This is at the Extremes, beloved. Welcome back to At the Extremes to the podcast where we discuss the extremes in our society. And now we got here. As always, we are your host. I'm Greg. It's Judy and. Today we're going to be talking about the Stonewall uprising. But before we get into it, Judy, silver lining. Oh caught me off guard with that. How? Because we open every show this way. Of course, I've always got a silver lining.
Greg, how silly of you. This week there were, you know, the extreme lows of the world as we know. But there there's always a few glimmers. And I had one. We have this, one of the signature workouts at my gym, air quotes around signature, meaning it's like a special thing and you'll see it come around probably about once a quarter, maybe less than that.
I don't really know how frequently these benchmark days occur, but they are there to like sort of test your endurance, your strength, how much you've improved. So the idea is either to shave some time off, add some meters on. So anyway, this workout is kind of a fun one. You, you are, you start with 100 meters and then after you do 100 meters, you hop off of the rowing machine and you hop onto a treadmill and you can either
Sprint or you can power walk. If you Sprint, it's, it's a 10th of a mile and if you power walk, it's 1/2 that. So you know, with a new strategy this time, I will not reveal that on on this podcast, but with a new strategy, I was able to add 722 meters from my previous best time. I finally broke through like the 4000 meter mark. You add 100 meters every time you go back to the rower. So you do 100 meters, run or walk 200, go back to the treadmill, 300, so on and so forth.
And you just try to rack up as many meters as possible. So anyway, it was one of those like endurance strength, power testing type days. And yeah, I was just, I was proud. So I've hit, I've hit a lot of benchmarks as of as of late and I like that. That's big. That's big. That's big deal. Yeah, especially at your your advanced age. That's a big deal.
Dare you? Actually, it's funny you should say that because I am eating humble pie at this point, like this decade that I have entered the new age bracket just a few short two months ago is full of monsters. And I, and I mean like the people in my age group are in significant shape. And I, I will not be seeing a leaderboard for quite a while because these women are monsters. And like, it's going to be very hard to get kind of back to a place where I'm beating these
people. This is the decade to to be in. Apparently we call it the masters. So. So I've entered the masters and I am humble. Well, I'm glad to hear that you have something to chase now. It's true. And I, I like kind of starting over and just being like, I'm new here and I, I recognize my, my ranking in the pecking order. Hi I'm Judy, I am new to this. New to new to the decade, new to the age group. Hello, welcome. See my Gray hairs? That's fantastic.
That's fantastic. I yeah, this week's been this week has been tough. You're right. All the things that are happening specifically with the Supreme Court just a couple days ago and the book could be devastating rulings that they're laying down. But silver lining wise, I started a new, I don't know, call it a practice, but it for lack of a better term of practice of writing up a daily affirmation on my whiteboard at work and pairing that with a song of the week, kind of like
the ear worm. So a couple people have noticed it at work. You know, it seems to be providing at least some distraction in a darker time. So if I can do that for myself, and it's really only for me, but if other people like it, then I see that's a good thing. So. Well, you Speaking of that silver lining of yours, you inspired me to invest some additional efforts in a little passion project at work also
that is filling my cup. So thank you for that good energy from this little story this week. I think it's adorable that you do your affirmation in your song of the day and I am just going to say it to to the nobodies who work in your office and don't listen to this podcast, but y'all are lucky. That's a that's a nice kind of energy to have at work. Yeah, no, I think it's a good
thing. You know, there are lots of people who have, you know, disclosed like, hey, you know, I've got anxiety or you know, you know, it, it, it just, it helps to boost people up a little bit. So whatever I can do to make that. And also very specifically, not for them, but for me. It's really, you know, a thing I do for me, but. Works both ways. It's kind of nice and people
need that. And lest we not forget, like, I don't know, there's something it's so simple, but it's like just approach everyone as if they may be having a tough day. And like really the golden rule, like, you know, treat other people and how you would want to be treated. And if you would like for people to be kind to you, then you got to kind of put that energy out there too. So, you know, it's a little gestures, honestly, that build a lot of morale in the workplace within our communities.
Like people need to remember that people are human and that they are kind. And it's the easiest thing for us to reach for because it's never going to be received poorly. Sure. Yeah, I know. I don't think anybody would look at it and go that's a bad thing. Actually, there's probably a lot of people who would. Maybe, maybe. And if they are, then there's it's not for you. So, but Speaking of things that are not for you, let's let's
take a real quick break. When we come back, we're going to discuss one of the more impactful uprisings in the gay rights movement and how the government didn't want to provide that for them. We are back. I am so excited to have another history episode. It's time to discuss, like I said, one of the more impactful uprisings in the gay rights movement. So Stonewall as this uprising is known. Do you know anything about the Stonewall Uprising? I knew you were going to ask that.
And yes, for the purposes of being educated on like really monumentous events on the calendar, yes. But I was, I purposefully did not re Google it just to re familiarize myself because I thought if you don't know enough to be able to sit and spout facts, then you better sit and listen and buckle up for a history lesson. So I'm just excited that I got invited to the party.
Well, I will. You know, I think it's important, even if we're talking about history, to talk about the history that predates that moment, right? And I think that's so important to be able to do and to kind of understand because really what Stonewall does is it reignites a movement that the government had done a really good job of snuffing out and reducing it to an ember versus, you know, a
fire that was was burning. They, the government very systematically went about extinguishing it to a point to where events like Stonewall became necessary.
So I'm going to start our conversation in the earliest 20th century, in 1924, this is in Chicago, a gentleman by the name of Henry Gerber establishes a society called the Society for Human Rights. The society is the first gay rights organization as well as the oldest documented gay rights organization in the country, Which is really interesting because I didn't know this until research taking this.
And I feel kind of ignorant, if I'm being honest, because, you know, I got my degree in history. I love history. You know, we're, we are supporters of, of, of the LGBTQ community and yet I didn't really know much about it. You know, I don't know, like, you know, I know about, you know, the civil rights movement and I know about women's empowerment and I know that like, I stand on the right side of history when it comes to gay rights, but I just didn't know anything about it.
