Speaker 1: What We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2: When I had to go back to work to drive
Speaker 2: through those gates, I had to be that soldier again,
Speaker 2: and that's what I just kept telling myself, You're a soldier.
Speaker 2: And there were days when I was leaving I would
Speaker 2: just pull over to side the road and cry because
Speaker 2: I could not hold it in anymore.
Speaker 1: As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
Speaker 1: I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
Speaker 1: ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
Speaker 1: that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
Speaker 1: are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll learn about the US military's ban
Speaker 1: on gay people and how the loss of a partner
Speaker 1: to AIDS pushed one gay soldier to fight back against
Speaker 1: that ban. From My Heart Podcast, I'm Jordan and Solves,
Speaker 1: and this is what We Loved. Living a double life
Speaker 1: is a reality for many queer people. For me, my
Speaker 1: double life ended right before I graduated college. That's when
Speaker 1: I came out to my friends and my family. Shortly
Speaker 1: after I started working at this big tech company. I
Speaker 1: was twenty one and I was nervous about being out
Speaker 1: at work. I was worried that they might treat me differently,
Speaker 1: but it was actually very welcoming culture. There was even
Speaker 1: a group just for queer employees, and I met some
Speaker 1: amazing queer friends through that. I was really lucky. If
Speaker 1: I'm being honest, I had no idea that the freedom
Speaker 1: that I had to be out and proud in the
Speaker 1: workplace was because of the many sacrifices that the queer
Speaker 1: people before me had made. Danny Ingram is one of
Speaker 1: those people. He was a gay soldier in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: when there was a ban on gay people serving in
Speaker 1: the military. If he came out at work, or was
Speaker 1: even found out to be gay, he'd be fired. During
Speaker 1: the eighties, the decade when he was serving, an average
Speaker 1: of one thousand, five hundred service members a year would
Speaker 1: be fired just for being gay. The ban wasn't anything new.
Speaker 1: Some form or another of this band had actually did
Speaker 1: it all the way back to the Revolutionary War. For
Speaker 1: many years, gay people were considered mentally ill and a
Speaker 1: liability to the military. During the Cold War, gay people
Speaker 1: were thought of as Communist sympathizers, but by the eighties,
Speaker 1: the justification was about morality. The official policy from that
Speaker 1: time said, the presence of homosexuals adversely affects the ability
Speaker 1: of the military services to maintain discipline, good order, and morale.
Speaker 1: Danny kept his head down and did his job, But
Speaker 1: this was also when gay men across America were dying
Speaker 1: because of AIDS, including Danny's partner Daryl. Keeping this a
Speaker 1: secret became unbearable. He couldn't say a word to any
Speaker 1: of his supervisors or his colleagues out of fear of
Speaker 1: being fired. He watched his community and his partner, Daryl
Speaker 1: suffered from AIDS with little sympathy from the government. Angry,
Speaker 1: he became an activist. He knew that if queer people
Speaker 1: were ever going to survive the AIDS epidemic, they needed
Speaker 1: to be seen in society. They needed to have the
Speaker 1: option of being out at work. He needed to be
Speaker 1: out at work, So in an act of protest, Danny
Speaker 1: risked his livelihood and came out to the military. He
Speaker 1: would go on to become one of the most important
Speaker 1: figures in ending the ban on gay people in the military.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, I wanted to know why
Speaker 1: Danny joined the military in the first place. Knowing that
Speaker 1: people like him were banned. Why did you decide to
Speaker 1: join the army.
Speaker 2: I believed that it would make me feel better about myself.
Speaker 1: There was.
Speaker 2: There was tremendous shame about being gay at that time,
Speaker 2: and I wanted my father to love me. Members of
Speaker 2: my family had actually served in the military since the
Speaker 2: Revolutionary War, so it was it was something that I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: if I can wear my country's uniform, I will feel
Speaker 2: better about myself and my father will love me. And
Speaker 2: I thought it would fix me. I thought that hyper
Speaker 2: masculine environment it would fix me, and I did feel
Speaker 2: better about myself.
