Making Gay History | |
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Presentation | |
Hosted by | Eric Marcus |
Genre | LGBTQ oral history |
Language | English |
Updates | Weekly |
Production | |
Audio format | Podcast (via streaming or downloadable MP3) |
No. of seasons | 12 |
Publication | |
Original release | October 5, 2016 |
Related | |
Website | makinggayhistory |
Making Gay History is an oral history podcast on the subject of LGBT history, featuring trailblazers, activists, and allies. Most episodes draw on the three-decade-old audio archive of rare interviews conducted by the podcast's founder and host Eric Marcus in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Marcus began interviewing notable figures in the LGBTQ civil rights movement in the late 1980s while writing an oral history of the movement. The first edition of the book, published in 1992 under the title Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990, [1] [2] was a Stonewall Book Award winner in 1992 and was described by acclaimed oral historian Studs Terkel as "[o]ne of the definitive works on gay life." In the late 1990s, Marcus undertook another round of interviews for the updated second edition of the book, which was titled Making Gay History (2002).
In 2016, Marcus revisited the archive of his original recordings, which had since been digitized by the New York Public Library, along with executive producer Sara Burningham, who suggested that the interviews be used as the basis for a podcast. [3] [4]
Since its launch in October 2016, the podcast has featured interviews with transgender rights icon Sylvia Rivera; [5] pioneering lesbian writer Edythe D. Eyde aka Lisa Ben; [6] American comedian, talk show host, and actress Ellen DeGeneres; [7] popular advice columnist and LGBT advocate Pauline Phillips ("Dear Abby"); [8] and others. It has also drawn on other audio archives to highlight the contributions of activists like Ernestine Eckstein and Bayard Rustin, and has used contemporary interviews to chronicle the life and work of Magnus Hirschfeld and Reed Erickson. [9] [10] In December 2019, they released the earliest known recording of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. [11]
For the eighth season of the podcast, Marcus partnered with the Studs Terkel Radio Archive to release interviews conducted by the legendary radio host and oral historian Studs Terkel. Marcus cites Terkel and his work as inspiration for his own. [12]
In February 2020, Making Gay History was adapted for the stage at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. [13]
The podcast's ninth season, "Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis," is an audio memoir exploring Marcus's memories of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. [14]
Season 1 | Episode |
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Episode 1 | Sylvia Rivera, Part I |
Episode 2 | Wendell Sayers (called Paul Phillips in the book Making Gay History) [18] |
Episode 3 | Edythe Eyde |
Episode 4 | Dr. Evelyn Hooker |
Episode 5 | Frank Kameny |
Episode 6 | Jeanne and Morty Manford |
Episode 7 | Chuck Rowland |
Episode 8 | Pauline Phillips (Dear Abby) |
Episode 9 | Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen |
Episode 10 | Vito Russo |
Season 2 | Episode |
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Episode 1 | Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker |
Episode 2 | Shirley Willer |
Episode 3 | Hal Call |
Episode 4 | Jean O'Leary, Part I |
Episode 5 | Jean O'Leary, Part II |
Episode 6 | Morris Foote |
Episode 7 | Herb Selwyn |
Episode 8 | Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen |
Episode 9 | Evander Smith and Herb Donaldson |
Episode 10 | Joyce Hunter |
Episode 11 | Tom Cassidy |
BONUS | Love is Love |
Season 3 | Episode |
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Episode 1 | Sylvia Rivera, Part II |
Episode 2 | Perry Watkins |
Episode 3 | Ellen DeGeneres |
Episode 4 | J.J. Belanger |
Episode 5 | Deborah Johnson and Zandra Rolón Amato |
Episode 6 | Larry Kramer |
Episode 7 | Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin |
Episode 8 | Morris Kight |
Episode 9 | Paulette Goodman |
Episode 10 | Greg Brock |
Episode 11 | Morty Manford |
BONUS | Edythe Eyde's Gay Gal's Mixtape |
BONUS | Kay Lahusen's Gay Table |
BONUS | Farewell Dick Leitsch |
Season 4 | Episode |
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Episode 1 | Introduction |
