June 9, 2021
Season 2 Episode 16
In this episode Gil and Eric discuss aspects of history as it pertains to LGBTQIA+ culture in the United States and also discuss the influence that the LGBTQIA+ culture has had on mainstream culture.
PBS link
Transcript
Eric:
Hello, and welcome to The Q Lounge Podcast. I'm Eric and I'm Gil. Join us as we discuss news stories and life situations. As they relate to the LGBTQIA plus experience, please visit us at theQloungepodcast.com and hit that subscribe button or listen wherever you get your podcasts while you're there. Please leave us a five star review and don't forget to tell your friends. hello. Hello and welcome to the Q lounge. I'm Eric and I'm Gil. I want to take a minute to give a shout out to all of our listeners. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you to all of our listeners across the globe. We've actually picked up a few more international listeners. So that's always exciting.
Gil:Eric, how many do we have so far
Eric:that I don't know, but we're picking up so that's good. For? So thank you guys all for the continued support. We really do appreciate it again. Please tell your friends about our podcast. It helps to keep us in the eye-line so that we can grow and get some sponsorship and deliver more fun opinions to you guys. Also think about going to apple podcasts and leaving us a five star review as well as a written review, because that will also help to grow this podcast. Again, with the theme of pride, this is pride month. I know last episode, we did a lot of talking about what pride means to us and what we think of it. Today, we wanted to give you guys a little bit of context, as far as what pride really is and the plight of the LGBTQ plus community, what we've had to endure from society, what we've contributed to society. And again, what pride actually is. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of facts given to you guys today. There's maybe not be quite as much discussion as there normally is. There will definitely be some discussion and some fun times, but we figured this history lesson was also very important to you all as a whole. And. Yeah. So I'm going to hand the mic over to Gil, even though we're not in the same area and he's just on his own mic, but yeah, I'm going to let you take it away. Gil and school, us all on
Gil:oh boy history. Yes, we're all getting. we're gonna get our queer one oh one on here, we go.
Eric:Ooh. Oh really quick. We, before we get into all that check out our new swag. We have a whole bunch of merchandise that we just dropped. We have pride merchandise and we have live in your authenticity. T-shirts and crops and we have our too cute to be Cis crops and t-shirts we have tote bags and Phone covers and laptop sleeves and a whole bunch of other stuff. So if you go to the Q lounge podcast.com and you click on the store icon at the top or on the menu, it'll take you to our store and you can buy a whole bunch of cute little merchandise. So go take a look and see what you want. And
Gil:now I'm going again. I'm going to say my husband already bought a shirt.
Eric:That's your husband did buy your shirt. Thank you, Chris. And I'm going to hand the mic over to you, Mr. Gil. Okay, here you can school us all.
Gil:This is going to be a Nice long history lesson. Okay. So this dates back, but at least know for our records right now to 1924. So we're going to kick it off with the society for human rights. It's founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. The society is the first gay rights organization, as well as the oldest documented in America. After receiving a charter from the state of Illinois it's society the society's already published as the first American publication for homosexuals friendship and freedom. And in soon after its founding the society disbands due to political pressure. Of course. Are we shocked? And then in 1948, biologists and sex researcher, Alfred Kinsey publishes a sexual behavior in the human male. So from his research, Kinsey concludes as homosexual behavior is not restricted to people who identify themselves as homosexual. And that's 37% of men have enjoyed homosexual activities at least once so while psychologist and a psychiatrist in the 1940s considered homosexuality a form of illness, the finding surprise, many conservative notions about sexuality.
Eric:And that's where we, that's where we get our whole sexuality scale, the Kinsey scale. I don't know if you've ever taken the test. I've taken the test. I have, I am a four on the Kinsey scale and I've taken the test, I think two or three times. And I've always scored as a four. What a four is I am predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual. So if anyone's interested, you guys can send us an email or something through our contact page. TheQloungepodcast.com or email us at info.theqlounge@gmail.com. Yes. And.
Gil:Sorry, go ahead. No, you're fine. So we continue. We continue onto what journey. December 15th, 1950 sent a report titled employment of homosexuals and other sex perverts and government is distributed to members of Congress. After the federal government had converted early investigated employees, sexual orientation at the beginning of the cold war, I have a quick question.
Eric:Is this that they make, is this what they mean by let's make America great again,
Gil:exactly what it is. We're just reviving the old books. Okay. Oh boy. The report states that since homosexuality is a mental illness, homosexuals constitutes security risks to the nation because those who engage in avert acts perversion, lack the emotional stability of normal persons. Over the previous few years, more than 4,380 gay men and women had been discharged for the military and around 500 fired from their jobs with the government, the purging will be known as the lavender scare.
Eric:Huh? That sounds like something that we just went through. Isn't it with the banning of the trans military. Yeah.
Gil:Like history repeating itself. Again, this is why we're educating everyone. April, 1952, the American psychiatric association lists homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance in its first publication of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Wow. Wow. I know. I know, April 27th, 1953, president Eisenhower signs an executive order one zero four five zero. And that's banning homosexuals from working for the federal government or any of its private contractors, the order lists homosexuals as security, along with alcoholics and neurotics.
Eric:Really? Yeah. I found that one. Very interesting. That one like jumped out at me right away.