Speaker 3: I found the military to be you know, if you
Speaker 3: did your job well, people respected you, and I did
Speaker 3: my job very well. I was one of the best
Speaker 3: soldiers in my unit all the time, so I felt
Speaker 3: good about it.
Speaker 2: It was really a great fit for me.
Speaker 1: So you were really good at your job, best in
Speaker 1: your unit. But you are gay and there's a ban
Speaker 1: on gay people. So how did that ban affect your life?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was that very hidden aspect while I was
Speaker 2: in the military, and that's not easy to do. When
Speaker 2: you're hanging out with your other buddies and they're talking
Speaker 2: about you know, who they're dating and what's going on
Speaker 2: and everything. And I did not like the fact that
Speaker 2: I was being told there was something I could not
Speaker 2: do which would serve my country. And I remember the
Speaker 2: whole issue was being discussed at the time in the military,
Speaker 2: and I remember I was not out, but we'd all
Speaker 2: be sitting around in the warehouse and people talked about it.
Speaker 2: So the younger guys were very negative. We don't want
Speaker 2: them here, we don't want them in the military. The
Speaker 2: older guys, particular, the Vietnam veterans, they didn't have a
Speaker 2: problem with it, they said, and their words, not mine.
Speaker 2: They said, we had fags when we were in Vietnam,
Speaker 2: and they were perfectly fine with us as long as
Speaker 2: they could shoot. So I knew I had allies, even
Speaker 2: though I was not out to them, but I just
Speaker 2: didn't talk about it. I just didn't share it with them.
Speaker 1: Okay, So shifting gears a little bit, tell me about
Speaker 1: what was going on outside of work. What was gay
Speaker 1: life like in the seventies.
Speaker 2: Being gay was a party. It was a party. Our
Speaker 2: whole social life centered around the bar and the disco.
Speaker 1: Do you have a memory, Oh, I have many memories
Speaker 1: tell me your favorite one.
Speaker 2: Well, my favorite group was Abba and With Dancing Queen
Speaker 2: Dancing Queen. So we would dance as a group usually,
Speaker 2: and when one of their songs came on, we would
Speaker 2: take a hit of poppers and just go wild on
Speaker 2: the dance floor in your tight clothes, tight clothes, enjoying
Speaker 2: our youth and each other. The music was pounding, it
Speaker 2: was hot and sweaty. You lots of guys dance with
Speaker 2: your shirts off. It was all joy and happiness, just
Speaker 2: a big party. We worked during the day, you know,
Speaker 2: to get by, and then we went out, and that's
Speaker 2: what our lives centered around, was going out and partying.
Speaker 1: It sounds like even though you were closeted at work,
Speaker 1: life outside of work was vibrant.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, it was great being comfortable, being open and free.
Speaker 2: The only place we could do that. It's like just
Speaker 2: having chains around you during the day, but in the
Speaker 2: evening you could go out and be yourself and you
Speaker 2: didn't have to lie to anyone. So when those songs
Speaker 2: came on, it was a religious experience on the danceflom. Music, alcohol,
Speaker 2: a little bit of drugs, and I just fell high.
Speaker 1: And your best friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my best friends, and I'll never forget, Never forget.
Speaker 2: The village people had a song out called Ready for
Speaker 2: the Eighties. So on New Year's Eve at the club
Speaker 2: at the bar, we were listening to that song and
Speaker 2: little did we know, little did we know what was
Speaker 2: about to hit our community. We were so excited about
Speaker 2: a new decade where progress was being made. We were
Speaker 2: not political people at that time. And then AIDS hit
Speaker 2: and the party stopped.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Danny begins to understand the urgency
Speaker 1: of ending the military band when he falls in love
Speaker 1: with his partner Daryl, who is dying of AIDS. It's
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight and AIDS is devastating the gay community.
