1 20 43 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/0982d06f9a2f92fbf7fe2f9136d901e2.mp4 a9de7829384dba075a9196f77cfcdd6e https://history.okeq.org/files/original/ad0d0594064e8fa1c25d3be91a009043.pdf 162b575cf68ca5c82dd758b4c47c8b4e PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with Bob Inglish, Mike Green and Dennis Neill Interview Conducted by Kerry Lewis Date: May 5, 2003 Transcribed By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video, March 14, 2026 Restrictions: Interviewee requested: N/A Oklahomans for Equality History Project 621 E. 4th Street Tulsa, OK. 74120 918.743.4297 historyproject@okeq.org 1 �Discover the early days of Tulsa's LGBTQ+ activism through the personal stories of key founders. This episode explores how the community built a social, legal, and health infrastructure amidst societal resistance and growing awareness of HIV/AIDS. Main Topics Covered:         Origins of TOHR and OHR in Tulsa (1980s) Community challenges and societal attitudes Formation of advocacy, social, and health programs The role of gay bars and underground networks Personal experiences of coming out and safety concerns The impact of HIV/AIDS on community activism Milestones: First events, legal battles, and social acceptance Resources and support organizations then and now Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction to Tulsa's LGBTQ+ activist roots 00:34 - Personal backgrounds of Dennis, Bob, Mike 01:12 - How and when the community organized in Tulsa 02:06 - Early social hubs: Bars and clandestine meetings 03:04 - Challenges and societal perceptions in 1980s Tulsa 04:16 - Community safety and personal disclosures 05:55 - Formation of Tulsa's LGBTQ+ advocacy group 06:57 - Establishing social activities and their significance 08:14 - National awareness and influence from outside Tulsa 09:55 - The community's response to Stonewall and pride events 10:53 - Visibility and openness issues in the community 12:06 - Overcoming societal fears and the early fight for rights 13:31 - Personal safety, coming out, and legal discrimination 15:07 - Attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community in Tulsa 16:00 - The role of community support and opposition 17:23 - The importance of social activities beyond bars 2 �18:53 - Early efforts in education and health services 19:55 - Community milestones: Growth and societal change 21:20 - Encountering hate, violence, and the bravery to stand out 23:52 - The significance of making history and feeling of impact 25:09 - Responding to societal prejudice and the evolution of acceptance 26:30 - The pioneering moments during the AIDS crisis 28:01 - Community outreach, resources, and forming alliances 29:49 - Reflections on why OHR and TOHR were critical 31:19 - The influence of legal, social, and cultural shifts 32:45 - Social programs: Sports, dances, and community events 34:27 - Responding to the AIDS epidemic: education and activism 36:44 - Community response to initial activism efforts 38:24 - Internal community conflicts and how they evolved 40:34 - The importance of social support and combating loneliness 42:14 - Fundraising events, health clinics, and advocacy work 44:40 - Building social networks and the importance of social activities 48:55 - The community's response to HIV/AIDS and health initiatives 50:04 - Early reactions to AIDS in Tulsa and community education 52:01 - How epidemic shifted community behaviors and perceptions 54:11 - Ongoing issues: Safe sex, relationships, and legal protections 56:34 - The cultural significance of marriage and family for gay Oklahomans 57:23 - The continued evolution of community activism and health issues Bob Inglish, Mike Green, Dennis Neill oral history interview May 5, 2003 Kerry Lewis: Hi, I'm Kerry Lewis. I'm with the TOHR's Gay History Project. I'm here today on May 4th interviewing Dennis Neill, Bob Inglish, and Mike Green. They are three of the original organizers of TOHR in the early years, and so we're going to begin by talking to them a little bit about who they are and then also how OHR and TOHR began. Well, good afternoon. What I'd like to do is to begin by asking you a little bit about who you are and what you do and things like that. So we'll start with you, Dennis. Dennis, if you wouldn't mind, let us know when you were born. Dennis Neill: I was born on March 18, 1952. Kerry Lewis: And that makes you? Dennis Neill: I'm 51. Kerry Lewis: You're 51 years old. And have you always been from Tulsa? Dennis Neill: I was born in Ponca City and then went to school at Stillwater and University of Texas Law School. Kerry Lewis: And then did you move to Tulsa after that? Dennis Neill: Right. Dennis Neill: About what year was that? Dennis Neill: In May of 1977, I joined the law firm of Conner and Winters. 3 �Kerry Lewis: And you are and have been single and you have no children? Dennis Neill: Well, I have a partner, but I do have no children. That's correct. Kerry Lewis: And your profession? Dennis Neill: Well, I'm a lawyer by training, but have responsibility for the technology and office assets of Samson Investment Company, an oil and gas company headquartered in Tulsa. Kerry Lewis: We'll probably go back in a minute and ask you more about what you were doing at the time, the OHR beginning, et cetera. But I'll probably just move on now to Bob. Bob, could you give me your date of birth and how old you are? Bob Inglish: 1954, 49. I grew up in Okmulgee and practiced law there out of school and still do. But I've always lived in Tulsa since getting out of school. Kerry Lewis: And Mike? Mike Green: I was born June 25, 1932. Born right here in Tulsa. And I grew up in Tulsa, graduated Central High School, went to OU, got my BA there. And then went in the Army, spent two years in the military. Married while I was in the military, met my colleague, sweetheart. And we had two children. And returned to Tulsa when I got out of the Army. Was here for about a couple of years with my brother in the oil field supply business. And then went to Waterloo, Iowa, where I worked with my father-in-law in the retail clothing business. From there I went to Tempe, Arizona, where I went to school and studied writing, creative writing. Then returned to Tulsa, once again in the oil field supply business, for about five years. Then went to night Law School and started practicing law in 1966. Retired one year ago and moved to Palm Springs with my partner. By the way, I got divorced. Kerry Lewis: My understanding from your answer is that back in, say, 1980, in that time period, you were practicing law. You were in private practice? Mike Green: In private practice. Kerry Lewis: What kind of law did you practice? Mike Green: I always say general practice. When I first started practicing law, I was one of the three Tulsa County public defenders that was appointed. I did that for a couple of years. I always did a lot of criminal work, did domestic work, personal injury work, just general practice. Kerry Lewis: And were you working at that time with a firm or individually? Mike Green: There were three of us that did form a firm, but it was back in the 70s. That was for about five years. So I think I was probably by myself at the time in the 80s. Kerry Lewis: What about you, Bob? Say, around 1979, 80, in that time period, what was your profession like at that time? Or what did you do at that time? 4 �Bob Inglish: Well, I practiced in Okmulgee, which is a town of 14,000 people. At that time, the oil boom was in full force. I did a lot of oil and gas work. I always did a lot of probate work, real estate work. And, of course, in a small town, you do a lot of things, but that was primary emphasis. Kerry Lewis: And Dennis, in 1980, what were you doing? Dennis Neill: I was a third-year associate at a firm of about 30 attorneys, and I was spending a lot of my time working with the securities partners on oil and gas and real estate securities offerings. Kerry Lewis: Do you have any recollection of when you first met, the three of you, back in the, I'm assuming, the late 70s? Do you have any recollection of how that occurred? Mike Green: I met Dennis. There were three of us that had a bar in Central Plaza. It was part-time, it wasn't our day jobs. And we did it for fun at nighttime, and Dennis was living there, and Dennis would come in and sit there and have drinks and smoke cigars every time. That's how I met Dennis. I think I met Bob, I think Bob actually lived in Center Plaza for a while. Bob Inglish: Yeah, I did, I didn't make that connection. Mike Green: And that's when we first met. Kerry Lewis: And that was well before TOHR, OHR began? Mike Green: A few years, I would say, before that, about many years before. Bob Inglish: Well, of course, I was out of law school in 79 and TOHR started when? Dennis Neill: 80. Bob Inglish: 80, yeah, yeah. I think I met Dennis, like, at Zippers, and it wasn't, you know, the next week there was supposed to be a meeting at his house to come to. That's how I remember that, so. Kerry Lewis: Do you remember when the first time the discussion came up about we need to form or have some sort of an organization like OHR? For right now, it's limited to OHR. I understand there may have been some stuff going on before that, but do you remember how that first came up? Dennis Neill: Well, I remember talking with, I think, probably both of you at Zippers one night. I definitely recall, at least visiting with you, Bob, didn't I, at Zippers, and we were talking about the concept of having an organization. And I don't know if Mike and I kind of met separate on that issue or not, but very quickly we kind of got together with the four of us that became the first officers, including Gary Durst, and very quickly started meeting in some homes and laying out some thought processes, given the stimulus that we had from the Oklahoma City organization that had formed a few years before. Bob Inglish: There were probably about 10 or 15 people at that first meeting, I remember, at Dennis' house. And of course, one thing that seemed unique then that 5 �may seem peculiar now is that it's very important to have the support of the bar owners, because that was the center of gay life. And I remember John Willis was there, and Tim was there from Tim's playroom, and whatever, and there was... Mike Green: I think Jim Smith, too. Bob Inglish: Jim Smith. Kerry Lewis: How many, just to give us today a little bit of an idea, how many bars did you estimate were around