Gil:August 30th, 1956, American psychologist, Evelyn hooker shares her paper. The adjustment of the male overt, homosexual at the American psychological association convention in Chicago. After administrating psychological tests, such as the Rorschach two groups, a Rorschach, yes, two groups of homosexual and heterosexual males. Hooker's research concludes homosexuality is not a clinical entity and that heterosexuals and homosexuals do not differ. Significantly. Hookers experiment becomes very influential, changing clinical perceptions of homosexuality. Leave it
Eric:to a hooker to find out what's really going on in the world.
Gil:January 1st, 1962, Illinois, repeals his sodomy laws becoming the first us state to decriminalize homosexuality. Good job. Here we go finally. And of course the big one, June 28th, 1969, patrons of the Stonewall in the Greenwich village riot. When police officers attempt to raid the popular gay bar around 1:00 AM since its establishment in 1967, the bar had frequently raided by police officers trying to clean up the neighborhood of sexual deviance. So who was the one who led the charge? Eric
Eric:Marsha, P Johnson.
Gil:There we go. It's always skipped over
Eric:a transsexual woman, bisexual sex worker. Yeah. And people do not credit her with that. If it was not for a black trans woman sex worker, we would not have our pride. Yes. And people never think about that. Even like we had earlier in this season with Anna and she was on talking about how the Stonewall movie was made. And it was about some white dude who was like going through the scene and happened to catch it all because they couldn't tell it from the perspective of Marsha P Johnson. Of course, that, which is exactly. If it wasn't for BIPOC, we wouldn't have what we have. And that's, I know I'm going to go on a tangent really quickly, but that's one thing, like when we talk about pride and we also talk about cause we can get pretty political on this podcast, even though we try not to sometimes, but we definitely can. It's because a lot of it's so intertwined, like fighting for racial justice, supporting black lives matter, supporting AAPI, supporting different ethnicities. It all intertwines with supporting the LGBTQ I a community. Cause we're all looking for equality and freedom and just human rights and being able to experience the human experience without being oppressed by a majority, which tends to be a very puritanical Christian majority. But yeah that's why, like I tend to be very vocal about injustices when it comes to not just LGBTQ rights, but all rights. Because I think they're so intimately intertwined and I don't think people realize that it's not just, oh, we're fighting for gay marriage and for gay rights, no, we're fighting for everyone's rights. We're not just fighting for this group's rights and that group's rights and we're not definitely not trying to take anyone's rights away from them.
Gil:This isn't a pie, eating contest or eat pie. It goes away, straight that way.
Eric:And I don't want to say all straight people, but a lot of straight people have this notion that we're infringing on their rights. And we're not the rights are it's. It goes like same with a lot of white people think that we're trying to infringe on their rights. We're not, we're just trying to be on a level playing field, be like, Hey, don't beat us down. Literally. So that brick was thrown for a reason. So thank you, Marsha P Johnson for throwing that fucking brick.
Gil:Exactly it, obviously after that the Christopher street liberation day that's someone that come around commemorates the one year anniversary of the Stonewall riots. So pretty much this is what led to our pride parades that we do see now, when, what from, yes, June 28th, 1970 was the very first one. And then obviously December 15th, 1973, the board of American psychiatric association votes remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. Thank you, 1973, still within our lifetime.
Eric:I know it's just shortly before I was born. I'm not sure. Yeah, just a few years. And people still treat us like it's a mental illness. Hello, conversion therapy. Yes, which Mike Pence supports people.
Gil:This a quick snippet about June 7th, 1977 singer and conservative Southern Baptist Anita fucking Bryant lead a successful campaign. Save our children crusade to repeal a gay rights ordinance in Dade county. If you're a gay from that era, you know about miss the Anita Bryant. Oh, bless her soul. November 8th, 1977. Harvey Milk wins his seat on the San Francisco board of supervisors. And it's possible for introducing a gay rights ordinance, protecting gays and lesbians from being fired from their jobs. It'll also lead to a successful campaign against proposition six, an initiative for bidding homosexual teachers a year later on November 27th, 1978, a former city supervisor Dan white assassinates milk. And that is the date. We do remember how here in the bay area. Yeah.
Eric:We want you to go watch the best Sean Penn movie.
Gil:Yes, that was good. July 8th, 1980, the democratic rules committee states that it will not discriminate against homosexuals at their national convention. On August 11th, through the 14th, the Democrats become the first major political party to endorse a homosexual rights platform,
Eric:which I have to say I was reading something and it was talking about, and they're not going to give you word for word, but the Republican party had quite the opposing platform where they were actually Commenting on like how homosexuality was wrong and they were against it in that same era. So go ahead. Oh no,
Gil:no problem. In 1980, one of the New York times prints the first story of a rare pneumonia in skin cancer found in 41 gay men in New York, and California. I literally just got chills when you know where we're going. The CDC initially refers to the disease as GRID gay related immune deficiency disorder. When the symptoms are found outside the gay community, Bruce Voeller biologists and founder of the national gay task force successfully lobbies to change the name to the disease to AIDS. In 1982, Wisconsin becomes the first us state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Great job, Wisconsin. Yeah,
Eric:that's good.
Gil:In 1987 AIDS advocacy group act up is formed in response to the devastating effects the disease has had on the gay and lesbian community in New York. The group holds demonstrations against pharmaceutical companies, profiteering from AIDS related drugs, as well as the lack of it. It is. And the lack of AIDS policies protecting patients from outrageous prescription prices. Does this sound familiar. Yeah, it sounds
Eric:very familiar. It's still happening. It's disgusting.
