. And what happened actually, in one case, a woman who I had helped to elect to the civil court when this case – one of these cases went before, she recused herself. She said to me, you know me, my brother died of AIDS. But why should you recuse yourself for that? If later on there would be a lesbian – there was one lesbian judge in particular who recused herself because it was a gay case, which...what, so, you know, heterosexual white men should recuse themselves, I mean that's ridiculous. But anyway, but it was a you know, queer was still kind of marginal, maybe a little less so on the West Side of Manhattan, but still. And anyway. So all of a sudden judges start ruling on these cases because they were all getting – when there was a ruling, they would get appealed to the next level. So some of these judges just start making rulings on these cases, waiting for the case to go all the way to the top court. Which it did in 1989 in a case at Braschi versus Stahl Associates and the court, the state Court of Appeals ruled that nontraditional family members should be treated as family members and should be allowed to succeed to rent-regulated apartments. It only works because of, you know, New York’s… if you're like a landlord or a tenant attorney in New York City and you want to practice someplace else, you're useless because there's still a million rent regulated apartments, there are even more than in New York City. And it only worked for well, actually, it's worked in other ways since then, but it worked for rent-regulated apartments and what it said, because it wasn't just gay people. I mean, the AIDS crisis is what really brought it to a head. But there are many reasons why people may not get married. Two people living on disability may not want to commingle their finances because it might lessen their benefits or all kinds of reasons. You know, maybe that, you know, they're divorced. Who knows? But there's many different things sometimes I – the Golden Girls ; now I mean, I'm fine with polyamory, you know. But I think all of us – who could deny that they were family, not that that's what – but there were, you know, lots of kids. Two women who lived together, they weren't necessarily lesbians, but they just, you know, from college on, they lived in a two bedroom apartment and neither had, you know, moved away. And, you know, one had signed the lease over, at least, you know, 20 years ago, and if they should move or pass away, the other one now could succeed to the lease. And it really it said, if you say you’re family, you’re family, that's really how it worked. And there's some things that you can use to prove that you are family, like get magazine subscriptions together, the joint checking account, you have a pet together, the super know, your neighbors know. You know, you hold yourself out to be family. And so this is a whole laundry list of things that you could use in this including but not only I think. Sex, cannot ask about sex. That's the one thing that can’t come up in a landlord-tenant case that had to do with Braschi. But Miguel Braschi ended up succeeding to the rent-controlled apartment of his partner. And I never met him, but marriage passed. He sent me a congratulatory email. I don't know why I never met him. I actually kind of do know why I never met him ; maybe the same reason why I am always late for you, because it's hard for me to… I don't know. I guess maybe I both crave, like, someone thinking I'm a good person, but I also like, want to push it away? And even after years and years and years of therapy, when someone says something nice, you know, just say thank you and shut up. But I never met him ,and I actually was supposed to meet his sister and I ended up, you know, canceling. And I shouldn't really.. I don't know. You know, that's why I've been in therapy my whole life. Not even with the gay stuff, it's with this. All this other stuff that I have. But that case became the basis for the first case in New York State, where a surrogate judge ruled that the non-biological parent of a same sex couple could adopt the child. And Braschi was the part of the basis of her decision ; it was a surrogate court judge named Eve Preminger, who I supported just saying, in a Democratic primary. But it affected a lot of laws for nontraditional families going forward. And it's my proudest thing because everyone said, You have no chance. So this is what happened. At the time, the largest AIDS services organization was called the Gay Men's Health Crisis. And… I'm just thinking of something which I don't know whether I talked about here, but which I very much want to talk to you about. But if I haven’t, then I'll talk about that down the line having to do with – one of the founders of GMAC was Larry Kramer. So, there's a story that I want to tell, or it's more than a story. But anyway, AIDS helped a lot of people come out or helped force a lot of people to come out. And there were a lot of... maybe formerly closeted or in some cases still in a closet at their law firm, but who volunteered at GMHC with, you know, legal issues, because wills and…but one of the things, of course, for these landlord-tenant cases. And there's a thing that you can do in New York housing court where the landlord will give you… they’ll hand something called the stipulation to you. And I'll say something like, You can stay in your apartment for six months and we'll give you $10,000, and then you go, then you're out. Just sort of to end the case. And so there were these corporate attorneys that were representing tenants and landlords who knew nothing about that and who were allowing people to sign those. And anyway, you know, some of them called me over here, you know, don't sign anything, like do not sign a stipulation. Do not let the tenant sign the stipulation. The thing is, you know, the court is really smart, you know. Many of them, of course, went to great, you know, law schools and everything, but they knew nothing about landlord-tenant court or anything like that, that, you know, they were just like… What is you know? And I don’t wanna say [inaudible], like the fox things with the hens, you know, the landlord attorneys. Most, many landlords have an attorney full time in housing court. They, you know, the landlord has a lot of buildings and depending on what the landlord’s like. So they're like, you know, sharks. And they were just picking these, you know, lawyers off with their poor clients and getting thrown out of their apartments. Anyway, so but Braschi was going on and the largest legal, gay legal organization and probably still is the Lambda Legal Defense and Education. And the head of it then, who actually I became friends with, other people said, Don't fight this. Don't do this because it'll create bad law. You're never going to win. You're never going to win. And he’s like, But they're getting thrown out anyway. Like, what do we have to lose? It's already bad case law. You know what I mean? It's already stacked against us, so why not fight? But they were very afraid about it. And I understand, you know, there's strategies about many things, you know, you want to get the right case to be the one that goes up to, you know, for the highest – for the biggest decisions in New York State, the Court of Appeals and this the Supreme Court. And it can be distracting if other people bring cases that might, you know, jump ahead of yours. But anyway, Tom started, He said, don't do it. And other people said, You ever going to win. Anyway, I didn't listen. And in 1980, the state court of appeals ruled that nontraditional family members should be allowed to succeed to appointments. And much later on, it was really a beautiful thing because Tom said that I – you know, I was one of the many people who just, you know, revered – he was brilliant, brilliant. And he said to me, you know, I just want to make sure that I said you were right. And I could have been very wrong, but I was right. And so. One of the judges, actually, his son is an openly gay assembly member, from Staten Island, and now I believe he's a surrogate court judge out of Staten Island, Matthew Titone is his name. And his father, was on a court of appeals. So it was amazing that we won that case, you know, But we did. And it's been very useful. And I don't want it to go away because of marriage, because I think we should be able to, queer or non queer it doesn’t matter, say, choose our own families. And, you know, put it together, you know, build it however you want to, using whatever institutions there are or not, you know. And I don't want that to go away. I understand why marriages, you know, legally, makes things very easy in some ways. And I kind of feel now almost like, maybe everybody should be getting married because I'm very afraid the Supreme Court is going to – and I always tell people, you know, they can take it away. They can take it away. They can take it away. In New York State, after the marriage equality law passed, the political organization went out of business. And I’m like what? What? Like our job is not done. And the job wasn't done. I mean, I left. I didn't leave because of that. I did leave after marriage passed, but that wasn't why I left, but – which I want to say, which is very important for me to say. Of course, I'm proud of the work I did on marriage and it almost killed me. But of course I'm proud of that. But I'm proud of a lot of other things, as proud that, you know, people don't know about, which I probably won’t be able to help myself, but to talk about here. But that happened in 2011, and I didn't run for reelection in 2012, but not because, you know, [dusting hand motions] my work is done here. Like I had wanted to leave there – I was there 14 years. I never thought I was going to be there 14 years. Like everybody thought I was going to be there ten years. But I was there for 14 years, and it was just time to go for a whole host of reasons. For a whole host of reasons. Anyway. So, you know, the AIDS epidemic blessing and a curse. You know, a lot of people came out. It did exponentially move the, you know, the gay rights movement forward. But it also has, you know… in fact, you know what, because I'm teaching [inaudible], I get a free subscription to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. So I used to get The New York Times delivered, even though when you get the actual paper, you also have access to the digital. But when I got the [inaudible] subscription – except on Sundays, I still get The Times – I missed turning the pages and there was a time when I stopped reading the obituaries because I had read them too early in age. And I never get up to the now because by the time I finish with Ukraine and COVID and well during the Trump years, whatever nightmare he did, but you know, really like, how is Biden doing? I have no time for it. I don't get beyond that because, you know, the bottom of every story says you should look in this story, you should look at this story. I missed going like this [page turning motion] with the newspaper. And I keep saying that I have to get my apartment in better shape, you know, and stop saying that and just get the goddamn newspaper Tom. And I get it on Sunday because there's certain sections in the Sunday paper that they don't keep online for long. But there's reasons why I keep some of them, which is a Tom Duane strategy and a secret, which I am not going to say here. But I may tell you offline, something that – there's a reason that I get it. That I continue to get it on Sunday. Anyway, although I just have to say, I was recently looking at The Times, Sunday, and like there was gay stuff all over, of course, there was the Academy Awards and it was gay gay gay. You know, I don’t know whether it was the gayest. Certainly wasn’t the least gay there if there was. But and like many stories of, you know, the real estate section, they always had a gay couple fixing up the country house or, you know, or a designer who acknowledges that they're gay. Or like in the sports section, you know, a woman who, like casually mentions, you know, her life, like it's nothing. Like it’s nothing. Of course I think it's like nothing now too. What?! It was – are you kidding? I’ve lived during the most amazing times. It was never nothing for a very long time. It was like a big deal. And you had to read between the lines. And honestly, when I first ran for office, like, that's how I found out. That's how I figured out who might be gettable as a donor. Was reading about them somewhere and being like, I think that person's gay. Like not because they said they were gay, but just because of – I don't know. Not just because they were like single or something like that ; you know, at a certain age a man or woman was single. But, you know, sometimes you just – anyway. Like you just figure it out. And of course, some of the lesbian and gay people and actually trans and bi people who contributed to my campaign, and they tell me other people that I should ask, you know. So I didn't there – wasn't much fundraising that kind of fund raising a community political fundraising at all. In New York, running a campaign is very expensive. So I think I raised a lot of money. And the guy who'd run before for me, David Rothenberg, who I will call back to, who founded the Fortune Society and ran for the city council, he raised money. But he actually had, I think, an easier time raising money cause he's kind of more – way more famous and he'd worked in the theater. And so anyway, but, you know, raising money was not something that the gay people did. You know, people started to give because of GMAC or because of other things. And that also made, you know – more people gave to Lambda. And then the ACLU started their – they used to have an AIDS project ; I don’t know if they still do but they have a, you know, the lesbian and gay wing of the ACLU. So people have started and we have national organizations that are national political organizations that people give money to. But it wasn't something that people did. It was a very… so, you know, an organization like GMAC that people started to give money to and. It was a relatively new thing in the 80s and... You know, when I ran in 1989, the city council and I lost. Your donors are listed at the Board of Elections, and now it's online. I think at the time you probably had to go to the board of elections in the – I think that's the only way you could find them. But you could look at people's donors list and steal them for your campaign so… or for other reasons. And after I lost the ‘89 campaign, think a few months later, my mother called me up and she begged me, begged me – just because all of her friends, because some of their friends, my parents friends gave in and they were getting like advertisements, you know, for hotter, you know, sexier sex with this condom or this lube or something. And my parents’ friends, my mother was like, We’ll fund the campaign but just stop them. But I had no control over it. You know, I actually – people you know, I would say steal my list, but it's public, so they didn't steal it. But they you know, they took my donors and they used them for their own purposes, for, you know. And, not, you know, maybe some of my parent’s friends, they’re having hotter healthier sex now. Anyway, of course there did come a time when I would always – I think it was – I'm sure I said it when I was – my father's life, but I would also say to my mother, Oh, every family's got one. They would mention some, you know, a friend of theirs for years that they knew, however ; my mother worked at American Airlines with them, and my father knew some of them. And I would say, Yeah, their daughter is a lesbian. Every family's got what I would you know, because every family practically does. There should be a support group for families that don't. Anyway. But, I mean, that's a – it could all be taken away, so maybe everybody should be getting married. I don't know. I don't know because I don't want that. We could go back. I mean, if abortion goes, like we're next on the list, you know? And having two sexual assaulters on the Supreme Court, anyway. So I'm a community activist and Braschi, that case – we won that case when I was running for the city council the first time. The race that…this is a race that my friend David Rothenberg had run against an incumbent council member – four years… in 1985, and at the time there were 35 councilmembers in New York City, and the council districts were like huge. They were like between the size of, say, a state Senate district or a congressional district, they were like big. And anyway, he ran, he did very well, maybe a 46% or something like that, 45, 46%. And he lost, but it was a great race. And I love David, but I did go to him, and I – He didn't like politics. A lot of people say they don't like politics, and sometimes people that don't like politics are the best of politics. I used to be like when I was a babe in the woods and I was just nice to everybody, like I did really well. But it is important sometimes to know the history. Like once you start learning about people, you know, sometimes it's important to know the history. So anyway, I went to him and I asked him if he was going to run and he said No, that he wasn't. I considered running for the actual the Senate seat I eventually ran for and won in 1988, but I decided not to. I wasn't really ready to. And the senator who had the seat was kind of wounded with a legal issue, which he was deemed innocent of. And I kind of didn't want to – just didn't feel right to run against him. And it did it to be the right decision. But they did put together a campaign in 1989 and ran for the city council and… It must be … – And I lost. But I did very well. I won a lot of areas, but I lost some areas also. It was a, you know, elections are a funny thing. I – and there's a joke, you know, you run against someone if it's raining, my supporters are staying home, if it's sunny theirs are all coming out to vote. But there had been something that happened in – there was race-based issues that occurred in New York City. And the mayoral race was between the two major candidates, who was running for reelection and David Dinkins, who actually eventually won the primary. But it was a much larger turnout than usual. And so I actually hadn't.. my mail plan would have been different because it was different and more people who came out to vote. And, you know, you never see what's coming. You know, the primaries in September and it was the summer is when, you know, things happened in the – maybe very late in the summer. So it's kind of too late to – everything's already in motion – anyway, lost. I did get interested in The New York Times, and I lost by the same amount that David did. I got like 45, 46 or something like that percent and did very well in some areas. I know I’ve jumped way ahead here, but I just found out at the end of 1988 and I will have to go back and talk about this. But I found out my HIV status. Which didn't surprise me at all, but it was not something I, you know, I didn't tell people, Oh, I'm sure I have HIV or anything, but I was sure I did. And then when I actually got confirmation that I did have it, I really only told a couple of very close friends. And so, I really wasn't ready to be public about it during that – I actually kind of put it out of my mind when I ran into, you know, just because, I think for me it was kind of a natural thing to do. I had to do that in order to focus on race. And I was to disclose it. And it is a very important story that I want to tell you about where they disclosed HIV status. But… I was going to jump back or something for a reason, but oh, how did I find out about my HIV status. In 1984 maybe… there was a study being conducted out of Columbia, the [Irving] Medical Center, regarding gay men and AIDS and depression. And so I had a bunch of friends who all volunteered to take part in this study. And we said, you know, we were all interviewed in depth by people. And then they did eventually, when they had a lot of the data, they – anyone who was part of it was invited, you know, to go to a presentation about it. And then we were invited to another one because they probably – I think they kept in touch with us and kept asking us questions. And it was around 1985, they said, we would like to take – if people who are willing to take an HIV test and give, you know, blood for a test, you know, you don't have to, but this could be a part of our study and we know we're not going to get as many people for this. But we still… it's very worthwhile for us. And I of course… there's never, you know, a test, case, a trial that I don’t signed up for. So of course, I signed up for it. And it was in 19’, probably 1988 when it was when people were starting to live a little bit longer. I'm not sure exactly the year that AZT came out. I'd have to check that. But there was some treatments that people could have for, you know, the pneumonia and for the Kaposi sarcoma and all of the things that… I forget what it’s called but it causes blindness. Anyway, there were things that could be done to treat those things, to treat the symptoms anyway, so people would live longer and. And in 1988, the word was that, Well, okay, get your results now. Because before that they said, Don’t bother because there's nothing that can be done about it anyway you know till you have something so you know, don't. But then there were… so I went and I got my test results and the woman that I… who told me, who was, you know, also the counselor. You know, kind of trying to… you know, How do you feel? You know, to try to [inaudible]. But I... I just so I knew, you know. So I said, no, I… you know, I know my history. I am not surprised. And I was already… I was a member of ACT UP, I wasn't a leader of ACT UP, but I was a body to get, you know, arrested. The only thing I did ask their help on was Braschi to write a campaign, a postcard campaign to the governor, to, you know, work on the legislature to pass something that would be like Braschi, which didn't happen ; it happened through the courts. But the state actually, they didn't have to promulgate regulations. And there has been legislation regarding who's entitled to succeed to apartments because it included all surviving family members like children and grandchildren ; if they lived there for two years or if they lived there for at least a year, if you were sick and they were living in it. But you still have to hold yourself out to – people had to know you were there, you know, it was less difficult to prove your family, but it also included nieces and nephews and, you know, extended family, which some of which was shrunk later on. But it's still, you know, grandchildren, etc. But anyway, I don't know, I you know, I guess in some ways I think I felt a little bit defensive about not having had disclosed it in ‘89, but I just wasn't ready. I just, you know. And the thing about it, I mean I was going to be running for office and it just wasn't time to go around to people that I would need to go around to tell, you know, so that they wouldn’t find out. But more so, I just wasn't ready to put that on the table as part of the campaign or anything. Anyway, I lost. And that year New York City passed a new charter and the size of the council changed from 35 to 51 members. So the districts became smaller and... There – because the Supreme Court ruled that the way government was done in New York City was unconstitutional. So we had to change the way our government was. I teach this to my students, even though it's irrelevant because, you know, the old system doesn't – There used to be five borough presidents. They each had a vote on the board of estimate. There was a mayor, there was the president of the city council and a comptroller, and they each had two votes. And almost everything went through the board of estimate. The mayor created the budget that the board of estimate… really they would move things around. If it was land uses, zoning, they did it. So it was, you know, six votes for the citywides and five for the four presidents. And, you know, there'd be different alliances. And it wasn't a terrible way. It was, you know, no matter what kind of government, there's always going to be backroom stuff. So it probably was more backroom stuff. Some ways, I think it was fairer in some ways, but it was unconstitutional because, you know, having one person in Staten Island and having all that power and, you know, Brooklyn having whatever, six times that population having one person, on the board of estimates, so. And also something else. The reformers had done a lot of reform through the years for things that the sort of permanent government that, you know, what I – a term I learned during the marriage, grass tops people, you know, influential people. Anyway, where am I going with this? They’re always trying to reform the city council because the city council was always democratic and they didn't like that. So they you know, they tried proportional representation to try to get more Republicans and more conservative. Well, they got a couple, but they also got like communists and socialists, so. And so everything that they did, it didn't turn out the way they wanted to. They made it so that every borough could elect two borough wide city council members and they couldn't be from the same party. So every, you know, borough had one Democrat and then some had a liberal and some had a conservative, like Staten Island always had a conservative, but Brooklyn and Queens, they would go back and forth. Manhattan and the Bronx, always elected a liberal, but they really a Democrat. So anyway, it didn't work really in their favor either. But that was ruled unconstitutional too. That they got extra council members and with unequal populations. So we had to create a new – I say we. There was a charter commission and they made this new power of 51 new council members and they divided all that power up between the mayor, who was already very, very powerful, even with the board vested and the city council. And so… and this is what, when I teach this to my students now, I really realized for the past couple of semesters how ludicrous this sounds, but districts redrawn to enable certain underrepresented groups to win. So for instance, the district that I ran in was considered to be the gay winnable district, not that it was majority gay. Of course, it wasn't that there was a sizable lesbian and gay community, so it was thought, well, people might vote for a gay person there. Downtown there was an Asian winnable district. Was it majority Asian? No, it was... but there is a sizable Asian community. And there was a district drawn for a Dominican-American person to win. There was a district run for a Caribbean American to win. So the reason I, you know, I say it's like… At a time, I thought it was very important, I thought it was a very good idea and actually the gay community kind of worked closely with the Asian community in drawing districts so that we could each have a district. Anyway, now the Asian winnable district had not been represented by an Asian person till very recently, and then she served either eight or maybe 12 years because term limits were extended. But she had to run like five times before she won – four times before she won. And it's now represented by a non Asian person. But Flushing is represented by an Asian-American and the district where the St. Pat's for All Parade is, which includes Sunnyside, where Jimmy van Bramer, who’s actually more Irish than Van Bramer, was the councilmember, openly gay councilmember. Someone who is a friend and who worked on my campaigns and who also is able to start a gay organization at St John's University, which did not last after he was gone. But I don't know how he did it, but he snuck it in and it wasn't very big. He asked me to come and speak to them, and one of the women on it was from Ireland, and she actually turned out to be like an Olympic track star in Ireland when she went back from St John’s. Anyway, they don't allow that in Catholic Universities to this day, but he got it done at St. John's. So you know, no wonder he won the council seat. Anyway I thought it was, you know, a good idea, but this district in Sunnyside is represented by an Asian-American woman. But it's a very small Asian community there, you know. And, you know, other places are represented by gay people, even though they're not, you know, considered to be gay. There's a 22 year old now who represents a district in Brooklyn that includes like Crown Heights, which is predominantly Caribbean American and African-American and Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish people. And he's the councilmember there. So in a way, there's not really the same need for it, but at the time there was a need. And so I ran in the gay district and… in 1991. And this is a sort of an important story that I want to talk about because it's important for me to tell my own story. Yes. So let me beautify before I do that. So the new districts were created after the citizens of New York voted in this new form of government. And they voted in 1989. And there was to be an election in 1991 with new council districts that some of which were identity oriented. Make them winnable for various communities to win again, not because they were majority, but just because there was a substantial number of people who lived in the district who were of that group, the Dominican, gay, etc. So by this point I had decided to run again, I have to -- I need help finding a better analogy than this. But like it is a very special club. People who've lost an election and run again, because it had been like childbirth, like you only remember the good parts because some people are like, I'm never doing this again. But then there are some people like me that were like… not that it was -- actually, it's a sickness. In a way it's great, it has problems with it because you have to put your whole life on hold. And then after whether you win or you lose and I tell candidates all the time, I hope you win, but whether you win or lose, you're going to be depressed right afterwards. And I'll be there for you because all of a sudden everything comes on top -- everything that you have put off during the campaign because you're so focused, like all the bills you didn't pay, all the, you know, family stuff that you didn't take care of, like every other part of your life. You know, like, I don't know if you're watching The Real Housewives, you got to let that go like… you can't do anything because you're raising money, you're meeting people. So -- and I am a [inaudible]. So you could tell towards the end, I didn't have very many competitive races. So in 91, anyway, I decided that I was going to disclose my HIV status when I ran in 1991, and I started to put things in motion. It was sort of like, you know, a snowball effect. I told more people, I like joined the HIV positive caucus of Act Up. I know it's anonymous, but I went to HIV recovery meetings, you know, people of substance abuse and that but specifically for people living with HIV. I told more people, and it's actually something I always wanted to -- I thought this would be a good StoryCorps thing. My friend Laura Morrison, who worked on my -- as a paid staffer on my first campaign, who I met when I went up to Columbia Teachers College to speak before again when I was just a district leader and activist. And I remember she was very active in ACT UP, more active than I was. She got arrested at NBC and actually CBS, ABC and Public Television ; ACT UP people were able to get out in front of the cameras and say that ACT UP, Fight Back, Fight AIDS. But her group got caught. Apparently someone had to use the bathroom. And, you know, people on set heard that noise. She got arrested, well they all got arrested. She just didn't get a chance to go out and in front of the camera. Anyway, she was more active than I was in ACT UP, but a very good friend of mine. And she worked on my second campaign. And where, Christine Quinn I asked to be my campaign manager and, [sighs] I think some people will understand this, but not everyone will understand this. But we were -- I wanted to tell her, it was early on when I started telling people and I said, you know... In a way I -- You know, I'm.. I would prefer to have it. Like not that I wouldn't be, I was already an AIDS activist, I was already doing the work. But I felt a little bit like if there were people who had HIV and who were, you know, I wanted to be, you know, of them, and I didn't wish that I already had AIDS, really, I wouldn't have gone out and tried to get it or anything. But I guess I wanted... I don't know. I wanted to -- I can't quite explain it, but like, if people are going to be suffering less, and of course, a lot of people in recovery because they were injection drug users and non-gay people, I knew also who had it. So, you know, a lot of these people who I knew, many of whom I have loved, many of whom I like, some I was just acquainted with, if they were going to live with this, that I wanted to be part of that. And I would have been, you know, any way, even though I never, you know, it didn't matter whether you had it and you got arrested, whether you had HIV or not. But I don’t know. as I say, it's the way I feel, sort of the way I feel. And I think -- I’m not so sure everybody would think it's so great. But as I say, I wouldn't be going out to get it. But I wasn't surprised I had it. And I -- and by that time I was used to having the absolute knowledge that I had HIV. So I started to tell more people. And what happened was that because of the way they drew the districts, there was a woman, who was…her name was Liz Abzug. And I don't know all the facts on this, but there was a chance that she was going to run in this district. And she was not, not out as a lesbian. She wasn't really a political lesbian, if you know what I mean. She was a social lesbian, sort of. Anyway, she decided to run in the gay, winnable district. So now -- and it was also a time when… it was really an important time to empower women because of things that were happening in the country at that time. And so that I was a guy was, you know, kind of a disadvantage. Anyway, Liz Abzug is the daughter of Bella Abzug, the very progressive woman who I had worked to get elected to office, you know, And so the daughter of this, you know, feminist icon I’m running against, she's like, We're running against each other. And there was nothing else happening in New York City, so I’ll talk more about that a little bit later. Anyway, I asked Chris Quinn to be my campaign manager, and after she said yes, I sprung on her that I was going to announce my, not announce but disclose my HIV status. She was a tenant organizer and really, she was a great campaign manager, very smart, very good friend for a very long time. And my campaign consultant, when I told him I thought he was going to have a heart attack. And first, I'll have to talk about this thing that comes around, I was like I had a very active, too active sex life. And which I told him about. You know, I gave him all my negative research and he said, Oh, I think they're all going to vote for you, they're on a midnight registrations in my apartment. Anyway, then I think he was excited. And he was like, Oh, I might be able to work on the campaign if it's successful, you know, person. And there was only one other elected official in the country ; there was only one who was open about his HIV status. His name is Brian Coyle, and he's passed away. He actually passed away during that campaign and I knew him from meetings hat I went to for gay elected officials. He was a wonderful community organizer and just a really good guy. And anyway, because he had disclosed his HIV status. I called him and I said, Brian, how did you do it? And he said, Well, he said, I had a camera crew like from a local news station follow me around. And what would be like your New York magazine in Minneapolis followed me around. And it was just to see, like we said, it was just a story day in the life of a councilmember, but it was really leading up to disclosing his HIV status. So the story was embargoed and right before the story was going to come out on TV and in this newspaper, he thought to himself you know, the people in my district need to hear it from me especially, not the way everybody else like -- I have to you know, they’re my constituents, they like they deserve to know personally from me. So, he said, I wrote a letter and I sent it to everybody in the district. And I thought to myself, Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Because thank you… he was so -- He doesn't know -- maybe he does know how much he helped me, my mentor he was. But so I was like, that's it, I'm going to write a letter, you know, to the voters. To tell them so they would know that as they made up their minds who to vote for. And so that -- the campaign was like there was nothing else, literally. There was no mayor, no governor, no nothing. There wasn't even much happening nationally ; it was an odd year, an odd numbered year, ‘91. And so Liz comes out as a lesbian, like in a political way. Now I'm already like, like I'm a gay billboard. You know what I mean? But then I announce my HIV status, and there were people who thought that was like, you know, you can only imagine what Fox News would have done with that. I mean, it wasn't that bad. And a lot of people -- it was a very serious thing so. But there was some of the other stuff, which is, of course, the stuff I remember, not the good stuff. You know, the difficult stuff. Anyway, I know it was very, very difficult for her and she was not a good friend of hers, but we were friendly with each other. We liked each other. And I also knew her sister, who worked for an elected official. And I do have to do just a shoutout. The year between running for the city council and losing and then running and winning. That year I worked for another elected official. I worked for Elizabeth Holtzman, Liz Holtzman, who is another one -- an icon to me. She had been -- she was a member of Congress. She was fortunate enough to be on the Judiciary Committee during the Nixon Watergate time, and she was really a star that because she's so smart. And then she ran for the Senate and should have won, but because of the way New York is, you know, we have, you know, all these parties in addition to Democrat and Republican. And she won the Democratic primary, which was a tough race, but she won it. And Al D'Amato, a Republican, conservative Republican, beat a long time liberal Republican, as New York had Rockefeller, Javits left, which is… there were candidates that people in office had both the Republican and the liberal line. They were a certain brand of Republicans. Anyway, Alfonse D'Amato beat Jacob Javits, who remained on the liberal line, and Elizabeth Holtzman, similar to like a bad break that Bella Abzug had when she ran for the Senate. But some of that because Jacob Javits was still on the liberal line, she just fell short and she should have been a senator. She just should have been the senator. But New York is horrible for women, and maybe it's getting better now. But it was -- it's been a boys town. And, you know, people didn't like her. You know, she's does that whenever -- she's the smartest, the nicest, and has a great sense of humor. She's kind of shy, and actually a lot of times -- I was a shy kid. But we compensate. Oh, I overcompensate, maybe she doesn’t overcompensate as much as I do, but you could just -- But people really, you know, liked her, respected her. Anyway, I loved working for her for that year. All right, so back to the race. There's that sniff again. So I had enough people volunteering on my campaign, this is before the HIV disclosure, that we did our own poll. We didn't have to use an outside firm. We, you know, were able to make all the calls ourselves to get at random sampling. And one of the questions was, do you know someone who has AIDS? Maybe another question was or someone who is HIV positive? So based on that, that people -- this is something that people don't know a lot about because we live I don't know it. I think if I told this at the time, when you see what -- I would have seemed like craven or something, the way I did this, but I wanted to win, you know, there's no point in disclosing my status and losing. Anyway, actually. And then again, there's nothing wrong with this. We did focus groups. I didn't see any of them. The campaign did focus groups with some of these people and they showed them two letters. One was a professor who was up for tenure and telling the department head about their HIV status. And then the other was someone running for office. Just talking about if they were HIV positive and they would ask the people what they thought of that, Should the professor do that? Should this guy do this, who’s running for office? And apparently in the focus groups, older people who vote a lot. The older someone is, the more likely they are to vote. They were like a politician would never do that. But of course I'd vote for them. And the gay men are all saying, Oh, don't tell anybody. But I’d already decided to do it, you know, so it could have cut either way. It didn't seem like it was a big negative, you know. And it could have been a little bit positive, too. But who knows? But I wasn't, you know, I didn't know when I was going to send out the letter, but my campaign manager and, you know, people that I trusted, and my consultant is John [Houston] is his name. You know, they said, this has to be the first thing you send out to everybody. So I, along with John Astin, wrote a letter to the voters in the district disclosing my HIV status and telling him that I wanted them to know that before they made up their mind about who they were going to vote for. So, you know, I had a plan on how to disclose my HIV status because I wanted to win, and I wanted to disclose my HIV status. And I, you know, I talked about this and, you know, who knows what the futur – I think older people especially, but also gay men, like who knows what the future holds? Who knows when someone's – you know, I can't promise I'm not going to get sick. You know, I might. But right now, I'm very healthy and vigorous. And I think there's some other things that, you know, came from my heart, I think that also would indicate that like who I am and just, you know. Maybe you could read between the lines that I was an empathetic person. I'm not I'm not quite sure. But anyway, we put these plans in place, you know, and… So the time comes for the letter to go out, and we knew that there would be some press attention to it. And so we wanted a newspaper to do the story ; we wanted the New York Times to do it. And I had heard about, oh, I have to go see him. Phil Gutis, who I – lives in near New Hope now, had worked at The Times, and then he was working for the ACLU. And I asked him if he would help us and in particular, help us to plant a story in The New York Times the day that the letter was going to come out. Similar to what Brian Coyle did with the magazine and, you know. So he helped with that. He went to one of the editors who assigned a reporter who I spoke with before. And so the night that the letter went out, some people receiving it was also in the newspaper in The Times. And there was a tremendous media… it got a lot of press, you know, nationally even. So, you know, I got from like this little, you know, neighborhood kind of, you know, city council race to like, all right, now you have to learn to talk to the national media, you know what I mean? So it was – so I'm not – I became very unafraid to talk to the press after this, you know, because nothing could have beaten this. So – well marriage maybe, not beat it, but equal it. What happened was, then right after that, Larry Kramer and this guy named Roger McFarland, who worked for, uh, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, which is a theater group. They don't – they’re just called... I think they dropped the – I think they’re just called Broadway Cares now. I'm not sure they have Equity Fights AIDS as part of their name anymore. But anyway, he was the co-chair of it with this other guy, Tom Viola. But, Larry and Roger were in some sort of relationship and they planted in the paper that I was forced to disclose my status, which is exactly not what I did. And that story appeared in the Post. And then, so that narrative exists out there that, you know, I was forced to do it and I was not forced to do it. Like I made it so that I had to ; I had no choice but to do it. But that was of my own doing to, you know, you know, force myse – And I remember, you know, when I went for an interview at The New York Times, like I couldn't – I didn't feel like I could tell them that I had, like, been so intentional about how I was going to do it because – and I think probably they had it, you know, in their minds, because the endorsement meetings were after all this happened, that, you know, I was forced to do it. And they did it really, really, really, really, really upset me. And you can see now I – and it's sort of like leached into stories about me. And I – it's so terrible that it sort of tainted something that was only meant to do good. Like I didn't want people to think they should be forced to disclose their HIV status. Like that was not the message at all. But I think most people did get the – not everybody reads the Post, you know, of course. But I was angry about it, and Larry Kramer kept calling me up. He wanted to apologize, and I would not take his call. When I get angry my way, I close down and I’m like, Leave me alone. Don't try to make it better. I'll come back to you when I'm ready. And he kept calling and calling, and I wouldn't take his calls. Like if he had stopped calling me it might have been different. And then I got a letter ; I got lots of letters and phone calls and, you know, letters of support and everything, both, you know, in the district. But people I knew and just random people with HIV or people with whatever, people who had – people with chronic illnesses. So anyway, there was a letter that came in from a therapist, a woman, lesbian, who was a therapist. She was a friend of mine, had her return address, was addressed to me, and I opened it up and it was an apology letter from Larry Kramer. And I was so angry about that, too, because he forced, you know what I mean? Like it was a smart thing to do, I guess. But I was so upset about that, too, you know.. And I actually didn't forgive him for a very long time. And then years later, I called. I said, You know what – because he was sorry. I said, You know what Larry? I’m sorr – I said, We’re good. You know, not like I forgive you., but yeah, I forgive you. You know, I'm not mad. I don't want you to feel terrible about this anymore, you know? I want us to – it's okay. I never confronted Larry Kramer about it because it's just… I don't know why I didn't. I just feel like it would have been.. It might’ve just made it worse, you know? But they were supporting. Larry lived in the same building as Bella Abzug. They were supporting of Miss. Abzug, and that's why they did that. And the other thing that's happened, is so upsetting also. Many, many years later… Oh you know, so there was – anyway. So, many years later, Liz called me and she said, You know, I'm not the one that put that in the paper. I didn’t – And I said, Oh, my God Liz. Like I knew – I never thought she did. And I thought, Oh, my God, all these years she thought that I thought that she was behind that. And I never thought that. And I really felt terrible for her that she thought that, you know, I thought that she was to blame for that. And I knew she had nothing to do with it, you know. She was asked to comment in The Times and she made a very good comment. She said it shouldn't really make a difference in a campaign. People should vote for who they think is the best candidate. But, I think she got bad advice from someone. I actually know who probably gave her this advice when she was asked by the press the next day like that, the electronic media, as we called it then, and she said that she thought that it was opportunistic. And so a reporter at this big press conference said, Your opponent says that your disclosing your status is opportunistic. I couldn't have got a better question and she couldn't have said it you know, more... I don't know, slow pitched or whatever. And I was like, Well, it's an opportunity that I'd rather not have. She shouldn't have said that. She should have left the other thing. But it gave me a chance to say… even though I kind of told you that it's not something I’d rathe – but I did. But a normal thing would not want to have it – to not, you know, have that opportunity to, you know, have HIV and be able to disclose it. And by the way, I think that the… I don't know. Anyway, she got addressed by the Times that time, two years before I got addressed three times. And I just think that the [inaudible] meeting that happened after that. So I'm just telling this story because I – and I don't always tell it because I'm still upset about it, but it's out there and that's why I say I need to tell my own story. So that's why I'm telling you this story. But I don't know. You know, I hope you know, a hundred million people see this, but even if it's ten, it doesn't matter. I just, you know, on the record. And I think Larry died recently and I, you know, I forgave him. We never had – he doesn't even know I was mad. Well, he must have known I was angry with him, but he doesn't know that I forgave him or whatever. But anyway, I went on to win and I won, you know, pretty decisively. And, you know, I have deeper roots in the community. And, you know, there wasn't – it actually didn't have a lot to do with it. I mean, it got a lot of attention like that day maybe, and the national press covered it more. But the local press, you know, they move on to something else. And then from then on, it really was, you know. What… you know, our race between the two of us, and people have decided and I had deeper roots in the community than she did, you know, both in the queer community and, you know, just in neighborhood things. I had more things that I could point to, you know, a land use and zoning plan that I helped to write for Chelsea. And I was on, you know, the group that helped to decide what tenant should live in this development. But anyway, I was, you know, I couldn't help myself. It, you know, so they have talked about. I feel like – I just all that stuff just calls to me. So I have deeper roots in the community than she did, and I won decisively. I mean, I'm really sad about that, she thought she had – I knew she had to do with it. I'm not even sure she really wanted to run that much. But I think her mother wanted to, you know, serve, you know, a legacy. So anyway, what I can say this, you know, I won that race. It was actually much more arduous than the race in 1989. It was not fun, really. It was, you know, tough. And it was you know, I think global warming showed itself very much. So, it was really hot all summer long. And I – by rights, I should have lost weight because I'm a weight loser. But then they said, no, no, you can't lose weight, people will think you're getting sick. So every day I had to eat a pint of ice cream. It was so unfair, I didn’t get to lose weight. Anyway, you know. So then I was, you know, the first openly gay person to run with having had disclosed their HIV status in the United States. And Brian was the first to disclose – well, he was in office. And so certainly in the council and then again in the Senate, you know, the like the gay caucus was always meeting in my head. You know, the HIV caucus was always meeting in my head. But there were a lot of things that were to come where I really had to fight hard on behalf of people living with HIV. And it was actually… I think it gave it more strength because I was a person living with HIV. At one point, someone sent out postcards to Republicans in the Senate and that said, Does Tom Duane we really have HIV ; he's never been sick and he's gained like 500 pounds. They didn’t say 500 pounds, but they said like 100 pounds or something. And I had gained weight. I was more happy about that, but I know the HIV probably was... And I found out who did it ; I never did anything about it, but that was, you know. I had other things like, people signed me up for blood drives, someone took down my sign. So I did have some stuff like that, unpleasant things, but well, all of HIV is pretty – you know, the medication is, you know, pretty unpleasant. I don’t – you see these commercials everyone’s really happy. You know, they have great jobs and all these friends. I’m like, who wouldn’t want to – No, no, no. I'm telling you. The stuff I take is powerful and poisonous. And, you know. No, you don't want it. But I don't – there isn't anyone with HIV in the legislature, in either house, in Albany still. And I don't think there's anyone on the city council. I mean, there may be. Actually, I know someone who does have it in the assembly, but he has never – he doesn't disclose it. So, which I actually encouraged him to do it, but he didn't. Anyway, you know, the AIDS crisis is still not over now, it's just it's a disease of poverty now, you know. And I'm still on a state advisory committee and I want to get off and I've been on it for so many years, but I'm like the only one that, like, refuses to say that it's okay to test people without their knowledge, without doing like just at least a little bit of counseling, at least to ask them if they want the test, you know, I mean? And there really is a stigma. Like you have to tell people like they're laws against discriminating against you and you're entitled to health care like all these things. But most of the people on this advisory committee work in AIDS organizations. So, of course they don’t feel stigma. But if they ask any of their clients, Is there stigma in their community, they'll say, yes, there is stigma. Like who would hire me? I'm expensive, you know, I mean, now Medicare, they have to take you. But I mean, corporations…are they gonna hire someone who's HIV – no! The medications are very expensive. Maybe they will if it's a huge corporation, but it's not an advantageous thing, you know. It is something I'd rather not have, except that's not completely true. But, you know, if I was an average person and I used to say that and they said it like, who would hire me? You know, this is like and I said – I would say to tell the people, yeah, you don't have stigma because you work in the field. Although maybe you do have a little stigma but you wouldn’t admit to it. Like don’t we all? Don’t I even – everybody has a little homophobia, everyone has a little sexism, racism. Everyone is you know AIDS-phobic a little bit even if you work in the field. There's still stigma. Maybe you're not a perpetrator of that, but there's stigma and there's discrimination. And it's something that you really have to talk to people about. And most people will decide to take the test. You know, most people will because then they can stay alive, anyway. So. Yes, I disclosed my HIV status and then everything from that happened. MF: Well, I felt like this was a good place to end. We sort of have talked about your movement post-graduation, work in tenant associations, advertising and magazines a little bit, and then really your political career through a city council run and loss to a city council win. Tomorrow could we start with what happens with the win? What are you doing on city council? Would that be a good place to start? TD: Yes. Yes. MF: I loved this interview today. I felt like I learned a lot. Thank you so much for speaking with us today. TD: Well, I think there's... The truth is, I think there's a part of me that's like, a little reticent about like, I do want to tell my story, but it's also – it's. I don't know, it's. There's a lot to pull out. And there are other things that were happening which I… which we'll talk about that were happening at the same time in my life. In my personal life, too. Everyone should know that I do. I do have a time management issue. It's a part of my ADHD, and I know it sounds like an excuse. It is an excuse, but I usually have coping mechanisms to making that so. But, for purposes of this interview. I was very late today and I – it was terrible that I was so late to this interview. And I don't – I mean, maybe it was a little bit like I'm a little [cough heard in background], but I signed up for it and I'm glad that I did it, have done it. And I will be on time tomorrow, I promise. I'm on time to my therapy appointments, to my recovery. Like I'm usually – I don't know what happened today. Is there MF: It’s totally fine TD: – And we must be moving up towards a full moon because that's a bad time. And then when the moon is full, things are kind of good on the slide down. I have to check and see where exactly where we're at on the whole... anyway. MF: We were just happy to drive into New York and we're happy to sit with you here today and we look forward to tomorrow. I'm excited about it. TD: Your president was here for a couple of days. MF: Oh, really? TD: And he invited – in fact, he invited…even I was invited to go meet him up atTavern On the Green, but I couldn't do it. So it’ll be the another opportunity, maybe when I go back. MF: Are you coming for the graduatio – Are you coming for this reunion? TD: I think so. My 50th high school reunion is tomorrow night. MF: Oh, my gosh. Fun. TD: So I won't be full hair and makeup here. But yes, the last one I went to, you know what I found out? Even the popular kids, it was very stressful for them because apparently it's very hard to keep that status. Who knew? Everybody was a mess. And it was funny because a lot of the, Who did you have a crush on? You know, and I did have a couple of crushes and I probably mentioned a couple names, but I always would put their name, And of course you, which wasn’t always true. Boys like to be, you know, they want admirers too, even from gay guys. So, anyway. MF: Well, I look forward to tomorrow morning and thank you so much again. 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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02:11:23
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Thomas Duane, April 1, 2022 (Part 2)
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Thomas Duane talks about his life after Lehigh University organizing in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, time in office as a district leader and city councilmember, and his experiences as the first and only openly gay, HIV-positive member of the New York State legislature.
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LGBT-37
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2022-04-01
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and Archives
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: HIV/AIDS
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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
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T. Scott Allen
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_11.xml
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5.4 July 2, 2020 T. Scott Allen, July 2, 2020 PH40_11 01:34:23 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 AIDS (Disease) T. Scott Allen Liz Bradbury video/mpeg AllenTScott_20200702_video.mp4 1.0:|1995(5) 0 https://youtu.be/DnT8oLHQ5Oc YouTube video 225 Interview Introduction LB: Oh, you’re young. We’re not there yet because we have to do this whole thing. So wait a minute. I have to say this. With this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at the Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experience in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from COVID AIDS to from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I’m here with T. Scott Allen to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We’re meeting on Zoom, and today is July second, twenty-twenty. And you are in Allentown, is that correct? 0 383 Reflecting on early memories of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s LB: Good. Let’s just start right into this. We sit in the middle of the current public health crisis, where experience that we had -- we want to take this opportunity to look back and reflect, and to capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV epidemic in the nineteen-eighties and nineties. And we start right out with that question. Do you remember the first time you became aware of the disease? And then just start talking from there. You can say whatever you want. 
 ; 
 ; TSA: Well, I came to the Diocese of Social Missioner in January of nineteen eighty-nine from Wheeling, West Virginia. 0 562 Engagement with HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley / Involvement of religious communities TSA: When I got to the Lehigh Valley, it was much more -- engaged me much more because there were actually people here that had HIV/AIDS and people that needed help. I mean, and it was lots of things that they needed. It was like some of them just needed food, and some of them needed healthcare. Some of them needed housing. Because there was no safety net from Washington at the time or Harrisburg, really. It was a very hopeful time. While it was sad and this was a tragic thing going on, a lot of innovative things were being done, especially -- the church had a chance to really be a partner with groups that they wouldn’t have had partnerships with otherwise, and make friends, and show them the church wasn’t -- I mean, it was -- religious communities weren’t all great at the time, as you know. 0 662 Working as a grant writer for AIDS outreach / Collaborators in providing services for affected people TSA: And so, I think that was one of the things that was so amazing to me, is how much we cooperated with one another. I wrote grants. I was a grant writer for the Diocese. I wrote grants for the AIDS Services Center. I wrote grants for FACT. I wrote grants for AIDS outreach. 
