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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Cool People That Cool Stuff. You're

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Speaker 1: twice a week podcast that usually I write a little

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Speaker 1: introduction thing for. I'm your host, Margaret Kilchoy, and my

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Speaker 1: guest is Daniel Daniel.

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Speaker 2: That's me. I'm happy to be back track from DJ

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Speaker 2: Danel track You're not gonna believe this flex bomb. That

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Speaker 2: is what all of DJ Daniels you should look up?

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Speaker 3: Are there, Daniel? I know you've showed me videos of

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Speaker 3: you DJ, but are there videos on the internet?

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Speaker 2: They make me so happy. You're just so Daniel is

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Speaker 2: so zoned. Oh well, thank you. Our group is called

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Speaker 2: Gladiator and we still have some stuff on Spotify or

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Speaker 2: you could, you know, google Gladiator Live.

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Speaker 1: What kind of stuff do you dju.

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Speaker 2: We were an electronic music group. We played a lot

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Speaker 2: of like hip hop influenced electronic music. It's called trap

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Speaker 2: music and electron trap music. It's original trap music. It's

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Speaker 2: like you know, like like this, the I and whatnot.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, exactly, but played a lot of that, played

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Speaker 2: a lot of house. Another genre we were very into

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Speaker 2: was mombatone, which is a portmanteau that reggaetone and a

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Speaker 2: Dutch house song called Mumba by this uh, this artist

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Speaker 2: Silvia Ecomo and a remix by this dude Afrojack. It's

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Speaker 2: a long story, but basically it's kind of like reggaetone

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Speaker 2: but just electronic, and it was very, very danceable, and

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Speaker 2: I think it kind of like helped push for Well. Actually,

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to take credit for Eyes. I won't.

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Speaker 2: I won't take credit for it, but the genre of

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Speaker 2: moonbatone is definitely helpful in bringing reggaetone to a pop

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Speaker 2: culture audience in some in some capacity. In some capacity,

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Speaker 2: it was always incredibly popular music around the world. But

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Speaker 2: you inn is that what you're sat? Oh no, oh no,

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Speaker 2: I really put my foot in it.

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Speaker 3: Oh, And depends on how much Ian agrees with that,

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Speaker 3: might or might not make it into the I know it.

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Speaker 2: Ian, if that feels really wrong, please cut it.

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Speaker 1: No wait no, Ian, you can interject your own recording

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Speaker 1: about how you feel about it. You won't hate having

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Speaker 1: that extra work because Ian is both our audio engineer

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Speaker 1: and the other half of that particular DJ collective Gladiator

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Speaker 1: A Gladiator.

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Speaker 3: I have the full Gladiator on staff, which is something

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Speaker 3: I like to bring up as much as I possibly can.

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Speaker 2: Here another another something for the for the audience here

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Speaker 2: is this is a sticker that we used to hold on.

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Speaker 2: Can I cover my face that it focuses? There we go.

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Speaker 2: This is an old sticker of Ian and I when

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Speaker 2: I had a full on zzy top beard. It was

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Speaker 2: famous for bucket hats. WHOA, everything has changed? Shall we

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Speaker 2: bring that back? What that? Well? No, Stephanie will not

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Speaker 2: let me bring the beard back. But maybe the bucket hats.

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Speaker 1: We can make cool Zone media stickers that are still

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Speaker 1: just that. Those faces we could. I think you two

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Speaker 1: should be the face of cool Zone Media. I agree,

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Speaker 1: and that is okay. So Sophie is our producer, the

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Speaker 1: afore mentioned Ian is the audio engineer, and our theme

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Speaker 1: music was written for us by un woman. Damn you.

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Speaker 2: I know that.

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Speaker 3: In the script for under preamble it just says stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it's highlighted. So this is part two of a

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Speaker 1: three parter on the queer groups of the early nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventies in the US and the UK. Last time we

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Speaker 1: talked about the birth of the Gay Liberation Front. Now

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about a splinter from that which

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Speaker 1: just did so fucking much. We're talking about Star the

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Speaker 1: Street Transvestite Action revolutionaries. I'd actually only ever heard of

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Speaker 1: them in passing like they were like, oh, there's like

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Speaker 1: a mutual aid group that passed out food to street

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Speaker 1: queer sex workers in New York City, And that's true.

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Speaker 1: They did do that. They also did so much more

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Speaker 1: than that. Hell yeah, So Star was for and by

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Speaker 1: street gay people, street homeless people, and anybody that needed help. Basically,

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Speaker 1: it was founded in nineteen seventy by Sylvia Rivera and

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Speaker 1: Marsha P. Johnson, who are both veterans of the Stonewall

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Speaker 1: rioting and the Gay Liberation Front and the GAA. Actually

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Speaker 1: they were kind of did it all. They are most

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Speaker 1: famous now people be like, oh, the you know, trans

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Speaker 1: woman of color who threw the first brick at Stonewall.

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Speaker 1: It is not true that they like quote through the

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Speaker 1: first brick at Stonewall. That doesn't matter. They are people

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Speaker 1: who fought in the riots and did amazing work as organizers,

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Speaker 1: and their contributions should still not be taken away. But

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Speaker 1: so Star started during the defense for other gay people

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Speaker 1: because we've always been working together. In nineteen seventy, NYU

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Speaker 1: canceled a bunch of planned dances once they realized they

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Speaker 1: were sponsored by the gays dundon ooo oooh the canceling

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Speaker 1: not the case. Yeah yeah, well boo. From the point

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Speaker 1: of view of NYU, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: So the GLF, the Radical lesbians, the one word that

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Speaker 1: talked about before, and other groups occupied the hall at

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Speaker 1: least eighty people. The numbers fluctuated. Sometimes there'd be as

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Speaker 1: few as ten, sometimes there'd be as many as like

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Speaker 1: three hundred. For almost a week they occupied a building

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Speaker 1: of NYU. Hell yeah, yeah, no, I I never heard

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Speaker 1: of it, you know, But then again, people were occupying

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Speaker 1: universities like every fucking week in nineteen sixty nine, nineteen seventy.

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Speaker 1: In this case, I think so street gays came and

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Speaker 1: helped street gays in this context, being gay people lived

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Speaker 1: on the street because they had no home, and Sylvia

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Speaker 1: and Marsha, who are both homeless sex workers, talked to

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Speaker 1: folks and non street gay folks were like, yeah, if

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Speaker 1: you organize, we'll have your backs. And so at this occupation,

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Speaker 1: this is the first time a lot of these different

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Speaker 1: groups really came together like and saw each other and

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Speaker 1: had to like live with each other and organize with

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Speaker 1: each other. Street transvestites and middle class gays black folks,

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Speaker 1: white folks, Latino folks. They all played spin the bottle

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Speaker 1: together in the basement of an NYU building, sleeping on

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Speaker 1: pool tables and shit. A lot of lesbians and street

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Speaker 1: queens hung out together for the first time. These were

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Speaker 1: groups that have been like kind of a little bit distanced, right,

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Speaker 1: and it was a major coming together for the movement.