Gil:And continuing still in 87, hundreds of thousands of activists take part in the national March on Washington to demand that president Ronald fucking Reagan addresses the aids crisis. I love
Eric:you so much for just, I cannot
Gil:put, so there's some people may his soul not rest piece. Although AIDS has had been reported in 1981, it is not until the end of his presidency that Reagan speaks publicly about this epidemic. And then this second term, he's in his second fucking term.
Eric:Yeah. So this is why when we do a lot of our interviews, like we harp on this a lot. This is like when we are having just our commentary and our regular episodes. We bring this up often. And we talk about how Reagan was not this great person that so many of the Republican conservatives think he was or say he was. Yeah, again, that's why I tend to be very liberal because I can't support that. That's absolutely fucking disgusting. As you always say, Gil, a whole generation was lost. It was pretty much lost. It was
Gil:pretty much lost. And the thing is like it, like I said, Reagan did not address it. It was thousands. You're talking cities worth of people dead. Yes. For him to finally, oh, something's happening. It's the same reaction. Trump had that half a million people that died for COVID is on his hands. It's not blaming anyone else. That's him. Yeah, this lack of response
Eric:and you know what? We still don't have a cure for AIDS no we do not, we have great therapies and there have been people who've been cured of AIDS, but there's not like an actual cure for AIDS. I did read a couple months ago that there is promising research on a vaccine for AIDS based on the MRNA, a prototype or protocol of what COVID is based off of. And it looks promising, but it's still not going to be readily available. They saw how to go through all of its trials and everything else. So
Gil:I don't know if it's just me. I was, I felt this is like the non-logical side of me, but I'm always like this pharmaceutical companies would never allow this to happen anyways. Even if they found the cure. No, I know they wouldn't. They would lose money. Too many countries, especially like in, in Africa, I met a lot of the African countries. This is still an epidemic over there. Oh yeah. This is still an issue worse than here.
Eric:And you know what, like honestly, no one even took AIDS and HIV seriously until you had someone like, and I love the man, but Magic Johnson, correct. Once he became announced he was positive. That's when people started taking it seriously. And still, we haven't really, we've made a lot of headway. Don't get me wrong. Like it's no longer a death sentence, but there's still a long way to go.
Gil:Yeah.
Eric:It breaks my heart. Just
Gil:to give you guys an idea where it is globally, 32.7 million. As of 2019. Wow. 32.7 million.
Eric:Wow.
Gil:That's like losing the state of California.
Eric:I have chills with all these statistics.
Gil:I would just say that's a lot, that's a lot of people between 1981 to now and the last 30 years. Yeah. It's on what is that? A million a year. More than just under a million a year. Okay. About, yeah. It's. Yeah. So
Eric:he couldn't make a single comment about it until he was about to leave fucking office.
Gil:Yeah. And then suddenly, oh
Eric:no, fuck you, Ronald Reagan.
Gil:Exactly. This is why we act the way we do. He gave us the ammo. Let's see about since the pandemic within the United States alone, seven it's about 700,000 is what the estimated wow. Since 1981,
Eric:And you have to look at all the queer women who took care of all these gay people dying of AIDS. It was because of them because the government was going to it. Wasn't going to do anything for it.
Gil:Not at
Eric:all. And just really quickly. Also, if anyone hasn't seen the show, It's A Sin it's definitely worth watching. It's definitely worth watching it. It puts a lot of it into perspective for you. It doesn't happen here in the U S it takes place on London, but it's still just as heart-wrenching and it still gives you a little taste of what happened.
Gil:And just to paint you a little bit of an idea, if you want to go year by year in 1987, 13,000 people die from it, 89, you're up to 21,000 deaths that year alone. This is not adding. This is just 21,000 people died of AIDS in 1989, 1990. It starts skyrocketing into 93, 30 2094, 35,000 peaks at about 1996 at 41,000 deaths related to it. Wow. In the United States. Wow. Like I said, that's a lot. That's a lot. So anyways, we'll continue on the world health organization organizes the first World AIDS Day in 1988 to where to raise awareness of the spreading pandemic. In 91 created by the new York-based of visual aids. The red ribbon is adopted as a symbol of awareness and compassion for those living with HIV AIDS, 1993, the department of defense issues, a directive prohibiting the us military from barring applicants from service based on the sexual orientation. Applicants shall not be asked or required to reveal whether they are homosexual states, the new policy, which still forbids applicants from engaging in homosexual acts or making a statement that he or she is homosexual. The policy is known as don't ask. Don't tell. Sounds
Eric:familiar. It sounds very familiar. And I don't know if you've gone through this. I wasn't in the military, so this isn't going to be a military story, but I know a few years ago, like I would, when I had to go to the doctors, like I was, I've told this story like two years ago and I had that bad reaction to Truvada and this has happened a couple other times prior and prior to, and since then, when I've had to go to the doctors and they they asked me if you're homosexual, that was one of the questions. And I always tell them I'm not answering that, which I know is stupid. I don't want to say it's. It's like a, don't ask don't how I'm not going to tell you because I, in the back of my head, I'm like very aware of all these religious freedom laws that are trying to get passed saying that, oh, a doctor can refuse care based on their religion. So I know it's not exactly the same thing, but it's. It's still if that attitude is still there. Yeah.