back in 1980 that were kind of gay or gay-friendly bars in Tulsa? Bob Inglish: Well, there was Zippers, there was Tim's, and then there was the, wasn't there a trio of bars downtown? Mike Green: Right, the Taj Mahal and the Zebra. Bob Inglish: Zebra, which is awful. And the Queen of Hearts. Mike Green: Yes, and then what was the other, the disco down the street from the Queen of Hearts? In fact, it was the first disco in Tulsa, and it was so popular, the straights began coming to it. Took it over? Well, yeah, we put up a good fight. So it didn't ever really become a straight bar, but in fact, one of the owners was straight, and the other two were gay. Bob Inglish: But there wasn't anything about gay life, from a congregation standpoint, except the bars. Mike Green: Right. Bob Inglish: I mean, there wasn't a supportive church, there wasn't a non-profit group, there wasn't a group of common interests. It was just, if you were gay and you wanted to see people, you went to a bar. Kerry Lewis: Were you three, at that time, aware of nationally what was going on with the gay community? Were you aware that there were some organizations outside of Tulsa and Oklahoma that did something like this, or just, what was your level of knowledge as far as what else was going on as a whole as far as the gay community at that time? Mike Green: I'm not real certain of the time period, or the time frame, I should say, but I do remember that my practice had kind of taken a turn while I was doing an awful lot of gay work, representing people, gay people in divorces, both men and women, in criminal matters and other things like that. And I remember getting contacted by Lambda and some other organizations nationwide as to the work I was doing and wanting to assist and even pay some clients fees. They couldn't afford the fees themselves. Bob Inglish: Well, you certainly could take the Advocate to keep in contact with what was going on nationally. I think several of us were well-traveled and certainly at that point in time, the Castro area in San Francisco had developed and Greenwich Village had developed, so if you traveled any, you were certainly aware that there was a lot going on in the gay movement. Certainly, I had just come from OU and there was a lot of activity as far as gay student groups getting started at the 6 �university that was well publicized and so everything was in its early stages, but there was things going on that we were aware of here in Oklahoma. Mike Green: When was Stonewall? Bob Inglish: 1969. Mike Green: I'd ask that because I remember Gary Durst was there in New York when Stonewall occurred. I remember Gary telling me that he thought it was just another night out in New York City when it happened. He had no idea what was going on. Kerry Lewis: Well, at that time, did cities tend to have big pride-type activities like pride parades and festivals? Dennis Neill: Not locally at all. I think we saw some of the flamboyant stuff probably occurring in San Francisco and New York that you see on TV, but this was certainly pre-internet, pre-email, so you looked more for these static publications rather than the wealth of resources that you can have today with regard to knowing what other community centers are doing throughout the U.S. or what's going on with the gay and lesbian movement in other locales. It was a little more difficult, but there were a couple of reliable, viable sources of information. Kerry Lewis: How out were you in your personal lives at that time when you decided to be involved with organizing OHR, the Tulsa chapter of OHR? Were you fairly open with being gay to your family and friends at that time? Dennis Neill: Well, I was with my sister, but I wasn't particularly out with my parents, although I think they were aware. I do remember approaching a new junior partner at the law firm as we were first contemplating formation of TOHR and asking him if he thought I should go to the partners meeting and explain my activities with the gay community in Tulsa. He gave me the wise thought that really that was probably the focus of the partners meeting, that maybe if it was important for civil rights issues to go ahead and pursue it, but not really a need to visit with the law firm at this stage. So that was probably the right discussion because that was in 1980 and even that firm, that would have been the first gay individual that they would have had to deal with. It was probably better for them to get it more down the road after things got informed and in a little bit better shape than probably at that point in time. Bob Inglish: I think contextually you'd have to remember that when you talk about the gay movement coming into its own, that the Castro area in San Francisco or the Greenwich Village in New York City probably started developing as a gay center in 74 or 76. So we're talking about Tulsa in 1979 and 1980. We're certainly not the Castro area and we're certainly not Greenwich Village. The movement was fairly recent and the concept of people being openly gay and out and having activities as a gay community was still pretty new in other cities other than major metropolitan areas. I would think that we might have had an exuberance about starting the organization, but you weren't aware of roadblocks at the time until you tried things. You didn't necessarily know that doors were going to be shut until you tried things. Or tried a case, Mike, I would guess. You didn't necessarily know that there might be prejudice or confrontation as you tried things. 7 �Mike Green: I think I divorced in 66 and I had two children, like I said earlier. They were born I think in 58 and 60. And I never actually came out and told my family I was gay. I never came out and told my kids I was gay. They told me and they told my ex-wife who was very, very receptive and we're still very, very close to this date. But when TOHR was being formed, by that time my practice had become I'd say at least 50-60% gay. And as far as the community, the outside community was concerned, I grew up sitting in maybe four or five gay bars. And we had the liquor problems back in those days and there were a lot of liquor busts. And they got used to when they would bust a bar and take the owners in or the bartenders in, they would expect Mike Green to show up within a few minutes to get them out. And so my name was becoming associated with gay issues. And I realized too, some other attorneys learned I was gay and I never seemed to have a problem with it because of their knowledge. Kerry Lewis: And that kind of leads me on to my next question. I mean, what is your evaluation or your sense of the climate in Tulsa at that time as far as their attitudes towards gays and lesbians? Mike Green: I think it was negative. I really do. I don't think the people were educated, and I think they were fearful of the, quote, gay political agenda. And Tulsa had become a very, we used to call it the buckle of the Bible belt. And it was not at all, I don't think, gay friendly. But because they had not been exposed to that kind of lifestyle that we were going to try and present to them later on. And I know in some of the court situations I had, just the mere fact that you were a lesbian or you were a homosexual male would mean you were unqualified to have custody of your children. And I had problems in visitation issues even, where if you had a partner, that partner could not be in the home when the children came to visit. And it was just presumed that if you were gay or a lesbian and you had a partner, same sex partner, that you were doing something that was not presentable to the children. Kerry Lewis: And I'll ask the same question to you, too, in a second. But just as a follow up question to you, Mike, did you ever have a sense of risk as far as your personal safety or your personal status? Mike Green: Not my safety, no. Personal status, yes. I was concerned at times. I had a lot of clients who I'm not sure how receptive they would have been to knowing that I was gay. And also, I had two children I was supporting, and a son I was sending through college. Kerry Lewis: Bob, do you have any differing views on how Tulsa was as far as its perception of gay people? Bob Inglish: I don't think I would disagree, but you also have to remember where gay people were. I mean, I laugh at some of the things. You know, I remember, you know, you would dress a certain way. I mean, gay life was very clandestine, even for people who were out. And by out, I mean, they might go to gay bars or they might consider themselves homosexual and admit that personally and not have a problem with it. But, you know, if you were wanting to meet other homosexuals, you might dress a certain way. I mean, it went through trends. You might dress, have an IZOD t-shirt. How many IZOD shirts did you have? But that was... 8 �Dennis Neill: Are they out of style? Bob Inglish: They're back in, I think. But you would wear, you might wear an IZOD shirt and your jeans, and jeans, your hair might be cut short. And that was like a universal symbol. Or there was an absurd fashion statement where you flipped your collar up in the back for a while, which really looked dumb. But it was a, that was a signal to people that you were gay. And then you also had this feeling if you were like in an airport or you were at a store or something and, you know, you would see somebody and maybe detect that, some of those universal symbols that you go, wow, I mean, here's another gay person, like, oh, wow, you know. And of course, I think people were very sexually promiscuous then simply from a repression standpoint, they had been repressed for so long and there was such a exuberance about accepting the fact that you were gay that, you know, you might meet someone and you'd go, oh, you're gay, you know, maybe this is going to be a sexual encounter because, you know, you weren't going to meet gay people in another way. And so, you know, yeah, Tulsa had a feeling, you know, I think all of us perceive that to be negative, but gay people were not out and open and comfortable like they are today. I mean, you know, that was 24 years, 24 years ago, is that right? 