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Speaker 1: The occupation lasted six nights before it was broken up

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Speaker 1: by police at gunpoint, who were like, we're gonna Jesus

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Speaker 1: I can kill you off you don't get the fuck.

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Speaker 2: Out of here, all right, fine, I guess.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And so afterwards the street queens they were

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Speaker 1: tired of running, you know. I think a lot of

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Speaker 1: it was like, well, they were perfectly happy to do

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Speaker 1: the occupation. That better sleep on a pool table than

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Speaker 1: the doorway, you know, Right, And so they formed Star

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Speaker 1: And partly it was to get away from mafia control

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Speaker 1: of spaces again, right, there's a big part of all

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Speaker 1: of this, but there was no complete escape. We'll talk

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Speaker 1: about how the mafia still ties into all of it.

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Speaker 1: Their platform fought for the rights of trans people and

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Speaker 1: for street youth. I like the way they wrote here's

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Speaker 1: the last point of their manifesto. After there's eight other

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Speaker 1: points before it that are sort of like reasonable demands,

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Speaker 1: like hey, stop exploiting us, you know, and all that quote,

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Speaker 1: we want a revolutionary people's government where transvestites, street people, women, homosexuals,

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Speaker 1: Puerto Ricans, Indians and all oppressed people are free and

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Speaker 1: not fucked over by this government who treat us like

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Speaker 1: the scum of the earth and kills us off like

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Speaker 1: flies one by one and throws us into jail to

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Speaker 1: rot the government who spends millions of dollars to go

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Speaker 1: to the moon and lets poor Americans starve to death.

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Speaker 2: So they're pretty strong. Yeah, I like that. They're just

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Speaker 2: like the way they wrote was like, well this is

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Speaker 2: what I think, you know, Yeah, I mean, you know,

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Speaker 2: got to get it out. Yeah, and very clearly too. Right.

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Speaker 1: Yes, there's not a lot of it. Yeah, And there's

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Speaker 1: not a lot like jargon.

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Speaker 2: It's just no.

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Speaker 1: And so they were regularly, the two of them, are

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Speaker 1: and Sylvia, they were regularly like they'd go and like

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Speaker 1: get two hotel rooms and then get fifty street queers

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Speaker 1: crammed into these two hotel rooms.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow.

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Speaker 1: Then they started sleeping in a I believe they squatted this.

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Speaker 1: It was a parked tractor trailer in an outdoor parking

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Speaker 1: lot in Greenwich Village.

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Speaker 2: Cool yeah, hell yeah.

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Speaker 1: And there was more than twenty Star activists living in

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Speaker 1: the trailer. And when I say Star activists, I mean

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Speaker 1: like fourteen and fifteen year olds.

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Speaker 2: Wow, oh my gosh.

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Speaker 1: Star Marcia and Sylvia were like eighteen, so they were

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Speaker 1: like the mothers, you know, eighteen. And these these teenagers

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Speaker 1: had the scars to show from the families that they'd fled.

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get into like you can read about

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Speaker 1: a lot of the specific stuff that these people have suffered,

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Speaker 1: and I don't I don't feel the need to. We

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Speaker 1: can believe that their lives were hard, yeah, for real,

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Speaker 1: And not all of them. Most of the street queens

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Speaker 1: were somewhere in the like vestite, transfeminine, like people who

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Speaker 1: are you know, sign mail at birth, who are wearing

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Speaker 1: women's clothes, who identify all different ways later in their lives,

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Speaker 1: but at the time identified as street queens. But some

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Speaker 1: of them were also girls in men's clothes, so it

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Speaker 1: wasn't just the other way around. And they had all

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Speaker 1: had really fucked up, hard lives. There's a whole bunch

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Speaker 1: of stories about the premature deaths they came to coming

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Speaker 1: from violence. A few of them murdered people of their

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Speaker 1: own in street fights. A rough and tumble existence. So

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Speaker 1: they lived in this eighteen wheeler and the reason I'm

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Speaker 1: guessing it squatted is that one morning they woke up

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Speaker 1: and it was driving away. Wow, So they all had

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Speaker 1: to jump out yeah no, yeah, And it was like

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Speaker 1: I think Marcia and Sylvia had like gone off to

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Speaker 1: like they pull all at the end of the night.

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Speaker 1: They'd all pull all their money from panhandling and petty

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Speaker 1: crime and sex work and stuff, and they would pull

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Speaker 1: all their money and then Sylvie and march It would

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Speaker 1: go and buy food and they were like coming back

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Speaker 1: at dawn to like bring back food. And the truck

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Speaker 1: was like driving right, it was gone and like all

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Speaker 1: the kids are jumping out of it. One of them

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Speaker 1: who was on downers slept through it and like ended

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Speaker 1: up in California.

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Speaker 2: California. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I don't entirely understand the means by which is the

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Speaker 1: person that slept this long they must have like come

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Speaker 1: woken up and then been like oh fuck, I don't

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Speaker 1: really know.

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Speaker 2: I mean, they probably woke up in the middle of

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Speaker 2: the nowhere at a rest stop that was getting like

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Speaker 2: refuel and it was like where are we you got

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Speaker 2: to stay on It's like all right, well, yeah, this

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Speaker 2: is what we're doing now. Yeah, that must have been

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Speaker 2: a niche. And so without their trailer, they rented a

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Speaker 2: piece of shit building from the mafia and they paid

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Speaker 2: for this. Okay, there's two buildings that Stars involved in,

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Speaker 2: and all of the stories about both of them are conflated.

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Speaker 2: This is my best piece scene in a part. The

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Speaker 2: buildings that they rented they were paid for two ways.

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Speaker 2: One with Sylvie and Marsha's sex work. They tried to

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Speaker 2: kind of be like, look, we'll do it you all please,

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Speaker 2: fifteen year olds, don't you know. And plus fundraising dances

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Speaker 2: thrown by Star and the GLF together and apparently at

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Speaker 2: these these dances, Sylvia would collect the donations at the

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Speaker 2: door armed with a knife to make sure that people

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Speaker 2: donated we support Yeah, she also pocketed some of the

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Speaker 2: donations for her own use, you know, to be this

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Speaker 2: is where we point out they are eighteen. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so the first place, the more like formal place

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Speaker 1: that they had was called the Gay Community Center the GCC,

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Speaker 1: which is one of the ancestors of all gay community

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Speaker 1: centers today, right, And it's like, I remember when I

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Speaker 1: didn't have health insurance and you know, like lived in

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Speaker 1: a van or whatever, and I like hurt my chest.

