WEBVTT - The Founding of GLAAD 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.040 But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:06.160 the Outspoken podcast Network. 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:12.600 An article was done about a singer from the thirties 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.919 and forties named Gladys Bentley, and she was a lesbian. 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:23.000 She was an act of lesbian And this article, though, 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:29.800 was all about how Gladys Bentley was repenting her sinful life, 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:35.440 and it was really horrifying. It denigrated everything about being 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:40.040 a lesbian, and I was devastated. I was devastated by 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.880 reading that article, and I felt like, she, of course 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:48.560 has every right to change her mind, but the coverage 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:50.599 itself was really. 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:52.520 Horrific. 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:54.880 It was like, I read that and I thought, Oh, 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.040 what is the point of going on if that's what 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:58.080 life is going to mean? 0:00:58.480 --> 0:00:59.440 As I get older. 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.479 As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South, 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:12.920 I thought being gay was the worst thing I could 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:17.160 ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.800 that by seeking out our history, and what I've found 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:25.800 are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love. 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.920 In this episode, we'll meet Juel Gomez, one of the 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.679 founders of the queer media watchdog organization GLAD. We'll learn 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:38.280 how and why GLAD was founded and how gone unchecked 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.280 the media can drive our opinions about the world around 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:46.640 us and ourselves. From my heart podcast, I'm Jordan Go 0:01:46.640 --> 0:02:13.760 and Solves and this is what we loved. Last year, 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.920 at the height of the Beyonce Craze, I went to 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.639 the Renaissance tour and oh my god, it was incredible, 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.919 like sixty thousand people jumping and singing and sweating, and 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:30.120 in between Beyonce songs when she was doing costume changes, 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.400 she created these video interludes to play on stage, and 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.440 one of them struck a darker tone in giant letters. 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:43.400 A Jim Morrison quote appeared on a JumboTron. Whoever controls 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:47.120 the media controls the mind, it said, and it stayed 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:51.079 with me because I sort of disagreed with it. I mean, 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:53.400 today there's so much media out there that I feel 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:57.640 like I control my media diet. I pick what I'm consuming. 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.320 So I thought support from Business Insider actually found that 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.600 ninety percent of American media content is controlled by just 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.880 six companies. And when I thought about it, almost all 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.120 of the shows that I watched this year, and a 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.760 lot of my election coverage all came from within those 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.239 six companies. It made me think about how much power 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.240 they have, how easy it is to skirt accountability for 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:31.240 bias and misinformation, especially when it comes to representing queer people. Thankfully, 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:37.520 there are organizations that exist specifically to hold these companies accountable. 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.400 GLAD is one of them. Since its inception, GLAD has 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:47.240 held countless media organizations responsible for bad coverage of LGBTQ people. 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.800 My next guest, Juel Gomez, was one of the founders 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.240 of GLAD. She graduated from Columbia Journalism School in the 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:58.480 early seventies and became a famous writer and activist. She's 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:02.080 well known for her queer class novel The guilda Stories 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:05.040 that came out in nineteen ninety one. It follows a 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.960 black lesbian vampire from eighteen hundreds of America all the 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:12.280 way into the twenty first century. Even from a young age, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:18.120 Jewle understood that those who control the media also control 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:27.920 the mind. You grew up in Boston, Massachusetts in the 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.520 fifties and sixties, and I'm wondering if you could tell 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:35.440 me what was it like growing up as a lesbian 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.760 at that time in that place in America. 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:44.720 I was raised in Boston by my great grandmother and 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.560 her daughter, who's my grandmother. And I was also very 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:53.400 close to my father who lived nearby us and Bostonians 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.440 were very specific and they had a hard time believing 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:01.400 that people of color were actually born in Boston. Now, 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:07.360 as a lesbian, everything was very kind of on the 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:14.360 down low in a way, because there wasn't much representation anywhere. 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.039 But I did have the good fortune. As I said, 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.680 my grandmother was very close to me and helped raise me. 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.640 She'd been on the stage in the forties and the thirties, 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.800 so she knew every kind of person in the world. 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.280 She used to go to Cape Cod every summer with 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:36.240 her friend Scotti and his boyfriend and stay in their cottage. 