Gil:Attitudes in 2021 and 96, president Clinton signs, the defense of marriage act law into law. The law defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman. And that new state is required to recognize a same-sex marriage from out of state. Interesting. Yeah. In 2000 Vermont becomes the first state in the U S to legalize civil unions and registered partnerships between same-sex
Eric:couples. Good job of Vermont. And you know what that's where Bernie Sanders is from. So exactly.
Gil:In 2004, Massachusetts becomes the first state to legalize gay marriage. The court finds that prohibiting of gay marriage is unconstitutional because it denies dignity, inequality of all individuals. Yep. In 2009, president Obama signed a presidential memorandum allowing same sex partners of federal employees to receive certain benefits. In 2009, also the Matthew Shepard act is passed by Congress and signed into law by president Obama. On October 28th, the measure expands the 1969. Us federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Matthew Shepard shepherd was torture and murdered near Laramie Wyoming on October 7th, 1998, because of his sexual orientation, the story,
Eric:oh, I'm going to cry right now. This story always chokes me up and it always makes me cry. The fact that people are just so evil that they were able to torture him and kill him the way they did. I have my Gil can tell you I'm like literally crying right here on our zoom feed. Yeah, that's.
Gil:It's no it's barbaric it's
Eric:I have no words. It enrages me so much and it makes me so emotional
Gil:because, do your research team read up on it? Yeah.
Eric:Shepherd
Gil:in 2010, a federal judge in San Francisco decides that gay marriage or the gays and lesbians, half of the constitutional right to marry. And that prop eight is unconstitutional. Lawyers will challenge the, finding the us Senate votes, 65 31 to repeal. Don't ask, don't tell in 2010. Allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the us military as
Eric:it should have been. And I remember we had Sean Zevran and in our first season and he talked about cause he was in the military and how most of his military career was under don't ask, don't tell
Gil:president Obama states, his administration will no longer defend the defense of marriage act, which bans a recognition of same-sex marriage thing. This was in 2011. Yes. Our love for Obama and then 2015 with the five, four decision the us Supreme court declared same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And that's the timeline, how, that things have worked out, but obviously things still, you have to remember. We'd never forget, obviously, the pulse shooting in Orlando that happened, I believe, are we three years now? Or four years? I know, five
Eric:years, five years. It's longer. It's been longer than that.
Gil:Five years. It was, I turned third. Oh God. Yeah. I was turning 30. It happened almost a month before my birthday,
Eric:June 12th, 2016.
Gil:Oh my goodness. And that's another day to remember. Yeah, I,
Eric:that
Gil:I remember exactly where I was
Eric:and. Yeah. I had a friend text me and call me. I remember to like, and there wasn't any time around the shooting, obviously, but like I had partied at that club like that. I loved that club. That club was fun. I'd been to that club a couple of times. So yeah, it's just devastating that someone could be so heartless. And honestly, though, when you go, when you read up on the story of the killer and the shooter, he had a lot of internalized homophobia because there was a lot of speculation or proof that He was homosexual himself and he had a lot of internalized homophobia and that's how he dealt with it, which is disgusting.
Gil:But the, but it comes into that home factor of the potential of the upbringing, the influences, the culture, cultural pressure, and Lord knows religion. Yeah. What it does to a person.
Eric:It's mind boggling. People don't want to acknowledge that.
Gil:No, not at all. Not at all. Yeah. Cause I was, let's see, when that happened. I got the message at, I was in Reno because we were celebrating my dad's birthday that weekend. And I remember getting a message late at night from a friend who was like, oh my God, there's shootings at a club. And I'm like what are you talking about? And then, first it's oh, it's just a couple of people pass away. And I'm like, okay, so what is this? Somebody just fighting kind of thing. And I didn't realize it
Eric:was what they meant. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the Pulse shooting. A, you have. That fuck nut Marco Rubio, trying to be like, oh my gosh, this just hurts Florida so much. And then he's I'll add all these anti LGBTQ fundraisers and events. So fuck you, Marco Rubio. You shouldn't even be a Senator. You need to get the fuck out of that chair. So hopefully they vote him out. Cause he's up for reelection in 2022. And he's just but you think about it too, because there's that stupid fucking law on the books that gay men can not donate blood. Our community was murdered at this mass shooting and we can not donate blood to save their lives. No, we could not. We could not save our own community because of a fucking stupid ass law that is on the books. And I know we've mentioned that before, but you just need to put it in the context.
Gil:It's 40. Yeah. So for that night, 49 were killed. Yes. 53 additional people were injured at this club. And there's nothing we could do nothing. And the response was to what? It took three hours for them to take them down
Eric:Something like that? It was a,
Gil:yeah. Judah did 2:02 AM. Is the first reporting 5:15 AM is when it finally stopped. But if he was an unarmed black man. We know if they would be in there within seconds.
Eric:Yeah.
Gil:Interesting, but that, you know that definitely. I know when it happened, it hit a nerve. And I don't know for us, because it's such a, within the community for at least the clubs always felt like a safe space because that's, that was the one room that you could be your true, authentic self. You
Eric:know, we talk about that all the time. And we had a whole conversation with Curtis on that.
