Out in America/Out in New York

It was a celebration of being GLBT in American and a review of our recent history in this country.

It had its flaws, I think, but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend that people view it…many times, if possible.  I love it that we live in the New York City environs (just west of Newark, NJ) and we get two New York PBS stations, so I got a chance to watch it Wednesday night on Thirteen and will have another chance Sunday on WLIW (Long Island).  And it will probably eventually come to our own New Jersey PBS station, NJN.

It is, after all, time for another pledge drive.  It’s always time for another pledge drive.

What is it?  It’s the new documentary by Andrew Goldberg, Out in America.  The version we get here is actually called Out in America/Out in New York, which consists of the original documentary wrapped in some local material, hosted by Kate Clinton (who also participated in the documentary) and Andrew Goldberg, who wrote and produced the documentary in conjunction with Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Mr. Goldberg said that he felt that if people could just see how much GLBT people were like themselves, that the world would get better.  There was a bit of a flaw in his procedure for doing that.

He didn’t find average, everyday people to interview.

Who did he find?

Award-winning author Armistead Maupin (Note:  There will be a benefit performance of the American Conservatory Theater‘s premiere musical version of Tales of the City on June 24, hosted by Anna Madrigal herself,  Olympia Dukakis.

Andy Cohen, Executive Vice-President for Original Programming and Development for the Bravo Network, as well as host of Watch What Happens Live.

James Hormel US Ambassador to Luxemborg during the Clinton administration and the first openly LGBT person to be nominated or appointed to any such position.

The Rev. Peter Gomes, a theologian and professor at Harvard Divinity School and interfaith chaplain at Harvard until he died on February 28 of this year.

Horse trainer and Woodburn, OR resident Mike Hartman.

Country singer Chely Wright

GLBT activist and Kate Clinton’s partner Urvashi Vaid, former executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (1989-1992 and 1997-2000) and author of Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation.

Gender Rights Maryland executive director and Keshet board member, retired eye surgeon and token transwoman, Dana Beyer.

Lt. Stephan Thorne of the SFPD, token transman and the highest ranking out transgender law enforcement office in the country.

Bisexual activist Robyn Ochs, author of Getting Bi:  Voices of Bisexuals Around the World.  There is an hour long video of speeches by her and others below:

The two Harolds, Harold Mays and Harold Herman, who probably stole the show.

AIDS activist and cofounder of ACT-UP, Wayner Turner.

Dr. Patricia Hawkins, formerly a psychologist with the Whitman-Walker Clinic, who was instrumental in the support for men with AIDS in DC in the ’80s and ’90s.  She is one of three surviving staff members…all of them women.

Sadly I became one of the city’s experts on death and dying.

If the Harolds weren’t the stars of the show, maybe it was lesbian grandmother Ruth Berman and lesbian great-grandmother Connie Kurtz.  Here is video of them from quite a few years ago:

PJ Serrano, the first openly gay, and poz,man to run for public office in Puerto Rico.

Becky Kanis was one of the original board members of Knights Out, along with Daniel Choi.

Becky Kanis’s career path has taken her in many directions. She spent nine years on active duty in the Army, where she commanded a company in the 112th Special Operations (Airborne) Signal Battalion stationed at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. She later spent time working as a stockbroker in Washington, DC. Now, Becky is the Innovations Director at Common Ground, a New York-based nonprofit creating and managing affordable supportive housing and employment programs for homeless, disabled, elderly, and low-income people.

—Poverty Insights

Richie (Loco) Ruperto is a rapper.  He can be seen with other GLBT rappers in the video to the left.

Ebone Bell (aka drag king E Clef), creator of the DC Queer Women’s Prom and the Capitol Queer Prom and CEO of BOI Productions…and, by the way, also advertising manager for the Chronical of Higher Education.

The documentary takes a rapid tour through GLBT history, starting in the ’50s with protests by the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, skips right past the Compton Riots (see Screaming Queens) without mention and on to Stonewall, with little discussion of the rolls of transpeople in the earliest push back against police harassment.  Urvashi Vaid went so far as to say that the trans identity didn’t arise until the late ’70s.  There was mention of Lambda Rising Bookstore, which was intimately involved in the development and continuation of gay pride celebrations.  And then the documentary moved on to the death years…the plague of the “Gay Cancer”, which became GRID and then the AIDS epidemic, mention of the rise of ACT UP and the lesbians “stepping forward in scores” to help the men, becoming the leaders of the community because the men were dying in such big numbers.  Then came footage of the AIDS quilt.

The documentary finished with a people talking about the present and how much better…taking the long view…things are today than they were 20-40 years ago.

This was PBS pledge week here, so there were several pledge breaks which constituted the Out in New York piece of Out in America/Out in New York.  The hosts, of course, begged for money and occasionally turned in over to other folks to join in the begging.  In this we were addressed by Wilson Cruz, among others.  And we were entertained during one intermission by the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, singing Katy Perry’s Firework.  Here’s a little about the NYCGMC:

And at the very end, during the last pledge break, there was a lengthy piece about Immigration Equality and their lobbying arm, the Immigration Equality Action Fund.  I’m sure they could use donations as well…and perhaps even more than PBS.

In our case, the things you could get from PBS for donating were the video of the documentary with and extra 20 minutes, or the video with an autographed copy of Armistead Maupin’s Mary Ann in Autumn, or two tickets to a performance of the play Unnatural Acts.

To sum up, I was disappointed that the bis and transpeople seemed to be almost be afterthoughts, but I’m used to that.  I was more disappointed that there were not more “plain people” interviewed.  Those stories need to be told as well.  Not all of us are GLBT advocates of some type or other.

And I’m not sure how much good it does to have people think we are.

On the other hand, I was entertained.  🙂

I have a few more videos to be disbursed in the comments.