So this is really interesting that that the first organization really starts in in Chicago after receiving a charter from the state of Illinois. The society publishes the first American publication for homosexuals. It's called Friendship and Freedom. And so they published this newsletter. It gains like national notoriety. Like a lot of people like, Oh my God, like this, you know, this disgusting stuff is being. Published this abomination.
Right. This is being, this is being forced upon us. This is, you know, drag time to story hour kind of, you know, salaciousness in terms of like how the the American public was receiving it, how conservative politicians were expressing their disappointment with gay people being visible in our country very specifically in the
written word. So no parallel to our current day, so soon after the founding, after its founding and the society publishes its first newsletter, the society has to disband because Gerber is arrested for publishing another newsletter very shortly thereafter. So the first organization in the country shuts down because the police and the federal police come in and say, hey, you can't have that. We we cannot have you publishing, you know, gay propaganda.
Gay stuff. Gay things so and this is one of the parts of the story that is kind of important to recognize is that Gerber was before he publishes and and establishes the human rights organization. He was he served in the United States Army. So he was a he was an enlisted Army, you know, a soldier and and after the the organization folds, he decides to re enlist back into the armed forces.
And he was posted in in New York at a place called Governors Island, which is like near Manhattan area. So it's like, you know, not in a what you would probably consider to be a, an eclectic part of the country, right?
Like, there's a lot, it's a lot of people there, lots of melting pots, you know, like visibility of gay people is probably a lot higher there than it is and say like, you know, the middle of nowhere Kentucky. And it's highly populated, larger mix of people, you know, it's a, it's a portal for, you know, immigration to into the country Ellis Island, you know, so that makes sense. Yeah. And so you have like this like mix of like the times are
changing. You've got the war coming, you've got, you know, the well, the war, the World War One has just ended. World War 2 is coming up to like, you know, it's spinning up, you know, over in Europe, things are starting to like formulate again for the German states, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so you've got like this, I don't know, it's, it's kind of, it feels very similar to how things are going today where you've got this like we, we want to have like a, a homeo, A
homogenic. What's the word I'm looking for here where it's like just one, you know, I want America not, not multiple types of Americans, but just one kind of American, you know, homogeneous. That's the word I'm looking for. Homogeneous. Yeah, OK. Yeah, I think that's the word I'm looking for. These early politicians, not really politicians, but these politicians in the 1920s are looking for a very similar outcome that we have our politicians currently looking
for. So it's a kind of a mirror. About 100 years apart. Yeah, we're, we're, you know, we're not, we're not repeating the. We would never do that. So he he goes back to, he goes to this governor's island at a place called Fort Jay. And during his time at Fort Jay, he is harassed and beaten and, you know, thrown into a room by himself, all because he's gay. This is according to the National Park Service where they have a placard outlining like what happened to this man of.
Course they do. Did you know, jumping back into it that recently the National Park Service was kind of called to not the National Park Service, sorry. The government posted signs at national parks encouraging people to snitch if they see any. Like, I did not see that. DEI and gay stuff, like anything, anything. I'm sorry. It's not just DEI and gay, but it's like anything that paints America in a bad light. They there's QR codes now where you can scan it and, like, snitch on.
Yeah. It's it's 1984. And I hope I'm not paraphrasing but honestly like it doesn't sound that far fetched. No, but it is a story. I can go back and do the research and link it to you if you'd like. But like, it's a thing that there's QR codes on some of the signage in. And I'm just thinking because of course, the National Park Service decided to make sure that we documented this, you
know what I mean? So that sounds like them, you know, they are known for documenting our country's actual history, regardless of what light it puts America. You have to do, you have to tell the story as it is. So I'm just looking this up. Censorship. See the National Park visitor responses after Trump requested help deleting negative signage. The administration asked for help erasing language on park displays that failed to emphasize American grandeur, but visitors have not identified any
examples. How about that? And PS people are our people, yeah. No, I mean one. 1000%. And the National Park Service is made-up of, you know, really good human beings. I feel like if you're willing to not take a really big salary in order to protect America, the most precious resource resource that America has. It belongs to all of us. Then yeah, I, I think you're a pretty good, pretty good individual. They don't, I mean, they are,
they're not well paid. They, it's, it's a lot like, like teachers and a lot of public service workers out there that they're doing some of the most important work that you can do and they're paid laughable salaries. I mean, I'd say that the that teachers do a a more important job than MPs officers. I mean, it's, it's apples and oranges. It's important all in its own different ways, like you said, without what happened when they reduced staffing at parks. Yeah.
Shit's gone fucking. But but, but the first thing that you'll hear from people are complaints about the long lines to get in and the reservation process. Bears are eating all the food because we had to cut staff that formerly like took care of these problems. So you know it's. It's it you create the problem so that you can implement the solution that you've already predetermined, which is we don't need these things, let's just make sell them, sell the land off.
The things that we deem things that we don't need are pretty interesting things. Things like national protected lands, things like healthcare, things like food benefits to feed hungry people, things like housing. Gay rights acknowledgement. Women's rights, reproductive rights at that. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah. But so back to our story,
though. For several weeks in the year 1942, Gerber was held in a guardhouse at Castle Williams, which is where this governor's island, Fort Jay's at, right? So he's held there for a couple of weeks and there's, quote, no evidence of illegal behavior found. And what they're talking about is there is no evidence of gay sex happening. So how you figure that? Out how incredibly invasive was my first thought. I don't know how you go about who.
