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lived it.

1:01

Pat Collins, Author, The Voice of the People

1:11

Good morning, I'm Pat Collins, and I

1:13

have an important question for you this morning. If

1:15

your child broke his arm and came to

1:17

in pain, obviously you'd care for

1:20

him and take care of him. And even

1:22

if he committed murder, I guess you'd

1:24

say, well, he's still my child no matter

1:27

what. But suppose your child came to you and

1:29

said, Mother, Dad, I am

1:31

homosexual. What would you do then? Today

1:35

more and more parents are having to face

1:37

this question. There are

1:39

parents of homosexuals who have

1:41

literally written their children

1:43

off as dead. And that is the idea

1:45

behind this poster put out by one

1:48

of the gay liberation associations. And

1:50

it says, Your Child is Not Dead,

1:53

Only Gay.

1:56

to

2:00

talk about gay kids. We weren't

2:02

supposed to exist. If gay adults

2:04

had no rights, gay kids had fewer,

2:07

and there was zero support for the families

2:09

of gay kids.

2:12

But the power of love is a

2:14

force to be reckoned with, and the quiet,

2:17

intense bravery of one mother's

2:19

love set in motion a domino effect

2:21

that continues to empower hundreds of thousands

2:24

of people through PFLAG, an organization

2:26

for LGBTQ plus people and those

2:28

who love them.

2:31

This is the story of the triumph of

2:33

love over hatred, the power

2:35

of community, and the story of

2:37

mom and pop revolutionaries.

2:41

I'm Eric Marcus. This is Coming of Age

2:43

During the 1970s, a production

2:45

of Making Gay History, Chapter 3,

2:48

Family Ties.

2:53

Interview with Gene Manford and Morty

2:55

Manford on Saturday, May 13, 1989. Interviewer

2:58

is Eric Marcus. Location is the Manford

3:00

home in Queens, New York. Tape

3:03

one, side one.

3:06

In a historical perspective, the

3:09

parents' organization began at a

3:12

time when police were still

3:14

reading bars where gays

3:16

were. Gays had no job protection

3:19

in any city in this country

3:22

whatsoever, where

3:24

there was still the stigma of being

3:27

gay.

3:28

The churches said we were sinners and

3:30

psychiatrists said we were sick. Capitalists

3:34

said we were subversive and

3:36

communists said we were immoral.

3:39

And many gays also accepted

3:43

those prejudices if

3:47

only tacitly. There was no

3:49

pro-gay propaganda. The

3:52

support wasn't out there,

3:54

at least today when people are facing

3:57

problems. They have...

4:00

an alternative voice to turn to.

4:03

In the early 70s, those

4:06

voices were very few and far between,

4:08

and that's why the parents' organization

4:11

was so important, because one

4:13

of the first voices.

4:15

We had to reach our own, and

4:18

I then reached the world. Morty

4:22

Manford was my favorite kind of

4:24

troublemaker. He was an early

4:26

member of the Gay Activist Alliance. In fact,

4:28

when I interviewed him in 1989, we were accompanied

4:31

by his dog, a sweet pooch named

4:33

Zap. Morty's activism,

4:36

right down to naming his dog, sprang

4:38

from a pride in his identity and his certainty

4:41

of the urgent need for equal rights. But

4:44

the road to that pride and certainty didn't

4:46

come without a struggle.

4:48

If Morty was my favorite kind of troublemaker,

4:51

his mother, Jean, was exactly the

4:53

kind of ally such a troublemaker needs, albeit

4:56

softly spoken. Speaker. I

4:58

think I'm actually getting it, because I have to balance her way

5:00

up. It's a

5:01

classical machine. It

5:04

picks up almost anything. Tell

5:08

me when you first became aware that Morty

5:11

was gay. Well,

5:17

he hadn't told me, but he did come

5:19

to me, I think at how old, to around 15,

5:21

and asked if you could go for

5:23

some help through a psychologist.

5:27

And I couldn't believe it, because Morty

5:30

was always a leader. He always had a lot of friends.

5:32

He had parties here. He was president

5:35

of the General Organization in his junior

5:37

high, and his

5:38

teacher had said, oh, send him to the best colleges.

5:41

He's going to be a senator someday. And

5:43

when he said he needed help, both my

5:45

husband and I said, you think so? Sure.

5:47

We didn't know why.

5:48

And

5:51

eventually, for some reason,

5:53

we did go to see the doctor, and he

5:55

told us without Morty's permission.

5:59

Certainly was. The

6:03

psychiatrist

6:06

I was seeing invited

6:09

my parents in for a meeting. He didn't tell

6:11

me what he was going to do and he

6:14

presented them with the fact

6:17

that I was gay. At this

6:19

time I was just

6:22

starting to come out of the closet

6:24

to myself and it was a period

6:27

of great turmoil and inner struggle

6:30

and it was a very upsetting

6:33

experience for me for

6:35

him to have done

6:37

this. I

6:40

was there. Oh, we did it in my presence.

6:46

I had to take a moment to pick my

6:48

jaw up off the floor. A

6:50

trusted professional outing a vulnerable

6:53

teenager without consent.

6:55

Can you imagine the potential harms and danger

6:57

he could be putting that kid in? In

7:00

the mid to late 1960s, Morty could have

7:02

been faced with criminalization, conversion

7:05

therapy, or treatments for his so-called

7:07

disease like electric shock aversion

7:09

therapy, chemical castration,

7:11

electroconvulsive therapy, even lobotomy.

7:15

Simply horrifying.

7:18

And it wasn't the first time Morty's family had felt

7:20

horribly let down by a psychiatrist. Morty

7:23

had an older brother, Charles, who had killed

7:25

himself in 1966, aged

7:28

just 21. Charles

7:30

had been under the care of a psychiatrist, but

7:32

just before he died, he reached out for

7:35

help and was told he had to wait a week for an appointment.