Speaker 1: It has become the third leading cause of death among
Speaker 1: young men in America. Four years later, in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: it would become number one. With no effective treatment like
Speaker 1: there is today, people diagnosed with HIV, the virus that
Speaker 1: turns into AIDS, thought it was a death sentence. In
Speaker 1: many cases, AIDS patients would rapidly lose weight, purple skinly
Speaker 1: would form all over their body, and cancers would develop
Speaker 1: too before they eventually died. Most people with AIDS were young,
Speaker 1: between the ages of twenty and forty years old. According
Speaker 1: to the CDC, Danny had begun losing friends and felt
Speaker 1: as though the government wasn't doing enough to prevent these deaths.
Speaker 1: He was in the army and closeted at work, but
Speaker 1: began volunteering for AIDS relief outside of his job, trying
Speaker 1: to give back to the community as much as he could.
Speaker 1: Little did he know he was about to meet someone
Speaker 1: who would change the course of his life. Tell me
Speaker 1: about how you met Darryl.
Speaker 2: The church that I was going to had an event
Speaker 2: every Tuesday night where we would serve a formal dinner
Speaker 2: to people living with a's, where they could sit down
Speaker 2: at a table with each other and discuss what was
Speaker 2: working for them, what therapies they were doing, where they
Speaker 2: were getting their drugs. Who was a good doctor. But
Speaker 2: I met him there. I remember serving him iced tea
Speaker 2: and he was a huge flirt.
Speaker 1: You've got a big smile on your food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was really cute. He had dark hair, not
Speaker 2: much facial hair at all. He was taller than me,
Speaker 2: as most human beings are, and he was just very outgoing,
Speaker 2: very witty and very sweet. I remember was pouring his
Speaker 2: tea and he said, well, you know you can. You
Speaker 2: could pour it on me and lick it off. So
Speaker 2: it was like, okay, well that's that's definitely flirting. But
Speaker 2: he invited me out, and I did get invited out
Speaker 2: often at those events, but I usually didn't because I knew,
Speaker 2: you know, you really didn't first of all, cross the
Speaker 2: line between a volunteer and someone you're helping, but also
Speaker 2: because we knew there was no future in it. But
Speaker 2: with him it was different.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I guess when you say that, Danny, so
Speaker 1: many questions come to my mind, like, you know, what
Speaker 1: made you want to enter into a long term relationship
Speaker 1: with someone that you knew was dying.
Speaker 2: As someone has said to me before, the heart wants
Speaker 2: what the heart wants. It's not logical. You fall in
Speaker 2: love with someone, and when you fall in love, you
Speaker 2: get stupid, So you know, you you don't really think
Speaker 2: about that. Love conquers all. So you know, we thought, okay,
Speaker 2: in our love, we will get through this together. I
Speaker 2: will be there for you, and we will get through
Speaker 2: this together. And as time went on and his disease progressed,
Speaker 2: it did become clear that he was going to die,
Speaker 2: and we made the most of every time we had together,
Speaker 2: and we had about three years together.
Speaker 1: How did you spend your time together?
Speaker 2: Well, at that point we had all become quite political
Speaker 2: with fighting for the government to provide support for the
Speaker 2: AIDS community, which you can say they were caught off guard,
Speaker 2: or they didn't take it seriously, or the wrong people
Speaker 2: had the disease, which is I think the reality of it.
Speaker 2: So he was also an activist, as was I. So
Speaker 2: we did a lot of things together.
Speaker 1: What were some of your favorite memories with him?