Went about determining that right, right, right, right. I don't know. Well, you know, if it's anything like modern day, a certain political party seems really invested and highly, highly sickly interested in people's sex, sexual comings and goings. No pun intended, we. Went to a rage room and now you're and now you're letting it all out. You're letting it fly. I like it. Oh, we didn't mention the rage room. That's fine in the silver
lining. It's OK. We have a collective silver lining that we'll announce at the end of the show. OK, we're going to say it now. We went to a rage room. That's basically about it it. Was really hot it. Was a lot of fun. We busted some things. Yeah, there's a video. Yeah, there is. We're not going to post it. No one's ever, no one's ever going to see the video. It's for a private collection. It's for our private rage
collection. But it should be noted that Gerber, even through this period of time, he didn't stop writing for underground queer magazines all throughout the city of New York. He was also writing for other sources of literature. He really found a a motivation to even through being beaten and I'm going to assume exposed to really humiliating treatment to figure out that there was no evidence of ill will or whatever it was being. No evidence of gay sex. Yeah, like illegal behavior
being found. I can't imagine that he wasn't incredibly, incredibly, I don't want to say embarrassed, but I can't imagine any other feeling other than being like ashamed of what happened to you to like go through that, you know, like I but to so like, I guess my point is like he continued to be an activist until he died. Like it just motivated him to do
it even more. Well, you know, what's really interesting is this timeline like this happened right when like Nazi propaganda was flying through, you know the. World in the United States as well. Absolutely, not just in Europe, but in the US, right. So like, meanwhile, there's also like gay propaganda, gay prop for short flying through and in the form of like activism, which I you know, the times and the, and the timeline is not lost on me just in terms of its parallels to to modern day.
Like we just heard the story that the Supreme Court is ripping these protections, but. For trans kids. Yeah, and and I, I, I read that like Maryland specifically lost in this fight with like religious families claiming like religious right to. I'm really not articulating very well, but to be able to remove children from lessons that include any LGBT or trans themes, which is so gross. And I just, I have this like picture in my mind of people with gold stars on, you know, like in.
Or in this case, rainbows. Yeah. You know, yeah. And like, and then we just start sorting people into categories like they're like, they're not humans and they don't actually. We've already started doing that with black and brown people that don't look like they were born in this country. And maybe even if they, you know, this is where I have the choice to not get on the roller
coaster. It's just really hard because you think about the, the, the impact and, but also the, that parallel between, you know, 80 years ago and now. It's pretty wild. Yeah. And you know, you, you kind of brought it up here a little bit and then, you know, I kind of want to wrap up this little story within the larger narrative of what we're going to be talking about today. With what?
Just saying like, you know, and I mentioned earlier, like I know about the activists that come from my community, right? Like I know about Malcolm, I know about King, I know about parks and and they're, you know, those are so well known. And I think like, I hope that, you know. That the history that we've never heard of, like this one that I had never heard of, right? You know, that this is the kind of hero in the gay community that we need to talk about and like in order to have an
inclusive conversation. It's not about DEI. It's not about, you know, forcing your kids to, you know, try to turn them gay or whatever. This is about, you know, what, what people have gone through. And it's important, right? Like if you had told me or my parents when they were kids. But we're not going to talk about Malcolm. We're not going to talk about King. Like these are people who change the world for good and for more people to have more civil
rights. But actually, whole generations of people were taught not to talk about these things, not to talk about their trauma, not to talk about the hard things that have happened to them, and really not to process their emotions. And you can do that all you want to. You can shut it down. But it doesn't mean that the feelings and the emotions go away. It doesn't mean that the experience changes. Like we're not built that way.
So to shut it down, to stuff it down, to make whole groups of people feel ashamed for having any feelings at all. I mean, it's just by putting people into these categories and saying that their experience didn't happen doesn't matter.
It invalidates human beings. Yeah. You know, the more and more I reflect on it, the more and more I think like we were kind of robbed of of learning about a lot of our history and the things that people have had to go through in order to just fight to be on the same page, you know? Imagine if you had learned more robust lessons about the topic of today's episode. Stonewall, you know. You went maybe maybe you and I
come from the same exact year. We graduate the same year, but like when you were in high school and when I was in high school and middle school, like to call people the F word like the Efsler was very common. Like you never thought of I I wasn't, I was never. Maybe he was different for you, but I know in my school like it was just like. Lots of things were thrown around and we had far less awareness as a as a whole culturally, but. If we had been taught about things like this.
Correct. If we had learned. I mean, maybe the term microaggressions hadn't been coined yet when we were in high school, but if we had learned about microaggressions, for instance, like we could have been teaching tolerance and anti racism a lot, a lot sooner. When I think of well, that's work to do, it says who like. I I I know I'm poking. Poking. I understand, you know I know and, and just.
But to me, like, what you're blocking is the development of human empathy and tolerance of one another and the natural acclimation of human beings to integrate as communities. But like, as a whole, you know, And that this is like, the idea is that we're scared of the things we don't understand and the people that aren't like us. And that's just so archaic. Yeah, and it tells me at least that it all this stuff was purposefully left out, you know? Absolutely, because who's always
been dictating the curriculum? Right, you have to be willing to ignore this kind of stuff. Or just not deem it important. I mean, I, I'm trying to recall high school history and I didn't go out of my way to take any classes. I didn't have to. But I remember 9th grade was eighth was like government, 9th grade government and you learned about the United States government. But like world history, I feel like was in 7th or 8th grade. And I certainly don't remember 12 and 13 years old.
Do you, you know, like, not in terms of what I learned in school. I don't even remember college and grad school at this point. I don't know why you, but you know, 'cause we're learning on the on the on the daily now we're learning on the go, but we weren't taught most of this stuff. Yeah, Yeah, that's right. How about we take a real quick break? When we come back, I would like to talk to you about another, you know, movement shaping moment that happened in the gay
rights movement in the 1950s. We're back. The next event I want to focus on for this show is report is the report that came out of the Senate in the 1950s titled Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in the Government. Yeah, what a name, right? Wow. So it is distributed to members of Congress after the federal government had covertly investigated employees sexual orientation at the beginning of the Cold War. The government collects quite a
lot of information from people. Huh. Like to work for them? Yeah. Pass. No thanks. That's intrusive. Incredibly wow. So the report states that homosexual since homosexuality, and this is something that I want to come to you about actually. So in the 1950s, psychologists and sociologists deemed homosexuality to be a disorder or an illness, like a mental illness.