Gil:And I look, I know people out that's our drunkards go, oh, that's where you're, people you're doing Coke or whatever the hell are you doing. I always took it as it's a fun area. Just be you and no one fucking cares. Yeah. I enjoyed myself. I always liquid such fond memories. You and I having a time of our life living our best life. I
Eric:love the club. And I know I've mentioned that a lot. And Curtis said, when he was on earlier this season, it's like gay church. It literally is. Absolutely. It was where, as you've mentioned, and as I've mentioned you can be your authentic self. You can take that mask off and you can just be you and not the you that you're pretending to be. So society will accept you. Yeah. I remember this is a stupid story, but I was so into clubbing. I remember I had surgery and there was all these rumors that the club that was out here was going to close. I went to the club to say goodbye to the club and the people at the club, thinking that it was going to close. Like I think I was maybe a week post-surgery I know I wasn't even a week post-surgery cause I still had drains in me. And I wore some baggy ass pants. This is when I was really thin. I wore some baggy ass pants and a huge ass. T-shirts like baggy t-shirt so that I could walk in. And you would, and I don't dress like that at the time I wore like skin tight clothes and see through everything. But I went in there to say my goodbyes to the club. They didn't close. And I was able to go like a couple of weeks later when I was more healed. But,
Gil:Which was this one
Eric:pulse, there was always rumors that they were Pulse in, Albuquerque, not Pulse Orlando that they were going to close and they eventually did, but it was years after that situation happened with me and my drains. And, but that's just how much the club meant to me.
Gil:Yeah, but it's an outlet for us. It's that's where you go. Like I, especially where we, where I lived at the time, like we either, I went to Sacramento or I was able to go out to the city to go to the clubs that were smack dab between the two was about equal amount of driving. But you went there, when, like I said, when you're in that club, you're just enjoying the moment everyone's joined their own moment to just be them. Yeah.
Eric:And entails, yeah.
Gil:Whatever the hell you're doing there. I don't care because I'm doing my own thing.
Eric:Like I'm super shy. People may not believe that when they listen to the podcast, as much as I like to chew my face and hear myself talk apparently, but I am actually incredibly shy and I'm very socially awkward. Yeah. But that gave me like a chance to just. Decompress and dance and have fun and show off a little bit. If I wanted to have a spotlight on me, because I was just in my own zone doing my thing. And I was with my friends and we were doing our thing and other groups were with their friends and they were doing their thing. And if they intermixed cool, if they didn't, that's also cool because you know what, there's different facets of for everybody.
Gil:It's so true. And that's, I don't know. I love it. I do miss at a times, especially just a pandemic kit or I'm just like craving to go back. Jack.
Eric:I am craving to hit a club up, like hard. Yeah. I want to get my freak on. I want to get my twerk on. I want to get my splits on. I want to like, fuck it up on a dance floor. Hardcore.
Gil:And I love I don't have to move as an Eric. I know my basic little movements and I, with my mama taught me, I love it. I love good music. I like to dance to it. I'd sit there as you and I used to do open it up, get our first stamp, leave, grab some food, get some drinks, come back when it's more hopping and close the shit down. And close it all the way
Eric:where they're dragging us out. And then we like congregate with all the little groups, as we're saying goodbye. Yes, we did still dancing in the street. Like I was still dancing, walking to the car.
Gil:I remember this time with the music was horrific at the club. I think you and I went back to your car. We ended up dancing in the parking lot. Cause you had a better what it was on like iTunes or something like that, those better, or just dancing drunk in the street
Eric:for some good times. And let's, you know what, let's talk like music. Yeah. A lot of things like I know we were just talking about like a, really, a lot of really serious stuff, but the LGBTQ I a. Plus community and culture has highly influenced mainstream culture. Yes. And people don't really talk about how it has influenced mainstream culture, but let's just talk about music and dance music and pop music and clubbing music, EDM house, trance, jungle, come on. People like that's our culture. Like we're bringing that to you. And it gets appropriated all the time. And a lot of people, they go it's appreciated. I want to say, I hope it's appreciated.
Gil:Yeah. Because say there's some artists whose career launched out of the gay clubs. I'm thinking immediately in the eighties, he had a blue Monday from new order. Love the band, but it's hard. Love triangles, my favorite song from them. But really after the breakup from joy division, they are. They got kicked off again from blue, Monday being released in a gay club, the gays loved it. And it's because one of their, it is their biggest hit to date. Yeah. And like I said, that's a club classic. You played, everyone knows what it is. It went mainstream.
Eric:Yeah. Look at voguing. If you go to the ball culture and like everyone, like the ball culture is amazing. If people don't know the ball culture, they need to go look that up. Watch the show Pose, watch the show. Legendary, look up Leiomy, Maldonado, look up Benny ninja. There's a lot of different names, Dominique Jackson that there's a high influence from the ball culture yes there is and voguing is. A high prominent dance form in the LGBTQ culture, specifically the ball culture drag and stuff like that. And you have seduction. I don't know if you remember the group seduction.
Gil:Of course. Michelle Visage is on there. Yes. She's RuPaul.
Eric:Yeah. Michelle Visage is amazing. She's an icon for a gay icon for a reason. Yeah.
Gil:I grew up with that album from seduction. I do remind you I get it. Yes. I did
Eric:not get the props. They didn't get the props they deserve. No, we really appreciated gay culture and the LGBTQ underground culture and they vogued. Voguing was part of their repertoire. And Madonna came along with her song. Vogue. Was it appropriation? Was it appreciation? I don't know. It definitely put a spotlight on Vogue. So I'm going to say, and that culture. So I'm going to definitely say it was probably a good thing. Goes into like the whole commercial is on, like we were talking about in our last episode with corporation sponsorship, but I think Madonna did a good thing as far as bringing Vogue to the extreme commercial level and popularizing it. I don't think it's fair that she gets credited with creating Vogue or bringing Vogue out of the, gay community. But yeah, you look at that and just how we've influenced so many people with dance styles and choreography breaks. Half of your dancers are gay anyways, so your dancers are and the posing, the fashion,
Gil:the yes.