Speaker 2: One of my favorite memories. The diseases that a lot
Speaker 2: of the guy's got was called wasting disease, and it
Speaker 2: had happened to him, and he had found a new
Speaker 2: therapy where they would install an access port on their
Speaker 2: chest and they would take nutrition through that. So he
Speaker 2: had gained back a lot of weight and a lot
Speaker 2: of energy. He was looking great and feeling great, and
Speaker 2: he wanted to go visit his mother in Tennessee. And
Speaker 2: it was the fourth of July. So we drove up
Speaker 2: to very rural Tennessee and I met his mother, who
Speaker 2: was who certainly she was glad that her son had
Speaker 2: someone who loved him. And I remember hot, hot July
Speaker 2: night sitting out watching the fireworks. We both felt good.
Speaker 2: He looked great. So it was away from all of
Speaker 2: the politics and the marches and the fundraising and the
Speaker 2: content stint activity, and it was just peaceful and just
Speaker 2: just he and I. You know, you live in the South,
Speaker 2: you have hot, steamy Southern nights, and you're sticky, you're
Speaker 2: drinking a cold when and you're just sitting out in
Speaker 2: the porch looking up at the sky and watching the fireworks.
Speaker 2: That was you know, that's good. It's as good as
Speaker 2: it gets.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: We'd kiss every once in a while. His mother went inside,
Speaker 2: so it was just the two of us. When you're
Speaker 2: in love with somebody and you look into their eyes
Speaker 2: and nothing else matters.
Speaker 1: It sounds so simple.
Speaker 2: That that weekend was simple. That weekend was simple. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes you have those where you need to just get
Speaker 2: away from it all, and that was a nice, simple, healthy,
Speaker 2: no worry weekend. And then of course we we went
Speaker 2: back into reality again.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know who was Darrell to you during
Speaker 1: these three years. Well, he was.
Speaker 2: He was my partner. I was also his caregiver. He
Speaker 2: was my inspiration to see the challenges that he faced
Speaker 2: and that he faced them with with tremendous courage, and
Speaker 2: so he was very inspiring to me, and we loved
Speaker 2: each other. We never had sex in the three years
Speaker 2: really together because he was terrified that he would infect
Speaker 2: me with with HIV, and of course we knew all
Speaker 2: about safe sex, which was huge. Then he did not
Speaker 2: want to go there, and I was okay with that
Speaker 2: because just to be with him was enough. I mean,
Speaker 2: to sleep beside him was enough for me.
Speaker 1: Was that ever something you missed or did you just not.
Speaker 2: Care when you're in love with somebody again, that love
Speaker 2: really is all encompassing. I never thought about it, to
Speaker 2: be honest. Just touching him it was all I needed
Speaker 2: hearing his voice.
Speaker 1: Do you mind describing what it was like when the
Speaker 1: illness started to progress so our listeners can get an
Speaker 1: understanding of what this was like for the thousands of
Speaker 1: men that we're dealing with this And how old were
Speaker 1: you guys?
Speaker 2: By the way, he was twenty eight when he died.
Speaker 2: I was about thirty three. So the disease would the
Speaker 2: immune system was so weak, and infections would come along
Speaker 2: and they would be serious, and then there were trips
Speaker 2: to the hospital. Those trips became more frequent. The therapy
Speaker 2: that he was taking that allowed him to gain weight
Speaker 2: stopped working, so he lost all the weight again. It
Speaker 2: became very, very thin. And on Christmas Eve of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three, he said, we have to go to the hospital.
Speaker 2: And I started crying, and he he just he put
Speaker 2: his hand on my shoulder and he said, not from you,
Speaker 2: not from you. I'll take tears from everyone else, but
Speaker 2: not from you. And we had to carry him to
Speaker 2: the car and then take him to the emergency room.
Speaker 2: And we called his mother and she came, and the
Speaker 2: doctors pulled us both out in the hall. Now I
Speaker 2: had no control over his medical decisions at all. Once
Speaker 2: his mother was there, it was all up to her.
Speaker 2: She was next of ken. I had no rights whatsoever
Speaker 2: when it came to his medical care. And so the
Speaker 2: doctors pulled us out in the hall and they said,
Speaker 2: his kidneys are failing. We could do an operation and
Speaker 2: start dialysis, but we don't recommend it. And they looked
Speaker 2: at both of us and we knew what that meant.