And the government goes, oh perfect, we'll use site like a scientifically backed thing to deem homosexuals as mentally ill and they they constitute security risks to the nation because those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of, quote, normal persons. That is 1 fucking sentence if I've ever read 1. Well, welcome to the 1950s first and foremost.
I mean, we made a lot of progress post Vietnam when Big Pharma kind of came onto the scene and certain SSR is and things that we even even today still favor from the psychopharmacology community. But once, once psychopharm pharmacology kind of came into the scene as well, we started to change our language and recognition around mental illness and things like homosexuality. That's a pretty antiquated classification because of the, the, the time frame, you know what I mean?
Now, you know, there are more, much more pronounced classifications for things. Gender dysmorphia, for instance, is something that might be kind of in the wheelhouse of, you know, issues related to gender identity, for instance. So it's it's, I'm just kind of talking around it. But we know a whole lot more now, 75 years later than we did
then, you know? I just, I wonder, at least from my perspective, like as somebody who's not educated in this stuff at all, like what leads psychologists Like who, who was in like. Stigma. White men. Involved in that though, to be like, Oh no, this is like, I mean, is that what it comes down to? Yeah, I mean, it's like the convergence between science and psychology and for a long time, like. I just feel like we're back to like measuring people's skulls to determine their like,
intelligence at that. Point well, we've moved from more of a medical model of classifying people and qualifying people and not considering the actual human being. And we've moved to a much more person centered approach to treating people from a mental
health perspective. So like what started as more medical model has migrated to like the mental health world that we know today, which is that we don't stigmatize, we destigmatize by talking about the prevalence of mental health issues and the normalcy around seeking treatment for it and the benefits of therapy. And if it's in your cocktail, adding medication and psychopharmacology. Like we normalize these things now, societally speaking, so that there is less stigma around it.
However, again, like, you know, we're referencing another period in time where if you could, this is also when women were hysterical. So just drug them, you know what I mean? The. Hysteria of women. I mean, we talked about that. It's any way to oppress a group. I mean, quite Simply put, this is oppression of the LGBT community. Like make it a mental illness, call them crazy, lock them up. Yeah. Well, I'll, I'll give you a
little bit more on that. So over the previous years of that 1950s study, more than 4380 gay men and women were discharged from the military and around 500 were fired from their jobs in the government. This purging will become known as the quote Lavender scare. And the Lavender scare is a play on words from the McCarthyism of the Red Scare of the Communist
Red Scare of the 1950s. So in order to, to, to, to get the, the, the homosexual male and woman out of, of government employment, they went around and did exactly that where they went and looked into people's backgrounds and would follow them in cars and like determine that their sexuality from afar. Or sometimes planting devices in their homes to find out. Or breaking in at night after maybe they were out, you know, at a club or out to dinner to search their home.
Well, before I said invasive, but Can you imagine how terrifying it must have been on the on the receiving end? You know there is. Speaking of hysteria, like these are the kinds of things that cause paranoia, hysteria, and psychotic breaks in a person. Like feeling like you're being followed feeling. Like actors who were part of the Red Scare of the McCarthy area, but they were also involved in this lavender scare where they were being shamed and shunned by
Hollywood after act. You know, studios found out, Oh, we've got a gay man on. Our Oh, absolutely I read AI actually read a book It's historical fiction sort of I mean meaning like if they reference periods like the 1950s, they bring up themes that were present in the 1950s and it's a really, really, really good book.
I will not name drop on this podcast 'cause I could fangirl on the side on a whole separate episode on someone else's podcast about books, but it was about Hollywood, like in the 1950s. And the whole central theme of this book, without giving it away, that's why I won't share the title, is that the main character's gay and, you know, has to cycle through marrying men in order to keep that under
wraps. And even in like, old age still hadn't come from a place where it was normalized to come out, so to speak. So like in death, like took it with them kind of thing. So, yeah, it was, it was heavy subject matter, but like just the sacrifices that were made and like choices that had to be made. It was a different time for sure. It was a time where you can tell like society was afraid of this and and of this becoming a thing.
Yeah, I was reading one another. I forget her name, but there was another story that was a part of this, the early phases of the gay rights movement and also the LGBTQ like like the whole spectrum. It was a really, really interesting story about this. He was, he transitioned male to female. So she had to go to I think it was the Netherlands or somewhere in Europe to get this transitional surgery taken care of.
So I was, yeah. So I'm, I'm reading this story about, about this woman who who's, you know, goes over to to England or not England, somewhere in Europe. I, I forget exactly where. Maybe the maybe in the Netherlands doesn't matter. And while she is going through the process of, you know, expressing herself the way she feels comfortable, the American media starts writing like
essentially hit pieces on her. And in order to like, she stayed in in Europe for a bit was like, but once she started reading these stories about her, she was like, well, fuck this. Like, I'm not standing for this. So she calls up a bunch of like journalists and has her have has them meet her at the airport as she's getting off. And it's basically like the red
carpet gets rolled out. Like it becomes like a a celebrity moment more than so she like changed the narrative and it was just like, you know, taking it back from the people who were trying to make her feel bad. And it was like, good for you like that. It just, it was like a feel good story around this. But so the government intentionally targeted gay and gay men and women, trans men and women and anyone who could have been seen as an ally to those communities.
So they really were going out of their way to fire these people, get rid of them, purge them from the government. And our government seems to have always been out for LGBTQ folks and people who would act as support systems for them when they were coming out, when they're expressing themselves. And after the break, we're going to be discussing A pivotal book movement and also what our current administration is doing to kind of take us back to when America was quote great.
We're back, Judy. Let's talk about Stonewall for a moment. And I, I know that this is going to be a little bit of a refresher for you since you know about it. Stonewall has been described as the Rosa Parks moment for the gay rights movement.