23, yeah. So it was very different. Kerry Lewis: What about your sense of personal safety, your sense of status? You're just coming out of law school, or a few years out of law school. Did you have any, were you conscious of what the effect might be on your life and your career by being open or being part of a group like this? Bob Inglish: I don't really know that I was, but I think there was always some discretion that was involved. I mean, you just, you know, for example, now, if I interview a secretary or something at work, you know, I might say, I just want you to know I'm gay and, you know, I hope you don't have a problem with it, perhaps. You know, back then, I wouldn't have that discussion. You know, I mean, you wouldn't think about having that discussion. I was always out to my parents, but as far as, at least, you know, Okmulgee being very open, I don't think that I was. I never hid anything. I never dated, you know, a girl to give some kind of cover, but I never, but I don't know how particularly open I was. I had a pretty convenient out that I could drive back to Tulsa and be in a larger city and have that little bit of protection, but I don't think I ever had much fear for adverse consequences, and I think early on, I knew that it wasn't worth the sacrifice. I fortunately had counseling whenever I came out and had a pretty good, firm feeling that being openly gay was not an option, but an essential character. You know, something was very essential to one's well-being, and if something adverse had happened, I think I knew that I had other options, and perhaps there were areas of the country where you could go live, where you could be accepted. I mean, you could move to San Francisco. You could move to New York. You didn't have to stay here if you didn't want to. Kerry Lewis: So what were your perceptions of the climate in Tulsa with regard to gays and lesbians? Dennis Neill: Well, I felt we were definitely on the frontier here, and, you know, it was a time of contrast, too, because there were certainly some very supportive institutions. All Souls Unitarian Church, where we were first meeting, some of the 9 �members of their congregation really had a lot of outreach to us. The ACLU, in working with them, very interested in the gay rights movement in Oklahoma. So we certainly had some friends and some advocates, but I think they were pretty few, you know, and we really weren't pushing them too hard at that point in time to help us with some of the more advocacy type of activities that they've certainly become well-known for since 1980. But I certainly think I recognized we were dealing in a little bit different world then a lot of our heterosexual friends were, because I, for example, was taking materials to Zippers one Saturday night, and I got clobbered by some teenager kids that smashed in my eye, and that was in 1980. That was a time period that several people were getting beat up outside of Zippers and some of the other bars by kids with baseball bats. One of the co-hosts of our first Black and White, which also happened to be in 1980, disappeared and was presumed killed, whether it was gay-related or not. He was very out in the gay bar community, so very possibly a victim of a hate crime at that time. A couple of the drag queens were killed in the 1980 to 83 time period. So I think, and then there was that murder down at Taj Mahal. Mike Green: Double murder. Dennis Neill: So, double murder. So I think, you know, we were certainly aware that there were some risks being gay. Certainly risk being a closeted gay or an out gay in the community at that point in time. But I kind of go back that we also had some very important friends that helped us as we moved forward with regard to the advocacy issues and the legal issues for the gay and lesbian community. Kerry Lewis: And you may have already answered this question, but it kind of leads me to wonder whether you had a personal sense that you were making history of sorts at that time. Was there that sense of excitement that you were doing something new, something that hadn't been done before in Tulsa? Did you understand or comprehend or understand that at that time? Or is that something that just comes since then? Dennis Neill: Speaking for me, I definitely felt it because we would get people coming to our functions that were really so excited to have an organization like TOHR and we had so many of these activities outside of the bars, the skates, the softball, the volleyball. It became a very important outlet for people to get socialized within the gay and lesbian community. I remember doing a radio program and talking a little bit about gay issues and I was really speaking more of an ACLU attorney and getting many, many hostile calls during that talk radio program, but that really made you quite aware that you're pushing the envelope in the Tulsa community. The next morning I had a strange bag on my front lawn and I thought, man, maybe this is a bomb, but it was actually my neighbor leaving some trash out for the trash bin the next day, but just decided to put it in my yard instead of her yard. I think there was definitely a feeling and I think we definitely, I certainly felt that we were having an impact through this organization of reaching out to some of the newer members in our community as well as those that have been here for a long time. 10 �Kerry Lewis: Bob, what about you? Did you have that sense of that you were doing something that hadn't been done before, making history? Bob Inglish: Well, it was exciting and it was a needed service. I don't know that I really had much of a historical perspective. I mean, frankly, I think the three of us are just thrilled to death that TOHR is still here and that it has the many functions that it does. This is all pre-AIDS and there have been a lot of changes in the gay community, but if you think today what the gay community has compared to what we had then, we had nothing outside of the bars. Absolutely nothing. And today, and perhaps it is the result of some of this early work, you have at least two if not three gay churches. You have churches that are certainly accepting of gays. You have Prime Timers. I point to Mike. You have Project Open Arms that deal with gay youth. You have youth services that deal with gay youth. You have, gosh, help me out here, what are some of the other things that we just take for granted today that go on in Tulsa? Mike Green: Council Oaks. Bob Inglish: Council Oaks, Men's Chorale. Now there's a women's group of Council Oaks. There's probably support groups that we're not even aware of that, there was just nothing. There was just nothing. Everything we did, you know, softball team, I mean who would think that gay people would, I mean, you know, it would be stereotypical, but you know, we've had three or four meetings and somebody's talking about a softball league and you're going, why would we want to play softball? Dennis Neill: Who wants to do that? Bob Inglish: I didn't have any desire. There was a big combination of cheerleaders, I remember that. But we sponsored plays. We registered people to vote. We had health clinics because the venereal disease was rampant in the gay community. We did political surveys. We had a lot of programs and it just mushroomed and every year it mushroomed with more and more people involved. I mean, I didn't realize that, but Dennis, you were reading something in 83, which would have been three years later, there were 250 members of the organization and we maybe started out with 10, so. Kryy Lewis: What about you, Mike? Mike Green: I found it very exciting. I didn't realize what was going on as far as, like Dennis said, pushing the envelope, but I always remember the, when Virginia Opulso [Note – Virginia Apuzzo served as Executive Director of the National LGBTQTask Force in the early 1980’s], was that who it was, came to Tulsa in 1983, was that when she came here? And spoke and then we, at a dinner we held at the Trinity Church, we asked earlier, it was downtown, which of course is one of the bigger churches. And I remember the feeling that I had that evening that it was the very first time I had ever gone to a real presentable place for a gay function. The very first time ever. And I knew it was important. I remember I was so thrilled by it. And I remember that she, the thrust of her message was that if the gays would unite, we'd be one of the strongest, the strongest forces in the entire world. I remember going back to Tim's bar after that was over, being so enthused and walking in and all of the 11 �disagreements, the arguments and so forth, I dawned on me that it would never happen. But still, it was just the idea that I had gone to a gay function in a presentable place among presentable people. And that was unique, it really was. To be gay was unique back in those days. Today it's no longer unique. It's just accepted. Accepted the fact, oh, you're gay, like Bob said, in being a secretary. It's not an issue anymore. Of course, I live in Palm Springs now, so out there. It's certainly not an issue with me and my lifestyle. Kerry Lewis: You all have touched on it, but do you have anything else, I guess, to add than what you've already said about the reason for beginning OHR, to start organizing? What you said so far is normal. There was definitely a need for some social events to gather. There really was. The only alternative at the time was the network of bars. But was there any other compelling reason or something that you really felt personally why you wanted to see OHR go forward or having this kind of a group go forward? Mike Green: I think it was the thought, and I think Dennis presented this thought to us, was that we could make a difference somehow. And we didn't know when or how, but by actually organizing and doing something, we could make a difference in what was going on in our lives and those who would have come after us. Kerry Lewis: Are you referring to a political sense or just... Mike Green: Political sense, yes, social, in every aspect of gay life. Because gay life back in those days, as far as I'm concerned, was not acceptable. I remember being in the courtroom representing gay people and the attitude of some of the judges. Just the fact that they were gay made them guilty of something. Maybe not the crime they were charged with, but guilty of something. And that changed. I'm not saying we changed it, but I think that groups like TOHR, OHR, throughout the country and around the country did change it. And so we certainly had our place in it. I remember one judge, a good example would be one judge who was homophobic. And it even said in the courtroom that he would not believe anything a gay person said on the witness stand. Merely because they were gay. And that judge went to a judicial conference in San Francisco and came back a changed individual. And he even said things like, if I would have carried my thoughts to San Francisco, they would have run me out of town on a rail. And he came back just totally a different person. Bob Inglish: I think, you know, not only was TOHR a force, but those of us that were involved, we didn't want TOHR to be a social organization. But at the same time, in addition to maybe having a real feeling that we were doing something, you know, frankly from a personal standpoint, it was a wonderful way to meet people. And, you know, I think a lot of people became involved in the organization because you could meet people and visit with people and do things. And it wasn't that you had to go to a bar at midnight and have a drink and try to converse with people. It was, you know, you could really get to know people. And I know so many people in Tulsa, you probably feel the same way, and Dennis, you do too, that we met in the early days of the organization that we wouldn't have had the opportunity to do. And, you know, you too got involved with Black and White, you know, because, you know, 12 �there was a need to have social activity in the gay community, again outside the bar, so they started the Black and White Party. I, along with several other people, started the Harwelden Party in probably 1981 or so. I think it was probably 81. But, I mean, there was a desire to, like, you know, we're gay people, we can go out, we can have a nice party, a nice social function outside of the bars. And that still goes on today. It's still a nice function and a nice part of the gay community. It seemed like there was some other... Well, to me, one of the pioneering moments of TOHR was the AIDS crisis, because we, as a result of early on, 1983 or whatever, we sent Jeff Beal, and did you say you went too, Dennis? Dennis Neill: Yes Bob Inglish: To a conference about AIDS, and they brought back information about the disease that probably would not have gotten to Tulsa for another year or two. And so we were educating people about AIDS long before it would have happened otherwise, and you just would hope that you would save people's lives, that people's lives were saved as a result of getting that information. But also at that point in time, and I don't know if it was a function of our age or a function of the organization, but people weren't out, and as a result of talking to people and coming to these groups, they...became out. I don't know what the proper English is, but, you know, they became comfortable with being gay. And they weren't before that. And just by having all these activities, they were. And you don't hear... I mean, now people come out when they are 16. They go to a youth group after school. But I can assure you that wasn't the situation at that point in time. And some of our earliest meetings, in fact the first one you noted in the newsletter, was a psychiatrist who came and talked about being gay. I mean, did we have some horrible, awful disease? Were we somehow psychologically impaired? You know, what was wrong with us? That was what was going through a lot of people's minds. And we were able to bring information to people to indicate that wasn't the case. Kerry Lewis: You Dennis, do you have any other reasons other than what had been said for why OHR was formed? Dennis Neill: No, I think it's a good point. When we first started meeting and understanding what the Oklahoma City group orientation was, and we were a chapter initially of the Oklahomans for Human Rights that was started in Oklahoma City about two years before we really got started. It was probably a lot more advocacy at the front because the co-founder of that, Bill Rogers, was a very involved attorney, very involved in the ACLU, very involved in social cause issues. So he was probably much quicker to, in Oklahoma City, take it to be a political advocacy group to the extent it could while it was still a 501c3 non-profit organization. And we felt like here we needed a little more time to develop ourselves and understand for new people coming into the organization, kind of the socialization issue. So we probably did kind of focus on the social side quicker at the beginning, but very promptly got focused on the advocacy side too. In fact, it's reflected in our first 13 �bylaws, which really haven't changed since we organized in 1980, talking about really focusing on non-discrimination for all people. So that was certainly part of our charter at the beginning. It became a focal point fairly early in the organization. And I think that was evidenced by the fact that the news media, the political environment, very quickly became aware of us and we did become the spokespeople for the gay community. Whether we wanted to be representative of the gay community or not, you do need a focal point for the media and for the political establishment. I think we very quickly became the focal point. Kerry Lewis: What kind of response did you receive when you first decided to post your first few meetings and try to get people together? Was there a positive response? Was it easy to reach people that were in the community? What was your sense, Dennis, if you want to... Dennis Neill: Well, Bob has a better memory of this. I had forgotten that even in our initial meetings that we were able to get many of the bar owners together, although I think they probably had a little bit different agenda than maybe we did initially going in. So I might kind of pass it to Bob, because I honestly don't recall a lot of what those first meetings really looked like. Bob Inglish: You know, what I recall is that there was a group of gay people, and we're really speaking from a male perspective because the lesbian community, I think, has evolved a little bit differently. But there was an older group of gay people that I think were very non-supportive of TOHR because they were so used to being closeted. They had their little bridge nights, and they had this and that that interested them, and they had their very private parties. But as far as doing anything publicly, to come out publicly was a threat. They had definitely a system, a code among themselves that you could be gay, but you weren't supposed to tell anybody about it, and you certainly didn't go to an organizational meeting, and I think there was some hostility from that segment of the gay community. I think people that were our age were fairly supportive. Dennis Neill: That's a great point. I've forgotten, a mutual friend of all of ours was very adamantly against us when we first started OHR. He worked in the same building that I did, and he criticized us for about two or three years and eventually became a very big supporter of TOHR and participated in many of our activities, but gosh, Bob's right, the environment even within our own community was somewhat hostile. Bob Inglish: That was a kind of a function Mike served with some of the older members of the community. Mike Green: You guys are right. Now that I remember. Bob Inglish: I would go, Mike, would you talk to these people? Mike Green: And it was fear-based is what it was. We had people who held large positions with oil companies and banks. There were doctors, accountants, and these people were frightened they were going to be drug out of the closet, and Bob's right about the lifestyle they had. They even had their own little language. They had words 14 �that meant certain things that even today most of us don't know what they mean anymore. Bob Inglish: Watch the boys in the band. That will give you an idea. Mike Green: Mitch at the Tea Room had a whole different significance in those days. These people were scared. They really were, and the idea that they wouldn't have to come out. I think also it was a knowledge that they wanted to come out. They wanted this openness, and yet they were afraid what it might bring to them, a loss of earnings after a 55, 60-year-old man who's faced with losing his job. Even to this day, you can be fired because you're gay. There's no protection whatsoever under the law in Oklahoma. These people did not want to lose their source of income, and this was looming in the future that appeared to them. For some reason, many of them did come out, but there are still many older gays who don't want to be associated with these kind of things. As for myself and for the younger people, a gay lifestyle could be a very lonely lifestyle. By organizing, it got rid of some of the loneliness and some of the fear of the future of living a gay lifestyle. I think that was very important to many people, and that's why they opted. Because like Bob said, although we had a different agenda, it was very social. We were talking earlier that when we were organizing it, it got to the point where sometimes the food that was served, not at my house, but at other houses by some of the people that were organizing the group, the main issue was the food and tables that were set for us and things of that type. It's still social, but that's any organization you have nowadays. Any political organization becomes social or any selfimprovement organization becomes social, that's just the way life is. You meet people that have common interests with you, and it becomes very much easier to develop relationships. Kerry Lewis: What kind of things did you do? You mentioned several, but in addition to having meetings where speakers would come and I guess occasionally having dinners and meetings where you ate, apparently, what else? What other kind of activities toward the beginning did TOHR or OHR do? Mike Green: We had the bowling. We were talking earlier, we had the softball tournaments. Bob Inglish: Gay Skates. It was always a surefire fundraiser was to have a roller skating party. I still can't believe it. Dennis Neill: Because we also served alcohol, and we had an open bar at those things. It was a cash bar, and there was one of those skates that we had out in Sand Springs, and somebody, I think it was J.L., ran into the wall and injured himself and was in the hospital for three days. It was probably somewhat alcohol related, so we took some risk with regard to that. I think the skate's demise was when we decided we were going to cool it on alcohol. Mike Green: Then we had a group that met down at Riverside Drive to play volleyball on Sunday afternoons. 