EP17: Movies, Experiences, and Queer Icons That Influenced Us
Jan 08, 2024Season 1Episode 17
Jenene & Kit
Have you ever been swept away by a story that resonated so deeply with your own life, it felt like it was made just for you? Our journey through the voices and stories of LGBTQ+ cinema might just bring you that moment of connection. "If These Walls Could Talk 2" and "Philadelphia" are more than films; they're powerful narratives that showcase the enduring struggles and experiences of our community. We reflect on these cinematic gems, discussing the portrayal of lesbian relationships across different eras and the stark depiction of the AIDS epidemic, respectively. These stories offer more than entertainment; they're crucial lenses through which we gain empathy and understanding for the queer experience.
Picture this: characters and narratives that feel like they were crafted with your story in mind. Bette Porter from "The L Word" might just be that character for you, as she was for many of us, struggling to navigate the complexities of queer identity. Our episode doesn't just stop at live-action; animated series like "Steven Universe" and "Adventure Time" also enter the dialogue, proving that representation in children's media is key to supporting young individuals in their self-discovery. As we unpack the transformative impact of queer media, we're reminded of how vital these characters are—they help stitch together our collective history and personal identities into a tapestry of shared experience.
Our conversation then shifts from the screen to the real-life symphony of love that is the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, reminding us of the safe havens our community has built for itself. The stories of icons like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera anchor us to our activist roots and the ongoing fight for liberation, while voices like Sarah Glass in her memoir "Kissing Girls on Shabbat" offer contemporary narratives of hope and resilience. And in a poignant turn, we discuss the lesser-known aspects of Anne Frank's diary, shedding light on the historical presence of LGBTQ+ individuals and the importance of allowing every person to explore their identity. Join us, as we honor our past, empower our present, and chart the course for a more inclusive future.
Have you ever been swept away by a story that resonated so deeply with your own life, it felt like it was made just for you? Our journey through the voices and stories of LGBTQ+ cinema might just bring you that moment of connection. "If These Walls Could Talk 2" and "Philadelphia" are more than films; they're powerful narratives that showcase the enduring struggles and experiences of our community. We reflect on these cinematic gems, discussing the portrayal of lesbian relationships across different eras and the stark depiction of the AIDS epidemic, respectively. These stories offer more than entertainment; they're crucial lenses through which we gain empathy and understanding for the queer experience.
Picture this: characters and narratives that feel like they were crafted with your story in mind. Bette Porter from "The L Word" might just be that character for you, as she was for many of us, struggling to navigate the complexities of queer identity. Our episode doesn't just stop at live-action; animated series like "Steven Universe" and "Adventure Time" also enter the dialogue, proving that representation in children's media is key to supporting young individuals in their self-discovery. As we unpack the transformative impact of queer media, we're reminded of how vital these characters are—they help stitch together our collective history and personal identities into a tapestry of shared experience.
Our conversation then shifts from the screen to the real-life symphony of love that is the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, reminding us of the safe havens our community has built for itself. The stories of icons like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera anchor us to our activist roots and the ongoing fight for liberation, while voices like Sarah Glass in her memoir "Kissing Girls on Shabbat" offer contemporary narratives of hope and resilience. And in a poignant turn, we discuss the lesser-known aspects of Anne Frank's diary, shedding light on the historical presence of LGBTQ+ individuals and the importance of allowing every person to explore their identity. Join us, as we honor our past, empower our present, and chart the course for a more inclusive future.
Our girls. She's really pretty and not in like. I want to be her way in like a. I want to be with her. What's going on here?
Speaker 2:
Do you ever see the movie? If these walls could talk to.
Speaker 1:
No, I haven't. That sounds interesting.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's actually an older film. I think it came around out around about maybe 2000 or so. It's basically an anthology film where it has like three different segments or three different stories in the same movie. Let's just say they explore lesbian relationships in different time periods.