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Speaker 1: I like went to the this like place in Boston

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Speaker 1: that's this giant building that's a gay health clinic or whatever,

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Speaker 1: you know, and it was great. They treated me even

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Speaker 1: though I was uninsured and things like that. But it's

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Speaker 1: just like really important to remember that this like this

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Speaker 1: is where, this is where it comes from, this infrastructure

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Speaker 1: that was built by sex workers and by people had

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Speaker 1: really fucking hard lives. So they started the GCC. It's

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Speaker 1: conflated with the Star House that comes a little bit later.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't help that Sylvie and Marsha are both unreliable narrators,

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Speaker 1: quite known for embellishing the truth. The GLF and Star

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Speaker 1: rented this Gay Community Center and they use the top

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Speaker 1: floor is a classroom. They taught literacy to kids who

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Speaker 1: had grown up on the streets. They taught self defense,

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Speaker 1: they taught history, they taught crafts, whatever people wanted, right

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Speaker 1: and whatever people came by like whoever, it wasn't just

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Speaker 1: for those for all comers. And then There's the Star House,

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Speaker 1: which was in a much worse part of town, and

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Speaker 1: it was a flophouse for street queens, and they ran

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Speaker 1: it like a social center too, even though there was

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Speaker 1: like no for a while, there's no running water, and

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Speaker 1: for a while, there's no heat. For while, there is

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Speaker 1: no electricity, and stuff like that. And at this place

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Speaker 1: they offered food and childcare to the community around them

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Speaker 1: as well. Right, they're like, hey, we're hanging out here

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Speaker 1: all day, like you can leave your kids with us,

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Speaker 1: which is like kind of wild to think about, but

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Speaker 1: it was like a really important thing for the community

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Speaker 1: that they were in and their attitude about it. I'll

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Speaker 1: just quote Sylvia Rivera in an interview with Queer historian

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Speaker 1: Leslie Feinberg quote, we fed people, in clothed people. We

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Speaker 1: kept the building going. We went out and hustled the streets.

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Speaker 1: We paid the rent. We didn't want the kids out

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Speaker 1: in the streets hustling. They would go out and rip

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Speaker 1: off food. There was always food in the house and

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Speaker 1: everyone had fun. Later, we had a chapter in New York,

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Speaker 1: one in Chicago, one in California and England. It lasted

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Speaker 1: two to three years. Yeah, and they you know it

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Speaker 1: was lit by candles half the time. They had to

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Speaker 1: figure out all the plumbing and all the electrical themselves.

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Speaker 1: They ate spaghetti dinners when they were like feeling rich,

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Speaker 1: they'd have sausage in the morning. And they fought their

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Speaker 1: own drug addictions. This was a major problem in Manhattan

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Speaker 1: and New York City at the time. They often failed

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Speaker 1: to fight their own drug addictions. Often people died in

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Speaker 1: the attempt of fighting these addictions. It's the kind of

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Speaker 1: history that's easy to romanticize, but it's also dangerous to romanticize.

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Speaker 1: Like they're amazing, they're revolutionaries, and they had some of

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Speaker 1: the hardest lives that anyone in the US has ever lived,

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Speaker 1: and they were far from perfect, and they did so

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Speaker 1: fucking much. They were also kind of religious in their way.

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Speaker 1: They were mostly Catholic, but not in the Catholic way

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Speaker 1: that you get in church. They were more folk Catholic,

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Speaker 1: which is my favorite kind. Interesting to quote Sylvia, we'd

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Speaker 1: all get together to pray to our saints before we

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Speaker 1: go out hustling. A majority of the queens were Latin,

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Speaker 1: and we believed in an emotional, spiritualistic religion. We have

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Speaker 1: our own saints. Saint Barbara the patron Saint of homosexuality,

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Speaker 1: Saint Michael, the Archangel Lacaridad de Cobra, the Madonna of Gold,

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Speaker 1: and Saint Martha, the Saint of transformation. Saint Martha had

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Speaker 1: once transformed herself into a snake, so to her we'd pray,

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Speaker 1: please let them, don't let them see through the mask,

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Speaker 1: let us pass as women and save us from harm.

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Speaker 1: And to the other three, we'd kneel before our altar

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Speaker 1: of candles and pray. Saint Barbara, Saint Michael, Lecarada de Cobra,

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Speaker 1: we know we are doing wrong, but we got to live,

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Speaker 1: and we got to survive, so please help us. Bring

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Speaker 1: us money tonight, protect us and keep evil away. We

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Speaker 1: kept the sword of Saint Barbara at the front door

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Speaker 1: and the sword of Saint Michael at the back door

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Speaker 1: to ward off evil. We were watched over and for

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Speaker 1: anyone who's I had to look it up. The sort

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Speaker 1: of Saint Barbara's or Saint George are not sadly literal swords,

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Speaker 1: but they are potted plants.

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Speaker 2: Just cool too. The potted plant is mightier than the sword.

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Speaker 1: As they say, Yeah, yeah, specifically and this particular context,

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Speaker 1: it probably worked better. Yeah, and the two also joined

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Speaker 1: the Young Lord's Party, who we covered extensively in the

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Speaker 1: past four parter about them, and they just fucking ruled.

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Speaker 1: It's a Puerto Rican revolution organization, and at one point

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Speaker 1: that organization provided security for Sylvia Rivera when there was

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Speaker 1: like all kinds of its late as constantly i mean

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Speaker 1: death threats against her, and it was like contentious in

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Speaker 1: the We talked about this in the Young Lord's episode,

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Speaker 1: but it was like contentious. Some of them were like, oh,

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Speaker 1: we don't, we don't know about trans people. But eventually

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Speaker 1: they're like, no, we do, and we will take care

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Speaker 1: of and protect this person, you know. And they met

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Speaker 1: the Young Lords and Sylvia Rivera's Puerto Rican but they

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Speaker 1: met the Young Lords because there was a demonstration against

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Speaker 1: police repression that the Young Lords put on and this

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Speaker 1: is the first time that a star banner was carried

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Speaker 1: in a demonstration. And then after the demo they were like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: sign me up. They were also friends with the Panthers

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Speaker 1: and Hue P. Newton, and they also pushed the envelope

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Speaker 1: about trans acceptance in the GLF and the GAA. They

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Speaker 1: also pushed like a lot of people are like, oh,

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Speaker 1: people had a hard time with them because of the

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Speaker 1: trans thing. That's part of it. People had a hard

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Speaker 1: time with them because of the class thing. Both of

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Speaker 1: these things, right wow, Because like, for example, the gay

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Speaker 1: dances were by donation. The GAA, the glf ones and

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Speaker 1: start decided rightly that as homeless folks they should not

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Speaker 1: have to donate, right yeah, And so this like caused tension.

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Speaker 1: Oh you're supposed to donate, and they're like, fuck you,

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Speaker 1: or we fucking do what we want. You know, they

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Speaker 1: marched in all the demos all the time for all

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Speaker 1: of the issues.

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Speaker 2: Uh.

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Speaker 1: One of their chants, which absolutely does not rhyme, is

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Speaker 1: go left, go gay, go pick up the gun.

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Speaker 2: That doesn't even hit like the you're not hitting the

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Speaker 2: the the candor either the cadence and the cadence right either.

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Speaker 1: I know, And I'm pretty sure it was in English.

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Speaker 1: I like thought it through in Spanish and like, no,

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Speaker 1: I think this is an English language chant that just whatever,

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Speaker 1: it's hard as fuck, go off.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Trans people did not have a perfect easy time in

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Speaker 1: the movement. The street kids and particular, they were often

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Speaker 1: used as cannon fodder, basically because they were willing to

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Speaker 1: be directly confrontational because they were used to short, hard

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Speaker 1: lives of conflict. So when they needed someone to like,

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Speaker 1: go fight the cops, the street kids are always willing

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Speaker 1: to go fight the cops, right, And this was taken

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Speaker 1: advantage of us sometimes within the movement, but overall the

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Speaker 1: GOLF and then even the less radical GAA. They stuck

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Speaker 1: with protecting the street queens and specifically, and this is

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Speaker 1: contention because of modern politics, they stuck with protecting the

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Speaker 1: T and LGBT when push came to shove. And you

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Speaker 1: know what else protects you? If the ad is for LifeLock,

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Speaker 1: I guess.

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Speaker 2: Uh, that'd be maybe LifeLock.

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Speaker 1: You know who else had trans people's back was Reagan

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Speaker 1: whose gold coins by can we revisionist to one of

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Speaker 1: the people who saw that, No, that would be bad.

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Speaker 2: I guess.

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Speaker 1: When I first started writing this, I was like, and

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Speaker 1: then I'll get up and get into act up and

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Speaker 1: the AIDS crisis and I'm like, that is going to

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Speaker 1: be its own major thing to drive into amen. So

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Speaker 1: if this is an ad for Reagan, I can't make

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Speaker 1: a joke about it. He was a monster and has

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Speaker 1: a lot of blood on his hands. Fortunately he's dead,

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Speaker 1: but we don't have a lot of control over our advertisers.

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Speaker 2: We do not, unfortunately.

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Speaker 1: So here's some ads.

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Speaker 2: And we're back. Yay.

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Speaker 1: So the GAA and Star they pushed New York City

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Speaker 1: to add LGBT folks to an existing Equal Rights Act.

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Speaker 1: This was like their big legal campaign that they worked

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Speaker 1: on for a very long time. And the city immediately,

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Speaker 1: of course, did what it always does, which was like, well,

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Speaker 1: you drop the T from the LGBT and we'll talk

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Speaker 1: about it, you know. To be clear, they still wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have done it, as we'll get to, but you know,

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Speaker 1: they are like, oh, you want to you want to

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Speaker 1: ditch the weirdos, you know, and a minority of the

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Speaker 1: GAA was like, yeah, let's drop the transvestites from the bill.

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Speaker 1: To be clear about language, I've probably talked about this

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Speaker 1: at other times in the past, but like, transvestite is

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Speaker 1: not a word that most people use anymore. I personally

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Speaker 1: don't see it as slurry to identify as a transvestite,

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Speaker 1: but it is.

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Speaker 2: It is the.

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Speaker 1: Language that people were using at the time, and it

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Speaker 1: specifically tends to refer to men wearing women's clothes. All

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Speaker 1: of this gets quotes, but you know, whatever anyway, everything

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Speaker 1: is all mixed up in different ways at different times.

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Speaker 1: So they were like, hey, drop the drop the transvestites,

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Speaker 1: and GAA was like, no, we're sticking to our guns.

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Speaker 1: They've always been with us. One member said quote, we

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Speaker 1: would not play the game of well we could pass

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Speaker 1: pass it if we eliminate these people. In fact, the

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Speaker 1: first arrest in the GAA's history was Sylvia Rivera, who

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Speaker 1: is arrested while getting signatures for the petition for the

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Speaker 1: Gay Rights Bill, which is last week in our Newsies episode,

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Speaker 1: we talked about how one of the black newsies was

401
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Speaker 1: arrested for passing out of like just literally a flyer.

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Speaker 1: It's like the same kind of shit, nothing ever fucking changes.

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Speaker 1: The NYPD is the crew the villain in both of

404
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Speaker 1: these things, seventy years apart, where they're like, oh, look

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Speaker 1: a person the color doing something is absolutely free speech.

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Speaker 1: We're going to arrest them.

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Speaker 2: Classic.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So the GLF and the GAA both flooded the

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Speaker 1: courtroom in her defense. They stood up for her. The

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Speaker 1: GAA paid her legal fees, and eventually her charges were dropped.

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Speaker 1: The hearings for the bill itself carried on for a while.

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Speaker 1: During one hearing, the city tried hard to transbate the

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Speaker 1: rest of the gays and dropping trans folks. Cops tried

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Speaker 1: to bar drag queens from entering the courtroom. I think

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Speaker 1: they were like, oh, you're not dressed appropriately for court.

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Speaker 1: As my best bet. Angry gays surrounded their quote half

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Speaker 1: sisters this was non derogatory term, and forced them to

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Speaker 1: let the drag queens sit in the front row. The

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Speaker 1: city councilors were like, yeah, but what if men this

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Speaker 1: is some nothing's ever changed shit. They were like, yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: if we protect trans people, what if men in dresses

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Speaker 1: use the women's room?

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Speaker 2: Oh?

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Speaker 1: No, yeah, And they pointed to one woman who just

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Speaker 1: come out of the women's room and We're like, what

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Speaker 1: this is their quote? What about that thing coming out

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Speaker 1: of the bathroom there? So that woman, June Bartel, who

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Speaker 1: I think was a trans woman, squatted down, lifted up

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Speaker 1: her skirts and said, how can you tell if I'm

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Speaker 1: a man or a woman?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Man?

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Speaker 1: And I don't know if there was like underwear or

433
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:45,240
Speaker 1: underneath that. I don't know exactly what happened here, which

434
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 1: is not the first time in researching this in this

435
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:53,320
Speaker 1: podcast history where a trans woman has lifted her skirts

436
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 1: the court to be like, fine, if you care so

437
00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:57,439
Speaker 1: much about junk, here's my fucking junk.

438
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:01,399
Speaker 2: Here's my fucking junk. Yeah, hunk.

439
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:06,600
Speaker 1: So that this caused a near riot in the courtroom

440
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:10,159
Speaker 1: when this happened, And this has started by them calling

441
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:13,639
Speaker 1: an adult a thing right by using the bathroom that

442
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: they were less likely to get murdered for using, because

443
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 1: that's the other thing, right, The reason that I mean, well,

444
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 1: the reason that women use the women's room is it's labeled.

445
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 1: And I remember at one point being like, well, there's

446
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:28,600
Speaker 1: this is when I was just a just a quote

447
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:30,720
Speaker 1: transvestite or whatever, identify as a man who wore dresses

448
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: or whatever, and I'd be like, name Margaret. It was

449
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:35,000
Speaker 1: all a very confused time in my life. When I

450
00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 1: was younger, I'd be like, well, I look at the drawing,

451
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:39,639
Speaker 1: and the drawing is of me, but the gender is

452
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:42,800
Speaker 1: the wrong, you know, like like right, like whatever, it's

453
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:46,440
Speaker 1: not safe for people to whatever. I remember, okay, we

454
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:50,200
Speaker 1: actually just said, like, you know, a different. At different

455
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:52,119
Speaker 1: points in my life, I pass or don't pass in

456
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:55,000
Speaker 1: different ways. And I remember when I hit the point

457
00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:58,640
Speaker 1: at which there was no safe bathroom because like, if

458
00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:00,920
Speaker 1: I have like a beard and I'm in a skirt,

459
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 1: I can use the men's room. And everyone's like, oh whatever,

460
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: you know, sure, But I remember the point, you know,

461
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 1: I was at a show and I went into the

462
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:12,400
Speaker 1: men's room and everyone's staring at me, and I'm like, oh, right,

463
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:15,199
Speaker 1: because I don't look like a man. And then I'm like,

464
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:18,399
Speaker 1: but I don't look like a woman. There is no

465
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 1: safe place for me to urinate at this show anyway.

466
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 2: That's an aside.

467
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,680
Speaker 1: So Sonia riot in the courtroom. Queens are rushing down

468
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 1: the stairs. The cops rush in, right, and they're like,

469
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:35,199
Speaker 1: and so queens start rushing down the stairs and they

470
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:37,439
Speaker 1: bowl the riot cups. So CoP's over, and they like

471
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 1: tumble down the stairs because they're wearing too much stuff.

472
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 1: Sylvia Rivera jumps off the second floor balcony at this point,

473
00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:49,359
Speaker 1: like it's a punk show. By the third day of

474
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: the hearing, transvestites were banned from using any restrooms great

475
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 1: and the bill was defeated. It took until nineteen eighty

476
00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: six before it passed at all, and it was passed

477
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 1: without protections or trans people. This is like my argument

478
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: about by like even without adding even without trans people

479
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:09,919
Speaker 1: in the bill. It took fifteen sixteen more years before

480
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 1: New York was ready for it. It took another sixteen years.

481
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 1: It took until two thousand and two before trans people

482
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,159
Speaker 1: to have legal protections under the Equal Rights Act in

483
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: New York City. More than anything, Star fought for prisoners,

484
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:28,440
Speaker 1: especially LGBT prisoners and street youth, at demonstrations but also

485
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 1: testifying in every hearing they could, and they won a

486
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: lot of these things. They won educational rights for the

487
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:38,119
Speaker 1: young prisoners on Rikers Island, more than sixty percent of

488
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:39,959
Speaker 1: whom at the time we were awaiting trial without being

489
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:42,639
Speaker 1: able to afford bail. That is still a problem today.

490
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:45,720
Speaker 1: There's like people who die on Rikers Island because they

491
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 1: got I don't have the details in front of me.

492
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,199
Speaker 1: It was like a kid who like maybe stole a

493
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 1: backpack or something, who fucking died on Rikers as a teenager, And.

494
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm familiar with that story.

495
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:00,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's like, we theoretically have a lie Le

496
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 1: system in which you are not a guilty person before

497
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:06,359
Speaker 1: you've been convicted, right theory, But if you're poor, it

498
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. A lot of Star themselves spent time in

499
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 1: Rikers Island, and Sylvia was just fucking cool. Like mostly

500
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: this is an episode about like movements, right, Like some

501
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: of my episodes are more movement, some of them are

502
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 1: more people. It is like mostly a movement one. But

503
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: Sylvia just fucking ruled. When someone asked her to run

504
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: for office in the GAA, she said quote, I would

505
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 1: rather be someone who can stand here and argue with

506
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: the hierarchy, but than be the hierarchy.

507
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 2: And she was.

508
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: It's true she was the president of Star, but she

509
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 1: had tried to convince Marsha to be the president and

510
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 1: Marsha refused it. Because I had to figure out a

511
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:44,879
Speaker 1: way to shoehorn Tolkien into the episode. It reminds me

512
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: of a quote by him, quote the most improper job

513
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: of any men, even saints, is bossing other men. Not

514
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: one in a million is fit for it, and least

515
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,639
Speaker 1: of all those who seek the opportunity. The argument being that, no,

516
00:26:57,840 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 1: the only good leader is a leader who does not

517
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: seek out to be a leader. That's good, yeah, like

518
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: not attracted to power, you know, sure, but seeing it

519
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:10,119
Speaker 1: as a burden is a very different thing. And I

520
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 1: think that she showed that very well. She also drew

521
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 1: the earliest version that I've ever found of what's now

522
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: the trans symbol, you know, the like circle with the

523
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 1: male female and androg and gene sign coming off of it. Yeah, like,

524
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: I can't source that. In nineteen seventy two, she wrote

525
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:34,199
Speaker 1: a piece called Transvestites Your Half Sisters and Half Brothers

526
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 1: of the Revolution, which is an awesome title, and it

527
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:40,880
Speaker 1: used a symbol that was like three andrew gene symbols

528
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 1: overlapping an event diagram, and it just like looks like

529
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: that symbol. It's the three arrows coming out.

530
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:49,119
Speaker 2: And I don't know.