Speaker 2: He was going to die. And then and then it
Speaker 2: became the long wait. Friends came and went to say goodbye.
Speaker 2: His brother was called to come and we sat there
Speaker 2: watching that little machine on the wall that beeps, and
Speaker 2: it got lower and lower and lower until it flatlined,
Speaker 2: and then he was gone. I was holding him in
Speaker 2: my arms as he died, and and and he went
Speaker 2: out that way. He went out knowing that he he
Speaker 2: was not alone, and that he was loved and at
Speaker 2: that time that we had together, which was very unusual
Speaker 2: for two gay men. We'll always touch my heart.
Speaker 1: While all of this is happening with Daryl and you,
Speaker 1: you're still serving in a military that bans gay people.
Speaker 1: So Darryl passes away, and then you go back into
Speaker 1: the military where you can't even talk about this. Right.
Speaker 2: Yes, when I had to go back to work, drive
Speaker 2: through those gates, I had to be that soldier again.
Speaker 2: And that's what I just kept telling myself, you're a soldier.
Speaker 2: And there were days when I was leaving the unit
Speaker 2: for the day, I would just pull over the side
Speaker 2: of the road and cry because I could not hold
Speaker 2: it in anymore.
Speaker 1: So when you came back from Christmas, I mean, we're
Speaker 1: people saying how was your Christmas break? And you were saying, good,
Speaker 1: how was yours? Again?
Speaker 2: Most of my life was private, and they were accustomed
Speaker 2: to that, and I certainly did not want them to
Speaker 2: know that I had someone with HIV disease, because the
Speaker 2: ignorance around that was, you know, huge, So I did
Speaker 2: not want them to associate me with AIDS. That was
Speaker 2: one of the things that the other side frequently used
Speaker 2: as an argument to keep gay men out of the military,
Speaker 2: was saying that they will bring AIDS into the military.
Speaker 2: So I did not. I spoke with no one, and
Speaker 2: I had friends who had it worse. I had a
Speaker 2: friend who was a test pilot and his partner died
Speaker 2: and he had to fly a plane the next day
Speaker 2: without telling anyone or doing anything about it, before the
Speaker 2: funeral was even planned. He had to go get in
Speaker 2: that plane and fly that that test aircraft. One of
Speaker 2: the many, many, many sacrifices that LGBT people made while
Speaker 2: they were serving in the military and simply had to
Speaker 2: keep their lives private, sacred.
Speaker 1: When Daryl passed away in nineteen ninety three, Danny was
Speaker 1: devastated and angry. Sharing with anyone in the military that
Speaker 1: your life partner had just died because of AIDS would
Speaker 1: absolutely be grounds for discharge. But this is what motivated
Speaker 1: him to end the band. Once and for all. He
Speaker 1: knew that being out in the military was fundamental to
Speaker 1: the larger gay rights move He asked himself, if queer
Speaker 1: people aren't allowed in the workplace, how can we be
Speaker 1: seen as human beings, as full members of society. He
Speaker 1: felt encouraged by Bill Clinton running for president in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two. During his campaign, Clinton promised to lift the ban,
Speaker 1: so Danny came out to the military. He thought he'd
Speaker 1: be protected, but after Clinton got elected, he took back
Speaker 1: that promise. Generals and congress members began pushing back on him.
Speaker 1: So Clinton came up with a compromise that would become
Speaker 1: known as Don't Ask, don't Tell. Gay service members could
Speaker 1: serve so long as they didn't tell anyone they were gay.
Speaker 1: So when Danny came out in nineteen ninety two, he
Speaker 1: became one of the first service members to be discharged
Speaker 1: under this new policy.
Speaker 2: I came out in I believe it was nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: one one or ninety two. Bill Clinton was running for president.
Speaker 2: He said that if he was elected, he would lift
Speaker 2: the ban, and being the naive person that I still am,
Speaker 2: I believed he would do that, and I wanted people
Speaker 2: to know that we were already there, so they wouldn't
Speaker 2: be saying, Okay, you lift the band, you're gonna let
Speaker 2: all these people in. I wanted them to know that
Speaker 2: I was already there, that I was one of the
Speaker 2: best of the best, and it would not change when
Speaker 2: the band was lifted, And so I decided to come out.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: When I came out, my fellow soldiers were very angry
Speaker 2: with me, only because I didn't tell them before. So
Speaker 2: why didn't you tell us? Why didn't you tell us?
Speaker 2: And I said I couldn't. I could not tell you
Speaker 2: about this. So with the don't ask, don't tell compromise,
Speaker 2: I had told. So I was discharged.
Speaker 1: When you were deciding to come out. Did any of
Speaker 1: that have to do with Darryl?
Speaker 2: Of course it did a lot of it had to
Speaker 2: do with AIDS because we had reached a point, and
Speaker 2: it is the truth. They will let you die. They
Speaker 2: will let you die. Until you speak out, until you
Speaker 2: work to get people elected to let them know your
Speaker 2: political power, they will let you die. And so that
Speaker 2: fueled my own desire to change that policy.
Speaker 1: Break that down for me, How was the military band
Speaker 1: against people connected to the fight against AIDS?
Speaker 2: Because we saw what was happening with AIDS, that if
Speaker 2: you don't speak up for yourself, if you don't come out,
Speaker 2: if you're not visible, if you're not authentic, if you
Speaker 2: don't reach out and change the country, we will die
Speaker 2: and they will kill us, and they will prevent us
Speaker 2: from having the same rights as everyone else. We knew
Speaker 2: that the military ban it had to go before we
Speaker 2: could have anything else. We would not have marriage, we
Speaker 2: would not have protections until that ban was gone. And
Speaker 2: so with all that was going on with the AIDS epidemic,
Speaker 2: it was time to act. It was time to use
Speaker 2: our voice to say to our fellow Americans, you will
Speaker 2: not let us die. We have power and we have influence,
Speaker 2: and it's time to bring justice to this country for
Speaker 2: LGBT people, in our healthcare, our right to marry, in
Speaker 2: our right to serve. It was the time to speak out,
Speaker 2: and Daryl encouraged me very strongly to do it. He
Speaker 2: also loved me in uniform, but he said go for it.
Speaker 2: And so he died on December twenty six, nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 2: and I was discharged in March of nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: a very difficult time. I remember the day I hung
Speaker 2: my uniform up and put it away in the closet.
Speaker 2: And all of my medals, my ribbons, my training, my
Speaker 2: being an exceptional soldier, all of that it did not matter.
Speaker 2: And that is the way of injustice in this country.
Speaker 2: You can be the best, and if you're different, it
Speaker 2: does not matter.
Speaker 1: When Danny got discharged in nineteen ninety four, he became
Speaker 1: active in fighting against Donas Dontel. After losing many of
Speaker 1: his friends and the love of his life to AIDS,
Speaker 1: he realized that the government was never going to help
Speaker 1: gay people unless they stood up and spoke out. He
Speaker 1: became president of the American Veterans for Equal Rights organization,
Speaker 1: and he would speak at rallies, meet with voters, and
Speaker 1: even advised the Pentagon on how a potential repeal would work.
Speaker 1: And after sixteen years of fighting to end that ban,
Speaker 1: on December twenty second, twenty ten, Danny watched as President
Speaker 1: Obama signed the repeal of Donas Dontel into AWE. He
Speaker 1: was even in the room. The ban against homosexuality in
Speaker 1: the US military that began centuries ago was over. So
Speaker 1: one of my last questions, Danny, is just about the
Speaker 1: signing of the repeal. What was it like to be
Speaker 1: in the room with the president as this bill was
Speaker 1: being signed that ruined so many lives, even your own.