7:39

He didn't make it. We

7:41

can't know if it was because she had already lost

7:44

one son or because she just thought

7:46

the world of her possible future senator

7:48

son Morty. But Jean

7:50

Manford accepted the news of Morty's homosexuality

7:53

delivered without thought or care by a psychiatrist

7:57

with love.

8:00

My mother's initial

8:03

reaction was, I only

8:06

want you to be happy and whatever makes you

8:08

happy is fine. Yeah, it's

8:11

different than you were yesterday. I didn't look

8:13

at him in any different light. I didn't understand.

8:15

I was very naive anyway.

8:17

I didn't understand society's condemnation

8:20

and took people at face

8:23

value.

8:24

My father, on the other

8:26

hand, he had a lot of thinking

8:29

to do about it. He

8:31

didn't say anything critical, but he

8:34

just decided apparently

8:37

he had to think

8:39

about it. And I think he harbored

8:43

a hope

8:44

that things would

8:46

change. You've

8:49

got to remember was in

8:51

another era that this was

8:55

the fall of 1968. And

8:59

we'll get to it later, but as you

9:02

probably suspect, there was quite an evolution

9:04

in both my mother's and my father's

9:07

thinking and my

9:09

own. There

9:11

was quite an evolution in Morty's thinking.

9:14

From the uncertain, confused, depressed teenager

9:17

of the late 1960s, Morty went through the radicalizing

9:20

spin cycle of the Stonewall uprising and

9:23

came out an activist.

9:24

In early 1970,

9:28

I

9:34

became very involved in the

9:36

Gay Activists Alliance. I

9:39

had begun to get involved in the

9:41

militant sense of participating

9:44

in sit-ins and picket lines

9:46

and getting arrested. And

9:50

over a short period of time,

9:52

I was bringing

9:55

friends home. We

9:57

would sit down and we would talk with my parents.

9:59

Do you remember any

10:02

stories from that time when Roy's

10:04

friends came home? No, I liked them.

10:07

They were friendly and talked and

10:10

wasn't. But I don't remember.

10:15

Well, I have an anecdote. One

10:18

evening a friend, Lou Todd, who

10:20

lived not far away, came over

10:23

and we were going out that evening to

10:25

the Continental Bands.

10:28

This was around 1971. It was a different

10:30

era. Did

10:33

you know the Continental Bands were then? No,

10:36

I don't know that I've ever heard. I'm

10:39

likely not surprising anyone here, but

10:41

in addition to never having been to the meat rack,

10:44

I never went to the Continental Bands either.

10:47

But it was a legendary venue in the

10:49

1970s. Legendary,

10:51

because it was one of the most popular bathhouses in

10:53

New York City, when bathhouses were a key

10:55

gathering place for gay men in search of

10:57

companionship and sex. Legendary,

11:00

in part because Bette Midler and her accompanist Barry

11:02

Manilow, got their start there performing

11:04

before men who were wearing nothing but towels.

11:07

This is my 800th farewell appearance

11:09

here in Continental Bands. I swear

11:11

to you, I'm getting you like a jack in the box. Listen,

11:14

I didn't expect to be back here. I really didn't.

11:16

They had me booked

11:18

as Fire Island Cherry Grove. I

11:21

was supposed to work at Cherry Grove. You see, I was supposed

11:23

to sing, but they couldn't find

11:25

room for me in the bushes. My

11:29

parents were both sitting here at the table speaking

11:31

with Lou, and it was the winter

11:33

time. I came downstairs.

11:36

I was all bundled up in a

11:38

heavy coat, and Lou

11:40

looks up at me and says in front

11:43

of my parents, you know, what do you have so

11:45

much clothes on for? As soon as we

11:47

get there, you're going to have to take them all off.

11:50

Now, as open in the

11:53

discussions had become at that point,

11:55

I had never really broached such subjects

11:58

with my parents.

11:59

And they looked and wonder

12:02

where are you going? Yes

12:10

They

12:10

asked what you realized where he was going well, I

12:13

probably didn't probably went way over

12:15

my head

12:30

I Careful

12:38

about worries involved in activism about being

12:40

arrested I was as a matter

12:42

of fact. I remember one night I got it

12:47

Just I was arrested and I think

12:50

my I was something about why don't

12:52

you come back to criminals? I don't

12:54

remember the exact words

12:57

That was apparently what you said

13:01

How did you find out what I was in the

13:03

police station and the Officer

13:06

made the phone call and I remember

13:09

he went out of his way to say your

13:11

son's been arrested and you know he's homosexual

13:15

and Apparently my mother

13:17

said yes, I know and why are you bothering

13:19

him? Why don't you go after criminals and stop

13:22

harassing the gays? I

13:24

couldn't hear what she was saying but

13:27

I remember the officer scratching his head after

13:29

he put down the phone and You know,

13:31

he had just been zapped

13:37

At that occurrence

13:39

there was a cruising

13:41

area in the village and a

13:44

lot of gay people were Along

13:46

I think was Washington Street and

13:49

I was just standing there talking

13:51

with some friends And there were other

13:54

people who were nearby in the

13:56

back of these trucks doing

13:59

whatever people

13:59

used to do in those days in the back of trucks.

14:03

Whatever people did in the back of trucks

14:05

back then was also legendary.

14:08

There used to be an elevated highway that ran

14:10

down Manhattan's west side along the Hudson River.

14:13

Big empty cargo trucks would park overnight

14:15

under the highway adjacent to Greenwich Village and the

14:17

meatpacking district. At times,

14:20

there were hundreds of bodies doing whatever people

14:22

used to do in the back of trucks

14:24

in the dark. And when

14:26

the police came over, they started

14:28

chasing everybody, including those

14:31

of us who were just standing around talking.