 ; 
 ; LB: What were the grants for? What did they -- 
 ; 0 839 Providing housing and health care for underserved people in the community / The Transitional Living Center in Fountain Hill TSA: And then we tried to start, as you may remember, the Gilead House, which was supposed to be the Lehigh Valley version of Rainbow House in Berks County. And Kit Hower headed that project up. And that didn’t have a long life, mainly because some of the times, I hate -- and I’ll say this, and you can edit this out -- but sometimes, once the hospitals saw they could make money on something, they withdrew support of the community project and started offering it themselves. 
 ; 
 ; LB: I know that’s true. 0 940 Early discussions and misconceptions on how HIV was transmitted / Church and HIV transmission TSA: And so, it was a sad time on that level. But we tried to make up for it in the Lehigh Valley. There was a great deal of compassion here at the time, and a great deal of understanding about how people became homeless because they had an HIV diagnosis. We had to fight a lot of fear in the culture because like this pandemic, we didn’t know everything about it. We didn’t know everything, how it was transmitted. I mean, there was a time we had no idea how it was transmitted. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah, it took years. 0 1472 Reflections on friends who were HIV positive LB: Did you have any friends that were -- that you knew well that were HIV positive that went through this time, or are still around, or whatever? 
 ; 
 ; TSA: Yeah. Well, everyone that I met who was HIV positive I met through my work, or being social in the gay community, or hanging out, and volunteering, and doing volunteer work at the AIDS Services Center. I didn’t have a lot of close social friends, if that’s what you’re asking. But I’ve had close social friends die since then, who were HIV positive, and had it for a long time, and long-term survivors, and had other underlying conditions that wasn’t good to have with HIV. I remember David Houseknecht. And what a character he was. And I remember our bishop. 0 1600 Role of the Episcopal Church during the HIV/Aids epidemic LB: The Episcopal Church really rose to this occasion, and I think there were a lot of people that sort of shifted their allegiances from other denominations to get into -- become Episcopalians because of this. It was remarkable because several people that I’ve interviewed have said, “Well, the Episcopal Church was really different compared to the other churches, other church involvement. ” 
 ; 
 ; TSA: And I wonder about that, of why that was, and I’m not quite sure why that was. But I think part of it was we were such an urban church. Our strength is really in cities. 0 1834 Gilead House / Asbestos problem LB: When you were talking about Gilead House and that was a -- where -- was that a place? Where was it? 
 ; 
 ; TSA: It was a place. We got a place over at the old Allentown State Hospital. They gave us one of the buildings. Of course, we thought, oh, this is great. Well, then we went in there and found out that we had to remediate half the building because the floor and the ceiling were asbestos. 0 2022 Reflections on the atmosphere of caretaking facilities run by minority groups LB: I had an interview with Bill Aull, who was really involved with Rainbow House. And there was such a significant community building feeling with regard to Rainbow House that -- I mean, I want to steer you into saying something about the fact that when a hospital takes over something that’s run by a minority group, things are different. 
 ; 
 ; TSA: They are different. You don’t have to steer me that way. I think when you have people whose primary concern is running a place to make money off of it, as opposed to people that are running the place to care for people, the quality is different. 0 2254 Common enemies of discrimination and prejudice / Politicization of social issues TSA: And I remember that there was energy, enthusiasm, support, particularly in the gay community at the time. It was a galvanizing force in the gay community. It was like you had a common enemy. Nothing galvanizes people more than having a common enemy. 
 ; 
 ; LB: That’s so true. 
 ; 
 ; TSA: And the enemy was multi-fraught. It was prejudice, and discrimination in the culture. It was the medical community and providing services. It was we can’t let our brothers and sisters languish. 0 2412 ACT UP / Demonstrations and Parades TSA: Well, I think what the result of that was ACT UP. I mean, people just had to go to the streets because of the ignorance, because of the lack of response from the national government, and the lack of compassion coming out of the White House seemingly. ACT UP had to be in your face, and they were until people -- until political leaders were afraid of ACT UP. They didn’t want ACT UP to show up at their office doing some kind of demonstration because it would not be -- it would be pretty explicit if they did. The phenomenon that I saw was that the Reagans were singularly unhelpful for a period. They came around, but begrudgingly. 0 2779 Involvement with the Integrity organization / Dixie White LB: What other organizations were you involved with? Were you part of the Gay Men’s Chorus? I don’t remember whether you were part of that now. 
 ; 
 ; TSA: No, I wasn’t. We started Integrity at the time. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Oh, right. Of course. Yeah. 
 ; 
 ; TSA: Which was the Episcopalian LGBT organization, which is now -- well, I’m declaring it defunct. I’ve got to go close our bank account. We don’t need it anymore. We don’t need it. And that’s a good thing. We won. We won. 0 3049 Experience as a priest in North Carolina / Racism and Anti-racism TSA: It was just before I left. That was starting to happen just before I left. I went to North Carolina from here. I was kind of burnt out after six years of just being on a treadmill, and I wanted to go to a little Southern sleepy town and be the rector for them, just be a priest for a while. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Where did you go? 
 ; 
 ; TSA: I went to Pittsboro, North Carolina, which is twenty miles south of Chapel Hill. But that’s a whole other story. That was not a good idea on my part. But anyway. . . 0 3374 Coming out experience in a religious setting TSA: No, I was unemployed. I left that church under, let’s just say, stressful circumstances. As you know, I was married and have two children. And actually, my involvement in HIV/AIDS movement and interaction with the gay community started making me ask questions and be honest to me about myself, and stuff that I was terrified to face, and did everything I could, including getting married, not to face. But I came out in the wrong place, which was down there. You can bleep this, but it was an S show, as you can imagine. 0 3615 Being sent for psychiatric evaluation TSA: Well, I was sent off for psychiatric evaluation, which was like what? They sent me to Minnesota. In all of this retrospective, it turned out for good. There was grace in all of this because the guy in Minnesota, who was my -- the psychiatrist who was overseeing my -- I had to do the Wassermann test, and the MMPI again, and all that stuff. But he turned out to be a guy -- a gay man, who said, “The bishop wants to defrock you. ”I said, “Why? I’ve done nothing wrong except announce the divorce from my wife, and trying to be honest about myself at the same time, and trying to be discreet about it as much as possible. 0 3995 Feeling joy and sadness in reflecting on the early days of the AIDS/HIV epidemic / Experiencing social breakthroughs TSA: That’s funny. Well, I think back on those times as -- they weren’t dark days for me. They were good days, as far as working with the HIV/AIDS stuff. They were full of hope, and there was joy in it. There was sadness. People died and we were sad about that. No question about that. But there was also equal and opposite joy and feeling of community and support that I haven’t felt like that since really. Maybe a little bit I’m feeling with the Black Lives Matter movement now, but it’s starting to feeling a little more like that. 0 4178 Caring for a young family during the AID epidemic / David Houseknecht and Dixie White LB: That’s true. Let’s see. I know that you’re busy and you’ve got some stuff that’s coming up really soon. I always ask people if they had been in a situation where they were caring for anybody with HIV, where you had to go and bring them food or care people like that.
 ; 
 ; TSA: Not on a consistent basis, no. Because you have to remember I had a young family then. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Oh, that’s true. 
 ; 0 4684 The return of virus related terminology / ELISA test TSA: I know. Well and truth is, we never came up with an HIV vaccine. I mean, that’s the thing. It’s funny how the language has come back to me because we were always talking about viral load, T cells. All of that language is back. All of that language is back. And the ELISA test. 
 ; 
 ; LB: I don’t know about that. What was that?
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 ; TSA: The ELISA test was the second -- if you -- the first one was a simple test that would say if you’re HIV positive or HIV negative. But it had a lot of false negatives and false positives.
 ; 0 4869 Advice and reflections for consideration for future generations / Focusing on humanity LB: We’re at the last ten minutes of this. If we’re thinking about how people are going to be watching this someday in the future thirty years from now, some kind of -- or more, and they’re going to look back at this, and here’s your chance to talk to the future. Tell them a little bit about just sort of the summation about that time in the Lehigh Valley with regard to HIV/AIDS during the height of the epidemic, and maybe some other words that you might want to toss in there. What do you think? 
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 ; TSA: That seems like a very heavy task, to talk to the future. But I think more what it taught me was communities can rise up together and address problems that seem insurmountable and seem bigger than us, and they can do it in a way that is phenomenal and not only helps the people with the disease, but it helps you. It helps you focus your own humanity. 0 5187 Attending events and interviews in a minister collar / Attending Allentown City Council meetings LB: I want to thank you personally for a couple of times when I desperately needed somebody who was wearing a minister collar to show up fast at an event. I remember when we were fighting the ordinance that time in City Hall --
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 ; TSA: I dragged Malloy. I said, “Come on, boy. We got to get up to City Hall and show -- put our mugs on the TV camera. ” 
 ; 0 5326 Passing the Allentown ordinance / Opposition of Allentown diocese LB: The big difference between Allentown and Bethlehem was that when we passed Allentown’s ordinance, the ordinance was already in existence, and it was passed in nineteen sixty-five to protect people based on race, religion, national religion, sex, and, I don’t know, one or two other things. And so, we had to add sexual orientation, gender identity. And that’s a tricky thing. And that was two-thousand and two. It actually started in 1998, and we worked all the way through two-thousand and two to actually pass it, and then we had to fight that referendum. It took seven years to put that in place, and it was really hard. 0 MovingImage T. Scott Allen talks about the AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. He talks about his years as an Episcopal minister and his work with AIDS Services Center, about people who had HIV/AIDS, and how churches supported people who were sick. T. SCOTT ALLEN LIZ BRADBURY: -- on this computer. Now to see other things, that there's a little dot up there that tells you it's recording. And now I know. I must look at that all the time. T. SCOTT ALLEN: Yes. I see it on mine too. It tells me you better watch what you say, bud. It's being recorded. LB: And I think you're pinned in there. I just want to be sure that you're pinned. TSA: Oh, I see. LB: And you are. TSA: You are using the enhanced encryption recording. LB: Pardon me? TSA: It just says I'm using enhanced encryption. So, I guess the Russians can't tap into (inaudible). LB: Thank goodness because they could use this. I know you have another thing right after this, so I'm going to -- and you've already done some big deal this morning. Man, you're a busy guy. TSA: And they're doing construction next door, so if you hear the sound of drills and circular saws in the background, that's what's going on. Of course they would pick today to do that. Of course, my neighbor decides always in the middle -- when I'm in the middle of noonday prayers daily to leaf blow their front porch at about midway through them. So much for urban living. We live in the city. We live close to each other. LB: And there's fireworks. TSA: Oh my God. Yes, there are. LB: On Monday night, I was working until about 1:30 in the morning to finish a project. And up until then and after I went to bed, I could hear the fireworks. And at 5:00 a.m., somebody set off two other huge, bomb like fireworks. Woke me right up. I had gotten three and a half hours. TSA: I thought there were gunshots for a while, and I thought oh, Lord, have mercy. But it wasn't. It was just these stupid one-boom fireworks that were just -- LB: It's fireworks. And the problem is because of this new law, which is I'm sure going to be repealed because it was such a mistake, but you can buy fireworks everywhere. TSA: Well, I don't know where they're getting these because most of the fireworks I see are just kind of small things. LB: You can buy those big, scary ones everywhere now. You can get them at the dollar store. TSA: Wow, really? Because I think they're making them -- LB: They're at every convenience store because they repealed the law because they wanted to tax revenue to fulfill some kind of deficit. So, they said, "Well, we'll just let them buy fireworks everywhere, and we'll tax them really high." And so, they are double tax than the regular sales tax. It was the biggest mistake ever because it's every person in this city who has to -- who doesn't like to be woken up twenty-four hours a day or hear gunshots is furious. And throughout the state. It's not just in the cities. TSA: It's bad for dogs and dog owners too. I remember I would take Martini, my dog -- who -- she's dead now -- but I would take her up to my bedroom -- which I had a window air conditioner in my bedroom -- turn on the air conditioner, turn on the TV, and that -- between the air conditioner and the TV, that blocked out a lot of that. She couldn't hear it. It was good. LB: We're on record, so I got to read you this stuff now. I got carried away. Let's see. I've got that. Oh, I need to turn my phone off. TSA: My only concern was having to give you my birthday. LB: Rose didn't want to give me her year, and I said, "Of course you don't have to do that." You don't have to do that if you don't want to. TSA: I was born just before Kennedy was shot. LB: Oh, you're young. We're not there yet because we have to do this whole thing. So wait a minute. I have to say this. With this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at the Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experience in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from COVID AIDS to -- from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I'm here with T. Scott Allen to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We're meeting on Zoom, and today is July second, twenty-twenty. And you are in Allentown, is that correct? TSA: I'm in Bethlehem right now. But my church is in Allentown. LB: I have to put down where you are when you're doing this. You're in Bethlehem? TSA: I'm sitting in South Bethlehem right now. LB: We did all of those things. I pinned you. 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? TSA: Well, I'm just going to use my initial, T, period, Scott, S-C-O-T-T, Allen, A-L-L-E-N. LB: And would you please share your birth date or day? TSA: December twenty-second. A couple years before Kennedy was shot. LB: You're way younger than I am, Scott. Because I remember when Kennedy was shot. TSA: Well, no, I was in first grade actually. LB: I was in kindergarten, so you win. But anyway, do you consent to this interview today? This is the consent portion. TSA: Yes. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? TSA: I do. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats, including films, archives, websites, presentations, and even other formats? TSA: Absolutely. I'll be a movie star. LB: Yes. Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts that you would like to delete, and, or withdraw the interview from the project? If you say I don't want to do this at all, forget -- we'll do the whole thing again, if you wanted. Although, let's not do that. TSA: No. LB: But I will if you want me to. TSA: It's not like an answering machine message. Re-record. LB: So, you understand that? Okay? TSA: I understand that, yeah. LB: Good. Let's just start right into this. We sit in the middle of the current public health crisis, where experience that we had -- we want to take this opportunity to look back and reflect, and to capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV epidemic in the nineteen-eighties and nineties. And we start right out with that question. Do you remember the first time you became aware of the disease? And then just start talking from there. You can say whatever you want. TSA: Well, I came to the Diocese of Social Missioner in January of nineteen eighty-nine from Wheeling, West Virginia. I was aware of HIV/AIDS before I got here. But it was just starting to become in the national conversation, I should say. It was a few people sick in New York City and in urban areas, and hadn't really filtered out yet to towns and smaller rural areas. It was just starting to be of great concern in the national conversation when I arrived in eighty-nine. And it was a time of obviously great fear because the AIDS Quilt was just such a reminder of how many people were dying of this disease. And I remember seeing the AIDS Quilt in about eighty-eight in Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. And the whole basement of Cobo Hall, which is a huge -- if you've ever been there, it's a huge convention center -- was just covered with the quilt. It was a very moving moment for me when I realized each one of these squares represents someone who's died. And usually, a gay person who died, at that point. That was also the sadness, that a minority community was being hit so hard by this virus. Anyway, so I came here in eighty-nine. It was also a time of great community energy. There was a lot of energy going on here in the Lehigh Valley that you just -- lots of coalition building. Lots of making connections, doing stuff together, writing grants together. Unusual bed partners: the Red Cross, the Episcopal Church, and -- Fighting AIDS Continually Together would do stuff. As I remember, it was an exciting time in a way because I saw so many people coming forward, and so much effort and energy that was having some effect happening. When I got to the Lehigh Valley, it was much more -- engaged me much more because there were actually people here that had HIV/AIDS and people that needed help. I mean, and it was lots of things that they needed. It was like some of them just needed food, and some of them needed healthcare. Some of them needed housing. Because there was no safety net from Washington at the time or Harrisburg, really. It was a very hopeful time. While it was sad and this was a tragic thing going on, a lot of innovative things were being done, especially -- the church had a chance to really be a partner with groups that they wouldn't have had partnerships with otherwise, and make friends, and show them the church wasn't -- I mean, it was -- religious communities weren't all great at the time, as you know. There was a lot of fear in churches. There was a lot of blaming. Seeing it as a class issue as opposed to a virus. And by class, I mean a category of people. And so, I think that was one of the things that was so amazing to me, is how much we cooperated with one another. I wrote grants. I was a grant writer for the Diocese. I wrote grants for the AIDS Services Center. I wrote grants for FACT. I wrote grants for AIDS outreach. LB: What were the grants for? What did they -- TSA: General programming. I mean, they were for what they needed. Basically, for services to people with HIV and AIDS. And it was at that time that I met Rose Craig and became actually good friends with her. And she was a great ally, being at the Red Cross I think at the time. And David -- I forget his last name -- at Lehigh Valley Hospital. LB: David Moyer? TSA: He was a vice president up there. Jo Clare Hartsig with (inaudible) of the homeless. LB: You just stopped for a minute. You said Jo Clare Hart-- TSA: Joe Clare Hartsig was at Center City Ministries, which was the standing homeless shelter here, which no longer exists. But she got involved because many of the people who came to her shelter were also HIV positive or having just full-blown symptoms of AIDS. And so, she got involved in stuff. Billy Leh. Real involved with him as his -- working on projects together, Rob-Win Press, with that. And then Linda Lobach at the time. She's got another last name now. But anyway, Linda at AIDS Outreach, which was started actually at Grace Episcopal Church. She was an Episcopalian. And of course, another Episcopalian became the director of the AIDS Services Center, was Dixie White. There was this explosion of cooperation, advocacy, concern. We spoke with a pretty loud voice when we all spoke together. We spoke in a louder voice than we would've spoken had we spoken individually. For me, it was a great honor and privilege to be connected in a network with these people, who were all bright and articulate people that had a lot on the ball. And thank God. And then we tried to start, as you may remember, the Gilead House, which was supposed to be the Lehigh Valley version of Rainbow House in Berks County. And Kit Hower headed that project up. And that didn't have a long life, mainly because some of the times, I hate -- and I'll say this, and you can edit this out -- but sometimes, once the hospitals saw they could make money on something, they withdrew support of the community project and started offering it themselves. LB: I know that's true. TSA: Right after we started the Transitional Living Center down here in Fountain Hill, which was for -- wasn't exactly for people with HIV, but it was for people that -- and it wasn't -- what we discovered is we found out about a lot of underserved people in general, who were being released from hospitals that had no place to live. People that lived alone, who had to give themselves eye drops. They couldn't manage that. Or give themselves some kind of complicated medication that involved maybe injection or IV. And so, we started the Transitional Living Center down here in Fountain Hill, and wrote grants, and got it going for people that were released from hospitals. And it also would include people with HIV and AIDS, who were treated and then released. And many of them, because they had become unemployed, lost their employment, had become homeless. And so, it was a sad time on that level. But we tried to make up for it in the Lehigh Valley. There was a great deal of compassion here at the time, and a great deal of understanding about how people became homeless because they had an HIV diagnosis. We had to fight a lot of fear in the culture because like this pandemic, we didn't know everything about it. We didn't know everything, how it was transmitted. I mean, there was a time we had no idea how it was transmitted. LB: Yeah, it took years. TSA: We suspected, but we didn't have solid proof that kissing someone would not give you HIV. So, anyway... LB: People still say that now. TSA: Really? LB: People still will describe certain circumstances, and they'll talk about it, and (inaudible) at the same risk as needle sharing or at the same risk as anal sex. You could say, well, you could get it from this, this, this, and this, or anal sex, or needle sharing. I'm thinking yeah, well the first two, I mean, there is no statistical circumstance where anyone has ever gotten it that way. TSA: And in our church tradition, communion is so important that we had to do a lot of stuff with the church about communion, about how you couldn't -- finally, we got doctors to come out and say, "You cannot get this from the common cough. Period." You can't. Unless you're doing something else at the altar rail besides taking communion, you can't get HIV. (laughs) LB: You still can't, even if you are. You still can't because once you have -- TSA: Unless you're engaging in unseemly behavior in church, you can't get it at church. And that was one of the things that we were fighting, is that prejudice and that fear in the culture. Because one of the blocks, as you know, to getting people to buy onto, and volunteer, and giving money to HIV as service groups was to relieve them of fear of a lot of the fear they had. So one of the big things that we did in the Episcopal diocese that we did ecumenically, actually -- it wasn't just us, but it was kind of spearheaded by us -- but it was the healing -- we had that first healing service at the cathedral. I don't know if you remember it. But it was at the cathedral and we did it for a couple of years or three years. Then it kind of died out because it wasn't needed. As with a lot of things that you do, things take on a life of their own, and they outlive their time, and it just kind of dies this really sad death at the end. Because for what it was started for, there's no longer a need. I remember that first thing. The bishop, Mark Dyer, was the celebrant. And we got the guy in New York that Cousin Bobby was about. I don't know if you remember Cousin Bobby. It was about Jonathan Demme's cousin, who was an Episcopal priest in Manhattanville that was doing a really active ministries with people with HIV. In fact, helped start that hotel there down in Christopher Street that was pretty much a residence for people with HIV, which started to expand rather quickly to not just gay people, but straight people too, particularly in areas like New York. Cousin Bobby was the preacher. I can't remember his name. We wanted to let people with HIV and AIDS know that we would touch them, that we would actually touch them, that they can take communion with us, and we're not going to be afraid of you, and we want you not to be afraid of us. And so, that was the big message that we were trying to put forth in that service. And I remember that it was packed. I mean, there was not a seat left in the room, mainly because allies -- a lot of allies came. Once again, all these organizations that were in relationship from one another would support each other in that kind of thing. I would encourage people to go to FACT events from the Episcopal Church. I'd advertise the summer games, and the Snowball, and things like that. It was a ton of great cooperation that I haven't seen a lot since, although I'm seeing it again with the Black Lives Matter movement now. But there was great cooperation in the Lehigh Valley. LB: When we compare this to COVID, we have to remember we've only been dealing with COVID-19 for about four or five months, or six months. We're not talking about by nineteen eighty-nine, people in the Lehigh Valley had been working to codify our community for four years. But when you had that big healing service, where was it? TSA: It was at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity down here. I'll never forget this. This was great. At the time, they were just drag queens. Now we probably call them transgender people: men who dress like women, but not all the time. Anyway, but they came dolled up, their wigs, everything. Looking very conservative, but they weren't like they were going to go on stage at The Stonewall or anything. And I remember one going up at the time of laying on the hands of healing, one going up. And I think Dixie and I were sitting together maybe at that. I don't remember. But I remember her leaning over to me, and say, "I wonder if the bishop realizes that the woman that he's laying hands on is not a woman." (laughs) I said, "You know, it doesn't matter." She's still getting healing. LB: Because those people were cross-dressers. They really were not trans people. They weren't transgender people who were living their lives as women. They were people who were -- TSA: These were cross-dressers, yeah. LB: -- who would dress as women. That was a really big contingency of people at Renaissance early on. And I remember that some of the first work that we did was in that community as well. Yeah, that was pretty interesting. TSA: I mean, Billy Leh was about the most secular person I've ever met in my life. And he came up to me and said how meaningful that that service was at the end of it for him, that we were touching, embracing everyone, not caring what your HIV status was. And offer you communion. We will drink after you. It was very powerful at the time in nineteen ninety-one, ninety, ninety-one maybe. But it was also trying to be a message to the churches that you don't have to be afraid either. There's not this huge outbreak of HIV afterwards. LB: Of course, with COVID-19, it's a different story. TSA: That's a different story. Absolutely. But we're kind of in that same place where we're not sure. We don't know. We don't have a really good personality profile on this virus yet. LB: That's true. TSA: And there was a point we didn't really have that for HIV either. We didn't know exactly what was going to happen, how it -- if it would mutate, how it would mutate. Would it get better? Would it get worse? Will the antivirals that we come up with still be effective in two or three years? There were all those questions back then, I remember. But still, we persevered. We persisted. LB: Did you have any friends that were -- that you knew well that were HIV positive that went through this time, or are still around, or whatever? TSA: Yeah. Well, everyone that I met who was HIV positive I met through my work, or being social in the gay community, or hanging out, and volunteering, and doing volunteer work at the AIDS Services Center. I didn't have a lot of close social friends, if that's what you're asking. But I've had close social friends die since then, who were HIV positive, and had it for a long time, and long-term survivors, and had other underlying conditions that wasn't good to have with HIV. I remember David Houseknecht. And what a character he was. And I remember our bishop. The house of bishops in the Episcopal Church, the presiding bishop told each one of the bishops in the house of bishops that he wanted them to go back to their diocese, and befriend and make a -- work on a friendship with someone with HIV/AIDS. And so, our bishop did that. And the person he chose was David Houseknecht. And Bishop Mark would visit him, and call him, and stay in touch with him. That's kind of one of the remarkable things that happened at the time, Liz, that just -- unexpected relationships grew up that, except for this disease, otherwise wouldn't have happened. LB: The Episcopal Church really rose to this occasion, and I think there were a lot of people that sort of shifted their allegiances from other denominations to get into -- become Episcopalians because of this. It was remarkable because several people that I've interviewed have said, "Well, the Episcopal Church was really different compared to the other churches, other church involvement." TSA: And I wonder about that, of why that was, and I'm not quite sure why that was. But I think part of it was we were such an urban church. Our strength is really in cities. And I think probably the first wave of people with HIV were members of those congregations who had to get over it real quick to minister to them, and had to learn real quick how to minister to them and how to -- and that this was something that they weren't getting support for in the general culture. Maybe that's why it was. I don't know. I don't know. But it was definitely a time that our church really became anti -- I don't know how to say it -- anti-homophobic. I don't know. Well, it wasn't just homophobia. Treating them like lepers. We decided that Jesus didn't treat lepers like they couldn't be touchable, so why should we? I think that was it. But then also, the time I'll never forget, Peter Helt was the pastor up at the MCC church. LB: Yeah, before Beth Goudy. TSA: Yeah. And I remember going to a dinner at Linda Lobach's house, and having -- because of that dinner, becoming friends with him, and was glad to know that he was ministering to gay people that wouldn't step foot into a traditional church. Those are the kind of connections that were invaluable. And I could refer people to him too that I knew weren't going to come to the Episcopal Church and sit through an hour and a half service, not knowing that they were really welcome. I'm enough of an evangelist as a Christian. I want them to become Christians. So I sent them up to Peter. But it was really a time too that I think we had to really get over fear, prejudice. And folded into that, which was a blessing, was homophobia. I think if it weren't for the AIDS/HIV crisis, we wouldn't have heard the stories of gay people that moved us so much. Even though we were clear that gay people weren't the only ones getting it, they were really the first wave to get it. Gay men particularly. And people got to hear their stories, see them as human beings, have compassion for them. And then following up from there, why aren't we ordaining them? Why can't they be ordained? And that came out of that, really. LB: Oh, that's interesting. TSA: It did unlock the stories of gay people in a way that nothing else had before that. LB: When you were talking about Gilead House and that was a -- where -- was that a place? Where was it? TSA: It was a place. We got a place over at the old Allentown State Hospital. They gave us one of the buildings. Of course, we thought, oh, this is great. Well, then we went in there and found out that we had to remediate half the building because the floor and the ceiling were asbestos. LB: Made of asbestos, yes. TSA: Anyway, we were like -- LB: Having been there empty, they can't even tear them down. They'd kill everybody by just tearing them down. TSA: Well, they had to remediate Martin Tower for that reason before they blew it up. They had to spend all that money getting the asbestos out of Martin Tower because all of that stuff would be aerosolized when they blew it up. LB: That's why it stood there vacant for so long. That building that we were going to have for the community center that's on Turner Street turned out to be totally made of asbestos. And we would say what needs to be done to that building is to tear it down, but they can't tear it down because the cost of tearing it down is worse than just leaving it there. TSA: Well, and the health danger. All that dust flying over the city and into windows. LB: You can't just go and tear this thing down. You've got to put it in a giant plastic bag and then carefully take it apart. TSA: Well, we thought that was a great thing at first. And then we found out about the asbestos problem. And of course, we were trying to get personal care home licensure. We did do some remediation. We wrote some grants. Rose was on the board, actually, of that. Because we really wanted to have a home where people with HIV could go, whose families didn't feel like they could manage them. Because as you know, at the time, there weren't the pharmaceuticals and the antivirals that we have now. And it was a debilitating and withering disease. And eventually, you would -- you couldn't even go to the bathroom by yourself. People had to make everything you ate and bring it to you. You weren't able to do any of that. So that was the need at the time, which thankfully was not as much of a need shortly after its demise. We only had one person in Gilead House. Only had one person. Well, and this is, once again, the hospitals realizing, oh my God, we can get money for having a HIV floor and putting on the floor. Okay. And so, then when they realized they can make money off of it and get third-party payments, which is how we were going to support the Gilead House. We were completely undercut by the hospitals on that. LB: I had an interview with Bill Aull, who was really involved with Rainbow House. And there was such a significant community building feeling with regard to Rainbow House that -- I mean, I want to steer you into saying something about the fact that when a hospital takes over something that's run by a minority group, things are different. TSA: They are different. You don't have to steer me that way. I think when you have people whose primary concern is running a place to make money off of it, as opposed to people that are running the place to care for people, the quality is different. And it begs the question, had we not done the Transitional Living Center, had we not done Gilead House, would the hospitals have done what they did? We were kind of the canary in the mineshaft, and they said, "Oh, wait a minute. If Medicaid or Blue Cross Blue Shield is going to pay for them to be in these places, or the state's going to give us money for that, why can't we do that?" I think it really spurred them on to do what they did. But as you say, the quality is very different. And I know people were well taken care of at the Transitional Living Center, which was pretty full from the minute it opened. LB: Where was that? TSA: That was here in Fountain Hill. I forget what street it's on. It's not far from where I'm sitting. There's Old Silk Mill that we got a piece of. And it had rooms. It had probably about eight or ten rooms and a kind of a nursing station, so there was medical access to people. You could see all the doors and all the rooms. What's that street north of me? I'll think of it in a minute. I think that one of the things that we did in that period was we made the culture start responding, albeit not with the same caring touch that we had. No question about that. Another remarkable thing of the time is that nonprofits, churches, were stepping up immediately to deal with the people and the needs of these people who were diagnosed with a disease. It wasn't a plague. It was a disease like cancer or anything else. We did, I think, remarkable work on very little. It was kind of like some projects were like stone soup. Okay, I have this idea. Okay, well, we can do this piece of it, but we probably need someone to do this piece. Well, you know what? We've got the infrastructure to do that piece of it. That's kind of how a lot of the things have happened. And I remember that there was energy, enthusiasm, support, particularly in the gay community at the time. It was a galvanizing force in the gay community. It was like you had a common enemy. Nothing galvanizes people more than having a common enemy. LB: That's so true. TSA: And the enemy was multi-fraught. It was prejudice, and discrimination in the culture. It was the medical community and providing services. It was we can't let our brothers and sisters languish. We've got to do something. We can't just sit by and watch this happen. There was a lot of energy around that. LB: That's a good point. That's a good way of framing it, I think, the common enemy thing. I think that's the way maybe we need to frame COVID-19 because I don't think people understand that as much. We need to say that's the enemy. The illness is the enemy. The pandemic is about that. It's not about the (inaudible). The enemy isn't the mask. TSA: The problem we have in this culture, and it happened with HIV and AIDS too, is things get politicized right away. It's like you're a red state ; you don't wear a mask. If you're a blue state, you wear masks. Well, that's ridiculous. And Ronald Reagan -- you know how he was. Ronald and Nancy? They didn't want anything to do with AIDS/HIV. LB: These archives will really put -- will give people an opportunity because these will be archived at Muhlenberg College, and people will be able to access these online and stuff. Thirty years from now, the way history will be written is Ronald Reagan was a beloved, moderate Republican president and was still, for the LGBT community -- we're like wait a minute. That was not what was happening. TSA: I thought George W. Bush was the worst president in history until -- I'd love to have George W. Bush back now. (laughter) I'll take him back in a minute. LB: But I don't think people always understand that when you're talking about Ron and Nancy Reagan and what they did or what they wouldn't do -- and so, talk about that a little bit. I think everybody was aware of -- TSA: Well, I think what the result of that was ACT UP. I mean, people just had to go to the streets because of the ignorance, because of the lack of response from the national government, and the lack of compassion coming out of the White House seemingly. ACT UP had to be in your face, and they were until people -- until political leaders were afraid of ACT UP. They didn't want ACT UP to show up at their office doing some kind of demonstration because it would not be -- it would be pretty explicit if they did. The phenomenon that I saw was that the Reagans were singularly unhelpful for a period. They came around, but begrudgingly. Here's the other thing. It also tied to homophobia. It was interlinked with homophobia with just -- initially, anyway. And thank God straight people started getting HIV because then it's like, oh, they're not gay and they got HIV. Oh, this must be a disease. This was not a gay thing. And of course, gay people always get politicized still. People vote for Donald Trump because he's going to put Supreme Court justices that are going to limit transgender rights or repeal same sex marriage. I just have one, two words for them: stare decisis. We've already done that, man. We can't keep spinning that wheel. That was -- been decided. But I do think that it was a lot of things going on like that at the time. I mean, I remember ACT UP, I think, was compliments of Ronald Reagan. If we hadn't had Ronald Reagan's response, people wouldn't have felt the frustration that they had to go out and set their hair on fire in public to get attention and say this is worthy of public funding, and public research, and public attention. LB: Did you go to any of those ACT UP things? TSA: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There weren't many in the Lehigh Valley, as I recall. I don't think. But I went to one in Philadelphia, and it was in front of City Hall, actually. But being in the church, I had to -- well, I wanted to engage my own folks in a way. I spent my energy trying to engage people who claimed the Christian faith to actually claim the Christian faith, and to be what they said they were, and to give them opportunities to show that towards people with HIV and AIDS, and inviting them into that. Because Martin Luther King, he -- I think one of the things I've noticed that -- a lot of people have read King, but not thoroughly. And one of the things that I'll never forget -- and this was when I was involved in the anti-nuclear movement in Connecticut when was in seminary -- but we did demonstrations up there where we actually were arrested. But Martin Luther King always said that whatever public demonstration you do, you always have to have an element of it be an invitation for those who witness it to join you. You cannot create a demonstration to be intentionally off-putting, which I've always thought was really good advice. It's got to be non-violent, and it's got to be an invitation to people to join you, not to reject you. LB: Trish and I were just in a pride parade in Amelia Island, Florida last year at this time actually. It was their first pride festival, their first parade. They have a little park there. It was about eight-hundred people there all together. It was small. It's a small place though. The first thing we did was we paraded down the street a few blocks, maybe five or six blocks. And we came back up, passed by the Episcopal Church. All these people, they were the mom and dad's brigades, and they were coming out and hugging everybody. It was really wonderful. It was some church. But the church didn't participate, but the congregation did. It was sort of interesting. There's someone in the congregation that organized people to do this thing. But one of the things that Trish and I were doing -- we were near the front of the parade -- is that every time we walked by and we would see people that were clearly LGBT standing on the side of the road, and we would -- or even just people who had -- and they were cheering and they had -- and we would say, "Come on. Come on. Come and do this." Because sometimes, they feel like, well, I'm not part of that particular group. And we would say to them, "Come out to be with us and walk with us. We want you in our group." And I think that that was a great thing. People are still doing that today. That was a significant thing. What other organizations were you involved with? Were you part of the Gay Men's Chorus? I don't remember whether you were part of that now. TSA: No, I wasn't. We started Integrity at the time. LB: Oh, right. Of course. Yeah. TSA: Which was the Episcopalian LGBT organization, which is now -- well, I'm declaring it defunct. I've got to go close our bank account. We don't need it anymore. We don't need it. And that's a good thing. We won. We won. LB: If you have any leftover money, I know someplace that you could donate the money to. TSA: Oh, no, no. We're donating it to the Bradbury-Sullivan Center for the Dixie White room. LB: Yes, okay. Definitely do that. TSA: It's not a lot of money. I warn you. It's like two or three-hundred bucks. LB: That's terrific. We're about a little bit less than six-hundred dollars -- three-thousand six-hundred dollars from the goal. We're doing really well with that. It's very significant. TSA: And what room is it? LB: We haven't decided. That will be something that Dixie's folks and other contributors and stuff can decide. There's a lot of different options, as far as that goes. TSA: While Dixie was still alive, Dixie and I, and David Moyer were about the last three standing people that could still -- were still vertical that -- LB: Well, now there's two of you. TSA: Yes, and now there's only two of us left. But anyway, we did say we're going to close this account because Dixie was very concerned that we not just let this money languish and just put it in a checking account. It's a little of it. We need to put it towards something. And I suggested that we send it to the Bradbury-Sullivan Center in thanksgiving for the ministry that Integrity had. And we had a good ministry for a few years. It was really good. LB: I used to advertise it in the paper. TSA: Yeah. And we provided affirmation and a safe place for gay Episcopalians to be and know they weren't alone. That was really great. But we started that. That came out of that. I think there was a clergy group that Ann Hughie may have convened that I was part of. Donna [Seepley?], Nancy Adams, Jo Clare, me, Peter Helt. God, these are old history names, aren't they? LB: There's a guy at Saint John's Lutheran who was (inaudible). TSA: Yeah, Tim. No, no, no. He was at the UCC church. But that was the other thing, is getting -- doing education for clergy about -- so they could assure their congregations that they could have communion. Because it would scare people if you say, "We don't know if anyone in this room is HIV positive or not." They don't care. And they'd say, "Oh, yeah. It bothers me. I'm not going to take communion." And people thought by dipping their wafer they were going to be avoiding that bad germ floating around in the wine or something. I don't know. Rather than sipping from the cup. Whatever you need to do. And some people stopped taking the cup for a while. They just took the bread. So we had to do a lot of education with clergy, not just Episcopal clergy, but ecumenically. Presbyterians, Methodists, UCCs, Mennonites. Of course, Roberta Kreider was doing a lot of work with the Mennonites. And she was kind of doing this underground Mennonite gay ministry. LB: Was that then? TSA: She was starting it then, I think. LB: Cool. TSA: It was just before I left. That was starting to happen just before I left. I went to North Carolina from here. I was kind of burnt out after six years of just being on a treadmill, and I wanted to go to a little Southern sleepy town and be the rector for them, just be a priest for a while. LB: Where did you go? TSA: I went to Pittsboro, North Carolina, which is twenty miles south of Chapel Hill. But that's a whole other story. That was not a good idea on my part. But anyway... LB: It's interesting that you have this idea that it's going to be like Mayberry, and then you look underneath, and you say, "Oh, wait." Look in the closet of those guys in Mayberry and there's a bunch of white robes hanging up in there." TSA: Well, I told somebody, "I'm on the diocese in anti-racial and social -- and racial justice committee here in the diocese now." And I was telling them about my past and that when I was rector of that church, the Daughters of the Confederacy invited me to give an opening prayer for their centennial meeting, which was a big deal. Culturally, that was a big deal. I struggled with doing it. They were asking me because Saint Bartholomew's is one of the oldest churches in town, and a lot of the glorious dead were buried in our church yard. So anyway, I went down, and it was real creepy. The place was decorated in red, white, and blue, but there were the -- there was the Confederate flag everywhere. But the Daughters of the Confederacy are singularly responsible for most of those monuments in the South. These women baked pies and raised money for that statue of General Jubilation T. Cornpone in the (laughs) -- LB: Well, and I raised the money, and I think people don't quite understand that those statues were just being bulk produced. They were spitting out one after the other. They all looked exactly the same: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, a couple of other generals, Jefferson Davis. They didn't have any artistic value. They weren't put up as a monument for a specific battle that happened. It was just absolutely created as a white supremacy -- TSA: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. LB: -- thing. TSA: I was not a racist, but I didn't know enough not to be anti-racist. And there's a difference. I mean, I grew up in the South. I had a Confederate flag in my bedroom as a teenager. My parents didn't see anything wrong with that. I didn't either. We're related to the Lee family, the Robert E. Lee family. We're related to his brother, actually. But when the Sons of the Confederacy found that out, boy, howdy, they came and got me and wanted me to be a member of the Sons of the Confederacy. I'm like, "I'm really busy here at Saint Bartholomew's. I can't join one more organization." But both of the Sons and the Daughters of the Confederacy had chapters in Pittsboro. It was crazy time. It was crazy time. And here's this guy that came from the activist northeast. I'd just done all this stuff, as you heard, with AIDS and gay people, and stuff. There was some backwardness in the town, no doubt. But fortunately, a lot of my -- it was an Episcopal church. And so, there was a huge retirement community nearby called Farrington, and a lot of my parishioners came from there, and they had moved down from New Jersey. There was a level of sophistication in my congregation that was saving for me. I wasn't stuck with just southern ethos. There was a little more progressiveness going on. LB: Twenty miles from Chapel Hill means you're twenty miles from the university too. TSA: Right, right. And we had people that worked at the university in the congregation. And it was a place for cheap land if you wanted to build a house, and people did. It's in Chatham County, which is south of Orange County, which is the county that Chapel Hill is in. But it was -- LB: How long were you there? TSA: I was there for four years. LB: And then you came back here? Directly to here? TSA: Yes, came back directly to here. Came back here again. LB: Did they provide you with a church? I don't know how this works, so I'm not really -- TSA: No. Oh, coming back here? LB: Yeah. TSA: No, I was unemployed. I left that church under, let's just say, stressful circumstances. As you know, I was married and have two children. And actually, my involvement in HIV/AIDS movement and interaction with the gay community started making me ask questions and be honest to me about myself, and stuff that I was terrified to face, and did everything I could, including getting married, not to face. But I came out in the wrong place, which was down there. You can bleep this, but it was an S show, as you can imagine. LB: Bleep it. I love this kind of stuff. If you want to take these things out, you certainly can. But don't think that you need to do that, Scott, because, believe me, this is [nothing?]