Speaker 1: What We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network. As a gay kid, growing up
Speaker 1: religious in the South, I thought being gay was the
Speaker 1: worst thing I could ever be. Now, as a journalist,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to unlearn that by seeking out our history,
Speaker 1: and what I've found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance,
Speaker 1: and love. From My Heart Podcasts, I'm Jordan again Solve
Speaker 1: and this is What We Loved. In a typical episode,
Speaker 1: I interview a queer elder and they tell me about
Speaker 1: the history they've lived through in vivid detail. But I
Speaker 1: wanted you to know more about me and how my
Speaker 1: own search for belonging led me to make this show.
Speaker 1: So for this starter episode, I'm gonna be the one
Speaker 1: interviewed by a queer elder. I'm gonna be interviewed by
Speaker 1: Eric Marcus. He's one of the journalists I look up
Speaker 1: to the most. He's a fellow gay man and the
Speaker 1: host of the podcast Making Gay History. He's sixty five now,
Speaker 1: but when he was my age, he began interviewing his
Speaker 1: queer elders. Between his books and his podcast, he's made
Speaker 1: one of the most important archives of LGBTQ history in existence.
Speaker 1: In a way, this show is about passing things down
Speaker 1: from one queer generation to the next, and I felt
Speaker 1: like Eric was passing down this duty to me to
Speaker 1: continue the work he's been doing for the last thirty
Speaker 1: five years preserving and sharing our history. Eric Marcus, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being here. I can't believe you're
Speaker 1: actually interviewing me for the first episode of the show,
Speaker 1: but it's so amazing and surreal to do this.
Speaker 2: I'm so delighted, I'm so proud of you, and I
Speaker 2: look forward to asking you lots of questions.
Speaker 1: Why don't we start off with you introducing yourself?
Speaker 2: Sure, I'm Eric Marcus, founder and host of the Making
Speaker 2: Gay History podcast, and like you, I am a graduate
Speaker 2: of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. However, i'm
Speaker 2: class of eighty four, and I know you're a little
Speaker 2: younger than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty three. What is that? Forty years later? Almost?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's thirty nine years yeah, ten years later. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So why don't you introduce yourself?
Speaker 1: Well, I am a journalist like you, Eric, but my
Speaker 1: beat is around shame, and shame has a really interesting
Speaker 1: part in many of our stories as LGBT people, and
Speaker 1: so I've always been fascinated and drawn toward that.
Speaker 2: Shame is such a universal I'm very familiar with it.
Speaker 2: Being homosexual, I was so ashamed of who I was,
Speaker 2: and there was no other way of understanding oneself because
Speaker 2: gay people were not portrayed in any way that would
Speaker 2: make you feel proud of yourself exactly. Yeah, why don't
Speaker 2: you tell us what the show is about.
Speaker 1: The show is a queer history show, but it's told
Speaker 1: through the amazing memories and interviews with queer elders, and
Speaker 1: so even though it's about queer history, it has this
Speaker 1: really unique intergenerational dialogue aspect, kind of like passing down
Speaker 1: wisdom to the next generation.
Speaker 2: Right, because we don't. We're not born into families where
Speaker 2: I'm Jewish, and in my family, our Jewish heritage was
Speaker 2: passed down generation to generations. So I have stories, but
Speaker 2: as far as I know, I'm the first out gay
Speaker 2: person in my entire family forever, and nobody had that history.
Speaker 2: I had to go out and find out about it myself.
Speaker 2: Before we get to the show. I have more questions
Speaker 2: about you.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm nervous, don't worry.
Speaker 2: So what was it like growing up gay? For you.
Speaker 1: Well, basically, I grew up pretty isolated from other queer people.
