Season 3 — Preview

Photo Information

Clockwise from upper right:

• Sylvia Rivera at a gay rights demonstration in Albany, New York, 1971. Photo by Diana Davies courtesy of the New York Public Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division.

• Phyllis Lyon (left) and Del Martin in an undated photo (as seen in the 2003 documentary No Secret Anymore: The Times Of Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon). Photo courtesy of A.F. Archive/Alamy.

• Block (left) and J. J. Belanger cheek-to-cheek in a photo booth at the PGE Exhibition, Hastings Park, Vancouver, Canada, 1953. Photo courtesy of ONE Archives at the USC Libraries.

• Sgt. Perry Watkins near his home in Tacoma, Washington, 1983. Photo by Steve Stewart from his book: Positive Image: A Portrait of Gay America, published in 1985 by William Morrow & Company.

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Preview Notes

Making Gay History mines Eric Marcus’s 30-year-old audio archive of rare interviews to create intimate, personal portraits of both known and long-forgotten champions, heroes, and witnesses to LGBTQ history. In this preview we offer a taste of what’s to come in season three, featuring the extraordinary voices of J.J. Belanger, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, Morris Kight, Sylvia Rivera, Perry Watkins, Deborah Johnson and Zandra Rolón Amato, and Ellen DeGeneres.

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Preview Transcript

Eric Marcus: This is tape three, side one.

J.J. Belanger: I’ve been told I’ve got a good speaking voice.

EM: You have.

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Eric Marcus Narration: Hi, I’m Eric Marcus. This is Making Gay History and we’re back for our third season. We’re bringing you 10 new episodes of never-before-heard interviews drawn from my archive of decades-old conversations with LGBTQ trailblazers. Voices of people you’ve heard of, and some you haven’t. Like J.J. Belanger and his account of love and acceptance in the 1940s.

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JB: Daddy walked from the pantry, he walked through with his brandy and his cigar in one hand, and here we were, doing our thing in front of the fireplace with not a thing on, and Daddy just looked at us and says, “Hi, fellas, see you in the morning at breakfast.”

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EM Narration: You’ll meet Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who founded the first national organization for lesbians.

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Phyllis Lyon: I mean, it was a Sunday, September afternoon, and we were cleaning house. And where would we have gotten the idea about starting a national movement in September of 1955?

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EM Narration: You’ll hear from Morris Kight, who moved to Los Angeles in the late 1950s and joined the fledgling movement.

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Morris Kight: The state was a source of oppression, repression, and exploitation. The state in all of its, in its delivery of services did not deliver those services to us at all, indeed denied them from us. Indeed the state was a source of much of our oppression.

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EM Narration: We’ll have more from the one and only Sylvia Rivera and her activism beyond Stonewall.

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Sylvia Rivera: So June comes out of the bathroom and she walks right in front of the council table and she says, “Where the fuck do you want me to go and take a piss at? Do you want me to take my pants down right here and piss in front of you?” And she’s standing there with this little mini and she pulled up the mini and there’s the G-string. They’re like, “Oh, my god.” And June very nicely says, “Oh, well, I guess we have to leave now.” And she just pulled back her clothes on and says, “Now, tell me where I can go piss.”

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EM Narration: You’ll also hear from Perry Watkins, one of the first people to fight discrimination against gay people in the military.

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Perry Watkins: “I’m not going to put up with this kind of shit. I am gay, you people put me in this damned army, and it’s up to you to see to it that I am protected.”

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EM Narration: And I’ll talk with Deborah Johnson and Zandra Rolón Amato, who just wanted to have a romantic dinner in Los Angeles, but the restaurant’s manager had something else in mind.

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Deborah Johnson: That’s when he went into all this bullshit about, “It’s against the law…”

Zandra Rolón: “It’s against the law and, you know, …”

DJ: “… to serve two men or two women in these booths.” And that’s when we explained to him that we had been activists for a very long time and that, that’s bullshit. That if I can get a motel room with this woman, I know I can eat with her.

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EM Narration: And you’ll hear my in-depth interview with someone who needs no introduction.

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Ellen DeGeneres: Ellen DeGeneres, E-L-L-E-N D-E-G-E-N-E-R-E-S.

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EM Narration: Bayard Rustin, a hero of the Black civil rights movement and a proud gay man, once said, “We need in every community a group of angelic troublemakers.” I can’t wait for you to meet this season’s collection of angelic troublemakers, beginning Sunday, October 22.

So please make sure to subscribe to Making Gay History on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can listen to all our episodes at makinggayhistory.com.

So long! Until next time!

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