. TSA: I don't want to scandalize people. But it was a shit show. Let me just tell you that. It was awful. And the bishop didn't know what to do. And he was coming down to retirement. He was in his last lap, not wanting to deal with this. And there was a lot of scandal and rumor that wasn't true that was going around about my behavior, and that I was an alcoholic sitting in the house with my -- the gun in one hand and a bottle of vodka in another. It was crazy stuff. And I'm like, "What?" It just opened a floodgate of homophobia that I didn't think existed. LB: I think that often happens with people who are tangential to the community. I have two friends who were going to adopt. They were a lesbian couple, and they were going to adopt a baby. The adoption agency said, "It would be a good idea for you to be a member of a progressive -- a church that was a progressive church." So they went to the church in their neighborhood that was the denomination they were very comfortable with. I think it was the Church of Christ. And they went in, and this was in New Jersey. And they explained their situation. But they said, "Look, we don't really want to come out to everybody right away. We're not out like that in the neighborhood. We're going to have a child. We'll ease into it. We need to know people, et cetera, et cetera. But please be discreet about this and don't tell everybody." TSA: Oh, God. LB: They've already filled out the forms to go into the position of becoming a member of the church. And the next day, they go in there, and some really well-meaning clerk in the office there said, "Everybody's so excited that we're going to have a lesbian couple." And they're like, "Whoa. You told everybody at the church before we even got there?" What happens sometimes is a very, very caring, well-meaning straight person, who has no idea what kind of world of discrimination happened to LGBT people -- that was before could get married -- they were relatively new to the community -- thinking we're just -- I'm one-hundred percent supportive of you. You seem like a nice group of people. Why would people be negative toward you? And they (inaudible) into two-hundred people in one day. TSA: Well, I was sent off for psychiatric evaluation, which was like what? They sent me to Minnesota. In all of this retrospective, it turned out for good. There was grace in all of this because the guy in Minnesota, who was my -- the psychiatrist who was overseeing my -- I had to do the Wassermann test, and the MMPI again, and all that stuff. But he turned out to be a guy -- a gay man, who said, "The bishop wants to defrock you." I said, "Why? I've done nothing wrong except announce the divorce from my wife, and trying to be honest about myself at the same time, and trying to be discreet about it as much as possible. But that's obviously not going to happen." And so, he said, "I think I can get your bishop to back down with this. Are you willing not to work in the church for a few months?" I said, "Absolutely." I said, "It's like an attorney. You can lose your practice. You don't want to lose your license. And being what we call deposed is losing your license, and I'm fine not to have my practice for a while." He says, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to move back to Bethlehem. I own a house in Bethlehem and the tenants are really bad, so I feel no compunction giving them eviction notices. And they're four months behind in rent anyway. And I'm going to move back there. And he says, "Well, you know, one of my best friends is a therapist in Bethlehem." It was John Falbo. I don't know if you remember John Falbo. LB: Oh, of course I know John Falbo. TSA: But this guy in Minnesota -- LB: (inaudible) around, isn't he? TSA: -- hit me up to be probably condemned by him and said that he's a raving lunatic. Don't let him be a priest anymore. Sent me to John Falbo, who was the best thing for me. LB: Oh, yeah. No, I recommended a hundred people to John. And it was such a shock when he died. TSA: He died too soon. What happened? That was awful. LB: I'll tell you. He died after a huge snowstorm. I think he was out there shoveling snow. TSA: Oh, God. LB: He had a massive heart attack, and frankly, what would cause that? It was a blizzard day, and that night, he died. And I think that's what it was. I think he was outside. I really think that's what it was. I'm just guessing about that. I mean, he wasn't in the hospital or anything. He just had a heart attack and died. And I had literally dozens of people calling me up saying, "You need to refer me to another openly gay therapist in Bethlehem." I said, "Well, I'm sorry. But I don't have anybody." And it's been what, three years? And I still don't have anybody. And I just got another call from somebody who said, "I really need somebody that's more -- that's a man." Really what they were saying is, "I need a man." This is a woman. And she was lesbian, and she said, "I need a man to be in this position for me." And I just don't have anybody. I don't know. TSA: He was a lifesaver for me, and I was with him for three or four years, decreasingly seeing him. But when I first got here, I saw him about every couple weeks. I mean, no one was more helpful to me in coming out than John. He was great. But that's another story. And when you do the people's coming out story video, I'll be in that if you'd like. Because I have a hellacious story. Everything awful that could happen to you as an Episcopal priest happened to me. The only fault of mine is coming out as a gay man. LB: Mary Foltz at Lehigh University is doing a series of archive videos of people in the community. She's done Harold and Roberta Kreider, and they had ten people. And I contributed. They could only do ten people. That was the first grant. And they're still working on this, and there's going to be more money to do this. But the first grant was to do ten people, and I said, "Well, you got to do Harold and Roberta. They're in their mid-nineties. Hurry." And I said to do Dixie, and they were set to do her, and then she died. And it was so -- such a shame. TSA: That's such a loss. LB: I'll do Charlie Versaggi later today, and then I will have ten of these HIV/AIDS interviews. And every single person has mentioned Dixie White. I mean, she was so essential in that early (inaudible). TSA: Well, she had the AIDS Services Center at a critical time. That makes perfect sense to me that they would mention her, and as well as Linda Lobach and Rose Craig. Those were some always people that had -- were big noises in the AIDS community at the time. Absolutely. LB: So there will be more, and I will suggest that they interview you because I work with Mary. She's going to interview me tomorrow. I think that's one of the last ones. And I said, "Honey, you got to give me more than one day." They're like, "You can do this in ninety minutes." I'm like, "No way in hell. I can't even do five years in ninety minutes." TSA: That's funny. Well, I think back on those times as -- they weren't dark days for me. They were good days, as far as working with the HIV/AIDS stuff. They were full of hope, and there was joy in it. There was sadness. People died and we were sad about that. No question about that. But there was also equal and opposite joy and feeling of community and support that I haven't felt like that since really. Maybe a little bit I'm feeling with the Black Lives Matter movement now, but it's starting to feeling a little more like that. But it was just all of the breakthroughs that we made at those times in the -- and really had to break through a lot of prejudice and misinformation, just like now. I mean bleach and lights in your body, and things like that. I was like, "No, no, no. That's not going to take care of this." LB: We had really good local leadership. We had a common enemy. And here's another thing, Scott: we were a lot younger. TSA: Oh, hell yes. I can't imagine myself doing now what I did then. I just can't imagine it. The Summer Games, the FACT games, were always on Sunday, which was hard for me because I had to do church somewhere. But I remember Saturday, there was something, and then Sunday, I had to do church. And then I got right in the car, pretty much changed while driving up thirty-three in my car, and attended the FACT games and was at an information table there. That was it. The reason I was going is I was going to stand at a -- I think it was the AIDS Services Center information table or something. I didn't think of it at the time. Now, I'm like, oh my God. I'd no more do that now than fly to the moon. LB: Yeah, we did a lot of hard work in those days. We're still doing it. TSA: We're still doing it. Well, we can be the elders that give wise advice now. LB: And have people not listen to us. TSA: Well, we've got some wisdom. We've got some scars here and there, and some places that still hurt that we can talk about. LB: That's true. Let's see. I know that you're busy and you've got some stuff that's coming up really soon. I always ask people if they had been in a situation where they were caring for anybody with HIV, where you had to go and bring them food or care people like that. TSA: Not on a consistent basis, no. Because you have to remember I had a young family then. LB: Oh, that's true. TSA: I had little kids. In addition to doing my day job, I had a night job of being a father, and doing laundry, and do things like giving baths, and things like that. And that was important to me, to be present to my kids, even though I would leave early in the morning sometimes. And sometimes, I had night meetings. They didn't see me until the next morning because they'd gone to bed by the time I got home. Or I saw them briefly at dinner and had to run out to a meeting at seven o'clock or something. So, no. My only really tangential work in that direction was taking meals with Dixie to David Houseknecht and visiting him with her when she took -- LB: I didn't know him. I mean he was obviously a (inaudible). TSA: He was one of the first people diagnosed. He was a character. He was flamboyantly gay. Flamboyantly gay. He wore clothes like I have on, and then he'd have a yellow feather boa that he'd wear. He always had some accessory on that was outlandish, or long earrings that dangled and stuff. And it was clearly women's earrings. These weren't like Mr. Clean little gold things. These were dangly, sparkly things. So, yeah. He was one of the people that was first. I don't remember a lot about his story, where he came from. He was from this area. Of course, Houseknecht is not an unusual name in this area. But he had been involved in something. Dixie adored him, and it took a lot for Dixie to adore you. Dixie didn't have a long adore list. LB: I knew Dixie pretty well. I know what you mean. TSA: And usually, it was mutual, so it worked out fine. Well, as you know, I was a primary source for a David Houseknecht article on Dixie in The Bethlehem Press. There's a big article on Dixie in The Bethlehem Press, and I was a primary source. I didn't realize it, that I was going to be a primary source. But David Houseknecht was someone that she originally -- was a client of theirs at the AIDS Services Center. Since they're both dead, I don't think I am violating any HIPAA laws by saying that. I don't know. And he was the one that Mark Dyer decided to have a relationship with, and I think it's because of Linda Lobach that had -- because he was also -- Linda Lobach was very enamored of him. Her name's Eisenreich right now. She's still around. She might be a person on your list to talk because -- LB: Well I had grant funding for ten people. And you're the ninth. And I have one more. I have Charlie Versaggi later today, and then I'm going to be done. TSA: Cunningham. What was her name? LB: Vicky. TSA: No, she had a man's name I think. She had short black hair. I think she was Jewish, actually. LB: Marty? TSA: What? LB: Was it Marty or something like that? TSA: No. I'll think of it in a minute. She had a whole other ministry. I mean AIDS Outreach did material aid to people with HIV: food, medicines, connecting them to social services, things like that. Randall. No. He's a baseball -- I mean, a football player. No. But she did a spiritual -- just did spiritual stuff. Just did prayer services, coached clergy on dealing pastorally with people in their congregations that had people with HIV and the kind of concerns that they might want to be looking out for and being sensitive to. And also, having them know the referral points, where if they hear this need, you send them to this person. So it was making them a better helper to people in their congregations. What was her name? Bernie maybe. Bernie Cunningham. I think that was her name. LB: That makes sense. I didn't know her. TSA: She wrote several editorials in The Morning Call, as I recall. Bernadette Cunningham. That was her name. And they called her Bernie. Bernadette Cunningham. She was a very striking looking woman: tall, thin, kind of Sinead O'Connor hair. LB: Was she a minister? TSA: I don't know. Like I said, she's Jewish, and Jews are less I guess clergy focused than a lot of places -- I mean, a lot of religions. I mean, they have rabbis of course. But you don't have to be seminary educated to be a rabbi. So she could've been. But I never heard anyone refer to her as rabbi. But she did a lot of work at Temple of Peace in Easton. I think that's the name of the Temple there. So she was another character that was in the mix. But David Houseknecht was a favorite of Dixie's and a favorite of Linda Lobach's, which meant he got a lot of attention from both AIDS service organizations. So whenever he lifted his little finger to want, one of them provided it for him. He was a spoiled brat of the people with HIV (inaudible). And he was also witty and smart. Also, the Rodale's involvement too. I don't know if anybody's talked about that. LB: I interviewed Maria Rodale on Monday. TSA: Okay, good. Good. LB: And I talked to her about her brother and then about her mother, and it was interesting. I mean Ardath Rodale's extraordinary. I'm very happy about her because she had a different take on it. TSA: And she was great. I had several interactions with her, as you can imagine. I was always wanted to just touch the hem of her garment because she was such a wonderful person. It just brought out the best in the community. It brought out goodness in people that didn't have an opportunity to be brought out until that crisis in a way that I don't COVID-19 doing yet. LB: It's only been four months. Five months. TSA: I know. Well and truth is, we never came up with an HIV vaccine. I mean, that's the thing. It's funny how the language has come back to me because we were always talking about viral load, T cells. All of that language is back. All of that language is back. And the ELISA test. LB: I don't know about that. What was that? TSA: The ELISA test was the second -- if you -- the first one was a simple test that would say if you're HIV positive or HIV negative. But it had a lot of false negatives and false positives. Particularly if you were positive, they'd send your blood to a second test, which is a little more specific because the first one -- if you had a virus like HIV but wasn't really HIV in you, it would trip the alarm on this one test. But the ELISA test was what you did for a deep analysis of your blood and the viral content of your blood. LB: I see. TSA: Many times, the ELISA test would come back as negative for people that had taken that first test and gotten a positive. I don't know why it's called ELISA, but it's called ELISA. LB: If it came back negative, that was because they didn't have it? TSA: Right. I mean, the ELISA test was authoritative, which I don't know why they didn't give that right away. But there was some reason. It may have been cost. It was a costly test. And there was a simpler test that could -- you could show symptoms of HIV and AIDS, and that first test was enough. It's clear you've got this. We don't have to go any further. But then sometimes, you would get a positive test, and you're asymptomatic, and they'd send it to the ELISA test to make sure that you had -- often, it would come back negative, saying, no, you don't have human immunodeficiency virus. But anyway, I notice a lot of the same language is happening. A lot of the same uncertainty about the personality in the virus. Are there long-term effects, even if you were asymptomatic? Do you have some kind of organ involvement and compromise because you had it? They don't know any of that yet. LB: Yeah, they don't. TSA: As we said, it's only been four months. There haven't been any longitudal studies that can be done yet. LB: We're at the last ten minutes of this. If we're thinking about how people are going to be watching this someday in the future thirty years from now, some kind of -- or more, and they're going to look back at this, and here's your chance to talk to the future. Tell them a little bit about just sort of the summation about that time in the Lehigh Valley with regard to HIV/AIDS during the height of the epidemic, and maybe some other words that you might want to toss in there. What do you think? TSA: That seems like a very heavy task, to talk to the future. But I think more what it taught me was communities can rise up together and address problems that seem insurmountable and seem bigger than us, and they can do it in a way that is phenomenal and not only helps the people with the disease, but it helps you. It helps you focus your own humanity. It helped us focus our own relational needs, our own relational -- what am I thinking of? I can't think of it. And our common humanity to be able to address something that seemed so -- and it was very frightening. A lot of misinformation. And just to keep serene during all of that and focus on the sick people. What do they need? Not answering questions about the future. Not blaming things for the past. But being present to those who had HIV and AIDS, and to advocate in governments and health systems for care, and increased services, and more useful services to these people. That really was part of it for me, just focusing on your mission. Not making your mission complicated, like I'm going to cure AIDS in the world. I am going to make life for someone with HIV living in the Lehigh Valley more tolerable, more humane, more compassionate, by golly. And whatever else is happening in the world, I can't control that. But I can control my environment, my community, and the people that affect me the most. And I can have something to say about that, and I can do something about that that's good, and positive, and makes a difference. And I think that's what the AIDS crisis taught us in the Lehigh Valley, is that we are better together than apart. We are stronger together than apart. We're actually smarter together than apart. And we can address things together that we couldn't address by ourselves. And the encouragement we gave each other too, the encouragement. That was also it too. Sure, there were moments you just wanted to just sit down, and throw up your hands, and cry or whatever. Are they ever going to get it? Are we ever going to get this resource for this person? All of that. And there was always someone there to buck you up and say, "Yeah, we're going to get it. We care a lot about that person. We care about that person, and they're going to be okay because of us. So fear not." LB: I lost you. There you are. TSA: I'm sorry. I missed that. LB: We both froze up a little bit. I said I thought that was great. We just have a couple minutes left. So I just want to thank you so much, Scott, for this (inaudible). TSA: Oh, it was my pleasure. LB: Really great. TSA: I was just remembering all the stuff and the energy then, and just -- and all the good people that -- some of them aren't with us anymore, and that makes me sad. But also, that's life, isn't it? LB: It is. And there's (inaudible) wonderful thing you've done. TSA: People that come after us are going to do phenomenal things together like we did. LB: I want to thank you personally for a couple of times when I desperately needed somebody who was wearing a minister collar to show up fast at an event. I remember when we were fighting the ordinance that time in City Hall -- TSA: I dragged Malloy. I said, "Come on, boy. We got to get up to City Hall and show -- put our mugs on the TV camera." LB: That's so great. And the look on your face. You had that great, serene look. And we were plotting out that we were going to fight this effort to repeal the ordinance, and we already had hundreds of people who were going to take their names off of the petition. The anti-guys were just petrified. We're riding up in an elevator, and I think we were with you in the elevator, and the bad guy. And he's thinking, oh, there's a guy who's a minister (inaudible). I love that. Thank you for that. That was a long time ago. Way more than twenty years ago. TSA: I'm crying thinking of that moment because it was just so moving for me to be able to be there on a moment's notice. LB: That was really something. TSA: Have collar, will show. LB: And there was television. It was television and reports, and we were saying to people things like, "These people are lying to people to get them to take their names off." And plus, I have to say, you're really eloquent. You did a terrific job on this interview. And I'm thinking, oh, yeah. Scott's really good at this. Thank you very much for doing it. TSA: Well, thank you. I've verklempt. No. But also, I remember doing that in Bethlehem too, and going to those interminable city council meetings. And it seemed like we had to go every week for four weeks. LB: Truthfully, we had to do that in Allentown too. But it's just harder to remember because it was so long ago. TSA: Oh my God. And Dixie always went. And Esther Lee was there, and I think she was begrudgingly okay with it. She's a very conservative African American woman. LB: The big difference between Allentown and Bethlehem was that when we passed Allentown's ordinance, the ordinance was already in existence, and it was passed in nineteen sixty-five to protect people based on race, religion, national religion, sex, and, I don't know, one or two other things. And so, we had to add sexual orientation, gender identity. And that's a tricky thing. And that was two-thousand and two. It actually started in 1998, and we worked all the way through two-thousand and two to actually pass it, and then we had to fight that referendum. It took seven years to put that in place, and it was really hard. But when we did the Bethlehem one and Adrian led that effort -- and Easton was a breeze -- but in Bethlehem, because of really some odd city council problems and some other issues -- but the thing about Bethlehem was that ordinance was created to -- from scratch, and it included everybody. In Allentown, it was a lot easier to say don't keep those gay people in. It's okay to protect these people but not those people. We don't need those people. We never had. Blah, blah, blah. But to say we don't want to protect anybody, and that's what they were doing in Bethlehem. And so, Esther Lee, who's the leader of the Black community -- that ordinance has protected people based on race. It was awful hard to say, well, you can protect me, but not them. TSA: And you know who the main opponent was in Bethlehem? LB: Yes, but go ahead and say. TSA: It was the Allentown diocese. LB: Yeah. So what happened was that they were really trying to manipulate people who were Catholics on council. TSA: They did. And they sent their attorney. I remember that. But I was astounded. And so, I was just like by golly, I'm wearing my collar every time, and I would stand up and I'd say, "I'm here on behalf of the Episcopal Church to support this ordinance to be added to the City of Bethlehem's ordinance and civil rights ordinance." That was the most discouraging thing about that whole situation for me, was that they were pushing one of the members had -- was thick of thieves with that. He was actually somehow on their legal team of attorneys. LB: Their legal counsel was trying to rewrite the law to have such a religious exemption that anyone could just simply say it's against my religion to do this. But they tried to write the law that way, and then I rewrote it. And I said, "Okay, this is the language we would have because churches are always exempt for any kind of thing because, after all, a church doesn't -- a Catholic church doesn't have to hire a rabbi to be the leader of the church. They get their mission church, and then that's their mission. That's perfectly fine." So I changed them to say religious entity. They said, "Any business that had a religion -- that was tied to religion." And I changed it to any church or other religious congregation or something like that. And that's the way the law was, and that's protected by the Constitution anyway. TSA: And with this COVID thing, the governors didn't close the churches. The churches closed themselves, following guidelines of the health department. We could've been keeping church open. Of course, we'd have everybody on a ventilator by now if we'd done that. But it wasn't the government that was closing the churches. Nobody got that. Churches were never closed by the government in Pennsylvania, and I don't think anywhere else. There's too many Constitutional issues with that. But they closed themselves out of protection for their people. LB: They should. TSA: And they should have. Right, exactly. LB: I know you have another gig in a couple of minutes. TSA: I know. And I have to run upstairs and see a man about a horse. But one more time, was in front of the federal courthouse. One of my favorite pictures I have of Dixie -- and you may have it -- is Dixie and I standing there with a no DOMA. LB: I told (inaudible). TSA: Yeah, you did probably. But that's one of my favorite pictures of us. It kind of encapsulates how our relationship was throughout the whole thing: no DOMA. LB: That was the picture I used for all of the mentions of her. I said, "Here's a picture of Scott." Because Dixie looked so great in that picture. TSA: She did. She looked happy. She was in her element. She was in her element, man. LB: It was a (inaudible) thing. TSA: Thank you, Liz. Namaste. LB: Thank you. I really appreciate it, Scott. You're the greatest. See you around. TSA: Yes, ma'am. Let me know how this all pans out. LB: We'll send you the transcript of this too pretty soon. TSA: Okay, great. LB: Bye-bye. TSA: Thank you. LB: Bye. END OF AUDIO 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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01:34:23
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Title
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T. Scott Allen, July 2, 2020
Description
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T. Scott Allen talks about the AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. He talks about his years as an Episcopal minister and his work with AIDS Services Center, about people who had HIV/AIDS, and how churches supported people who were sick.
Identifier
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PH40_11
Subject
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AIDS (Disease)
Date
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2020-07-02
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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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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/cdc99d3b24ac646ed797b97a6ef82588.png
3d26eede949bfff0f4779133974844fa
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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
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Interviewer
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Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
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Steve Ziminsky
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_28.xml
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5.4 July 20, 2020 Steve Ziminsky, July 20, 2020 PH40_28 01:03:13 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) Steve Ziminsky Liz Bradbury video/mpeg ZiminskySteve_20200720_video.mp4 1.0:|27(4)|58(8)|85(9)|122(3)|159(3)|202(10)|237(12)|270(9)|311(5)|344(11)|375(6)|420(4)|453(6)|486(6)|520(2)|551(3)|588(5)|623(3)|658(6)|687(12)|722(2)|751(9)|780(10)|813(8)|848(7)|879(13)|910(5)|939(15)|972(2)|1003(2)|1038(2)|1079(5)|1110(19)|1135(12)|1170(11)|1207(10)|1240(8)|1271(7)|1302(15)|1335(9)|1360(19)|1387(7)|1422(17)|1449(13)|1494(4)|1525(13)|1550(13)|1577(14)|1610(10)|1639(11)|1666(8)|1695(3)|1722(14)|1759(13)|1784(3)|1809(15)|1842(2)|1871(9)|1914(2)|1949(5)|1982(13)|2011(3)|2038(9)|2049(5) 0 https://youtu.be/a2d1k9Md7qI YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: And I’m also going to turn on my audio recording backup, when...
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 ; STEVE ZIMINSKY: (coughs) Getting louder on this end. Good.
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 ; LB: Oh, is it better? Can you hear me okay?
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 ; SZ: I see it says, “Recording.”
 ; 0 286 Working part-time at Grace Lutheran Church in Macungie during the pandemic LB: So talk about... So you’re not working now. So that’s a good thing, compared to other teachers, like.
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 ; SZ: I’m a retired music teacher, almost thirty-three years in music ed. But I’m also -- am working my part-time job. The church never closed. So we’re doing video services each week.
 ; 0 400 Grace Lutheran operations during the pandemic LB: So h--? So you’re working. And was that plan all -- that they would just continue, right away? Were they closed at all during that time, the church?
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 ; SZ: They really weren’t closed. There was one week, March 15th, where it was kind of optional for staff, if we wanted to come. And I just didn’t feel right that day. So I thought, “I’ll stay away.” But ever since March 15th... And we even did some Wednesday services. They’re all on YouTube. 0 433 Changed vacation plans due to pandemic SZ: And then I even got my vacation Sundays. And even though I’m not going anywhere... Anywhere I was going to go is all canceled or postponed to next year. But I at least got a chance to get some time off. And we had (inaudible) figure in advance. I did get some time off.
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 ; LB: Did you have a vacation plan?
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 ; SZ: The one week, no, and one week, yes. This coming Sunday, I probably would have been going... I was really thinking of going to New Orleans.
 ; 0 454 Postponed Black and White Men Together conference in New Orleans, Louisiana SZ: The one week, no, and one week, yes. This coming Sunday, I probably would have been going... I was really thinking of going to New Orleans.
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 ; LB: Ah!
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 ; SZ: There’s a convention that was going to be held there. And then we start seeing... New Orleans really had an outbreak there. And I didn’t even buy the airline ticket. That’s when, I think, you’re really committed, when you buy the airline ticket. I’m so... And so they’re talking next year. But they’re also talking a video element to the convention. So if you don’t want to risk things and do that -- you can watch the key parts right online, like this.
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 ; LB: And that’s a convention for people who are music...?
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 ; SZ: Well, actually it’s a gay-related convention --
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 ; LB: Oh!
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 ; SZ: -- Black and White Men Together.
 ; 0 502 Socializing through Zoom LB: So have you been communicating with a lot of people? Like have you done other Zoom things and...? Probably ha--
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 ; SZ: Oh, plenty of Zoom things. In fact, the most unusual one is I belong to several eating groups. We would get together like once a month. And so now what we do is go out to a restaurant or a place, bring something back, put it on our desk here, and eat and watch each other.
 ; 0 570 Communication with family LB: So are you communicating with other people? Like...? Do you have family around and that stuff?
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 ; SZ: Not really in this area. I do have living family. But the parents are dead. The grandparents are dead. The cousins are spread all over the country. I think the closest one is up in the Poconos area. And I haven’t really communicated there too much. And there’s some in Florida. And on the other side of the family, one of the things that really kind of hit was that one of my former roommates, as well as my aunt, who is now ninety-one... Sh-- I happened to visit her in early March. And then, all of a sudden, you know, no more visits anywhere, for either of those two. And then she was transferred to a different nursing home. And I’m not the power of attorney. But another one of my cousins is. And all of sudden, you found out, “Oh, by the way, she’s been moved.” So... She’s kind of death -- profoundly deaf and really is very quiet. So she never got to see the new nursing home. They just put her in a room. They bring the food to you. And it’s been this way for several months. And then the same thing with the former roommate that was here for ten years. And he’s over at ManorCare, in Bethlehem.
 ; 0 594 Inability to visit former roommate and aunt in their respective nursing homes SZ: And on the other side of the family, one of the things that really kind of hit was that one of my former roommates, as well as my aunt, who is now ninety-one... Sh-- I happened to visit her in early March. And then, all of a sudden, you know, no more visits anywhere, for either of those two. And then she was transferred to a different nursing home. And I’m not the power of attorney. But another one of my cousins is. And all of sudden, you found out, “Oh, by the way, she’s been moved.” So... She’s kind of death -- profoundly deaf and really is very quiet. So she never got to see the new nursing home. They just put her in a room. They bring the food to you. And it’s been this way for several months. And then the same thing with the former roommate that was here for ten years. And he’s over at ManorCare, in Bethlehem.
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 ; LB: Liam?
 ; 0 654 Video chatting with former roommate, Liam, living at ManorCare, Bethlehem SZ: At least ManorCare is having these weekly video chats -- (dog coughing) and they usually are pretty good about. [00:11:00] Thursday, the phone rings. And you get to see him, get to talk. And he did have COVID. I’m trying to think of some of those questions you had on your list there --
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 ; LB: Yeah.
 ; 0 680 Liam testing positive for/Living with Covid-19 LB: Okay. So Liam was sick?
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 ; SZ: Yes. And they gave him like... I think it was the third test he tested positive on. The first two, no. But he had always that, kind of... He’s very weak. And so then they said he had COVID. And then they kind of moved him to a different room. And it turned out the whole place... They were sending out emails like a lot. And they were up to over one hundred people --
 ; 0 696 Moving Liam and many other Covid-positive patients to different rooms/ManorCare location and layout
 ; SZ: And then they kind of moved him to a different room. And it turned out the whole place... They were sending out emails like a lot. And they were up to over one hundred people --
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 ; LB: Wow.
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 ; SZ: -- including patients and staff. And it’s only a four-story building. And... 0 724 Spread of Covid-19 to the ManorCare 2029 building SZ: But the 2029 for a while didn’t have it. And then, all of a sudden, it just hit. And it’s not from the visitors, because there are not visitors. And we went -- just couldn’t wait till each week. And they finally got a way to communicate. You could talk to them. And he’s hoping to get back to his room. But again, he’s moved to another room. The rooms are all the same -- the same floor. It’s just down the hallway a little bit more. So, fine, you know?
 ; 0 752 Why Liam and other patients were moved/ManorCare protocols LB: They moved him to a different room, because they thought the room was contaminated or something?
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 ; SZ: Well, he had it. And then his first roommate, who he’s had quite a while --
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 ; LB: Oh, I see 0 811 Liam's other illnesses/Vulnerability of older people to Covid-19 LB: Ah. Well, Liam has other illnesses, doesn’t he?
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 ; SZ: Yeah. He has quite a few things. And so he’s kind of confined to his bed. But he is talking. I mean, his mind is fine.
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 ; LB: Yeah. Is he about your age?
 ; 0 887 Video chatting with Liam via Duo LB: So you’ve been talking to him via like a Zoom thing or just on the phone or...?
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 ; SZ: It’s called Duo.
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 ; LB: Oh.
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 ; SZ: Yeah. That’s what they use. So I had to... 0 903 Possibly catching Covid-19/ Cancelling plans because of Covid-19 LB: What’s your biggest concern about this? Are you concerned about you getting it?
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 ; SZ: I can’t prove that I had it but I think I did.
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 ; LB: Oh, yeah?
 ; 0 978 Possible Covid-19 symptoms/No such diagnosis as Covid-19 at the time LB: Did you have a sense of smell?
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 ; SZ: I don’t remember that.
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 ; LB: They say...
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 ; SZ: But I do remember my appetite was down.
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 ; LB: Well, that’s a big thing. Yeah.
 ; 0 1046 Virtual doctor's visits LB: I guess that you could, at the hospital, have them check to see if you have antibodies in your blood.
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 ; SZ: Yeah, but... I have to wait for my next doctor visit. And at least it’ll be in person. My last doctor visit was over like something like this. 0 1083 Possible inaccurate diagnosis of bronchitis SZ: I mentioned it to the doctor and she thought that, “No, you had something else, bronchitis of some kind.” Well, it could be that too. Because a lot of bronchitis symptoms are similar too. And I was really pushing it.
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 ; LB: I don’t know. The things that you’re describing, though, they’re some... I’ve had bronchitis and I didn’t have diarrhea from it. 0 1142 Recovery process/Covid-19 affecting people differently SZ: And as it was, I went home and I took it real easy. And I could eat again. And everything kind of went back to being fine. But I never had it where... All your insides were rumbling there, while we were waiting for the bus. It was...
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 ; LB: Well...
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 ; SZ: I don’t want to chance this, so...
 ; 0 1196 Biggest concerns regarding the pandemic and the LGBT community/Protesting with Black Lives Matter, anti-Trump protests LB: So what’s your biggest concern during the pandemic, in terms of the LGBT community? What do you think about that?
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 ; SZ: Well, we’re all trying to survive. Yesterday I got to see part of the Reading pride festival online.
 ; 0 1299 Thoughts on Dr. Rachel Levine/Governor Tom Wolf LB: So how about being able to see Rachel Levine, on the videos tha-- Dr. Rachel Levine, who’s our Secretary of Health? That’s been a pretty positive thing for me. I don’t know about you. How do you feel about that?
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 ; SZ: Very positive. I don’t watch every single day. But sometimes you’re at your phone and, all of a sudden, “Oh, [00:22:00] the governor’s coming on.” And usually, Rachel’s on. And she’s very good. And it’s a very public spot. And usually the advice is right. I’m very enthusiastic about the governor too. Because he’s under a lot of pressure.
 ; 0 1345 Thoughts on school openings LB: Well, as a teacher or as a retired teacher... Because you were a teacher for a long, long, long time, in the Allentown School District, and from school to school. So you really traveled around from school to school. What do you think about opening schools?
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 ; SZ: They should stay online, no matter what it is. I know it’s not as good as in person. And I was sharing some things on Facebook about this. But if I think of my last schedule that I had, I had two schools. I was six days at one school and two days at another school. And in eight days, [00:23:00] eight school days, you saw every child once. Now imagine if, around day eight... You know, the first few days -- probably going to go really well. But then, all of a sudden, if one teacher even has it, you’ve now exposed the entire school --
 ; 0 1525 Teacher friend's thoughts on school openings/Teachers leaving school before the pandemic LB: What about...? Have you talked to...? Because you were talking about going with other retired teachers on a trip. So... Or... And this teacher that -- you were talking, before we got on Zoom today -- that you went for a walk with... Who’s a current teacher?
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 ; SZ: Yes.
 ; 0 1580 Lack of communication over school openings/ Health dangers with school openings SZ: But you hear about all the online meetings but nothing’s been said. And it would be nice for them to know. Are we going to stay online? It would save the school district a lot of money. They have to go out and buy this stuff and adapt the buildings. And then, “Oh, we’re not doing that this year.”
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 ; LB: I can’t imagine that... I mean, if the guidelines for the state are that you’re not supposed to be in a circumstance where there’s more than 250 people... Well, really, a school, even though you have classrooms, the kids are circulating around, though. So I don’t know if we have --
 ; 0 1814 Historic lack of air conditioning in schools LB: They’ve closed schools just for flu, in the past, or for measles outbreak or for something.
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 ; SZ: Or today, for heat.
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 ; LB: For what?
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 ; SZ: Heat. Some of our buildings aren’t air con--
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 ; LB: Oh, heat. I...
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 ; SZ: If you’re in Florida there, it gets brutal! 0 1953 Dealing with lack of air conditioning and social distancing LB: So what that would do is create situations, particularly in September, when it can still be very, very hot, where they would try to move kids -- or normally they would move kids to rooms that had air conditioning. So it’d be more kids in one space.
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 ; SZ: But then there you are, as a... You’re a kid in the air conditioned room. And now other kids are coming to join you. And then, are they going to kick you out?
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 ; LB: Yeah. Yeah.
 ; 0 1991 Students and teachers wanting to return to school/lack of student social development SZ: But I have one friend who is going to be seventy-four in December, and hasn’t had it or anything. But his wife is very -- she has lupus -- much younger than him. His son is nineteen, just finished L-Tri-C and going to Kutztown. And if one of those gets it and brings it home, that could really... But he’s had two heart attacks, got diabetes -- almost seventy-four. And, oh, yeah, he wants to go back. Like, well... So there are some teachers, they want to go back. But it’s like, why?
 ; 0 2074 Possibility of students infecting each other LB: --the problem is, though, that those kids will still infect each other. And --
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 ; SZ: They could. Yeah.
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 ; LB: -- it’s impossible to not h--
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 ; SZ: A huge room and a lot of computers.
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 ; LB: I don’t see how they could do that. I don’t see how you could have a group of twenty kids in one room and not have them carrying an illness, no matter what they did. I mean, you just can’t keep kids from... It’s like saying, “Well, you know, of course they’ll wash their hands every single time they go to the bathroom.”
 ; 0 2124 Use of queer dating or hookup apps LB: Oh, here’s a good question. Have you spent any time on queer dating or hookup apps?
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 ; SZ: Not really. Because it doesn’t matter if they’re in another country or in your state or just down the road. The chance of actually meeting somebody, it’s a bit of a risk.
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 ; LB: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.
 ; 0 2179 Pandemic affecting restaurant music jobs LB: So in general, has it affected your life pretty significantly? What’s the biggest effect that it’s had on your life?
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 ; SZ: Well, biggest thing is you do have to stay in a lot more. And I had a piano-playing job in a restaurant.
 ; 
 ; LB: Oh, yeah.
 ; 0 2292 Discussion of limited capacity at venues SZ: But it’s like -- it’s really unsafe now. Now, that same place has an outdoor pavilion. But you’re talking September, October? You know. That’s kind of rough. And then we have a big job up in the Poconos, almost near New York State. And that’s in October. And, yeah, we have a date. It’s a beautiful facility. It’s a beautiful area. But again you’re talking probably several hundred people. Then they’re going to bring in German dancers. I just don’t think that’s going to happen this year. 0 2382 Grace Lutheran Church at limited capacity/ Popularity of events through streaming, Zoom SZ: And that’s why I’m happy that the church is doing something. And then, with this cutback, we were, again, making plans to reopen in August. And now it looks like, well, maybe September or later. And as the church musician, I’m looking ahead and thinking, “What are we doing to do for Christmas?” And [00:40:00] all the things that happen around the Christmas season... It’s like, well, I think we’re just going to, you know... And then, when you find out and you have to go through the denomination, you have to go through the state guidelines too -- but when you find out what you can actually do in a church service, live, according to the official rule, there’s not much at all. And so they’re getting more to watch the video than they are if you actually showed up.
 ; 0 2502 Health risks of having in-person events LB: Now, we have some people who have said that they don’t want to do it on Zoom. And Adrian has said, “Well, you know, some people won’t do it on Zoom. They only will do it in public. So if we can open for the public for some of our support groups, that would be a good thing.” But I don’t know. Because, [00:42:00] you know, if we make somebody sick, it’s going to look awful bad.
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 ; SZ: And if it stays in the air or got on something they touched and then somebody else touches it... Bathrooms... 0 2565 Walking at the Lehigh Parkway and Trexler Park/ Health concerns while walking LB: So you’ve been going to the park a lot, to go for walks?
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 ; SZ: Two to three times a week.
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 ; LB: That’s nice.
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 ; SZ: And sometimes the walking partner’s there. Sometimes, if that’s not available, I do it by myself. And sometimes what I’ve done als-- I live so close [00:43:00] to Trexler park. And sometimes I’ll go there.
 ; 0 2704 Postponement of American Theatre Organ Society convention to 2021 LB: So you were looking at the possibility of going to a convention, that was a queer convention, in New Orleans then, huh?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Well, actually, there was three conventions I could have gone to.
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 ; LB: Oh, that’s the...
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 ; SZ: And they all were moved into next year.
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 ; LB: Ah. What were they?
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 ; SZ: Well, the one is called the American Theatre Organ Society. And they were going to go back to Indianapolis. And I’d been there. Just about like five, six years ago, they had it there too. And not much has changed, really -- 0 2762 Not being able to give concerts during the pandemic--specifically discusses organ concerts SZ: It’s like now, well, you can’t give any concerts, you can’t do anything. And then another friend of mine, who plays theater organ as well as classical organ, he’s not doing anything. If your church isn’t doing... And we have churches in the area here that basically... They do it from home. It’s like video mashup of something. I have another friend who used to be a pastor, who is now a church musician himself. And he brought a keyboard from church to his home. So he doesn’t have an organ. He just plays this keyboard. And that gets put on their service somehow. And he hasn’t been at his church in six months. I had a substitute, recently, who confided in me that this person hasn’t played the pipe organ in six months -- but did very well. But it’s kind of like you get a rough time, when you can’t get on an instrument.
 ; 0 2820 Still being able to play organ at church because of special dispensation/service video streams SZ: I have an organ at home. But I haven’t really needed to use it. Because I get out to chur-- And that was a nice thing. Because when this started in March, there was a special thing that you were allowed to be on the road to get out to church to practice. If anybody would have stopped me, you know... Because you were supposed to now... But there was a dispensation that you could... Well, then, if you’re out at church, you could stop at a convenience store and get a little something to eat. And then that was... So you kind of could get out. But you had to -- yeah -- be careful of it that way. But then... So, luckily. But they’ve been clamping down, to say, “Look, the only people are there, the people that do these video. That’s... And the church secretary. That’s it.” It’s...
 ; 0 2873 Discussion of other people who have caught the virus LB: So you were talking about... Do you know anybody...? You did talk a little bit about people. And certainly you were talking about Liam, who’s had this. Have you [00:48:00] known anybody else who has had the virus? You talked pretty much about that already, I guess.
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 ; SZ: One that I really knew was Liam. Other people --
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 ; LB: No.
 ; 0 2916 Discussion of pandemic on mental health/ Life during the pandemic LB: So how do you think this is -- think it’s affecting your mental health? You feel different? I m-- do you feel despair or great hope or about the same? Or what do you think?
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 ; SZ: Overall, I keep so busy each day...
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 ; LB: That’s good. 0 2992 Discussing the possibility of playing electric keyboard at Brick Tavern Inn in Quakertown LB: What was the restaurant that you were doing a gig at?
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 ; SZ: Brick Tavern Inn, in Quakertown. And they have an outdoor [00:50:00] patio. And it’s very nice. And they’d always talked about, you know, “You bring your own keyboard.” And I’d be willing to do that. But now you’re twenty-five percent capacity. And you’re stuck on the weather. I mean, weather today is really hot. Other weekends, in the past, it’s been really, you know... It’s over a mountain. So the weather we have here, they may have the same thing or not. And sometimes it comes really fast, because they’re kind of close to the mountain. And, all of a sudden, there you are with your keyboard-- your electric keyboard and it starts to rain. Now what?
 ; 0 3069 Feeling sorry for musician friends who need a band to perform SZ: I feel sorry for my other friends that are in -- or play instruments like, say, drums. Well, you need a band. A drum solo is nice for two or three minutes at the most. And then you need something else. Or bassoon. Well, you need an orchestra. You need a small group. By yourself, that’s... But piano’s nice, because... Piano and organ, you can be your one-person band that way, and it’s nice. At least I’m playing. That’s the important thing. And that’s what I’m happy about.
 ; 0 3121 Thoughts for future generations regarding the pandemic LB: Yeah, I think we’ve hit everything on here. Let me ask you this. If you imagine that this video, which is going into the archives at Muhlenberg...? And I’ve been doing a lot of these. I told you before that I did a bunch of AIDS -- ones about AIDS. And I did ten of those. And those were pretty interesting. Oh, and you were... You’ve already talked about some of your protesting stuff. I’ve asked everybody what they were concerned about with regard to Black Lives Matter and with regard to political 0 3294 The impact of boycotting certain brands, companies, and restaurants for political reasons SZ: And certain brands, you’ve learned now, it’s li-- We’re never going to that restaurant, never going to buy that brand of jeans -- and other things that way. And it’s like, you know, you cons--
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 ; LB: Talk about the... I think this is an important thing. Because Trish was just saying that somebody said that, when you go into a store right now, the only beans on the shelf are Goya. Because no one is buying them.
 ; 0 3411 Huge pandemic stimulus mistakenly going to large corporations instead of small businesses SZ: What I’ll mention online too is that Ruth’s -- Chris -- Steakhouse --
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 ; LB: Yeah.
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 ; SZ: -- a very fine steakhouse... And they try... And then they got caught. So they gave the money back.
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 ; LB: Yeah.
 ; 0 3490 Conclusion LB: And so is there anything else you want to say or toss in or talk about here?
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 ; SZ: Not really. It’s been very nice talking with you.