14:34

And I protested. I

14:37

said, we're not doing

14:39

anything wrong. And they

14:42

reacted by

14:45

grabbing us and arresting us

14:47

for no apparent reason. That's

14:50

when you got the phone call. You believed what

14:52

Morty was doing was right. I believed he

14:54

had a right to do what he was doing. I didn't

14:56

think he did anything illegal or

14:58

unlawful. I didn't think

15:00

he was being harassed. Morty

15:02

believed he had a right to do what he was doing, too.

15:05

He refused to accept the status quo of casual

15:08

harassment and anti-gay violence perpetrated

15:10

by the police. He refused to accept

15:12

that being gay meant he was less

15:14

than. And he continued to protest.

15:18

Fast forward to April 1972, and a night

15:20

of skits and politics at

15:24

New York City's Inner Circle dinner at

15:26

the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

15:29

The Inner Circle is an annual shindig.

15:32

City Hall reporters put on a show for

15:34

an audience of the great and the good of

15:36

New York City's civic life. And

15:39

this time, Morty was there with other members

15:41

of the Gay Activist Alliance handing out leaflets.

15:44

They were protesting the New York media and

15:46

the city government's bias against gay people.

15:49

Specifically, they were protesting an

15:51

editorial that had run on the daily news a week

15:53

or so before about the US Supreme

15:56

Court's decision not to hear an employment

15:58

discrimination case concerning two

16:00

men who had applied for and been denied

16:02

a marriage license in Minnesota.

16:06

The New York Daily News editorial

16:08

was titled, quote,

16:12

Any Old Jobs for Homeowners.

16:15

And the lead-off sentence

16:18

was, quote, Fags,

16:21

Fairies, Nances, Swishes,

16:24

Call in, Posture for EM, What

16:27

You Please. By today's

16:29

standards, that's pretty outrageous stuff.

16:32

Was that as outrageous then as it would

16:34

be now? Certainly to us

16:36

it was outrageous. So we

16:39

went to this dinner armed with leaflets

16:42

and proceeded to distribute the

16:44

leaflets to people in attendance,

16:47

many of whom were good people who were very supportive.

16:50

There were a number of thugs in attendance

16:53

who were guests of the dinner

16:56

that proceeded to physically attack

16:59

the demonstrators. And

17:01

a number of us ended up hospitalized

17:04

and I was one of them. What happened

17:06

to you? Well, I was beaten up, punched

17:08

and kicked and no broken bones,

17:11

no internal injuries, but a bad

17:13

beating. I had a call

17:15

from the hospital and then I sat

17:17

down and wrote a letter to the New York Post.

17:20

I said

17:20

my son was gay and that the police stood by

17:23

and watched the young gays

17:25

being beaten up and did nothing

17:28

and it was printed.

17:31

What right did they got to assault? My

17:34

son and others. Why didn't the police

17:36

protect them? I guess

17:38

it was the first time the mother ever sat down and

17:40

said yes I have a homosexual child. I

17:43

didn't think anything of it. And

17:45

then Morty called me up and said you can't believe,

17:48

you know, everybody's talking about

17:50

your... Did you have any annotations

17:52

about writing this letter? No, I didn't. No, it's

17:54

furious. A

18:00

couple of months later, in the summer of 1972, Gene

18:04

was on the march, literally.

18:06

I said to him, I will march if you let me carry

18:09

a sign. Parents of

18:11

gays unite in support for

18:13

our children. On

18:18

Sunday, June 25, 1972, Gene

18:21

Manford stepped off with Morty in the

18:24

third annual Christopher Street Liberation

18:26

Day march.

18:27

As we walked along, people on the

18:29

sidewalk screamed. They yelled, they

18:31

ran over and kissed me. Would

18:33

you talk to my mother? Wow,

18:36

my mother saw me in a ear, you

18:38

know, and they just couldn't believe

18:40

that a parent would do that.

18:42

Were you with your mother during the march? Oh, yes.

18:44

We marched shoulder by shoulder there.

18:48

Nobody got the loud,

18:51

emotional cheers that

18:53

she did. The outpouring of emotion

18:56

from our own community was overwhelming.

18:59

We learned that they were

19:01

fearful of telling parents, most of them wouldn't

19:03

tell, and many had been

19:06

rejected because the parents

19:08

knew. And I

19:11

guess they just didn't feel that any parent

19:13

could be supportive of a very gay child.

19:17

Being estranged from

19:20

your parents is a

19:22

very traumatic thing. Being

19:24

forced to closet your

19:27

lifestyle from them is

19:29

a very devastating thing.

19:31

The symbolic presence

19:34

that my mother provided was

19:36

a sign of great hope

19:39

that parents can be

19:41

supportive. As Morty and

19:43

I walked along during that first march, so

19:46

many people said, talk to my parents, and there were

19:48

little phone calls. All day long, that phone

19:50

was ringing. So that's

19:52

when we decided during the march that it might

19:54

be a good idea to start something, some

19:56

kind of an organization. Yes, that's really

19:59

where it began.

19:59

An organization for parents.

20:02

To talk to each other, to know that you're not

20:04

the only one. Because each person thinks,

20:06

oh, I'm the only one who has a child

20:08

who is homosexual and nobody

20:10

was willing to let anyone else know about

20:13

it.

20:13

And an organization which would be supportive

20:15

of the struggle for gay

20:18

liberation. And actually,

20:20

the parents' group was a bridge between

20:22

the gay community and the straight

20:25

community. We will fight

20:27

for the rights of our children. We will be

20:29

political. We will make her have a national

20:31

organization. I remember thinking of that at

20:34

the very beginning.

20:36

And so it was.

20:37

The very beginning of what would become PFLAG.

20:40

In March 1973, a year after

20:43

Morty's assault and Jean's letter to the New York

20:45

Post, Morty and Jules and

20:47

Jean Manford organized the very first meeting

20:49

of POG, Parents of Gays.

20:51

It was held at the church of the village, a stone's

20:54

throw from Christopher Street, in the Stonewall

20:56

Inn. Morty had placed an ad

20:58

in the village voice and recruited Barbara

21:00

Love, a well-known lesbian writer, to

21:03

help organize and publicize the new group.

21:05

I think there must have been about 18, 20 people. In

21:08

those days, we were very sensitive to

21:11

the need for men and women

21:13

to be working together.

21:17

And it was very important that Barbara was

21:19

one of the organizers. She was

21:22

able to reach out to the lesbian community.

21:25

As I reached out to the gay male

21:27

community in an effort to publicize

21:29

this and ask everybody to let their

21:31

parents know, we've

21:33

got a place for you to come.

21:35

If you build it,

21:36

they will come. The Manfords

21:39

were amassing accomplices. And one of

21:41

Jean's closest allies was Sarah Montgomery.

21:43

Sarah called me. We started at the

21:46

end of March, and she called me back September

21:48

and told me the story of her son, who

21:50

was in California. And because

21:52

it was discovered that he was gay

21:54

and it lost his job,

21:55

he and his lover committed suicide. Oh,

21:58

God. You didn't know that story. Until

22:01

Jean told me I didn't know that story.

22:05

Here's Sarah in 1974 on the Pat Collins Show, the

22:08

one we played at the top about don't

22:11

worry if your kid's gay, at least they're not a murderer. Sarah

22:14

is dressed in a sensible navy blue dress, a rectangular

22:16

gold brooch at her neck, cat's eye librarian glasses,

22:20

and dangling old-fashioned

22:22

antique earrings. In Jean and Morty's

22:24

words... She's very diminutive

22:26

in size. She looks like anybody's grandmother.

22:28

Like New England...

22:31

Grandmother. Sarah

22:34

is 75 years old, although we've been

22:36

telling her all morning she doesn't look it. And

22:39

in the late 60s, she discovered

22:42

that her son Charles was a homosexual. It

22:44

was in 1972, at the age of 46, that

22:48

Charles and his male lover killed

22:50

themselves in the garage of their

22:52

home. A tragic and

22:55

awful story, as I'm sure you can imagine it was, for

22:58

Sarah, those close to you. I

23:00

know that it's not easy to talk about this, Sarah, but

23:03

looking

23:03

back, and it's been a couple of years, you've been able

23:05

to think about it. Do you know why

23:08

Charles killed himself? Yes, I

23:10

feel that it was life itself

23:12

that killed those two men, because

23:15

they had lived all their lives in the closet.

23:19

And when they finally came

23:21

out, they brought a house together. When

23:24

they brought that house together, John,

23:27

who had always been in the closet, it

23:30

was known then that they were homosexual. Charles

23:32

had come out quite a few years before.

23:35

And John was demoted

23:38

from a job that he had held for 15 years back

23:40

to what he had been doing 15

23:42

years before. My

23:44

son's job was threatened every

23:46

day. And at 46 and 48, they

23:50

just couldn't face any more

23:53

of what they had been taking all their lives. The

23:56

first thing a parent has to know is their child

23:59

faces a very...

23:59

hostile world and

24:02

that they need them more than ever.

24:04

Don't go away. Not less. Don't

24:07

go away. We're right back.

24:09

She was very much loved

24:11

in the gay communities. Of course she upset

24:14

some people because of the story, but

24:16

the gay people really loved her. Her

24:18

loss was so propelled.

24:20

But she turned it into a

24:22

great commitment of love and

24:25

dedication.

24:27

Both Sarah Montgomery and Jean Manford put

24:29

that commitment of love and dedication into

24:31

action with a quiet determination, a kind of stealthy

24:34

radicalism. While Jean insisted

24:36

she herself was very shy, Sarah

24:39

had been a long-standing troublemaker. Sarah

24:42

was marching for

24:45

black civil rights in the 1920s. In the 1930s she

24:47

was a premature anti-fascist.

24:53

In the 1940s she was demonstrating

24:56

against the Dies Committee,

24:59

which was the predecessor of the House

25:01

on American Activities Committee. In fact,

25:04

they subpoenaed her to testify before

25:07

it because of her involvement in the Communist Party. She

25:10

refused. She was something of a cause celebra

25:13

back then. She would tell

25:15

of this chronology. And now

25:17

I'm marching for gay civil

25:19

rights to show that her has

25:22

been a life of commitment to

25:24

justice.

25:26

But there she was, in a grandma dress,

25:28

smiling demurely behind her bifocals

25:30

at Pat Collins, looking every bit

25:32

the New England grandmother. In

25:34

some ways, this was the beauty and

25:36

the genius of their fledgling organization.

25:39

They were parents who loved their children and

25:41

almost no one dared to question their sincerity.

25:45

Or their politics.

25:46

Call

25:55

us and we'll put you in contact with these nice people.

25:58

Take care of yourself. We'll see you tomorrow.

25:59

These nice people

26:02

were becoming a political force. Revolutionaries

26:05

in, forgive me, grandma's

26:08

clothing. Here's Jean Manford

26:10

speaking at Philadelphia's Gay Pride Rally in 1975.

26:16

We are fighting for the dignity

26:18

of members of the same sex to

26:21

love one another. I

26:23

hope parents of gay groups

26:26

will form in every city and community

26:28

in America. Too many

26:30

parents of gays are still in the closet.

26:35

The main battles of this war

26:38

are fought by the younger generation

26:40

of gays who fight in the streets, on

26:43

picket lines, in television studios,

26:45

and the offices of the oppressors,

26:47

in the courts and in the legislatures,

26:49

for the implementation of the rights and

26:52

liberties that the Constitution guarantees.

26:55

We parents in our small

26:57

sector have an auxiliary aim to

27:00

help other parents untrouble their

27:02

minds and free their spirits so

27:05

that they may help their children

27:07

to achieve what other people's children

27:10

take for granted, namely the right to

27:12

live in dignity and with

27:14

integrity.

27:16

We care about our sons and

27:18

daughters, their lovers and friends,

27:21

and all oppressed people.

27:23

As the gay struggle moves into

27:25

its seventh year, I pledge to you

27:28

that as parents we will sustain

27:30

the fight alongside you, that

27:32

Gay Liberation shall come closer

27:36

and closer.

27:37

Thank you. Alright! With

27:41

Jean and Jules Manford, Sarah Montgomery

27:44

and others, parents of gays were finding

27:46

their voice and joining the movement for gay liberation.

27:49

But another

27:50

set of parents, for the longest

27:53

time silenced by fear, were reaching

27:55

public consciousness. Gay and

27:57

lesbian parents were routinely cut off and

27:59

denied custody. or even visitation

28:01

rights with their kids because of their sexuality.

28:08

I received the citation

28:11

telling me that I was

28:13

unfit as a parent because of my homosexuality,

28:16

and Mr. Risher wanted the children immediately

28:19

removed from the home.

28:21

Mary Jo Risher, a nurse from Texas, was

28:23

in the fight of her life. After

28:25

her marriage collapsed in 1971, she

28:28

fell in love and started living with Anne Foreman.

28:31

Anne had a daughter from her previous marriage, and

28:33

Mary Jo had two sons. Anne's

28:35

former husband was supportive and agreed

28:37

to maternal custody.

28:39

At first, so was Mary Jo's ex,

28:42

until he found out she was a lesbian.

28:44

Then the legal paper started flying.

28:47

Mary Jo's older son had already moved out, but

28:49

her younger son, Richard, wanted to stay with

28:51

his mother. A temporary hearing

28:54

in 1974 allowed Richard

28:56

to stay with Mary Jo, but then a jury trial

28:58

was set.

28:59

Oral historian Studs Terkel interviewed

29:01

Mary Jo Risher and Anne Foreman in 1977. We

29:05

come to the judge, don't we? He

29:08

at first agreed, the same judge, that this was not an issue

29:10

at all. As far as the happiness

29:12

and health, mental health, spiritual

29:14

health, the child is concerned. Then

29:16

how did he change? Well,

29:18

from the time that we had the temporary hearing until

29:21

we went into the courtroom, it was a

29:23

year and about two months had passed. But

29:27

in September of 1975, the

29:30

judge heard expert witnesses. My lawyers

29:32

had presented a motion to

29:36

keep the issue of homosexuality

29:39

out of the courtroom. But after

29:41

the judge heard the expert witnesses

29:42

and what they had to say about it, found

29:45

and decided that homosexuality, any acts

29:48

or what have you on homosexuality,

29:50

could be brought into the courtroom.

29:53

Maybe he was curious too. Oh,

29:57

I think so. called

30:00

as an expert witness for Richard's father, said

30:02

he found two examples of Mary

30:04

Jo using, quote,

30:06

poor judgment as a mother. My

30:09

son Richard was nine

30:11

years old and capable of dressing

30:13

himself in any attire he wanted

30:15

to, you know, his clothes. He had his clothes in

30:17

his closet. I had

30:20

led him wear a boy's

30:23

blue jean outfit, bought from Sears, tough

30:26

skin I believe is the brand, a

30:29

blue jean jacket and blue

30:32

jeans. They had belonged

30:34

at one time to Judy Ann, Ann's

30:36

daughter, and she had outgrown them and Richard

30:39

received them and he was quite happy. The

30:42

psychologist complimented Richard

30:45

on how nice he looked. But

30:47

he said, as soon as he found out that the outfit,

30:49

when Richard said, well, thank you, it

30:52

used to belong to Judy Ann. He said

30:55

that, you know,

30:57

that me being a lesbian, I

31:00

could never allow that to happen. Now it

31:03

could happen

31:04

with a heterosexual mother or father.

31:06

We know that these kids are Asian. Yes, but under the

31:09

circumstances. You can't tell

31:11

them it's different today. I'm not even chasing this guy, I would say. But

31:13

under the circumstances, me

31:16

being a lesbian, I could never allow this.

31:18

The other poor judgment that I used,

31:21

exercised, he said, was that I allowed

31:23

Richard to wear a YWCA t-shirt. Now

31:27

Richard belonged to the YWCA

31:29

in Dallas County. They

31:31

had many wonderful

31:34

programs

31:34

for men and women and boys and girls.

31:37

And Richard and Judy Ann belonged

31:40

to a gymnastics class there. And

31:43

that was a form of Richard's uniform.

31:45

He was quite proud of it.

31:47

I mean, this guy was unaware that the YWCA

31:49

had co-educational. It didn't matter

31:52

to him again. Oh, it didn't

31:54

matter. By the fact that you were a lesbian, therefore

31:56

you must behave in other matters,

31:58

all together different, to someone else's. Yes, my

32:00

whole mannerism would have to be completely different

32:03

than any other person. Well, this goes back to you and your

32:05

work again. All too often, gay

32:07

and lesbian parents were held to a completely

32:09

different standard, an impossible standard.

32:13

What society demanded was that

32:15

they be

32:17

straight. The case made headlines,

32:19

of course, wasn't the media, of course, took it up. Of

32:21

course, they were just ravenous. You realize

32:24

you were taking a tremendous risk, didn't you?

32:25

Right. Yes, and of course, we

32:28

also realized that it was the first jury

32:30

trial in the history of the United States

32:33

that set judgment on a homosexual parent. Yes.

32:37

A jury was 10 to 2, wasn't it? Yes,

32:40

it was. Mary Jo

32:42

lost custody of her son, Richie. Their

32:45

case was probably the most high profile of the time,

32:47

and it may have been the first jury trial.

32:49

But gay parents all around the country were facing

32:52

the prospect of losing their kids.

32:54

Remember Joyce Hunter? We heard

32:56

from her in Chapter 1. Describing the

32:58

mixture of exhilaration and overwhelm,

33:00

she felt walking into the Gay Activist Alliance

33:03

firehouse for the first time.

33:04

That moment of revelation for her was tempered by

33:07

a deep-seated and well-founded fear

33:09

that she could lose her kids.

33:10

I first spoke to Joyce all the way back

33:13

in 1989, and we've stayed in touch

33:15

since.

33:16

I interviewed her again last year. And

33:19

I kept my life as a gay person,

33:21

as a lesbian, very quiet.

33:24

I didn't let anybody

33:28

know that I was a lesbian, and I didn't

33:30

come out to a lot of people at all

33:32

because my fear was, well,

33:35

that somebody would want

33:37

to take them.

33:37

And eventually, my

33:40

sister wanted them. Because

33:42

you were a lesbian? Yep. Well,

33:44

what did she say? She didn't

33:47

think that it was proper for a lesbian to be

33:49

raising children, especially girls.

33:52

My sister went and got custody of my daughter.

33:56

How did she do that? She

34:00

reported me to social services

34:03

and in those days it wasn't they

34:05

didn't you know, they were all

34:07

lesbians raising girls How

34:11

did you resolve that with her I Don't

34:15

know if it ever got resolved So

34:18

you really had no option but to fight for

34:20

your rights having lost you kidding.

34:22

Yeah You know, these are

34:25

my kids. I gave birth to them. You give me a

34:27

break You're not

34:29

good. You know, just take these kids because you

34:31

feel like I'm not good enough, but

34:33

I was good enough

34:35

one of the things that always bugged me when I

34:37

when I thought about it and I said

34:40

That we have a right to be who

34:42

we are and might to have families

34:45

and children and stuff like that

34:49

The lesbian mothers National Defense Fund

34:52

was formed in Seattle in 1974 to

34:55

help those in custody disputes in 1978

34:58

Sandy Schuster and Madeleine

35:00

Isaacson from Seattle, Washington won

35:02

in America's first custody battle in

35:05

favor of a lesbian couple and The

35:07

gay father's coalition which would go on to

35:09

become the Family Equality Council was

35:11

founded in 1979

35:13

While gay parents fought for access

35:15

to their children and growing numbers of

35:17

parents of adult gay children accepted and became

35:20

fierce allies of liberation gay

35:22

kids were almost invisible

35:24

The first time I saw a gay teenager represented

35:27

anywhere was in the mid 1970s and in my experience There

35:31

were not many ways to be out as a gay kid

35:34

without finding yourself in situations that

35:36

were not at all age-appropriate

35:38

People who actually wanted to support gay youth

35:41

were prevented from doing so because of rampant

35:43

homophobia Gay adults

35:45

were labeled petarass and branded

35:47

a danger to children There

35:49

were no services. There was no support Anti-gay

35:53

activists claimed all gay people wanted to recruit

35:55

and corrupt kids Sounds

35:58

familiar doesn't it?

36:00

But still, gay people have always

36:03

been here of all ages, and there have always

36:05

been chosen families that found ways to provide safe

36:07

spaces for LGBTQ young people, despite

36:10

the risks.

36:11

I'm thinking about Shirley Willer, who started

36:14

taking in young people as far back as the 1940s. I

36:18

may have to remove this little

36:20

guy, or he's going to be taking over

36:22

the mic. I interviewed

36:25

her as her many caged pet birds kept

36:27

an eye on us while we talked on her screen porch

36:29

in Key West, Florida in 1990. There

36:32

were so many young women that were being

36:34

thrown out of their homes. So

36:36

we started our own little informal

36:39

groups. And we

36:41

would take in all the kids that

36:43

got kicked out in the street, and

36:45

we would keep pushing

36:48

them to stop trying to hide

36:50

it, be

36:53

themselves. In those

36:55

days, why would a young man or a young woman

36:58

be thrown out of his or her home?

37:00

Because as soon as their family

37:03

would realize that they weren't the accepted

37:06

heterosexual, they

37:11

would be horrified,

37:14

terrified, and disgusted.

37:18

These little lost

37:20

ones would show up in our

37:22

place, and we'd have

37:25

them hang out there until we could

37:27

help them find jobs that were suitable.

37:31

Many of them we were able to get scholarships

37:33

for and get them into school. They

37:37

weren't old enough to be out on the street. How

37:39

did they find you?

37:41

It wasn't hard. Word

37:45

of mouth, I think. In

37:48

fact, we not only took in women, we took

37:50

in young men. I can remember

37:52

having three of them sleeping on the kitchen floor.

37:54

It must have been so much heartbreak. Oh,

37:57

there were, as I say,

37:59

I've stayed angry. most of my life.

38:02

Shirley told me that after she joined the homophile

38:05

group, Daughters of Bletus, in the 1960s,

38:08

she was dismayed to find they turned away gay kids

38:10

looking for help. But they were just

38:12

terrified. Terrified of police

38:14

entrapment, terrified that the whole organization

38:17

could be brought down by any accusations of consorting

38:19

with minors.

38:21

The new gay liberation organizations of the early

38:24

1970s were also terrified of working with

38:26

kids. When Sylvia Rivera

38:28

and Marsha P. Johnson of the Street Transvestite

38:31

Action Revolutionaries tried to provide

38:33

a safe house for LGBTQ street kids

38:35

in New York City in the early 1970s, which

38:37

they called Star House, they

38:40

were on their own. When we asked

38:42

the community to help us,

38:46

there was nobody to help us. We

38:49

were nothing. We

38:53

were taking

38:55

care of kids that were younger than us. I

38:58

mean, Marsha and I were young, and

39:01

we were taking care of them. And

39:06

GAA

39:08

had teachers and

39:11

lawyers and whatnot, and all we asked them

39:13

was, well, if you could help us teach

39:18

our own

39:20

so we can all become a little bit better. There

39:23

was nobody there to help us. They

39:25

left us hanging. We didn't know

39:27

what the fuck we were doing. I mean, we took a

39:29

building that was, I mean, a slum

39:33

building. We

39:38

tried. We really

39:40

did. Marsha

39:43

and I and a few of the older

39:46

drag

39:46

queens kept it going for about a year or

39:48

two. We went

39:50

out and made that money off the streets

39:53

to keep these kids off the street.