And just as Mrs. Park's refusal to give up her seat on the bus in Alabama to a white man had the effect of animating the civil rights movement for 14 years before, so Stonewall electrified the push for gay equality In the 1960s America, gay and lesbians were effectively outlaws, living in
secrecy and fear. As you can remember, the 1950s, they were basically forced to They were labeled as insane by doctors, immoral by religious leaders, unemployable by the government, predatory by TV broadcasts, and criminal by police. At the time of the uprising, consensual sex, sexual relations between men or between women were illegal in every state with the exception of Illinois.
Yeah, who knew? So gay people could not work for the federal government or the military, and coming out would deny you a license in many professions, including practicing law or medicine, which is. That's wild. Madness. That's wild. Like that is in the 1960s, like your your parents, my parents were alive when being gay you couldn't work as a doctor. That's only 60 some years ago. Our. Our parents were alive and it's it's, it just doesn't make any sense.
Well, of course it doesn't make any sense to us, right? But back then, to those people, it must have made all the sense in. The world do oak. They're do oak, they say. I like your impression. That was. Bad. You sounded like Grimace. Do. Oak. Do oak. Like a bullfrog. River, You know, I'll just stick to, you know, I'll stick to my own voice. I'll leave. The. I'll leave the impressions to you.
So the laws in New York State were particular, particularly punitive, despite or perhaps partially in response to a growing number. Remember I was telling you about this. In the 1920s, a growing number of gay men and women moving to New York City from across the United States. Thousands were arrested each year in the city for crimes against nature, solicitation or lewd behavior. Some had their names published in newspapers, which meant they lost their jobs, so they were
doxxed. Like, this is like the early version of doxing, right? Even what you were you wore was policed. Fewer than three pieces of clothing deemed appropriate to your gender could put you in handcuffs. What the fuck does that mean? So, you know, a, we're going to forgive the stereotyping moment here, right? But like, this is very something that came up in my research about like leather and like BDSM
type outfits. And if you were caught wearing them at night, walking through the streets of New York City, you could be arrested. Assless chaps. Yeah, Basically, yeah. Yeah. There is a huge amount of anger in the gay community because gay people had no political power to prevent this. It was like a keg of dynamite was waiting to ignite. Per professor at Yale Law School, young gay men and women didn't want to write letters to counselors, counselors to enact
change or sign petitions. Instead they took their cue from the anti war movement, the Black Power movement and those who are pushing for women's liberation. Their strategy was simple, go to the streets and make trouble. Attack, Attack, attack. Wow, that sounds, gosh, so familiar. Why? What's happening? Yeah. Why does this feel familiar? I don't know. I don't know. But in 1969, actually today, in 1969.
June 28th. About six officers, including those who led the NYPD's Public Moral Division, went into the bar that Stonewall. There were undercover colleagues there, and they were already inside. So when the lights come up and the music stops, the police instruct everybody in the bar, get your I DS out. And as you're giving us your I DS, get the fuck out, right? So ejected patrons spilled out onto the streets. And according to eyewitnesses, at first the atmosphere was
festive. People were laughing and joking. They were coming out of the bar and striking poses and shit. Like, very. RuPaul's Drag Race on is like what I'm imagining in my mind, right? Dramatic exit. Yes, but according to reports, some of the lesbian customers were being harassed and bullied by the male police officers inside the bar. Then the mood outside changed when they heard that these women were being bullied and they were being handled roughly by the
police. And as one person is one woman's being put into a squad car, they're handling her pretty roughly. And people start to throw pennies and quarters at the police and that soon turns into bottles and rocks. And when you exert force against the people who are already exerting force, all of a sudden, well, you're not allowed to do that to us. We're the only ones allowed to exert force, so things start to
escalate. The police retreat inside and they begin beating up the people inside the bar who haven't left yet as I guess kind of like a retaliation for what's happening outside. A rubbish bin is thrown through the window and a lighter flute was a used to ignite projectile so Molotov cocktails are flying through the air at this point. Parking meter was literally ripped out of the ground and used to bash in the front door. It's wild to think about.
I mean, when you and I have been, when was, well one, when was the last time we used a parking meter? Because they've got all these smart parking things now. I feel like one of the things we used in the rage room last night felt a little bit like swinging a parking meter between the sledgehammer and that other thing with the you know what the the guy I'm talking about. It was a truck axle I think. Whatever it was, it was fun. It was a great.
Time. But like, you know, I mean, I've, you've, I've ran into a parking meter pretty drunk one night in my early 20s. And those fuckers do not move like that is like a one way ticket to, to Hurtsville. So they RIP a fucking, they RIP one out of the ground and they start beating down the door. And according to one of the participants, it was just this emotional adrenaline craze moment, completely irrational. There was a mob spirit.
God knows I would never have kicked a policeman, he says, if he was alone. But they were finally fighting back. And it was exhilarating. So you know how you been alone by himself, probably he's not going out and, you know, doing this. But because the moment like, gin them up to get to that place, like they're, they're, they're finally fighting back. And riot police finally arrive to rescue their colleagues. But the violence went on before it subsided.
At least one police officer was treated in hospital for a head wound, and 13 demonstrators were arrested. That battle was over. But some of those present knew nothing would be the same again the following night, a larger crowd showed up, helped partly, perhaps by, you know, a message that was written in chalk on the sidewalk the night before. And it said Stonewall. And so that be kind of, kind of became a rallying cry for those who were in the neighborhood.
I believe it's in Greenwich Village if I think that's where it's at. But it was more violent the next night. It was much more violent and the police took a much more muscular approach using tear gas. And you know, again, the night before they were lighting trash cans on fire. They were doing the exact same thing the following night. The protesters or, or the rioters. But the, this uprising wasn't just a one or night two night thing. It continued for another 4 nights.
So it's not like it was just a one day, one night like kind of situation. This was four nights of rioting and I never heard about it in my history classes. It's. Like a like a music festival that just kept going. Except it wasn't a music festival at all. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you know, getting back to our earlier conversation about like, what you didn't learn in high school, like this is like, this is a this is something that you would see being played out in the in in city streets of America today for violating our civil rights. And you're living it. You're going oh, my God. Yeah.