531
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: I've found people on the internet claiming that the symbol

532
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 1: the trans symbol comes from a radio show in two

533
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,919
Speaker 1: thousand and two. This is not true. By summer two

534
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: thousand and two, I already had a hoodie with the

535
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 1: trans symbol silk screened on it, even though I was

536
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: a straight boy. I was very confused kid named Margaret

537
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: wearing dresses. And I'd learned this symbol from a street

538
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,640
Speaker 1: a street queen, basically a trans woman named Jennifer had

539
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 1: who had already had one on her black hoodie for

540
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:14,880
Speaker 1: a very long time.

541
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 2: Interesting.

542
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: I asked a bunch of friends before while was writing

543
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: the script, a bunch of my friends who might know,

544
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 1: and all of them were like, man, that symbol is

545
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: just in the ether, you know.

546
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's one of the I mean, I

547
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,920
Speaker 2: think this is one of the sadder realities of oppressed groups,

548
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 2: is that so often their history is erased by people,

549
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 2: you know, committing violence on them just because it's like,

550
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 2: you know that it's this the the horrible quote is

551
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 2: history is written by the winners, and it's so often

552
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:47,360
Speaker 2: that as we search for more of that history from

553
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 2: people who were cast aside and not big old air

554
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 2: quotes quotes, not traditional winners, it's like we just lose

555
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 2: that and that is it's sad because that feels like

556
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 2: something that is so not i mean, not crucial to

557
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 2: a movement, but it's it's important to know your and

558
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 2: know where they come from. Feel like it's kind of

559
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 2: similar to the purple hand thing. It's like, is that

560
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 2: preserved in some way? Yeah, it's like I don't.

561
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: Know, No, No, that's such a That's such a good point.

562
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: And a lot of the work that I end up

563
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: having to do for the show is just like figuring

564
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: out there's so much stuff that just is never written about,

565
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: like sex workers in particular are written out of history,

566
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: and or rather people's sex work is written out of

567
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: history in the same way that people's queerness is written

568
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 1: out of history, and the same way that people's radicalness

569
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: of different ideological attachments. I mostly notice anarchism because of

570
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: my own biases, and it's like you'll read about all

571
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 1: these people, you know, like oh, Emma Goldman, the amazing

572
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: birth control activist, which is true, but like they are

573
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: entirely writing out her anarchism. And then also she herself,

574
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 1: in her autobiography, talks about this time that she like

575
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 1: wanted to make money for her boyfriend to shoot a guy,

576
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: and so she went out to go do sex work

577
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 1: to shoot and Andrew clay Frick, the industrialist who was

578
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: killing a bunch of striking workers. It was actually all

579
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: a bad idea in the end, shooting him made everything worse,

580
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: but you know, I didn't know that at the time.

581
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: And so she goes out and tries to get some

582
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: money for it, and so she like goes into sex work.

583
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: Probably in her own autobiography she's like, oh, I went out,

584
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 1: but a guy gave me a bunch of money, did

585
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: not sleep with him and said that you're not cut

586
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: out for this kind of work, right, And I think

587
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: the most likely thing there is that she didn't want

588
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: to talk about having done sex work, like explicitly, because

589
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 1: you don't talk about it. And so it's not just

590
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: the winners as in the people who like, but it's

591
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: like the winning ideologies.

592
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 2: Right, sure, totally, totally. Yeah.

593
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: Anyway, so the Starhouse, it actually only lasted nine months

594
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: before one of its members turned out to have not

595
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: been paying the rent and they were all evicted. I

596
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: think one of the members was basically embezzling the rent.

597
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 2: That sucks.

598
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the best I can read. It's a little

599
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 1: bit reading between the lines on that one. Sure, And

600
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: a lot of the kids didn't survive the next year

601
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: on the street. A lot of them died from drugs,

602
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: a lot of them were murdered by clients. At least

603
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: two of them were murdered by clients. A lot of

604
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: straight men hired transsex workers because trans women are fucking hot,

605
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 1: and then kill them later in a fit of oh no,

606
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: I did a gay and yeah, and that's a thing

607
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: that still when people talk about transgenocide, that's like and

608
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: this is especially.

609
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 2: True for.

610
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: Trans women of color, and particularly true for trans women color.

611
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: Sex workers have some of the hardest lives of anyone

612
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: who lives. Shout out to the people who keep living.

613
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 2: And keep fighting, truly shout out.

614
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 3: So.

615
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: In addition to Starr, there was also the Queen's Liberation Front,

616
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: which is not about queens the borough, but queens like

617
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 1: drag queens. It started in nineteen sixty nine by a

618
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 1: drag queen named Lee Brewster and by a quote heterosexual

619
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:00,440
Speaker 1: transvestite named Bunny Eisenhower. Is one of the things that like,

620
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: even back then, people are like, wait, I don't understand

621
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 1: some of you sleep with women and some of you

622
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 1: sleep with men, you know. And in the movement people

623
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: are like, yeah, like actually like bisexuality the invisible, the

624
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: invisible part of LGBT, Like they were actually there the

625
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:18,479
Speaker 1: whole time, and actually all of their papers were like

626
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: bisexuality rules, bisexuality is great. You can be full gay,

627
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: you can be bisexual. Like it's fine, you know. So

628
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: the Queen's Liberation Front published Drag Magazine, which covered areas

629
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: ignored by other gay publications. They raised money for the

630
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: first Pride March, the Christopher Street Liberation day, and they

631
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: were to legalize cross dressing in New York City because

632
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: that has been illegal in the past and will probably

633
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: be illegal in the future. There are states where it

634
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 1: would not be legal for me to give presentations about anything.

635
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: There was also the Trends I know, I know. There

636
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: was also the Transvestite Information Service, the TVIS, which had

637
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 1: chapters across the country. So Star lasted until nineteen seventy three.

638
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: At the Pride Parade that year, in fighting was getting

639
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 1: the better of the movement, and Sylvia Rivera was either

640
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: if any how you ask, denied a chance to speak,

641
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 1: or if you ask the other side. She refused to

642
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 1: abide by the rules of who gets to like how

643
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: to ask for a chance to speak. She either could

644
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: be easily true. She was very notorious for ignoring the

645
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:26,239
Speaker 1: rules of polite organizing and conversation. As much as I'm

646
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: like she ruled. She was a very disruptive element in organizing.

647
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 1: According to everyone, I'm fine with someone who whatever anyway. Yeah,

648
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: So she stormed the stage and she took the microphone,

649
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: and she gave a speech about the need to stand

650
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 1: up for gay prisoners, and she was decrying how Pride

651
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: had become white and middle class, and she was met

652
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: with booze. So then a speaker came on and spoke

653
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 1: out against drag, called Sylvia a genital male, claimed that

654
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 1: drag was just entertainment and it was misogynist and demeaning.