Eric:Yes. And I'm not just necessarily talking about us gay boys, have some good sense of fashion. I used to, I don't necessarily have the greatest sense of fashion as I once did. We have a good sense of fashion. We have a good sense of makeup, but you also look at going back to ball culture and how theatrical. It is. Yeah. That has a huge impact on like your avant garde looks within like your fashion houses and your fashion shows. It's true. You look at what a lot of like your pop stars wear, especially like your female pop stars. Like I know Doja Cat was wearing this and it was like a nod to a Janet Jackson catsuit, but then you look at bulk culture and they're rocking these like amazing cat suits and these amazing theatrical hairpieces and. These long ass ponytails, like Ariana Grande rocks. It comes from the LGBTQ culture. It comes from that ball culture.
Gil:Yeah.
Eric:People don't realize that this is coming from us and you're using that every day or looking at this stuff every day.
Gil:Yeah. You got it. You sounded like Miranda priestly. Now.
Eric:I love that movie. The weird thing is I was never a huge Anne Hathaway fan. I actually, at one point couldn't stand the woman that movie like made me like her. Yeah. And then seeing her like, as an actual person, she's amazing. She's one of my favorite people in the world now. And I am like, like your baklava story. Yeah. I can't believe I wasted so much time, not liking Anne Hathaway and she is such an amazing ally.
Gil:She is, which I have her and we think our allies out there. Yes, we really do. We think
Eric:all of our allies, thank you guys so much. Cause we need you guys. Yeah. Because you guys are still in the majority. We need your help. We need our allies. We do. And so we thank you. We love you very much.
Gil:All the constant support.
Eric:And so another thing is vernacular like our speech. Oh yes. LGBTQ culture has a huge impact on your everyday vernacular sipping tea or spilling tea. That's from us. The word fierce. Yeah. Comes from us. YAAAS. It's with the AA in the middle comes from us. Oh honey. Hunty Cunty all comes from us. You're
Gil:welcome.
Eric:Gag. There's just a lot of high influence from a gay culture.
Gil:Yeah.
Eric:Yeah. They don't like fabulous. Yeah. Which is for a long time, going back to my internalized homophobia I wouldn't even say the word fabulous. Cause I was like, oh, people are going to think I'm gay. And now I'm like, it's fabulous.
Gil:Yes. I remember that. Yeah. You'd be like,
Eric:oh, I'd roll my eyes. My eyes would do tricks in my head because. I was so uncomfortable within myself
Gil:or even remember drag Queens. Longest time. Yeah. Yeah. It took me, really up until oh God was a 2012, I think. When did Donna summer pass away?
Eric:I don't remember when Donna summer passed away, but I don't think it was that long ago. Yeah.
Gil:When she passed away. I re I read where I was taught some of the time in the middle of the week. What did I go straight to a club? Because I'm like, it's Donna summer. She's a huge icon within the community, obviously quite a disco. So we, 2012, we went to the club the night that she passed away. And I remember this the first time they brought, they had all the drag Queens out there, mama tits from Seattle, now she's in she's in Mexico now performing on a Mexico and does a little tour. I adore her, but she's the one who really, I don't know. I don't know if just her sarcasm or just whatever. She just broke that spell. She wasn't that atypical ominous looking pretty. She had that divine from the eighties, look to her. Oh, nice. And I admired her, she was telling her stories of Donna summer doing a dance and lip singing and just sarcastic. And I just, I adored her personality and I was like, oh my God, what am I missing with the drag Queens? Wait a minute. There's not just the pretty words. Yeah, there's all this, that's a whole nother side of them. And I remember you and I have always been very kind of drag Queens. Oh, here we go. Yeah. But then now I'm like, I love them.
Eric:Yeah. And I started really appreciating drag Queens when I was in Vegas. Cause those girls like really put on a show and they entertain. Yeah. And I was like, okay, I see what the draw is now. Yeah. And yeah, for a long time, as you've mentioned, like I would just probably roll my eyes and cause honestly I have to say it was probably, it was a jealousy because they were so comfortable in their own skin or at least they exuded that competence could be themselves. And I was so uncomfortable in my skin still am, but. In a different way. I was so uncomfortable in my skin and who I was. Like I said as I was talking about, in our last episode, I have this level of internalized homophobia that I just realized that I had and how strong it was. And it was very highly prevalent then. And it was my own insecurities that were making me an asshole.
Gil:Yeah. It says this kind of thing. I don't think we realize it. Yeah.
Eric:Or man spreading, I have a funny man spreading story for you, but
Gil:I finished. No, definitely. It's the I think it's just our own selves and really looking at ourselves in it. It's a work in progress. I feel like we're always this work in progress. Cause I know I, myself, I'm in the same boat as you is there's certain things that I do or thought it's because of my own internalized homophobia and it's oh my God, are people gonna say something? What if these say, aren't ready to fight them all? You can't fight everyone Gil. You're five, four, like to the so much fight in you, but that'd be, let's be
Eric:real in small packages though,
Gil:I'm with you on that. I admired and I think that's where the jealousy of the newer kids coming in. And as I tell him, you're welcome, the path is there. They come out with such pizzazz then just oh, I'm being me. I'm living my best life. Now. It I'm like, God damn it. At least you went to you route. Yeah. Good for that. But I admire it. But then again, I'm like, if I was growing up with this generation, would I be as open as them? And I don't know.