39:59

Instead of showing

40:02

them what we were doing. Because

40:06

we already went through it. What were

40:08

you protecting them from? From

40:12

the world, from life in general.

40:16

Who were these other kids? The young ones, where

40:18

did they come from? From

40:20

everywhere. We had kids from Boston, California.

40:24

Where were their families? I

40:27

guess at home.

40:29

So things didn't turn out as you'd hoped? Well,

40:36

you figure it's always going

40:38

to happen. Yeah, but if you got in your way,

40:40

you would have had a building where kids could

40:42

come. I

40:45

would have loved to have had a storehouse

40:48

for the children. I would imagine

40:50

you and Mark had not had the

40:53

resources, the experience.

40:55

We just didn't have any monies. We

40:59

needed the help of GAA. We needed the

41:01

monies from the community. The

41:05

community was not going to help

41:07

us.

41:08

It would be the late 1970s before a group

41:10

of concerned adults, including mental health

41:12

professionals and members of PFLAG, got

41:15

together to start an organization that would come

41:17

to be known as the Hetrick Martin Institute

41:20

for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth. Today,

41:22

we know it as HMI. More

41:25

than a decade after Starhouse folded,

41:28

this new organization began providing help

41:30

to some of the most vulnerable and marginalized

41:33

LGBTQ youth on the streets of New

41:35

York.

41:43

It's Friday, March 3rd, 2023, the

41:46

night of PFLAG's 50th

41:48

anniversary gala at the Marriott Marquis Hotel

41:50

in Times Square. Technically,

41:53

I'm here in my role as a journalist, so

41:55

it's my excuse to mostly hang back and

41:58

watch from the sidelines as the hundreds of gay people The

42:01

parents, the allies, the fabulous drag

42:03

queens with towering hairdos, the spectacularly

42:06

dressed young influencers teetering

42:09

on their super high heels, trans,

42:11

non-binary, gay, all the letters

42:13

of QTPOC LGBTQIA+.

42:17

This gathering is so beautiful and joyful.

42:21

Here's Dylan Mulvaney, an actress and

42:23

comedian known for her daily TikTok

42:25

videos of her gender transition journey.

42:29

If I can do

42:29

something for a queer youth that

42:32

I wish that I could have had growing up, then this

42:34

is definitely worth it. Also here,

42:37

Olympic diver Tom Daley and his husband,

42:39

the writer and director Dustin Lance Black, who's

42:41

posing for the cameras while Tom gives an interview.

42:44

To be honored here tonight on the 50th anniversary

42:47

is so special, it's such an honor. And to actually

42:49

be here, not only with my husband, but also

42:51

my mom and our son are

42:53

upstairs in the hotel, so it's really special

42:56

to be here all as a family as well. Comedian

42:58

Amber Ruffin takes the stage to

42:59

MC. We're here to celebrate PFLAG's

43:02

greatest accomplishment, creating something

43:04

cool that involves parents. It's

43:07

hard.

43:07

It's hard to do. It's

43:10

hard. It's hard, but you did

43:12

it. And Grammy Award winning

43:14

bounce music superstar, Big Freedia

43:16

is here to get an award tonight. I

43:19

know the powers of walls. You can

43:21

break down when you have parents and people

43:23

who see you. Thank God for the people

43:25

who saw me. I

43:30

am here today because I was seen and

43:32

supported and encouraged to be

43:34

myself.

43:36

As I take it all in, a middle-aged

43:38

woman with silvery blonde hair approaches

43:41

me with an outstretched hand. She

43:43

looks as though she'd be equally comfortable at a well-appointed

43:46

country club, as in this ballroom full

43:48

of flamboyance and LGBTQ plus

43:50

plus folks. She shakes my

43:52

hand, introduces herself as Susan

43:54

Thrunson, PFLAG's president, and

43:57

with a warm smile, she adds that she's the first parent

43:59

to be a part of the world.

43:59

of a trans child ever to hold that

44:02

position. Another self-spoken

44:04

revolutionary. I love

44:06

PFLAG parents.

44:08

I'm so still inspired

44:10

by Jean Manford and what she did 50 years

44:12

ago by taking the step off the curb

44:15

and joining the protesters in Christopher

44:17

Street March. And she was spurred on

44:19

by her son, Morty. And I'm here

44:21

because of my family's experience.

44:24

At this time, it's both

44:26

a festive evening, but we understand that we're

44:28

in one of our most challenging times in our shared history.

44:34

In 50 years, PFLAG has done so

44:36

much to transform life for LGBTQ

44:38

people through the work and advocacy of

44:40

our fiercest allies, parents,

44:42

and the other people who love us. PFLAG

44:45

is now an international network of organizations.

44:48

In the U.S. alone, currently counting 400 chapters

44:51

nationwide and 200,000 members and supporters, people

44:55

who have directly benefited from PFLAG's

44:57

support must number in the tens of millions

45:00

by now.

45:01

But despite the party spirit,

45:03

honestly, I'm feeling wistful.

45:05

I'm missing the people who are gone from

45:07

PFLAG,

45:08

the people I knew when I was a young gay man, like

45:11

Amy and Dick Ashworth, who I had the pleasure of

45:13

introducing at an event in 1979 during

45:16

Parents Weekend at Vassar College. Amy

45:19

and Dick's son, Eric, wound up being my literary

45:21

agent on the original Making Gay History book.

45:24

Bob and Elaine Benov, the super loving

45:27

parents of two gay sons from Long Beach, New York,

45:29

who I interviewed for a couple of my early books.