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:43.600 So I grew up understanding there were gay people. I 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:45.480 knew I was one, and I knew it was going 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.960 to be okay because my grandmother was okay. Same with 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.320 my father. He was a bartender. He had queer people 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:57.880 in his bark, men who were drag Queen's. I got 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:00.560 a lot of my best high school clothes from Queen's 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.600 miss Case, specifically because she was my size. 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:06.080 You know, she was a little chubby. 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.479 I was a little chubby, So I got all these 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.920 great suits and dresses from her, So I knew it 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.960 was gonna be okay, but I knew in the moment 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.880 it was not gonna be something I could actually talk about. 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.960 Well, Jewel, that is so timely, because I won't wonder 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.000 what is the story of the moment that you knew 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:30.400 you were gay? 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:38.000 I knew I was gay around eight years old. There 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.760 was a house across the street. There was a young 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:47.080 woman who was my age, maybe she was ten, but 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.919 she used to climb the tree in her front yard 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:55.360 all the time. And let me just say, I knew 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.120 when I looked out of the window, I was in love. 0:06:58.240 --> 0:06:59.160 I just was in love. 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:06.039 It was just really athletic and gorgeous. And I didn't 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:07.800 have a word for it, of course, but I knew 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:09.159 I was in love with Diane. 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:10.040 That was her name. 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.280 I never did get to know her, but I knew 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.080 when she came out to play, because that's when I 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.120 could go to my front window and watch her. 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:24.520 You have really become hugely influential as a lesbian feminist 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:30.680 through the literature and poetry that you've written. Was there 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.080 sort of a moment in your childhood or your early 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:38.640 life that influenced you to become an activist. 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.400 Growing up during the Civil Rights movement. 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.840 Every day people in our community were talking about what 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.680 was going on with sit ins, with bussing. 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:51.240 I mean, it was a very. 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.360 Active You grew up in the Civil rights era, yes, exactly. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.480 The Civil rights movement, which was seemed to be centered 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.960 more in the South, I was actually trying to make 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.160 inroads into northern communities because racism in the North was 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.080 as bad, perhaps not as obvious, but certainly as bad 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:12.240 as it was in the South. 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:19.160 And the fact that schools that were predominantly black were poor, 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:26.760 only got second hand books, did not have strong programs 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:33.400 preparing students for college. There was a big controversy about that. Specifically, 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:35.720 when I was in high school in Boston. I went 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:42.040 to a fairly poor school in a black neighborhood, and 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:49.000 one year the civil rights activists decreed Black Day, and 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:53.040 they invited young black students in high school to just 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:58.720 stay home. So the protests were really to make the 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:04.679 school system aware of how it was short changing it's 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:09.080 students of color. And when they first did that, I 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.600 did not stay home because I was one of those 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.080 who all I really cared about was having a perfect 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:17.360 attendance record. 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:19.319 I was really kind of a nerd. 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.560 I didn't stay home even when I had cramped so 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.240 bad I could barely walk. But the guidance counselor, when 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:28.160 I was in my freshman year, convinced my great grandmother 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:30.840 I shouldn't be in the college program because I was 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:32.600 never going to be able to afford to go to college. 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:37.720 And the next year I understood, Oh, this is something 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:43.280 that's bigger than my attendance record. I need to be 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:48.240 present by being absent, I need to make my voice 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.480 part of this voice demanding that the school system and 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:57.800 the city pay attention to the needs of people of 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:01.800 color in this community. So from that moment on, I 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:07.760 understood I was meant to participate. And by the time 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:13.440 the next year rolled around, civil rights actions had gotten 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:19.720 us a new administration in the high school, and this 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.480 time the guidance counselor called my great grandma and said, no, no, no, 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.480 she needs to be in a college program. She will 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:25.160 go to college. 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:31.520 So Jule you would go on to co found GLAD 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.840 in the eighties, which became an organization focused on holding 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:42.000 the media accountable to betraying gay people in a fair way. 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:47.080 Was there a piece of media for you growing up 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.640 where you felt like the portrayal of queer people negatively 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:52.439 impacted you. 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.120 There is one specific thing that happened. 