Latest Episodes
Guest Episode: Sidedoor: Lucy Hicks Anderson
February 23, 2023
- 27:15
Known for her smashing parties, lighter-than-air soufflés, and comedic wit, Lucy Hicks Anderson never let anyone tell her how to live...
Bonus: A Complicated Love Story
February 14, 2023
- 13:55
Wait, THAT Harvey? When activist Craig Rodwell told Eric in 1989 who his first serious boyfriend had been, Eric was stunned. In our...
Season 11: Episode 6: Kathleen Boatwright
December 8, 2022
- 26:28
When Kathleen Boatwright fell in love with a woman at church, she fell hard. But this was no carefree romance. The church was staunchly...
About The Show
Intimate, personal portraits of both known and long-forgotten champions, heroes, and witnesses to history brought to you from rare archival interviews.
More Episodes
Guest Episode: Sidedoor: Lucy Hicks Anderson
February 23, 2023
- 27:15
Known for her smashing parties, lighter-than-air soufflés, and comedic wit, Lucy Hicks Anderson never let anyone tell her how to live...
Bonus: A Complicated Love Story
February 14, 2023
- 13:55
Wait, THAT Harvey? When activist Craig Rodwell told Eric in 1989 who his first serious boyfriend had been, Eric was stunned. In our...
Season 11: Episode 6: Kathleen Boatwright
December 8, 2022
- 26:28
When Kathleen Boatwright fell in love with a woman at church, she fell hard. But this was no carefree romance. The church was staunchly...
Season 11: Episode 5: Robert Bauman
December 1, 2022
- 30:19
In 1980, conservative congressman Robert Bauman was caught soliciting sex from a 16-year-old boy. The scandal landed the married father...
Season 11: Episode 4: Urvashi Vaid
November 24, 2022
- 29:52
Indian-born activist and lawyer Urvashi Vaid was fiercely attuned to injustice from an early age. Adamant that the fight for LGBTQ...
Season 11: Episode 3: Faygele Ben-Miriam
November 17, 2022
- 29:42
In 1972, Faygele Ben-Miriam’s penchant for wearing dresses to the office got him fired from his government job in Seattle. The fact that...
Season 11: Episode 2: Rev. Carolyn Mobley-Bowie
November 10, 2022
- 29:10
Growing up in the segregated South, Rev. Carolyn Mobley-Bowie knew the challenge of finding an accepting place in the world—a challenge...
Season 11: Episode 1: Craig Rodwell
November 3, 2022
- 20:02
In 1954, Craig Rodwell was just 14 when he was arrested for having sex with a man. The experience set the young Chicagoan on the road to...
Season 11: Preview
October 27, 2022
- 05:16
We’re back with more engaging voices from Eric Marcus’s MGH archive! Meet six history makers as they share stories of faith and...
Guest Episode: Revisionist History: When Will Met Grace
September 15, 2022
- 36:36
This special guest episode is from Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast about things misunderstood and overlooked. Gladwell...
Rewind: Stonewall 50: Episode 4: Live from Stonewall
June 23, 2022
- 1:03:02
What made Stonewall different? How can we carry the lessons of the uprising with us today? Eric is joined by one archivist and four...
Rewind: Stonewall 50: Episode 3: “Say It Loud! Gay & Proud!”
June 16, 2022
- 39:30
Like so many other acts of LGBTQ resistance, the 1969 Stonewall riots could have become a footnote in history. But the protests and...
Rewind: Stonewall 50: Episode 2: "Everything Clicked… And the Riot Was On"
June 9, 2022
- 32:45
The Stonewall uprising began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969. Revisit that moment, and the hours and days that followed,...
Rewind: Stonewall 50: Episode 1: Prelude to a Riot
June 2, 2022
- 38:25
Conflict has context. In this first episode of Making Gay History’s Stonewall season, we hear stories from the pre-Stonewall struggle...
Season 10: Episode 6: Michelle Lopez
March 31, 2022
- 24:11
Women can’t get AIDS—or so Michelle Lopez thought until she tested positive for HIV in 1990. Viable treatments were years away, but the...
Guest Episode: LGBTQ&A: Peter Staley: ACT UP Changed the World — Here’s How
March 26, 2022
- 33:40
As a complement to our episode featuring Ann Northrop, meet Peter Staley, another seminal member of ACT UP, in this 2021 interview...