45:32

And my mom, who helped

45:34

co-found the Queens, New York chapter of PFLAG

45:37

with Gene Manford, and co-chaired

45:39

a PFLAG gala dinner a quarter century

45:41

ago, just up Broadway from here. My

45:44

grandmother came to that one.

45:45

They're all gone. They'd

45:49

be so proud of how far we've come.

45:52

Still, not nearly far enough,

45:55

not when so many thousands of young LGBTQ

45:57

people wind up living on the streets. Parents,

45:59

struggle to accept their trans children, and

46:02

supportive families struggle to access care.

46:05

Today's PFLAG members are again called

46:07

on to fight the bigots and the legislatures

46:10

waging an all-out war on their loved ones.

46:13

And so, while I miss all those people, my

46:15

PFLAG people, it is so right

46:18

and reassuring to see the new guard

46:20

celebrate and support each other in this

46:22

fight. My PFLAG

46:24

family was there for me. And the gathering

46:27

in this ballroom is just a tiny fraction

46:29

of the activists and allies on the front

46:31

lines of today's battle. To

46:33

see Susan Tronson fighting for her son,

46:36

just as Jean and Jules Manford fought for

46:38

and alongside their son,

46:40

well, there's a lump in my throat.

46:42

And there's a lump in my throat when I think

46:44

about how, despite all her best efforts

46:47

to protect her son Morty from homophobia, to

46:49

hold onto her surviving son in a world

46:51

stacked against him, Jean

46:53

Manford lost Morty.

46:55

The world lost him.

46:57

To complications of AIDS in 1992. So

46:59

yeah, I'm

47:01

feeling wistful,

47:03

but also hopeful as I turn to leave

47:05

the celebratory hubbub and catch

47:07

the subway home. I'm

47:09

an early riser these days. 9 p.m.

47:12

is pumpkin time for me. I'll

47:14

leave all those young folks to tie one on for

47:16

PFLAG.

47:22

Next time on Coming of Age During the

47:24

1970s, Chapter 4, respectable.

47:30

This season of Making Gay History was produced and

47:32

written by me, Eric Marcus, and

47:34

Making Gay History's founding editor, Sara

47:36

Birningham, with archival research

47:38

and production assistance from Brian Farray. Our

47:41

studio engineers for this episode were Casey

47:43

Danielson, Charles de Montobello, and

47:45

Catherine Cook. Coming of Age During

47:47

the 1970s was mixed and sound

47:50

design by Ann Pope. This

47:52

season of Making Gay History was recorded at CDM Sound

47:54

Studios. Our theme music and

47:56

additional scoring were composed by Fritz Myers.

47:59

Our new theme...

47:59

features floutist Anna Urie.

48:03

Many thanks to our hard-working crew at Making Gay

48:05

History, including Deputy Director

48:07

Inga Dattagha, photo editor Michael Green,

48:09

and our social media producers Christina

48:11

Pena and Nick Porter. Thank

48:13

you as well to the New York Public Library's Manuscripts

48:16

and Archives Division for use of their Morty

48:18

Manford collection, including archival

48:20

photos as well as other material. And

48:23

a big thank you to Suzanne Swan, Morty's

48:25

sister, for permission to use Morty's archival

48:28

recordings. And thank you to

48:30

the Studs Terkel Radio Archive, courtesy

48:32

of Chicago History Museum and WFMT,

48:36

for use of their interview with Mary Jo

48:38

Rischer. Thank you to PFLAG National

48:41

for the 50th anniversary gala audio.

48:44

We'd also like to thank the LGBT Center Archive

48:46

for their help with this season.

48:50

Making Gay History is made possible thanks

48:53

to the support of the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation,

48:55

Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS, the

48:57

Calamus Foundation, Andrew and Erwin

48:59

Press, Louis Bradbury, David

49:02

Carollo, Kathy Dancer and the Dancer Family,

49:04

Rick Fischel, and we are so

49:07

grateful to Patrick Hines and Steve Tipton for

49:09

their support of Making Gay History's mission to

49:11

bring LGBTQ history to life through

49:13

the voices of the people who lived it. This

49:16

episode has been made possible in part by

49:18

PFLAG, the nation's largest organization

49:20

dedicated to supporting, educating,

49:23

and advocating for LGBTQ plus people

49:25

and those who love them. Thank You

49:27

PFLAG. Please

49:30

consider joining us on Making Gay History's Patreon

49:32

channel, where you can support our work and

49:34

at the same time gain access to exclusive

49:37

interviews, behind-the-scenes conversations,

49:39

and additional archival audio excerpts that

49:41

we think you'll enjoy hearing. Sign

49:43

up for just $5 a month at patreon.com

49:46

slash making gay history or

49:48

just go to makinggayhistory.com and click on

49:50

the Patreon button. Next week,

49:52

Patreon subscribers can access my conversation

49:54

with PFLAG president Susan Thronson.

49:58

One very last thing. I

50:00

couldn't leave without this update from Joyce

50:02

Hunter.

50:06

So when were you able to get your daughter back?

50:09

She came back. How so? She

50:12

got old enough. She turned 17, 18, and she decided to come home.

50:18

She couldn't do it earlier, but she

50:21

could do it at that age. And so she came home.

50:24

And we're very close, my daughter and I and my

50:26

son and I, and our grandkids

50:29

and my grandkids, their kids. Jane

50:31

and I have been together over 40 years, so we

50:33

have collectively. Yeah.

50:35

I'm

50:37

going to count our kids. Together

50:40

we have five children. Of

50:42

those five children, we now

50:45

have 16 grandchildren. And

50:49

out of that 16, we have... Let's

50:55

see. Ezra,

50:59

Clara, Ellen.

51:03

Six or seven great-grandchildren. That's

51:05

a lot. Yeah, it's

51:08

a big family.

51:11

Coming of Age during the 1970s is a production

51:13

of Making Gay History. I'm Eric

51:15

Marcus. So long. Until

51:17

next time.