Speaker 2:
The first one it takes place in, I think, the early 1960s, if I remember correctly, and it starts out with an elderly lesbian couple and I won't be a total spoiler, but the one lady goes out on the ladder and she falls and she passes away and it basically hones in on the issues of rights where the one that's still living should retain the house, but then the one that passed away, her family, comes in and takes everything. It's really, really sad. Just talking about it just makes my heart, like my chest, really hurt. And then the second story goes into. I think it was like the early 1970s with the rise of feminism and everything, and it's really interesting dynamics because it does explore lesbian relationships, but it is basically there's undertones of other difficulties happening at the same time and other challenges within the lesbian community because, yes, there's the rise of feminism and everything going on with human rights and gay rights and women's rights, but it's also the feminine lesbians, not really understanding the more masculine. Let's just call, say, butchy lesbians.
Speaker 1:
You're so valid.
Speaker 2:
There's discrimination within the community because they're saying well, if you want to look like a man or act like a man, then why don't you just be a man? So it's very, very interesting. And then the last one is I think Sharon Stone is in it it's a more contemporary story where there's two lesbians and they're in a relationship and they want to get pregnant. So it deals with the reproductive rights and everything and then what they go through to actually get inseminated. So it's very interesting because you have these three starkingly different time periods and what the different challenges brought upon by the time period were in that specific time.
Speaker 2:
I remember seeing that movie when I was I think I was in my early 20s when I saw the movie and I was like wow, because when you're in your early 20s you don't think about things like that, when you think about relationships and maybe exploring your own gender and your own sexual orientation, but I'm not thinking down the road to oh, what happens when I grow old with another woman? What are the rights going to be and how do I protect myself and protect us as a couple and everything we've worked to build over the decades? Yeah, I just want to ask if you saw that, because it's one of the movies that definitely I felt in my queer journey. It's definitely one of the movies that hit home for me and presented me with some different perspectives and things of queer people, like realities that they actually have to deal with and go through.
Speaker 1:
No, that's so fair. I genuinely love that. I haven't seen that movie. I've even heard of that before. That sounds like a really really cool film. I love the idea of I love anthologies. First off, I love, love, love anthology movies, especially in horror. But I love the idea of tracking queer rights throughout the decades using this one home. This one home is the center of the story piece and it's about the lives that have gone through that home, but also just like the home itself, being able to watch that Like it's a really I love that. I love that idea. I definitely want to see that. That sounds like a really interesting movie.
Speaker 2:
Have you ever heard of Chloe Savigny I?
Speaker 1:
don't believe I have.
Speaker 2:
I'm not sure of their pronouns so I'm just going to use gender neutral pronouns for them. They're really popular and they were the main character in the one in the 70s. They played the more masculine lesbian role. I think that's why that movie was so became so popular at that time. And also Sharon Stone. Everybody knows Sharon Stone.
Speaker 1:
That makes sense.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
That's fair. That's that's so fair, so real. For that Say I gotta say a movie that I watched I think I was 16. I know I was in high school because I watched it in class. I was in a American film class and the end of this movie I literally had to leave the classroom because I could not stop sobbing profusely. I was Philadelphia with Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington and Antonio Banderas.
Speaker 1:
It is one of those movies that endlessly touches me and it was the first film I had ever seen that touched on the AIDS epidemic and really really touched on it. You know, I mean I had seen I think I'd seen rent prior to that, but when I'd seen rent I was a child. I don't think I quite understood rent as having an AIDS storyline until rewatching it when I was older. So while rent did mean a lot to me as a child for having a queer storyline with angels, specifically the AIDS storyline kind of went over my head as a child. So the first piece of media that had an AIDS storyline that I genuinely got, that I could connect to, having learned about the disease from health class and things of that nature, was Philadelphia, and it was the first film that showed me the complexities of this illness, how deeply it affected every aspect of these people's lives.