Season 10: Episode 5: Ann Northrop
March 24, 2022
- 26:00
Fierce and unflappable, veteran journalist Ann Northrop is a natural activist. In this episode, she discusses her most dramatic ACT UP...
Season 10: Episode 4: Randy Boyd
March 17, 2022
- 23:16
Randy Boyd’s “gay agenda” was to be radically open about who he was: a gay, HIV-positive writer—not the straight professional athlete he...
Season 10: Episode 3: Sara Boesser
March 10, 2022
- 19:43
From her home in Juneau, Alaska, Sara Boesser watched with alarm as the AIDS epidemic rolled across the lower 48 states, threatening...
Season 10: Episode 2: Dr. Ronald Grossman
March 3, 2022
- 20:51
Dr. Ronald Grossman treated his first AIDS patient before the disease even had a name. But with a New York City practice serving...
Season 10: Episode 1: Randy Shilts
February 24, 2022
- 27:48
Out gay journalist Randy Shilts desperately wanted to work for a big-city newspaper. No one wanted him. But reporting on the AIDS crisis...
Season 10: Preview
February 17, 2022
- 03:22
We’re back with more stories from the AIDS crisis. Hear Eric Marcus in conversation with six people whose lives and activism were...
Introducing: We Were Always Here: They Weren't Us
December 23, 2021
- 29:32
Marc Thomson was just getting his footing as a young Black gay man in South East London when AIDS hit. Hear his story as he introduces...
Introducing: The Log Books: "Please Be Gentle"
November 30, 2021
- 58:11
In commemoration of World AIDS Day, MGH host Eric Marcus introduces a poignant episode about the early years of the AIDS crisis from The...
Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 6: Making History
September 10, 2021
- 43:29
Being HIV+ was a virtual death sentence. So why get tested? But by 1988 there is a promising, if toxic, drug shown to extend life. Eric...
Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 5: In or Out
August 27, 2021
- 36:46
“You’re doing too many stories on AIDS.” The word had come down from on high at CBS This Morning. Eric didn’t want anyone to think he...
Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 4: Complications of AIDS
August 12, 2021
- 40:10
“I hope you both die of AIDS,” the young man in the pickup truck yells at Eric and Barry as they wait for the light to change while on a...
Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 3: 318 West 22nd Street
July 30, 2021
- 34:34
A straight drug addict. A gay waiter on a ventilator. Eric is confronted with the reality of AIDS when he volunteers for the Gay Men’s...
Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 2: Not Alone
July 15, 2021
- 30:28
Even as the epidemic spreads, a rousing AIDS fundraiser at the circus, a new boyfriend, and journalism school combine to bring joy, a...
Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 1: Buried Headline
July 1, 2021
- 24:05
“Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” said the New York Times headline on July 3, 1981. It was the first time Eric Marcus read about...
Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Preview
June 24, 2021
- 03:26
AIDS first made national news 40 years ago. MGH host Eric Marcus was 22 at the time, a gay kid in search of love and a career in New...
Bonus: Remembering Kay Lahusen
May 27, 2021
- 21:37
In memoriam: Kay Lahusen, January 5, 1930 - May 26, 2021. Kay was a monumental figure in the LGBTQ civil rights movement. From the...
MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 8: Meg Christian
January 7, 2021
- 27:31
Olivia Records cofounder Meg Christian helped ignite the women’s music movement of the 1970s with lesbian classics like “Ode to a Gym...
MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 7: Leonard Matlovich
December 24, 2020
- 22:13
When Leonard Matlovich was thrown out of the Air Force for being gay, he sued for reinstatement. It was 1975 and it was the first case...
MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 6: Jill Johnston
December 10, 2020
- 22:31
Sparks flew when radical lesbian feminist Jill Johnston sat down for an interview with Studs Terkel in 1973. Jill had just published a...
MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 5: Mattachine Midwest
November 26, 2020
- 23:22
A half-century ago, Studs Terkel interviewed three members of the homophile group Mattachine Midwest: the organization’s president, a...
MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 4: Quentin Crisp
November 12, 2020
- 25:02
From a young age, Quentin Crisp was determined to be himself—makeup, painted nails, dramatically dyed hair, and all—even if it consigned...
MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 3: "Les-Lee"
October 29, 2020
- 19:15
Canadian female impersonator John Falk Tomkinson appeared around the globe under the stage name Les-Lee for over three decades. In 1967...
MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 2: Lorraine Hansberry
October 15, 2020
- 20:39
In 1959 Lorraine Hansberry became the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. Soon after “A Raisin in the Sun” made...
MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 1: Christopher Isherwood
October 1, 2020
- 23:34
Author Christopher Isherwood left England for Germany in 1929. His stories about his years there inspired the musical “Cabaret,” which...
MGH & Studs Terkel Radio Archive: Preview
October 1, 2020
- 06:18
Making Gay History is back! Join us as we mine the Studs Terkel Radio Archive in Chicago for stories from our proud LGBTQ past to bring...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 13: Larah Helayne & Jean O’Leary
June 18, 2020
- 23:52
When high schooler Larah Helayne heard MGH’s episode with Jean O’Leary, it changed the course of her life. Plans to become a nun gave...
Introducing: Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust: Leon Bass
June 14, 2020
- 28:14
MGH is Eric Marcus’s first love. But he also co-produces Those Who Were There. Have a listen to this episode featuring Leon Bass. He...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 12: Bayard Rustin
June 7, 2020
- 26:26
Making Gay History stands with the countless Americans protesting systemic racism and the deaths of black and brown people at the hands...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 11: Larry Kramer
May 29, 2020
- 22:32
June 25, 1935 - May 27, 2020. In the early ’80s, author and playwright Larry Kramer was one of the first people to sound the alarm about...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 10: Perry Watkins
May 23, 2020
- 21:13
When Perry Watkins was drafted in 1968, he assumed the Army would reject him for being gay. They didn’t. When they got rid of him after...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 9: Joyce Hunter
May 16, 2020
- 22:20
In 1939 Joyce Hunter was born into a world so hostile it’s a wonder she wasn’t crushed. Instead, the challenges and brutality she faced...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 8: Morris Foote
May 9, 2020
- 17:42
In late 1955, the police of Boise, Idaho, started a sweeping investigation into an alleged “homosexual underground.” Fearing arrest,...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 7: Ellen DeGeneres
May 2, 2020
- 28:13
Today, Ellen DeGeneres needs no introduction. But as she explained in a 2001 MGH interview, her very public 1997 coming out took a...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 6: Kay Lahusen's Gay Table
April 25, 2020
- 17:01
When did you make gay history? Join host Eric Marcus, pioneering photojournalist Kay Lahusen, and a group of LGBTQ history-making elders...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 5: Vito Russo
April 18, 2020
- 21:37
Vito Russo’s legacy—as a film historian, activist, and co-founder of GLAAD and ACT UP—is hard to overstate. In this 1988 interview,...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 4: Shirley Willer
April 11, 2020
- 20:50
“I’ve spent a large percent of my life being angry.” That was Shirley Willer, reflecting on the death of a close friend and fellow nurse...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 3: Wendell Sayers
April 4, 2020
- 19:38
Wendell Sayers understood isolation. Born in western Kansas in 1904, Wendell was the first black lawyer to work for Colorado’s attorney...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 2: Edythe Eyde
March 28, 2020
- 17:03
Musical uplift for anxious times. When Eric Marcus interviewed lesbian publishing pioneer Edythe Eyde in 1989, she treated him to a...
Revisiting the Archive: Episode 1: Frank Kameny
March 21, 2020
- 17:02
In 1957, Frank Kameny was fired from his job at the U.S. Army Map Service for being gay. He went on to fight the federal government for...
Bonus: From the Vault: Sylvia Rivera & Marsha P. Johnson, 1970
December 27, 2019
- 22:08
In 1970, a young radio reporter recorded an interview with Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and other members of the newly formed...
Season 6: Episode 5: Damien Martin
December 19, 2019
- 32:16
Damien Martin grew up in foster care and on the streets of Philadelphia, so he knew all too well about the needs of vulnerable youth. In...
Season 6: Episode 4: Nancy Walker
December 5, 2019
- 25:50
In 1976 Nancy Walker joined the Gay Community News, an influential Boston-based weekly paper. She was in her 40s, an outspoken New...
Season 6: Episode 3: Barbara Smith
November 21, 2019
- 23:03
For nearly half a century, Barbara Smith has been speaking truth to power—as a woman against misogyny, as an African American against...
Season 6: Episode 2: Vernon E. "Copy" Berg III
November 7, 2019
- 25:60
In 1975, long before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Navy asked, and Officer Copy Berg told: “Yes, I am gay.” When Copy chose to challenge...
