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All right. Okay. I want to talk about two women, Lilli Vincenz, who I knew from 1963 when she joined the Mattachine Society. Um, she was the most effective lesbian in the history of Washington community. Um, she, um. At one point, she started holding, um, these meetings for lesbians once a week at her house. Um. She played, um, a a major role in the Kameny campaign. She collected more signatures than anybody else in the in the campaign, you know? Um, it was always there, sort of a-- was, supporting role. And she did a filming of--of the gay rights pickets, which was shown. Um, I know that at the third conference in New York at the Barbizon Plaza. Um, the other woman I would talk to is Barbara Gittings of Philadelphia. She died on February 25th, 2007. She was, um, intellectually, uh, extraordinary person. And in many ways she was the Frank Kameny of Philadelphia, and Kameny was very close to her. Um. I had a friend, uh, his name was Donald Crawford. Um. In July of 1965, my late partner, Stephen Brent Miller, got picked up by two men from Naval Intelligence. They wanted information about another friend, Perry Rutherford, who was a lieutenant commander in the US Navy. Uh, Stephen did not cooperate, did not give them any information. However, they then picked up Don Crawford, who had worked in private enterprise, but he had a security clearance. Don told them what they wanted to know. Um, Perry Rutherford got kicked out of the Navy, moved back to Philadelphia, Rittenhouse Square, where his mother lived, and Don lost his security clearance and his job. Don Crawford became Frank Cambria's first security clearance case. And, um. Who am I talking about? From Philadelphia. The woman? Yes. Um. Um. Um. Huh? I'm horrible with names. Yeah, I know. She and Camile were sort of cold representatives of Barbara Gittings. Yes. Or, um. Coke. The lawyers, you know, for Barbara was, um, enormously talented and bright, articulate person. A very forceful personality. Um, and she was very good in public meetings on television and things like that. Um, and she had a strong relationship with Frank Kameny, and they worked together for many, many years. Barbara was the single most important, influential person in the Philadelphia community. Um, I went, um, Mark Siegel, who's a major figure in Philadelphia. He owns the Philadelphia Gay news. Um, he arranged for um, memorial service at Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which I went to on on the last Saturday in April of 2007. Um. Anyway, so, it was just an indication of how important Barbara Gittings was. Um, because I knew her, I would see sometimes. I remember a couple of times I was in the New York Christopher Street, and I would run into Barbara and Kay twice. It happened. Kay Tobin was her, um, her partner, she died a couple of years ago, and they're buried in Congressional Cemetery in the LGBT area next to, um, Leonard Matlovich. And Frank Kameny has a stone there, and it's down the street from J. Edgar Hoover's grave. So, um. So I think in, in terms of women involved in the gay rights movement, the two most important people, I would say are Lilli Vincenz and Barbara Gittings. And of course, Lilli was, um, she was honored in September of 2007, as I was and Frank Kameny. And. Um, I know that, for instance. Um. So Barbara was very instrumental in the ECHO conferences, which were held Philadelphia, Washington and New York, in that order. I will tell you, um, something that happened at the, um, the Washington conference in October of 1964 at the Sheraton Park Hotel. It's now a Marriott. Rabbi Eugene Lippmann was one of the speakers on Saturday afternoon. A member of the American Nazi Party showed up in Nazi drag. I kid you not. He had a big box with big Red bull and screaming that he had this jar of Vaseline for Rabbi Lipman. He got--got arrested, got arrested by two members from the vice squad who had arrested him. Walter Jenkins, who was on Lyndon Johnson's staff. It was a famous incident that happened in the fall of 1964. Walter Jenkins was a top aide to President Lyndon Johnson. Anyways, um, he got arrested at the YMCA near the White House. Um, was I going to say. Um, anyway, see, they, uh, those two police officers from the vice squad were sitting outside the entrance to, um, our conference. And this Nazi showed up, and they arrested him, took him away.

00:08:12.670 - 00:09:30.500

Um, yeah. I'm glad they were there for that. Yeah. I also met, um, Doctor Alfred Kinsey, who did the Kinsey report. Yeah. In Bloomington, Indiana, which had an extraordinary impact. Um. Two of his associates were at that conference, and I met them. Wardell Pomeroy and, uh, and they were at that conference, um, and they were there because Kameny had invited them because, you know, um, after, um, the Philadelphia conference the following year, Frank Kameny was in charge. So anybody who represented the viewpoints about homosexuality was a mental illness were excluded? Yes. Believe it or not, um, in 1965, the members of the Mattachine Society of Washington had a debate about the issue of whether or not homosexuality was a mental illness. Um, we had two of the one of the officers said, well, I know a lot of my friends are sick. Anyways, the vote was 27 to 5.

00:09:30.860 - 00:10:30.420

Mhm. Um, good margin for sure. Yeah. Good. So things that went on. Yeah. So um, that was another a profound social change. You know, you're actually people who believe gay people believe all that stuff, uh, because, um, years ago, when gay people would lose their job and the federal government, a lot of them have a tendency to believe, well, this is probably my fault, you know, which it wasn't, you know? So, um, so. Um, I have another kind of large overarching question. Sure. Um, so from that, you know, first person who spoke, talking about being gay, being a mental illness today, there has been a lot of very positive progress for LGBTQ folks. Yes.