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 ; LB: It’s been lovely talking with you! I don’t get to see you enough. And I’ve known you --
 ; 0 MovingImage Steven Ziminsky talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting him as a retired teacher, a musician, and a church music director who is featured on Zoom church services. He also discusses exercise and civil rights and political activism. Steve Ziminsky2020-07-20 LIZ BRADBURY: And I'm also going to turn on my audio recording backup, when... STEVE ZIMINSKY: (coughs) Getting louder on this end. Good. LB: Oh, is it better? Can you hear me okay? SZ: I see it says, "Recording." LB: It does. And I actually have done a lot of these. This is my eighteenth interview. I've done eight for COVID-19 and ten for HIV/AIDS. And one of the AIDS I did, which was Rose Craig... I don't know if you know Rose Craig. She was involved in the AIDS Services Center. She was one of the people who directed it, in the eighties and nineties And I did her whole interview -- she's in Columbus, Ohio, actually, now -- and it turned out that there was a glitch at the beginning and it didn't record it. But luckily, I had an entire audio, separate recording of her. And the video wasn't very good, because her camera kept falling over. So (laughs) I figured, "Aeh," you know, "at least I have the audio." So that was good. So how are you doing, Steve? SZ: I can't complain. I'm one of the few successful ones, I think. LB: If... SZ: It's been three years since I retired. LB: Yeah. So it's a... SZ: So... LB: Let me set this up. And then you can tell me everything you've been doing. Because I'm dying to hear. So let me say this. With this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and 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 experiences, from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury. And I'm here with Steve Ziminsky, to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive-- We're meeting on Zoom, on Monday, July 20th, in 2020. Oh, it's 20-2020. Thank you, so much, Steve, for being willing to speak with us today. For the first part, could you please state your name and spell it for me? SZ: Stephen, S-T-E-P-H-E-N -- and last name is Ziminsky, Z-I-M-I-N-S-K-Y. But people call me Steve. LB: (laughs) Will you please share your birthdate? SZ: August 29th, 1960. LB: Okay. And you're in Allentown? Is that correct? You're... SZ: West side of Allentown, technically not in the South Whitehall Township but I have an Allentown address. LB: Okay! Okay. So do you consent to this interview today? SZ: Yeah. LB: (laughs) Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? SZ: Yeah. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes or in other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations, or other future formats we can't even imagine? SZ: Yes. LB: (laughs) Do you understand that you'll have 30 days after the electronic delivery of this transcript to review your interview and identify any parts you'd like to delete...? And/or you can withdraw your entire interview from the project. SZ: Yes. LB: Okay. So I have to do a couple of identity things. So what's your ZIP Code where you are? SZ: 18104. LB: And what is your age? You were just telling me about that. SZ: Oh, I'm fifty-nine right now. LB: Okay. And how do you identify with the LGBT community, gay, trans, lesbian, bi, ace? SZ: Gay. LB: Okay. And cisgender? SZ: Yes. LB: Okay. And so this is some stuff that we're going to talk about. So, in general, let's start with this. You... Let me just ask this first question, that I ask everybody. So are you in your house by yourself or do you have other people there? SZ: Just my pet -- LB: Oh... SZ: -- which is Atlas the pug, and me. LB: (laughs) Atlas the pug. Great. And so talk about your work. You were saying, before we started this, that you were retired. So there's your pug. Oh, that's -- SZ: He's sitting with me, close. LB: -- cute. (laughs) Good thing he's not outside. It wouldn't be good weather for him. SZ: Oh, they don't do well outside. LB: No. It's really hot outside. So talk about... So you're not working now. So that's a good thing, compared to other teachers, like. SZ: I'm a retired music teacher, almost thirty-three years in music ed. But I'm also -- am working my part-time job. The church never closed. So we're doing video services each week. LB: Oh. SZ: So we usually do them on Saturdays. I go out. And I get to play the piano, the organ. There's no choir involved. But there usually is special music involved. And so that keeps my playing, at least. Because all those other side jobs aren't. LB: So you go to the church to do that, then. SZ: Yes. LB: And then they video you. SZ: Yeah. LB: What church is that? SZ: Grace Lutheran, in Macungie. LB: Okay. Okay. Yeah. SZ: And I'll be starting my tenth year there in September. LB: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so are there other people there, when you're doing that? Probably just the people with the... SZ: Pastor. And now we have a person who's running the video part, and if there's special music. LB: Uh-huh. Oh, you mean other people playing music?SZ:Other people. Yesterday we had a violinist. And we're going to be having a flutist, coming up, and all sorts of different other people, and a number of vocalists. Nobody wants to do it, then I do something. LB: Like a vocal? SZ: Like a piano solo. LB: Oh, a piano s-- Oh, I see. Nice. So that's nice. So... Well, if the church is big and you can social-distance there, if you need to, and stuff like that... So that's good. It's a big space, isn't it? SZ: Pretty big. It probably seats about one hundred and fifty. But it's excellent acoustics -- LB: Well, tha-- SZ: -- built about 1912, with a pipe organ and a nice piano. So. People enjoy hearing the organ. And we had just had it tuned and fixed up. So everything's working. And they're enjoying it. LB: Yeah. Well, that's great! So h--? So you're working. And was that plan all -- that they would just continue, right away? Were they closed at all during that time, the church? SZ: They really weren't closed. There was one week, March 15th, where it was kind of optional for staff, if we wanted to come. And I just didn't feel right that day. So I thought, "I'll stay away." But ever since March 15th... And we even did some Wednesday services. They're all on YouTube. LB: Ah! SZ: So every week, we've been doing something. And then I even got my vacation Sundays. And even though I'm not going anywhere... Anywhere I was going to go is all canceled or postponed to next year. But I at least got a chance to get some time off. And we had (inaudible) figure in advance. I did get some time off. LB: Did you have a vacation plan? SZ: The one week, no, and one week, yes. This coming Sunday, I probably would have been going... I was really thinking of going to New Orleans. LB: Ah! SZ: There's a convention that was going to be held there. And then we start seeing... New Orleans really had an outbreak there. And I didn't even buy the airline ticket. That's when, I think, you're really committed, when you buy the airline ticket. I'm so... And so they're talking next year. But they're also talking a video element to the convention. So if you don't want to risk things and do that -- you can watch the key parts right online, like this. LB: And that's a convention for people who are music...? SZ: Well, actually it's a gay-related convention -- LB: Oh! SZ: -- Black and White Men Together. LB: Oh, oh! Okay. I... Good. So that's the -- Okay. Good. So... Okay. So have you been communicating with a lot of people? Like have you done other Zoom things and...? Probably ha-- SZ: Oh, plenty of Zoom things. In fact, the most unusual one is I belong to several eating groups. We would get together like once a month. And so now what we do is go out to a restaurant or a place, bring something back, put it on our desk here, and eat and watch each other. LB: (laughs) SZ: There's one through the church -- has done that now too. And then there's different groups. Sometimes you sit there and talk. And sometimes you sit there and talk and eat. LB: Yeah. SZ: And they haven't done the drinking ones yet. LB: (laughs) SZ: But that would be interesting. LB: What restaurant? What restaurant? SZ: Well, you get to pick. The one time it was to get a burger. LB: Oh! SZ: And I m-- one this past Friday but that one was to go to an Indian restaurant and have Indian food -- but not together. We'll just come back and watch it. But -- LB: Did you do that? SZ: -- I didn't go to that one. But each month, there's usually something different. LB: That's so interesting. So where did you get your burger? SZ: Oh, Red Robin. I live right around the corner. LB: Oh. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty close to Red Robin. So are you communicating with other people? Like...? Do you have family around and that stuff? SZ: Not really in this area. I do have living family. But the parents are dead. The grandparents are dead. The cousins are spread all over the country. I think the closest one is up in the Poconos area. And I haven't really communicated there too much. And there's some in Florida. And on the other side of the family, one of the things that really kind of hit was that one of my former roommates, as well as my aunt, who is now ninety-one... Sh-- I happened to visit her in early March. And then, all of a sudden, you know, no more visits anywhere, for either of those two. And then she was transferred to a different nursing home. And I'm not the power of attorney. But another one of my cousins is. And all of sudden, you found out, "Oh, by the way, she's been moved." So... She's kind of death -- profoundly deaf and really is very quiet. So she never got to see the new nursing home. They just put her in a room. They bring the food to you. And it's been this way for several months. And then the same thing with the former roommate that was here for ten years. And he's over at ManorCare, in Bethlehem. LB: Liam? SZ: And -- Liam -- he's been there for over seven years now. LB: And... SZ: At least ManorCare is having these weekly video chats -- (dog coughing) and they usually are pretty good about. Thursday, the phone rings. And you get to see him, get to talk. And he did have COVID. I'm trying to think of some of those questions you had on your list there -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- so I can answer -- LB: Well, I have some questions. SZ: -- half of them. LB: I'll get to this, in terms of... That was your dog's coughing I hear there. SZ: Yeah. LB: He's close to the microphone. SZ: He has the... But he's happy now. LB: Okay. So Liam was sick? SZ: Yes. And they gave him like... I think it was the third test he tested positive on. The first two, no. But he had always that, kind of... He's very weak. And so then they said he had COVID. And then they kind of moved him to a different room. And it turned out the whole place... They were sending out emails like a lot. And they were up to over one hundred people -- LB: Wow. SZ: -- including patients and staff. And it's only a four-story building. And... LB: Where is ManorCare? Is that in Allentown? SZ: Bethlehem. ManorCare in Bethlehem, the 2029 building. LB: Oh, golly. SZ: There's two buildings, right next to each other. We're not even talking about the other building, which is just as big. But the 2029 for a while didn't have it. And then, all of a sudden, it just hit. And it's not from the visitors, because there are not visitors. And we went -- just couldn't wait till each week. And they finally got a way to communicate. You could talk to them. And he's hoping to get back to his room. But again, he's moved to another room. The rooms are all the same -- the same floor. It's just down the hallway a little bit more. So, fine, you know? LB: They moved him to a different room, because they thought the room was contaminated or something? SZ: Well, he had it. And then his first roommate, who he's had quite a while -- LB: Oh, I see. SZ: -- had to go to the hospital for something. And then they moved him to a different room. And then... They even had some kind of barriers in the hallway. And I think that was... So you had to get through the barrier to get into the room, so it wouldn't spread so much. And you should see what the nurses look like. I mean, they're wearing their full PPE, whatever that is. And it was quite a scare there. But now they've said the entire floor where he i-- the fourth floor, is COVID-free. However, that means they still have some in the building. And even if they had none in the building, we're still not allowed to visit. So this has been over six months, and not visi-- And the aunt, I know which nursing home it is but, to get in there and do things, I don't know -- in the Reading area, that one. LB: Ah. Well, Liam has other illnesses, doesn't he? SZ: Yeah. He has quite a few things. And so he's kind of confined to his bed. But he is talking. I mean, his mind is fine. LB: Yeah. Is he about your age? SZ: Oh, no. He just had his birthday. He's sixty-seven now. LB: Sixty-seven. SZ: He just made his next birthday there. So... LB: Close to my age. (laughs) SZ: Oh! LB: I'm not... I'm sixty-three. But... But, yeah, people in their sixties, they're certainly at risk. But he had other health issues. That's why he was in there. Is that true? SZ: Oh, yeah. That's where he'll be. The main thing is congestive heart failure. LB: Oh, I see. Is that in...? SZ: And so his heart gets weaker and weaker. So he can do less and less. And things begin to atrophy. And every time I would go in to visit, you'd always have to grab an arm and move his arm, move his legs. And the nurses would do that too. But he needed a lot of that. And he couldn't move anything. The only thing he'd do is -- just enough of the fingers to move the remote on the TV -- but couldn't use his cell phone, couldn't type on a computer, nothing. LB: Wow. That's tough. So you've been talking to him via like a Zoom thing or just on the phone or...? SZ: It's called Duo. LB: Oh. SZ: Yeah. That's what they use. So I had to... LB: Oh, y-- SZ: It works, you know. LB: What's your biggest concern about this? Are you concerned about you getting it? SZ: I can't prove that I had it but I think I did. LB: Oh, yeah? SZ: And it hit as a big diarrhea episode, on the same day that I was just ready to leave on a bus trip to go to Philly -- LB: Oh, gosh. SZ: -- with the retired teachers. And I thought I could get a nice breakfast in and we were going to leave around 11:30. And after breakfast, I had to get home for something, was li-- "I think I have to go." And it was like little bit unusual. And then, as I... And you hate to cancel. Because it was an expensive trip. It was going to be a day trip, a special restaurant opening just for us, the day, and see this show at the -- I think it was at the Kimmel Center -- and back. And I felt so bad. And so I kind of cancel. And I'm so glad I did, if that wa-- LB: Yeah. SZ: My family doctor can't prove I did. And I guess I can't prove I did. But when I looked at other people's symptoms... Which lasted most of January. But when you live alone, you can stay at home and basically you're isolating anyway. LB: So were you sick for most of January, then? SZ: Yes. LB: Did you have a sense of smell? SZ: I don't remember that. LB: They say... SZ: But I do remember my appetite was down. LB: Well, that's a big thing. Yeah. SZ: You would barely eat like half a sandwich and it was like you could barely get through that. And then you'd have to wait a while and eat the other ha-- And normally, that's nothing. So that was one of the things. I did go to see the doctor twice. And my regular doctor was out for over a month. So I saw another doctor in the practice. And at first, she put me on strong antibiotics. And it seemed to help but, at the end of the antibiotics, it was kind of back to where it was. And I went back in the second. "Oh, we can't do that again. So we'll try prednisone." LB: Oh, yeah. SZ: And that seemed to help a little. But I think, by that time, I was getting out of it. And knew it was some kind of viral thing and it was going around. But they didn't have any name for it or anything. Just kind of stay, you know, quiet that way. And then that's what I did. LB: Wow! SZ: It got better by itself-- The biggest thing was the coughing. And there was one night of chills. I remember that. LB: Well, it sounds like those are the symptoms. I guess that you could, at the hospital, have them check to see if you have antibodies in your blood. SZ: Yeah, but... I have to wait for my next doctor visit. And at least it'll be in person. My last doctor visit was over like something like this. LB: Yeah. Yeah. SZ: And there are some nice things there too. You take a big blood test. So they know all the good stuff. But you don't have to get weighed. You don't have to, you know... LB: (laughs) SZ: They can't check your blood pressure or anything, which usually is good anyway. So it... I have to wait a little bit that way but... LB: Yeah. SZ: I mentioned it to the doctor and she thought that, "No, you had something else, bronchitis of some kind." Well, it could be that too. Because a lot of bronchitis symptoms are similar too. And I was really pushing it. LB: I don't know. The things that you're describing, though, they're some... I've had bronchitis and I didn't have diarrhea from it. SZ: But then there's some articles that have been published that say some people start there. Other people, no symptoms. Other people, it starts as a respiratory. LB: That's true. Yeah, all sorts of ramifications of it. Well... SZ: Well, luckily, I don't think I have any lasting ones. LB: Well, if you had had it, you'd gotten on the bus with all of those people -- SZ: Yeah! LB: -- you could have really spread that around. That would have been... Even with bronchitis... You can get that from other people too, of course-- SZ: Oh, I make a decision. I waited till the bus came. But then I told them, "I'm not going." They said, "Well, we have a seat right next to the bathroom, in the back of the bus." I said, "No." LB: Really? (laughs) Oh, n-- SZ: And as it was, I went home and I took it real easy. And I could eat again. And everything kind of went back to being fine. But I never had it where... All your insides were rumbling there, while we were waiting for the bus. It was... LB: Well... SZ: I don't want to chance this, so... LB: Well, it sounds like, if you did have it, it wasn't too devastating. It went on for a long time but... I know a few people who've had it who've said it was absolutely soul-crushing for them. And they said to me, "Do not get this." It was... You know, people who said, "If I had been by myself, I would have died. Because I couldn't even get to the bathroom. I couldn't even crawl to the bathroom, I was so weak." So. But then I know other people who've had it who have had no symptoms at all. And they were positive. So, you know, it's the thing. So what's your biggest concern during the pandemic, in terms of the LGBT community? What do you think about that? SZ: Well, we're all trying to survive. Yesterday I got to see part of the Reading pride festival online. LB: Ah. Uh-huh. SZ: And I didn't get to see the whole thing, because it turned out... I just found out at the time that there was a Black Lives Matter meeting in Emmaus. LB: I... SZ: I've been helping with those. I've been doing a lot of protesting lately, the past few months. And that's keeping me busy. And we always wear masks and do things. It started with that Tuesdays for Toomey -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- now kind of branched int-- Because officially, that group had stopped. But then there's a core bunch of the group that still meets at the same place and still... Now it's kind of turned into an anti-Trump group. And then... They meet at different places, not always at Toomey's office. There's some other places too. And then there was the Black Lives Matter. I was in that rally just last week, walking through the city. We started at Seventh and Hamilton, ended up down at the jail. LB: Saw part of that. Yeah. SZ: Yeah. And so that was interesting. And I shared some pictures of that with Steve Libby. LB: I saw that. Yeah, I saw some of those pictures. I really wanted to be at that march. But Trish is so at risk that I can't really take that risk. But I'm very proud of all of the people that spoke out about that. I've talked to a lot of them. And it was a well organized thing, I think, and effective. It was relatively effective, which I think is good. So how about being able to see Rachel Levine, on the videos tha-- Dr. Rachel Levine, who's our Secretary of Health? That's been a pretty positive thing for me. I don't know about you. How do you feel about that? SZ: Very positive. I don't watch every single day. But sometimes you're at your phone and, all of a sudden, "Oh, the governor's coming on." And usually, Rachel's on. And she's very good. And it's a very public spot. And usually the advice is right. I'm very enthusiastic about the governor too. Because he's under a lot of pressure. LB: What...? SZ: But everybody has kind of agreed, that I've talked to, that you got to get the virus under control first, before you can really start opening things back up. LB: Well, as a teacher or as a retired teacher... Because you were a teacher for a long, long, long time, in the Allentown School District, and from school to school. So you really traveled around from school to school. What do you think about opening schools? SZ: They should stay online, no matter what it is. I know it's not as good as in person. And I was sharing some things on Facebook about this. But if I think of my last schedule that I had, I had two schools. I was six days at one school and two days at another school. And in eight days, eight school days, you saw every child once. Now imagine if, around day eight... You know, the first few days -- probably going to go really well. But then, all of a sudden, if one teacher even has it, you've now exposed the entire school -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- entire schools. LB: Yeah. SZ: And it's like, well, it wouldn't be everybody, because there's going to be some kids that are going to stay online, every day, anyway. But now, all of a sudden... And then all the other teachers were exposed. And the thing is a classroom teacher usually stays in the classroom. So they're being, you know, self-contained. But the way we work, where the art teacher, music teacher, phys ed, and library -- and they would go to the rooms. Well, a separate gym. They would go to -- the phys ed tea-- in the gym. But everybody else came to the room. And if somehow something got on your stuff... Then as a music teacher you're thinking, "Well, the most important thing is getting them to sing," in elementary school. Well, you're not going to be singing too much with a mask. You're not supposed to be. You can't really do choral speaking. And then like, "All my rhythm instruments!" Well, maybe, if you bring two to each class and this class only uses these two and this class uses these two and they disinfect them every day. LB: Oh, gosh. SZ: But instead of a whole bunch of instruments... I used to have a whole bag of stuff. Well, now it's like, and you could maybe do that. Now you're down to "Well, we could show videos" -- LB: (laughs) SZ: -- "We could clap, I guess -- that's still okay -- and do things that way." You could talk about music. But you want to actually have them have a chance to perform, have a chance to try to sing. Because after elementary school, some of them aren't going to try anymore. That's their big thing. And then you think about in art, you kn-- "Oh, you want scissors. Oh, you want this. You want stuff that they're all going to touch?" You know. And then you go right to next class. There's no time. That forty-five minutes goes by pretty fast. And you got to get your materials back. You pack up. You roll. And it might be on the other side of the school. It might be next door. And most times, it's in between. And it gets quite rough. So my hope is that they would stay at home. I know it's not as great and I know the parents have to worry about babysitting and everything. But it's still... Least we're going to get them to survive. We're in survival mode right now. LB: Yeah. What about...? Have you talked to...? Because you were talking about going with other retired teachers on a trip. So... Or... And this teacher that -- you were talking, before we got on Zoom today -- that you went for a walk with... Who's a current teacher? SZ: Yes. LB: Is that true? And does that person sort of feel the same way about this stuff? Is that somebody you worked with? SZ: Yes. We were on a team together. And they go through so many teachers fa-- it's amazing -- that... You know, I'm -- only been out for three years and yet we're down to like maybe thirty percent of the teachers at my main school are still there. LB: Yeah. SZ: And others have transferred to other schools. Some have retired. And some just left teaching, it got to be so bad, and so much pressure that way. But that is one of the few teachers that's still there. And we've known each other for many years. And so... But you hear about all the online meetings but nothing's been said. And it would be nice for them to know. Are we going to stay online? It would save the school district a lot of money. They have to go out and buy this stuff and adapt the buildings. And then, "Oh, we're not doing that this year." LB: I can't imagine that... I mean, if the guidelines for the state are that you're not supposed to be in a circumstance where there's more than 250 people... Well, really, a school, even though you have classrooms, the kids are circulating around, though. So I don't know if we have -- SZ: The... LB: -- any schools that, you know... I mean, plus it's kids! For heaven's sake! What teacher isn't, you know, exposed to illness all...? That's one of the reasons the teachers stopped teaching, because they're sick all the time. They have to develop that... You must have had a really major immune system, from being around kids singing in your face for the last thir-- the thirty-three years. SZ: That too. I wasn't always in the classroom. I also did strings for twenty-five of those years too. Sometimes it was strings and a classroom. And sometimes it was... The last six years or so, it was just classroom -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- bringing along instruments. Imagine bringing bell sets now. That's not going to g-- Rhythm instruments. No. So you can't really do any instruments that you could pass to them. I guess you could bring instruments that, you say, "Well, this is a tambourine. And this..." Yeah, but we don't play it. And you really can't do that. LB: But [the?] thing is that, if there's a teacher that's seeing every student, that teacher is potentially infecting every student. SZ: Yes! LB: So, I mean -- SZ: I've been hearing articles ab-- LB: -- how do you keep that from happening, even if they're wearing a mask or something, even if everybody's wearing a mask? The virt-- You know, when you talk about kid-- You can't keep kids from yelling. Y-- SZ: Or playing with their ma-- Or they forgot one today. Or they lost it somewhere. Or somebody stole somebody else's there. It begins... It sounds funny at first but it's like, "Yeah, this is..." And it's not just at elementary, can be all levels. LB: Yeah. I don't see how they can do it. SZ: I don't either. LB: And with the numbers going up the way they are, it's impossible, I think, to... I mean, it's going to kill kids. And it's going to kill their families. And, you know, I know a young person who had it, who is a college student, actually, who didn't have any symptoms, came home from college. She was sent home from college. She was there with her family. And then she spiked a big fever and infected every one of her family members. Everybody in the house got it, including her grandmother, who is over 90. They all got through it. But it was incredibly hard. And someone said to me, "Is she all right now?" And I said, "She's all right now." I mean, she's physically all right. She feels weak -- the kid. But she's not going to be all right, if she just killed her grandmother -- SZ: No. And -- LB: -- never going to be alright. SZ: -- they were mentioning what could happen, you know. Within the first two weeks or so, all of a sudden, you know, grandparents died at home, teacher died at school, and a lot of kids got sick. LB: Yeah. SZ: And, you know, everybody wants to go back. And I've talked to some teachers that want to go back. Yeah, but right now I'd rather keep the kids safe than anything else. LB: Is there any teacher that would think that they wouldn't be exposed? I mean, I can't believe that there are teachers who wou-- I mean, they see how easily it is to get sick in school, you know. They've closed schools just for flu, in the past, or for measles outbreak or for something. SZ: Or today, for heat. LB: For what? SZ: Heat. Some of our buildings aren't air con-- LB: Oh, heat. I... SZ: If you're in Florida there, it gets brutal! LB: Yeah. Yeah. SZ: And then some schools used to have it that, if a room was air conditioned, you could bring the kids down from the highest-temperature areas. Well, you got nothing done. After a while, it was like... When you're talking heat index over one hundred today... It was like, "No, that's not so..." Because we have several buildings in the district there's no air conditioning. Or it breaks. And then it's like -- or, "Oh, downtown says it's seventy in there." It's like, no, it's eighty-five and there's nothing happening. LB: (laughs) Yeah. SZ: But the computer said... And appare-- Even the janitors can't move some of those things. Or you have to call downtown. And downtown will adjust the computer in your building. LB: Gosh. SZ: That's how it was when I was there. See -- right on danger... LB: When I was in junior high, at a very affluent community in Connecticut, there was no air conditioning in our junior high. And kids would pass out, just be sitting at the chair and, all of a sudden, they'd get really red and fall on the ground -- especially if they were sitting near the windows. Because it was those 1950s buildings, with the big windows, that the... I think Union Terrace sort of liked like that. They were probably built -- SZ: That's the fifties. Yeah. LB: -- yeah, built in the fifties. And just this glaring heat. It's like one hundred and two degrees. And somebody... SZ: If you're on that sun side, you're just going to die. LB: Yeah. Yeah. SZ: And then what are you going to do, as a teacher? You know, are you going to present new material? Are you going to review what you did? At the beginning of the year, you can't really review anything. Everything is new material. And you can't really do much. When afternoon comes, you're just stuck. Union Terrace was one of the schools that used to have it where -- there was a new addition put on -- some of the rooms had air conditioning but most didn't. And it never got rectified, that way. We had other buildings where they had a chance to put air conditioning. But there was always the excuse, that usually came out to money. So they would put in air handlers. But that's not an air conditioner. That's just a fan. LB: Yeah. So what that would do is create situations, particularly in September, when it can still be very, very hot, where they would try to move kids -- or normally they would move kids to rooms that had air conditioning. So it'd be more kids in one space. SZ: But then there you are, as a... You're a kid in the air conditioned room. And now other kids are coming to join you. And then, are they going to kick you out? LB: Yeah. Yeah. SZ: Or are they going to have two or three classes doing it? Or you could have a video. And you got three classes in the air conditioned room. Again, it's that social distancing stuff. LB: Impossible. SZ: It's not going to work. So... But I have one friend who is going to be seventy-four in December, and hasn't had it or anything. But his wife is very -- she has lupus -- much younger than him. His son is nineteen, just finished L-Tri-C and going to Kutztown. And if one of those gets it and brings it home, that could really... But he's had two heart attacks, got diabetes -- almost seventy-four. And, oh, yeah, he wants to go back. Like, well... So there are some teachers, they want to go back. But it's like, why? LB: Yeah. Really. It's unrealistic, I think. Anyway. I mean, I can understand why people want to resume school. Some kids are just devastated. They really want to be around their... They're missing parts of their life. Where's the...? SZ: The social development part. LB: Yeah! And there's no question. And their parents have to go to work. And they can't go to work, because their kids are at home -- and their little kids -- you know? -- their seven-year-old kid at home. So... SZ: And have like a daycare center, that would have a number of computers, that you could like have a big room and just like cubicles for the kids. And, "Okay... Oh, you're going to Harrison-Morton. Well, you watch this one. And you're going..." The kid could sign in, and be at whatever school. They could be... LB: Yeah, but the problem is that the -- SZ: And they're daycare-ready too. LB: -- yeah -- the problem is, though, that those kids will still infect each other. And -- SZ: They could. Yeah. LB: -- it's impossible to not h-- SZ: A huge room and a lot of computers. LB: I don't see how they could do that. I don't see how you could have a group of twenty kids in one room and not have them carrying an illness, no matter what they did. I mean, you just can't keep kids from... It's like saying, "Well, you know, of course they'll wash their hands every single time they go to the bathroom." SZ: And who knows what's going on at home? LB: Exactly. Yeah. SZ: Something could come in from home. Or something could go from school to home and now, all of a sudden, at home they're sick. And... LB: So the... So let's see. So we talked about where it's... Oh, here's a good question. Have you spent any time on queer dating or hookup apps? SZ: Not really. Because it doesn't matter if they're in another country or in your state or just down the road. The chance of actually meeting somebody, it's a bit of a risk. LB: Yeah, that's true. That's true. SZ: So... LB: Yeah. I think that's affecting people. SZ: Although I like what they did in England. They mentioned that, if you could get somebody that you knew and you could work out a roommate arrangement -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- that way you had the companionship, and you never... And as long as you were there for two weeks or more and you both k-- Well, that was an idea -- from England! LB: Huh! What's...? SZ: But I didn't see anybody actually do that. LB: You seem that you are having enough contact with people. But, you know, you do usually hang out with people. So... SZ: And online I have a lot of people that I hang out with. LB: Oh, that's good. That's good. That's a good thing. So in general, has it affected your life pretty significantly? What's the biggest effect that it's had on your life? SZ: Well, biggest thing is you do have to stay in a lot more. And I had a piano-playing job in a restaurant. LB: Oh, yeah. SZ: That... The restaurant has kind of tried to open now. But the latest thing is they're down to twenty-five percent. And it really wouldn't pay them t-- In fact, it was on the latest thing, "No live music." And then several places in the area, about two weeks ago, they did have live music, when a number of bars opened and a number of restaurants opened. Now it's -- no. So, and then I was think-- Last year... I also play trombone. And I'm hoping to play with some of the local bands as a substitute. I did that last summer. Well, that's not happening either. And do have friends, retired teachers, who used to do a lot of playing. They're doing nothing. LB: So you mean that they were playing the trombone with like the Palmerton, you know, band or the...? SZ: Well, it could be. But we have four city bands in Allentown -- LB: Yeah. Right. SZ: -- plus the Macungie band. There's a Catasauqua band. There's a number of o-- I play with a polka band. They're supposed to do something up in Coplay in September and October. And it's li-- I don't think that's going to be happening. But until it's canceled... Because if you think about how it is, it's a very tight, enclosed room, you know. And the people are all the at-risk ones. You're talking seventy on up. And, oh, yeah, it's nice. They all dance. And that's great. They're wonderful people. And they know all their dances. It's kind of neat to play pieces and say, "These people actually know what the dances are." LB: (laughs) SZ: And they know this stuff. And that's very nice. And that's why we kind of keep the traditions alive. But it's like -- it's really unsafe now. Now, that same place has an outdoor pavilion. But you're talking September, October? You know. That's kind of rough. And then we have a big job up in the Poconos, almost near New York State. And that's in October. And, yeah, we have a date. It's a beautiful facility. It's a beautiful area. But again you're talking probably several hundred people. Then they're going to bring in German dancers. I just don't think that's going to happen this year. LB: Well, several hundred people. I mean, they've already said that, in Pennsylvania, it's going to be green for the rest of the year. And that's a maximum of two hundred and fifty people. So unless they think that it'd be less than two hundred and fifty, you really can't do it. SZ: Or you'd have to limit how many people come. And that's a private party, that one that's up there. LB: No, like if you're saying... Two hundred people -- or two hundred and fifty people is dangerous but two hundred and forty-nine is not? SZ: You have to cut it somewhere. LB: Pretty unrealistic, to say... You know, what's the danger? Well, people could give it to each other, if there's two hundred and fifty people. Well, they're going to give it to each other if there's two hundred and forty-nine people too. They're going to give it to each other. Frankly, in a dance like that, which sounds wonderful, actually... But people are breathing hard and singing and coming close to each other, moving in the same space over... It's just the worst possible thing you could do, I think. SZ: Mm-hmm. So that's why I'm hoping it's going to not happen. And that's why I'm happy that the church is doing something. And then, with this cutback, we were, again, making plans to reopen in August. And now it looks like, well, maybe September or later. And as the church musician, I'm looking ahead and thinking, "What are we doing to do for Christmas?" And all the things that happen around the Christmas season... It's like, well, I think we're just going to, you know... And then, when you find out and you have to go through the denomination, you have to go through the state guidelines too -- but when you find out what you can actually do in a church service, live, according to the official rule, there's not much at all. And so they're getting more to watch the video than they are if you actually showed up. LB: Yeah. That's true. I've talked to a couple of people who have said that they've really enjoyed the video. In fact, at our community center we have a book group. And I think the most people we ever had come to the book group was eleven, maybe twelve. But we just had one that had fifteen people there. And the... And I said to Trish that I saw somebody in the book group that I haven't seen for four years -- I said. And I think this person is just a little shy. But this was really comfortable for them to come. In some ways, it's not a bad idea to occasionally run these things that way too now. SZ: You mean like a Zoom meeting or...? LB: Yeah. It was a Zoom meeting. And everybody's on the screen. It's like The Brady Bunch, you know. And you would -- people our age understand tha-- You know, and everybody's talking. And people take turns talking about what they... But it also is, if you're a person who doesn't want to talk, you just say, "Well, (laughs) I didn't read the book. I'm just going to listen." And everybody just lets them. I mean, there's no pressure, because you're not there, you know. So people feel more comfortable, I think. Now, we have some people who have said that they don't want to do it on Zoom. And Adrian has said, "Well, you know, some people won't do it on Zoom. They only will do it in public. So if we can open for the public for some of our support groups, that would be a good thing." But I don't know. Because, you know, if we make somebody sick, it's going to look awful bad. SZ: And if it stays in the air or got on something they touched and then somebody else touches it... Bathrooms... LB: Yeah. The bathrooms are one of the most serious places, too. Because if you have somebody use a restroom and then... Especially, multiple-stall restrooms are really bad. We don't have those at the center. But that's a particularly bad thing. Because you're in that little cubicle. And then, you know, there's lots of people... Like a restroom on the highway is particularly bad. So... SZ: Also at the park, at Lehigh Parkway. There's at least two that are open. But there's a whole lot more that are either boarded up or somehow closed. LB: Huh. SZ: And... LB: Huh. So you've been going to the park a lot, to go for walks? SZ: Two to three times a week. LB: That's nice. SZ: And sometimes the walking partner's there. Sometimes, if that's not available, I do it by myself. And sometimes what I've done als-- I live so close to Trexler park. And sometimes I'll go there. LB: Yeah. Do you feel safe, when you're walking around? Do you see people without masks or...? SZ: Almost everybody now is not wearing a mask, at both parks. And what used to bother me was the joggers (breathes heavily) -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- breathing at you, you know. But there haven't been too many joggers. And a day like this, it's like no. But today, there was a lot of bicycles going around. But again, a lot of them, they're not really huffing and puffing. They just put in tenth gear or something. And they go flying past you there. And that was it. And we do get off the road to let somebody go by. You feel like a leper, unclean or something. You see people get off the road there when you walk by, and all that. But it's worked out well. I've done this now for like almost six months. And I haven't gotten anything from that. And you make sure... If you don't feel good, well, we're not going wa-- You really wouldn't want to go walking. Even one of our regular walks, of two miles, it's... If you're not feeling well, you're not going to -- you have a hard time make that. LB: Right. Right. That's two laps around Trexler park. SZ: Yeah, it would be there. LB: Well... SZ: So I take it easy, when I'm by myself there. And I was going the wrong way for a while, there. You have to go clockwise. LB: Yeah. SZ: And I remember the old days, when I had my bike and you could go counterclockwise. And I kind of liked that way too. Because at the very end, you come to the bathroom. LB: (laughs) SZ: The other way, you start at the bathroom. It's like, "No, I don't need that." Then you have to go around more than once, to get back to the bathroom -- which is open, at Trexler park, which is nice. There is only one. And you get to see the general. And you get to see the nice view. LB: Uh-huh. And Jack O'Diamond. SZ: Oh, yeah! Yeah -- LB: That's Trexler's horse -- SZ: -- the horse. LB: -- he's sitting on. So what other qu--? So you were looking at the possibility of going to a convention, that was a queer convention, in New Orleans then, huh? SZ: Well, actually, there was three conventions I could have gone to. LB: Oh, that's the... SZ: And they all were moved into next year. LB: Ah. What were they? SZ: Well, the one is called the American Theatre Organ Society. And they were going to go back to Indianapolis. And I'd been there. Just about like five, six years ago, they had it there too. And not much has changed, really -- LB: (laughs) SZ: -- in Indianapolis in the past five or six years. But... And you have a small group. But there again, there was one up-and-coming person and he's from... Where...? It's not Ireland. Scotland. And I heard recently that, well, he's not doing concerts, he's no-- I hope he's keeping in shape. But he plays piano very well. Bu-- he took theater organ on the side, and was wonderful! That was one of the big promising things. It's like now, well, you can't give any concerts, you can't do anything. And then another friend of mine, who plays theater organ as well as classical organ, he's not doing anything. If your church isn't doing... And we have churches in the area here that basically... They do it from home. It's like video mashup of something. I have another friend who used to be a pastor, who is now a church musician himself. And he brought a keyboard from church to his home. So he doesn't have an organ. He just plays this keyboard. And that gets put on their service somehow. And he hasn't been at his church in six months. I had a substitute, recently, who confided in me that this person hasn't played the pipe organ in six months -- but did very well. But it's kind of like you get a rough time, when you can't get on an instrument. LB: There's really nothing else like the pipe organ or the organ. SZ: Yeah. It kind of hel-- I have an organ at home. But I haven't really needed to use it. Because I get out to chur-- And that was a nice thing. Because when this started in March, there was a special thing that you were allowed to be on the road to get out to church to practice. If anybody would have stopped me, you know... Because you were supposed to now... But there was a dispensation that you could... Well, then, if you're out at church, you could stop at a convenience store and get a little something to eat. And then that was... So you kind of could get out. But you had to -- yeah -- be careful of it that way. But then... So, luckily. But they've been clamping down, to say, "Look, the only people are there, the people that do these video. That's... And the church secretary. That's it." It's... LB: Well, don't put people at risk. That's definitely the thing. So you were talking about... Do you know anybody...? You did talk a little bit about people. And certainly you were talking about Liam, who's had this. Have you known anybody else who has had the virus? You talked pretty much about that already, I guess. SZ: One that I really knew was Liam. Other people -- LB: No. SZ: -- really didn't actually get it. That's good. I mean, you don't want to know anybody that did. But you just... I thought that I might have had it. And the symptoms, I thought, sounded that way. But there's always different things. And until we have testing, nobody even knows. You're right. An antibody test might say yes or no. LB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. SZ: But then, that was many months ago. LB: So how do you think this is -- think it's affecting your mental health? You feel different? I m-- do you feel despair or great hope or about the same? Or what do you think? SZ: Overall, I keep so busy each day... LB: That's good. SZ: I'm kind of thinking that I'm kind of actually settling into retirement, the way it really could have been, you know. The ideas... I'm still busy with teaching. I'm still a teacher advocate and trying to help the kids, at least from this angle, and doing more protesting than I ever did before. And you're still playing. That's the important thing. You're still playing. Yeah. And that's ni-- I miss some of the other stuff I did before, [that all goes?]... And I'm home a lot more. And that was something I worried about in the past too, that, with school and with all the playing stuff and the church stuff, you're never home. And how it's like, you know, I actually sit on my recliner and watch the TV -- LB: (laughs) SZ: -- something I rarely did. And that's why I got rid of Netflix. Because I'm never home and I'm spending this money for this thing and... And now you could. But it's li-- I have enough, you know, going on that way. So. I keep busy, that way. LB: What was the restaurant that you were doing a gig at? SZ: Brick Tavern Inn, in Quakertown. And they have an outdoor patio. And it's very nice. And they'd always talked about, you know, "You bring your own keyboard." And I'd be willing to do that. But now you're twenty-five percent capacity. And you're stuck on the weather. I mean, weather today is really hot. Other weekends, in the past, it's been really, you know... It's over a mountain. So the weather we have here, they may have the same thing or not. And sometimes it comes really fast, because they're kind of close to the mountain. And, all of a sudden, there you are with your keyboard-- your electric keyboard and it starts to rain. Now what? LB: Have they pretty much, then, not been open? Or are they...? SZ: They were open for takeout. And then lately they tried to do something indoors and on the patio. And now it's the twenty-five percent thing. So I don't know. But I keep in touch there. And they know what I'm... I sent pictures along. Or I say, "Hi. How ya doin'?" But... They had five musicians. So it's like I don't think that's coming back anytime soon. LB: Oh. SZ: And so... I feel sorry for my other friends that are in -- or play instruments like, say, drums. Well, you need a band. A drum solo is nice for two or three minutes at the most. And then you need something else. Or bassoon. Well, you need an orchestra. You need a small group. By yourself, that's... But piano's nice, because... Piano and organ, you can be your one-person band that way, and it's nice. At least I'm playing. That's the important thing. And that's what I'm happy about. LB: Yeah, there's not a lot of bassoon-solo music to play, to entertain people. SZ: A group, there is but not by yourself. But... LB: No. Don't think that would work. And drums too. Can't have dining entertainment with just drums. So that would be an issue. So let's see. What do you think...? Oh... Yeah, I think we've hit everything on here. Let me ask you this. If you imagine that this video, which is going into the archives at Muhlenberg...? And I've been doing a lot of these. I told you before that I did a bunch of AIDS -- ones about AIDS. And I did ten of those. And those were pretty interesting. Oh, and you were... You've already talked about some of your protesting stuff. I've asked everybody what they were concerned about with regard to Black Lives Matter and with regard to political -- SZ: The election. LB: -- and the election. And you've talked about that. So someday, in the future, thirty years from now, somebody's going to look at this, maybe, or forty or fifty years, to see what it was like for individuals during the COVID-19 epidemic. What do you want to say to that person, to tell them what it was like and what it's like for your experience, at this point? And, you know, we're in the middle of the ep-- not even in the middle. We're at the beginning of the epidemic. We don't even know what's going to happen. SZ: Well, in the first wave. LB: Yeah. SZ: The only thing I would have... And this might not be the closest answer to thi-- Bu-- when I heard that this happened back in 1918, it kind of gave me a little bit of hope that, "Oh, we have been through this before." And some sources I looked at kind of said that it's almost like every hundred years, that there was something big in the 1800s, 1700s, 1600s, that there was some kind of plague or some kind of viral or -- infection that went and killed a lot of people -- but if you can actually go back quite a ways. So people have gotten through this. LB: Yeah. Yeah. SZ: It makes you wonder. It's like I... What...? We never heard, much, of a pandemic, you know? You heard about the Titanic but you didn't hear much about the pandemic. And so it's l-- we will get through this. There's been a number of -- I guess they're called memes -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- that have been on there. And one was saying that, "Well, gee. It's like there's three things at once." We got the pandemic, we've got a depression starting, and we've got racial unrest, at the same time. Whereas before was one at a ti-- now you got all three. And so it's made it a very trying time for everybody. Because it's not just... And this has been like a tornado, the way it hit. Some people hardly get hit at all -- and I would say I'm one of those -- and, I'm sure, some that got hit not at all and others that lost everything. And in the next little time, they're going to find out that there's no money for rent. And eventually they put this off. But it's going to be there. Is there another stimulus check coming or not? And what are the terms of that going to be? And you look at what other countries have done. You look what little has been done here. For the very rich, they've got billions of -- and that way. And certain brands, you've learned now, it's li-- We're never going to that restaurant, never going to buy that brand of jeans -- and other things that way. And it's like, you know, you cons-- LB: Talk about the... I think this is an important thing. Because Trish was just saying that somebody said that, when you go into a store right now, the only beans on the shelf are Goya. Because no one is buying them. SZ: Good. LB: And that's because, for people in the future watching this, the CEO of Goya made some very, very pro-Trump statements. And Goya is a brand... Twice, and unapologetically, and gave lots of money to his campaign. And then one of the things is that Goya products is mostly purchased by Latinos, in the United States. And Trump has been particularly negative toward Latinos -- who are the people who buy these beans, or, you know, the other Goya products. So there is an actual significant effect -- it's happening already -- that... Sometimes, you know, people will talk about a boycott and nothing really ha-- you know, it's not that much. Because there's so much going on. Boycott Amazon. But then everybody has to use Amazon, to be able to... SZ: Or Facebook was another one. LB: Boycott Facebook, yeah. But everybody's using Facebook. But the circumstance with Goya is that the actual demographic of people who use Goya... Also, there are absolutely substitutes for that that are not bad. So it'll be interesting to see, you person in the future, if the Goya company is affected by this or if they get rid of the CEO. I don't know what his position is. But... But it's an interesting thing that you brought up the beans. Don't buy those bean anymore! SZ: Yeah. What I'll mention online too is that Ruth's -- Chris -- Steakhouse -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- a very fine steakhouse... And they try... And then they got caught. So they gave the money back. LB: Yeah. SZ: That the conditions weren't all the... Oh, they knew. And there are plenty of other ones. But that was one that was really publicized. It's l-- S-- I know there's one in Philadelphia and there's several others. It's like, there's other steakhouses. LB: Right. Right. And other people who've made that money. That's true. And it's bad. It's... What we're talking about is the huge stimulus to corporations that went to individual corporations. It was supposed to go to small businesses that were really struggling. And it was millions and millions and millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, that ended up going to some big, enormous corporations, that really didn't need the money. And then they acted as though -- "Oh, well, we didn't know that this..." And some -- and you have to hand it to them -- some of them gave the money back. Others have... SZ: Got shamed into it. Yeah. LB: And so at least they did those things. They were a little bit more hip. But... Yeah. It's the interesting thing, about the beans, or about the restaurants or whomever is doing stuff. But I think, you know, we have to... It's an economic circumstance. Yeah. So that's a great thing to talk about for the future. And so is there anything else you want to say or toss in or talk about here? SZ: Not really. It's been very nice talking with you. LB: It's been lovely talking with you! I don't get to see you enough. And I've known you -- SZ: They too-- LB: -- for the twenty-five years, more probably than that. So it's wonderful to talk to you. And you look chipper and... SZ: You like the color? Huh, huh, huh? LB: Yeah! Yeah, I got the same shirt on, I think, as you, but just a different color. So there you go. And it's great to see your little doggie, who's happy. And I'm glad you have your dog, to be able to pet and hug while you're... SZ: Oh, that helps. This is my sixth consecutive pug -- LB: (laughs) SZ: -- since 1975. LB: It's a pug-a-thon! SZ: And this was a stray also too. And he was thin. And I want through the Pug Group. And ten people wanted this one. LB: Huh. SZ: And I just keep after the person, and, it turned out, the person who was in charge of doing this. And somehow... He was in the police department for a while. Nobody came to pick him up. And, all of a sudden, one day -- it was a Sunday afternoon -- I get this call -- was, "Well, I've decided to pick you." "Okay. And I'll come over to Easton." "Oh, no. We're coming over to you." LB: Oh... SZ:They wanted to check out the backyard, make sure you are who you say. And they had one of the K-9 police cars. And her husband came. Big car, big Ford LTD, and all the special stuff you'd have for the police car and this little pug in the back. LB:(laughs) SZ: And she brought him over. And so I had to give him a name. I had to think ab-- I didn't want to do Pugsley again. Every now and then, you'd think of the dog. You think Pugsley. And I've had two Pugsleys in a row. I didn't want to go for three Pugsleys in a row. So I had to pick a new name. I picked Atlas. Because he seemed much stronger. He seemed a little bigger than the other pugs. And... He was well-adjusted. So there wasn't much to train or anything. LB: Oh, that's good. SZ: And he... They're very stubborn. They're set in their ways. And so you learn to adapt to him. It's usually easier to do it that way. LB: Well, he's lucky to be in a... I would presume you have air conditioning, complete... SZ: Oh, yeah. Got a new system, two years ago. And I'm so happy. LB: Yeah. That was smart. I wish we had it. We have units. They're not -- or not in the house. I'm in the third floor and I don't think I can really cool it up here. I can make it not devastating. But I can't make it actually cool enough to just go, "That's cool." The second floor, we can do that. But we can't do it on the third floor. It's too hot. But anyway. So it's great... SZ: When the electric bill comes... LB: Pardon me? SZ: When the electric bill comes. LB: Yeah. This is the first day that we've used our air condition-- except in my office, in here, because it's so hot here. But, yeah. We can usually stand it pretty hot. But it was too much, last night, was over one hundred. And it was just too much. We did run the air conditioner, to sleep by. It was so hot, though. Trish got up at five o'clock to water the garden -- SZ: Ah! LB: -- because it was so hot outside. It was in the nineties in the night. So. It got down into the eighties. But... But it's supposed to cool off a little. SZ: I'm hoping. LB: Anyway, it's been lovely talking to you. I've really enjoyed it. It's been great to see you. You look great. And keep up the good work, Steve. You know, you've been such a loyal activist, for many, many years. I always think of you as kind of a Mr. Rogers voice, with the intensity of Mr. Rogers, as well, in terms of always being there to really make change. And I was just talking -- I just want to tell you that I've been interviewed for the archives, the oral history archives. I'm talking about all the stuff that we did for the ordinance and passing the ordinance and everything. And I was talking about how we would go to the on-site things, where Frank McVeigh was, and that time that I called you and you and Tom [Enby?] came over really fast. We were at the Ag Hall. You were there like in minutes. And it was so terrific. And that we also went to the churches, to try to... Because they were getting... SZ: Just thinking of tha-- LB: And how that guy was there with a video camera, because he thought, if he videoed us and we were representing the gay side, that we would be embarrassed. And you and I both turned to the camera and waved. (laughs) And you've always been -- as a public school teacher, I've always pointed to you as someone who is so willing to be out and an inspiration to students. And terrific that you've done that. I mean, you know, you had letters to the editor, identifying yourself as a public school teacher, when we didn't even have the rights. So you were really out there. Good for you. I really appreciate all that work that you did. Well, thanks! SZ: Thank you. LB: Well, you're welcome. So we'll see you around campus. And I'm going to turn the record off now. And thank you, again. 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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01:03:12
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Steve Ziminsky, July 20, 2020
Description
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Steven Ziminsky talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting him as a retired teacher, a musician, and a church music director who is featured on Zoom church services. He also discusses exercise and civil rights and political activism.
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PH40_28
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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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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/2f27b8008d7adc6abc086a8e1ea3634a.png
e7b9469eaf34a8187ad598897dcf63ea
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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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Liz Bradbury
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Stephen Libby & Gary Gaugler. Jr.
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_20.xml
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5.4 July 29, 2020 Stephen Libby & ; Gary Gaugler, Jr., July 29, 2020 PH40_20 01:00:57 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) Stephen Libby & ; Gary Gaugler. Jr. Liz Bradbury video/mpeg LibbyStephenGauglerJrGary_20200729_video.mp4 1.0:|27(5)|54(6)|85(5)|132(2)|157(3)|178(12)|197(12)|214(15)|233(7)|258(14)|277(17)|306(13)|329(17)|348(11)|371(2)|396(5)|423(6)|448(12)|473(7)|494(5)|517(14)|542(19)|563(13)|588(6)|621(3)|646(4)|683(2)|708(8)|741(10)|766(4)|791(2)|820(9)|843(13)|886(3)|903(12)|924(2)|941(15)|968(4)|993(4)|1016(6)|1049(12)|1080(6)|1109(13)|1136(7)|1163(4)|1184(6)|1213(4)|1238(2)|1261(4)|1286(2)|1315(15)|1346(9)|1373(2)|1396(8)|1427(4)|1452(6)|1483(9)|1516(3)|1539(16)|1570(2)|1609(5) 0 https://youtu.be/3XKYK6N19xo YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LB: With this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBTQ Community Center and the Trexler Library, Muhlenberg College, to collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBTQ community, electing and curating local LGBTQ health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I’m here with Stephen Libby and Gary Gaugler Jr., to talk about their experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBTQ community during this time of COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBTQ community archives. 0 270 Stephen working as a social worker/Gary working in trade compliance from home during the pandemic SL: Yeah. I’m looking for something new. I think of the questions later, but just for a natural flow, I am, you know, just very concerned about going in to visit COVID positive people in COVID positive facilities or homes. As a social worker, I don’t feel like I have the training, like a doctor or a nurse might, for this kind of epidemic. I’m just not really comfortable doing that. [...]
 ; 
 ; GG: [...] And we were told, when we all were back on July 1st, that they would not be sending us home again, no matter how bad it got, because they were so disappointed that when they told us we could optionally come back, that nobody did. And since then, we’ve had a couple of people leave because they’ve gotten COVID. And the governor has released a statement that -- an order -- that if you are able to telework, you must do so. And the company has refused to acknowledge that, and many people have reported them to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. And I’ve not heard anything.
 ; 0 860 Gary's experience working for his company as a gay man/Comparing World War II business and citizen protocols with pandemic business and citizen protocols GG: It’s always, as a gay man, it’s always been very interesting to work. I’ve worked at this company for just under 14 years, and it’s always been very interesting, not just towards gay people, but towards black people, towards Hispanic people, towards women, even, I mean, it’s very cripplingly old fashioned. And so this is really the worst it’s ever been. 