Speaker 1: What was it like for it to then be at
Speaker 1: the swipe of a pen gone?
Speaker 2: It was totally joyful that finally, finally justice had won.
Speaker 2: It was saying, you know, it's done, and that's those
Speaker 2: were the president's words when he signed it. He said
Speaker 2: this is done. And we started chanting yes we did.
Speaker 2: You remember the Obamas was yes we can, Yes we can,
Speaker 2: and we started chanting yes, yes we did, Yes we did.
Speaker 2: It was tremendous joy. And as far as the military went,
Speaker 2: the defenders of freedom were the representatives of freedom, and
Speaker 2: that was a very, very powerful feeling. I was in
Speaker 2: a pride parade recently here in San Antonio and there
Speaker 2: were young people, gay people there in the pride parade
Speaker 2: representing the Air Force, and I was talking to them
Speaker 2: and I mentioned, donats, don't tell, and one of them
Speaker 2: said to.
Speaker 1: Me, what was that?
Speaker 2: And in some ways that's victory? And I'll tell I'll
Speaker 2: look at them, every one of them, saying you are
Speaker 2: my victory. You are my victory because you don't have
Speaker 2: to worry about that, and you can serve proudly. So
Speaker 2: in a way, having them totally ignorant of something like
Speaker 2: that is said, well, that's that's where we are today
Speaker 2: because of the sacrifices that were made, and there were
Speaker 2: big sacrifices. Careers, lives were lost.
Speaker 1: Was Darryl on your mind that day of the signing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Darryl's portrait still hangs on our wall here in
Speaker 2: this house. He was there with me every event that
Speaker 2: I went to. That's how I kept him alive. To me, Yeah,
Speaker 2: He'll always be on my mind, He'll always be in
Speaker 2: my heart.
Speaker 1: It sounds like that was a force that was sort
Speaker 1: of motivating you throughout all of this activism.
Speaker 2: I say that, you know, I've seen a lot of courage,
Speaker 2: and he embodied that for me. So at moments when
Speaker 2: when I was feeling down, his courage was there for me.
Speaker 2: When I went before my board and my discharged board,
Speaker 2: his courage was there for me, and it remains with
Speaker 2: me still. I am a veteran. I served at the military,
Speaker 2: but AIDS was my battle and I never saw so
Speaker 2: much courage in my life as our brothers when they
Speaker 2: faced the enemy within a disease that they couldn't beat.
Speaker 2: And I never have to doubt that they were the
Speaker 2: most courageous people I've ever met, and their inspiration and
Speaker 2: their memory stays with me still today.
Speaker 1: Well, Danny, that's sort of what the show is about.
Speaker 1: So it's about the title is called but We Loved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what that means is, you know, despite all of
Speaker 1: these really horrible moments in American history that gay people
Speaker 1: have faced, they're all these wonderful pockets of courage and
Speaker 1: perseverance and love.
Speaker 2: Yes, and when with someone that you love with all
Speaker 2: your heart suffers, you don't have to ask yourself if
Speaker 2: you're going to be able to get through this. You
Speaker 2: know the answer to that. And even though we lost
Speaker 2: that battle, our love certain it was never gone. It
Speaker 2: survived and always will.
Speaker 1: But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New
Speaker 1: episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
Speaker 1: to tell your story, email us at Buttweloved at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com, or send us a message on Instagram or
Speaker 1: TikTok at butt we Loved. We are a production of
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We Loved
Speaker 1: was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers are shehino Zaki,
Speaker 1: Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Me, Maya Howard and Katrina Normal. Fact checking by
Speaker 1: Marisa Brown. Original music by Steve Bone. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Jay Bronson and Roquel Willis. If you loved this episode,
Speaker 1: leave us a rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: and Spotify, and thank you for listening. I'll see you
Speaker 1: next week.