Speaker 1: I grew up in the South in Texas and to
Speaker 1: imm parents from India who were very religious, and so
Speaker 1: I went to church multiple times a week. And actually,
Speaker 1: one of my earliest memories that I think really shaped
Speaker 1: who I am as a gay man was when I
Speaker 1: was in the seventh grade. I would go to Bible
Speaker 1: study every Sunday after Mass, and I remember one Sunday,
Speaker 1: the youth minister was doing a presentation on heaven and Hell,
Speaker 1: and there were three columns on this chart that he
Speaker 1: had projected onto the wall. The first column was how
Speaker 1: you get into heaven, things like obeying your parents and
Speaker 1: being kind to the elderly. And then the middle column
Speaker 1: was how you go to purgatory, so things like drinking
Speaker 1: alcohol too much or gossiping. And then the last column
Speaker 1: was about Hell and that had things like if you
Speaker 1: cheated on your spouse or if you murder or rape someone,
Speaker 1: and it also had a little bullet point for engaging
Speaker 1: in homosexual activity.
Speaker 2: And were you aware at that point that you were gay?
Speaker 1: You know, at that point I was starting to definitely
Speaker 1: feel like I was attracted to other guys, that's the
Speaker 1: age when you sort of figure that stuff out. But
Speaker 1: I thought, well, surely I can't be gay because I'm
Speaker 1: not going to hell, you know. I want to go
Speaker 1: to heaven with my parents and with my grandparents and everything.
Speaker 1: But even before then, when I really think back, I
Speaker 1: have another memory that I think shaped me even more.
Speaker 1: I was in the second grade and it was recess
Speaker 1: and we were all playing tag, me and the other kids,
Speaker 1: and right as we were about to start, there was
Speaker 1: a boy who tapped me on the shoulder and he said,
Speaker 1: no gay people allowed. And I remember, you know, in
Speaker 1: that moment, I immediately said, well, I'm not gay. I
Speaker 1: didn't know I was gay in the second grade.
Speaker 2: But it's just second grade.
Speaker 1: But I think kids can always kind of smell that.
Speaker 2: Yeah they do.
Speaker 1: They do.
Speaker 2: They did with me too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I immediately realized from that moment that there
Speaker 1: had to be something wrong with gay people. I also
Speaker 1: now realize as an adult that so much gay violence
Speaker 1: really starts on the playground. And I knew from that
Speaker 1: moment that gay people were horrible and repulsive and unlovable,
Speaker 1: and therefore that's what I thought about myself. And I
Speaker 1: spent the rest of my adolescence, in my childhood and
Speaker 1: even my early adulthood, convincing everyone around me and convincing
Speaker 1: myself that I'm not.
Speaker 2: That that you're not that horrible thing exactly. But you
Speaker 2: knew you were attracted to guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, deep down. I don't think I wanted to admit
Speaker 1: it to myself, but I knew.
Speaker 2: So when did you come out to yourself? And then
Speaker 2: when did you come out?
Speaker 1: More broadly, Well, I think the way that I defined
Speaker 1: coming out was coming out to my parents.
Speaker 2: That's a big one.
Speaker 1: That's a big one, and that was probably the biggest
Speaker 1: one for me. Coming out to myself was probably maybe
Speaker 1: a year or two before that. And I had actually
Speaker 1: come out because I had fallen in love accidentally.
Speaker 2: I think falling in love is almost always accidental, and
Speaker 2: it's usually with the wrong person, but that's yeah.
Speaker 1: For the first time. Usually it is yeah. And so
Speaker 1: I was dating someone and we were falling in love,
Speaker 1: and I was realizing that I was living a double
Speaker 1: life because I hadn't told my family. Huh, and so
Speaker 1: about I want to say, nine months into our relationship,
Speaker 1: I just couldn't take it anymore, and my brother happened
Speaker 1: to be getting engaged, and he had been living in
Speaker 1: Hawaii at the time. I was in New York. So
Speaker 1: he invited all of us down to Hawaii for the engagement.
Speaker 1: And I hadn't seen my folks in a while because
Speaker 1: I was in college and I was traveling. So I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, I have to do this here. And
Speaker 1: I waited until the last day because I it was
Speaker 1: so scary for me. And I remember I was in
Speaker 1: the hotel room with my parents. My dad had, I think,
Speaker 1: maybe gone to the bathroom. So it's just me and
Speaker 1: my mom in the room, and I said, I have
Speaker 1: something to tell you. I'm gay. And I think for
Speaker 1: the first few moments she was really perplexed and kind
Speaker 1: of taken by surprise. And then my father walked in
Speaker 1: the room and and she said, your son has something
Speaker 1: to tell you. And he said, what do you have
Speaker 1: to tell me? And I said, I'm gay. And I
Speaker 1: had never seen my parents so emotional before. My father
Speaker 1: was sobbing, and I had never seen goodness. I had
Speaker 1: never seen my dad cry before, and I was crying
Speaker 1: so much. It felt like I was telling them that
Speaker 1: I had did some of the things on that column
Speaker 1: about going to hell.
Speaker 2: Oh, so in their minds immediately you've told them something
Speaker 2: that it means you're not going to be with him
Speaker 2: in heaven.
Speaker 1: Those were the steaks, right, Those are the stakes. And
Speaker 1: I also felt like, being a child of immigrants, your
Speaker 1: parents have sacrificed so much for you to get where
Speaker 1: you are, and it's almost like you feel as though
Speaker 1: you owe them a debt with your life to live
Speaker 1: out their dreams for your life. And my parents are
Speaker 1: dreams for my life were for me to get married
Speaker 1: in the Catholic Church to a wife and have kids
Speaker 1: and give them grandchildren. And I think that in that
Speaker 1: moment their dreams were being shattered.
Speaker 2: You destroyed their hopes and dreams for their child, having
Speaker 2: come to this country with the hope that you would
Speaker 2: have a certain kind of life, and here you were
Speaker 2: breaking their hearts. Did it take them a long time
Speaker 2: to come back to themselves and to have a sense
Speaker 2: that you would be okay?
Speaker 1: It did? It? Did? It took work on both ends.
Speaker 1: I think for them it took understanding that I was
Speaker 1: the same person and I was going to be perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: And then I think it took the work on my
Speaker 1: end to realize that I have to live my life
Speaker 1: for me. And about a month after I came out
Speaker 1: to them, I went on this backpacking trip to India,
Speaker 1: and I had never been as an adult. I'd been
Speaker 1: a couple of times when I was a kid, but
Speaker 1: I hadn't been as an adult. And I remember I
Speaker 1: got to meet my cousins for the first time in
Speaker 1: years that I hadn't seen since I was a little kid,
Speaker 1: and they were just like me. They were, you know,
Speaker 1: young and excited about going out to party and dance
Speaker 1: and starting their lives. And so we went out one
Speaker 1: night and I remember were sitting in a bar, me
Speaker 1: and my cousin and drinking a beer, and I just
Speaker 1: felt like I should tell him, and so I leaned
Speaker 1: over and said, you know, I have something to tell you.
Speaker 1: I'm gay. And he said, Jordan, I'm happy for you.
Speaker 1: I just want you to know that I'm not so
Speaker 1: sure that India will be happy for you.
Speaker 2: Huh oh.
Speaker 1: And I think eric in that moment, I realized that
Speaker 1: the shame was ever mine. It was my family's shame,
Speaker 1: it was my religion shame, it was the Catholic Church's shame,
Speaker 1: it was my ancestor's shame. All projected onto me that
Speaker 1: I carried for my whole life, and in that moment,
Speaker 1: I finally began to have the awareness that it was
Speaker 1: never mine to begin with. It didn't belong to me.
Speaker 2: That's such an important revelation. It's something I struggled with
Speaker 2: for have struggled with for much of my life, and
Speaker 2: I still think I'm hardwired with some of those feelings
Speaker 2: about shame.
Speaker 1: It's a lifelong journey.
Speaker 2: It is it is, and it's imposed on us. But
Speaker 2: then it becomes our work to unburden ourselves of.
Speaker 1: That and that relationship, you know, like many first relationships,
Speaker 1: it failed, but it failed because I think that I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to love as a gay man. I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to love myself, and he was the
Speaker 1: first person that I had come out to. Oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 1: your first love is kind of the first person who
Speaker 1: touches the deepest secret you've ever held, and so it
Speaker 1: can be so electrifying, but at the same time, you're
Speaker 1: not equipped with the tools to go through that relationship
Speaker 1: in a healthy way. And you know, when I look back,
Speaker 1: I don't think that I was really looking to be loved.
Speaker 1: I was looking to be validated and that was really
Speaker 1: because I spent an entire lifetime feeling unlovable, and because
Speaker 1: I was hiding this secret about myself, I would overcompensate
Speaker 1: in all these other ways. I was a straight A student.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have the best job and make the
Speaker 1: most money. Once I graduated, I was spending hours in
Speaker 1: the gym because I wanted to have the best looking body,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think at that point I needed
Speaker 1: a role model to kind of show me the ropes.
Speaker 2: So we've talked about really all the damage that was
Speaker 2: done by the larger world in which you grew up,
Speaker 2: and you're not in that place anymore. I'm looking at
Speaker 2: you across the table, and I met you while when
Speaker 2: you were already an out and proud man. What was
Speaker 2: your healing process like?
Speaker 1: Well, after college, I was newly out and I got
Speaker 1: a job in San Francisco, and I made an amazing
Speaker 1: group of gay friends when I was their queer friends,
Speaker 1: and it was really the first time in my life
Speaker 1: that I was around people that were like me. We
Speaker 1: had been through the same things together. We had had
Speaker 1: similar childhoods, we had similar coming out experiences, and it
Speaker 1: was amazing because we were having really honest conversations about
Speaker 1: who we were and how lonely we felt at times,
Speaker 1: and how we wanted to be loved so badly. And
Speaker 1: we were also, you know, going out and having amazing
Speaker 1: fun at the same time. And that point in my
Speaker 1: life was the first time that I felt like I
Speaker 1: wasn't alone and like I really had a community. And
Speaker 1: I think that was really, when I look back, what
Speaker 1: helped elevate my self esteem and my self confidence.
Speaker 2: It sounds like it was a support group, therapy and
Speaker 2: deep friendship, which is very healing.
Speaker 1: Exactly. I think when you get an opportunity to be
Speaker 1: around people like that and talk about who you are
Speaker 1: and where you come from, it really can give you
Speaker 1: a new perception of who you are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you discover you're not a unicorn, You're you're a
Speaker 2: member of a herd. Yes, And that's that's empowering. It
Speaker 2: is something else that I have found empowering has been
Speaker 2: my work in studying LGBTQ history and meeting lots of
Speaker 2: people from generations past. Uh, how did you become interested
Speaker 2: in this history?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I have to say it wasn't because
Speaker 1: I suddenly wanted to become interested in it. I was
Speaker 1: living in San Francisco at the time, and I was
Speaker 1: pretty out at that point and proud, and my job
Speaker 1: was hosting a panel for Pride Month. They were hosting
Speaker 1: a panel of like queer elders and after one of
Speaker 1: the panel members and I were chat he must have
Speaker 1: been I think in his late fifties early sixties, and
Speaker 1: I remember he asked, me, how are you liking San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I was your age when I moved to San Francisco
Speaker 1: and I had just come out as well. I had
Speaker 1: told him that, and you know, I told him, I'm
Speaker 1: having the time of my life and I'm finding my
Speaker 1: tribe and I'm really feeling like I'm having my coming
Speaker 1: of age in my early twenties. And I noticed that
Speaker 1: his face was starting to collapse a bit, and I asked,
Speaker 1: what's wrong, and he looked at me and he said,
Speaker 1: I'm jealous of you. He said. You know, when I
Speaker 1: was your age and I moved here, the AIDS crisis
Speaker 1: was exploding. I didn't get to have fun because I
Speaker 1: was so scared that I would get AIDS and I
Speaker 1: would die. And I never got to find my friends
Speaker 1: like you did be because they all died and there
Speaker 1: was this really strange moment where we were looking at
Speaker 1: each other and we weren't saying anything, but I felt
Speaker 1: like we both at the same moment thought I could
Speaker 1: have been you if I was born at a different time.