 ; 0 1066 Getting used to being together all the time/Social distancing/Communicating with others virtually GG: I was very excited to ditch my forty minute each way commute. But, yeah, as I drove home with all my work stuff, I thought to myself, “Oh, my God, I don’t know what working with him at home, living with him, like, all full time is going to be like.” And we kind of got around her question. But I’m going to finish. For us, I found, I think he’s (laughs) I don’t know. The whole time that we were home, at least before I went back to work, we got along maybe better than we ever did. And we got along very -- I mean, we get along very well. I think we’re a pretty solid, functional couple to begin with. But, yeah, we really -- I think we’ve taken this whole pandemic so seriously, -- and really don’t go out. We don’t socialize. We don’t have people here to socialize -- that we rely on each other. And I think that, kind of knowing that kept us from the usual stuck inside for a snow weekend or whatever, kept us from reverting to, “Oh my God, it’s you again.” 0 1381 Exercising/Working on "The Gay Journal"/Gardening/Home projects SL: --we for a three-and-a-half-mile walk. I still do that every day, even since Gary’s gone back to work. And we were doing that pretty religiously every day if it wasn’t raining or whatever. And a little bit of -- we don’t have a home gym, so a little bit of a workout that I learned some stuff from my sister, who teaches physical fitness training online, so (inaudible). And I’ve been working on the magazine for two issues. Yeah. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah. It’s pretty intense. 
 ; 
 ; SL: Oh, and we have a vegetable garden that’s much healthier and pretty soon, more than the one we had last year. We planted more flowers. 0 1501 Pandemic affecting animals' eating patterns/Adhering to pandemic safety protocols LB: [...] Because restaurants are selling food to people that they take it away, and throwing the food away in their garbage cans behind the restaurants, restaurants where cats hang out. And so it really changed the patterns of most kinds of animals. They’re seeking out houses and stuff to hang around (inaudible). It’s scary. 
 ; 
 ; SL: I think we also found out, you know, like, that we are taking -- we’re at one end of the spectrum. 
 ; 
 ; GG: We’re extreme. 
 ; 0 1572 Cooking at home SL: We haven’t done any kind of carryout, which we feel bad about because we want to support places. But I don’t know that I’d be able to enjoy it. We found that we both like to cook more than we thought we did. We have build your own pizza night on Friday nights for the last eighteen weeks. 0 1613 More on gardening/More on social distancing SL: And then we had mint, and we inherited from the previous owners a huge raspberry bush, which just keeps tipping over a little bit more and little bit more each year. So that was great. We got about, I would say, eight or ten cups of those. And then, you know, the neighbors on either side, so the young couple on this side with a two-year-old. And then we have an older couple that’s mostly retired on this side. And, you know, we’ve noticed that they’re doing things totally differently, too. [...] 0 1696 Liz ordering takeout/Grocery shopping LB: We were. And then we have a young person in our life who came back from college and had COVID-19, and it was serious, but she has totally recovered. And so she has a lot of antibodies. They tested her through the Lehigh Valley Health Network. So she shops for us, and we don’t even have to feel guilty about the fact that she might get this, because she is less likely to get it. She’s got the highest level defense that one could have, as long as that lasts. She’s going back to college in a couple of weeks, and then we’ll have to go back to either ordering stuff or doing what we’re doing. And, you know, we wanted to get -- Trish loves to get chicken from Mr. Bill’s, but Mr. Bill’s will not order -- like, we can’t pay them in advance and go pick up stuff. 0 1805 Stephen's concerns during the pandemic SL: My biggest concern -- well, so I would say my biggest concern personally would be for our families, obviously. And then also for myself, because I have smoked for years. I’ve had different ailments. I usually get bronchitis once or twice a year. I mean, all these other things. And when I was doing hospice, you know, you would find that everybody that you go visit is also treating it differently. And that can depend on something as stupid as politics, you know. 0 1934 England's Covid-19 protocols/President Trump's ideas on Covid-19 testing GG: It’s frustrating because we did this thinking it would be gone, like the other countries, in a few months. And so, to see it continue on when we’ve been doing what we were told to do from the beginning is frustrating. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Right. I mean, in England, where they shut down every single household, you could not leave your house for three months. And it’s gone. They’re shooting television shows with audiences full of people, and they’re safe because they’ve all been tested and they all know that there’s no danger and stuff, because they -- you know, and they, for 90 days, they stayed inside. 0 2040 Gary's concerns and concerns for the LGBT community/marginalized people GG: And so I’m going to -- so, to your question, I would echo exactly what Steve said about concerns for obviously myself, my family. As a smoker as well, as a family of half and half smokers, and just some old people. But for the LGBT community, you know, I want to say I don’t know if it’s the administration, I don’t know if it was because, God forbid, we asked people to stay inside for two months. I don’t know if I’m just blind to what I thought we were as a country, but, you know, we’ve seen this whole outbreak of racist nonsense with black people and lynchings and nooses hanging from trees and, you know, white lives matter, all lives matter. 0 2219 Stephen's work on "The Gay Journal"/Gary possibly writing a book LB: [...] Talk about the magazine, Steve, because I think that’s an important thing. 
 ; 
 ; SL: So, yeah. The first issue that we worked on, so that would have been the summer issue, when the pandemic started, I couldn’t bring myself to ask anyone if they had money to advertise in that issue. So that was an online only issue. We still produced it. It was still thirty-ish pages. My designer still worked on it. We still paid him. We posted it on the website. It’s a beautiful looking issue. I really wish that we could have printed that. 0 2619 Gary knowing of people who have contracted Covid-19/Frustrations over others not taking pandemic seriousl LB: So have you known anybody that’s been sick? Or more than sick? 
 ; 
 ; SL: No. Right. 
 ; 
 ; GG: Well, a couple of people. For me, people on Facebook that, you know, you know how Facebook works. It’s not direct friends necessarily. It’s -- a couple of people on Facebook that we know have had it. But nobody close to me. 
 ; 0 2871 Anxiety over working in-person during the pandemic SL: I think when we talk about it with someone like you, I think we’re in pretty good shape. I think, you know, there’s anxiety when Gary comes home from work because they’re still -- they’re actually being way more aggressive with getting people back to work, telling people if they leave, they’re going to consider that their resignation if they’re concerned about safety and all this other stuff. So I think in some ways, it’s gotten a little worse anxiety-wise for us. 0 2990 Wearing masks/Steve Ziminsky and his former roommate who contracted Covid SL: [...] And then, again, the same thing with Gary’s work. Some people are wearing masks, some people are not. They’re not enforcing it because they are looking at it the other way. You know, people are complaining, ”It’s against my freedom. I don’t have to wear a mask. I shouldn’t have to wear a mask. You can’t force me.” Versus looking at it from the other perspective that everyone should be wearing a mask so that we’re all safe. And, you know, they don’t look at it that way.
 ; 0 3163 Thoughts on Black Lives Matter GG: I just think it’s very disappointing that we’re even still having the conversation. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah. 
 ; 
 ; GG: Really, all I have to say about it, I guess I live in a delusional world where all of this does not matter anymore because people are smarter than this. But....
 ; 
 ; SL: Well, and I also think it just complicated, you know, having COVID happening while Black Lives Matter protests were happening. You know, it really complicated things because, again, I didn’t feel comfortable going out and taking part in marches and stuff like that. I mean, we live vicariously through Facebook and what we were seeing on the news, and friends of our that actually did go out, that either had young African American -- you know, adolescent African American children that wanted to go out and be part of this, or witness this, or be part of history. 0 3283 Finding hope in America's future political prospects SL: Well, so yeah, I do think maybe Joe Biden gives us hope. I hope that the country -- I hope that there’s enough people that maybe couldn’t vote for Hillary because that didn’t excite them, that are disappointed enough to vote for Biden. I mean, I really think that realistically, that’s what we’re looking at. 
 ; 
 ; LB: I saw a meme about Biden, and he had a picture of him, and he said, “Well, let me read you my platform.” And then the bottom of the meme said, “You had me at let me read.” 0 3528 Discussing "murder hornets" SL: And I’m just glad we haven’t seen the orange wasps or whatever the -- 
 ; 
 ; GG: (laughs) Killer hornets. 
 ; 
 ; SL: The murder hornets. I don’t know. And so, hopefully, we’re not going to see those. 
 ; 
 ; GG: No, but every time I see one of those cicada killer wasps in the yard, one of those. I’m like, is it? Is it? (laughs)
 ; 0 3601 Thoughts for the future/Conclusion LB: Is there anything else you’d like to tell the future? And say, you know, here’s what the story is about this now, and we hope you’re doing this -- 
 ; 
 ; SL: I don’t think so. Just, you know, say hello to your president, Rachel Levine, in the future. (laughs) Because she’s doing a great job right now. 
 ; 
 ; LB: From us. Yeah. One of the things [Ollie Riley?] just said was, “Yeah, this is what I want to say to the future. If we can work this hard during a pandemic, you better have fixed it.”
 ; 0 MovingImage Steve and Gary talk about how the COVID-19 virus is affecting them. They talk about each working from home and how it affects themselves and each other. They talk about what it’s like at their jobs, and how possible exposure to infection has caused them to reconsider their employment and why. They describe the care they are taking to stay safe and consider why they are not speaking time with people who are not caring the kind of care they are. Stephen Libby & ; Gary Gaugler Jr. 2020-07-29 LIZ BRADBURY: Here we go. And now I'm going to turn to back-up recording, because I'm anal retentive, and it's a good thing I am, because I've got a couple of recording issues, including that in the middle of Ollie's thing, it went off. And I don't know whether it was his or mine, but I had a strong signal the whole time. I have no idea what -- never happened. That was my twenty-fourth interview, and you guys are -- actually, it's more than that. No, it's more than that, because the one after it is -- it was my twenty-eighth interview. So you guys are twenty-nine for me. And I had never had that happen, and I've been on lots of other Zoom calls, too, and it just disappeared completely off the screen like it was never there. It froze for a while, and then it just disappeared. So I hope that that doesn't happen again. But I don't know. Well, anyway. So, let me read you this stuff. So, can you hear me okay? GARY GAUGLER, JR.: Yeah. LB: With this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBTQ Community Center and the Trexler Library, Muhlenberg College, to collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBTQ community, electing and curating local LGBTQ health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I'm here with Stephen Libby and Gary Gaugler Jr., to talk about their experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBTQ community during this time of COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBTQ community archives. Today is July 29, 2020, and we're meeting on Zoom. So, and I have to check to be sure I'm recording for sure. Okay. And I've pinned you, so that's good. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full names and spell them for me? STEPHEN LIBBY: Sure. Stephen Libby. S-T-E-P-H-E-N. Libby, L-I-B-B-Y. GG: Gary Gaugler, Jr. G-A-R-Y G-A-U-G-L-E-R, junior. LB: All right. And, could you please share your birth dates. SL: March 27, 1964. GG: July 8, 1983. LB: All righty. So, and I wanted -- we have to do this just for the location stuff -- what town are you in? and you're in Allentown. Is that correct? Good. So, this is the consent part. Do you consent to this interview today? SL: Yes. GG: Yes. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in surgical formats? SL: Yes. GG: 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 formats we may not even know about today? SL: Yes. GG: Yes. LB: Do you understand that you'll have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts you'd like to delete, and withdraw your interview from the project if you so choose? SL: Yes. GG: Yes. LB: Okay. So, I need to ask you what your zip code is there? SL: 18103. LB: Okay. And what are your ages, it says on this sheet? Sort of redundant. GG: Yes. Thirty-seven. LB: I didn't get yours, Steve. GG: I'm sorry. Fifty-six. LB: Okay. How do you identify within the LGBTQ community? Transgender, gay, lesbian, bi, pansexual, blah blah blah. SL: Gay. GG: Gay. LB: Okay. And Cisgender? SL: Yes. No. Yes. Yes. LB: And I can say that because I know you, so it's not like I'm making a presumption. SL: Right. LB: So, you know, I sent you these questions already, and there are things to consider. If you don't want to talk about these things, I'm perfectly fine with that. You talk about whatever you want. But let me just ask you right up front, because we're asking everybody, who's in your house with you? I mean, so you look -- you guys both live there, but what else? Is there anybody else there? SL: We have two cats. We have Tigger and we have Nugget. Yes. LB: There you go. So that's good, because some people are all by themselves and it's very hard. So, have you both been working? And tell me about what you each do, and how you've been working during the pandemic and that (inaudible). SL: Okay. So I'm a social worker for a hospice agency. And I typically go out and do emotional support for patients, their families. That could be visits, phone calls, and work with the rest of our team, which includes nurses, aides, chaplain, to provide the best care for people at end of life. LB: Would you say that you are part of Lehigh Valley Health Network? What's your organization? SL: No. Bayada. LB: Okay. Gary, you want to... GG: I work in trade compliance. And that's dealing with imports and exports of our company's material. I work in a manufacturing facility in the Lehigh Valley. LB: So how's it been for work? Have you both been going regularly to work? Why don't you start out, since you started on the first part? SL: Yeah, sure. So when this first hit, I wasn't happy with the response from some people in my company, which tended to make me panic a little bit. And so, I started to do as much as I could do from home, which led to me being moved to per diem, and then led to me being furloughed for two months. And then was hired back part-time a month ago. And now I am going to be leaving that position. Friday will be my last day. LB: And are you done there and you're looking for something new? Or... SL: Yeah. I'm looking for something new. I think of the questions later, but just for a natural flow, I am, you know, just very concerned about going in to visit COVID positive people in COVID positive facilities or homes. As a social worker, I don't feel like I have the training, like a doctor or a nurse might, for this kind of epidemic. I'm just not really comfortable doing that. LB: Yeah. I can see that. What about your work situation, Gary? GG: We were all sent to work from home in late March. And my work has been very, very aggressive in their summoning us back. We were told in mid-to-late-May, and Pennsylvania was at its peak, that we should come back optionally. But June 1st, they wanted fifty percent back. July 1st was one hundred percent back. And we were told, when we all were back on July 1st, that they would not be sending us home again, no matter how bad it got, because they were so disappointed that when they told us we could optionally come back, that nobody did. And since then, we've had a couple of people leave because they've gotten COVID. And the governor has released a statement that -- an order -- that if you are able to telework, you must do so. And the company has refused to acknowledge that, and many people have reported them to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. And I've not heard anything. I'm sure they're quite swamped with what, you know, the reportings that they get on different businesses, because I doubt my company is the only one that feels they're above the law. So my workplace has become very hostile. Somebody brought in a doctor's note yesterday that said they should be able to work from home, they're high risk. It was immediately handed back to them, and they were told, "We can't allow you to, because anybody that's at high risk will want to work from home, then." And she said, "Well, we're all supposed to be working from home right now." And the response was, "Well, we're essential." But my understanding of the governor's and Dr. Levine's press conference, now two weeks ago, was it was not essential or non-essential. If you could telework, you were not to go to work. LB: I know hospital workers working from home that are absolutely essential, but they're working from home. I mean, I guess the definition of "essential" is that you have to be on-site, but if you can work from home, you're not essential for that. GG: Yeah. Right. SL: And Gary's business is kind of twisting the definition, or stretching the definition of "essential." GG: Yeah. When this whole thing started, my company is the world's largest global manufacturer of pipe fittings. And one of things that they also produce is sprinkler heads for fire protection in hospitals and hotels, anywhere you see fire sprinklers. And so they wrote to the governor and said, "We are essential. We create life-saving devices," and that was all true. The [Bradford's?] facility -- oops! Our facility in the Lehigh Valley has never, ever manufactured a sprinkler head. They're all manufactured in Leland, North Carolina. Oops. So, yeah, they've kind of been twisting everything from the beginning to make this work out in their favor, and creating this series of -- LB: I mean, is there a circumstance where, if you're working -- I mean, I have to say that we've been working from home, and I've done more work than I've ever done. I don't waste my time walking to work, you know. And, like, when you're at work, you feel like, "Well, I'm at work," whether you get work done or not. SL: Yeah. GG: Yeah. SL: Gary said that after he was working at home for a few weeks, his supervisor came back, or his director came back and said, "You know, we're tracking productivity, and productivity is higher than it's been for a long time with all of you guys working from home." But then, it seemed like -- I'll let you speak for yourself after I say this to lead into that -- is that you were saying that it seemed like they were just scared that once the pandemic was over, that people were going to want to continue to work from home. And so it seemed like that sent a panic through upper management, and then a rush to get people back into the office. LB: It's such a weird thing, because what this -- what we're all seeming to learn throughout this, from this pandemic, is that the way we all work can really be different. It doesn't need to be this way at all. GG: I agree. And the method to my madness when this whole thing first started, because my company is so old fashioned, and very truly old fashioned, not just with working from home options. But I knew that this was a rarity, and so my thought was, I'm going to, while I am home, I'm going to, you know, really overachieve so that I don't want them to think that we're slacking. And so I really wanted to do more than I usually do. Because, as you said, you go into work, and you're like, "Oh, what say (inaudible) say today? What time did (inaudible) say today?" You know, and you're in your own TMZ before you know it. It's just this spiraling, you know, whatever. So I really wanted to make a point that it was something that could be done, and I was not taking advantage of the situation. I can't speak for all 800 employees in office space that they did that, but I think it works for some people. Doesn't work for others. And I don't know why, after three months, they felt -- there should be a way to measure. If you're less productive, you have to come back and be watched. If not -- LB: I wonder if they get, like, a huge write-off or something for having a big building. You know, because it's hard to justify having a huge building if you don't want to have 35 -- GG: Well, also, not just that. Our CEO is friends with Pat Toomey, and they golf together regularly. And I've been informed that he is going to ask for the maximum amount of money back in whatever it is, emergency relief or whatever, because we are so essential that we're the only company in the Lehigh Valley that has 100 percent staff back daily. LB: I see. So you won't be able to say that if everybody's home. Okay, that's an interesting point of view. GG: It's always, as a gay man, it's always been very interesting to work. I've worked at this company for just under 14 years, and it's always been very interesting, not just towards gay people, but towards black people, towards Hispanic people, towards women, even, I mean, it's very cripplingly old fashioned. And so this is really the worst it's ever been. LB: Really makes you aware of it, it shows. GG: You know, you go into work for a business or a company knowing that even if they say, you know, employees are number one, you know the company's number one. And you understand that. You're working for the company. You want the company to do well as much as you want yourself to do well. But somewhere along the line, I feel like, at least for me, I feel like -- I said from the beginning of the pandemic, and I know I'm just talking and talking, but -- LB: That's okay, except for Steve. GG: I feel like, not just with companies, but with people, you're really seeing people for what they really are. And it's brought out a lot of good in people and a lot of caring in people. But it's also brought out a terrible, really awful side of people in businesses, and presidents. LB: (laughs) You know, you see this during war, too. Where people, in World War II, I think, in particular, where people were rationing because they needed rubber for the -- SL: Yeah. Sure. LB: And then people were stockpiling and hoarding it, and they were black market, and they were, you know, jacking up prices, and companies were profiteering and stuff. And then there were -- most people, frankly, a huge number of American, or people in the country who were just doing everything they could. Raising victory gardens and collecting rubber, and not -- and rendering fat, and doing all sorts of things like that, that every minute of every day, because they were thinking about people who were fighting and what they were fighting for. And people who were victims of war and oppression in Europe at the time. And, you know, it is -- I think this does show, in this kind of thing, how much are you willing to sacrifice? Well, nothing at all. Won't sacrifice anything, you know. I want to be totally like nothing has happened, even though everything has happened. And then other people who will say -- so, as I said, this is my twenty-ninth, of twenty-nine people I've interviewed -- I did the first ten were HIV/AIDS folks that lived through the epidemic. Was that different group of people, but I also talked to them all about COVID, too. Everyone has said the same thing, all the people that I've interviewed have said the same thing, that what you're saying -- that people -- a frustration, and I probably would ask you about this, too. But the frustration of people just acting like -- not pulling together at a time when we all need each other, you know. So are you communicating with other pals on the phone? Or are they coming over to swim? Or are they, you know, what's the deal? GG: (laughs) SL: When we -- I'm going to let Gary tell his story. He tells it very well. When he tells the story that you tell, when you first brought your mom into his home. GG: About having people over to swim? SL: No. Just that he brought his monitors home, and he said he was telling people to work, or maybe his mom on the way home on a phone call, "Oh, you know..." Because there's such an age difference, and we have a lot in common, but there's a lot of things we don't have in common, especially maybe hobbies and downtime and movies, you know, video games, stuff like that. So he goes, "Well, wait and see what the hell this is going --" GG: I was very excited to ditch my forty minute each way commute. But, yeah, as I drove home with all my work stuff, I thought to myself, "Oh, my God, I don't know what working with him at home, living with him, like, all full time is going to be like." And we kind of got around her question. But I'm going to finish. For us, I found, I think he's (laughs) I don't know. The whole time that we were home, at least before I went back to work, we got along maybe better than we ever did. And we got along very -- I mean, we get along very well. I think we're a pretty solid, functional couple to begin with. But, yeah, we really -- I think we've taken this whole pandemic so seriously, -- and really don't go out. We don't socialize. We don't have people here to socialize -- that we rely on each other. And I think that, kind of knowing that kept us from the usual stuck inside for a snow weekend or whatever, kept us from reverting to, "Oh my God, it's you again." SL: Yeah. So we talked with other medical professionals in the beginning of this, when I was per diem, and then when I was furloughed for two months, and Gary was already working from home. And so we had a good two months, a little bit more, together at home. The room that we're sitting in right now is kind of our big great room that they added on to the house between the main house and then going out to the back yard. So Gary had this room all to himself during the work hours during the day. I would work in the living room inside the main house. And I think we both, after talking with those medical professionals, came to the same conclusion, that we only wanted to go out if it was absolutely necessary. And then that was also what was being told to us by our governor and by Secretary of Health Levine. And so that's what we were trying to adhere to. And I would make a list and go to the grocery store and spend 500 dollars, and that would last us for a month. And I didn't want to go back there again until we absolutely needed to go back. We didn't visit any friends. We started a Zoom happy hour on Friday afternoons, late Friday afternoon. Then we started Zooming with, or Facetiming, whatever, with his family as well. And they all live local, but we didn't have any of them over. They didn't have us over. Then we started Zooming with my family in Maine. Then we started Zooming with friends in Florida, with friends in Tennessee. And we kept that up, especially the local guides that are mostly on our kickball team, you know, on the Friday nights. So we did that, and it seemed like some of them kind of got tired of it after a few weeks. GG: When we went to yellow and green, everybody -- we were the only ones that were still serious about it. (laughs) SL: Yeah. And so, that was okay. I mean, you know, they can do what they want to do. And then we just started doing it more with my family on Friday nights. And then what we did do when we opened the pool, is that we had, we'd been having Gary's parents over. And they sit a good ten feet from us at another table. We have our own table. They'd bring their own food, they'd bring their own alcohol. So this back room has three doors. They have their own door to go immediately into the basement to change and/or use the bathroom. And when they leave, we just wipe everything down, we keep everything closed. And that's what we've been doing for the last few weeks, when it's been nice enough on a Saturday, and they'll come over for a few hours. And that's really our only live socialization. LB: Yeah. Wow. Well, I can't -- SL: Again, we're going to the grocery store. I don't think we've done -- we for a three-and-a-half-mile walk. I still do that every day, even since Gary's gone back to work. And we were doing that pretty religiously every day if it wasn't raining or whatever. And a little bit of -- we don't have a home gym, so a little bit of a workout that I learned some stuff from my sister, who teaches physical fitness training online, so (inaudible). And I've been working on the magazine for two issues. Yeah. LB: Yeah. It's pretty intense. SL: Oh, and we have a vegetable garden that's much healthier and pretty soon, more than the one we had last year. We planted more flowers. LB: Everybody's garden is way better than it's ever been. SL: Yeah. And we've done some home projects. I painted the bedroom. And, you know, things that we didn't -- that we were putting off, procrastinating since we moved in. LB: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that world that biggest divided that stays it divided between people who really did a lot of projects and found out that they just weren't going to do any projects, even though -- [Melinda Kahn?] said to me, "You know, I had always thought that -- I'd always planned that when I had time, I would work on these big projects because I was so into them. But apparently, I'm not." (laughter) Couldn't do it. And I talked to two other people who said stuff like, "I said I was going to do stuff and I didn't." I just say that I've been maniacal about doing stuff. So, like, I took all the nuts and bolts and stuff in the basement and divided them. And there's like hundreds of jars with little labels and stuff. That's really anal retentive. I was building things and -- crazy. SL: You may get a cat's ass in a minute. This happened the other night. LB: Yeah, get this. Hi, buddy. SL: Hello. That's Tigger. LB: Tigger. Yeah, I could tell. We have a lot of stray cats in our yard. And apparently, there's a lot more stray cats in the world in the 'burbs and stuff, Tigger, because -- Tigger (inaudible) are cats. Because restaurants are selling food to people that they take it away, and throwing the food away in their garbage cans behind the restaurants, restaurants where cats hang out. And so it really changed the patterns of most kinds of animals. They're seeking out houses and stuff to hang around (inaudible). It's scary. SL: I think we also found out, you know, like, that we are taking -- we're at one end of the spectrum. GG: We're extreme. SL: We're pretty extreme, we're finding out compared to other people, friends, relatives. Actually, our relatives are pretty good, but our friends, you know, are going on vacations, Outer Banks, stuff like that. Posting pictures, no masks, no social distancing. GG: No masks, cheek-to-cheek. SL: And we're like, so we don't want to invite them over to the pool. We don't want to really -- we haven't even gone out. We haven't done any kind of carryout, which we feel bad about because we want to support places. But I don't know that I'd be able to enjoy it. We found that we both like to cook more than we thought we did. We have build your own pizza night on Friday nights for the last eighteen weeks. GG: Nothing Trish level yet. (laughs) SL: No, but we have done crab meat pizza. We've done meatloaf pizza. We've done a bunch of things that are fun. LB: That's wonderful. SL: Made some fun desserts. Gary's been making vegetable scrambled eggs almost every Sunday. We didn't get tired of those for a long time. The last two weeks we didn't do them, but sixteen or seventeen weeks, so.... LB: What do you have in the garden? SL: So, you want to answer that? I've been talking for a while. GG: Tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, radish, beets. SL: Pumpkin. GG: Pumpkins. And flowers. That's it. LB: Wow. Great. SL: And then we had mint, and we inherited from the previous owners a huge raspberry bush, which just keeps tipping over a little bit more and little bit more each year. So that was great. We got about, I would say, eight or ten cups of those. And then, you know, the neighbors on either side, so the young couple on this side with a two-year-old. And then we have an older couple that's mostly retired on this side. And, you know, we've noticed that they're doing things totally differently, too. They'll have family over, not really social distancing and stuff like that. And again, people would probably look at Gary's parents coming over. We're not wearing masks, but -- GG: They're far away. SL: They sit far away from us. LB: I have to say that of all the people I've interviewed -- I've interviewed twenty-nine people -- they have been extraordinarily -- they'll all like you. And Trish and I are even -- we don't even go to the store. We don't go to the grocery store. SL: Do you order? So you're ordering out? You're ordering delivery? LB: We were. And then we have a young person in our life who came back from college and had COVID-19, and it was serious, but she has totally recovered. And so she has a lot of antibodies. They tested her through the Lehigh Valley Health Network. So she shops for us, and we don't even have to feel guilty about the fact that she might get this, because she is less likely to get it. She's got the highest level defense that one could have, as long as that lasts. She's going back to college in a couple of weeks, and then we'll have to go back to either ordering stuff or doing what we're doing. And, you know, we wanted to get -- Trish loves to get chicken from Mr. Bill's, but Mr. Bill's will not order -- like, we can't pay them in advance and go pick up stuff. They won't do drop off, and we've been their customer for thirty years, thirty-three years. And they won't even, like, bring the stuff -- they have a door right behind their booth. Just call them, say we want eight chicken breasts, here's the money over the phone, and we'll just come and get it. Why would they not do that? I mean, you know, it's very upsetting, because that, not being able to shop, is just driving Trish crazy, because she does everything based on, you know, bargains. And she said, like, "I could be getting a flat of strawberries at the farmers' market and canning one hundred jars of strawberry jelly. And you could get it for ten dollars. You can't get that anyplace else. I could be getting it, but I'd have to be there, and I'd have...." She did that every year for -- she just canned thirteen jars of grape jelly from the grapes in the backyard. SL: Wow. Cool. LB: But, so anyway, what's your biggest concern in the pandemic, you know, for your personal biggest concern? And then also, just sort of for the LGBTQ community, if you could (inaudible). So what do you think about that, guys? SL: My biggest concern -- well, so I would say my biggest concern personally would be for our families, obviously. And then also for myself, because I have smoked for years. I've had different ailments. I usually get bronchitis once or twice a year. I mean, all these other things. And when I was doing hospice, you know, you would find that everybody that you go visit is also treating it differently. And that can depend on something as stupid as politics, you know. I got into a conversation with a woman who, said, "Oh, and so I'll be wearing a mask. Will you be able to wear a mask when I visit?" and she said, "Yeah, well, you know, wearing masks. And she --" LB: I've lost the sound for you. SL: Oh, I'm sorry. What did I do? LB: What happened? SL: Hello. LB: There you go. That's good. SL: So she just said that she felt that it was all overblown, and it really wasn't, you know, "Don't you think we're making too big of a thing out of this?" and I said, "Well, you know, I have to go and visit other patients after I visit you. I also have to come home. And so, I'm asking if you can wear a mask, it would be appreciated." And so she did. To her credit, she did. But, you know, a lot of what she was saying sounds like what we're hearing out of our leaders, some of our leaders. So it just is concerning. You now, when we are taking this very seriously, and then you go out to the grocery store or whatever, and you realize, well, jeez, not everyone's taking this seriously. And yet, could we sluff off a little bit? I guess. But I don't know why we would, really. GG: It's frustrating because we did this thinking it would be gone, like the other countries, in a few months. And so, to see it continue on when we've been doing what we were told to do from the beginning is frustrating. LB: Right. I mean, in England, where they shut down every single household, you could not leave your house for three months. And it's gone. They're shooting television shows with audiences full of people, and they're safe because they've all been tested and they all know that there's no danger and stuff, because they -- you know, and they, for 90 days, they stayed inside. Not one single person went outside in the entire country under penalty of law. And then it's okay. And then they're now -- we're (inaudible) still going to be a little careful and stuff like that. But for the most part, they've tested enough to really know, it's not there anymore. SL: Right. Right. LB: You know, that's the other thing, too, is that we haven't had that adequate testing, and that could have been something that could have really controlled this all along, too. GG: But, Liz, hear me out on this. The more you test, the more cases you'll find. LB: I know. GG: (laughs) LB: But for people in the future that are watching this video years from now (laughter)... GG: Sorry. I should have -- LB: The leader of our country said that the problem -- that we all don't hold in high regard -- said that if you test people, they will find more cases and the numbers will go up of the people who have had it. So then he didn't want people to be tested. SL: Well, and if for people that are watching this in the future, if you don't get a pregnancy test, you're not pregnant. LB: (laughs) Yeah, that's right. SL: And the logic follows. GG: And so I'm going to -- so, to your question, I would echo exactly what Steve said about concerns for obviously myself, my family. As a smoker as well, as a family of half and half smokers, and just some old people. But for the LGBT community, you know, I want to say I don't know if it's the administration, I don't know if it was because, God forbid, we asked people to stay inside for two months. I don't know if I'm just blind to what I thought we were as a country, but, you know, we've seen this whole outbreak of racist nonsense with black people and lynchings and nooses hanging from trees and, you know, white lives matter, all lives matter. And I look at Steve, and I don't want to sound ignorant, I really don't, and if I am, then I'm sorry. I always think we're good. Like, we're good, all of us, because I guess I put myself in a bubble where I don't associate with, or people like that don't associate with me, these people that feel this way. And our administration has felt this need to tell these people that I didn't really think were around anymore, to speak their minds and speak out. And, you know, as somebody that's studied history in college to be -- at one point I wanted to be a history teacher. I know that the blacks are cursed, and it's just going to spiral on from there. It's going to be the Jews. It's going to be the gays. It's going to -- it's certainly, it's trans. Trans has never gone out of style for being prejudiced against. So I just worry that we're the next in these peoples' freedom of speech to bash and go after their rights. SL: Liz, I think I lost your audio. GG: It's hers, I think. LB: I turned it off because I had a call. SL: There you go. LB: So you've talked about communicating with people around, and in some ways, I feel like I'm communicating a little more with people far away than I used to. So have you been doing any other sort of queer activities? You told me you were working on the magazine. Talk about the magazine, Steve, because I think that's an important thing. SL: So, yeah. The first issue that we worked on, so that would have been the summer issue, when the pandemic started, I couldn't bring myself to ask anyone if they had money to advertise in that issue. So that was an online only issue. We still produced it. It was still thirty-ish pages. My designer still worked on it. We still paid him. We posted it on the website. It's a beautiful looking issue. I really wish that we could have printed that. It came out -- we had some great artists and photography work in it, and great interviews. And all the contributors, including you, always come up with interesting, informative, entertaining content. And so that issue is online only for now. And then I started working on the fall issue. And I thought, well, you know, people started doing curbside and carryout and all this other stuff. And I thought, all right, I'm still going to put it out there, in case people do want to advertise. And, surprisingly, we got quite a few advertisers that came back, admittedly, probably about a third of what we usually get, but I was surprised that anyone came back. And so we talked with the printer about what paper options we had. You know, we thought maybe we had to change out paper to save a little bit of money because paper costs have been going up over the five years that we've been doing the magazine. And I think I had one ad rate increase in those five years, and we had paper increases, gosh, probably every, I don't know, four or five months. So I only passed that on once. Then she sent me some samples. I looked at some of the samples after wiping them all off with Clorox wipes once they arrived in my mailbox, because that's what a freak I am. And so I looked at those. And, anyway, so there was one, a non-glossy option that I thought was actually pretty good. So we talked about that. We talked about the money that that was going to cost. And so we're going to print 2,000 copies of that. And, because of that, and because of a couple of late advertisers, who were actually going to ad some pages from the -- actually we were going to add some pages anyway, because we're doing coming out stories for the first time, and we have over twenty people that volunteered to tell their coming out stories. Then we had the Black Lives Matter movement, so we had a couple of interviews. And then we have a centerfold with photos from the Black Lives movement protest from Philly and Lehigh Valley. And then we had some transgender. Corinne Goodman's writing something about trans black lives mattering, and deaths, and it's so far this year. And so then I thought, well, you know, there's some stuff in the summer issues. Maybe we can include that. So we added a few more pages. And we're going to include some of the stuff from the summer issue that was, you know, some of those great photos and artwork and stuff like that. LB: Yeah. Good. SL: So we're going to still have the glossy covers, and then the interior will be a non-gloss paper. And it's seventy-four pages plus covers instead of our regular forty-eight pages. LB: Do I need to do an article, or did I do one already? SL: You already did one. You did it about the Supreme Court -- LB: Yeah. The Bostock kids, yeah. Good, okay. That was smart of me. (laughs) SL: No, you have to do it, and our deadline is the 3rd of August. (laughter) LB: I would do it. You know, you and I -- SL: I know, but no, no, no. You're good. LB: You know, they're interviewing me for the archive, for the oral history now. And Mary [Paltz?] is doing it, and I said, "Mary, you know, I can't tell this story in one gig." So it's actually been like, I think, five sessions. And one of them, I was talking about how when we did the {Galligan?] Press, how some of us can just, like Trish, would research her article for days and days and days. And they were so meticulous with research. And I said, "Yes, Steve and I would spend about one day." I'm like, "Steve, you forgot to do your article." He said, "I'll get it to you in a few minutes." (laughs) SL: Every once in a while it would work. LB: And I said, "Trish and I don't know anything about pop culture anymore because that's the only way we ever knew anything was, oh, this was that person Steve was talking about." SL: Yep. I'm not going to belabor the point, but Gary's even thought about maybe writing a fourth book in his series, and so -- which I would love to see. And he actually had -- someone wrote to him the other day about, "Is there another book coming out?" So that was kind of cool. And, anyway, he doesn't like to talk about it, so we won't. GG: You probably heard me go, oh my God, under my breath at him. So you can edit that out. (laughter) LB: I think that it's really important for people to know about creative work that people are doing. I think that's a good thing to do. And I was just thinking, maybe I should write another book. I've got a few. I'm working like a maniac for the center, but I'm also doing a lot of stuff to the house, and I'm doing a lot of art that's going to be a highlight through the Fry Festival. We're going to have this really interesting thing at the Fry Festival where, because it's virtual, you know, it's going to be on television and everything like that. But there's also a way to have booths where we're using a platform where it looks like you're walking into a gallery, and then each (inaudible) in the gallery, you can maneuver through the gallery. Each painting is like the booth. And then you go to that booth, and all their information is there, and then you can click through to their website. So it's actually got a booth component to the festival. And so, I was the first one. I said, give me a booth and I'll do art, and then maybe we can, you know, I'll do that. So then I said, "Trish, now I've got to do a whole bunch of paintings so I could do this gig." You know, because we don't -- SL: Right. LB: And it happens, because I have to make this worthwhile. I'm too old to just blow off two or three years, you know. I don't have that much extra time. It's true for older people. So have you known anybody that's been sick? Or more than sick? SL: No. Right. GG: Well, a couple of people. For me, people on Facebook that, you know, you know how Facebook works. It's not direct friends necessarily. It's -- a couple of people on Facebook that we know have had it. But nobody close to me. SL: No. LB: Did you say there were people at work that had it? GG: Yeah. Again, nobody close to me. LB: Uh-huh. Yeah. I guess that's one of the problems is that, right now, anyway, in the pandemic, there are lots of people who don't know anybody that's had it. We know some people, and I'll tell you about that later. GG: I just want a quick add onto the that and just say, he's very nice. We had somebody over to work on the pool a couple of weeks ago, and he said to me -- I came to the door wearing a mask -- and he said, "Oh, are we doing that?" and he's about seventy years old. And I said, "Yep. We're doing that." And he goes, "Well, you know, Hillary just concocted this whole thing so the Democrats would win." And I said, you know, he's here to do a job. I'm like, "Oh, okay." I'm not about -- LB: How do you do that? I mean, she's not even running for office. GG: I know. I'm just so -- I've come to the point in this term that I can't -- you can't convince anyone anymore. There's no logic for some people. And so I just said, "Okay." And I left it at that. And he went on this tirade about how, and he goes, "Do you know anyone personally that's gotten this?" And I said, "Not personally." I said, "But I know people that are close to me in their lives that have someone in their family or a close friend that have had it." And he's like, "Exactly. You don't know anyone, though. Nobody actually knows anyone that has it." I'm like, "Okay." I just -- I'm so young to be over it, but I'm not arguing with the nonsense anymore. I'm just not. You do your thing, I'll do mine. But if you're on my property, please wear a mask. LB: (laughs) That's reasonable to say. Yeah. So that's probably a big frustration. And that's one of the things we have on here, frustrations, fears, and challenges. And I think we already talked about some of those things. Is there anything else? SL: I think the frustration is, people, you know, that we're taking it at a different level than other people. Because -- GG: We know we're taking it more seriously than most. SL: But it's still frustrating. Because, again, if it was like you said about England, and we all took it as seriously as each other, and we all shut down, we'd be over it in three months. GG: We made it -- when they announced it, everybody else saw it as this prison sentence. And we immediately took the high road and said, "This'll be cute. This'll be fun. We'll buy ingredients and we'll do all this cooking. We'll have our own little, like --" and he's way more social than I am. And I was like, I wanted to make sure that he was engaged, so we were doing, like, game night things, and different movie theme nights, and we're Zooming with all these different people. And I never felt like it was that big of an ask to not go out and spread germs for a couple of months. Honestly. LB: And had we all -- had every American, so to speak -- done that, done the right thing, we'd be done. We'd be done. We'd be back at work. We'd be back kicking the economy and stuff like that. But it's a shame. So, would you say that your mental health has been pretty good during all this fun? You guys seem like you're in pretty good shape. SL: I think when we talk about it with someone like you, I think we're in pretty good shape. I think, you know, there's anxiety when Gary comes home from work because they're still -- they're actually being way more aggressive with getting people back to work, telling people if they leave, they're going to consider that their resignation if they're concerned about safety and all this other stuff. So I think in some ways, it's gotten a little worse anxiety-wise for us. And to the point that I, you know, quit my job. It's not (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible). I'm not like really fighting with the people that are my supervisor or directors. We've known each other for years. But we've had conversations, and they're really just towing the line from above them. Just like Gary's supervisor that's towing the line. Because they're both global companies. I think Gary's is probably a much larger global company than mine. But Bayada has offices around the world, and you know, there's somebody else that's up here that's telling everyone else what to do. And I feel like if you -- you know, everyone has to make their own decisions that are what they feel are best for them. I think there was, when I was furloughed, I felt great. I didn't really feel much anxiety, except when I had to go grocery shopping. And when I went back to work for this past month, it was high anxiety a lot, because I didn't know if I was going to get called to go in to see a COVID patient in a COVID facility, when different people telling me what different PPE to wear. And then, again, the same thing with Gary's work. Some people are wearing masks, some people are not. They're not enforcing it because they are looking at it the other way. You know, people are complaining, "It's against my freedom. I don't have to wear a mask. I shouldn't have to wear a mask. You can't force me." Versus looking at it from the other perspective that everyone should be wearing a mask so that we're all safe. And, you know, they don't look at it that way. LB: You know, as my friend, [Laura Baterra?] said, "You know, people are forced to wear things all the time." We wear clothes. SL: Right. Exactly. LB: We're forced to wear clothes. I was talking to Steve Ziminsky, he's one of the people I interviewed, and he said that they had some really interesting insights about the way Allentown schools are, and how they really can't open. And one of the things is they're not air conditioned. A lot of them are not air conditioned. And September, they could be so hot, what they do is, they take all the kids, and they bring them down into air conditioned, like, auditoriums, and just cram them all into the auditorium. So they won't be able to do that. So what are they going to do? Leave these kids up in that one hudnred-degree temperature? They're all going to pass out. So they can't do that. They haven't put enough money into this school system to be able to accommodate this kind of circumstance. But he was also talking about his roommate, Liam, and I don't know if you ever knew that guy that lived in Steve's house, and he had a pretty serious heart condition, and now he's in a nursing home. And it's not Country Meadows, it's one that's just over the one in Allentown. It's a pretty big nursing home. And I can't remember the name of it. But it's one of the big ones we have right here in the Lehigh Valley. And he as serious, serious heart condition. And he got COVID. A hundred patients in that place had it. SL: Lehigh Center. LB: Was it? SL: Was it Lehigh Center? I mean, that's what it sounds like. LB: It was a nursing home that had one of those names that we recognize that's like Country Meadows. SL: Oh, like Cedarbrook? LB: Yeah. It was Cedarbrook. And Cedarbrook, they had 100 cases. They had a whole floor where they moved everybody onto that floor. And, you know, they're not telling people who's dying, because they don't want to tell, "By the way, there's six people down the hall that just kicked off." But you know, Steve was in touch with him, and it's hard to be in touch with him, because they don't have enough platforms and stuff for people. He said, "I haven't seen him. I haven't seen any of these people, but it's -- all these people had it." So it was very, very serious. And it's not like it's not happening. They had hundreds and hundreds of cases in Allentown. It's very serious. But, so you're already talking a little bit about Black Lives Matter. Do you want to say anything else about that? Or anything else about -- well, you've already talked about that. I mean, we can't really talk about this pandemic without talking about Black Lives Matter, and without politics. GG: I just think it's very disappointing that we're even still having the conversation. LB: Yeah. GG: Really, all I have to say about it, I guess I live in a delusional world where all of this does not matter anymore because people are smarter than this. But.... SL: Well, and I also think it just complicated, you know, having COVID happening while Black Lives Matter protests were happening. You know, it really complicated things because, again, I didn't feel comfortable going out and taking part in marches and stuff like that. I mean, we live vicariously through Facebook and what we were seeing on the news, and friends of our that actually did go out, that either had young African American -- you know, adolescent African American children that wanted to go out and be part of this, or witness this, or be part of history. And so yeah. I mean, there's -- it's all just really hateful from -- I don't know. I really feel like it's from -- it's always been around, but I also feel like those flames get fanned by our administration that's in charge of the country. And so, I feel like that's the same with trans lives. I know that trans people were being killed before this administration, but it seems like it's increased. GG: It's emboldened people. SL: Yeah. LB: It has. SL: And not in a good way. LB: No. That's very true. Well, what gives you hope now, besides your kitties? Each other? GG: Kamala Harris as V.P. LB: Okay. That sounds like a good deal. SL: Well, so yeah, I do think maybe Joe Biden gives us hope. I hope that the country -- I hope that there's enough people that maybe couldn't vote for Hillary because that didn't excite them, that are disappointed enough to vote for Biden. I mean, I really think that realistically, that's what we're looking at. LB: I saw a meme about Biden, and he had a picture of him, and he said, "Well, let me read you my platform." And then the bottom of the meme said, "You had me at let me read." GG: Right. SL: (laughs) Well, Gary has said this since day one after Trump won. GG: I mean, I'll vote for the garbage can if the garbage can gets the nomination. I'll vote for anything. I mean, I -- he was my last pick. But he still towers about what's there, so... SL: Biden. LB: And we really hope, too, that -- you, person who is in the future watching this -- we're really hoping that Biden is smart enough -- GG: He worked out. (laughs) LB: Well, I mean, a whole cadre of people in his cabinet, and as his vice president and stuff, because we've seen really terrific people that we could build an enormous super administration out of. It doesn't just have to be one guy. And so, you know, there's the Secretary of Health, and the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Education, and we know the terrible people that are in there now. They could be great. What if they were great? You know. So, we've got all that opportunity. And if you start to think about it, it's a dream team. So that, I think, would bring a lot of people out to vote. A lot of young people out to vote. SL: I hope so. LB: Very, very important. That's what everybody says. Have to say that none of us are very, very, very, very confident. None of us are. SL: I was confident when I went to bed that Tuesday evening.... LB: I know. I know. GG: The cat threw up at about two in the morning, and Steve got up to clean up the cat vomit. And I reached over, grabbed my iPad, and I went, "Oh, my God." And he goes, "I'm half asleep. Don't tell me. Don't tell me anything." SL: "I need to be able to go back to sleep." GG: And there were still, at that point, there were still a couple of states -- I didn't do the math. I was half asleep myself. I don't know if we could have made it at that point or not. But it was not good. And... LB: I know. I know. I haven't slept since that night. SL: All right. Exactly. GG: You're right. SL: We had a -- LB: Well, actually, it was about six months before that when I started to begin to worry about it. So anyway. GG: Well, and I hope somebody has written, like, not a big, long history book, but just like, almost like a good Chicken Soup for the Soul kind of thing, but not. Where it just -- what he did each day. Because we keep looking at each other and going, "It's something every day." And we keep forgetting because your brain needs to make room for the new things. And so, there's just so -- every day he says or does something that makes us go, oh, my God. (laughs) Very depressing. SL: And that's what I think, you know, of the pandemic on top of three years of that. You asked me about mental health and all that stuff, I think that that was just another kick in your balls, you know. And then Black Lives Matter. And trans people being murdered. And Jesus, God, you know. And I'm just glad we haven't seen the orange wasps or whatever the -- GG: (laughs) Killer hornets. SL: The murder hornets. I don't know. And so, hopefully, we're not going to see those. GG: No, but every time I see one of those cicada killer wasps in the yard, one of those. I'm like, is it? Is it? (laughs) LB: Oh, I saw one of those. We had that in our yard, too. GG: They're terrifying looking. LB: They're not bad, though, are they? SL: They're not bad, but they look bad. LB: They are huge and they have -- they're wearing that, like, orange jacket. GG: And they're not afraid to break social distancing rules. They will get close to you, and it's like -- SL: But they're so dressed up. Like, what's that? (laughs) LB: Fabulous. I took a picture of one because it was so fabulous. But they aren't bad, because they get the bugs that will eat all of our leaves. So I guess (inaudible). Well, I have had a wonderful time talking to you guys. I'm going to turn off the recorder, and then I want to say a couple of things to you offline. SL: Okay. LB: Is there anything else you'd like to tell the future? And say, you know, here's what the story is about this now, and we hope you're doing this -- SL: I don't think so. Just, you know, say hello to your president, Rachel Levine, in the future. (laughs) Because she's doing a great job right now. LB: From us. Yeah. One of the things [Ollie Riley?] just said was, "Yeah, this is what I want to say to the future. If we can work this hard during a pandemic, you better have fixed it." SL: (laughs) Yeah. Right. LB: I thought that was a really good thing to say. SL: Yup. LB: I think that's really true. We're trying to manage all these civil rights and social concerns in the midst of a pandemic. SL: Oy. LB: It's very hard. And so, you know, you don't have to be in pandemic, you should be doing really well. Well, so I'm going to turn off the record thing. Thank you very much, guys. GG: Thank you. SL: Thanks for including us. 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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01:00:56
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Title
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Stephen Libby & Gary Gaugler, Jr., July 29, 2020
Description
An account of the resource
Steve and Gary talk about how the COVID-19 virus is affecting them. They talk about each working from home and how it affects themselves and each other. They talk about what it’s like at their jobs, and how possible exposure to infection has caused them to reconsider their employment and why. They describe the care they are taking to stay safe and consider why they are not speaking time with people who are not caring the kind of care they are.