Speaker 1:
For those who don't know, philadelphia Centers on Tom Hanks' character, who is a queer man. He's a lawyer and he's in the closet, specifically at work. Everyone at work knows that he is queer and he shows up to work for what he assumes is a promotion, I believe, if I remember correctly, and he has a sore on the back of his neck, he has a visible sign of AIDS symptoms on his skin and instead of getting the promotion that he is expected to get as being one of the best lawyers at this firm, he is immediately fired and he, as a lawyer, decides to sue his old law firm excuse me for medical discrimination, because at the time discrimination against queer people for being queer wasn't on the books. You could just be fired for being gay all the time. So this man, being smart I believe it's based on a true story, if I remember correctly from having learned about it in film class being smart, he went about it in a medical discrimination case to say they fired me for being ill which has for years been elite, for decades, longer than anti-queer discrimination laws, that anti-medical discrimination laws have been on the books.
Speaker 1:
He can't find a lawyer to take his case from. He goes from law firm to law firm. He can't find someone willing to take the case of an AIDS patient and he ends up in Denzel Washington. I believe he just has a really tiny like. He just kind of works in injury law.
Speaker 1:
He kind of wasn't really doing all that well at the beginning of the story and Tom Hanks' character goes to him, is like will you take this case? And at first Denzel says Denzel's character says no. Until he sees Tom Hanks' character in a library trying to research his own case and he's asked by the librarian to go to a private room. And Denzel Washington's character is immediately reminded in that moment of the struggle for black Americans to accept to get equal rights, of being able to exist in the same spaces as white Americans. And he's watching this happen right in front of him to a sickly guy who's being asked to gather all of his things and go somewhere else to make everyone else more comfortable with his presence. And it spurs him to say like I'll take the case.
Speaker 1:
And the scene where Tom Hanks is alone in his home and the classical music is playing I don't know what song it is. He's dancing around and he ends the scene in just this Christ pose and he realizes that he is going to die before this case finishes. Most likely he's not going to be able to see his own justice, he's not going to be able to live to see the fruits of his labor, but someone else will, and that's what it all becomes about. It stops being just about him and it starts being about every AIDS patient who is being discriminated against.
Speaker 2:
The film humanizes people living with HIV and AIDS.
Speaker 1:
And it's such a beautiful story. It's such a beautiful story.
Speaker 2:
The thing I love about it is that it actually challenges societal prejudices.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
It also comes from the perspective of legal battles, emotional battles, you know, faced by those who experience the discrimination based on their health status or their sexual orientation or, as you're saying, just being a person of color.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, and you know, personally I am not a fan of straight cis people playing queer roles. However, comma slash Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas are so freaking cute together I'm a fan. When they're at the Halloween party and they're both dressed up in couples costume. I thought that was the cutest thing.
Speaker 2:
So cute it is. I have to rewatch that movie because I'm remembering having seen it and I remember the bigger, broader themes with the movie, but a lot of the details they're lost on me.
Speaker 1:
I get that, I do get that.
Speaker 2:
It's such a great film that you bring up because it's so relevant for so many different reasons.
Speaker 1:
It's phenomenal. It's one of those movies that genuinely I remember watching it, and I watched it at I was between the ages of 14 and 16. That was right around the time when I was like are girls, she's really pretty and not in like I want to be her way. In like a.
Speaker 2:
I want her to be with her.
Speaker 1:
I want to be with her. Yup, yeah, what's going on here? And we were shown that in class and it was one of those movies that made me feel connected to a past, an ancestry. You know, as a young questioning queer, seeing stories of past queers, it kind of just it. Really, it gave me a connectiveness that I didn't know I needed. It made me feel connected to the queer experience in a way that helped me come to terms with being queer.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I get that. That resonates with me so deeply. That brings me to Jennifer Beals from well, she first made her debut in Flashdance. Do you remember that movie? It was an early 80s movie. It was very, very popular.
Speaker 1:
That sounds so familiar.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it was done so well. Jennifer Beals is a bit porter in the L word, more familiar to us in the queer community, but she was first on the scene in the early 80s in Flashdance and that let me let me jog my memory here. I saw it when I was little, but basically it is, she's a dancer and she wants to get into the conservatory. She lived with her age and grandmother and she kept telling her grandmother that she was going to take the audition and her grandmother was basically holding her to it and she kept making excuses probably like you and I do. We make excuses because we're not good at it, we don't think it's perfect enough, so we wait on it. And the moment she decided to go take the audition, her grandmother was like, okay, my purpose is done here and she ended up passing away.