Episode 2 | Magnus Hirschfeld |
Episode 3 | Harry Hay |
Episode 4 | Billye Talmadge |
Episode 5 | Dorr Legg, Martin Block and Jim Kepner of ONE |
Episode 6 | Stella Rush (who wrote under the pseudonym Sten Russell) |
Episode 7 | Reed Erickson |
Episode 8 | Bayard Rustin |
Episode 9 | Ernestine Eckstein |
Episode 10 | Dick Leitsch |
Episode 11 | Martha Shelley |
Season 5 | Episode |
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Episode 1 | Prelude to a Riot |
Episode 2 | "Everything Clicked... And The Riot Was On" |
Episode 3 | "Say it Loud! Gay and Proud!" |
Episode 4 | Live from Stonewall |
BONUS | Stonewall 50 Minisode: Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker |
BONUS | Stonewall 50 Minisode: Morty Manford |
BONUS | Stonewall 50 Minisode: Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen |
BONUS | Stonewall 50 Minisode: Craig Rodwell |
Season 6 | Episode |
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Episode 1 | Ruth Simpson |
Episode 2 | Vernon E. "Copy" Berg III |
Episode 3 | Barbara Smith |
Episode 4 | Nancy Walker |
Episode 5 | Damien Martin |
BONUS | From the Vault: Sylvia Rivera & Marsha P. Johnson, 1970 |
Season 7 (Revisiting the Archive) | Episode |
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Episode 1 | Frank Kameny |
Episode 2 | Edythe Eyde |
Episode 3 | Wendell Sayers |
Episode 4 | Shirley Willer |
Episode 5 | Vito Russo |
Episode 6 | Kay Lahusen's Gay Table |
Episode 7 | Ellen DeGeneres |
Episode 8 | Morris Foote |
Episode 9 | Joyce Hunter |
Episode 10 | Perry Watkins |
Episode 11 | Larry Kramer |
Episode 12 | Bayard Rustin |
Episode 13 | Larah Helayne & Jean O'Leary |
Season 8 (Studs Terkel Radio Archive) | Episode |
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Episode 1 | Christopher Isherwood |
Episode 2 | Lorraine Hansberry |
Episode 3 | John Falk Tomkinson ("Les-Lee") |
Episode 4 | Quentin Crisp |
Episode 5 | Mattachine Midwest (Valerie Taylor) |
Episode 6 | Jill Johnston |
Episode 7 | Leonard Matlovich |
Episode 8 | Meg Christian |
The Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, Stonewall revolution, or simply Stonewall, were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Although the demonstrations were not the first time American homosexuals fought back against government-sponsored persecution of sexual minorities, the Stonewall riots marked a new beginning for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin and Phyllis Ann Lyon were an American lesbian couple based in San Francisco who were known as feminist and gay-rights activists.
The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was founded in New York City on December 21, 1969, almost six months after the Stonewall riots, by dissident members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). In contrast to the Liberation Front, the Activists Alliance solely and specifically served to gay and lesbian rights, declared themself politically neutral and wanted to work within the political system.
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK, Australia and Canada. The GLF provided a voice for the newly-out and newly radicalized gay community, and a meeting place for a number of activists who would go on to form other groups, such as the Gay Activists Alliance, Gay Youth New York, and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in the US. In the UK and Canada, activists also developed a platform for gay liberation and demonstrated for gay rights. Activists from both the US and UK groups would later go on to found or be active in groups including ACT UP, the Lesbian Avengers, Queer Nation, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and Stonewall.
Jean O'Leary was an American lesbian and gay rights activist. She was the founder of Lesbian Feminist Liberation, one of the first lesbian activist groups in the women's movement, and an early member and co-director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. She co-founded National Coming Out Day.
Marsha P. Johnson was an American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights, Johnson was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.
Sylvia Rivera was an American gay liberation and transgender rights activist who was also a noted community worker in New York. Rivera, who identified as a drag queen for most of her life and later as a transgender person, participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front.