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PH40_20
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
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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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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/5f85dcc744254cf4fe144d78965f26c5.png
2997915d1fdc6b32b0635e884138d92a
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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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Sarah Trimmer
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_30.xml
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5.4 July 27, 2020 Sarah Trimmer, July 27, 2020 PH40_30 01:15:27 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) Sarah Trimmer Liz Bradbury video/mpeg TrimmerSarah_20200727_video.mp4 1.0:|25(11)|48(2)|81(7)|112(16)|139(11)|166(12)|187(13)|212(9)|237(13)|262(3)|283(7)|310(9)|335(7)|356(12)|377(9)|402(8)|425(16)|452(5)|475(4)|500(9)|523(6)|546(3)|565(9)|586(3)|603(8)|624(14)|649(4)|672(15)|695(18)|722(3)|745(13)|772(9)|795(5)|822(5)|853(2)|882(6)|907(3)|924(13)|945(12)|966(4)|989(7)|1010(2)|1029(8)|1048(8)|1075(5)|1098(4)|1119(7)|1142(4)|1169(6)|1192(2)|1215(18)|1240(7)|1265(10)|1290(8)|1313(16)|1338(10)|1363(2)|1386(3)|1409(7)|1428(10)|1453(2)|1476(16)|1505(5)|1530(9)|1553(4)|1576(3)|1601(4)|1628(11)|1653(11)|1676(8)|1699(10)|1730(4)|1753(3)|1774(15)|1807(11)|1822(5) 0 https://youtu.be/Ti8AKoS5pYQ YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: -- and because actually it’s not even six thirty but let’s go for it. I also have an audio recorder because I’m paranoid and anyway with this. So all right, actually with good reason because I did a whole interview and there were some problems with the person’s camera and stuff, and it turned out that it didn’t work at all. I mean the whole ninety minutes, but luckily, I did the audio tape of it and since their camera wasn’t working well anyway, their projector. So I still had because I couldn’t imagine asking this person to do the whole thing again. Okay, so I’m going to read you this information, I want to turn my phone off first I’m going to do that.
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 ; SARAH TRIMMER: I think I already did.
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 ; LB: Yes, I did all that stuff so we’re recording. Okay, so with this project Bradbury Sullivan LGBT community center of 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 am here with Sarah Trimmer 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. So we’re meeting on Zoom on Monday July 27th and thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today, so can you please first of all state your full name and spell it?
 ; 0 238 Being able to live with family during the pandemic LB: So where you have been in your house and I know that you’ve been working but who is in the home with you?
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 ; ST: My wife, who is also named Sarah, we’ve been married for six years, together for about eight. And my cousin is also here with us, he’s about the same age as us. Then we’ve got three dogs and a cat.
 ; 0 269 Managing a bed and breakfast during the pandemic/Local colleges' Covid-19 protocols LB: So you’ve been working so tell us a little bit about what you do and what your employer is and stuff like that.
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 ; ST: So I manage a bed and breakfast and I just landed this job at the end of last year with big huge plans to take it to the next level and then boom global pandemic. So when we were told that we had to shut down we were considered an essential business for lodging, but you know the majority of B& ; B guests are recreational, so they don’t -- a lot of cancellations came through. 0 644 Communicating with friends and work colleagues through Zoom LB: So it sounds like you’ve been communicating a lot with phones and people that way, have you done video chats with people or have you been doing that with your family or what do you think about that?
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 ; ST: My friends I saw other people were getting together with their friends on Zoom calls and I was like I don’t know if I’m going to like that, it’s weird, like I’m so used to being around my friends face to face, so we tried it one night and we had a freaking blast. 0 751 The severity of the flu epidemic of 1918 and its effect on the Lehigh Valley ST: I think about the you know a hundred year ago flu they didn’t have all this what did they do.
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 ; LB: No, I’m glad you’ve got that out because I love to talk about the flu epidemic of 1918, because I think it’s really an interesting comparison. It was far more terribly dangerous. Young people died, fifty million people died, my grandmother died in that flu epidemic and she was thirty-two years old, my father was four and his sister was seven. 0 964 Thoughts on Dr. Rachel Levine LB: So we’re lucky in our LGBT community because we get to watch Dr. Rachel Levine who is part of our community. What do you think about seeing Dr. Levine on -- have you seen her talking about the--?
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 ; ST: Yes a lot of times when I was, when I had to be at work a lot of down time when there’s only one or two guests so I watched the briefing, I watched Cuomo’s and I would watch Wolf’s almost every day, I was really hot and heavy on it in the beginning. And I guess I never paid attention to who our secretary of health was, I didn’t know, I’m just watching this amazing -- and I really like her. 0 1153 Biggest concern during pandemic and its effect on the LGBT community LB: What's your biggest concern during the pandemic and what’s your biggest concern for that matter for the LGBT community?
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 ; ST: Personally, I am very concerned about getting it. I have survived breast cancer twice and as a result of the radiation treatment I endured the second time I’ve developed a bunch of nodules around my lungs, they’ve sort of diagnosed it as sarcoidosis, but they don’t really know. 0 1295 Not personally knowing anyone who has caught Covid-19/Reaching out to isolated friends and family LB: Do you know anybody that’s had it or that’s been affected by it?
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 ; ST: Relatives of friends, so no-one that I’ve actually known personally, thank goodness. And someone that I know lost his mom to it so that was pretty devastated, but I’ve also known some younger people that bounce back and they have full recoveries, but no-one really close to my inner circle.
 ; 0 1456 Social distancing-Covid protocols at bed and breakfast LB: For you yourself I know you have to work, and you have to be around people, and you have to tell people that they have to be careful. Have you had any problems with people that have stayed there that didn’t want to wear a mask?
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 ; ST: No, the guests have been great. I did have an issue with a staff member, so we just went separate ways, it is what it is. I have people in my family that are definitely in support of the current administration and think that masks are not useful, so that’s hard to move past. 0 1555 Socializing during the pandemic LB: For you I mean besides going to work and having to deal with folks that are potentially like that when you have downtime and I don’t know if you have any free time, but if you have free time are you going out? We know a lot of people who are going out and we think for me I’m thinking what the heck are you doing.
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 ; ST: Yeah, so Sarah and I we love our community, downtown Easton, we were there a lot, she worked as a bartender and a server for many years down there, now she sells cars but so many of our friends are down there, that was like what we did, we really enjoyed being social. 0 1668 Watching movies about lesbians to pass the time ST: The other thing that we did to pass the time so Sarah found this list online I want to say maybe it was on like Autostraddle or something and it was a list of one hundred and twenty lesbian movies and so she’s like we’re going to power through this, we have all this downtown. 0 2243 Frustration with government messaging/frustration over President Donald Trump in general LB: So what’s the biggest frustration you’re having right now?
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 ; ST: I think the lack of consistent messaging from the government being I don’t even like saying who is up there behind a podium touching the microphone and not wearing a mask and the next person, like you lead best by example. 0 2391 Feeling safe being openly bisexual in the Lehigh Valley, despite living under the Trump presidency ST: I try really hard just to focus on our own bubbles, you know the Lehigh Valley has a lot of great things, Bradbury Sullivan Center being one of them, we’re progressive, I feel safe walking on the street holding hands with my wife in our community and the other areas of the Lehigh Valley, I’m very grateful for that. 0 2426 Discussing Black Lives Matter/being anti-racist at a young age/thoughts on policing and police reform ST: [...] I mean the civil unrest that we have happening right now, the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s hard to just--
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 ; LB: I’ve asked everybody to talk about Black Lives Matter if they want to, so do you want to talk about that for a little while go ahead and say some stuff.
 ; 0 2681 Finding positives during the pandemic/having more free time LB: So you’ve already talked about being worried about getting the virus and taking a lot of precautions to avoid that. What’s the best thing that you’ve really experienced so far, what’s giving you hope now, and I think you were talking a little bit about young people marching, that’s one of the things that gives me hope.
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 ; ST: Yes, I think I’m realizing that there’s more channels to communicate with each other. Seeing the global pollution go down has been something I’ve been -- you know a positive aspect I’ve been trying to focus on. I do try to kind of be the glass half full, it’s hard for me. 0 2915 Exercise during the pandemic LB: Have you had an opportunity to sort of like work into a regime of some kind of exercise, I just talked to somebody who said I don’t go out of the house at all, and it was a young person and they said there’s a -- they ended up being stuck in a place where they couldn’t go home so they had to stay at somebody’s family’s house from college and then the family left so they’re by themselves and I said if you’ve been like -- and they’re in the woods and I said have you been going outside and he said, “No there’s a bear, I’m not going out, what are you crazy, I’m not going out.” So I thought that was really funny.
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 ; ST: I am not built for this hot hot weather we’ve been having lately. I'm not a hot weather person, so I don’t I try not to go outside either. We bought this house last year and there’s an above ground pool, so we hang out in there a lot, that’s about the extent of the exercise I’m getting. But I’m not swimming, I'm floating. 0 3026 Mental health and self care during the pandemic LB: So it sounds like you’re doing pretty well with your mental health, this actually says how would you describe your mental health right now. What do you think about that?
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 ; ST: I think I was way more sporadic than normal, I feel like I’m pretty even keel most of the time, like middle of the road, I don’t let bad things like really ruin my day unless it’s like a catastrophe 0 3108 Wearing masks during pandemic/grocery shopping during the pandemic ST: I was actually -- I had a big box of masks that I still had from when I was going through chemo because when your cell counts are low you know you have to mask up to go in public. So I wore masks before it was cool, no but I was probably one of the first people going to the grocery store with a mask on and got a lot of weird looks from people and it was funny like as the weeks ticked by then it was like you’d see more and more people and I’d shoot them like a -- no I didn’t, it was interesting to see the progression because of course at first they said well we think people should have them, but it’s because they learned more about the virus so they learned that yes this is a good thing so that was interesting. I was a little high strung at first, I was doing the whole sanitizing all of the groceries because they said it was like living on surfaces we didn’t know.
 ; 0 3491 Masks/Vaccines/England's and China's lockdown protocols in contrast to America's LB: We just went out ; we haven’t been out in probably two weeks and we’ve really only been out together to go to doctor’s appointments. So we went to a doctor’s appointment today, we’re coming back and every single person that we saw we made a comment on whether or not they were wearing a mask and it drives you nuts. 0 3683 School and college social distancing protocols ST: Are you in your Covid interviews? Do you have any educators or teachers that you’re interviewing?
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 ; LB: No, I talked to somebody who was a retired teacher who has a lot of teacher friends and he was very strong about saying it’s just ridiculous and he gave me so many interesting little insights into it 0 4026 Unexpected effects of the pandemic on nature ST: But the unexpected ripple effects of this you know the more people that you talk to and it sounds like you -- you know you get to talk to all these people with these interviews and things are sprouting up that you wouldn’t even think. One of my friends works in the parks system so when this first happened the shutdown everybody’s like let’s get back to nature and it was March, April, it was great weather so like the first or second weekend there were like seven forest fires not like raging forest fires but there were seven fires in our parks system that had to go be extinguished because it’s like people that never go out into nature are suddenly out there [...] 0 4092 Wealth redistribution for children's education/Universal healthcare LB: It will be a thing to see if indeed people like for example well we can’t afford to pay kids you know we can’t afford to pay for kids to have education and suddenly we have a trillion dollars to line everybody’s pockets, a trillion dollars is so much money that that would mean every single person in the entire Lehigh Valley could have two million dollars for children, you know.
 ; 0 4148 Conclusion/HBO series "Gentleman Jack"/Anne Lister LB: So, yeah, well this has been a wonderful conversation, I’m so glad to get to talk to you, what a good time. We’d love to stop by on Zoom at your bar.
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 ; ST: We’ve got to hash out the happy hour specials I’ll let you know.
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 ; LB: Tell people what happy hour special it is so that they could bring it to their Zoom. Their own concoction as a mocktail or something. But it would be really interesting to hear what it ends up to be that is your perfect lesbian movie.
 ; 0 MovingImage Sarah Trimmer talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting her, her essential worker job managing a bed and breakfast in South City Bethlehem, and her concern about the virus because she is at high risk as a breast cancer survivor. She also discusses how she and her wife have replaced new entertainment interests for things they regularly did before the virus. Sarah Trimmer 2020-07-27 LIZ BRADBURY: -- and because actually it's not even six thirty but let's go for it. I also have an audio recorder because I'm paranoid and anyway with this. So all right, actually with good reason because I did a whole interview and there were some problems with the person's camera and stuff, and it turned out that it didn't work at all. I mean the whole ninety minutes, but luckily, I did the audio tape of it and since their camera wasn't working well anyway, their projector. So I still had because I couldn't imagine asking this person to do the whole thing again. Okay, so I'm going to read you this information, I want to turn my phone off first I'm going to do that. SARAH TRIMMER:I think I already did. LB: Yes, I did all that stuff so we're recording. Okay, so with this project Bradbury Sullivan LGBT community center of 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 am here with Sarah Trimmer 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. So we're meeting on Zoom on Monday July 27th and thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today, so can you please first of all state your full name and spell it? ST: Sarah Trimmer, S-A-R-A-H T-R-I-M-M-E-R LB: Great. Can you please share your birth date? ST: May 22nd, 1981. LB: Are you in Bethlehem, is that what town you're in? ST: Palmer Township. LB: Oh you're in Palmer Township okay, now is the consent portion. So the first part says do you consent to this interview today? ST: Yes. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable format? ST: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and even other formats we may not even imagine? ST: Yes. LB: And that could be, do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview and identify any parts you'd like to delete and/or withdraw, or withdraw or withdraw the entire interview from the project? ST: Yes, LB: Okey-doke, so this is the identity part of it. So what is your zip code for where you are? ST: 18045. LB: What is your age? ST: Thirty-nine. LB: How do you identify within the LGBT community trans, gay, lesbian, bi, pan, queer, QTPAC, nonbinary, etc? ST: Do I have to pick one? (Laughs) I would say bisexual. LB: Okay. Here are some things and cisgender would we say? ST: Yes. LB: Here are some things to think about, oh I already told you that. Okay so these are general things and you can answer anything you want with regard to how this goes. But we're just going to hit this right up front. So where you have been in your house and I know that you've been working but who is in the home with you? ST: My wife, who is also named Sarah, we've been married for six years, together for about eight. And my cousin is also here with us, he's about the same age as us. Then we've got three dogs and a cat. LB: So you've got a whole family there that's great, I've talked to a few people who have been totally by themselves and it's been very hard for them, I think. So you've been working so tell us a little bit about what you do and what your employer is and stuff like that. ST: So I manage a bed and breakfast and I just landed this job at the end of last year with big huge plans to take it to the next level and then boom global pandemic. So when we were told that we had to shut down we were considered an essential business for lodging, but you know the majority of B& ; B guests are recreational, so they don't -- a lot of cancellations came through. I had to lay off my entire staff and on the off chance that we did get one or two reservations I would, most of the time I just had the phone at home and I was taking all the calls at home, but if we had one or two reservations I was going in, getting the property ready for the arrival, cooking the breakfast in the morning, cleaning the rooms, doing the laundry, all of that. So I was like a one person show for many weeks and even when I was home the phones were just off the hook so many cancellations came through and inquiries of well are you open and what's going on. So it was a rough couple of weeks for sure, then my company was able to secure one of the loans, I called some staff back but then the loan money ran out and I did another round of layoffs because we still aren't seeing the business to support my entire staff. It's a little better, it's starting to pick up and we're obviously very very careful, so yeah definitely not what I was expecting for my first time managing a B& ; B. LB: What a surprise. I've been talking to a lot of people, this is actually my twenty-third interview and I have to do twenty COVID-19s and I have already done -- so this will be the thirteenth of those or the fourteenth one of those and then I also did ten HIV/AIDS ones for people who had lived through the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s which was very interesting and very different from the Covid although people talked about Covid because they were talking now about how it related to the actual epidemic. But a lot of people I've spoken to are involved with the colleges because we have a lot of colleges in Lehigh Valley so are you seeing this as -- you're pretty close to Lehigh Valley University and they're talking about opening, but do you think that's influencing your reservations and stuff? ST: Yes, so we have a very close relationship with Lehigh Valley all the alumni come to us, all the parents, the kids when they're visiting the college before they're enrolling. So they had tasked us with sourcing some rooms because they thought, you know, they were building new dorms and they had to stop construction. So they thought they weren't going to have enough housing for these incoming students so I had worked the area hotels trying to scramble to find housing for these students and it turns out they didn't need them, but should they need to quarantine international students they've approached us to ask if we would. Because if it's a student that's from like Chicago that is exposed or tests positive than can, you know, hopefully travel home, or stay but an international student doesn't have that luxury of just going home to quarantine. So they've approached us if we would accept some students that had to be quarantined. And other area hotels are already doing that, it seems really scary, we even at one point were talking to area hospitals that if the medical professionals didn't want to go home and expose their families would we house them. And that was a hard pill to swallow. I'm like well then, I'm kind of being exposed or my staff is being exposed to those front lines. But I, you know, we really looked at it through a lot of different lenses and talked to a lot of different agencies and we were ready to take that on if we had to. Ultimately, we didn't have to, we didn't have that -- we were preparing for that peak in the Lehigh Valley, but we didn't quite see where the hospitals were overrun, and the medical people didn't want to go home to their families. Yeah, I'm waiting for Lehigh Valley to make the announcement that they would, like Lafeyette did, if they're going to go virtual, but I don't know I think Lehigh's going to trudge ahead and see what they can do, hopefully safely. I know they've been meeting about it a lot ; I know they will be safe. LB: Just saying because even colleges that are not planning on opening are taking in groups of students that can't go home and I was just speaking with somebody who cannot go home and this is a Kutztown student so they've arranged for housing and they have international students too, so there is definitely -- and it's not even that the folks are needing to be quarantined they just can't go home, they don't have any place to go. So even if the colleges close like Kutztown apparently will be running all of its classes -- we have a family friend who goes to Colgate and they also it's totally they're going to be in their rooms but they're going to be there but they're going to be doing online classes. So it's an interesting thing and apparently the students really want to do that because they want to at least feel like they're on campus. I don't know about that I don't know, I don't because I guess they would have to pay then, so I think there must be some kind of privilege involved in that to be able to afford to do that at a lot of the schools. So it sounds like you've been communicating a lot with phones and people that way, have you done video chats with people or have you been doing that with your family or what do you think about that? ST: My friends I saw other people were getting together with their friends on Zoom calls and I was like I don't know if I'm going to like that, it's weird, like I'm so used to being around my friends face to face, so we tried it one night and we had a freaking blast. And so it's opened up this whole new way to communicate with each other which was cool and I did not expect it to give me that sense of like oh I got to see my friends today, I got to hang out with my friends today, but it left me with that and I was really surprised by that. On the contrary you know it's like work gets ahold of like, "We can Zoom call now." And it was like that could have been an email so like I was so excited to have that extra way to communicate with my friends but on the flip side like you know the very first Zoom call for work it's like you know full hair and makeup, make sure you've got pants. And then by like the middle I was like oh whatever, hair is in a bun I just rolled out of bed. And then like now I don't even put my video on for Zoom calls I'm like come on just like -- what I love about it is how many companies are going to continue to do this and not make people drive into the office. And we're seeing the pollution go down in so many areas and if there's any sort of bright spot or positives to all of this hell we're going through I really found some happiness in that. Like maybe people will scale back how much they're traveling into the offices or whatever. And it's another way to communicate so they've been just for it. I think about the you know a hundred year ago flu they didn't have all this what did they do. LB: No, I'm glad you've got that out because I love to talk about the flu epidemic of 1918, because I think it's really an interesting comparison. It was far more terribly dangerous. Young people died, fifty million people died, my grandmother died in that flu epidemic and she was thirty-two years old, my father was four and his sister was seven. And after she died his father left these two kids with his wife's parents and he just went to South America and never came back ; he was an engineer and he was building roads and stuff. So the effect that that had a hundred years ago on me is a residual effect because my father grew up without a mother, I didn't have a second grandfather because of that, and it's surely absolutely influenced his life very significantly. So when you have a circumstance like that and people say well you know it was a long time ago, really you know who knows even that was incredibly significant. And a lot of people had to deal with the government because it was during World War I they told people they couldn't talk about it, it was sedition to talk about it, because they didn't want America to seem like it was weak. So all of these because it was, we were at war. And so all these people were just, I mean Easton for example five hundred people died in Easton, thousands of people died in Allentown, Bethlehem was pretty good at quarantining and they had about a hundred deaths. If you compare that to even Easton which was a tiny city in comparison Easton was really small then, it was terribly serious -- one out of every three people in the whole world had that flu. And yeah, they couldn't talk to each other, they barely had phones and most people didn't have phones and they certainly didn't have the ability to see each other. And people would be desperate to see each other and they would wear masks and they would like go and there's a story about these four women that wanted to play Mahjong and they gasped but they wore all these masks and everything, and they played Mahjong and by the end of the day three of them were dead. It was that kind of flu ; people would die in one day from that flu. It was amazingly terrible and it was involved with the war too, it really -- so it's a lot of people, but it had to do with young people, it influenced young people. And some people that it came from a flu that had affected little children twenty years before and so that's why those, like if they had had it twenty years before then they would die quickly from it if they had it when they were twenty to forty years old. ST: I never read that, that's really interesting. LB: There is a theory and since we don't know anything about flus who knows, you know, if it stays there for twenty years. Yeah, I'm actually fascinated by that flu because it affected my family but also affected every single thing that happened in the United States for the entire century and people forgot about it pretty quickly but it was true. So we're lucky in our LGBT community because we get to watch Dr. Rachel Levine who is part of our community. What do you think about seeing Dr. Levine on -- have you seen her talking about the--? ST: Yes a lot of times when I was, when I had to be at work a lot of down time when there's only one or two guests so I watched the briefing, I watched Cuomo's and I would watch Wolf's almost every day, I was really hot and heavy on it in the beginning. And I guess I never paid attention to who our secretary of health was, I didn't know, I'm just watching this amazing -- and I really like her. I thought she was so direct in her delivery. What was interesting to me is like Cuomo ran his conferences but really when you look at Pennsylvania's conferences it wasn't Wolf running them it was her, and I was just like man she's awesome. And then all the ugliness came out and I was like oh I honestly didn't even realize though it's so -- then I was extra proud you know I'm like man like it was so great that she's running these conferences and she's brilliant and she's always like you could see how frustrated she'd get when day after day people would ask the same damn questions. And I always loved at the end when she'd flip and she's like now for our daily reminders. And I swear by the end I could almost like recite them with her wash your hands for twenty seconds in soap and water. And it's like she had to, she had to pound it into these people heads because they just weren't getting it. And it was just so obviously representation is important so to see that is great and it's just so absolutely disheartening that she's being attacked still today, today in what was it Morris County there was a menu did you see that story? Come on it's just disgusting that this woman's there, she's trying to navigate us through a serious health crisis and people choose to focus on something like I don't know, well we're all faced with that all the time. But I was so proud of her and then it was just like oh my gosh even better. LB: And you know I've had a number of people say that young transgender people have expressed so much shock that somebody would be attacked this way that they have said to some of the leaders and some of the people that work in our program at our center you know, "Is this going to happen to me?" And I was talking to her in place and one of the things the messages that we have to say is, "Look, heroes are attacked, if it was easy to do this you wouldn't be a hero." People admire, we admire them for standing up to adversity and that's what she does with the incredible grace and science and every kind of calmness that makes people listen to her and it's very positive. We're lucky that we get to have her. ST: Absolutely. LB: What's your biggest concern during the pandemic and what's your biggest concern for that matter for the LGBT community? ST: Personally, I am very concerned about getting it. I have survived breast cancer twice and as a result of the radiation treatment I endured the second time I've developed a bunch of nodules around my lungs, they've sort of diagnosed it as sarcoidosis, but they don't really know. So I've tried to research as much as I can about how would Covid interacts with sarcoidosis, or how would Covid interact with someone who has got lung nodules. Like it's very concerning for me, there's no information out there of course because we don't know enough about either affliction. So I don't know that I would survive it, I don't want to get a cold let alone get this, you know, virus that we don't know very much about. So that's been my personal biggest concern, and I will say having gone through two bouts of breast cancer in the Lehigh Valley with our hospital network we're very very lucky here. I remember at the beginning worrying that they wouldn't let my wife in appointments with me or something, we never encountered that, everyone was incredible that I had to deal with with my care team. So, I think for the community I would be concerned about we already have a lack of healthcare, we already have you know we're statistically not as equipped as other communities, so it is concerning. But I will say that in the Lehigh Valley it's not as concerning for me, and I'm incredibly grateful for that, I feel incredibly privileged that I can say that, that I don't' have a concern about what kind of healthcare would I receive. LB: I was reading about people talking about moving to other countries and then somebody started saying oh you know you could move to Bolivia or Belize and they said of course they don't have any hospitals there. So like well okay if that's what you want to do. Do you know anybody that's had it or that's been affected by it? ST: Relatives of friends, so no-one that I've actually known personally, thank goodness. And someone that I know lost his mom to it so that was pretty devastated, but I've also known some younger people that bounce back and they have full recoveries, but no-one really close to my inner circle. LB: So there's a question here that says are you spending any time on queer dating hookup sites I don't know if that really applies. But how about extended -- you know being able to talk to LGBT friends who might have similar kind of sensitivities that you do with that gives you an opportunity to talk to people like that, do you have friends that fit that bill? ST: Yes, I think, you know, both my gay and straight friends we, Sarah and I, my wife and I really focus on reaching out to our friends that already struggled with isolation. Those were probably those people we most concerned about. You know even my father in law he's super high risk, he had a double lung transplant about six years ago which was crazy, but he lives alone and every Sunday we'd go to breakfast with him and hang out with him and we can't he's high risk, you know, we were arranging his groceries to be delivered and the one time that we did have to go over there it was like dropping stuff off at the door and running away. I hate not seeing my grandmother who is 82 and we've since, you know, very safely have visited with those high-risk people but I guess we were at our peak really like the first part of April. I remember doing a lot more like it was almost like on my to do list every day, like make sure you reach out to these people, because I am very fortunate that I'm in a house surrounded by family and animals, but for my friends that weren't and have to further isolate I can't imagine, it has to be really hard. LB: For you yourself I know you have to work, and you have to be around people, and you have to tell people that they have to be careful. Have you had any problems with people that have stayed there that didn't want to wear a mask? ST: No, the guests have been great. I did have an issue with a staff member, so we just went separate ways, it is what it is. I have people in my family that are definitely in support of the current administration and think that masks are not useful, so that's hard to move past. That's really hard to forgive, like I don't want to sit at a dinner table with them anymore, so I'll maintain social distance from them forever, it's very difficult. We talked through it actually as a staff before we kind of brought everyone back to work, we had meetings and we talked through, all right what's it going to look like if we have someone here that shows up at the door, because we have the big signs on the front door, guests must wear masks inside, shows up not wearing one or refuses to wear one, what's that going to look like. So we talked through procedure for that and we're ready for that. I mean we're not happy about it, but you never know I think it's quite possible that we'll encounter something like that. LB: For you I mean besides going to work and having to deal with folks that are potentially like that when you have downtime and I don't know if you have any free time, but if you have free time are you going out? We know a lot of people who are going out and we think for me I'm thinking what the heck are you doing. ST: Yeah, so Sarah and I we love our community, downtown Easton, we were there a lot, she worked as a bartender and a server for many years down there, now she sells cars but so many of our friends are down there, that was like what we did, we really enjoyed being social. And we said the other night, we like we think this whole thing has finally broke our habit, because you would think that two people that love it so much as soon as it reopened like we'd be down there, we went once and we were like this is not for us, I don't want to be around people just aren't taking the masking seriously enough for me. And like I said I'm very concerned about getting it, I'm very concerned about even social distance visit with my father-in-law like giving him something, so it's just not worth it. We built a bar in our garage, we're calling it the gay-raj, and we've been hanging out in there like it's just as great as going downtown. Because now we don't have to Uber home, we're saving a lot of money, we're not eating out, like why didn't do this years ago. And the other thing that we did the past time -- LB: Do you have people over for that? ST: Sometimes, but again it's like we don't want a ton of people over, so our friends will come by and they sit at the other end of the bar and we're all consuming alcohol so that kills germs right. The other thing that we did to pass the time so Sarah found this list online I want to say maybe it was on like Autostraddle or something and it was a list of one hundred and twenty lesbian movies and so she's like we're going to power through this, we have all this downtown. So she prints this list out and she cuts them into strips, folds them up puts them in this like gift bag and every day she'd like shake it and I'd pull one out and all that would be on the strip was they ranked number 1-120, so it would be the ranking, the title and then like year that it came out. So what a bunch of terrible movies let me tell you. Oh my god I think we made it through twenty-three of them and we just, I mean-- LB: Any good ones? ST: A couple, there were a couple of good ones, one of our favorites is Carol so that was in there. I mean what was great it was from all, from like the sixties up and from all over the world, there were French movies in there, so we still have the bag. I'm sure that we'll watch it from time to time, but she just, it was great to see so much representation we don't always get that in every movie we watch, but man some of them were a struggle to get through. And there were some days where she'd like walk over shaking the bag and I'm like not today I just can't not today, like unless you pick one in the top ten, I'm not doing it. LB: Did you see anything in the top ten that you thought -- like one of my favorites is Desert Hearts, I thought Desert Hearts was a great movie even though it was a long time ago, it was in the eighties. ST: Who was in that one? I think we did watch that one, that sounds very familiar. LB: It's about an older woman and it's about these two women, one of them is getting a divorce in Reno, it's the 1950s and Kay is this young woman who lives, and she makes ceramics and they-- ST: That sounds familiar, see they're all just starting to run together at this point because we've watched so many. Sarah had a rating system and everything so she was into it. LB: It is true that some of them like they're so bad and people will say, "Oh you know entre nous you know" and I remember one time somebody said all these people were sitting in the audience one of them just shouted out, "This is like a bad date." ST: That's great, but you can absolutely identify that someone who was never like in a same sex relationship wrote these movies, someone who was never even, they have no idea about like lesbian sex, nothing and you're watching this on the screen like what in the hell is this. So we also realized that we could probably write a better someday and we should, a screenplay I don't know. LB: When you get to a time where you want to watch something don't forget that you can watch some of my art history videos on our website. I think I have three on our website and one on the Parkland Community Library website and they're funny too. So it's worthwhile to see it and if you go to our Facebook page Bradbury-Sullivan Facebook page and look at all the different videos that are there they're longer one's forty-six minutes, one's twenty-two, you know that kind of stuff, it's good dinner fare and kind of interesting. And you go huh that's, you know, and it's interesting one of them was about Greek myths and what the LGBT Greek myths, and I just did that one for Parkland. So those are fun to watch, I want to encourage you to do that because I went to a lot of -- people like them who saw them, more than a thousand people saw them so it was pretty great to do it that way. So I was going to ask you what sort of queer activities have you been doing and you just describe it this perfect thing, it's actually a perfect thing, I think it's wonderful. How about Liana, did you see the movie Liana, it's black and white, John Sales did it, he also did other famous movies including that baseball movie about-- ST: I'm writing it down because-- LB: Liana, it's L-I-A-N-A and even though it was made by a man, John Sales is the guy who made Field of Dreams and sort of an independent movie maker, but I saw that movie a long time ago and I mean I was in college or maybe I was in graduate school and I thought this is pretty good, this person does seem to get the whole thing about the deal. Desert Hearts was made by a woman though and it's right, you look at that and you go yeah that would really happen. ST: Well speaking of Field of Dreams what was the movie that was just made about the two women that were on the team, a documentary about their lives that was a-- LB: It's called Secret Love. I actually hated that, I hated it. ST: You hated it? LB: Because the person that made that was actually Terry's nephew or great nephew and it's really not about them it's about the family being able to deal with them. This whole thing it's so fucking depressing, I mean for heaven sakes and they don't know anything about these women's lives, they've been together for a million years, obviously they were very uncomfortable to come out to the family and you could see why for heaven's sake. ST: Sarah didn't like it, I think I was comfortable watching something very depressing at that current time, I was like this is just what I needed. She felt the same way she's like yeah, they did a shitty job. LB: They did a shitty job because nobody said for example, they made it seem like when they were getting married that it was such a cute thing, they didn't point out that when they get married that the other woman whose name I can't remember, Terry and Pat, that Pat was protecting herself, because had Terri died before they were married the family could have come in and just made off with half of everything. ST: Just like the book club -- the Under This Beautiful Dome. LB: Yes, exactly. ST: That always stuck with me just how-- LB: Yeah and so they didn't say, you know, how important and even when they were having dinner with those older guys who were their gay male friends and they don't say you know if we don't do this we're going to end up having to pay 15% tax on everything the person who is -- you know they didn't talk about the practical stuff of it because the people who made the movie didn't understand what this really meant. And then they're looking at oh look they had a whole life with all these other gay friends, of course they did why do you think they lived in Chicago not near you. I actually incorporated that into a training that I did and I use it in my training for older adults where I say in the nursing home where the person says like are they going to be accepted, the niece says that and the nursing home administrator says well didn't they say hi to you when you came in as thought that would be it, that's the response instead of yes we have a non-discrimination policy which includes sexual orientation and gender identity, we'll show you the different kinds of resources we have. They don't say that they said didn't they say hi to you when you came in like that would be enough, you should be-- ST: Oh yeah, you're right, yeah. LB: Well tell Sarah that she's absolutely right. You can watch that it's got some wonderful stuff about their baseball teams and stuff and their incredible relationship that they had which was driven. That's not what the movie's about, you know, if the movie was about that we would all be cheering for them for heaven's sake. ST: What was the other one, was it Freeheld where the police chief got cancer, obviously that really resonated with us, we were solving that, I thought that was pretty well done. And then of course as soon as you're watching you go and you're on Google looking up the true story and you want to see the real people behind the characters on the movie and what a story. LB: Steven Goldstein was the main guy, he's the Jewish lawyer, he's one of our Facebook friends. I mean you probably are Facebook friends with him, because he's just local. He's in the southern part of New Jersey and he actually worked with what's the name of that movie star, the guy who played that who was in the office, I can't remember his name. But Steven Goldstein actually met with him and said you're doing the gay part ; you're doing the Jewish part okay but you're not doing the gay part okay. Let me explain how you do this, and it was you know so they really, when they made that movie, they really paid attention to what it needed to be. So that was pretty good, plus the actors were so good, you know. So good for you for doing that, I love that aspect, so you haven't had any problems being out to your family because you're with your family and they're cool. So what's the biggest frustration you're having right now? ST:I think the lack of consistent messaging from the government being I don't even like saying who is up there behind a podium touching the microphone and not wearing a mask and the next person, like you lead best by example. I mean that's like leadership 101, that's what you learn like if you're even on a team as a child you learn, like you lead by example and do as I, you know, anyway. I mean I find sometimes when I'm scrolling through Facebook like if my sound is on and someone shares a clip of him speaking that just his voice strikes a tinge, like this response in me and that's so not healthy. I'm 50% hopeful-- LB: I just want to stop and say that you know if people are watching this thirty years from now that we're talking about Trump. ST: Yes, I just don't like saying his name, it also strikes that tinge in me. I'm fifty percent hopeful and I'm fifty percent riddled with anxiety about this election which is in 99 days but who's counting because we never thought he was going to win the first time, and that night watching the polls we were crying and I don't care if that makes people call us snowflakes or whatever, I've been called worse. We knew, we knew this was not -- we have, we know people who have family that like golf with that man and it was literally like a dare it was a joke he wouldn't be the president, so you have this person who doesn't even care about this country. He doesn't and we knew it, we knew it was bad news for the LGBT community, we knew it was bad news for just us as a country and it's sad to see especially coming off the heels of Obama's administration. So I'm frustrated beyond belief with what I see at the top there. I try really hard just to focus on our own bubbles, you know the Lehigh Valley has a lot of great things, Bradbury Sullivan Center being one of them, we're progressive, I feel safe walking on the street holding hands with my wife in our community and the other areas of the Lehigh Valley, I'm very grateful for that. But, I'm incredibly heartbroken and frustrated for things that I see happening in the rest of the country and nothing like a pandemic to just amp it up even worse, I mean the civil unrest that we have happening right now, the Black Lives Matter movement, it's hard to just-- LB: I've asked everybody to talk about Black Lives Matter if they want to, so do you want to talk about that for a little while go ahead and say some stuff. ST: Yes, so I grew up in Warren County, New Jersey, which is just over the border from the valley. I moved to the valley about fourteen years ago, but that county houses an incredibly racist town that was just a couple of minutes north of where I grew up. So I was in high school with those kids and I graduated in '99, I was 1998 or 1999 there was an incident of a man being drug behind a pickup truck with a noose in Texas. And there was a group of kids in my class who called themselves proudly The Rednecks, and then walking through the hall one day I spotted a noose hanging out of the one kid's locker and I questioned them about it, I said what is this about. And inside of his locker he had the article of that lynching in Texas and said that the man that did was his hero. And I don't consider myself a violent person now but when I was seventeen, I was a little crazy and I kicked his locker shut on his hand and hurt his hand really bad. But when we went to go to the office to talk about what had happened I didn't get suspended or anything, I maybe got like a day of in school suspension but I've always been anti-racist, I don't want to say that I'm not racist, I am anti-racist and you know I've always had my eye on the police and what they're doing. I attended a free [Malia?] march when I was seventeen-years-old it's just something that's very important to me, I am disgusted by people that think any less of someone who has a different skin color. So in terms of what's going on right now I'm here for it, I love seeing young people on the street and fighting for this and I hope to see significant change in my lifetime. I hope to see radical overhauls of our police department so that we have more thoughtful response to things and we're allocating sources to better respond to -- you know we should be taking some of the burden on, I would never sign up to be a police officer. I have great respect for the people that do but they are overwhelmed and they need more training. So I think that we're in for the long haul here, it didn't change overnight in the 60s when everyone was protesting it's not going to change overnight this time. Enough is enough, it's again incredibly frustrating to see how Trump handles it and what the things that come out of his mouth are just unbelievable. But hopefully that will change in 99 days and some real positive and progressive changes will come about. I'm maintaining hope for that, I really am. And someone asked me the other day well what if he gets elected again and I don't even know, I can't even stomach a response to that yet, I just don't know. LB: Well I'm certain of that and I said you know we just have to go on that's the thing, we can't just give up and you know -- but we have to work, we have to make sure that that doesn't happen. ST: Agreed. LB: So you've already talked about being worried about getting the virus and taking a lot of precautions to avoid that. What's the best thing that you've really experienced so far, what's giving you hope now, and I think you were talking a little bit about young people marching, that's one of the things that gives me hope. ST: Yes, I think I'm realizing that there's more channels to communicate with each other. Seeing the global pollution go down has been something I've been -- you know a positive aspect I've been trying to focus on. I do try to kind of be the glass half full, it's hard for me. I think inherently I'm a pessimist and skeptic and maybe even a little negative, so I try to reprogram myself every day and really focus on the positive aspects of everything that's happening. So one of the best things that happened was in the beginning when I was home more, I've worked every day since I was like fourteen so even through cancer treatment I was working, I didn't take any time off for that, looking back what the hell I had the opportunity. But I just have always worked really hard and at the beginning of the lockdown when I was mostly just answering the phones at home I got to stay home more, and I wish I could say that like oh I drafted a book or I wrote a business plan and I got in shape but I've gained so much weight. We made, I lost count of how many like trays of rice crispy treats we made and just like we were doing so well like in February we bought an elliptical and we were on it every day and we were doing the app where you count your calories and all that and we were like losing weight and just like boom, like ripped out from under us. And it was just like I wish I could say I was that person that took this opportunity to like I don't know do something great but it's hard, there's so much uncertainty and it's so scary and I'm just glad that I'm alive I don't care if I weigh a little bit more than I did, whatever I'm alive and I think, uh, it was great at first to spend some more time at home. I got like some cleaning and organizing, and craft projects done that I never had the time for, but I certainly didn't like probably utilize it all to my best ability. But whatever. LB: [Linda Khan?], who they had a PFLAG for many years and she's a good friend of ours and she said you know I just wanted to have, I was always hoping that sometime I would just have time at home so I could give this series of projects done and I found out that if I had time at home I wouldn't do the projects anyway. I didn't do them, so I'm not that into it she said. It was not true, you know, so yeah, I don't know we've been doing a lot of gardening. I think that's been a positive thing. But you've been working the whole time, almost the whole time. ST: Yes, I was so I should be a little easy on myself. I did have like this massive checklist and I'm a checklist person I have checklists every day. There was one in the kitchen that was like quarantine projects. You know so that it can loom over me every time I go get more rice crispy treats and put added pressure to me that I don't freaking need. But it was there we got some things done and the other things you know whatever they'll get done sometime. LB: Well I think that's a really good and refreshing attitude to have, I think that it's brilliant so good for you for doing that. Have you had an opportunity to sort of like work into a regime of some kind of exercise, I just talked to somebody who said I don't go out of the house at all, and it was a young person and they said there's a -- they ended up being stuck in a place where they couldn't go home so they had to stay at somebody's family's house from college and then the family left so they're by themselves and I said if you've been like -- and they're in the woods and I said have you been going outside and he said, "No there's a bear, I'm not going out, what are you crazy, I'm not going out." So I thought that was really funny. ST: I am not built for this hot hot weather we've been having lately. I'm not a hot weather person, so I don't I try not to go outside either. We bought this house last year and there's an above ground pool, so we hang out in there a lot, that's about the extent of the exercise I'm getting. But I'm not swimming, I'm floating. LB: Water just it absorbs stuff so that would work. Well it's tricky. I have a bicycle desk and I've been using my bicycle pretty much when I'm on Zoom meetings that are boring. But if I have to be, I'm not on it now because all the interviews have been fascinating for me. I've got to tell you they've been fascinating, but sometimes there will be a Zoom meeting, a lot of the work meetings that we had to do and I'd be like on my desk, talking to somebody who is on one of those big bouncy ball things. ST: Yeah, you can see them kind of bobbing the whole time. LB: I thought that was great actually I thought like you know what the heck, so they were getting out of it and I thought that was a terrific thing. So it sounds like you're doing pretty well with your mental health, this actually says how would you describe your mental health right now. What do you think about that? ST: I think I was way more sporadic than normal, I feel like I'm pretty even keel most of the time, like middle of the road, I don't let bad things like really ruin my day unless it's like a catastrophe. But I would find like I never knew how I was going to wake up. There were days I would jump out of bed and you know knock out four of those quarantine projects on the checklist before 9 a.m. and it was great and then like the very next day I'd be like today we'll just stay in bed and watch these damn lesbian movies all day because I don't want to get out of bed and that was weird for me, I was aware of it though, which I think is important. I was very aware of like okay I don't feel like conquering the world today and that's okay, I'm going to let myself have this day of rest. Because I'll usually beat myself up if I'm not like gung ho. But it was just god you couldn't escape it either, I mean I guess you could, but it was like Facebook and there's so much that they didn't know. I was actually -- I had a big box of masks that I still had from when I was going through chemo because when your cell counts are low you know you have to mask up to go in public. So I wore masks before it was cool, no but I was probably one of the first people going to the grocery store with a mask on and got a lot of weird looks from people and it was funny like as the weeks ticked by then it was like you'd see more and more people and I'd shoot them like a -- no I didn't, it was interesting to see the progression because of course at first they said well we think people should have them, but it's because they learned more about the virus so they learned that yes this is a good thing so that was interesting. I was a little high strung at first, I was doing the whole sanitizing all of the groceries because they said it was like living on surfaces we didn't know. LB: So we're pretty much not doing that as much anymore is that true because I think we're still doing a little bit. ST: I definitely do a little bit, we -- my wife used to absolutely love food shopping, and I never really liked it and now we just we've used Instacart a lot, we're lucky to be able to do that but it's just I don't it's going there gives us so much anxiety. At the peak in April I took like half of my