Season 6: Episode 1: Ruth Simpson
October 24, 2019
- 26:15
There’s a war on out there. That was Ruth Simpson’s Stonewall takeaway—and she was ready to fight. But when Ruth pushed the NY chapter...
Season 6: Preview
October 24, 2019
- 03:30
Making Gay History mines Eric Marcus’s 30-year-old audio archive of rare interviews to create intimate, personal portraits of both known...
Bonus: Stonewall 50 Minisode: Craig Rodwell
June 28, 2019
- 15:27
This was the moment Craig Rodwell had been waiting for. He’d been bumping up against the limits of how far the Mattachine Society was...
Bonus: Stonewall 50 Minisode: Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen
June 28, 2019
- 10:08
Stonewall turned the page on the homophile movement. Pre-Stonewall activists like Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen were dinosaurs in the...
Bonus: Stonewall 50 Minisode: Morty Manford
June 28, 2019
- 12:53
Nineteen-year-old Columbia University student Morty Manford thought it was just another night at the Stonewall Inn, but then the police...
Bonus: Stonewall 50 Minisode: Marsha P. Johnson & Randy Wicker
June 28, 2019
- 15:38
A rebroadcast of Eric’s 1989 interview with Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker. Hear conflicting perspectives on Stonewall from this...
Stonewall 50: Episode 4: Live from Stonewall
June 27, 2019
- 1:03:02
What made Stonewall different? How can we carry the lessons of the uprising with us today? Eric is joined by one archivist and four...
Stonewall 50: Episode 3: "Say it Loud! Gay and Proud!"
June 20, 2019
- 39:30
Like so many other acts of queer resistance, the 1969 Stonewall riots could have become a footnote in history. But the protests and...
Stonewall 50: Episode 2: ”Everything Clicked… And the Riot Was On”
June 13, 2019
- 32:45
The Stonewall uprising began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969. Revisit that moment, and the hours and days that followed,...
Stonewall 50: Episode 1: Prelude to a Riot
June 6, 2019
- 36:23
Conflict has context. In the first episode of Making Gay History’s Stonewall 50 season, we hear stories from the pre-Stonewall struggle...
Stonewall 50: Preview
May 23, 2019
- 03:42
A special season of Making Gay History to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. Hear the voices of the rioters, and of...
Season 4: Episode 11: Martha Shelley
February 21, 2019
- 23:49
Brooklyn-born Martha Shelley was a rebel. She didn’t like being told what to do, wear, or say. She hated the lesbian bars, and even...
Season 4: Episode 10: Dick Leitsch
February 7, 2019
- 25:55
Dick Leitsch came to New York City in the early 1960s to smoke cigarettes, drink cocktails, and pick up handsome young men. He got his...
Season 4: Episode 9: Ernestine Eckstein
January 24, 2019
- 33:45
Ernestine Eckstein is an iconic figure from the 1960s homophile movement—from photos showing her as the only African American woman at...
Season 4: Episode 8: Bayard Rustin
January 10, 2019
- 33:40
Bayard Rustin was a champion of the black civil rights movement—mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., organizer of the 1963 March on...
Season 4: Episode 7: Reed Erickson
December 27, 2018
- 28:22
Reed Erickson was a trans man with a big checkbook, a pet leopard, big dreams for a better world for gay people and trans folks—and...
Season 4: Episode 6: Stella Rush ("Sten Russell")
December 13, 2018
- 21:11
“I’m a bisexual ki-ki s.o.b butch-femme.” Stella Rush railed against rules and binaries: butch/femme, gay/straight. Fighting for social...
Season 4: Episode 5: Dorr Legg, Martin Block, and Jim Kepner of ONE
November 29, 2018
- 31:13
ONE, the first national gay magazine, attracted the attention of the FBI and was at the heart of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case....
Season 4: Episode 4: Billye Talmadge
November 15, 2018
- 22:29
Investigated by the FBI, blackmailed, but bold enough to keep going, Billye Talmadge was one of the early members of the earliest...
Season 4: Episode 3: Harry Hay
November 1, 2018
- 24:48
Harry Hay had a vision, and that vision led to the founding of the first sustained gay rights organization in the United States—the...
Season 4: Episode 2: Magnus Hirschfeld
October 25, 2018
- 27:37
More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld chose to take a stand for LGBTQ rights, founding a movement, providing a safe space, and...
Season 4: Episode 1: Introduction
October 25, 2018
- 16:49
Our fourth season is about beginnings. So we’re going to start at the beginning and hear from the activists and visionaries who got the...