655
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 1: This was also met with booze. The crowd was divided,

656
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: and later that speaker, who I don't want to name,

657
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 1: she recanted and she wished she hadn't said that shit,

658
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 1: and she realized that in trans people, it's part of us. Yeah,

659
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 1: that's why I'm not naming her. After that, another speaker

660
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 1: came on from the Queen's Liberation Front and defended the queens,

661
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 1: and basically the movement is divided at this point, and

662
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:28,800
Speaker 1: more and more the gay rights movement went towards assimilationism

663
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,879
Speaker 1: and towards single issue politics, which split the LGBT from

664
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: each other. Right, incrementalism and reform became the words of

665
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 1: the day. It was kind of a like, well, we're

666
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 1: kind of getting there. Can't we just be have an

667
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:43,480
Speaker 1: easy time?

668
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 2: You know? Yeah?

669
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 1: And this stayed the case for five or six years

670
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 1: until the eighties and the AIDS crisis, when it was

671
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: obvious that radical action was needed and the gay movement

672
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:56,840
Speaker 1: looked back to its radical founding. That's a story for

673
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: a different time. First, it's time for the story about mattresses.

674
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:05,479
Speaker 1: We haven't sold mattresses in a long time, but maybe

675
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: you've missed by the future. Yes, I wonder what the

676
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:10,440
Speaker 1: ads are in the future. Let's think about what the

677
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 1: future ads are.

678
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 2: Oh man, Yeah, masks, breathers, Yeah, yeah, axes. I mean

679
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not looking forward to our toxic future,

680
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 2: but I am looking forward to really cool mask technology. Yeah.

681
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:28,319
Speaker 2: And just just the just the go ahead. No, and

682
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 2: the sweet deals on these masks. Yeah, and the sweet

683
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 2: deal the percent off if you can get by listening

684
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 2: to this very podcast.

685
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:39,480
Speaker 1: Because you know that advertisers are going to last till

686
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 1: the very last minute. Like I was thinking about, it's

687
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 1: like there's going to be people evicting people for not

688
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 1: paying their rent or their mortgage, while like we can

689
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 1: see mushroom clouds in the distance, you know, quite literally, quite.

690
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 2: Literally, we're kicking out into the street. No, I will

691
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 2: literally die. Well, I don't have money, so I don't care.

692
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, buy one mask, get this free?

693
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:06,320
Speaker 2: Nice yeah. Yeah, defend yourself against ashes. Yeah, wonderful.

694
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: Here's some ads, So we're back, And a lot of

695
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:17,920
Speaker 1: the research about this particular part about Star and also

696
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,319
Speaker 1: just GLF in general. A lot of it comes from

697
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 1: an author I mentioned just like kind of briefly named

698
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: drop named Leslie Feinberg, and I just want to like

699
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 1: highlight her and talk about it really quick, because she

700
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: is a cool person who did cool stuff, who used

701
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 1: both she and Z pronouns, and so I'm going to

702
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 1: kind of mix it up in the script. I first

703
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:39,719
Speaker 1: ran across here book Stonebusch Blues when I didn't even

704
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 1: know that I was queer. This episode is going to

705
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 1: be the most people now know about twenty year old

706
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,959
Speaker 1: me of anything else that I've ever recorded. And Stone

707
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 1: Busch Blues exploded my little brain. It is a fictionalized

708
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 1: memoir about someone transitioning from butch to trans masculine in

709
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:58,760
Speaker 1: the era before Stonewall in a working classifact family in Buffalo,

710
00:36:58,840 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 1: New York.

711
00:36:59,760 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 2: Wow.

712
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: And it describes a lesbian culture of butches and fems

713
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:05,440
Speaker 1: in which a lot of the butcheres are stone butches,

714
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 1: which meant that they give pleasure sexually but don't receive pleasure,

715
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: and that's like their essentially gender and their sexual orientation

716
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 1: and reading that helped a lot. It helped baby Margaret

717
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: figure some shit out about herself. So thank you, Leslie.

718
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:20,320
Speaker 1: Rest in peace.

719
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 2: Shout out, Leslie.

720
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: Here's a quote from that book that I think is

721
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 1: always worth bringing out. I'm not saying we'll live to

722
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,920
Speaker 1: see some sort of paradise, but just fighting for change

723
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: makes you stronger. Not hoping for anything will kill you

724
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 1: for sure. Take a chance. You're already wondering if the

725
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 1: world could change, Try imagining a world worth living in,

726
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:42,879
Speaker 1: and then ask yourself if that isn't worth fighting for.

727
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: You've come too far to give up on hope.

728
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah.

729
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:54,280
Speaker 1: Leslie Feinberg was born in a Jewish, white working class

730
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: family in nineteen forty seven in Missouri, then grew up

731
00:37:56,600 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: in Buffalo, New York. Zee was a high school dropout

732
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 1: who started work at fourteen who went on to advance

733
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: gender studies more than anyone else I can name off

734
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: the top of my head. Z was a big part

735
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: of the move from transsexual as the primary label for

736
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:13,759
Speaker 1: folks to transgender, and the idea behind this is like

737
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: moving away from the medicalization of transnests. Right. It's not

738
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:19,399
Speaker 1: saying that transsexual is like a bad word, right, It's

739
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: just like, not necessarily everyone's experience because not everyone's experience

740
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 1: is medicalized. Not everyone's going to have surgery or change

741
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:30,399
Speaker 1: their like physical sex characteristics, you know. She also spent

742
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,439
Speaker 1: her time organizing with radical lesbians to do anti racist work,

743
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 1: like a group of ten of them which just go

744
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,839
Speaker 1: around cities covering every piece of racist graffiti they could find.

745
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 1: In the early eighties, she went on a tour explaining

746
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:44,880
Speaker 1: the AIDS epidemic and how it is being denied by

747
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: journalists and politicians. Is the organized community defense against the

748
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 1: Klan and four gay bars and four abortion clinics. She

749
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: just did it all. Z was Marxist. She edited the

750
00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 1: newspaper the World Workers Party. By the end of her life.

751
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,360
Speaker 1: She stayed involved in organizing and protests her entire life.

752
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:07,560
Speaker 1: Her lifelong partner, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and her were finally

753
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 1: married in twenty eleven. Her last campaign was the campaign

754
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: to free c. C. MacDonald, who was a young Minneapolis

755
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: black trans woman who killed the transphobe who attacked her

756
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: and then went to prison for defending herself.

757
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 2: I can hate that shit, yeah yeah.