paycheck, we planned out meals for 14 days and we're like we're going to make a big batch of like -- we're vegetarian, we're going to make a big batch of veggie lasagna then we'll use it and we figured out like all right we're going to spend this much money and we're going to do two weeks of food shopping. So I went and my cart was overflowing like I looked like that crazy person in the grocery store. But it wasn't overflowing with like toilet paper I wasn't like hoarding stuff, and the cashier gave me the dirtiest look she was like oh, and I'm like this is what people should be doing so that you only have to check us out one time in two weeks and I'm saving you like but anyway, got home with all that stuff and had to wipe it all down and it was like a three and a half hour ordeal I was exhausted. I was like I hate this and of course you know you say like I want things to go back to normal and this is unfair but it's okay to have temper tantrums some days I certainly have. LB: Trish is a wonderful cook and one of her -- you know we are so lucky anybody that has a job, anybody that has a house, anybody that doesn't have to work in a place where they're constantly being really really at risk for nothing like waitresses that I know people that are servers that have to be at risk to the point where they're and they're not paid enough to make this worthwhile. And then threatened you know well yeah ; we're not wearing these masks but if you have a problem with it you can just resign and then you won't get unemployment. But Trish, a frustration that she has realized and she always kind of knew this but she's very very frugal, we live very frugally and yet she makes wonderful food, and that was all predicated on her ability to buy bargains and go to the places where she just said if I could go to the farmer's market now I would be getting those big flats of strawberries and then I could can the strawberry jelly and I can't believe I can't do that, I could get a whole flat for ten dollars. I would be putting the blueberries away so we'd have blueberry crumble in the winter, and I can't get out. She's realizing that that is actually our biggest expense is that she cannot buy food that is economical, we can't go to the farmer's market when the sales are on because they're just not careful there at all and she's a very high risk too she has lupus actually. So has had it all the time that we've been together all the 30 years that we've been together and she has to be very very careful. We have not been out, we haven't taken any -- well we were driving back from an appointment, we were at the doctor's appointment and we were driving back and we went by Produce Mart and I said go in there because we have our masks and we could go in there. And she said I can't go in there ; I can't count on it to be the way we need it to be and it will just be frustrating. And we have a young person who has actually had the virus and then was tested by Lehigh Valley Health network and has very high antibodies. So she shops for us. We don't even have to feel negative about it, but she still can't do the bargains, can't look at the stuff and go well this would be good and then if I buy this and this, I can make this. It is killing Trish that this is happening. ST: I think that's with Sarah like too she would go and maybe be inspired by something that she would see and make this whole meal around it and now it's like and you know they never get the bananas right, it's like no matter what it's -- one time we had a mishap last week she ordered like five bananas but they registered it as five bunches and she's trying to like you can message the person while they're shopping she's like no, no, no please don't bring us 11 pounds of bananas and she was able to get it corrected. But I said to her yesterday or the day before we Instacarted again I said when are we going to go back to the grocery store. Like we'll run in for quick things, you know, one or two items, but partially it's kind of being spoiled now, you know, I like having them deliver to the front door if I could just get them to come in and put them away that'd be awesome. But it's just also it's I realized even driving to the grocery store you start to realize like your shoulders are up around your ears and you're like wow this is really causing me a lot of distress, why you know I'll pay the delivery fee to have this luxury. LB: We just went out ; we haven't been out in probably two weeks and we've really only been out together to go to doctor's appointments. So we went to a doctor's appointment today, we're coming back and every single person that we saw we made a comment on whether or not they were wearing a mask and it drives you nuts. You know you're like oh those people are wearing a mask, that guys wearing a mask, the whole way and you know one of the things we did see was rush hour and it was -- when we were coming back and we were coming back from Whitehall so it was right on 145 and that's a major route and I said boy this is half the traffic you would normally see, people are at home, they are really, we were looking at shopping, all those shopping places there and grocery stores and they just didn't have the one car in the gas station, there was just clearly nothing happening, really this is affecting the economy and yes it's not going to stop. I mean I just asked somebody earlier today about what was giving that person, giving him help and he said that he is watching every single science based thing about the vaccines. And that's what's giving me the hope because they're on the third trial of a vaccine now that they still think is very promising. So because the way Americans are, we're really a bunch of assholes and so we can't be like England where they just, everybody locked down, nobody left the house for 90 days and it went away and now they have life. ST: I remember first hearing about China and seeing videos where the government or health officials were posting these giant speakers on street corners and it was saying like do not come out of your house and they were only letting people like on Thursdays go grocery shopping and I thought oh my god this is, they're insane over there. And now I'm like oh my god I wish our fucking government was as insane as well. I just didn't realize the magnitude of it at that point, we got no direction though we were like wear a mask if you want whatever. LB: We've seen reports from scientists that have said bone fide reports that if every person in the United States wore a mask for three months it would be over. ST: Yeah wear it properly. LB: Right actually not just -- and if that happened it would be a done deal and yeah if we'd had the leadership to do that and said look I'm sorry I know this is tough for you but if we don't do this we'll hurt the economy kids won't be able to go back to school. Well, we really didn't have that leadership. ST: Are you in your Covid interviews? Do you have any educators or teachers that you're interviewing? LB: No, I talked to somebody who was a retired teacher who has a lot of teacher friends and he was very strong about saying it's just ridiculous and he gave me so many interesting little insights into it. One of the things he said was in the Allentown School District, he was a music teacher so he worked in every single school, and he said in the Allentown School District in September it is so hot many of the schools are not air conditioned, what they do is they take -- so he said they're talking to me about having smaller classes what they do when it's hot like that is they take all the kids and they put them in a big air conditioned auditorium. He said what are they going to do, we're going to leave the kids in the 99 degree temperature and who are they-- ST: No way. LB: New kids have to be in there, but these kids can be in the cool area. He said there's just no way they're going to do that and then he named three or four other things where he said it is just not going to work, you cannot keep these kids from getting kids, sick from everything else. I talked to a number of college educators and one of the people that I know very well who works at Muhlenberg was saying we cannot, you know kids who are young people who are students on college campuses get sick, it happens all the time. You know you can have mono everybody gets mono, everybody gets the flu, it happens all the time. And people get colds and part of the whole experience of going to college is that communal interaction, you're with people all the time, in fact I was just talking to somebody who just graduated today and he was saying you know I haven't seen my friends as much I can only see them on Zoom. And I said you know on the day I graduated from college I had a really good friend that I had seen every single day of college who was still one of my best friends, I just talked to her and stuff, but I didn't see her face to face for ten years after that day. And I said the fact that you have Zoom and you can see -- because she lived in -- she moved to New Orleans and I was living in New York State and it's just like I didn't see her. I talked to her but I didn't see her. And I said the fact that you can see your friends when you leave college, that's what happens if you're not in that communal situation. If you're missing out on that communal situation of all that sharing and being around people that are different that you've never been around a person that was like that before, you begin to have new attitudes and ideas, your family is conservative and you change, your family has only spoken one language and then you see oh there's people that speak all the different -- if you lose that in a college situation it is devastating and yet you cannot stop kids from getting sick in college if they're all in dorms. It's just not going to work, it's like a nursing home, it's not going to work, and everybody has said that. And one professor was saying to me, she was an administrator actually and she said they think they're going to open this college but the staff and the faculty are not going to allow it to open, because it's too dangerous for the faculty and what they've said is it's unethical to do. ST: It really is, you're already asking so much of teachers, now this, and what is your plan and again it's like every district is left to their own devices well you guys write the policy and you figure out what the plan when a teacher gets sick or a student gets sick, but there's also HIPAA laws and what. There's no direction from the top down and I just feel for them, I feel for every parent, you know, we don't have children but definitely our friends do and talking to them through this it's like they're so torn it's like oh my gosh my kid needs to go to school, I need to get back to my job, they need the socialization, but germs. What the hell do you do? It's awful. LB: And there's even that other level of the idea that we're seeing that poor school districts like the school district in the city of Allentown where people don't even really have access to the internet much less having a computer. They don't even have the internet in their home, we don't have a grid here, and what they're talking about is like in cities like this or cities like Easton and Bethlehem they need to make the entire city be a grid and then the payment to be able to get into -- and just have like you never get a password who is in school so that they can be on the internet and then you can get them inexpensive computers and you can do that. But right now kids who are in the Parkland School District are having no problem being able to do lessons and classes and Zoom classes and stuff. But kids who are in Allentown who in some ways need this education more they don't all speak English, they're American citizens, they don't all speak English, they need this, they don't have their family. Their families are essential workers so they're home alone. You know that has to really be-- ST: But the unexpected ripple effects of this you know the more people that you talk to and it sounds like you -- you know you get to talk to all these people with these interviews and things are sprouting up that you wouldn't even think. One of my friends works in the parks system so when this first happened the shutdown everybody's like let's get back to nature and it was March, April, it was great weather so like the first or second weekend there were like seven forest fires not like raging forest fires but there were seven fires in our parks system that had to go be extinguished because it's like people that never go out into nature are suddenly out there, you know, tossing their cigarette butts or whatever and I was like wow what an unintended ripple coming out of this and there's so many of them out there, and there's so many that will continue to happen, there's so many we haven't even identified yet. It's just -- it's a really interesting part of history, I'd rather not have lived for it, but you know let it happen in another hundred years but here we are getting through it. LB: It will be a thing to see if indeed people like for example well we can't afford to pay kids you know we can't afford to pay for kids to have education and suddenly we have a trillion dollars to line everybody's pockets, a trillion dollars is so much money that that would mean every single person in the entire Lehigh Valley could have two million dollars for children, you know. ST: For us to get like a half hour bump on the stock market that was fun right. Couldn't have spent that money better. LB: And yet you know they'll say like well there's not enough money to have universal health care, because if we'd had universal health care that would have been another thing that would have kept people from getting sick, because people went to work because they couldn't go to the doctor, they didn't have health care and stuff, they were afraid to lose-- ST: And they infected other people, yes. LB: So, yeah, well this has been a wonderful conversation, I'm so glad to get to talk to you, what a good time. We'd love to stop by on Zoom at your bar. ST: We've got to hash out the happy hour specials I'll let you know. LB: Tell people what happy hour special it is so that they could bring it to their Zoom. Their own concoction as a mocktail or something. But it would be really interesting to hear what it ends up to be that is your perfect lesbian movie. ST: Yes, well we haven't found it yet. So far, you know, we do like Carol, we got really [ into the Gentleman Jack series on HBO that wasn't a movie but we dressed up like Anne and Ann and we're Sarah and Sarah so we dressed up as them for Halloween and I contacted [Shibden?] Hall and had them put little signs around that was like Sarah's love for you is so strong it can be felt at Shibden Hall, so I did that for my wife. But we are absolutely obsessed with that series so if they could like -- and that's another thing they can't film the next season because of Covid of all the things that are going on that's the most devastating. LB: Are we privileged or what but boy I feel that way too and I actually studied all about Anne Lister I was going to do a whole art history program about her for lesbian visibility day and how brilliant she was and all the problematic things about her and it's such a fascinating thing. That you know they actually had well I'm sure you would know this but they had intimacy coaches to be able to tell them how to make out with each other and how to touch each other and stuff so that it would make more sense and it wouldn't look fake. ST: The theories oh my gosh, no I didn't know that. LB: This is what you should you know because these women are not lesbians, they were saying like you know you have all sorts of coaches for different kinds of movements in movies and stuff. ST: That is so funny. LB: Fighting coaches and stuff like that so they actually said you know this is what you should do, and this is how you should move, and this is the look you have. It is a brilliant series, it's the second, we don't have Hulu, so we sort of latched onto our friend's but it's the second series now, is it the second season? ST: Yes, there were two seasons and now the third one is postponed. So I think or was it one season. LB: I thought it was kind of sad actually so you know. ST: Well we read her, Sarah read her actual diary too and then like you know I never have time, so she gave me the Cliff Notes, but her medical treatment from her diaries was horrible. So I don't know if they'll touch on any of that I doubt it. LB: Fascinating thing but you'll never have time to do but Shibden Hall has a thing that's called Lister Sisters and Michelle Meecham I don't know she lives in our community I don't know if you know her, she also has a whole outfit, a whole Anne Lister, she was at the pride festival dressed as Anne Lister. She wears that ring and everything and she looks -- she became a Lister Sister because you know despite thousands or no it's five million words, she wrote five million words, well they haven't all been decoded. They get people who are known as Lister Sisters and they teach them how to decode it and then they give them pages and they write, they decode it. ST: I have the legend of like her handwriting I think it's saved on my phone, so I was going to like write -- I'll start writing to Sarah in that code, she'll be like what the hell is this. Grocery list, surprise. LB: But you have to know all those math symbols and everything, and actually the actors in that are just, they're so incredibly great the women are so great. I love that you're into that especially since Harry Potter is dead to us, so you know. ST: I was never a fan anyway. LB: I liked it but I'm past it now, I knew a lot of trans people who loved it and it's over such a shame. So good for Anne Lister for keeping us amused. Thank you again so much for talking to me. ST: Absolutely, it was fun. LB: When the transcript is all done, they'll send you the thing and you can look it over and see if there's anything that you say oh, I didn't mean to say that. But I don't think you'll find that, I thought this was wonderful and it was very different than a lot of other people I've been talking about. Each person has such a different insight into that, and this is significantly different because of your working in the hospitality industry so to speak and it's very helpful. So thank you very much for doing that. ST: Absolutely, thank you for thinking of me for the project I'm excited. LB: We're very lucky that we have this archive because Trish and I saved tons and tons and tons of papers over the last twenty-five years that we've been doing this and we're like what are we going to do with this stuff. And now it's digitized, it's all-- ST: Yes, incredible. LB: We're very lucky and we own it, the center owns it, but Muhlenberg is maintaining it so we've very lucky. Anyway thank you very much, keep up the good work, stay safe. ST: I will you too. LB: All that kind of stuff and we'll keep our fingers crossed for November well ninety-nine days, ninety-nine days on the wall. ST: All right thank you, bye. 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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Sarah Trimmer, July 27, 2020
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Sarah Trimmer talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting her, her essential worker job managing a bed and breakfast in South City Bethlehem, and her concern about the virus because she is at high risk as a breast cancer survivor. She also discusses how she and her wife have replaced new entertainment interests for things they regularly did before the virus.
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
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2020-07-27
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Foltz, Mary
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Mesics, Sandra (Sandy)
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5.4 October 11th, 2021 Sandy Mesics, October 11, 2021 LGBT-13 01:46:09 LVLGBT Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley 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 Mesics, Sandra (Sandy) Foltz, Mary video/mov MesicsSandy_20211011_video.mp4 1.0:|29(2)|58(11)|83(2)|100(11)|123(15)|144(2)|165(6)|186(5)|209(12)|234(15)|259(3)|280(4)|301(7)|322(6)|349(3)|370(4)|391(8)|418(10)|443(17)|468(7)|491(2)|514(5)|535(10)|556(16)|581(8)|604(2)|625(5)|650(7)|673(6)|692(15)|715(15)|740(7)|763(6)|786(2)|805(10)|826(5)|849(11)|872(3)|893(6)|916(2)|937(16)|964(4)|987(6)|1008(5)|1031(13)|1048(12)|1073(7)|1096(5)|1113(11)|1134(8)|1155(8)|1176(15)|1201(15)|1226(18)|1247(10)|1264(11)|1285(9)|1306(14)|1331(2)|1354(9)|1377(5)|1400(12)|1425(9)|1448(15)|1471(12)|1494(2)|1517(3)|1536(15)|1559(12)|1582(11)|1607(7)|1632(2)|1649(16)|1672(15)|1693(11)|1718(2)|1737(8)|1754(12)|1777(2)|1800(4)|1825(2)|1844(15)|1867(9)|1888(12)|1915(3)|1938(8)|1961(8)|1984(5)|2007(5)|2030(8)|2051(13)|2074(5)|2095(15)|2116(15)|2135(6)|2154(12)|2177(6)|2198(10)|2219(4)|2240(4)|2259(14)|2282(11)|2303(14)|2328(5)|2349(8)|2380(2)|2383(6) 0 https://youtu.be/tngiiTGigK8 YouTube video 0 Interview Introductions My name is Mary Foltz, and I’m here with Sandy Mesics to talk about her life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley and beyond, as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, and Sandy and I are meeting on October 11, 2021. 0 141 Early Family Life in Bethlehem, PA Well, I guess to sum things up, I’m a baby boomer. You know, as you know from my birthdate, I fall into that generation. I was born here in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at St. Luke’s Hospital in 1952. My family at that time consisted of my mother, my father, and I have an older brother eight years older than myself. 0 347 Bethlehem Steel and the Evolution of the City but the Bethlehem Steel obviously was the main employer, and in some ways, it seemed like we were all connected to Bethlehem Steel, you know, either directly or indirectly. 0 622 Death of Father and Impact on Life My parents were always, well, to go into a little bit of detail, I did not have my father very long in my life. When I was 12 years old, we had a snowstorm, and it was a really bad January snowstorm, but we loved it because I didn’t have to go to school. 0 798 Childhood Gender Questioning SM: (laughs) Yeah. It’s going to be a short answer, because you know, being a Roman Catholic child growing up in a not major city in the 1950s and 1960s, I had no clue as to difference, biological differences between boys and girls. I mean, I knew what I looked like, I kind of looked like my brother. 0 928 Finding Trans Representation in Youth I think one of the earliest memories was finding a book by Christine Jorgensen you know, that talked about her change. And ironically, Christine Jorgensen, that news hit in 1952, the year I was born. 0 1230 College Experience Honestly, I really didn’t get a comprehensive picture of being trans until I went to college. And I went to Penn State, majored in Psychology, as it turned out, and Pattee Library had a wealth of journal articles and some books that were not available commonly to the public, and that’s where I really did my homework, so to speak. 0 1507 Gender Dysphoria in College My gender dysphoria was getting like you couldn’t believe, because there was no opportunity to slip off and dress the way I wanted to dress, or express myself the way I wanted to dress, which I had been doing since I was a little, little, kid. 0 1586 The Erickson Foundation There was an organization called the Erickson Foundation. And this was started by Reed Erickson, who was a transman, and he had come into some money because of his parents’ family business, and so he set up a foundation that was supposed to disseminate information for transsexuals in those days, and one of the services they provided was referral lists. 0 1646 Starting Hormones So, I wrote to them for referrals. And so, they wrote back and sent me a nice letter, and there were three referrals! Three physicians in Pennsylvania that might help me. 0 1744 Graduating and Moving to Philadelphia So, then I really had no future after college. You know, really, I always joke that having a bachelor’s degree in psychology kind of prepares you to ask people the important questions in life, and the important question being, “Would you like fries with that order?” And that’s exactly what my life was. 0 1910 Creating Image Magazine And that opportunity came when I started a magazine. And you know, talk about hubris. You know, my friend and I in Philadelphia decided that we wanted to start a magazine for trans folx. And, you know we knew a half a dozen trans folx by that time, but you know, I worked on the school newspaper, I was good at writing could do a rudimentary lay out, and so we established Image Magazine, and it was a quarterly, and it was a grassroots, I typed it at home, you know we sent it over to the printing place a couple blocks away, got it back, fold it, collate it, stapled, mailed it, and it started taking off a little bit, and so that’s sort of my entrance into the trans community and being an activist. 0 2067 LGBTQ+ Community at Penn State and HOPS Good question, thank you. Yeah, it, Penn State did have a gay bar in those days. It was called the My Oh My, and it was I think on College Avenue. However, I was not able to take advantage of that because I actually graduated from Penn State the day after my 21st birthday. 0 2224 LGBTQ+ Community in Philadelphia and Eromin So, transitioning over to Philadelphia was like “Ooh!” You know, all of a sudden you know I was meeting trans people in the streets! You know, striking up conversation, like we would see each other at Rittenhouse Square. And so, all of a sudden in Pennsylvania at that time in Philly, the group that I was most associated with was called Radical Queens. 0 2577 The United Transvestite Transexual Society and Working in Publishing And so, we all got our heads together, and Jack O’Brien, a cisgender male who was a former cartoonist, ran all these publications. And there were a slew of them, and some of them were pretty gross. 0 2858 The Importance of Erotic Imagery in LGBTQ+ Publications Could you talk a little bit about why erotic fiction, why erotic images really mattered in that time period? Why that was a focus, along with the self-help, along with the conferences, along with political discussion, I imagine. Why did that matter?
 ; 0 3109 Female Impersonator News It was called, and again, Female Impersonator News. And it was a tabloid publication, and a lot of, I should mention, a lot of what we did were personal ads, and you know, in those days, people trying to connect with each other, and you know, you got maybe a post office box and you placed an ad in a magazine like ours, you know maybe send a picture you described yourself, what you were looking for, and we would facilitate like forwarding mail, and that was a big part of what we did. 0 3263 The Impact of Trans Publications I think it was, I don’t know, just, I wasn’t prepared for the outpouring of letters that I got. You know, and so like we had, we always had letters to the editor that you know we would publish if we thought there was something helpful in there. 0 3626 Career Post-Image Magazine Yeah, so I parlayed what I learned about publication layout writing and everything and applied for a job at W.B. Saunders company in Philadelphia. And, W.B. Saunders was at that time, I think it still is, a large medical publishing company, and W.B. Saunders had one best seller in their whole career, and I think that was the Kinsey Report. 0 4144 Exploring Sexual Orientation Segueing into the other question, I always knew that I was attracted to women, even as a kid, and boy that was confusing. You know, so like I want to, you know I am a woman, I want to be a woman, but I love women, and you know, so that was really hard. 0 4341 Meeting and Dating Future Spouse My spouse and I met in 1985, in Miami. At that time, she was just graduating from the University of Miami’s master’s degree in Nurse Midwifery, and she at that time was exploring her own lesbianism. 0 4553 Navigating Lesbian Relationships as a Transwoman I had my first, what I would call serious relationship with a woman probably [01:16:00] in Philadelphia in 1978 or so, and we were together for four or five years, and so in that aspect, you know, one of the big discussions among trans people is entering a relationship, do I disclose my trans status? 0 4907 Moving Back to the Lehigh Valley Okay. So, that pretty much brings us up to the year 2000. And what is happening at that time is Sara is working in a clinic in Broward County, and is not real happy with her job situation. 0 5169 Relationship with Mother As I said, way in the background, even though my mom was born in the United State, she basically grew up in Hungary, and then moved back to the States. And she had basically the equivalent of a grade school education, I don’t think, she didn’t have high school. 0 5696 Evolution of the Leigh Valley cont. As I said, think the industries are, not to say industries, but the professions in like the learning institutions, the medical care brings a more professional kind of class of people. I’m sorry, I’m sounding elitist there, and I don’t mean that by any means, but it’s a place that’s culturally rich now, where it hadn’t been before. You know, we have world-class music. 0 5925 Hope for the Future and Closing Thoughts I think if anything, I am so hopeful for the future. When I see young non-binary kids not afraid to express their gender identity, not having to buy, you know, one or the other, you know, gender is everything in between, and that’s okay, it’s like wow! 0 MovingImage Sandy Mesics describes her childhood, growing up in Bethlehem, PA ; her reflections on Bethlehem Steel, including her father’s employment with the company and working-class steel communities ; and her experiences as young transwoman trying to find information in tabloids and books about other transgender people. She discusses her enrollment at Penn State as a physics and later a psychology major ; her anti-Vietnam war activism ; her gender dysphoria during college ; and her journey toward gender affirmation with support from the Erickson Foundation and a doctor in Philadelphia. 
 ; 
 ; Moving to Philadelphia after college because of the large LGBTQ community, Sandy started Image Magazine, worked with Transsexual Action Committee, the Radical Queens, and Eromin Center ; in addition, she built a relationship with publishers of Female impersonator Magazine and ultimately worked with publishers to produce articles and publications for transgender readers, beginning 1974-1975. Sandy then describes using her work in publishing to gain employment with W.B. Saunders, a graphic arts company, and as an html coder. Toward the end of the interview, Sandy describes living in Miami, training to be a nurse, becoming a nurse midwife, and meeting her wife. The interview concludes with Sandy’s discussion of moving back to Bethlehem to care for her mother and finding a job at St. Luke’s, training others in maternal-newborn nursing. Sandy Mesics Interview October 11, 2021 MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Sandy Mesics to talk about her life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley and beyond, as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, and Sandy and I are meeting on October 11, 2021. We're conducting this interview on Zoom, because there's still a pandemic going on, so we think this is the safest way to conduct interviews at this time. And I want to start by saying, Sandy! Thank you so much for being here with me today! SANDY MESICS:It's a pleasure, Mary. I'm glad to be participating in this project. I hope I have something worthwhile to share with you. MF: Well, I'm really looking forward to it. I want to start just by getting some basic information down. Would you be willing to state your full name, please, and spell it for us? SM: Sure. My full name is Sandra Mesics. M-E-S-I-C-S, although I prefer Sandy. MF: Thank you. And will you please share your birthdate? SM: Yes, March 23, 1952. MF: Thank you. And, I know I already shared with you a consent form, and you signed it, and then I signed it on my end, but I just want to review just a few items about consent. So, first, do you consent to this interview today? SM: I do. MF: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online? SM: Yes. MF: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats, including articles or on websites, presentations, or other formats that might come along? SM: Yes. MF: And do you understand that you'll have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript of this interview to identify parts you might want to delete, or you could withdraw the interview in its entirety if you wanted? SM: Yes, I do. MF: Great! Okay, thank you so much. So, we'll just go ahead and dive in. So, Sandy could you start by telling us a little bit about the early years of your life? SM: Well, I guess to sum things up, I'm a baby boomer. You know, as you know from my birthdate, I fall into that generation. I was born here in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at St. Luke's Hospital in 1952. My family at that time consisted of my mother, my father, and I have an older brother eight years older than myself. So, I came along, and you know I guess the doctor in those days took a look at what was between my legs and assigned me as a male at birth. And I think it took a little while for me to realize that there was a real disconnect there, but you know, we can cover that in some detail. So, 1957, at that time we lived in Fountain Hill, my dad and mom basically, my dad was a Bethlehem Steel worker. He was a first generation American. Both grandparents on both sides of my family immigrated from Europe in the early 1900s to seek a better life. And so, my dad was the first generation born here in America, as well as my mother. My mother was born in Northhampton, but then immigrated back to Europe, and basically my mom grew up in Hungary, and didn't get back to the United States until I think the 1930s at that time, and then settled here. My mom at that time when I was born was a domestic servant. She worked for one of the vice presidents of Bethlehem Steel, and her job was to cook meals, do the shopping, and in those days, the steel executives had quite a staff of domestic workers, and my mom was one of them. My older brother I mentioned is eight years older than myself, he's still alive and living in Florida, and we do keep in touch occasionally, although we never really had a close relationship. Both parents were, I was raised a Roman Catholic, and in those days Bethlehem, particularly on the South Side had a lot of ethnic churches, a lot of Roman Catholic churches. And a lot of them are still standing, although they're pretty much defunct right now. And we were members of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church on Fifth Street, which was a Windish church, which Windish, it's hard to explain, but it's some kind of amalgam of Hungarian and Slovak backgrounds. All that European, Eastern European mix that used to get jumbled up every time they had a war over there. And so, that was the milieu in which I was born and raised. Subsequently, we moved to the North side of Bethlehem, where my mom and dad actually built the house I grew up in. So, as a little kid I remember carrying around hammers and drinking lemonade on the building site, and it was a family affair. So, I can tell you that Bethlehem in the early 1960s was a booming place, an industrial center. It's hard to conceive of it anymore, but the Bethlehem Steel obviously was the main employer, and in some ways, it seemed like we were all connected to Bethlehem Steel, you know, either directly or indirectly. The steel company pretty much ran 24/7, 365. It never shut down. And as I look back, I can still hear the sounds of the steel running at night. I can still see the glow on the horizon from the blast furnaces. It had this orange glow most of the time, smoke spewing into the air, and on a really humid day where the wind was out of the East, you got the wonderful aroma of the Coke Works outside of Hellertown, which was a sulfuric smell. So, you know, in many ways, Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley has really improved as far as a quality-of-life thing, even though we kind of miss the industry. I really don't miss the noise, the smoke, and the pollution. And you know, the steel provided a great living for a lot of steel workers like my dad, who had a high school education, and could go right to work in the steel, he had a trade, and there were good benefits thanks to the union, and they were able to raise kids, and they were able to keep a roof over our heads, and keep us clothed and fed, and actually my brother was the first one in our family to go to college. And you know, I followed along eight years later, and they were very proud of that achievement. So, I'm digressing. Put me back on track, Mary. MF: I don't think you're digressing at all. That description of what it was like to live in Bethlehem with the steel works was amazing, and you're really capturing both how central the steel was to the economy, how it benefited laborers, but then the environmental costs of having the steel works at the center. SM: Yeah, the Bethlehem Steel that, a lot of the folks that worked there that are still walking around, you know, they're blaming everybody else on the demise of Bethlehem Steel, and truly it was multi-factored. You know, the company failed to invest in newer technology to compete with Europe and Japan, but by the same token, the union kind of drove some deals that made it very hard for the steel to make money. So, I honestly think it was everybody's fault, and it was almost inevitable that the steel would have a demise, and I think that was the amazing thing. Because when I left the Lehigh Valley in 1969 to go to college, the steel was running full blast. When I moved back to the Lehigh Valley as an older adult, back in the year 2000, it was gone. And but yet the Lehigh Valley survived, and I think is thriving, because of other smaller businesses that have moved into the area. We've become an educational mecca, with all the colleges, and universities. Certainly, a healthcare mecca, which we didn't have back then, so I am thrilled at the course that the Lehigh Valley has taken, and it thrives. And a lot of us could not have imagined that happening, you know, if the steel had gone away. MF: So, the steel was central to your family, in terms of you know, keeping a roof over your head, as you shared. What was it like to be in a steel family as a young child? SM: (laughs) The steel was a close-knit community in some ways, you know. You know, my dad worked there, my uncle worked there, and other relatives. And for instance, when my dad was building our house, it wasn't unusual for him to get his buddies from the crew that he worked with to help put the roof on the house. And there was always a buddy that could fix your car, or replace your brakes, or there was always somebody, you know, so it was kind of, those guys had this like kind of a knit community. And they helped each other a lot, and they were always working on projects for each other. So, that was really kind of interesting, and I think we miss that to a certain extent these days. I don't think we have that sense of tight community. My parents were always, well, to go into a little bit of detail, I did not have my father very long in my life. When I was 12 years old, we had a snowstorm, and it was a really bad January snowstorm, but we loved it because I didn't have to go to school. And for whatever reason, my dad was either not working that day, or couldn't get into work or whatever, and so we had a nice day together, but then we went out to shovel snow, and my dad came in with chest pains, and you know, he a neighbor-- a neighbor, not an ambulance, a neighbor took him to the hospital, and he never came home. So, that was kind of a sudden shock to all of us that we had lost this you know, my father. And it took kind of a long time to get over that. So, when, just before my dad died and my brother started going to college, my mom started working for Just Born as a candy packer. And so, Just Born is still around, and thriving in the Lehigh Valley, and so my mom became a line worker at Just Born, and so my brother was away at college at that time. He was in his late teens/early twenties, and so we had living in my house myself, my mother, and my paternal grandmother, which was like a really interesting dynamic, but a lot of the day-to-day running of the house, maintenance of the house, mowing the lawns and everything, kind of fell to me because there was nobody else to do it. So, for myself personally, it was like almost growing up overnight. You know, you kind of like left this sheltered childhood thing and all of a sudden you had responsibilities. And then, you know, life was still okay but a little precarious. There wasn't always money to do things, but we made do, and we did very well. You know, it kind of pulled the rest of us tighter together. So many years ago, and I still sort of get emotional about talking about that. Nobody expects, you know, your dad to go out the door and never come back the door again, so. MF: Wow. Thank you for sharing that, that story. It sounds to me like you know, following your father's death, you really became a figure in the family that was expected to do maintenance, kind of labor around the house, and this led me to think a little bit about, or wonder about how your family understood gender when you were a child. Would you be willing to explore that a bit? SM: Yeah. It's going to be a short answer, because you know, being a Roman Catholic child growing up in a not major city in the 1950s and 1960s, I had no clue as to difference, biological differences between boys and girls. I mean, I knew what I looked like, I kind of looked like my brother. I didn't know what girls looked like, I didn't, you know, but I just knew that there, you know-- One of my earliest memories is thinking to myself, and I must have been about four years old, and seeing little girls around me and going "when do I get to join that team?" You know? I always assumed that there would come a time in my life, early on, where I would be able to be like picked for that team, like you were picked for a basketball team. You know, you'd stand in a line, and I want to be on the girls' team because that's where I belong, and it just never happened. And so, I had no clue as to like gender differences. My mom, you know, with basically less than a high school education wasn't able to talk to me about that. She didn't understand. And so, I was kind of lost, and I had to sort of figure things out by myself, and I knew that there was this major disconnect, and when I was about five years old, it dawned on me that I was never going to get that chance to choose, and I was never going to get the chance to choose and I was never going to develop in that direction, and what do I do now? And so like, the rest of the time into my teens that's what I was trying to figure out. It's like, am I stuck this way? Do I have to lead my life in this gender and be totally unhappy? Is there any way that you know after the fact that I can switch genders? Which at that time might as well have been talking about, you know, walking on Mars, because you know, there wasn't. There was no information. And then gradually, gradually I started to connect with things, and I think one of the earliest memories was finding a book by Christine Jorgensen you know, that talked about her change. And ironically, Christine Jorgensen, that news hit in 1952, the year I was born. And so, I have a wonderful story, talk about full circle, is I got to meet Christine and have a discussion with her when she was older in life and just told her how her story gave me life and hope. But anyway, I started finding out about that probably in my early teens, and then the little lightbulb went on and said, there are other people like myself. I'm not alone. But even that, you thought to yourself, well maybe there's a half a dozen people like myself, maybe, in the world. And so, that was how it kind of evolved. And then gradually in my high school years, there were these things called tabloids, and there were dozens of them. And so, their idea was like splashy news stories. Titillating kind of things, and they were all The National Examiner, the National Enquirer, the Insider. It was trash journalism at its best. And they kind of like hooked on to trans people very early on, and would splash these pictures on the front page about "Can you believe this is a man?" With a picture of a lovely woman on the cover. And my eyes kind of bugged out when I started seeing this stuff, and so every Sunday morning after church we would make a trip to the store, and we'd buy the Philadelphia Enquirer, and the Allentown Chronicle, whatever, and I would find these tabloids and kind of stash them in between the papers and kind of steal them. So here's an admission, you know, I hope they don't come after me, but I would be able to do that and then get them home and kind of take them out right away before anybody else could see them, and like pore over these newspapers and this stuff. And it was like a desperate attempt to kind of glean some information about you know, there are other people like me, how are they managing their lives? How do they do this? And so, you know it took a while, but then gradually I started putting the pieces together. And then in the late 1960s I ran across Harry Benjamin's book, The Transexual Phenomenon. And obviously that was a real game changer, and it was a game changer for the whole trans community. I mean, how many of us were saved by that book? Bring me back on track, Mary. (laughs) MF: You're on track. We're just going to go wherever you want to go. Can I ask, did you hear about Christine Jorgensen from the tabloids, or you said, "I found something about her." Where were you finding information beyond the tabloids? Was there a place in the Lehigh Valley, or? SM:Yeah, so I think the Christine Jorgensen book when I found it was already out in paperback, and I think I found it at a department store in probably one of the defunct department-- like Almart or one of the stores that no longer exists, and they would have like little things you could buy record albums, and you could buy books, and you know, dinnerware and stuff like that. And I spotted this on the shelf, and somehow at the age of 11 or 12 I had the courage, screwed up the courage, to take this book, with my hand shaking, and go to the counter and pay for it, which was like "Ehh! They're going to think I'm weird." So, I found that out. And then there were, in those days, there were newsstands all throughout Bethlehem, and my favorite one was on, I think it was on New Street, and it was Sherry's News Stand. And again, you could go in the front, and they had all the newspapers lined up, but in the back corner, they had Playboy, Penthouse, they had you know the "adult magazines" and I ran across a copy of Female Impersonator Magazine. And irony of irony, I would actually become the editor of that magazine in a few years. So, yes. I found that also when I was a teenager, and I don't know if I figured out a way to steal that, because I'm pretty sure he probably wouldn't have sold it to me if you know I wasn't old enough to read that kind of stuff. But so, there were newsstands, occasionally you'd find things in stores, grocery stores would have the tabloids. There was nothing in the library, believe me, I looked, in those days, and that was of no help at all. So, you kind of, it was a pre-internet age and there wasn't that flood of information. There was no information superhighway in those days, but you kind of gleaned what you could. Honestly, I really didn't get a comprehensive picture of being trans until I went to college. And I went to Penn State, majored in Psychology, as it turned out, and Pattee Library had a wealth of journal articles and some books that were not available commonly to the public, and that's where I really did my homework, so to speak. MF: Tell me a little bit about moving to Penn State. So, what made you choose Penn State, and what was your experience like in college? SM: Okay. Good question, thank you. I was a science nerd in high school, and you know, going back a little bit, so I went to a parochial Roman Catholic grade school grades one to eight, and then my mother, to her credit, thought that the education that I was getting there wasn't on par with what I could get in the public education, and so in ninth grade I went to Northeast Middle School, which at that time was Northeast Junior High School, and then Liberty High School which, I mean you know, the big public high school in Bethlehem. All during that time I had developed a passion and an interest in astronomy, which you know, carries through to this day. I was a member of the Lehigh Valley Amateur Astronomical Society as a kid, and I am a member today again. So, at any rate, I went to Penn State because, number one, we could afford it. Number two, we could afford it. Number three, we could afford it. I benefited, you can say benefit is the right word, I benefited from social security survivor benefits because my father was, had died at such an early age. So, between scholarships, state aid, and my own working during the summer times, I was basically able to graduate from college without a dollar of debt, which, you know, who can do that these days? Nobody can do that. So anyway, I went to Penn State basically because I was admitted there, and it was close by, relatively, and we could afford it. We could swing it as a family. So anyways, I started out as a physics major and so Penn State in those days was culture shock for me, coming from the Lehigh Valley. I mean, I was thrown in with I think the student body then was maybe 26,000, something like that. I was living in a dorm. Living independently, which I loved. And tossed into this milieu of learning, which was like awesome, but it was also, 1969 was also the time when we had lots of things happen. You know, you had Woodstock that summer, we had man walking on the moon, but more important we had Vietnam. And I was eligible for the draft. And so, the only reason I was able to stay out of Vietnam was if I could stay in college. Because there were student deferments at that time. The selective service at that time was very racist, and very classist. If you were a poor black kid from an inner city, you went to Vietnam. You were drafted. If you were white and could get yourself into some kind of college, you were deferred until college was over. So, you know, there was inherent racism built into that whole system, and classism. It was horrible. So, you know, I spent more time my first two years in college being an activist in anti-Vietnam War protests, campus protests. I worked with the Peace Coalition. I met people like Abbie Hoffman, you know, not Abbie Hoffman, but some of the Chicago Seven: Dave Dellinger, William Kuntsler, Rennie Davis, so I was in this very much mode of let's end the war in Vietnam. My studies kind of suffered as a result, and I didn't last as a physics major very long. I think I made it maybe two or three semesters, and then I changed my major to psychology. And you know, a lot of us go into psychology because we have our own demons to work on, and certainly that was true in my case. So, at Penn State for the first two years, I lived on campus. My gender dysphoria was getting like you couldn't believe, because there was no opportunity to slip off and dress the way I wanted to dress, or express myself the way I wanted to dress, which I had been doing since I was a little, little, kid. And all of a sudden in this men's dorm, you know, I was kind of lost. It was a really bad time. So, my third and fourth year I moved off campus into an apartment, where I had a little bit more personal freedom. And so, it was the first time I actually was able to go out in public as Sandy and just kind of blend into things, because it was a big enough community that I could kind of get lost there. So, I did, eventually I graduated from Penn State. I wrote most of my psychology papers in the day what we call "transvestism" and "transsexualism." We didn't have the term transgender yet, that came along a little bit later. And so, that was my experience at Penn State. My senior year at Penn State, which was in 1972 I believe, 72, 73, the dysphoria, my gender dysphoria got so bad that I finally sought out professional help. There was an organization called the Erickson Foundation. And this was started by Reed Erickson, who was a transman, and he had come into some money because of his parents' family business, and so he set up a foundation that was supposed to disseminate information for transsexuals in those days, and one of the services they provided was referral lists. And so, again, pre-internet days, where do I go to get help? He would, his group would compile lists of doctors that were doing some form of trans care in the day. The only place we really knew about, everybody kind of knew about what Johns Hopkins was doing. You know, with the first Gender Identity Clinic, and I think Stanford on the West Coast started up at the same time. But other than that, there really was not much information out there, and Johns Hopkins actually treated very few patients, you know in the long run. They, it was a small program. But again, I digress. So, I wrote to them for referrals. And so, they wrote back and sent me a nice letter, and there were three referrals! Three physicians in Pennsylvania that might help me. Two were in Pittsburgh, and one was in Philadelphia, and I lived more close to the Philadelphia side, so I drove from Penn State to Philadelphia, met the physician who was a Doctor of Osteopathy Family Physician. Had a little street corner practice in South Philly, in the Italian area, and he got into this whole thing because one of the kids in the neighborhood was trans, came to him and "I need help with hormones," and he started treating trans people. And it grew and grew and grew, and I think by the time I got to him, he probably had about 300 trans patients in Philly. So, he was the trans doctor in Philly. And so, he could not believe that I had driven I guess, what is it? 180 or 200 miles to see him for treatment. I was 20 years old. And he did a quick interview, we talked for about 45 minutes, and he started me on hormone treatments. And so, by the time I graduated from Penn State in 1973, I'd been on hormones for about six months, changes were starting to happen, and the minute those changes started to happen, this sense of calm kind of came over me that I can't describe. And so, the last few months of my college experience were awesome. And so, that was the story. So, then I really had no future after college. You know, really, I always joke that having a bachelor's degree in psychology kind of prepares you to ask people the important questions in life, and the important question being, "Would you like fries with that order?" And that's exactly what my life was. So, you know, the one good thing was by the time I graduated from college, they had ended the draft and Vietnam was winding down, so I dodged, literally dodged a bullet there, and so tossing a coin in the air, I moved to Philadelphia. It was a place where my doctor was, it was a place that was big enough that I could disappear and you know get the help I need, hopefully find a job that I needed, and transition in anonymity. Because this would have not flown in the Lehigh Valley at the time. Getting back to the Lehigh Valley, it was still kind of a, I don't know, provincial place. You know, growing up I didn't even know if there was a gay bar in the Lehigh Valley in the time I was here. I didn't know other gay people ; I certainly didn't know another trans person in the Lehigh Valley. It wasn't here. But in Philadelphia, you know, Stonewall there was a burgeoning gay community, it was getting very political, which was kind of cool, and so you know, there were resources for me there. So, even though it was kind of difficult, I only knew like one or two people that lived in Philly, but kind of got myself established, worked all kinds of odd jobs at first. My favorite one being at the time was, I made sandwiches in a gourmet deli in Downtown Philly, and I take pride in the fact that the place that I worked for, voted Best Hoagie in Philadelphia in 1973, which is no small accomplishment. And I got to make those hoagies every day. I mean it was, they did an amazing lunch business, and they actually put quality stuff in their sandwiches, but that was, again I digress, but you know, this is what you have to do to kind of like put food on the table and do your best. And in those days in Philly, I was sort of spending half my time in my male role, and half the time in my female role, trying to sort things out, and of course you know, if you're going to transition, you have to completely transition, so I was looking for a way to ditch the old identity and just be Sandy full time. And that opportunity came when I started a magazine. And you know, talk about hubris. You know, my friend and I in Philadelphia decided that we wanted to start a magazine for trans folx. And, you know we knew a half a dozen trans folx by that time, but you know, I worked on the school newspaper, I was good at writing could do a rudimentary lay out, and so we established Image Magazine, and it was a quarterly, and it was a grassroots, I typed it at home, you know we sent it over to the printing place a couple blocks away, got it back, fold it, collate it, stapled, mailed it, and it started taking off a little bit, and so that's sort of my entrance into the trans community and being an activist. So, we had articles from people all over the world, we published stuff that correspondence in England, and I got involved with the Transsexual Action Organization, which was, they were trying to establish chapters in major cities, they had started in Miami. Angela Douglas, who's a very controversial and fascinating person, if you ever get a chance to research this person, wow. She was obviously schizophrenic but managed to be a pretty ground-breaking trans activist. SO, for all the good and the bad, she accomplished something, but she was mean as a whoo! I probably shouldn't say that because, well, you know, Angela is gone and she's not likely to, but had I said this and if Angela was still alive, you could be sure she would find a way to kick my ass, so. Yeah. She was that way. She threatened everybody, so. And so, Mary I'm digressing again. Bring me back to home. MF: You're not digressing because this is all just fabulous. I have so many different questions that are popping around in my mind, and I'm wondering about this relationship between the community at Penn State, and then what you found in Philly, because you did say at Penn State that you were able, once you moved off campus, to really embrace Sandy, and so, was there a community there? What was the relationship between trans people and the gay community? And then, how did that small kind of State College area differ from what you found in Philly? SM: Good question, thank you. Yeah, it, Penn