Like, you know, fight the power. But like I I can only imagine if I'd known about this as a kid, like how much more understanding what I have been to to the gay calls and into the gay civil rights movement as a child. Well, we'll find out because if you recall, just about two weeks ago we had a national day of no King's protests and roughly somewhere between 9 and 13 million, all of which I've heard quoted.
People turned out across the country in various demonstrations to protest our civil rights. So I guess we'll see what happens in the curriculum in about. Yeah, yeah, in. About 40, forty, 5060 years from now. Well, hopefully we're still around. I'd be interested to see what happens in 10. Yeah, I mean, even in five. Yeah, but the question on many minds of those who were there that night were what comes next,
right. Like what I think one of the things that you were just talking about with the new kings thing is like, all right, yeah, we we were able to mobilize as as a country, but what what happens next? Like we took some action, but like what's the on the ground thing that's going to happen to actually force the chain? What's the forcing mechanism here, right? And a lot of people who were at Stonewall the night had the
exact same question. And you know, I want to kind of, I'm going to skip over a lot here because I, we, I want to bring us forward to today because I think today's discussion reflects this moment quite a bit. But in the time between Stonewall and today, the community has seen protections put in place, frankly, right? Like there has been progress made there right for the LGBT community. Not an exceptional amount, but
like steps. Well, I mean, just two days ago we hit the anniversary of 10 years since Barack Obama had it signed, you know, into and the. Supreme Court backed it up and on the. Court backed marriage equality across the country, and we're currently, just a decade later, seeing those protections dismantling under threat. Yeah. And you know, there are people who would say, well, hey, look, not enough was done between Stonewall and today. And I don't think that they're
wrong. But you know those gains are under threat, as you mentioned even. Just the normalization of Pride Month and the and the demonstrations of of Pride celebrations across the country is is an enormous leap compared to where we were 60 some years ago. Oh, for sure, for sure. And I think that visibility matters. And I think that that is something that you see in media especially, right like. And so I think that there are, there had been just like there had been, right?
There's been positive movement on the black civil rights movement and where we are from the 1960s to today. Like it's very different world for Black folks in the country, but in so many ways it's also not. And I feel like that's also the way for the women's rights movement. I feel like that's the way it is for the LGBTQ community. Like there have been steps and for every one step there's the two steps back kind of
situation. Turns out woke is synonymous with progress, and it is one of the greater threats to our society because there's just so many people still disappointedly so, that are afraid of of things that they don't understand or that they can't relate to, which is madding to know that like it, we're 60, nearly 60 years removed from this, but we are almost in a in a worse place now.
Well, yeah, because of the Supreme Court this month alone ruled that Tennessee ban on gender affirming care for minors is constitutional. And you know, which is surely going to be seen as the president as, you know, precedent rather for making more, you know, for ruling in the favor of, you know, more conservative views on sexuality all across our country, but especially coming out the red parts of it. You know, hate crimes are still being carried out against the gay community.
And I'm thinking back to the Pulse nightclub shooting, where a murderer shot and killed 38 people and injured 58 others, which amounts to being one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history. Was that in Colorado? That was the one in. Orlando. Orlando. Sorry. Well, the Colorado Springs shooting was another. Yeah, that was at a gay club as well. Yeah, and it's. Like in a very like small town,
relatively speaking. Like we visited there about 6 years ago and I think that that happened after our visit. It's a very conservative town too, because of the military presence. It's there. Yeah. You know, it. It really does disappoint you to think about it in the in that way of yes, there have been gains made in the community for equality, or at least on paper, but they still live under threat on a daily basis for just being who they are.
It's wild to think about the impact on the healthcare community because you would think that that would be one of the most protected spaces to keep things like this safe for
people. Like people need a place to come to not only impact the issues that are related to being a part of this marginalized group, but also work through their identity stuff, you know, and also receive just and fair healthcare and treatment and gender affirming care and all of the things that are just basic human rights and protections.
And that's, I think the hardest thing to wrap my brain around has been the impact on the healthcare community and how that could continue to dismantle as well, which is a really terrifying thought. Incredibly terrifying. And that brings us to today. The Trump administration is doing a bang up job of not protecting A statistically higher risk group of people for suicide, young LGBT kids.
Next month, the Trump administration will end specialized support for the 988 National Suicide Prevention Hotline for young queer children, a group that has disproportionately higher rates of suicide than any other group with the exception of Native Americans in our country. The administration said the hotline will no longer silo LGB. They purposely left out the T&Q in their statement focusing on serving all seek helper seeking to help all callers versus just
LGBTQ kids. So what I want to support and supplement by saying is that I've spent a lot of time researching the efforts of 988 and the impact that it's had since the hotline went live in 2022. We're coming up on three years and each year they do a survey of how they have been doing, what their impact has been, how people are utilizing the service, how often people are calling in. And there was a surplus of calls that flooded that use LGBTQIA plus portion of of the helpline.
The reality is, is that what probably happened is that call centers were cut and staffing were cut just like everywhere else where we've seen cuts. Because what the Biden Harris administration did was pour a fuck ton of money. I don't know the exact figure off the top of my head, but something to the tune of like $2.5 billion into the 988 call centers and the funding for that, which made it more robust and and more readily available for not just suicidal ideation,
but other mental health crises. And just you need to talk to somebody 24/7. You can dial 911 for your mental health 988. The numbers are next next to each other on the phone and you can reach somebody who's available to talk to you right now. Right. And that's interesting that you bring that up because the PBS report that I was reading about
it actually backs up that. And I'm going to give you a little bit more numbers to it, but is exactly what you were saying here, here, quote, since the line launched, including in that pilot phase, there have been over 1.3 million contacts to the service. And that includes phone calls, chats and texts. There are two reasons the administration is saying that the line is being cut. The 1st is that 988 overall can, quote, handle the calls that LGBTQ service would have received.