Speaker 2:
But it was just an amazing movie full of dance and just a love story, just the storyline in it, the difficulties of relationships and so on and so forth. But I love her and I love what she represented in the L word when she played the character of Porter, because I'm like that's me. She was a very successful art gallery director and a lot of times I feel like lesbians aren't really portrayed as being successful. You have your handful like the Ellen DeGeneres show, like okay, ellen, but when you think about successful lesbians it's a very short list that comes to mind, at least in the famous actor-actress world. I just think it's really nice to have lesbians that are portrayed in a different light.
Speaker 1:
That's so fair. That is so, so fair. I honestly love that. That sounds like a very good movie. I definitely want to watch more of the L word. That was one of those shows that I kind of only watched like bits and pieces of, but I definitely want to watch more of the L word at some point. Oh, you haven't seen the whole thing.
Speaker 2:
I have not seen the whole thing, oh my god. Okay. So I believe there's six total seasons. Okay, that's not that bad, yeah, and it's basically a series. It's all these intertwined stories about the lives and loves of a group of lesbians and bisexuals that live in LA. You see them dating and getting into committed relationships and some of them have families, some of them considering having families. Some of them hook up. Some of them break up. They're questioning sexuality. There's a character on their max who's a trans man. There's people that struggle with coming out or sometimes sleep around or whatever. So it's definitely multi-layered. I personally think that some of the storylines were almost unbelievable. They were super overdramatic. There's another queer series called Queer as Folk. Did you ever hear or watch that one?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I did.
Speaker 2:
Did you see the whole thing?
Speaker 1:
The Queer as Folk is another one that I did not get to watch the entire thing of. I'm not gonna lie, I'm real bad when it comes to watching shows in their entirety, but I definitely have seen good pieces of Queer as Folk. Queer as Folk was also one of those things that went around heavily in GIFs on Tumblr when I was in my young days on Tumblr.
Speaker 2:
Oh wow, Both the L-word and Queer as Folk you can find on Showtime. I know that much.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha, gotcha Say well, that is definitely good to know. Queer as Folk is a great one. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:
I think the L-word used to be available on Netflix, but for some reason it's not anymore. I don't know if the contract was up or what, but that's usually how that goes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
I will say for all of my demographic out there. I'm sure we all remember things like Steven Universe and Adventure Time and stuff like that. Those were really pivotal for me personally, especially like my later teens and early 20s, with coming to terms with gender identity and stuff like that. Steven Universe was a big one. There's a lot of gender non-conforming characters. Basically all of the gems are non-gendered. That's a confirmed fact. They are all non-gendered gems. They're not male or female. Garnet is made up of two separate stones that are both very femme presenting. They come together being canonically in love to create Garnet, who is one of the main characters of the show. She's one of the main three gems. It's Pearl, amethyst and Garnet. Then there's Steven. Even at one point Steven is able to do something similar with one of his friends, connie. I think they end up dating. I'm not 100% sure. Steven Universe is another one that I have not watched in its entirety. I'm really bad y'all. I blame the Tizam on that one. I can't finish it. I don't know.
Speaker 2:
I believe your movie list is getting longer and longer as we record more and more episodes.
Speaker 1:
It really is. It's so bad. They come together at one point and they become one singular being that is both male and female, because it's Steven and Connie. Even the voice it sounds like both of them. It's a fascinating, really, really cool play on the fact that they're stones. Stones don't have gender. It's just a really cool way of opening that wibbly, wobbly gender stuff to a younger audience in a way that is really digestible, super easy to understand. Yeah, they're rocks. That trap Even the pronouns used is really well done. Then Adventure Time Marceline and Princess Bubblegum, or Marshall Lee and Prince Bubblegum, depending on what universe you're in. They're just a really, really cute, sweet love story between two characters that are very, very opposite. To track style, you don't really see them being together. Princess Bubblegum is literally a princess made out of bubblegum and Marceline is a vampire and she's like a rock and roll vampire chick.
Speaker 2:
That's awesome.
Speaker 1:
And then in different universes, they also change genders. That's something that you see very often throughout the Adventure Time universe. Even with the new show on HBO, Max Fiona and Cake, it's just the female version of Finn and Jake.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and it's so cool that it's that digestible for young kids, because they're so in tune with their imagination the younger they are.
Speaker 1:
I will say just so. We all know Fiona and Cake is considered teen, it's considered 14 plus, whereas Adventure Time is definitely for kids. They decided to make it a little more adult for Fiona and Cake so they could have things like blood, and I just want to let people know that before they go showing their children Fiona and Cake, don't do that. Show them Adventure Time, not the other one.
Speaker 2:
Thanks for that clarification. So when I was growing up, too, one of the prominent LGBT figures was also Ellen DeGeneres, where she came out like she had the Ellen show and she actually came out on her show, but then also in real life. So that was like a pretty big deal. She was like the first out talk show host. And you know Rosie O'Donnell she also advocates for LGBT rights and everything, and I remember when I was younger and she was advocating for adoption for queer couples and that was like unheard of at that time.
Speaker 1:
No, she's incredible. Another thing I've seen her actively on TikTok, being pro-Palestine, commenting on videos, interacting with journalists on the ground. It's actually pretty cool to see. I know. You know, as a society and specifically personally in my own life, I'm working on like not holding celebrities on a pedestal. They are human, just like us. They are not any better we are all equal at the end of the day but it's really cool to see her using her platform for good.
Speaker 2:
I was just about to say that the thing that we can say is that they're using their celebrity status to be heard. And Rosie, she not only advocates for LGBT rights, but also children and children's health and adoption. You know, I just I she does a lot of philanthropic efforts and I think it's just great because she is in the LGBT community and she's doing a lot of great things.
Speaker 1:
You know, I, definitely I have massive amounts of respect for her, genuinely Like she is, she is a fantastic person and she really does, you know, continuously, from what I've seen, at least put it forward. Yeah which is really nice.
Speaker 2:
Totally.
Speaker 1:
Mind you, I do not know everything. I have not seen everything that she is in. I'm 27. How much I really would have seen that. Start Rosie O'Donnell in general, from what I've seen, I find her to be a phenomenal person and I think that's really cool.
Speaker 2:
Doing positive things. At least you know contributing. Also, have you seen Boys Don't Cry, the movie?
Speaker 1:
Okay. So here's the thing I so I heard the story of Brandon Tina when I was 18 and I had just come out as trans myself. I had never heard his story before that and the reason I the way I had found his story was I think someone in the GSA had mentioned him the Gay-Straight Alliance or the Gender Sexuality Alliance is I think what we called it Someone had mentioned him and I had no idea. And I went to try to find just like any kind of information from the time. That wasn't necessarily the movie, because I didn't really want a dramatization, I wanted more like factual, and I ended up watching a 60 minutes documentary that was kind of made within the couple of months of the movie coming out, kind of thing, you know. And the entire time they misgendered him.
Speaker 2:
Really.
Speaker 1:
The entire fucking documentary misgendered him.
Speaker 2:
Why.
Speaker 1:
I think two people, friends of his, were the only ones that used the proper.
Speaker 2:
How does that even happen?
Speaker 1:
It was a 60 minutes documentary. I will never forget that Cause. After that I just stopped watching anything from 60 minutes. I was like there goes my respect Bye.
Speaker 2:
But how does that even happen? It's a documentary of his life, his life.
Speaker 1:
They'd mentioned. They'd mentioned that. You know they basically from my recollection they basically worded it as he was a confused lesbian is how they tried to frame his life.
Speaker 2:
That's not their place to interpret it that way for a documentary and also, fuck that. It's maddening, it's maddening.
Speaker 1:
No, he literally died for this, he literally legitimately died for his, for the basic amounts of respect and like, yeah, so after that I kind of because the document it was a 60 minutes thing that was released for the movie in conjunction with it and after that I had no interest in seeing the movie because I was like I don't know if they're actually gonna be respectful to this poor person. I don't wanna see that, as someone who you know was just coming out as a trans man was scared for my own safety, my own experiences, things of that nature, I just did not. They left a bad taste in my mouth enough that it straightened me away from the movie, you know.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean that was. That movie was my first real introduction to a transgender person and transgender experiences. I think I was, I wanna say, 19 or 20 when the movie first came out.
Speaker 1:
I think it was a little bit after I was born. Question mark I think it came out in 97 or 98. 1999.
Speaker 2:
Jinks. Okay, so in 1999, I was 19. And I saw it when I was a sophomore in college, so I was 20 when I saw it. I had no exposure to even queer people as a whole, nevermind transgender people, when I was in high school it was. I mean, nobody was out, quote unquote. And if they were, then they got harassed.
Speaker 2:
When I went to college I got into the queer community and we we watched we always watched a bunch of movies better than chocolate, whatever we could broke back mountain and we made sure that everybody was educated in the group. But we also had a lot of fun and we also endured a lot of discrimination because at that time it wasn't cool to be queer. I mean, I'm still dealing with stuff from PTSD Now as a doctor today. Is it okay for me to put these things on my website that I love the queer community and I want them to come in for care? It's hard, you know, every day, even on Saturday, when I went to the New York City Gay Men's Chorus performance, every single member of that 260 piece chorus was listed in the program and each member had pronouns in parentheses after their name, because that's how inclusive and affirmative this organization is and it just it broke my heart in, not in a bad way, but broke it open.
Speaker 2:
You know, I walked into this venue and it was full of queer people on stage expressing queer joy, and everybody in the audience was either a queer member or a queer ally. For the first time, I think in my entire life, I didn't have to look over my shoulder holding my girlfriend's hand in the audience. I just felt seen, I felt heard, I felt like it was okay. And when you couple that with the power of music that's coming off the stage, that's being expressed the joy, the pure joy. It was near an unearthly experience for me because it was so affirming and so validating. So you know, I don't know how I got all the way there.
Speaker 1:
No, that's incredible.
Speaker 2:
Just to say that's what we used to do when we were in college. We used to just make sure that we were all in the know with what we heard, what was going on, or, as you know, donald, and adoption rights and this and that, and just stand up for each other, even in our little group, because that's all we had then, and it's amazing to see how things have evolved so much in the last 20 years. It's mind blowing.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. I honestly I think that is the perfect segue into the activists that have meant a lot to us. You know Just a little tip about the people that have been involved that have meant a lot to our growth into queer adults and confidence in our queerness. So you were talking with the gay men's choir.
Speaker 2:
Oh, absolutely. Do you want to share first?
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. I mean sure, but I feel like I'm I hate to say it, but I feel like I'm taking a pretty easy one, but personally, for me, I can't help it. I remember learning about Marsha P Johnson.
Speaker 2:
That was going to be mine. We could share, so fair.
Speaker 1:
I learned about her. I think I was in seventh grade, maybe a little younger. I remember definitely being younger than most people when they learned about her, and the reason for that is just because of the fact that I've always had an interest in learning about things, and especially learning about things that we weren't learning about in school. I always wanted to know why there were certain things that we just kind of rushed past or skipped over, and those were the things that I really liked to try to focus on. So a lot of the times I would research things like institutionalization and the hundred or so years of asylums and mental institutions and things of that nature that existed not just in America but specifically in Western society, because they were basically torture chambers and how a lot of the times queer people would end up being the ones that were put in them because it was just a way to not have to deal with members of your family that were considered outcasted by society and that turned kind of into just this want to know how did that stop? Where did it end? And obviously you know that led me to learning about your Braggenstein institutionalization whole thing. But what that really delved into me learning about was more the foundation of queerness, the foundation of queer rights and queer history, and things like that, which led me directly to Marsha P Johnson's doorstep, because I mean there is no way to get into the fundamentals of queer rights without ending up upon her doorstep.