Season 4: A Message from Our Listeners
October 11, 2018
- 03:36
Making Gay History is coming back with all new episodes that bring queer history to life through the voices of the people who lived it....
Bonus: Farewell Dick Leitsch
June 23, 2018
- 11:21
May 11, 1935 - Jun 22, 2018. Dick Leitch, Kentucky native, New Yorker at heart, one-time president of the Mattachine Society of New...
Bonus: Kay Lahusen’s Gay Table
June 21, 2018
- 14:51
Join us as Making Gay History pulls up a chair at Kay Tobin Lahusen’s monthly gay dinner table. Spend some time with this gang of elders...
Bonus: Love Is Love
February 14, 2018
- 11:25
The right to love and be loved for who we are has always been a driving force in the fight for LGBT civil rights. Eric shares four...
Season 3: Episode 11: Morty Manford
December 28, 2017
- 24:10
Morty Manford was one of thousands of young people who joined the fight for gay liberation in the early 1970s. As a member of the Gay...
Season 3: Episode 10: Greg Brock
December 21, 2017
- 18:22
Greg Brock blazed a trail for LGBTQ journalists by being himself at a time when being yourself could sabotage your career or cost you...
Season 3: Episode 9: Paulette Goodman
December 14, 2017
- 21:14
As a Jewish child growing up in Nazi-occupied Paris, Paulette Goodman knew what it meant to be a despised minority. After the war, her...
Season 3: Episode 8: Morris Kight
December 7, 2017
- 19:28
Morris Kight was a whirling dervish champion of LGBTQ civil rights. He cut his activist teeth in the labor, civil rights, and anti-war...
Season 3: Episode 7: Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin
November 30, 2017
- 21:58
Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin were the originals. With six other women, they co-founded the Daughters of Bilitis—the very first lesbian...
Season 3: Episode 6: Larry Kramer
November 23, 2017
- 23:11
In 1981 Larry Kramer sounded an alarm almost no one wanted to hear. Gay men were dying from a mysterious disease and the only way to...
Season 3: Episode 5: Deborah Johnson & Zandra Rolón Amato
November 16, 2017
- 18:57
In 1983, Deborah Johnson and Zandra Rolón Amato went to a Los Angeles restaurant for what was supposed to be a romantic dinner. Instead...
Season 3: Episode 4: J.J. Belanger
November 9, 2017
- 21:42
You may know his face from an iconic 1953 photo booth photo. But there’s a full life’s story behind that photo that includes love,...
Season 3: Episode 3: Ellen DeGeneres
November 2, 2017
- 25:40
Everybody loves Ellen. But that wasn’t always so. When she came out on screen and in real life the backlash was fierce and her future...
Season 3: Episode 2: Perry Watkins
October 26, 2017
- 21:13
Sergeant Perry Watkins played by the rules. The U.S military did not. Drafted in 1968, he was thrown out fifteen years later despite his...
Season 3: Episode 1: Sylvia Rivera — Part 2
October 22, 2017
- 18:35
Welcome back to Sylvia’s kitchen, for the second part of a never-before-heard interview from 1989. Pull up a chair for a conversation...
Season 3: Preview
October 19, 2017
- 03:42
Making Gay History mines Eric Marcus’s 30-year-old audio archive of rare interviews to create intimate, personal portraits of both known...
Bonus: Edythe Eyde's Gay Gal's Mixtape
October 11, 2017
- 12:53
Already a visionary with her pioneering lesbian 'zine Vice Versa in the 1940s, "Gay Gal" Edythe Eyde broke the mold again when she...
Bonus: Rewind: Sylvia Rivera — Part 1
October 5, 2017
- 10:29
Season 3 arrives Oct 22! While you wait, here's another chance to hear trans icon and Stonewall uprising veteran Sylvia Rivera relive...
Season 2: Episode 11: Tom Cassidy
May 4, 2017
- 22:52
CNN business anchor Tom Cassidy kept his “private life” strictly separate from his public life. Three decades ago he had to. But then he...
Season 2: Episode 10: Joyce Hunter
April 27, 2017
- 22:06
Joyce Hunter’s childhood and adolescence were stolen from her and she was determined to keep that from happening to other LGBTQ youth....
Season 2: Episode 9: Evander Smith and Herb Donaldson
April 20, 2017
- 21:44
Four years before the 1969 uprising at NYC’s Stonewall Inn, a San Francisco confrontation between the police and that city’s LGBT...