And the second is that the administration is saying that the service is fostering gender ideology beliefs young among young people and trying to convince young people of gender ideologies. There it is. And that is patently not what's happening here. When somebody calls that line, they're calling the line because they're in crisis and the line is helping to resolve that
moment for that individual. I guarantee that any of the individuals that are making the decisions to make these cuts have never in their life and will never in their life have the experience of talking to someone who's on the brink of
taking their lives. And until you have that experience, until you are trained in what to say and what to do and the importance of what you say and do that is so critical that it can literally save a life, then you can fuck right off because you don't know what you're talking about. And these marginalized groups cannot afford to lose any further benefits, services or care than what they are
currently receiving. Yeah, no, I agree with you 100% because again, it is one of the highest risk groups in our
country. On multiple levels, like if you want to further like slice and dice the communities, I'm sure within the communities that you're going to find even more at risk age groups, you know, particular like classifications, you know, like it's so specific, but I just, I can't not mention the vulnerability of the trans community and the and the safety threats currently like posed to that specific community.
But when you think about trans youth, you are literally talking about the most vulnerable people out there. And I've got 2 clips of of Trump and I would like to transport you back to 2016 when Trump was only less slightly fat. Decline. I don't wish to. You have a Twitter question? Yeah, we're getting thousands of questions on Twitter, Mr. Trump. I picked 1 here. This is from Jessica Hershey, Toms River, NJ I'll just read it as a quote on a hot button issue here.
Mr. Trump, please be specific. Tell us your views on LGBT, how you plan to be inclusive as president. Speak about North Carolina bathroom law in particular. Oh, I had a feeling that question was going to come up. I will tell you. Well, look, North Carolina did something was very strong, and they're paying a big price and there's a lot of problems. And I heard one of the best answers I heard was from a commentator yesterday saying leave it the way it is right now.
There have been not very few problems. Leave it the way it is. North Carolina, they're going through with all of the business that's leaving and all of the strife and, and that's on both sides. You leave it the way it is. There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little
trouble. And the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the the economic, I mean the economic punishment that they're taking. So I. Would say that's proper people working in your organization. I don't know. I really don't know. I probably do. I really don't. So. So if Caitlyn Jenner were to walk into Trump Tower and want to use the bathroom, you would be fine with her using any bathroom she chooses. That is correct.
So that is a pretty interesting reply from The Donald, as they call him. Damn tits. And I really enjoy that, that you're calling him that. And so I want to read a clip, not a clip. I want to read an article, piece of an article from the AP. And it it says this. Inside the White House, there's little second guessing about what the president's stances
are. Trump AIDS have pointed out their decision to seize on culture war surrounding transgender rights during the 2024 campaign as a key to their win. They poured money into ads aimed at young men, especially young Hispanic men, attacking Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for supporting taxpayer funded sex changes for prisoners, including one spot that aired on the during football games. He said in the ad. Kamala is for they them. President Trump is for you.
After the 2016 video that we just watched of him saying that he would have no problem with transgender people using their bathrooms, it's either he's had one fucking ridiculous 180 or he was lying the entire time. Well, he lies about everything, so that's really not super hard to believe. But we know we know one thing about him, right? It's the base of a lot of arguments around who is more
dangerous. And what we know about him is that he's like, he's like a, like a cattail blowing in the wind, Like he's, he's spineless. He goes where the money is. He goes where the support is. He goes where the cause is. That's going to be the most extreme. That's going to cause the most chaos. So of course he's going to sway his views on abortion, on transgender bathrooms and which ones they can use and can't use.
He's going to hop on the train of like, you know, thank God we got all those trans kids out of out of sports that they don't belong in, you know, but you know, is he's really quiet on like some other real big issues that actually the American people care about. Yeah, I agree with that.
And, you know, earlier this year when he, after he was inaugurated, he, I don't know if you're like the remember the flurry of executive orders that he was putting out about, you know, especially transgender youth especially. It happened on like day one. Transgender soldiers, if you recall. Oh yeah. When listening to this clip, just think back to the 1920s and the 1950s when they were purging the government of transgender people. It'll be historic.
Hey, Peter, going back to when you were talking about how Donald Trump revoked the Biden policy allowing trans people to serve in the armed forces, the number of trans people in the Armed Services right now, I know there was an NIH study or estimate done like five years ago at 8000. Who knows how many there are, there are today. What are what's going to happen to those people? It sounds like once Pete Hegseth comes up with the new policy,
they are going to be discharged. And it's not essentially what the argument is in the fact sheet that we were given about that executive order. President Trump does not think the transgender people are physically or mentally stable enough to serve in the armed forces. And they specifically cite readiness with transition surgeries. If you have a transition surgery, the recovery time and the narcotics that you have to be on as part of the process could affect your readiness for
up to 12 months. They. I would like to go back to the 1950s when we were. Just I would not actually. Discussing this decline just a little bit ago, when the argument was mentally stable, they're they're not. It was classified as a mental illness. Right. But I guess what I mean to say is like. And sexual predator predatory behavior. Sex perverts in the government. Right.
So again, back to the 1950s article, the article about the report that came out from the Senate about the employment of homosexuals and other sex perverts in the government. And they are not able to, they, they don't, they lack the emotional stability of normal persons. And I wanted to return back to that because again, they discharged from the military five, 44,380 men and women, gay
men and women. And we are doing a great job of going back to those, those moments in our, in our, in our history that your parents and my parents were around for. And we're saying, you know what, that feels like a lot better of a time when people are being, you know, when we were shrinking the size of our military to make it less effective, that there's not been any study that's ever come out that I, that I know of
at least that is reputable. That would indicate that trans people being in the military has a negative effect on morale and the effectiveness of the killing force. I just, if we're just thinking about this like through like just the, like the pure logistics of it, it makes no sense. If we're thinking about it like through the human part of it, it's fucking brutal. It's brutal to do that to people who want to serve their nation. They're they're not there to make a political stance.