Speaker 1:
She is just such an inspiration. I mean, she came to New York at 17 years old, graduating high school, with $15 in her pocket and a bag of clothes, nothing else. And she, at first she named herself I believe it was Black Marsha or Marsha Black, I'm not 100% sure which way she flipped those, but then she ended up going by Marsha P Johnson, which is how she adopted for her motto of pay it no mind. And it was something that she took into every aspect of queer liberation. And she is really the person who taught me, who began my knowledge on the idea of intersectionality, because it was her quote no pride for some without liberation for all.
Speaker 1:
That got me on the thought process of well, okay, we have pride now. This was a back. Before we had marriage, equality and things like that. What are we missing? And it led me down the paths of who is still being oppressed. She helped open my eyes to how many systems in this country are designed to keep people down. You know, right, she was the first, I would say. Without a doubt, she was the first person to radicalize me Reading about Marsha P Johnson and learning about her and learning about her relationship with Sylvia Rivera who, mind you, she met when Sylvia was 11 years old.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, she mentored her and was kind of like her mother in a way.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, literally. Sylvia has said in an interview. Since a part of her died when Marsha was pulled out of the Hudson River, a part of her died that day. They were supposed to cross the River Jordan together. They had a deal, they had a pact and they never got to do that.
Speaker 2:
So fucking sad.
Speaker 1:
It's so sad. It's so sad. Marsha deserves the world.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely the only person that really saw her for who she was. They're both transgender women. They were both Women of color. Women of color. Sylvia Rivera was Puerto Rican and Venezuelan descent. I believe so to be a young person, at 11 years old. I mean, can you imagine you're a transgender woman, a girl, yeah, a girl Going through this exploration of questioning and on this journey of exploration with your own sexual identity, and then you meet somebody who's doing the thing out loud and bold but also making a huge impact on history.
Speaker 1:
And here's the thing it's like they were girls. Marsha was 17.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
We look at a 17-year-old nowadays and we see them for who they are a child. They were both. It reminds me of that whole thing that always makes the internet cry. We were girls together. They were girls together. They were kids still, you know and they just wanted better, not just for themselves, but for every queer person. They saw that they were capable of that and they saw that humanity was capable of that. And even still, even though they were the pioneers of a lot of what we end up having to this day, during the 1973 Pride, drag queens were banned from marching, including them. Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson were not allowed to march at the 1973 Pride, so they marched in front of it.
Speaker 2:
Hey, that's the way around it, you know.
Speaker 1:
You know what I say never back down, never what.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, it's crazy when you talk about their ages because it's like in my mind, they should be doing kid things, you know. But thank God they did the things that they did.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
You know the LGBT rights movement and everything. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:
They will always. The two of them, sylvia and Marsha, will always hold a special place in my heart and soul and I will always feel bad for what people like me, people who look like me, what white queers did to them. Because we told them no, you guys, don't look like them, you can't be in the front. We need to be in the front because we look like them, so they'll accept us easier. That's what we like. We did that to them, you know, like white queers, and that's why there is a lot of BIPOC queers that are genuinely upset and angry and have every right to be angry with the white queer community Because, guys, we've let them down over and over and over and over again. None of us are free until all of us are free. No pride for some without liberation for all.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and so I think it's great that we're talking about all these people that have influenced us in our queer journey over the past several decades and things Maybe for you two decades, two and a plus.
Speaker 1:
Two and a quarter-ish.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, exactly, but what's really cool now is paying attention to people that are continuing the legacy. They've taken the torch, if you will. So there's a woman who is doing some really great things in New York. She's a psychotherapist, she's on the Upper West Side, and her website says who we work with Okay, adults, kids, teens, families and then it says the world we want to live in LGBTQIA plus affirming BIPOC, allied Gender expansive. And at the bottom of her site they're right, like you know, at the bottom, how it has, like the footer with the address and everything Right above it, it says an LGBTQIA2SP plus and BIPOC affirming practice. I love that so much because now I'm really paying attention to, okay, who is out there, out loud and proud and bold with continuing the legacy that Marcia and Sylvia and so many others have laid the foundation for us to continue.