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:01.440 I probably was a teenager, and I of course knew 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:03.280 I was a lesbian. I had a lover in high 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:08.840 school at the age of fourteen. But in this magazine, 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:13.360 I think it was either Ebony or Jet magazine, an 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:18.680 article was done about a singer from the thirties and 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:24.439 forties named Gladys Bentley. Now, Gladys Bentley was very, very popular. 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:29.680 She always dressed in men's clothes and a top hat. 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.720 She had a particular club she sang in every week, 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:36.600 and she was a lesbian. She was an act of lesbian. 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:43.400 And this article, though, was all about how Gladys Bentley 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:49.400 was repenting her sinful life, and it was really horrifying. 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:54.920 It was it really dismissed everything about the culture that 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.280 she'd been a part of in the thirties and forties. 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:03.599 It then agreed everything about being a lesbian and basically 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.080 said she was saved and going to go to heaven 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.880 because she had decided to get married to a man. 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.240 And I was devastated. I was devastated by reading that 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.400 article and I felt like, she, of course has every 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:24.359 right to change her mind, but the coverage itself was really. 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:26.280 Horrific. 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:28.640 It was like, I read that and I thought, Oh, 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:30.839 what is the point of going on if that's what 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.240 life is going to mean as I get older? 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.480 When we come back, Jewel transforms her frustration into activism 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:48.200 and becomes one of the founders of glad It's the 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.720 late nineteen eighties. By this point, Jewel had been a 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.560 published author for several years, and she began working for 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.840 the New York State Council on the Arts. Her personal 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:02.319 and professional see were starting to be filled with other 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:07.079 queer writers, particularly gay men, who at the same time 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:11.120 were in an existential battle for their lives. They were 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.959 dying of AIDS, and the media coverage was not good. 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.960 Having lived through the Civil Rights movement and the anti 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:23.079 Vietnam War protests, Jewell understood that the way people were 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:26.719 covered by the news directly impacted the way they were 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.040 treated in real life. You're now in your thirties and 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:38.200 already becoming quite a prolific poet. At this point, you 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:43.680 AIDS is raging and killing tens of thousands of Americans. 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:51.040 By nineteen eighty five, I wonder had the media portrayal 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:56.160 of queer people changed at that point from when you 0:13:56.200 --> 0:14:00.439 were fourteen and reading this article in Ebony magazine. Had 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:04.760 it changed by the eighties when AIDS was raging. 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.040 Now, keeping in mind that I had gone to Columbia 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:12.440 journalism school, I was very familiar with the way that 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:17.360 media worked, and I wasn't cynical, but I was aware. 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:25.560 So by the eighties when there was this pandemic and 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:32.200 the newspapers demonized, primarily demonized gay men, I was not 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:33.200 surprised at all. 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.520 A mystery disease known as the gay plague has become 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.440 an epidemic unprecedented in the history of American medicine that 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.640 today from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Topping 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.480 the list of likely victims are male homosexuals who have 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:47.880 many partners and. 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.160 Drug users who inject themselves with needles. 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:54.720 I felt like, Oh, okay, this is just an extension 0:14:55.080 --> 0:15:01.120 of how the media can number one sell papers and 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:06.040 use people's fears against gay people. 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.200 So I was horrified. 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:12.480 What is one piece of media that you remember recall 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.680 at that point, sort of being horrified, we. 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:20.520 Put together these t shirts from headlines and one of 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:28.760 them was something like about sending gay men to an island. 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:34.480 Some right wing person decided that queer people should just 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:35.880 go be sent to an island. 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.400 The AIDS crisis came about during a time of religious 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:45.360 resurgence in America, and coincidentally, it was a virus that 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:52.280 intersected with some of society's deepest taboos, drugs, sex, and homosexuality. 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.760 It would famously take President Ronald Reagan more than four 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:01.440 years to publicly acknowledge the disease. One US Senator from 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:05.320 North Carolina, who voted against AIDS research in nineteen eighty eight, 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:09.680 testified saying, quote, nothing positive was likely to happen to 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.400 America if our people succumbed to the drumbeats of support 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:15.359 for the homosexual lifestyle. 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.800 There is not one case of age own record in 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.560 this country, or as far as I know, anywhere else that. 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.440 Did not have its origin asodomy. 