They're there to do the thing that they feel called to do, which is to protect the land that we all live in. You know, that's supposed to be the land of the free and home of the brave. Except if you're the wrong sex, the wrong you know. A part of the rainbow that they don't like it's. The biggest scamming cult out there. It's horrible, It's horrible. They promise you the world if you just sign this piece of paper and give your life over in service and you're the ultimate
servant. And when they can slice and dice among the servants, you know, like. It's giving 1950s for me. That's all I can say. Yeah. So there's been a clear shift in Trump's position in his stance, or at least to what he verbalized in 2016. And the likes of Musk, Vance and other anti-gay and anti trans personnel in his cabinet have helped to pull him and the Republican policies even further to the right. And those attitudes are reflected in recent polling data from Gallup.
Actually, I looked this up Monday of this week. So this is very, very recent Republican support for gay marriage has coincided with Trump's seeming reversal on his support for LGBTQ folks, with only 41% of of Republicans in America in support of gay marriage. And again, what is it you said? This is the 10 year anniversary.
And while 88% of Democrats and 68% of overall adults support gay marriage in the country, that data set, while incomplete, shed some light on what's happening in our country. The GOP is devolving. It's falling behind the rest of America when it comes to gay and lesbian marriages. And I think that that is more of an indication of where we are in this country on just about every single issue.
If we were to look at Stonewall, you know, Mr. Gerber, that we talked about the 1950s and 1960s purges of, of gay and homosexual people from our military, from civil services, the way that they have categorized historically categorized gay and lesbian people as being mentally ill and have done their very best to ostracize them from our society. We're the Republican Party, it seems at least, is doing its very best to take us back to that period of time.
And I it really frustrates me. The hard part is like, it's like a which hard period of time because there have been several and the most recently you know being like around 1969. And after that, we found a little bit of reprieve and a little bit of, you know, the sexual freedom era of, you know, what followed, I guess that, you know, began in the 60s, but, you know. The free love movement or
whatever it was, Yeah, sure. Well, then we had the the emergence of, you know, the AIDS epidemic in the 80s and that was also a really tough time for this community. So it's just, it's cyclical, but it is also very much consistent theme is people in charge and the people making policies. Because when you strip protections like the impact that stripping, you know, like funding from Planned Parenthood
will have on the greater good. This is like the common misconception is that Planned Parenthood is just funding abortions, but the reality is, is that it's providing life saving care screenings, you know, like routine annual checkups to people who otherwise would not be able to afford those appointments and, and that care. And, you know, without that funding like that, that has significant impact on women in general. And so it it don't think that it's just going towards, you
know, funding abortions. But Speaking of this pro-life party, you know, like let lest we mention all of the different groups of people that are dying right now, you know, like pick your struggle because there are so many and. If you're pro-life then you need to be pro-life, not just pro-life. That you, I think is the right
life to be pro. For the right life and and it as it relates to today and this the historical significance of today, you know, to defund the LGBTQ portion of the 988 crisis lifeline is is abhorrent. You know, it's it's a piss poor choice to strip funding away from a desperately needed service because that's not very pro-life of you and that's shame on you. Shame on this party.
That and for anyone out there who is just living life as though this doesn't impact them, like your day is coming is is all. You know, I don't, I don't mean to sound all doom and gloom, and I'm gonna, I don't.
Think it's a threat as much as it is like a, like I was listening to a, a, a podcast or the political commentary earlier and they were just saying like, if you don't think that due process, if you think that due process for one person doesn't matter, then it eventually doesn't matter for anybody. And if you don't, if they don't have rights, then you don't either, because eventually it is you.
We're watching it happen group to group and and day by day like we lose, we lose a little more each day. And that's that's if you're not paying attention, then you're missing it. And that's unfortunate, but open your eyes. It's happening. I'll give the final thoughts and we'll wrap up the show here. My final thoughts are this. This is the kind of history that Republicans want to get rid of. It really is.
They want to get rid of the history that shows you just how brutal our government can be to people it does not think are valuable. They consider it to be woke to know the history of abuse of human beings that they don't like. And we on this show stand firmly with the community, the LGBTQ community, our brothers and sisters, especially during private all year round. Really, right. The struggle for equality will
continue. And it's it the what did Doctor King say that the the arc towards justice is long, but eventually it gets there. I'm going to link. I'm going to provide a link to the Trevor Project in case you or anyone that you know is in crisis with 988 being stripped of its funding and it's, you know, the, the avenues for people to, to connect. We need to find different spaces. The Trevor Project is 100%
confidential and 100% free. So go to thetrevorproject.org/gethelp if you know anybody who might or if yourself might be able to use it. Judy, do you have any final thoughts? Well, I want to piggyback and just continue to encourage people to use 988 regardless of who answers the phone and what
part of the lifeline you get. Because if we are told that, you know, we're removing less specific protections and you know, funnels through this lifeline, then there better still be people who answer the phone. So in, in my opinion, unless they're shutting the whole hotline down, which they are not, then we continue to call and use it. Same with your local libraries. Same with any important government funded or government backed service that that we desperately, desperately need.
Public television, public radio, independent news sources. Again, local libraries cannot stress enough, it's summer. Summer reading. Go get your personal pan pizza. Read your books. I've read some excellent books this summer and I am on a I'm on a hot streak. Was it the Scholastic book? Whatever it was, was the. School. That's a book fair. That's a book fair, Greg. Oh. Man, I used to get so many good calendars and things. Don't interrupt anyway. Sorry, don't interrupt.
My bad. Didn't you do the the book it like I don't know? All right, well, all right, if you don't know what I'm talking about in terms of personal pan pizzas and book reading, educate yourself, but. Listeners, we want to thank you for enjoying another episode about the extremes. Do subscribe and share, it goes a long way. Reach out to us on Blue Sky at the Trees Pod, Check the show notes, Happy pride and until next week. Educate yourself.