15 �Dennis Neill: Very quickly when we first formed, the drag queens were very supportive of the organization, had some fundraisers. Then we did our own Turnabout Drag Show, which became the Follies, where some of us that definitely shouldn't have been doing drag end up doing drag. Hugely successful fundraisers. They raised a couple of thousand dollars each event, which was very vital for our organization at that period of time. Bob Inglish: They did health clinics, registered people to vote, did questionnaires. Dennis Neill: Our picnics were kind of different than the picnics now in that we had a lot of games at those picnics. We had the softball games, chariot races, activity booths. When we started that, like 82 or 83 at the Chandler Park. So that it was very much about trying to get people involved in each activity. So we tried many things. And for the women, we certainly did outreach through the volleyball and the women's softball. Dennis Neill: And we started seeing what would you say, within the first year or so, women starting to get involved with the TOHR. Because by 83, I think two of the six or seven officers were female. And we started seeing a balance develop by the mid 80s where the females were getting involved with, at least at the organizational level, they probably weren't as involved in the meetings and as representative in the community at the meetings, but started getting involved in the leadership positions. Kerry Lewis: Did you have any other activities that you guys can recall at that time? Maybe I should ask this. When did the helpline begin? Was that toward the beginning of the 80s or about the same time? Dennis Neill: I remember we had the training at John Dratz's apartment where he lived there about 15th off of Peoria. And then that Steve, I think that was his name, at his house we had some early training. Typically you'd have to spend all day as a volunteer going through the training. And then we even had some professional trainers and got some training from the Community Service Council's helpline to help us. But gee, it had to be early on, didn't it? Because we had it well before our first office, and our first office came about in 83 or 84, and that was when we used to have it down in Zippers before we even had an office. Bob Inglish: When we had a recorded message, we were listed in the phone book, so it wasn't necessarily staffed, but people could call. Mike Green: We would staff that, I think, in the evening hours, is what we'd usually do, and then record a message in the daytime. I remember one time walking into the clerk's office in one of the courts, and they were all laughing about something. And I realized what they were laughing about was that somebody had told them of the gay helpline, and they were calling it just to get that message. They weren't saying anything, they weren't really harassing phone calls, they were just calls just to see what the message was. And these people could not believe there was actually a gay helpline in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They were so amazed by it. Dennis Neill: Dean Dugan and Steve Wilson, who both worked with Southwestern Bell, helped us get the phone number, because we won that Vanity phone number, 743-GAYS. And I remember that when they put it in, that the central office of 16 �Southwestern Bell, the supervisors, all got together in an office to dial that number and get that recording, because they'd heard about it. And Dean or Steve just happened to be walking by and noticed them all in there wondering what in the world they were doing on a speakerphone. They were listening to our phone number. And within the first few months of putting it in, some students at that Rhema Bible College took a pledge to try to tie up our line. And we understand that was even discussed in the classes, to encourage students to dial our number, because they thought it was not appropriate to have the gay helpline here. And so we had a tremendous volume for about the first six months, and many of them were just hanging up, trying to tie up our line. But the group of dedicated volunteers, we got through that first six months or so, and then got down to the point where we were getting very important calls from people needing health information, needing to know what was going on in the community. The tough ones were the younger people calling, because we at that time felt uncomfortable talking to anybody under 18. And fortunately, we found a couple of resources. I think one of the churches volunteered to be a resource for those that were under 18, and we would provide a phone number for them. But we started getting lots of very important calls. I think the line made a big difference in people's lives. Now, obviously, still 67 percent of the calls might be somebody out of town wanting to know what bar to go to, what activities might be in the community. But a lot of them, particularly, as Bob mentioned, kind of this pre- and emerging AIDS time frame, we could really start seeing the swing over to the health issues by 83, 84. Bob Inglish: Didn't we donate books to the public library? I mean, there wasn't hardly any gay books at the library, or knowledge. Didn't we donate books? Dennis Neill: I think we did. Kerry Lewis: Logistically, how did you guys handle the helpline? Was that kept at somebody's home? Mike Green: No. John Willis, who owns Zippers, volunteered Zippers for the helpline. He had a private office in there. Wasn't there a small office behind his office where we originally set it up? And then later, when we got our first offices, we moved it over there, of course. Kerry Lewis: The impact of HIV and AIDS on the community and your impressions of that. I'm not sure at the time it was happening that it was as clear as it might be now. Looking back on it, what did the sudden emergence of a gay disease, as it was called, have on the community in Tulsa? I Mike Green: think it came around. It evolved so slowly. I can remember sitting up at Rick's and a friend of mine who's no longer living, who's a doctor, reading from Time magazine. I think I handed it to him, a little excerpt about the gay cancer thing. And him just kind of marveling, what is this thing, gay cancer? This really can't be. You know, if it's disease, we're just gay people. It just slowly got bigger and bigger. And it wasn't a long time before it hit Tulsa. Bob Inglish: You could read about it and watch TV about it, but it was all going on in San Francisco and New York. You thought, well, this isn't going to happen in Tulsa. And then it just eventually started happening. One of the first things I remember was, 17 �do you remember, it was at Sophian Plaza. It was at Don Donaldson's apartment. There was this guy that had AIDS. And of course, at that point in time, he knew he had AIDS because he had Karposi. And he had an identical brother. And they were going to go to Baltimore or someplace to have this bone marrow thing. I mean, it was real early on. Dennis Neill: Gosh, I do remember that. Bob Inglish: And we charged like 50 cents. You had to make a donation of 50 cents or something like that to help this guy out, pay for this medical treatment. I mean, Lord only knows the watershed of dollars after that, whether 50 cents a person mattered. But I remember that distinctly. Mike Green: Yeah, now that you talk about that, I do remember something about that. Dennis Neill: Yeah, I had forgotten about that. And then the first one I remember was that by mid-1983, as we started having these TOHR meetings focused on HIV, we started getting aware of it. I think it was in like early 1984, an individual came to one of our meetings and was actually in a wheelchair and was HIV infected and was ill from that. That's the first individual I remember that came to an OHR meeting and was also clearly ill from AIDS. And one of the first deaths I remember was Randy Anderson's death. Bob Inglish: Well, that's who I was talking about. Dennis Neill: Oh, was it Randy? Okay. Bob Inglish: But we were talking about, A, the gay community being very sexualoriented, that you would meet a gay person at an airport and you would just be excited that you met a gay person and that there would be maybe a compulsion to have sex. Dennis Neill: Bob's speaking for himself here. Bob Inglish: Not me, I'm not talking about myself. But then the AIDS crisis comes along and, of course, everybody's sexual activity became very cautious and then so many of us have become coupled. And, of course, you were then saying that that wasn't true for the very older generation, but those people were never out. It's kind of a different generation. Mike Green: That well may be. Bob Inglish: But I can see now where before it was like, well, we're not going to get pregnant, so why not have sex? And you would have a gathering. I mean, Sunday brunch was always a big time. And it would be like, Dennis went home with so-andso and did this, and so-and-so went home with so-and-so. But no, I went home with so-and-so the night before. I mean, that was gay life, really. Mike Green: Well, I think it unfortunately or maybe I don't know what it is, that's still gay life. In many respects. After all, we do have a thing called safe sex nowadays and many people practice it. It's amazing where I live right now, there are a number of people who do not practice that. It's just kind of unbelievable but they don't. And 18 �they're very proud of not practicing safe sex. But now they do have safe sex and when AIDS first came out we didn't know what caused it. We thought if you could be around somebody you'd catch it. I remember a friend of mine went to California and came back and told me he'd been in a party where a guy was dying of AIDS. I said, how could you be near him? How would you be around him? So it was such a very scary thing. The disease was unknown as to how it was transmitted. So it's evolved and it better be bad that we know more about it and we know it's more difficult to catch than most things and that you've got to be promiscuous in certain ways to come down with it. So I still think that there's a lot of sex going on. In fact, that's one of the problems today with HIV spread, is that there's too much sex going on, too much promiscuity in the gay world. Bob Inglish: There certainly wasn't a lot of couples to maybe feel like you were modeling after that wasn't a very normal part of the gay community. And then we're talking now that at least gay people in other areas are adopting children and whatever it is. Mike Green: That is coming around. As far as older people, I have a lot of friends who have celebrated 50 years or more with the same partner. I'm not saying they've been in a monogamous relationship, but they've been together at least 50 years. Bob Inglish: I bet the percentages, though, are very different. You're talking about a pretty narrow percent of the population that you're talking about. Dennis and my generation, you're talking about a lot more people have established relationships and homes and things like that. Or do you not think so? Mike Green: Well, the only thing that will tell is time. Because I think maybe you have more monogamous relationships now than we had before. Dennis Neill: Well, it could be part of the deal, might be, don't you think? Not that there's these huge generational gaps here, but probably in your generation, Mike, there may be more people that were willing to live the lie, i.e., always stay married to a female, and therefore there weren't as many opportunities for some of those people to couple up with a guy where probably in our generation, certainly the younger generations, there's less acceptance of living the lie. And so much earlier on in their development, they may be looking at, one, exploring the sexual side of the gay life, but then, two, realizing that it is important hopefully at some point in time to find an individual that you can kind of revolve your life around. And then our societies get more mature in supporting those relationships. Mike Green: I think that's a good idea. It's much easier to maintain a gay marriage. Dennis Neill: I mean, this whole argument about gay marriage is so ridiculous because if the heterosexual world really wanted to help control the promiscuity issue, it'd be very supportive of the gay relationships, the gay unions, and so forth, much like the Netherlands has experienced and some of the other countries that have a much formalized union process to celebrate the union and to support it in various ways. Mike Green: And two, a lot of people I meet, I'm sure you guys have met too, they look at this idea of being married and getting into a heterosexual relationship and having children and so forth. It really belongs to the Midwest. It's not an East Coast 19 �thing, it's not a West Coast thing, but it belongs to Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas. It may well be. I don't know. I have a lot of friends in California now from Michigan, New York, San Francisco, and most of the guys have not been married and do not have children. Whereas back here, I still have a lot of friends who are my age who have raised families with grandmothers now. Some of the great grandmothers. Organizationally, you had mentioned that TOHR started in 1983 to deal with HIV by having programming that kind of revolved around educating or finding out what's going on with HIV. I know eventually there became testing, but what other kinds of things were going on in the early to mid-1980s involving HIV? [Tape Ended] 20 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2003] Bob Inglish, Mike Green, and Dennis Neill Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 4, 2003 Description An account of the resource Bob Inglish, Mike Green and Dennis Neill Oral History Interview with Kerry Lewis on May 5, 2003 - Discover the early days of Tulsa's LGBTQ+ activism through the personal stories of key founders. This episode explores how the community built a social, legal, and health infrastructure amidst societal resistance and growing awareness of HIV/AIDS. Subject The topic of the resource Bob Inglish, Mike Green, and Dennis Neill Oral History Interview from May 5, 2003 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bob Inglish, Mike Green, Dennis Neill, Kerry Lewis 2003 activism AIDS AIDS/HIV Bob Inglish Dennis Neill Dennis R. Neill HIV HIV/AIDs interview Kerry Lewis Kerry R. Lewis Mike Green OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript TOHR transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2019] Al Carlozzi Interview Subject The topic of the resource Al Carlozzi Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project Interview from June 6, 2019 Description An account of the resource Al was interviewed on June 6, 2019, by Oklahoma State University as part of its Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project. In the interview, Al discusses his early life, service in the Air Force and early outreach to the LGBTQ+ community for mental health. In 2006, he became director of the OSU-Tulsa Counseling Center (now named the Al Carlozzi Center for Counseling) until his retirement in 2019. He has been a long-time consultant with Oklahomans for Equality regarding its counseling services. He collaborated on the book “Transgender and Gender Diverse Persons: A Handbook for Service Providers, Educators, and Families.” <strong>A copy of the OSU transcript is on file at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Al Carlozzi, Angus Henderson, Allison Richmond, Matthew D. Williams, Micki White, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 6, 2019 2019 Al Carlozzi Allison Richmond Angus Henderson Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project interview Matthew D. Williams Micki White Oklahoma Oral History Research Program Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahoma State University Archives oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU OSU Archives OSU Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project OSU Oral History Project transcript https://history.okeq.org/files/original/3f257b237fcb28eacc3a53644888ae6c.mp4 b7854c07569e72010538c04ee38ad435 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/dc8193d4ab8cf0eb7f5c31a11315bcfe.pdf a2e2ac0ad4e26f5a886e10f91d43280c PDF Text Text Oral History Interview with Anna Dodwell Interview Conducted by Laura Belmonte August 1, 2004 OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma Oral History Research Program Edmon Low Library ● Oklahoma State University ©2004 �OKEQ Oral History Project Interview History Interviewer: Laura Belmonte Transcriber: Allison Richmond Editors: Anika Benthem The recording and transcript of this interview were processed at the Oklahoma State University Library in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Project Detail The OKEQ Oral History Project is a series of interviews documenting the rich contributions of LGBTQ community members in the state of Oklahoma, with a particular emphasis on Tulsa and the surrounding area. These interviews were conducted by members of Oklahomans for Equality, formerly Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. Legal Status Scholarly use of the recordings and transcripts of the interview with Anna Dodwell is unrestricted. The interview agreement was signed on August 1, 2004. 2 �OKEQ Oral History Project Anna Dodwell Oral History Interview Interviewed by Laura Belmonte August 1, 2004 Tulsa, Oklahoma Belmonte It is Sunday, August 1, 2004, and I’m Laura Belmonte. We are interviewing Anna Dodwell today at my home. Anna, we begin with some really basic stuff. Just tell us your full name and where and when you were born. Dodwell Okay. Anna Dodwell, I was born here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, September 7, 1963. Belmonte Have you lived here your whole life? Dodwell Yes. Belmonte Okay. Tell us a little bit about your childhood and your family background. Dodwell Well, I went to Eisenhower Elementary School and grew up with lots of kids in my neighborhood. We played, and they teased me, and I teased them, and it was just kind of a fairly normal childhood. My father was a plumber, and my mother was the manager of a restaurant for many, many years. I went to Edison Junior High and High School. Went to school with one star, Jeanne Tripplehorn; she’s been in a few movies. Went to—I’ve known her since elementary school. Just had a lot of childhood—close childhood friends. Nothing really significant. I was in Camp Fire for twenty-six years, so it was very special to me. Belmonte Any brothers and sisters? Dodwell I have an older brother and I have—actually three older brothers who are all half-brothers, and then I have a sister, and that’s it. Belmonte That sounds like enough. Dodwell Yeah. Belmonte How have you classified your sexual identity for most of your adult life? 3 �Dodwell To begin with, when I was in high school or even junior high, I knew there was something different, and I didn’t know what it was. I knew that whatever it was, it was strange. I shouldn’t have to like girls. Why should I—why am I liking this? I tried to go with society and decided that I knew that I was a lesbian, but there really wasn’t a name for it. There was no support, zero support, for any teenager, or any adults for that matter, as far as coming out or anything like that. We just kind of tried to do what society says to do. I had a son, and I tried to say, “Well, this is it. This is where I’m supposed to be,” but I was miserable. Belmonte How long have you been out to yourself? Dodwell To myself, I’ve been out probably since I was nineteen or twenty. Belmonte When did you have your first same-sex sexual experience? Dodwell When I was about nineteen, I think, nineteen or twenty, yeah. Belmonte How did you find this woman? Did you meet through a mutual friend? Dodwell In a bar. Belmonte Do you remember what bar? Dodwell Seeker’s Choice. Belmonte Where was that? Do you remember anything about it? Dodwell I don’t remember… Belmonte Terry remembers. (Laughter) Dodwell It was on Admiral, yes. I don’t remember exactly where, but yeah, I picked someone up—well, I guess she picked me up. It was in a little, tiny strip mall. Belmonte Was it predominantly a women’s bar? Dodwell I think so, yeah. That’s all I ever saw in there, really, was women. It was—I do know it was owned by a transgendered man. Belmonte Oh really? Is he still alive? Still live in Tulsa? Dodwell I don’t know. 4 �Belmonte Did you go to this bar again? Dodwell I went occasionally, but the woman was really scary, and I didn’t want to see her anymore. (Laughter) Belmonte We’ve never heard that story. (Laughter) Dodwell She had whips hanging from her wall, and I really didn’t like that. Terry Scared you to death. (Laughs) Belmonte I could see why. Living in Tulsa your whole life, when do you recall having met a gay person for the first time? Dodwell I knew that my nephew was coming out, and he would talk about how gay he was when Rocky Horror was really big. We’d