State did have a gay bar in those days. It was called the My Oh My, and it was I think on College Avenue. However, I was not able to take advantage of that because I actually graduated from Penn State the day after my 21st birthday. So, you know, I knew it was there, but I couldn't get in. And in those days, you know, given that it's a college town, they carded pretty universally, because they had a lot to lose. So, if you were under 21, you didn't get into a bar. So, I did not have that perspective, although I knew there were gay people around. I knew maybe about three or four gay and trans people at Penn State, but we were not a close-knit group in any means, and as a side story, when I was at Penn State, I worked for the Daily Collegian. I was a reporter for the daily student newspaper, and at that time they assigned me to cover the first homophile at Penn State. In those days they used the homophile terminology, and it was, homophiles of Penn State were HOPS. They were trying to get a charter from the administration at Penn State to organize, have meeting space, and be a recognized organization, and Penn State was having none of it. I know. And this was 1972, 1973, and I actually kept some of the articles I wrote about it. So, finally I think HOPS appealed to the Graduate Student Association, that was much more progressive, and they were able to do an end-around, but I think you can google that early history of Homophiles at Penn State and get a really clear picture of how hard it was. And you know, we're talking about, '72 is like three years past Stonewall, gay liberation was just starting to kind of get is wings, but again, Penn State you know, all said and done at that time, it was still a pretty conservative place. You know, you had a lot of agriculture majors, a lot of engineering majors, a lot of folks from the central parts of Pennsylvania, and so it was like this melting pot, but it was by no means a bastion of liberal thought. Although you had it, it wasn't pervasive. So, transitioning over to Philadelphia was like "Ooh!" You know, all of a sudden you know I was meeting trans people in the streets! You know, striking up conversation, like we would see each other at Rittenhouse Square. And so, all of a sudden in Pennsylvania at that time in Philly, the group that I was most associated with was called Radical Queens. And Radical Queens was really, really progressive. In fact, they were like into destroying the patriarchy and starting to view gender as non-binary before it was like cool to look at it that way, and so they were really kind of ahead of the curve. They did some, and I think Tommi Avicolli Mecca is still around. I think he lives in the Bay Area, but he was a driving force in that, and you know, I learned a lot from Tommi in the Radical Queens in Philly. We tried starting the first, it was called the Eromin Center in Philly, which was supposed to be like the first sit-in space, providing some level of services to the LBGT community. Eromin standing for Erotic Minority, E-R-O-M-I-N, and so that was kind of like the predecessor of the William Way Center, and the predecessor of the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia. It was the fledgling efforts that we had made in the 70s to do something for health and such. So, it wasn't until you know I was in a large urban environment that I was able to actually blossom a little bit, and you know, tap into resources, and create resources. So, that was the fun part. MF: When you get to Philly, are you part of Radical Queens first before you start the publication? Or is it, is this all kind of happening at the same time? SM: (laughs) Yeah, I honestly can't remember. To my 69-year-old mind, it all kind of happened at the same time, although you know, had you asked me 20 years ago, I might have said, "Well this happened first, and this happened second." But it basically was kind of all, the connections, the synapses were happening so quickly, and so it was a great time to be an activist. Now, again, you know, Philadelphia, we think of it in you know 21st Century terms as a very liberal city, but you have to remember, when I lived there, the Chief of Police was Frank Rizzo, who later became Mayor, and he was not LBGT friendly. I mean, in Philadelphia while they tolerated it, you had to be very careful, because every time for instance, every time he'd run for office or you know, something was coming down, they'd raid the gay bars. And you know, it was just, so it was dicey. And I tell people, when I tell this to younger people, they just can't, they can't put their minds around this, but when I lived in Philadelphia, every time I went out the front door as Sandy, I was breaking the law. There were impersonation laws still on the books, so that if some random cop pointed to me on the street and I couldn't produce ID that was in line with my presentation, I got taken in. And it did happen, it did happen. I came close a couple times, but fortunately I never ended up in jail, but you could be arrested for just expressing your true gender, and you know, I can't begin to like impress upon young people how dicey that was in the day, and what a head trip it, you know, it played with you, you know. You had to kind of like scope out every move you were going to make, where you were going to go, who you were going to be with, and just sort of you were always on guard. You were always, you know, it was not great. And again, groups were advocating to change that kind of law, and you know we were flaunting it in some cases, so you know, I think eventually you know, they saw that that was really stupid. We all carried, those of us that were on hormones, we all carried like these little carry letters from our doctors saying this is why we were dressing this way and everything, they had no legal bearing, but you know it was like a little, I don't know, gave you a little sense of false security I suppose. I kept mine for a long time, I think I might still have it somewhere. Yeah, yeah. So. Again, so in Philly all this was sort of happening at the same time, I was making connections, I was getting out, you know, you had things happening socially and, in the media, you know the Rocky Horror Picture Show, you had Pink Flamingos. The first trans person I ever met was Elizabeth Coffey from that movie. I don't know if any of you remember the famous scene-- yes, yes, I won't describe it here because this is probably a family audience but let us just say that Elizabeth was pre-operative at the time, and kind of showed it. And so, she was a delightful, delightful person, and we became pretty good friends in Philadelphia. She had moved there after the movie came out and wow, she was just absolutely gorgeous, and had her head screwed on straight, and just gave me sage advice, and you know, I can't thank her enough. So, my magazine sort of came to the attention of Female Impersonator Magazine, and they were like the big ones, and they were trying to organize something called The United Transvestite Transexual Society. UTTS. And so, we all got our heads together, and Jack O'Brien, a cisgender male who was a former cartoonist, ran all these publications. And there were a slew of them, and some of them were pretty gross. And so, he offered me at first the use of his facilities to type-set, do camera work, and actually make my publication look a little more professional, and I on the other hand would write for him and do some photography and go out into the field, and cover some events in the day, and so we sort of, that kind of melded into like, "Hey, why don't you come work for me full time, and we'll put out all these publications together?" And so, that happened in like the late 70s, 74, 75. It gave me the opportunity to be Sandy 24/7. Qualified for surgery, and all that, and so that was like really how I kind of came on to the national scene as an editor and publisher of trans material at the time. MF: Can you talk a little bit about, what were you covering in the early years of that publication? What were the big articles, you know, what were the topics that really mattered to you as an editor and writer, and other writers that you were publishing? SM: There was a lot of self-help stuff. And I have to say, our bias in those days was mostly trans-women. Was basically, the trans-men started to emerge, but frankly our focus in those early days was mostly trans-women. So, a lot of self-help. How to do make up. How to, you know, what are the best hair removal methods. We started publishing lists of providers that you know would help people. Erotic fiction. I always said that you know my real forte was writing erotic fiction that could be read with one hand. Yeah. And so, a lot of that. The events that we would cover were things like drag balls, you know, which precede our, what is it called now? Culture... Drag culture... Ballroom culture, that's it. We covered the early drag balls, and those were kind of interesting. We covered occasionally conferences. There were early conferences, you know like the one in Massachusetts with Ariadne Kane, and this emerging kind of you know, serious discussion about transitions. We covered that sort of thing. I was covering Mardi Gras. I covered the first Fantasia Fair in Cape Cod. So, there was a lot to cover, and what I couldn't cover, we got people to send us stuff from like what was going on in the West Coast, and so it was just like gathering steam, and we were getting everything out there, it was amazing. So, I was kept kind of busy and you know, some of the stuff that I shot was like R-rated, sex, I would call it that. You know, we had strict guidelines as to what we could photograph and what we couldn't. You know, nudity was absolutely okay, but you couldn't have anything going into anything else, so that was a red flag no no, so we kind of like worked within those confines. And looking back on it, honestly, I'm kind of like, I cringe a little bit, because the quality is pretty crude by today's standards, but it was eye-opening in the day, and it was kind of like earth-shattering. Oh! Things like movie reviews, you know, I mentioned a couple movies. We did that. There was Dog Day Afternoon came out, we reviewed that. We tried to get an interview with the woman Liz whose story it was based on. I think we did. Book reviews. You name it. We covered it if we could find out about it. MF: I think as you were talking about you know the import of erotic fiction, the import of images, and yeah, they're in the 70s, but who cares about the crudeness of the technology, it's like, these are really important things to be publishing, they're important images to capture. Could you talk a little bit about why erotic fiction, why erotic images really mattered in that time period? Why that was a focus, along with the self-help, along with the conferences, along with political discussion, I imagine. Why did that matter? SM: Yeah, it mattered because we produced, it was kind of like a two-pronged thing, okay? So, we produced the magazines and the books, but we didn't distribute most of them. For that we went to Star Distributors in New York. Star Distributors was run by Italian families. And so, they sort of controlled the high-end printing presses and then distribution to adult bookstores, and through their mail order sales. And so, while we would produce content, if they decided not to distribute it, you know, so in order for them to get it into the stores to sell, you had to have the erotic content. So, they didn't mind that we packed it with other information at the time, so that was okay, the editorial content. And we always kind of did a fine line there. We always included something, because, not to digress even further, but at that time the Supreme Court handed down a decision regarding what was pornography and what was not pornography, and for instance that's why we didn't show actual penetrative sex, or anything like that. But the caveat was that as long as it had quote-unquote "redeeming social value," it wasn't pornography. And so, my job in part, was to provide the content that was meaningful social content: self-help, articles you know, and so that's how we had this meld of material. Now that being said, we did put out some stuff that was like not erotic, and basically more self-help and stuff, but we distributed that ourselves through mail order, because we didn't have restrictions in those days, and so you know, that's kind of how we maneuvered that whole thing. It was all about, and again, in the days before the internet and the days before desktop publishing, whoever had the printing presses and the means to distribute, called the shots. MF: That makes sense. I was thinking about, so there were, sort of the printing presses dictated some of the content. I was thinking about when I first saw, as a young lesbian, the On Our Back publication, how important that was to me as a reader. I wasn't thinking about, you know, like how other LGBTQ publications might have used erotic content based on you know what the publisher was requiring. But from a reader's perspective, I feel like those publications were ground-breaking, in a way because you just didn't see it anywhere. Even for myself, in the 90s, that's when I came out, was in the 90s, you know I just had no representation of the kind of eroticism that I was envisioning in my own head, so there's something so powerful about those publications to me as a reader, and I cannot wait to look at them, Sandy. I can't wait to kind of go into the archives and see some of the publications you were involved with. SM: Yeah, our biggest breakthrough was we actually did a newspaper, and it came out on an infrequent basis, but actually more frequent than anything else we did. It was called, and again, Female Impersonator News. And it was a tabloid publication, and a lot of, I should mention, a lot of what we did were personal ads, and you know, in those days, people trying to connect with each other, and you know, you got maybe a post office box and you placed an ad in a magazine like ours, you know maybe send a picture you described yourself, what you were looking for, and we would facilitate like forwarding mail, and that was a big part of what we did. And you know, we made money from that because, you know, it wasn't a lot of money, but it was like this steady little trickle of income, and so almost every publication we ever did had a personal ad section in it. And again, you know, I think it was you know, of course people trying to find each other for sex, but it was also building of a community that you know, that's what we were doing. And by the way, On Our Backs is one of the finest lesbian publications. I used to hang out at the bookstore waiting for the next issue to come out. I read that, you know, that was like, "Whoo!" Yes. Enjoyed that tremendously. That was a ground-breaking lesbian publication. They were not afraid to show erotic content in (inaudible). MF: Mm-hmm, yeah. Definitely. Well, I wonder if-- I felt the same way about that publication. (inaudible) right now. I wonder if you could, just reflecting back now, on the import of your work in publishing, in various formats, and in various roles, what do you, when you look back, what do you think were the major contributions of those publications? SM: Hmm. MF: I mean, I have some idea, but I'm just interested in you thinking about how, why did they matter? And I want, if you feel too humble, because you are so humble, you know you could just think about that publishing era, because there were other publications, other editors and writers that you were connecting with too, and like you were a part of that. What was the import of that kind of publishing arm that was both catering to trans communities, but also engaging in sharing information, medical information, the kind of self-help that you already talked about, and there's a political undertone there too, you know.SM: I, huh. I think it was, I don't know, just, I wasn't prepared for the outpouring of letters that I got. You know, and so like we had, we always had letters to the editor that you know we would publish if we thought there was something helpful in there. Certainly, we'd publish them if they were complimentary because you know we all like to be patted on the back and so you know, we loved the letters that say, "I love your publication! Can you come out more often," blah blah blah. But what weren't published were the heart-breaking ones, and I made it sort of like my personal mission to respond to them. And I got a lot of support from the folks at Neptune Productions that gave me the time and the space to respond to a lot. And you know, it was heart-breaking to read some of them, and some of them were very gratifying, and a lot of them were looking for help. And so, after a while, the flip side of the coin is you can get burned out from doing this. And after almost about a decade I think, I got tired of, you know, I got tired of being a "professional transexual." And so, by the late 1980s I had gotten a legitimate job. You know, all this publishing that I did in the trans community was great. It paid minimally, I was able to meet my immediate expenses, but I saw that it was not a future. And so, I think probably by 1978 I was working a full-time job, and then doing this on the side. And so, I kind of, I'm digressing again. So, the impact is the early days of the, we were a part of the overall early days of the Gay Liberation Movement, and I call it that because that's initially what we called it. And trans folx have always had an uneasy kind of relationship with the LBGT thing, you know. And you know, Mary you're a scholar of this, there are other peoples that are scholars of this early thing, and so I'm only talking from my perspective, personally. You know, when we came out, it was supposed to be Gay Liberation, and it was an umbrella term that was supposed to include everybody. And as we started to do this work, it started to faction. And you know, the lesbians said, "Well, we're not gay, we're lesbians and our issues are unique, because they're wrapped around gender as well as being gay, and it's, you know--" Then it became gay and lesbian. And then you know, then the bisexuals kind of came in at some point and say you know, "How about us? You know, we have our own unique needs," and so you had LBG, L-G-B, and so the letters got a little bit longer. And then trans kind of got in there even though trans people were part of the early Gay Liberation Movement, and actually spear-headed a lot of it, but then we were added on as a T on the end, and I always thought that was kind of like not an easy fit, because L-G-B kind of like talked about sexual preference, at least in my gestalt. So, they had that in common. But trans said nothing about you know sexual preference. It talked more about gender identity than anything, I suppose. And so, I always thought that was kind of an interesting but not great fit. And you know, those, there were early fights where the trans folx were kicked out of gay organizations, and you know trans folx were kicked out of the lesbian community, a lot of in-fighting. A lot of scrambling for our own turf, and so that part to me was very disheartening. And I think was partially the impetus for me to kind of like, by the 90s I was done. Especially when Janice Raymond published that horrible book called, yeah, The Transsexual Empire? I mean, I wanted to crawl under a rock and just say, "I'm not coming out ever again to anybody," and that's basically how I led my life for the next 20 years. You know? And I, and you know, we had discussions off-line where in the 1990s, late 19080s/1990s it was okay for me to tell my coworkers that I was a lesbian, but I never discussed the T thing with them, because it just wasn't you know there yet. So, I, you know, I don't know what my accomplishments were. Some people have said that you know I'm responsible for the term "transgender." I don't take credit for that. I know we published it early on, but I think Ariadne Kane was the person who actually coined the term rather than Virginia Prince, but you know, I'm not going to get into that argument. Certainly, I was part of the people that made it widely used, let's put it that way, through the publications. And I thought it was a great term, because it took the word "sex" out of it, and you know, there's a lot to be said for that. So, in my early years, I was a transsexual, but now I'm a transgender person. MF: You had started to kind of go into you moved out of publishing, Raymond's book comes out, that's kind of the end for you, but there were tensions before-hand, and burn out, frankly, from all of the emotional labor that goes into that. What happens with your career once you kind of, you take some of these publishing experiences, and then you take flight into a different you know, stage of your work life? SM: Yeah, so I parlayed what I learned about publication layout writing and everything and applied for a job at W.B. Saunders company in Philadelphia. And, W.B. Saunders was at that time, I think it still is, a large medical publishing company, and W.B. Saunders had one best seller in their whole career, and I think that was the Kinsey Report. Other than that, it was you know, a multitude of medical journals and books. And so, I became a proofreader. At first, I was a layout person, and then shortly after that I became a proofreader. I did that for a few years. And so, you know, people tell me about, you know, was it harder or easier to transition in those days. I think the one good thing about those days was that without the internet, it was easier to hide yourself. And so, I put down Neptune Productions and Image Magazine on my resume, but I guarantee you nobody checked that, you know? And it was just, you know, there were no large databases where they could look up Sandy Mesics and see her social media profile and everything. So, in that respect it was easier to kind of like maneuver your way through life, and I took every advantage of that. So, I work for W.B. Saunders for a few years, and then had an opportunity to work for a graphic arts company that produced books for various publishers at that time, and so I became what was called a markup person. And basically, what that is in today's terms is like an html coder. So, you know, in the early days of type setting, it wasn't what you see is what you get, you had to code everything in order to get the right font, point size, and things like that. I loved that work, and I did that work for quite a few years, eventually moving from a company in New Jersey to a graphic arts company in Miami. And so, you know, I wanted an adventure in my life, I didn't have a significant other at the time, and so I took a job in Miami, and it was interesting. And so, that took me into the 80s and 90s, and then what happened at that time was the internet, personal computer, desktop publishing, and it wasn't soon before I could see the end of my profession. You could see it almost like a headlight coming straight at you, you know that within a few years, this is going to be gone. It's all going to be gone. And then, coincidentally at the same time, AIDS was starting to hit our community, especially in Miami, and so I felt kind of helpless when my friends were starting to get sick. I couldn't do anything for them, and the other thing that happened at the time was I met the acquaintance of my now spouse, and her colleagues who were all registered nurses, and certified nurse midwives and I said, "Do you think I could do this work? You think?" You know, and they said, "Yeah, you know, you'd probably be pretty good at it." And so, I went back to school. And I, in 1992 I graduated from Barry University which is a small Catholic school in Miami Shores, Florida with a bachelor's degree in nursing. A BSN. And, ironically, even though I did get my nursing degree, I never actually gave HIV care. It was peripheral to what I did. I occasionally did it, but it wasn't the focus of my career. And then I became a nurse, and even at that point occasionally I would write for publications, and at that time I was writing sometimes under a pseudonym, but sometimes under my real name, I was writing for like the Transsexual Voice, I was writing for Empathy Press in Seattle. If I had something to say. And I really enjoyed it that way, because I wasn't writing under deadlines, I wasn't trying to produce tons of content. If I had something to say that I thought was useful, I'd submit it, and more often than not it was published, and that's how, you know I think I finally stopped getting published around 92, 93. And then became pretty much a professional nurse, and then eventually a certified nurse midwife. MF: I love that description of like, "Oh, then I could do it when I really wanted to say something and take my time and really craft that piece." You, I want to hear more about what the move into nursing meant for you, as a worker, how did you experience that career in nursing? So, I want to go there first, but then you've also mentioned your spouse, and maybe we can do a little discussion of some personal life which we haven't talked about yet. But tell me a little bit about why nursing, and what the career really meant for you. SM: You know, nursing I truly believe, after all you know, it's a cliché, but you know but nursing is basically a calling. And I had considered it briefly sometime in the 1970s and went, "Oh no, there's no way I can do that. Just no way." But revisiting it as a more mature woman, I was 40 years old, I had some life skills, some organizational skills, and then the timing was right, because I had the tool kit to be able to do that. I couldn't have done that at age 21, and I certainly admire the students that I taught that had their crap together at age 21 to be able to do this, because I certainly didn't. So, it's honestly the best professional move I made in my career. Nursing has been fulfilling on so many levels. You know, I can't begin to describe you know the personal fulfillment I got from just doing my job. Helping babies come into the world, you know, helping tragedies sometimes as a result. Being able to educate young nurses, and being able to you know, administer a school that is the oldest nursing school in the United States, to be the director of that school for 15 years, and produce thousands of talented young people that are entering the workforce, that will have an impact on health care for the next generation, it's like wow! I mean, it's overwhelming. That really is the fulfillment, you know. I kind of lost the rest of the thought. Interestingly enough, for me, entering the nursing career was, nursing is still largely women. And I had never worked in an almost all-female environment before, and so at 40 years old, entering this environment, you know, I was very kind of like attuned to like, okay, let me get the lay of the land here and how this works. And unfortunately, what I really, I came away with, was that women can be really mean to each other sometimes, and I didn't expect that. You know, I expected like this sisterhood, and we all pull together, and it's like, holy crap! You guys are nasty! And so, I had to kind of like wrap my head around that for a while, and you know, the theory is that you know women are generally, at that time at least, I don't want to make any broad generalizations, but like, when people are put in powerless situations, and certainly nursing is not like at the top of the power chain, there's a lot of in-fighting. And so, you could actually see that, and you know honestly, to be honest with you, I think nursing as a profession would benefit from more gender diversity. More men, more gender-diverse people. And I think that's happening, I think that's happening and I think it's to the benefit of the profession, honestly. It's going to push us forward, I think, because you know, I wasn't too impressed with you know what I saw at first. It was kind of disheartening. I guess I expect too much from women. You know, my psychologist always said that I kind of idealized them in some ways. So, yeah. Segueing into the other question, I always knew that I was attracted to women, even as a kid, and boy that was confusing. You know, so like I want to, you know I am a woman, I want to be a woman, but I love women, and you know, so that was really hard. And you know, I will credit the fact that I had a psychiatrist in our gender identity program in Philadelphia that really tuned into my naivety about that. I was, I think I was 22 or 23 years old when I entered therapy, as part of the gender, you know you had to do, you know I had to do I think a minimum of six months to a year of psychoanalysis in those days, and I was blessed with really a great psychiatrist. He knew that I was kind of sexually naïve at the time. I had had minimal experiences with women and no experiences with guys at that time, and he says, "You just need to explore this." SO, you know, with his encouragement, you know, I started to explore my sexuality, and I started to explore experiences with both genders, and you know, those were the days where things were much simpler. It was pre-HIV days. You know, if you were not cautious, you know, you might have to go get a shot of penicillin to clear up something, you know. So, you know, it was a lot easier in those days, and as a result, a lot of us were more promiscuous you know probably than we should have been, in retrospect. But so, like he made me explore that aspect of my personality, I think he wanted to be sure that I wasn't gay and you know just couldn't accept the fact that I was gay, and was trying to (inaudible) being gay by becoming you know a different gender, and of course that didn't happen. I remember telling him, you know, at one of our first visits, you know, I'm attracted to women, and I don't see that changing after surgery. And to his credit, he didn't throw me out of the office, he just said, "Let's explore that," and we did, we worked on it. And so, he would send us to conscious raising groups, back when women had conscious raising groups, back then he'd send us to that. You know, he was really, really progressive, and I came out at the other end basically unchanged. I can say that probably my experiences made me a little bit more bisexual, but definitely a preference for women. In my serious relationships in life, almost exclusively been with women. I've been with my current spouse now for 30 years. Yeah. (laughs) We were one of the first same-gender couples in Pennsylvania to get a marriage license. I think-- not like the first dozen, I think we were within the first 100 or 150, so. You know, I'm kind of proud of that. And so, that covers most of what you asked me, I think. What did I leave out? MF: Would you be willing to tell me how you fell in love? How you met and what your story is there when you met your spouse? SM: Yeah, sure! My spouse and I met in 1985, in Miami. At that time, she was just graduating from the University of Miami's master's degree in Nurse Midwifery, and she at that time was exploring her own lesbianism. She had just, she was just emerging from a marriage, and was finally, finally I guess starting to learn her truth, and so we met, and we were friends. I had a different partner at the time, and she was just exploring being a lesbian, and coming out, with a couple kids, and trying to navigate a new job, and a new role as a nurse midwife, and so we stayed friends. So, we were friends from about 1985 to 1991, and by that time I had ended my relationship, and she had ended her first couple relationships with women. And we just sat down one night, and you know, we acknowledged the fact that we were attracted to each other. We had known each other for about six years at that point. We were both single at the same time, finally, and do we risk having a really good friendship for having a relationship? And that was the big discussion. You know, it's like, we're such good friends, are we going to screw this up? Because we don't want to screw that up. And so, we decided to embark on this, so I wish I could tell you that it was passionate, sudden, and the heavens opened, and the angels sang and the whole nine yards, but it was really a very rational (laughs) discussion that you know, you know, we acknowledged this, that we had this for each other, but you know, should we do this? And so, and I've never regretted it, and so. And then, ironically, a few years later when I entered the master's program at University of Miami, Sara, my spouse, was my instructor for one of my nurse midwifery courses. And we had already discussed this with the Dean, and the Dean was aware of our relationship, and we took very good steps to be sure that there were no improprieties. Sara could teach me, but she couldn't grade any of my work, and so that's how it worked out, so the rest is history. MF: So, can I ask a quest-- this is a fantastic story. Rational love story, but I can see all over your face that there was also a lot of passion and love there, as you transitioned from friends to, it's a fabulous story. Could you talk a little bit about, before-- I do want to move through your married life, and then how you come back to the Lehigh Valley, but I want to just-- with your spouse-- I want to put that on hold for a minute, and just ask you, what was it like to be a lesbian and a transwoman? Either, even while you were meeting your spouse, or while you were dating. What was that like to be part of a lesbian community at that time period in Miami, or even up in Philly? What was that like for you as a transwoman? SM: I had my first, what I would call serious relationship with a woman probably in Philadelphia in 1978 or so, and we were together for four or five years, and so in that aspect, you know, one of the big discussions among trans people is entering a relationship, do I disclose my trans status? And I think, I think it's a little bit easier maybe now than it was then, and that was really, where do you sort of disclose the fact that you're trans to a potential partner? And you know, I wrestled with that myself, because you know, as part of my work with my psychiatrist, I dated some men, and I did not disclose that until, you know, maybe there was intimacy on the scene. And then at that point, we had to have The Talk. Sometimes that went well, and sometimes it didn't go well, and you know as well as I do, that sometimes for people that talk ends in violence, and so the stakes are very high, and you're very careful about you know, who you disclose to, at least in those days. I can't speak to the situation nowadays. I suspect it's similar. I guess, I guess I was lucky in that the women that I was attracted to and had relationships with accepted that part of me. It was weird, I can remember (laughs) there's a joke in the lesbian community that you may have heard of. It's, "What do lesbians bring on the first date?" "A U-Haul." Yup. I met my partner, my first partner of 4 years, my first night in a women's bar in Philadelphia. Yeah. I was, you know, first of all I was dressed inappropriately. I'd come from work, it was a great bar, it was called The Upstairs, and it was like in Philly on the waterfront, by the Delaware River, and you know, it was a beautiful place. Great dance floor. Music. The whole nine yards. All women. Loved it, loved it. My first night there, she came over and asked me to dance, and asked, you know we had drinks, and you know so we started dating, and you know, I don't remember exactly when I disclosed, but it was pretty early on, and so again. That was a four-year relationship, it confirmed everything I always thought about my sexuality. We still stay in touch. So, then again, I went through a period where you know I was just like running amuck, sexually. And so, it was, you know, (laughs) I always say that, you know, trans people you're given, you're finally given the set of organs that you should have had, and you know, you've got these hormones coursing through your body, and so what do all transwomen do? Is like, once they start this journey, they start dressing totally inappropriately for their age. You know, the spike heels to go to the Wegman's store, and the whole nine yards, and I did all of that. You know, and so you're trying this out, you're basically an adolescent in an adult body for a while, and you know, all kinds of weird stuff happens. So, after that relationship ended, I dated around for a few years. Nothing was happening, that's when I moved to Miami. I had again took up with another partner who was lesbian, ten years younger than me. That was kind of culture shock. Again, not an issue for her. I will tell you an interesting story about that relationship, when I met her, she had long blond hair, really attractive, nice, you know. I introduced her at one point to a trans guy that was my friend from Philadelphia, he came down the visit, and Jason came to see us, and my partner at that time, Sally, was like, the eyes went, and so the next thing, he goes back home, she comes home with a short butch haircut, and she starts wearing polo shirts, and it's like "Wait a minute!" So, I can't tell you how unsettling that was for a trans person all of a sudden understand that the person that you're with is exploring a transition. That blindsided me, and so like, kind of like every bad deed that I ever did in my life sort of came home and hit me in the face at the same time, and I'm going, "How do I wrap myself around this? How many times has a person like myself put another person in that position?" It's kind of like, well, you know, eventually she kind of like kind of tabled that transition idea. We broke up. But all during that time I was friends with Sara, my current spouse, so Sara knew my past, my background, everything like that, so that was not something that we had to hack out upon starting the relationship. So, did I answer your question properly, or? I'm (inaudible) something. MF: Yeah, you did. You did. So, tell me a little bit about, you're in Miami, you're dating Sara, your career is moving along in nursing. Then what happens (laughs)? What's the next part of your life there? SM: Okay. So, that pretty much brings us up to the year 2000. And what is happening at that time is Sara is working in a clinic in Broward County, and is not real happy with her job situation. They're asking them to do a lot with a little, and you know, a lot of pressure. The practice, the OBGYN practice that I was working in, was breaking up. We had I think five OBGYNs at that time and myself, and they were all feuding with each other, and you know, they were splitting off and breaking up the practice, and all of a sudden, I was finding myself without a job. And so, coincidentally at that same time, my mom who had stayed in Bethlehem, was now in her 80s, and was starting to have some serious health issues. And so, even though I promised myself way back in 1969 that I would never come back to the Lehigh Valley, yeah. I relocated here first. So, I took a job for one year doing locum tenens work, which is like a traveling nurse, a traveling nurse midwife, and I was able to get assignments in Baltimore, Philly, and Northern Virginia. And so, I was traveling about, doing that, trying to figure out how to support my mom, and what the next steps were. Sara was remaining in Florida, so for about a year, we were kind of separated by this until we could sort it all out. So, my mom wasn't getting any better, so we made the decision to relocate to Bethlehem to support her. So, Sara quit her job, and moved up here, and I was already here. I had found a house, we bought a house, and then a job opened up at St. Luke's for an instructor in maternal-newborn nursing. And so, I took the job, and Sara eventually found a job at that time with the Visiting Nurses Association, and so we sort of settled down. And the timing was impeccable, because we settled around 2000, 2001, and my mom died in 2002, and we were able to give her a great, great quality of life for her last two years. I mean, she just blossomed. You know, we brought her to our house and had Thanksgiving, we spent, I would go to work every day and drop my Jack Russell terrier off, and she'd babysit the dog all day long, and it added to her life, it added to my life. I had a wonderful relationship with my mom for the last couple years of her life. Don't regret it for a second. And I was holding her hand when she passed away in her own bed, at home, with the care of home nurses. So, at that time, we sort of thought we would stay in the Lehigh Valley and see my mom through this final illness, and then we would go to California to take care of Sara's mom who was also ailing at that time, but what happened was Sara's mom decided to die before we could make that trip happen, that move happen, and so we stayed here. We stayed in the Lehigh Valley because we both had jobs we liked, and as we said early on in this long conversation, the Lehigh Valley had become a different place, a more accepting place, a kind of nice quality of life for us. Sara was really burned out from the Miami experience, and I was getting there pretty quickly. The crime was pretty bad, and congestion was terrible. And so, that's why we're back here, and that's why we stayed. And now we have grandkids that have moved to this area to be close to us, so you know, we've come full circle. MF: Tell me a little bit about, you said that your relationship with your mother at the end of her life was wonderful. And clearly, because you and Sara could be there, and provide excellent quality of life for her for the last two years, I mean what a beautiful gift for a daughter to give. Can you talk a little bit about that relationship and its evolution throughout your life with your mom? SM: As I said, way in the background, even though my mom was born in the United State, she basically grew up in Hungary, and then moved back to the States. And she had basically the equivalent of a grade school education, I don't think, she didn't have high school. And so, when she came back to the United States, it was like, learning English for her was like, she had to learn it all over, because she left at such an early age, that I don't think it was established. So, my mom could read and write at a basic level, she could manage herself through reading a newspaper or something like that, but you know, would never read a book. I don't think my mom ever read a book. So, she struggled to write checks and handle things and you know, that's where we provided that kind of support the best we could. When I was very young, I mean, I cross-dressed in front of my mom, and you know, she was concerned at the point I think in high school (laughs) when I was doing it, she was concerned for me. And you know, she was not condescending, she wasn't angry with me for doing it, but she thought I needed help. And she said, "You know, if you continue doing this, I think we need to take you to the family doctor." And like, I was a teenager, and I already knew what that meant in those days. What we were afraid of was you know, being transgender, transsexual, whatever have you, in those days was a pathology. And even the most enlightened doctors would probably send you to a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist would probably order electroshock treatments. And that scared the bejeezus out of me. You know, it was like there was no way I was going to discuss this with a family doctor, so basically my cross-dressing went under cover, and mom didn't see it ever again, although it never stopped. And so, we sort of like pushed that under the table, and but, by the time I started hormones, she could see that something was changing, even though I hadn't discussed it with her. And so, my plan was to tell her right before my surgery, which probably in retrospect is a bad thing, you know? So, like, remember, I was 22, 23 years old, and you know didn't always make the best life decisions at those times. So, what happened was, I was, I had finished my time with the psychiatrist in Philadelphia, was coming back to see my mom, you know I'd come back weekends, I actually there was a train that would take you from Philly to Bethlehem in those days, I'd ride the train every once in a while. I'd come and see her, but we never talked about that until I got the clearance for surgery, and I actually had a surgery date scheduled that was about, I don't know, maybe a month out. And so, I thought to myself, okay, I'm going to have to have this discussion with my mom. Well, what ensued was, 14 days before my scheduled surgery, I came down with Hepatitis B. Yup. And I've written about this experience, so you're going from somebody who has been on hormones for a couple years, I had completed my psychiatric workup, everybody said yes, you're ready for the surgery, you know, go meet the surgeon, okay, did that, had the date set. I had some misgivings about it, believe it or not. I didn't hit it off with the surgeon. I thought he was cold, I thought he was, you know, I didn't know why he was doing this because it didn't seem he was doing it for any compassion for the patient, so despite that, it was, okay, you know, I'm going to go through with this, and you know, I'm not sure about this guy, but whatever. And then I got sick, and because of the sickness, I had to go off hormones for a year. No alcohol for a year. No surgery for a year. And the worst part of it was, I had to have help recovering, because I was pretty sick. They didn't hospitalize me, but you know, I was... And so, I went back home to mom. And I was, like I said, I was about 22, 23 years old, and she took care of me while I was sick, and I recovered, and that's when we started having discussions about what I was doing with my life. And her first comment was, "I knew it!" You know, yeah. "I knew this hadn't gone away." You know, and so, yeah, that's true, and so she was very concerned about, you know, I would have to have surgery, was I doing the right thing, had I really thought it through. You know, the usual things a mom would be concerned about. But she was never non supportive of me, and she told me that unconditionally this didn't matter, you know, she still loved me, that in her way of putting it, she said, "I wouldn't love you any less if you were diabetic, I wouldn't love you any less if, you know, you had asthma or anything. Why would this change anything?" And so, it didn't. And so, she was supportive, and eventually I was able to recover, and but it was one of the lowest points in my life, and you know, I had considered suicide many times in my life, that was certainly one of them. I can't imagine, I can't begin to tell you, you know, number one you're ill, number two you're coming off hormones. And you know, all that good work and changes started to reverse, and you know, it was horrible, and then finally, you know, I was able to get back on track. But the good part of this is things always happen for a reason, and in that year that I was kind of like recovering from this, I found a different surgeon, and I found a surgeon in New York City, his name was Dr. David Wesser, he's passed away since then, and the thing that I liked about Dr. Wesser was that he had a technique that created a clitoris. Which wasn't necessarily what you got in those days with anybody else. And so, you know, hoping to remain as a, be as authentic as possible and at least have some semblance of a sex life, I went with him, and I never regretted that decision, and he truly was a compassionate human being. So, a few months after the surgery, I took my mom by the hand and took her in the bathroom, we had the grand reveal, she was like amazed and you know, she took me out shopping for clothes! And, so, you know, I think my mom probably, while she was, she was very accepting of me, I think she still had confusion to the end of her days about why it was that I stayed with women, but she was not opposed to that, and in fact she loved Sara to death, and you know, she told me to take care of her, and she told Sara to take care of me, and so we've done that, and you know, she, I couldn't have asked for a better mom. MF: She sounds wonderful. A really special mom. SM: Hey, could she bake! Ah. She wasn't a great cook, but boy could she bake. MF: Well, and I bet, in terms of like all of the good kind of Hungarian, Windish, you know for that Windish church, I bet she baked a lot of wonderful pastries. SM: A lot of kiffles. Tons of kiffles. MF: Well, I'm wondering what it's like for you now to be in the Lehigh Valley, and you said it's changed a lot. What's changed here for you? What makes the Lehigh Valley a place where you and Sara can live happily at this point in your lives? SM: As I said, think the industries are, not to say industries, but the professions in like the learning institutions, the medical care brings a more professional kind of class of people. I'm sorry, I'm sounding elitist there, and I don't mean that by any means, but it's a place that's culturally rich now, where it hadn't been before. You know, we have world-class music. You know, if you're not getting culturally fulfilled in the Lehigh Valley, you're not trying, you're hiding. And that's part of what I enjoy about it. We enjoy movies, we enjoy theater. You know, we'll enjoy being able to do those things again. You know, we enjoy reading, and so we enjoy intellectual stimulation. We're both involved in the life of our faith community, and so, that's all there. You know, the crime isn't horrible in the Lehigh Valley. You know, we do have our issues, but it's not like an urban center like Miami. So, there's that. So, there are things to do, there's a quality of life. I do believe it's getting a little bit kind of congested, and honestly, I'm not crazy about all the trucking hubs going in all over the place. I think that's kind of impacting our quality of life a little bit, but certainly as you view life as a senior, you know you're looking at things like, what is my support as I get older? You know, and we do have good medical and social supports in this Lehigh Valley right now. As far as LGBT in the Lehigh Valley, it's come a long way. When I was growing up here, I didn't know any gay or trans people. You know, I knew a couple in high school, not trans people, but gay people in high school, but it was all very hush-hush. You didn't talk about it. You know, and that's changed. You have groups like Renaissance that have arisen, the Bradbury-Sullivan Center, and so you know, it's a good place to be gay, the Lehigh Valley. Or be gender-variant or something. I mean there are, I assume there are better places, but taken as a whole, it's not so bad. MF: Yeah, I totally, we moved here in 2009, and even since 2009 I've noticed changes in the Lehigh Valley in terms of community center and a variety of different groups. Yeah. Well, we're getting towards the end of our time, and so I want to give you an opportunity to, is there something we missed that you feel, Sandy, like, "Oh, I really wanted to share this," or "this is something that I want people to know about my life." Did we miss anything? SM: You know, I really don't think so. It's been a long, strange journey for me, and I get kind of embarrassed when people say, you know, "You're a pioneer!" And it's like you know, no, not really. I mean, there were people before me, and you know, they laid the groundwork, but I think we're all building for each other, eventually, and you know I was proud to play my little part in this, in advancing the community, so. I think if anything, I am so hopeful for the future. When I see young non-binary kids not afraid to express their gender identity, not having to buy, you know, one or the other, you know, gender is everything in between, and that's okay, it's like wow! When I see, when I see the advances that we've made in treating transgender issues, and gender issues, in adolescence, you know, it gives me hope that these kids won't have to go through the wrong adolescence, which is devastating. Devastating. That gives me hope. I know there's a lot of push-back now about, you know, the ethics of doing this, but I think once that cat is out of the bag, and I think it is, they'll work out the details about the ethics. This will be not an issue. I know, you know, if anything, the last few years have taught me is that our political system is a lot more fragile than I thought it was growing up, you know, and I thought, I thought the United States had weathered some pretty significant storms in its day, but I was not prepared for 2016, 2020. And so, I think, I think that's the issue of our day, even more than COVID. You know, where is the United States going as a nation? And I think why I think about that is how it goes will have an impact on trans people, and LBGT people as well. I'm watching what's going on in Texas as we speak, you know. Everybody getting on the bandwagon about these you know, anti-abortion, anti-choice things, and I'm very much for choice, and that distresses me a lot. You know, I remember vaguely what it was like before Roe vs. Wade, and even with Roe vs. Wade, as a nurse, I took care of patients that had botched self-induced abortions, just because they didn't have access to care, and that concerns me a lot. So, I think it's a mixed bag, but I'm an eternal optimist I think, you know, and I think we will prevail in the long run, and we'll work it out. And you know, I'm not done advocating just yet. So. I think that's all I had to add. MF: Well, I'm going to think about this interview probably for the next month and thereafter. This has been amazing. Sandy, thank you so much for speaking with me today. I wanted to end the interview, maybe this will be a strange way to end it, but just to ask you know, all of your work on the publications, have you found an archive home for that? Is there someplace where that material can be accessed? SM: I don't have a lot of it. You know, I had kept a collection of my work and eventually threw it out thinking there was no value to it. Yeah. I have a little bit of it, I'm trying to catalogue it now, and I'm hoping to donate it to an archive somewhere, so if you have good suggestions, I'm open to that. You can find a little tiny bit of it on the Digital Transgender Archives. Yeah, there's a little bit there. If you google my name, a few things show up in that context, but I do, you know, now that I'm finally pretty much retired, the next part of what I'm hoping to accomplish is to catalogue that stuff and get it to somebody who wants to do something with it. I did send a little bit of stuff to a trans archive in Houston, and honestly, you know, I don't even have any print copies of Image anymore. You know, I have digital copies, but that's about it. But you know I hope to actually preserve that. I have a lot of negatives from drag balls and things like that that I covered during the days that I hope will get a home somewhere. MF: Yeah, I mean, those are I think the Digital Archives that you mentioned are really important. There are ways that, since your materials I think are so important, that you can donate them to a specific home, a trans archive that you really care about, but you could also say, "I'd also like these materials, or copies of them, to be at William Way." Because they have incredible archives, and you are certainly so important to Philadelphia's history. You could certainly have copies put at our archives here in the Lehigh Valley, you're from here. I even think the Lesbian Herstory's Archive would love your material. SM: (laughs) MF: So, you could think about, "Where is the place that I want to have the physical materials?" And you could work out a contract that says, "Okay, you get the physical materials, but I want them to be digitally available at other places, maybe even Miami, in communities that I really contributed to," so that those communities also have access to a real for-mother in publishing and you know, and someone who is really important to multiple regions. I always think about, for me regional archives matter because it's important to know that someone like Sandy Mesics came from the Lehigh Valley, and contributed really in important ways to publishing, to trans communities in Philadelphia, and those publications kind of move out everywhere. You are so humble, but that really matters. That you were a nurse, that you were, you know all of these ways that your archives can be connected to those communities that you really impacted, I think would be very powerful, and of course I would love to see-- I have not seen the publications that you put out, I'd love to see them. SM: We will, we'll arrange that somehow. MF: Okay, that would be fabulous. Well, I will then-- that was a weird way to kind of move to the ending, I apologize, Sandy. I just think like, I want to see these negatives of your photographs and read your early articles. But I'll end by saying this. I just feel so honored to have had the opportunity to talk with you today. It is a true privilege. I'm just sitting in gratitude, so thank you so much. SM: Thank you, Mary. I am astounded that you have an interest in this and thank you for letting me ramble on for so long, and I hope somewhere down the line some researcher finds something of interest in here. MF: I know they will. I know they will. SM: (laughs) MF: All right, I'm just going to pause the record and then you and I can close out together. Thanks again, Sandy. 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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01:46:10
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Title
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Sandy Mesics, October 11, 2021
Description
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Sandy Mesics describes her childhood, growing up in Bethlehem, PA; her reflections on Bethlehem Steel, including her father’s employment with the company and working-class steel communities; and her experiences as young transwoman trying to find information in tabloids and books about other transgender people. She discusses her enrollment at Penn State as a physics and later a psychology major; her anti-Vietnam war activism; her gender dysphoria during college; and her journey toward gender affirmation with support from the Erickson Foundation and a doctor in Philadelphia.
Moving to Philadelphia after college because of the large LGBTQ community, Sandy started Image Magazine, worked with Transsexual Action Committee, the Radical Queens, and Eromin Center; in addition, she built a relationship with publishers of Female impersonator Magazine and ultimately worked with publishers to produce articles and publications for transgender readers, beginning 1974-1975. Sandy then describes using her work in publishing to gain employment with W.B. Saunders, a graphic arts company, and as an html coder. Toward the end of the interview, Sandy describes living in Miami, training to be a nurse, becoming a nurse midwife, and meeting her wife. The interview concludes with Sandy’s discussion of moving back to Bethlehem to care for her mother and finding a job at St. Luke’s, training others in maternal-newborn nursing.
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LGBT-13
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2021-10-11
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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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Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.