Eric Marcus is an American journalist, podcast producer, and non-fiction writer. He is the founder and host of the Making Gay History podcast, which brings LGBT history to life through the voices of the people who lived it, and he is co-producer of Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust, a podcast drawn from the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University. His books are primarily of LGBT interest, including Breaking the Surface, the autobiography of gay Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis, which became a #1 New York Times best seller and Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945–1990, which won the Stonewall Book Award. He is also the author of Why Suicide? Questions and Answers about Suicide, Suicide Prevention, and Coping with the Suicide of Someone You Know. He has written for a range of publications including The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, the New York Daily News, and the New York Post.
Vito Russo was an American LGBT activist, film historian, and author. He is best remembered as the author of the book The Celluloid Closet, described in The New York Times as "an essential reference book" on homosexuality in the US film industry. In 1985, he co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a media watchdog organization that strives to end anti-LGBT rhetoric, and advocates for LGBT inclusion in popular media.
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) was a gay, gender non-conforming and transvestite street activist organization founded in 1970 by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, subculturally-famous New York City drag queens of color. STAR was a radical political collective that also provided housing and support to homeless LGBT youth and sex workers in Lower Manhattan. Rivera and Johnson were the "mothers" of the household, and funded the organization largely through sex work. STAR is considered by many to be a groundbreaking organization in the queer liberation movement and a model for other organizations.
Edythe D. Eyde better known by her pen name Lisa Ben, was an American editor, author, active fantasy-fiction fan and fanzine contributor, and songwriter. She created the first known lesbian publication in North America, Vice Versa. Ben produced the magazine for a year and distributed it locally in Los Angeles, California, in the late 1940s. She was also active in lesbian bars as a musician in the years following her involvement with Vice Versa. Eyde has been recognized as a pioneer in the LGBT movement.
Katherine Lahusen was an American photographer, writer and gay rights activist. She was the first openly lesbian American photojournalist. Under Lahusen's art direction, photographs of lesbians appeared on the cover of The Ladder for the first time. It was one of many projects she undertook with partner Barbara Gittings, who was then The Ladder's editor. As an activist, Lahusen was involved with the founding of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in 1970 and the removal of homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). She contributed writing and photographs to a New York–based Gay Newsweekly and Come Out!, and co-authored two books: The Gay Crusaders in 1972 with Randy Wicker and Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet into the Stonewall Era, collecting their photographs with Diana Davies in 2019.
Jeanne Sobelson Manford was an American schoolteacher and activist. She co-founded the support group organization, PFLAG, for which she was awarded the 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal.
New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest and most prominent LGBTQ+ populations. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBT advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."
Queens Liberation Front (QLF) was a homophile group primarily focused on transvestite rights advocacy organization in New York City. QLF was formed in 1969 and active in the 1970s. They published Drag Queens: A Magazine About the Transvestite beginning in 1971. The Queens Liberation Front collaborated with a number of other LGBTQ+ activist groups, including the Gay Activists Alliance and the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.
Happy Birthday, Marsha! is a 2017 fictional short film that imagines the gay and transgender rights pioneers Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera in the hours that led up to the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City. The film stars Mya Taylor as Johnson and Eve Lindley as Rivera.
The National LGBTQ Wall of Honor is a memorial wall in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, dedicated to LGBTQ "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes". Located inside the Stonewall Inn, the wall is part of the Stonewall National Monument, the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the country's LGBTQ rights and history. The first fifty inductees were unveiled June 27, 2019, as a part of events marking the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Five honorees are added annually.
Equal is an American documentary television series produced by Scout Productions, Berlanti Productions, Raintree Ventures, That's Wonderful Productions, and Warner Horizon Unscripted Television. The four-part series chronicles landmark events and leaders in LGBTQ history, and consists of a mixture of archival footage and scripted reenactments. Equal stars several actors including Samira Wiley, Jamie Clayton, and Anthony Rapp. The series premiered on HBO Max on October 22, 2020.
Pride Month, sometimes specified as LGBT Pride Month, is a monthlong observance dedicated to the celebration of LGBT pride, commemorating the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) culture and community. Pride Month is observed in June in the United States, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests.