Thomas Duane, April 1, 2022 (Part 2)

Thomas Duane, April 1, 2022 (Part 2)

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.

Muhlenberg College Special Collections and Archives

Muhlenberg College Special Collections and Archives

2022-04-01

Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.

video

LGBT-37

Mary Foltz

Thomas Duane

02:11:23

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. &#13 ; &#13 ; 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. &#13 ; &#13 ; 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. &#13 ; &#13 ; TD: Oh, yes, am I leading up to the Braschi decision? &#13 ; &#13 ; MF: You are.&#13 ; &#13 ; 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 &amp ; 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 &amp ; 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. 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