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.520 A significant amount of Americans also believed that AIDS was 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:36.200 God's punishment. Jewel knew that the media could either help 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:40.800 combat this disdain for gay people or perpetuate it, but 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:46.440 sadly AIDS coverage was toxic. In a twenty eighteen retroactive 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.840 analysis of their own AIDS coverage. The New York Times 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:55.360 admitted their AIDS reporting was quote scant, judgmental, and distressingly vague. 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.760 Jewele's friends were dying and it angered her that the 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.520 met wasn't taking it seriously. 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:12.600 And there were all kinds of headlines that indicated whoever 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:19.119 got aged deserved it. It was simple deviousness on the 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:23.840 part of journalists to write headlines that blamed people who 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:24.720 were getting ill. 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:29.280 Well, tell me about that. Why was it important for 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:36.640 you to draw the connection between media representation and combating homophobia? 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:40.200 Because when I think about it, there's so many different 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:45.359 avenues that you could have taken to address homophobia. There's 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:51.439 healthcare in the eighties, there's politics. What was it about 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.720 media that drew your interest and sort of made you 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.240 think this is an avenue that we could really affect 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:02.840 change and really combat homophobia. 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.199 As someone who had trained to be a journalist, I 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:10.080 was interested in media. I had studied it. I was 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:14.840 dedicated to its usage for justice, and I grew up 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:20.080 watching the news during the Civil rights movement and the 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:29.159 war in Vietnam. I learned so much about what was 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:35.000 wrong with things that were happening by what I saw 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:39.000 in the media, and it was very clear pretty early 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:44.479 on that media was being utilized to first make the 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:48.679 population in favor of the war in Vietnam, and the 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:54.160 scariest thing one could do was protest against it, because 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:58.480 then you would be portrayed as a trader. And that 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:04.600 was with the media's support. As a kid watching demonstrators 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:09.919 be hosed and watching dogs being sick on young people 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:14.639 by white southern sheriffs, I was really clear the media 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.359 had an effect that turned the tide in many people's 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:23.000 minds about what was important, and what was important was 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:27.359 protecting our younger people and getting the right to vote 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:32.480 and defeating these racist sheriffs. So that was a situation 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.720 in which the media actually worked to our advantage because 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:40.960 it showed us perfect you know, pictures worth a thousand words. 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.199 It showed us exactly what was going on. So I 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.719 was aware, you know, from an early age, that media 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:56.120 could depict queer people and gay men specifically as horrific predators, 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:58.640 and that's what it seemed to be doing. And if 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:04.720 we did not change that, we were going to watch 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:08.119 more and more and more of our young people dying. 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:13.719 Well, you ended up co founding Glad Glad is now 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.359 very well known across America for essentially acting as a 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:23.560 watchdog for fair queer media representation. What was that story 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.120 of how you co founded GLAD. 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.880 I worked at that time for the New York State 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:35.040 Council and the Arts in the Literature program, and my 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:42.719 boss was Gregory Coolovacas, who was a gay man, and 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.080 you know, he'd gone to an Ivy League school, and 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:49.800 he was every example of what you would portray if 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:53.240 you wanted to look at like a particular kind of 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:59.240 gay man. Blonde, blue eyes, dimples, those gold rim glasses, 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:01.800 very size, very. 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:04.000 Desirable. 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:09.560 He was very outgoing and smart, and we became dear, 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.280 dear friends, and it was totally amazing to me when 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:15.800 he said to me, some guys and I are starting 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:17.239 to get together to try to figure out what to 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:18.520 do about meatia coverage. 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:19.560 You should join us. 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.359 I was just starting to work on my novel, The 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:27.399 Guild of Stories, which is the first black lesbian vampire novel, 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.720 and it's still in print decades later, so I wasn't 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:32.960 sure how much time I was going to be able 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:37.000 to devote. But I bumped into Vito Russo, the writer 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:41.840 about film and really strong activists and he said, no, Juel, 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.200 you have to join us. This is this is the moment, 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.879 it's happening right now. So that's how I ended up 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.800 going to GLAD meetings. And it started very simple, and 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:56.080 we started keeping articles that we cut out that were 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.639 that were, you know, damaging, we thought of as damaging. 