Speaker 1: And I realized that I didn't know much about my
Speaker 1: queer history. I didn't know about the men and women
Speaker 1: that came before me. I knew about the AIDS crisis,
Speaker 1: but I didn't really understand that the fact that I
Speaker 1: was able to be so out and so proud and
Speaker 1: so open was really a direct result of the generations
Speaker 1: before me and their losses and their sacrifices and their victories.
Speaker 1: And so that's really when I felt inspired to start
Speaker 1: learning the history and to start talking to my more often.
Speaker 2: And there's no reason you would have known that history.
Speaker 2: It's not taught, or it's only taught minimally. You don't
Speaker 2: learn that history unless you go out and seek.
Speaker 1: It, exactly. Yeah, And you know, I always thought that
Speaker 1: queer history was sad. I grew up going to public
Speaker 1: school in Texas, and I remember very briefly learning about
Speaker 1: AIDS and it was sort of these really sad images
Speaker 1: of men with sunken cheekbones and being super gaunt and lonely.
Speaker 1: And I also had sort of known that before Stonewall,
Speaker 1: queer life was somewhat abysmal because you could get arrested
Speaker 1: or beat up for being gay. But as I started
Speaker 1: kind of having these conversations with queer elders, I began
Speaker 1: to come across stories of courage and perseverance and love. Actually,
Speaker 1: one of the gentlemen that you put me in touch with,
Speaker 1: Martin Boyce, he's I think in his seventies. He was
Speaker 1: at Stonewall, and I remember him telling me how he
Speaker 1: was battling the SWAT team in his crop top. Yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: And you know, there was another woman that I spoke
Speaker 1: with who's going to be on the show. Her name
Speaker 1: is Jean Carlo Musto. She was a lesbian part of
Speaker 1: Act Up and she was helping the stage of protests
Speaker 1: at Wall Street that ended up pushing the pharmaceutical industry
Speaker 1: to lower the prices of their drugs so that AIDS
Speaker 1: patients could gain access to life saving medicines. And as
Speaker 1: I was sort of engaging in the history, I was realizing,
Speaker 1: these are the role models that I needed when I
Speaker 1: was a child. And for whatever reason, there's been a
Speaker 1: gap between our generations. I was actually wondering for you,
Speaker 1: do you feel like there was that gap for you too?
Speaker 2: Oh? Sure, sure. And you know, one of the words
Speaker 2: that I also associate with gay life, the life that
Speaker 2: I've experienced, is joy. So I just think of being
Speaker 2: on the floor of the dance floor at the Ice
Speaker 2: Palace on West fifty seventh Street in nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 2: and a song would come on that we all loved
Speaker 2: and we poured onto the dance floor. And I remember
Speaker 2: dancing last dance with Don Miller from Texas, who was
Speaker 2: visiting New York in his cowboy boots and his cowboy hat,
Speaker 2: and he was a strawberry blonde who looked you didn't
Speaker 2: look like a Texan. And then I took him home
Speaker 2: on the f train to Queen's where I lived, in
Speaker 2: the middle of the night. And so there was a
Speaker 2: lot of joy. And we don't hear about that. And
Speaker 2: for me, growing up, absolutely there was a generational a
Speaker 2: generation gap. We humans tend to dismiss people who are
Speaker 2: older than we are as dinosaurs or they don't understand us,
Speaker 2: and we don't take the time to talk to each other,
Speaker 2: and there isn't necessarily a natural time where we would
Speaker 2: come together younger people and older people. You have to
Speaker 2: ask the questions, you have to seek out those relationships exactly.