Eric:Hindsight's 2020. Yeah.
Gil:I like to think so.
Eric:I would like to think so too. I would love to think so. I wouldn't be like, but one never
Gil:knows. I don't. Yeah. Who knows? I don't know if I wasn't, maybe if I grew up differently or maybe in a white household, maybe I was more open.
Eric:Yeah. Cause guess what? You would have had a lot more privilege.
Gil:I'd be at a director level at my work. No.
Eric:And you do have that issue though. Yeah. Gays within certain races treat others worse, like the white gays. Not always, but typically yeah, they get that. They have that white privilege and they have
Gil:a watch. I bet if anyone's on tiktok, but at the same thing, you have the basic white CIS male gay out there. Barely shaking anything. 4 million views. Same African-American gay, shaking it exact same way. No. Now the same way, be much better Rhythm Let's be real. Maybe a couple of them. Yeah. We know that.
Eric:But you have a whole group, like the log cabin, gays who are like willing to sell out their community so that they still have like their CIS privilege and their white privilege.
Gil:And yes. If people who are listening there is discrimination within the community, a diverse as we are, but also comes with the ignorance as I always say, yeah, it's there.
Eric:That's why you have all the different groups of the twinks and the bears and the twunks and the manatees and the wolves and the otters. And I don't remember all the other animals, but I know there's a few others. Did I say I think I said, wolves already
Gil:sounds terrible that they chose to be animals because the whole thing of normally you always say, oh, you're gay. What's next? You're going to fuck at an ox or something. That's nobody, it leads to it. I'm like, oh God,
Eric:you're right. The good thing is at least we grow. Yes. And we can now admit where w where we faulted absolutely faults where
Gil:yeah. It's the same thing why I probably wore, I
Eric:apologize. I apologize for half the shit I did or thought at least I don't think I really did anything terrible thoughts, but the thoughts. Yeah. And I can see that with you wearing all your sports attire.
Gil:Yeah, it was. Granted, I'm proud, obviously I do root for them, but it's at the same time it was to cover it. And that's
Eric:probably why I wore like really baggy pants and like jerseys and hoodies and all that too. Yeah.
Gil:And I thought it was shielding something that everyone saw when we were kids. They were like this one.
Eric:Think about it. I used to wear like really baggy clothes. I still wear baggy clothes, but like I used to wear really baggy clothes, like jerseys and hoodies and baggy pants, even when I was really thin on my every day life. Yeah. You take me to a club or some sort of like gay event. And I was like in super tight ass pants, Madame
Gil:butterfly soups
Eric:had the little peekaboo ass lit, like it was, it
Gil:was fun. Yeah. I don't know what you told your mom. Oh, we're going to church
Eric:now that has a lot of different meanings. Goodness. So let me finish this. Let me tell you about my man spreading story and you guys all know what manspreading is. If you're not, then it's always like these. These dudes, these bros that have to sit all slump down with their legs, all wide open. And I'm all for man spreading in the bedroom. Cause I am like a king of manspreading in the bedroom, but on your, I don't have a subway system here, but like in the bus, which I don't really take the bus either, but in public transportation we have these dudes that just spread it because they need to let their big ass balls, low hang and take up space and get some air flow and be manly and all that fun stuff. And where you have people are like, can I please sit down? Like you're taking up like 15 fucking chairs. No, I gotta let myself, let my balls breathe. Okay. Whatever. So I was going to, I was going to the gas station today to get my car, to fill up my car. And some dude in his Camaro is. At the gas pump. And there's like that space between this pump and the other pump. He has his car, like the door, the driver's side door, like wide open. And you literally had to hug the other pump and crawl into this space because of like how far out he was pulled from his pump. And then he had his door open and I was like, dude, you are fucking a man spreading with your fucking car. I don't need anything else to say one inch Dick, if you are man spreading that hard. Yes. One inch Dick. And even I would pass on that.
Gil:No.
Eric:Good. I don't need a tic-tac in my mouth right now. At least give me a chicklet.
Gil:I was like the, what is it? That song from the 19 nine from the nineties?
Eric:Yeah, an extra belly button.
Gil:Listen to that as a kid. And I'm like, wow. I listened to him differently. Now. I'm like, Jesus.
Eric:And you probably didn't even know what it was about back.
Gil:I had no idea that I was like, oh, this is a fun beat. Yeah.
Eric:Oh. And she had a song, Mr. Personality too, but I can tell you homeboy and the Camaro probably wasn't would not be wearing gray sweat pants.
Gil:No. Oh, bless that season. That in fleet week.
Eric:Yeah, I think fleek not fleet, but fleek is also a gay term.
Gil:It is. Yes. It is many of our contributions. Like I said, you're welcome everyone.
Eric:So next time, you're like, oh honey, you look fierce. Think LGBTQ. I thank you for giving me those words. Yeah.
Gil:It didn't just pop up miraculously from some influence or an Instagram. Got yes. Tell you.
Eric:Oh, really quickly. So you know who Megan McCain is, right?
Gil:Yes.