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.480 And one of the first things that we did was 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:07.159 insist on meeting with the editorial boards of the New 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:11.480 York Times, the Daily News, and Newsday, the three major 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:14.800 papers in New York City, to really talk with them 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:18.240 about how screwed up their coverage was and that they 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:22.880 should expect demonstrations if they were not willing to meet 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:26.640 with us and if they were not able to reconsider 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:31.199 their editorial position in their headlines. And it was the 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:36.600 first meeting of a queer organization with the major newspapers 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:37.320 in New York. 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:40.680 What was some of the coverage, like the big thing 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:48.320 was closed down the bathhouses and because this feeling was 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:52.440 aids would be transmitted in bath houses where gay men 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:53.760 had anonymous sex. 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:59.439 That was an aspect of some of that, but it 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.639 really was and getting to the point of how is 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:07.840 it transmitted and how do you get men gay men 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:12.240 men having sex with men who didn't necessarily identify as gay, 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:15.919 how did you get them to understand how to be safe? 0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:18.119 And there was no sense of being safe. It was 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:21.119 all about you all have to stop having sex. You 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:23.679 all have to stay in your homes. You cannot be 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:29.080 in the public eye, you know, sweeps through Central Park 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:34.639 where gay men would have sex at night, And it 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:37.440 was suddenly like the fifties where gay men were afraid 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:41.080 to walk through Central Park, much less have sex, because 0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:44.480 their pictures would then be in the daily news. So 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:51.360 it was a very specific editorial attitude. 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:53.040 Well, what were. 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:56.360 Some of the early victories that you had with Glad. 0:23:56.760 --> 0:23:57.800 I had read that. 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:03.200 Glad had in those early meetings convinced the New York 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:05.600 Times to stop using the word homosexual. 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:06.920 Number one. 0:24:07.040 --> 0:24:10.320 Having a meeting with the major editorial boards of New 0:24:10.400 --> 0:24:16.400 York was a huge success. One of the things that 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:21.480 we counted as a success was that the number of 0:24:22.800 --> 0:24:28.280 people at each demonstration we had grew exponentially. First it 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:31.199 might be twenty people, and then it might be one 0:24:31.240 --> 0:24:35.439 hundred people. Keeping in mind that there was no internet, 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:38.400 there was no email. We had what we called a 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:45.000 phone tree. You know, I called one person and that 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:47.919 person called two people, and those two people called two 0:24:47.960 --> 0:24:52.520 more people. Before that, if you can imagine, people were 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:56.280 afraid to be seen. People were afraid to have their 0:24:56.359 --> 0:25:00.560 picture taken coming out of a gay bar. People were 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:05.600 nervous about being known. So if you could have a 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:09.639 demonstration in the nineteen eighties and get one hundred people 0:25:09.720 --> 0:25:16.119 to show up, not wearing masks, not hiding it, it 0:25:16.160 --> 0:25:20.080 was pretty stunning. It was pretty stunning, and that I 0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:27.040 think shifted things for a lot of gay people because 0:25:27.640 --> 0:25:31.520 we were able to be ourselves in daylight. And once 0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:35.760 you can do that, you can pretty much protest anything, 0:25:36.480 --> 0:25:41.400 change anything, come out wherever you feel like you want to. 0:25:42.040 --> 0:25:45.880 And that was I think the personal success of appearing 0:25:45.920 --> 0:25:47.520 in public was huge. 0:25:48.080 --> 0:25:49.080 It was really huge. 0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:53.680 I am wondering, as Glad is accomplishing all of this 0:25:55.160 --> 0:26:00.560 and people are finally becoming visible. There's a face to 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:04.880 the gay rights movement, and people are understanding it's it's 0:26:04.880 --> 0:26:09.760 not just those people, but it's my neighbors, it's my 0:26:09.840 --> 0:26:15.320 family members, perhaps even my son or daughter. You're making 0:26:15.320 --> 0:26:18.760 a ton of strides in that movement. But on the 0:26:18.800 --> 0:26:22.680 other hand, was there a time where you also felt 0:26:22.720 --> 0:26:26.400 like the efforts felt futile. I wonder if you remember 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:31.880 Ellen and that show being canceled. Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell 0:26:31.880 --> 0:26:32.359 me about that. 0:26:33.040 --> 0:26:36.560 Actually, it's kind of funny because you know Ellen, I 0:26:36.640 --> 0:26:38.840 knew she was a lesbian before she had her show. 0:26:39.040 --> 0:26:39.600 I watched her. 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:42.440 She was a host on the I think the Oscar 0:26:42.480 --> 0:26:45.639 Awards once and she was interviewing people on the backstage 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:47.280 and everything, and I thought, oh my god, that woman's 0:26:47.280 --> 0:26:51.720 a lesbian. Then the next and she was very, very funny. 0:26:52.240 --> 0:26:53.920 And so the next thing I know, she has this show, 0:26:53.960 --> 0:26:56.159 and I'm thinking, and then she also had done a 0:26:56.200 --> 0:27:01.320 movie and it didn't do well, and I thought, oh gosh, 0:27:01.920 --> 0:27:06.840 she's not gonna do well because they don't actually want 0:27:06.880 --> 0:27:11.119 her to be a lesbian on screen, and so they 0:27:11.119 --> 0:27:12.960 don't know what to do with her. They keep kind 0:27:12.960 --> 0:27:17.760 of setting her up in these weird situations. And I 0:27:17.920 --> 0:27:23.880 was so relieved when it was decided that she would 0:27:23.920 --> 0:27:26.520 get to say she was a lesbian, because to me, 0:27:27.640 --> 0:27:32.680 it was like, here was this incredible talent being tied 0:27:32.800 --> 0:27:37.760 up like a mummy and unable to spread her wings 0:27:37.840 --> 0:27:40.840 and able to really use her humor because she was 0:27:40.880 --> 0:27:45.760 so tied tight to persona. And once those ties and 0:27:45.840 --> 0:27:50.520 bandages were ripped open. I was really thrilled because she 0:27:50.600 --> 0:27:52.919 went on to do what she does, which is be 0:27:52.960 --> 0:27:54.719 an incredibly funny person. 0:27:55.160 --> 0:27:58.480 How did you feel when that show got canceled after 0:27:58.520 --> 0:27:59.120 she came out? 0:27:59.440 --> 0:28:01.640 I was sorry for her, because you know, she could 0:28:01.720 --> 0:28:05.240