00:10:30.460 - 00:11:51.440

What do you think? Especially with, you know, things that have happened in the past few months? I know the NPS no longer includes trans people in the description of stone And, um, a lot of kind of rolling back on. Rights. For gay and trans people. What do you. Think my attitude is that is that the people who are making those choices are basically homophobic, that they can no longer, um, publicly attack gay people directly. So they attacking trans people. It's an alternative. You know, Donald Trump is on his whole crowd of people. That was all about, uh, it gives them a device that they can attack gay people, which is apparently, uh, helpful for their base. That's what I think it's all about. Um, the, um, I don't think there's any really serious. Legitimate issues about trans people, you know, about their being being able to function in society. I think it's primarily homophobic. And I've thought that right from the very beginning. Um.

00:11:55.920 - 00:17:18.570

And for people who are kind of pushing back against, you know, for like younger gay people, younger trans people, all of that. What strategies from your decades of involvement in queer activism, what strategies do you think we can use moving forward? Well, the most important thing is attitude. Um, have a positive, um, articulate attitude. You can articulate that you should never be on the defensive. Um, I--something I noticed right from the very beginning in my involvement with the community, um, a lot of people then who approached gay people, expected them to be defensive, apologetic about that. And, um, my attitude was completely different. Um. I actually, um. I had a class in creative writing in 1970 at the university. It's a Northern Virginia center of the University of Virginia. I wrote a short story All the way home, and it it was about. Um. Four of us on this Saturday in April of 1963. We I remember we met at Frank's family's house at 5020 Cathedral Avenue that morning, and we were driving to Philadelphia for the planning conference, for the ECHO conference that was to be held the following late August at the Drake Hotel. Uh, after the conference, the planning conference was over. I went with Bruce Scott in his blue Corvair to drive to New York, and we stayed in the apartment of a friend who was away. I remember that coming back that Sunday afternoon. There was a series of incidents that were coincidences. You know, that, um, Bruce Scott's car kept breaking down and, um. And I use that experience all the way home to tell the story about the life of Frank Kameny and Bruce Scott and my life. The short story which I wrote for him is called All the Way Home, and. It examines the conditions that existed in the mentality of 1963. And then ends with this stream of consciousness, you know, um, page. Um, and it was I did this for a writing class, and all my classmates got to read it. They were quite surprised. Um, anyway, it's called All the Way Home. Um, it captures what I think. The mood, The Culture of Being Gay in 1963, which was an extraordinary year because it was the year of Doctor Martin Luther King's assassination and, of course, his doctor, Martin Luther King's great speech and President John Kennedy's assassination, which had, um, extraordinary impact on me. Um. But, um. I am, um. Very pleased about the way that our community has evolved, both locally and nationally. And I'm very optimistic that we're going to be able to overcome some of the political problems that the Trump administration has erected. I mean, I just see there's a coming backlash which is showing up in all these special elections and will be in in this November. There are elections in new Jersey and Virginia. And I think, um, I'm just very optimistic you're going to be able to deal with that because he has so many insane things he's doing. You know, the attack on Harvard University. Unbelievable. Um, you know. And even what's happening in LA today. Yeah. Deploying the National Guard.

00:17:18.730 - 00:18:03.010

Yeah. Correct. He's just. He has lost control. His--his judgment is extremely poor. He doesn't have any discipline, you know. It's all about him. He's the most narcissistic buffoon anyways. Um, well, with that kind of optimism that you have, what sort of victories are like in your perfect world? What sort of victories do you think come next for the queer community? In what? What sort of like victories do you see coming next? Do you hope to see come next for the queer community? Kind of at large?

00:18:03.570 - 00:20:42.390

Um. Well, I think the Democrats are going to regain control of the House and Senate, and there's legislation that needs to be passed. Um, I don't think we have gay rights to law to pass through. I don't know how solid it is on a national level. I think a lot of it's state level. Right? Yeah. Um. I, um, I think there's-- we're going to make progress-- in Congress, um, and continue to make progress in all the in the states and cities, you know, um, as we have here in Washington, D.C.. So, um, you know, there was. Um. I remember my late partner, um, we attended the 1997 Human Rights Campaign national dinner where Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton became--he was speaker. He was the first president to address a national audience. Outside the hotel, there were people who opposed gay rights were picketing. It was just the reverse of what had happened. And. Um. And, um. Um, the gay community was the one constituency where Vice President Harris had an increase, she got 88% of the vote. You know, there were fall offs in the other constituencies, but, um. I've. I've traveled around. I'm in Philadelphia, I was just recently in California. Uh, I know what the attitudes are turn in the gay community about Donald Trump. Yeah. So I'm I'm very optimistic that we're going to deal with any problems that he presents. Absolutely.

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Yeah. Um, well, is there anything else you want to add tell us about? I know we kept you for a while. Yeah. I can't think of anything right now. All righty.

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You have my card? Yes, I know Dan has it. I'll take a picture of it as well, or I can. Yeah. Thank you so much.

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Um, if you Google my name on the internet, there are about 20 pages that will come up, um, about me. Thank you.