go to Rocky Horror all the time. He was kind of the first gay person that I really was around. He used to correct his lisping in front of the mirror and all that kind of stuff. Other than that, he just—he was about the only person that I can think of; everybody else I knew was straight. Belmonte You heard of Seeker’s Choice how? Do you recall when you first began to hear about places where gay people went in Tulsa? What were some of those places other than Seeker’s Choice? Dodwell I believe I called the helpline. I think I called the helpline to find that out. I either did that or I looked in the phonebook, but I think it was the helpline. I can’t recall exactly how that came about, but I know they gave me two or three different choices of bars that I could go to. Gosh, that was ’83. Belmonte That would have narrowly ended the helplines if— Dodwell Yeah. (Laughs) That’s kind of when I got involved with the community. Belmonte Well, what were some of the other places that you met gay men and women after going to Seeker’s Choice? Dodwell The only places that I knew were bars, really. Zipper’s, I grew up in Zipper’s. Belmonte Tell me what Zipper’s was like for women. I’ve heard a lot of men talk about Zipper’s. Dodwell It was okay. I mean, there were several women there. They did have a few drag king shows there. It was kind of far and few between, but it did happen. There were so many young people and so many underage people there, but 5 �for women, there was like a—if I remember right, it was an area that was— you’d walk into the bar, you’d go up these steps and to the left; it was like almost all women. Anywhere else in the bar they were just scattered here and there; they weren’t grouped in certain areas, but one area I always knew that they were. Belmonte Where else besides Zipper’s? Dodwell TNT’s. Belmonte Do you remember what TNT’s was like at the time? Dodwell I think it was a little rougher than—well, of course—than it is now. Belmonte It’s straight now. Dodwell I know. I think they’re trying to keep it gay, but it’s not happening. Oh, Tracy’s. Yes, I went to Tracy’s too. I don’t remember where that one was— off of Utica. I didn’t go to Tracy’s very often. Have you ever been to Tracy’s? Belmonte This is the first time I’m hearing about Tracy’s. Tracy’s and Seeker’s Choice. Dodwell Tracy’s was a nicer bar—well, much nicer than Seeker’s Choice, I think it was. Belmonte You said Seeker’s Choice was off Admiral. Dodwell Yes. Went there, not a whole lot, but went there now and then. Then I started going to Zipper’s a lot, went to Zipper’s all the time whenever it was in its glory. Belmonte Over at 31st and Yale. Dodwell Yes. Oh yeah. I remember all the car bashings and the people that would be standing outside when the bar would close, and they would have baseball bats in their hands and, you know. Belmonte Tell me more about that. I’ve heard that policemen would take down names of license plates, but I hadn’t heard what you’re enumerating here. Dodwell Yeah, because there’s a lot of apartments that are around there, and there’s probably four or five different apartments. If you would leave the bar— mostly for the guys, you know, they would leave. They would just stand there; it was like an intimidation thing. Either they had already bashed their 6 �car, or they were just wanted to stand there just to make sure that they were afraid, I guess. It was frightening. They would yell at you from the balconies and tell you—call you names and things like that. There, for a while, Zipper’s started losing some business because people were afraid to go. Belmonte Do you recall any instances where people and not just property were harmed? Dodwell I know that there were some fist fights and things like this, like some of the queens would come out and be drunk, and they would say something, and they would just start just fist fighting. That’s the only thing I saw myself. I know the police were called a lot. Of course, police came inside the bar all the time. They would just look at you, and they would harass you, they’d ask for your license. It was a really big deal. They did harass a lot. Belmonte Now, in your circle of friends, what did you and your lesbian and gay friends do outside of bars? Dodwell Went to each other’s houses, had parties. We didn’t really do a whole lot as, actually, as a group. We’d go out to eat sometimes, and sometimes we’d go to a movie or something, but no real planned activities. Of course, I was young. My gosh, I was a baby, so it was party all the time. That’s all I wanted to do. Belmonte You made a comparison of Tracy’s and Seeker’s Choice and said that Tracy’s was nicer. Tell me more about this bar—this is the first time I’ve heard about Tracy’s. Dodwell The clientele I think was a little nicer as far as—it wasn’t as rough of a crowd; at least I don’t think it was. Belmonte Mainly women? Dodwell Yes. Well, actually, there were half and half at Tracy’s. At Seeker’s Choice, it was a lot of women. A lot of—well, I remember older women without teeth, but (Laughter) I don’t know if that’s something to write about. (Laughter) Belmonte Oh yeah. Terry They had split clientele. [Inaudible] Older women, it’s like there’s this real age gap. [Inaudible] Belmonte It’s my impression, and you can correct me if you think this is wrong, that a pretty hardcore butch femme culture in the bars in Tulsa persisted pretty long past when it did in other places. In many cities, Buffalo, New York, for 7 �instance, this began to disappear by the late ’60s. It sounds to me like that culture was still in place in Tulsa pretty late into the ’80s. Dodwell Definitely. I know some people who are still stuck in that, so it’s— Oklahoma is really backwards with that. They’re catching up to the things in different cities with things like that. Belmonte Did you witness a lot of violence in these bars? Fights? Dodwell A few, yeah. A lot of jealous butch girlfriends, that somebody would look at their girl, and they’d go after them and try to be the man of the house and do whatever they needed to do to take care of that. I saw a few fights, mostly alcohol-induced. Belmonte How did this physically manifest itself? Were there very rigid codes of what you would wear or not wear or how you would act, or was it more of a kind of attitude sort of thing? Dodwell Yes, there was. I was told when I was first starting to go out—it jarred my memory; this is great—that if you had any amount of sized breasts, you know, like mine, if you had them, you were not a lesbian. (Laughs) I was told that many times. Belmonte By whom? Dodwell By butch women, the older butch women, mostly, saying that’s just not right. “You just can’t just have big boobs and be okay and be with us. You’re not one of us.” I’ve heard that many times. Things like if—I remember I used to have this smock thing or whatever, and it had some pink in it. I don’t classify myself as butch or femme; I can do either one, and I’ve always been like that. That was not—that was an issue with some people. “Pick one, what are you going to be? Butch or femme?” I can’t be butch because I have boobs. Okay, maybe I can be femme, but I have to wear a dress, and I don’t like dresses. I would wear this smock thing, and they would tell me that if you’re trying to be butch, it’s not going to work because you have a pink flower on this. It’s not going to work. Belmonte How did you find a middle ground here? It must have been personally quite challenging, really not feeling like you fit into either category here. Dodwell I always thought labels were silly and stupid, so I don’t know. I’ve always just been myself and said, “Okay, this is what you get, and if you don’t like it, then you can go away.” A lot of people went away, especially back then. If you didn’t do a lot of partying and a lot of drugs, and if you didn’t fit into this particular group of gay culture, or if you weren’t the butch or the femme, where did you go? A lot of times I didn’t go. I also went to Crash 8 �Landing, which I loved Crash Landing. It was on 5th and Lewis, and it had a real airplane inside. Belmonte It’s amazing you guys didn’t meet each other sooner. (Laughter) Terry We have friends in all of the same circles, and we knew a lot of the same people, which is really ironic that we had never met. Belmonte Small world. Dodwell The Crash Landing was a combination bar. Have you heard of that one? Belmonte No. Dodwell Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, they had every—I don’t know if it was every month or every other week, but it was like a women’s dance they would have. The person you get lots of history from for that, all the bar stuff, is Ms. Carol Brown. I think maybe Renee, hopefully you know Renee. She would be a wealth of information for you. Belmonte Great. At the end of the taping, I would love it if you guys give me some names of people you think might be potential interviewees. That would be great. Dodwell You got it. Crash Landing did have a lot of—it was a neat bar; it was a really big place. It was high energy dance stuff, whatever it was back then. Terry It was three stories. Belmonte Quite substantial. Dodwell Isn’t it a church now? I know they tore it down, maybe it was a parking lot of a church. Terry There was a bar on every level, and it was just a really cool place. They had the most irritating final song I have heard in my whole life. Do you remember it? It can get people out of the bars. They put [inaudible] constantly. It said, “Bye bye, see you later. Bye bye, see you later. Bye bye, see later.” It would drive you out of the bar. Belmonte I suppose that was its intent. (Laughter) Terry Yeah, probably. Belmonte Was Crash Landing a mixed bar too? 9 �Dodwell I think so. Yeah, mostly. Except when they had the women’s dances. Belmonte What were these women’s dances like? Dodwell Popular. Belmonte Can you estimate how many people would go? Dodwell I don’t know. I would say fifty maybe. It was a lot for back then, and it was—there were just quite a few. Belmonte When would this have been? Dodwell This would have been ’82 to ’86, probably. Two, three year period there, but it was a very popular bar. Belmonte What were the atmosphere of these dances like? Dodwell Pretty—I think they were pretty light, and real fun. People didn’t seem like they had the barriers like a lot of people in our community have today. It’s like they were maybe more trusting, or maybe more accepting, or something like that that was—it was okay to