Speaker 1: And you know, Eric, even though I'm the host, I'm
Speaker 1: also a listener reclaiming the history and rewriting my own
Speaker 1: history in the process.
Speaker 2: There's there's much to learn from those who came before us.
Speaker 2: We don't have to invent the wheel. Absolutely. Yeah. So
Speaker 2: one of the joys for people, well for me listening
Speaker 2: is I'm going to get to hear your voice. I'm
Speaker 2: going to get to hear you interview people. I'm going
Speaker 2: to get to hear someone from a much younger generation
Speaker 2: doing work that I started in nineteen eighty eight. And
Speaker 2: that's a great joy for me. What do you hope
Speaker 2: your listeners will take away from these episodes?
Speaker 1: You know, young people, young queer people, young LGBTQ people
Speaker 1: are struggling. But you know, I think when you're a
Speaker 1: young queer person, so much of that has to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that you don't really have the images
Speaker 1: and the role models and the stories to believe that
Speaker 1: you're going to live an amazing life. And I think
Speaker 1: what I want young people to know now more than
Speaker 1: ever is that you come from a rich lineage of
Speaker 1: courage and strength. Despite what you've.
Speaker 2: Heard, we have found with making gay history, and I
Speaker 2: hear from a lot of young people that they feel
Speaker 2: like they now have ancestors, that they have grandparents, that
Speaker 2: they have a proud and rich heritage.
Speaker 1: And we do, we do, We absolutely do know. And
Speaker 1: I think that we often talk about inheriting generational trauma
Speaker 1: from our families and from our parents. But I think
Speaker 1: what's so amazing about this project for me is that
Speaker 1: there's so much generational strength to inherit. I hope that
Speaker 1: as people meet the guests and listen to their stories,
Speaker 1: they feel inspired to claim that generational healing and strength
Speaker 1: that is really being passed on to them and ready
Speaker 1: for them to inherit. You know, Eric, We've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about this idea of passing down wisdom and passing
Speaker 1: things down from generation to generation, and so I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: what is something that you want to pass down to
Speaker 1: the next generation of young people.
Speaker 2: I often think about this, and I'm one kind of
Speaker 2: gay man, and we are a very rich and broad community,
Speaker 2: and what I've learned from the people I've interviewed over time,
Speaker 2: and what I've learned from your generation is there is
Speaker 2: no one way to be an LGBTQ person. The key
Speaker 2: is to understanding yourself, learning to love and embrace yourself,
Speaker 2: and some of the inspirations, some of the support can
Speaker 2: come from people who no longer live, but from their stories,
Speaker 2: from listening to their stories.
Speaker 1: I've been so blessed to be able to look to
Speaker 1: you as a blueprint for this work, and I'm so
Speaker 1: lucky to have our first episode kind of be you
Speaker 1: almost showing me the ropes.
Speaker 2: I know. I started by saying how proud I am
Speaker 2: of you. I'm so proud of you, and I wish
Speaker 2: you much luck and joy on this journey as you
Speaker 2: explore our history with the people who've lived it.
Speaker 1: Thank you. But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves.
Speaker 1: New episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write
Speaker 1: in to tell your story, email us at but We
Speaker 1: Loved at gmail dot com, or send us a message
Speaker 1: on Instagram or TikTok at but We Loved. We are
Speaker 1: a production of The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: What We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our
Speaker 1: producers Areshino Zaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Me, Maya Howard and Katrina Normal. Fact
Speaker 1: checking by Marisa Brown. Original music by Steve Bone. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Jay Bronson and Roquel Willis. If you loved
Speaker 1: this episode, leave us a rating and follow us on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening. I'll
Speaker 1: see you next week.