Eric:I actually used to like her and I think it's just because she's a huge Housewives fan. And I thought maybe she wasn't. And she always like talks about being an ally. So I was like, oh, she's like an ally Republican, but this was like way before, like the Trump stuff. But I guess she like posted something about happy pride to all my LGBTQ friends. You guys give me strength every day, blah, blah, blah. And people were like, ah, you're not claiming that you are not going there. You support so many people who are trying to pass legislation that take our rights away. That's isn't going float. No, like until you denounce anything you have no room to speak. You have nothing to stand on because it's very much this whole, I'm an ally when the optics are right for me.
Gil:Correct. Yeah, because then you could paint point during your, if you're running for election. Oh my God. Look at my tweets as if that's evidence now. Apparently that's legitimate and you're pointing right to that. And you're like, look, I tweeted out. I love the gays. I love this.
Eric:Yeah. Oh, you heard that homeboy 45 followers stayed up there. He's going to get office back in August.
Gil:I CA we cannot make this shit up. I wish I could. I can't. The onion is even having issues, trying to keep it up with him. Yeah.
Eric:That's wow. That says a lot.
Gil:I'm just telling you, you can't make this shit up at first. I thought it was an onion article. No, this is real. This mofo really thinks this
Eric:is happening and his followers.
Gil:can he, just walk him into, I don't know the top of a volcano. He's siting at the bottom. Everyone jumped.
Eric:So I don't really want to end on a homeboy 45.
Gil:Oh God. Now we've given way too much time to him.
Eric:So let's end on something Gayly positive.
Gil:What do you have in mind? SIS, we're just putting these in sentences. So you all know how it's working.
Eric:Listen,
Gil:bitch.
Eric:You better work. You better work. You gotta work that twerk motherfucker. Actually though, that's actually, huh? I do love that. The word bitch is fun because we can say that we do, we tell her we say it to each other all the time. We've reclaimed that word. We've along with women have reclaimed that word. Yes, no,
Gil:absolutely.
Eric:I think reclamation is a beautiful thing. It's fun. Yeah. It's very liberating. It
Gil:is. Yeah, but we do definitely within the community say to each other most, I would say the terms or, how we address each other is normally the females. Yes.
Eric:Oftentimes
Gil:off the outskirts. They very often bother me. I
Eric:was just going to say I used to bother me. I was, you just literally took that out of my mouth. Ha. I'm sorry. It's late while we're recording this and I got a long day yeah. Yeah. You took that out of my mouth, but yeah, I was going to say the same thing. I used to hate it. I was like,
Gil:I'm not mad. Why
Eric:would you say that to me? Exactly. Like when you, I know we talk about love Victor a lot on this show. Like almost as much as I talk about Janet on this show But there was that whole scene and this is season one. So we're not spoiling anything. Cause if you haven't seen it, then you really need to catch up. But on episode eight season one, which is the boys' trip where he meets Bram and Simon's roommates and they're like, all, they sent you with the wrong, they hooked you up with the wrong ass people, a girl. And he's I'm not a girl. I was like, I felt that so much in my core. Yeah,
Gil:because I do
Eric:it. Yeah, we both did. Yeah. And now you and I are like, all bitch, you being a princess.
Gil:It's definitely words. We've, we're all reclaimed and stuff that we say to each other, very commonly, which would probably be mortified. That's why I'm afraid. Like at my work, when they're like, oh, you need to be, you're just act your true, authentic self I'm. Like, you don't want that because the terms, the way I address people, HR, HR cases left and right.
Eric:He's a little cunty.
Gil:Yeah. We don't want that. We don't want that at the work environment. I do. I say to the other gays at work that and management. Yes, we do talk like that to each other in a room. Good
Eric:for you. I work with a gay guy at one of my jobs and. We get each other. Yeah. We can say that to each other right there. Yeah. We'll actually, we'll say it in front of our other coworkers. Cause they're very allied, but they, yeah. But like him and I will get those little subtle jokes. Yes. I want to thank you Gil for the history lesson. Yes. That
Gil:was great. Also provided by PBS.
Eric:And if you guys would like. To read more on that or find a nice place to start. We will definitely put that link in our show notes. Yes. And that's TheQLoungePodcast.com. And under this show, you'll see those show notes, but thank you Gil for that. Thank you all for listening to us and giving our opinions and all that other stuff. And hopefully we dropped a little bit of knowledge on you guys with this episode. We look forward to seeing you guys are being in your guys' this year's next week. I always want to say, see you guys like run the television or something, but thank you guys very much. And we will talk with you guys later. Thank you so much. Shortly. After the recording of this episode, it came to our attention that governor Ron DeSantis of Florida had vetoed a bill that would offer mental health care to those. victims and survivors of the pulse shooting. So yeah, there's yet another obstacle because that asshole from Florida, Ron DeSantis had to veto a bill that would have offered mental health care for those victims, with PTSD, from the pulse shooting. Also, we want to give a shout out to Paxton Smith, the valedictorian from Texas who took it upon herself during her valedictorian speech at her graduation to blast the Texas government for their horrifying. And disgusting anti-abortion laws that they have passed. We here at the Q lounge stand with women and their rights to autonomy. And we are allied with women because that is what is needed for a better and stronger society. Thank you.
Gil:thank you for listening to us. We hope you enjoyed your time in The Q Lounge. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions on topics, or if you would like to be a guest or contributor, please email us info.TheQlounge@gmail.Com or through our contact page at theqloungepodcast.com. Don't forget to subscribe to continue listening wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to be our sugar, daddy hit that donation button.
Eric:Until next time live in your authenticity
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