Season 2: Episode 8: Barbara Gittings & Kay Lahusen — Part 2
April 13, 2017
- 19:51
When the Stonewall uprising upended the 1960s homophile movement, Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen refused to be put out to pasture....
Season 2: Episode 7: Herb Selwyn
April 6, 2017
- 21:32
Herb Selwyn never hesitated to stick his neck out for others. That included gay people at a time when other straight attorneys cashed in...
Season 2: Episode 6: Morris Foote
March 30, 2017
- 16:46
On November 2, 1955, when 30-year-old Morris read on the front page of Boise's newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, that the police were...
Season 2: Episode 5: Jean O'Leary - Part 2
March 26, 2017
- 14:57
Jean O’Leary had a vision for the national LGBTQ civil rights movement. On March 26, 1977 she led the first delegation of lesbian and...
Season 2: Episode 4: Jean O'Leary - Part 1
March 23, 2017
- 17:36
Jean O’Leary was passionate—about women, nuns, feminism, and equal rights. She left an indelible mark on the women’s movement and the...
Season 2: Episode 3: Hal Call
March 16, 2017
- 21:29
Hal Call never minced words. The midwestern newspaperman and WWII vet wrested control of the Mattachine Society from its founders and...
Season 2: Episode 2: Shirley Willer
March 9, 2017
- 17:50
Shirley Willer had good reason to be angry—she was beaten by the police and a dear friend was allowed to die. Because they were gay. She...
Season 2: Episode 1: Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker
March 2, 2017
- 16:25
Meet Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker—two very different heroes of the early LGBT civil rights movement. Marsha was a Street...
Season 2: Preview
February 23, 2017
- 03:60
Making Gay History mines Eric Marcus’s 30-year-old audio archive of rare interviews to create intimate, personal portraits of both known...
Bonus: Love Is Love
February 14, 2017
- 11:25
The right to love and be loved for who we are has always been a driving force in the fight for LGBT civil rights. Eric shares four...
Season 1: Episode 10: Vito Russo
December 15, 2016
- 21:12
Vito Russo loved movies, but he looked behind the silver screen and saw how Hollywood was sending a message that LGBTQ people were...
Season 1: Episode 9: Barbara Gittings & Kay Lahusen — Part 1
December 8, 2016
- 20:37
Self-described gay rights fanatics and life partners Barbara Gittings and Kay “Tobin” Lahusen helped supercharge the nascent movement in...
Season 1: Episode 8: Dear Abby
December 1, 2016
- 14:45
A generation ago, tens of millions of people turned to "Dear Abby” in her daily newspaper column for advice. Long before others did, and...
Season 1: Episode 7: Chuck Rowland
November 23, 2016
- 18:20
A WWII veteran turns theory into action, co-founding one of the first LGBT rights groups, the Mattachine Society, in 1950—a time when...
Season 1: Episode 6: Jeanne and Morty Manford
November 17, 2016
- 17:55
When Jeanne Manford’s gay son was badly beaten at a protest in 1972, she took action and founded an organization for parents of gays...
Season 1: Episode 5: Frank Kameny
November 10, 2016
- 19:26
Frank Kameny fought for what was right. And he never gave up. Lessons for us all.Visit our episode webpage for background information,...
Season 1: Episode 4: Dr. Evelyn Hooker
November 3, 2016
- 17:05
In 1945 Dr. Evelyn Hooker’s gay friend Sam From urged her to do a study challenging the commonly held belief that homosexuals were by...
Season 1: Episode 3: Edythe Eyde aka Lisa Ben
October 27, 2016
- 15:03
In 1947, Hollywood secretary Edythe Eyde, aka Lisa Ben, had the audacity to publish “Vice Versa,” the first ever “magazine” for...
Season 1: Episode 2: Wendell Sayers
October 20, 2016
- 15:21
You’ve never heard of Wendell Sayers, but once you hear his story, you’ll never forget him. Born in western Kansas in 1904, Wendell was...
Season 1: Episode 1: Sylvia Rivera — Part 1
October 13, 2016
- 12:33
A never-before-heard conversation with trans icon and self-proclaimed Stonewall veteran Sylvia Rivera. Hear Sylvia discuss the first...
Season 1: Preview
October 5, 2016
- 03:30
The Making Gay History podcast mines Eric Marcus’s decades-old audio archive of rare interviews to create intimate, personal portraits...