758
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 1: Leslie died at sixty five of complications from various illnesses

759
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 1: and from medical neglect because the doctors didn't know what

760
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: the fuck to do with them, because I don't know,

761
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: because doctors are not always medical neglect is a thing

762
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 1: and a problem. I'm not trying to say doctors are bad.

763
00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: I'm saying that our medical system has problems.

764
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 2: Yes, always good to have a healthy bit of skepticism, yeah, yeah.

765
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: And she's not subtle about her politics, right, and I

766
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 1: don't agree with like like, but that's not my point here.

767
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into what I disagree without

768
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: it about her. But her last words were remember me

769
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 1: as a revolutionary communist.

770
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 2: That's so sick. I know, I know, you're just like

771
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:10,279
Speaker 2: dying and you're like, never forget. It's like no one

772
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 2: was gonna forget, actually, I mean I don't know. People

773
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:13,360
Speaker 2: probably would have been.

774
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 1: Like, oh, really fought for trans rice And that's true, right,

775
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: But like it's in this context, but we still got

776
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: so much more gay liberation to talk about it. It's

777
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: got drag queens drinking at the pub, it's got nuns

778
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:32,760
Speaker 1: doing the can can, mice will be unleashed, mony Python

779
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 1: is involved. On part three, we're gonna talk about the

780
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 1: UK Gay Liberation Front.

781
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah, that's exciting. I'm stoked. Yeah. No, all of

782
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 2: them are fun, but part three is particularly fun. Oh yay.

783
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: But what else is fun is your Twitch stream and

784
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: whatever else you want to shout.

785
00:40:56,719 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 2: Out pluggables, Yeah, you all over the internet. DJ Underscore

786
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 2: Daniel da n L. H you from me on twitch,

787
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 2: Twitch dot tv slash dj d a n L. The

788
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 2: most exciting thing happening on my twitch recently is that

789
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 2: every Friday, I take a single player game that I've

790
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:16,280
Speaker 2: been meeting to beat out of my backlog and actually

791
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 2: finish it, because lord knows, some people have books they

792
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 2: haven't finished, some people have movies they haven't seen. I

793
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 2: have a whole bunch of single player video games that

794
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 2: I played for four hours and went never mind, I

795
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:26,720
Speaker 2: want to go play something else, and just never finished.

796
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 2: And I just started Jedi Fallen Order and that game

797
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 2: has been a lot of fun so far. I'm a

798
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:34,800
Speaker 2: big Star Wars fan and I just never got around

799
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 2: to really giving my game a shot, and I just

800
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:38,759
Speaker 2: started that and it's been great so far. So come

801
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 2: on by on Fridays and check me out and do that. Hell, yeah,

802
00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:41,840
Speaker 2: you go.

803
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 1: I used to never think that I would want to

804
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 1: watch other people play video games. Yeah, it's so relaxing.

805
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 1: It's sometimes yeah, like it really can be. It's like

806
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 1: when your friend or your roommate or your you know,

807
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:58,239
Speaker 1: partner or something is sitting around playing video games and

808
00:41:58,280 --> 00:41:59,879
Speaker 1: you get to be like, oh, no, you're gonna shoot

809
00:41:59,880 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 1: the oh you shot the thing, and you're like, it's

810
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 1: often very nice.

811
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 2: It is nice. I appreciate that. Thank you for the

812
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 2: cell on watching people play video game. Yeah.

813
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it took me by surprise that I liked

814
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:15,919
Speaker 1: it totally. Okay, if you like tabletop role playing games,

815
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:18,319
Speaker 1: I'm kickstarting tabletop role playing game called p Number City,

816
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 1: but I've already talked about that. You can find me

817
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 1: on the internet Magpie kill Joy and Twitter. I did

818
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:26,839
Speaker 1: the opposite DJ Channel. I have different handles on every

819
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: platform because I'm a fool. I'm Margaret Killjoy in Instagram,

820
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 1: but I got on the Blue Sky early enough that

821
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:35,359
Speaker 1: I grabbed at Margaret and I'm like, but I want

822
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:37,839
Speaker 1: at Margaret, and so I'm at Margaret instead of at

823
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 1: Margaret Kiljoy one Blue Sky. I hate Twitter with the

824
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:46,320
Speaker 1: fiery passion. It's also my largest platform and my ability

825
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:48,759
Speaker 1: to eat food relies on my ability to tell people

826
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 1: about the things I'm doing. So I'm still there for now.

827
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 1: But if it's the future, you'll also find me add

828
00:42:56,440 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: Apocalypse Land, selling prepper stuff, but only in the future,

829
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 1: not currently. Actually, there'll be a mutual aid thing. You

830
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 1: actually can just show up and get the apocalypse stuff. Yeah,

831
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: so I want to shout, yeah, pitch my future mutual

832
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:12,759
Speaker 1: aid project, which probably shouldn't have been called Apocalypse Land.

833
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:15,399
Speaker 1: People are very mad at me because it's like insensitive,

834
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 1: because the apocalypse has been really hard on people, and

835
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 1: how dare so anyway, Sophie, you got a plug?

836
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 2: No good? Isn't it inherently hard on everyone? Isn't that

837
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:26,800
Speaker 2: the idea? Yeah? Yeah, no, it's I don't want to

838
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:29,280
Speaker 2: dive into the world of these people who think is problematic?

839
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:29,800
Speaker 2: Are wrong?

840
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:35,960
Speaker 1: Yeah? The discourse from the discourse future the Future Discoorse, Sophie,

841
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 1: Can we do a podcast?

842
00:43:37,080 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 3: No?

843
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: But what if there was a podcast about Russian oligarchs

844
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:44,799
Speaker 1: who suddenly die?

845
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 2: What if?

846
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:48,760
Speaker 3: Oh you could listen? Is that all hosted by.

847
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 2: Yeah? I did say a good one and if you

848
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:58,840
Speaker 2: want to listen to it ad free, you can subscribe

849
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:02,320
Speaker 2: to cooler Zone, a subscription services that allows you to

850
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 2: receive all of our shows ad free so that you

851
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 2: can enjoy them at your leisure without hearing the Reagan

852
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:13,720
Speaker 2: coin stuff. Just our fun wrap arounds about reagancoinwur.

853
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 3: Podcasts, and soon on something else. Hopefully I can announce

854
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 3: soon for my non Apple using friends.

855
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:23,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, listen, you are heard, you are seen, worth trying

856
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 2: to support you.

857
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 1: And if it's the future, you can find us on

858
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:26,919
Speaker 1: shortwave radio.

859
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 2: Yes, gab into our semi radio.

860
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 3: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

861
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 3: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,

862
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 3: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com or check us out

863
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:47,080
Speaker 3: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

864
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Speaker 3: your podcasts.