Speaker 2:
Who are those people today? Who's not afraid to go and put their pronouns on their website? Who's not afraid to ask people that walk in their door hey, do you feel safe here? Or what are your pronouns, what name do you go by? People aren't afraid to put safe space logos. People aren't afraid to do inclusivity training. People aren't afraid of intergenerational businesses and practices. They're not afraid of intersectionality. They ask the hard questions, they have the hard conversations. It's like who are those people? Who are they? How do they make a difference?
Speaker 1:
No, absolutely Definitely. Those are the people that we need to be looking toward. I would say honestly, there are so many creators on TikTok and through social media who are doing exactly that. They are being the voices and the unity and the information, the knowledge that is needed to step into tomorrow with a full scope of what is happening. It's really really cool to see.
Speaker 2:
Very cool. In case anybody was wondering, her name is Sarah Glass and she helps people process trauma so that they can actually live fully into a good, healthy life. She grew up as a Jewish girl and she actually wrote a book that's coming out. Simon and Chuster signed her and it's being released in the spring of 2024. It's called Kissing Girls on Shabbat.
Speaker 2:
It's basically a memoir and it's the story of her queer identity within the context of being a Hasidic Jew and family mental illness, like that legacy or that lineage of family mental illness. She just shares this vulnerable story of her own narrative and what she went through and so on and so forth. I think that's really important to be so forthcoming and so vulnerable and vocal. She's using her voice to tell her story, which I think also helps with credibility in attracting people like her who want to be seen and heard in the queer community but then also, as they heal their trauma, just automatically are given as a byproduct the permission to do the same. Oh yeah, Because I think a lot of young kids they have trauma because they're not seen, they're not heard, they're dismissed, they're thrown out of the house, their issues are shoved under the carpet.
Speaker 1:
I could literally go to war for children's rights, because children are people and we treat them like they're accessories or dogs in purses that you can just slap something in front of and it'll be fun. Talk to your kids or just don't have them. They're people. They have the same exact emotions and emotional reactions as a full grown adult, just less of a capability of funneling them.
Speaker 2:
Exactly, I know, I hear you.
Speaker 1:
I'm willing. If you feel like you want to have a kid and you can't imagine that kid being something, don't have a kid. I couldn't imagine my kid being a drag queen Okay, then don't have a kid. I couldn't imagine my kid being queer Okay, then don't have a kid. I couldn't imagine my queer ending up with this person Okay, then don't have a kid.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, but people tell themselves, oh, not me, not my kid, then they do it anyway. Do we have a fun fact for today, or no?
Speaker 1:
I don't really know if this fits the vibe of the episode, but a lot of people don't realize that Anne Frank was bisexual. She writes about women in her diary the exact same way she writes about men. She has an entire section of her diary where she writes about the beauty of the female form. It's one of the reasons her diary has been banned.
Speaker 2:
Are you kidding? It's on the book ban list.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, Anne Frank's diary has been on many different book ban lists in the US. They say part of it is the violent themes, or whatever. But one of the reasons for her ban is sexual depiction and it's because of the way she talks about women.
Speaker 2:
I had no idea.
Speaker 1:
Again, it's one of those things that could never actually be proven. Unfortunately, she died long before she would ever actually be able to start exploring herself, experimenting, doing anything. However, through the works in her diary, through her writings. There's an entire section where she writes about how deeply beautiful she finds women, metaphors to describe the beauty of the female form, and even throughout it, questions herself Is it wrong to feel this way about a woman? Is this attraction not meant for just men? She has a little bit of an internal conflict with herself about it.
Speaker 2:
Anne Frank was most likely by it goes back to that thing we were saying earlier about how we've always been here.