go into this place by yourself, and people would talk to you, you know, things like that. Now it’s a little different. There’s— Belmonte A different spin on it. Now, in conjunction with this butch femme roles, do you recall that there were sexual expectations that went with that too? Like if you were butch, there were certain things that you did and didn’t do and vice versa? Dodwell I think so. Yeah. The butch was the more aggressor sexually, even romantically. The femme was more the little wifey kind of thing, just kind of went along with everything that the butch wanted to do. That’s what I saw. I don’t know if it’s the same now or not. Belmonte Let’s say you wanted to go on a nice date that wasn’t at a bar. Were there any restaurants or places in town that were known as gay-friendly? Dodwell Absolutely not, no. Just your own home. Belmonte In your circle of friends, let’s talk about some of their experiences you might remember. Do you remember—well, let’s start with your own family. When did you come out to your own family, and how did they respond? Dodwell My father died before I could come out, but my mother—I came out after I had my son to her, and I had my son at nineteen. I came out to her after that, 10 �and it was really difficult for her at first, especially. She was very angry. Then it got better. She hated my first girlfriend with a passion. She just started getting better with everything. She just started understanding a little more, and then my nephew came out to her. My nephew was a drag queen, and he was very flamboyant. I think he lives in Dallas now, but she would help him get ready for drag shows, and she started wanting to do things. If PFLAG [Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays] would have been available or there back then, my mother would have been right in the trenches with that. I know she would have. She slowly learned that we’re people, too, and it’s okay that I love somebody of the same sex, but it’s not about sex. My mom would—even before my mother died at a nursing home, and we were talking to the whole staff about things, my mom would say, “If you have a problem with lesbians, you need to tell me now because my daughter is one.” She’d out me all the time, but I took her to see Boy George; I took her to see The Village People. She went to one gay pride picnic. I think—so she was okay with it later on. Belmonte Sounds like she was more than okay with it. Do you recall other parents being at that picnic or was she the only one? Dodwell She was pretty—I think she was pretty much the only one. That’s when it was at Mohawk Park. Oh my gosh, she just loved it. She used to love the gay boys, oh my gosh. She came a long way from when I first told her. She always was afraid for me being beat up and things like this; she didn’t want that to ever happen. The rest of my family—my brother, my oldest brother, doesn’t—he has an issue with gay people, mainly because of my nephew. My nephew is just, “I’m in your face. I’m gay. Deal with it.” He’d been out for years, and it just kind of turned him off, so I can’t really blame him for that, I guess. The rest of my siblings—they know that my sister has a problem with it kind of, so it’s—I don’t have anybody really with open arms in my family. Of course, on my dad’s side, they’re all from Arkansas, so I mean, they don’t even want to talk to me. You know, that’s their loss. Belmonte What about your son? Dodwell My son is okay with it now. Belmonte Well, I mean, you must have had to come out to him pretty early in his life, I would guess. Dodwell Yeah, I did. Actually, it was more like fourteen when we talked about it. He was okay with that, too. He just wants me to be—he said, “I just want you to be loved, and I want you to be cared for and not be hurt.” That’s kind of what he looks at. He doesn’t really talk about it a whole lot; he’s a very funny kid. He’ll—he used to—oh my gosh, he used to borrow my car or my ex’s car, and he’d get in it, and he’d come back, and all the stickers would 11 �be taken off of the car. (Laughter) He’s like, “I don’t want to ride in your car; people are going to think I’m gay.” (Laughs) It’s like, “Fine, then meet me there.” He’s twenty-one now, so he’s a grown man. He’s doing his thing. I recently went through a divorce, a break-up, and he dealt with that okay, and you know, he’s still working on that, but he’s just—I think he accepts me. He just wants to make sure I’m safe. I’m okay. I’m happy. Belmonte You mentioned that you work for Sears. How long have you been with Sears? Dodwell I have been with Sears since January. They have the GALS program there; it’s the Gays and Lesbians of Sears. They also have the domestic partnership benefits. They’ve got diversity days. [Inaudible] (Laughs) Belmonte She’s not in the frame here. You have to wonder who she is. Dodwell Yeah, we have diversity days, and that’s toward the end of this month, where I guess we come up with activities or things to celebrate [inaudible]. Belmonte Now, have you encountered discrimination on any of your other jobs? Have you ever encountered harassment yourself in coming out of a bar? Tell me about some of that. Dodwell Coming out of a bar, no, I haven’t really. I’ve just witnessed other people having problems. I did at Woodland Hills Mall one time, when—let’s see, it was probably ’84—when I was with this other girl that—we were walking in the mall, and all of the sudden, all of these kids from, I guess, Broken Arrow or Bixby High School, whatever, they followed us out and started shoving us around and everything, calling us, you know, “you dyke,” and “you this,” and “you that.” That’s about the only negative thing, really. I mean, I’ve had people scream at me and say things, but not real bad. Of course, it’s gotten a lot better over the years, but I can’t think of anything else other than what happened at Woodland Hills; that was kind of scary. Belmonte Let’s talk about your jobs. Dodwell My jobs. I worked at the Tulsa Police Department; that was a real fun thing. I was an animal control officer in a man’s world, so I had to prove myself. I got lots of comments about being gay. “Where’s the lesbian in the house?” There would be a lot of comments. Through the police department, you had no protection, not back then you didn’t. Maybe they do now, I don’t know. I kind of doubt it. There were just—mostly the comments, they would—there was one time in my mailbox, they had shoved a tie in there, a man’s tie, and boxers, and things like that. That’s when I first started working there. Belmonte When was that? 12 �Dodwell From—let’s see, I quit in ’89, so I worked there four or five years. It was during that time, ’83. That was probably the worst of it. A lot of times I would get harassed by my boss, actually, at a part-time job that I had at a supermarket. He found out that I was a lesbian, and he was just all for finding somebody else to help him out. “Come on, let’s go and have a big ole three-way party.” Oh my god, I hate that place. Oh, god. That was awful. No, no, no. I don’t [inaudible] you. Okay? It just doesn’t happen. Belmonte Being a lesbian is not a package deal, sorry. Dodwell No, it’s not. (Laughter) Belmonte In your circle of friends, I’ve been told, for instance, that there was a man in the community who was pretty well-known in the bars who was murdered in Mohawk Park, and the crime went unsolved. Do you recall hearing anything about that case or anything else along that nature? Dodwell I had heard about it, and I—but I don’t know any of the details. I just knew that it happened, but I really don’t know anything. Belmonte Tell me about what some of your gay male friends had to say about their lives in this period. Where, for instance, did they go if they were looking for a sexual encounter? What were some of the bars that were— Dodwell Tim’s Playroom was big. A lot of their experiences as far as—just in the general Tulsa area, I guess—violence, a lot of violence, what I’ve heard. A lot of loneliness because really the only place to go to meet other people were at the bars at the time. If you didn’t drink, or you didn’t like to go to the bars, then you were out of luck for the most part. I know that they went to Turkey Mountain quite a bit. I don’t know if they went back in the ’80s, but I can’t recall [inaudible]. That was just for just like sex, nothing more than that. There might have been a few little groups that popped up here and there. There was a men’s supper club that went on forever. Belmonte Do you remember any of the men who were a part of that group? Dodwell Dennis Neill, I believe, knew about it or was a part of it. Belmonte I’ll have to ask him about that. Dodwell Yeah, see if he knows something. Belmonte What about “the fruit loop” in downtown? Did they ever talk about that? 13 �Dodwell I’ve heard of the fruit loop. I don’t know that very well. I don’t know of that. That might have been maybe before my time. I don’t know. Belmonte It sounds like that went pretty far back. Dodwell Yeah, it did, but I have heard about it. Belmonte You mentioned the gay picnic. Did you go to any of the meetings of TOHR when it was first founded? Dodwell Oh yeah. Belmonte Tell me about what made you do that, and what those meetings were like, and whether you found that a positive experience? Dodwell Yeah, I started with TOHR, I want to say ’84, ’85. It was founded in ’83, right? Belmonte Right. Dodwell It was already going by then. Mostly men. I think my first meeting I ever went to—that’s when I first met Dennis Neill—was that I was the only woman there. For the most part, I felt accepted, but it was definitely lacking females. (Laughs) They just weren’t there. Either they didn’t know about it or what, or maybe they didn’t feel welcome. Belmonte Were they still meeting in the library at this point? Dodwell Yes. They were meeting at the library. I had talked to Dennis about, “Gosh, we can do this or do that,” or “Gosh, we…” He’s like, “Well, come on aboard!” so I started getting involved with that about a year later. Belmonte What were some of the things you did? Dodwell I was the helpline coordinator, and that’s when we moved and got the office space at 41st and Harvard. I did that for four years, three or four years. Belmonte Describe that experience. What were the calls like, what kind of training went into— Dodwell Oh my gosh, there was a lot of training that was involved. There was tons of volunteers. There were people knocking at the door to volunteer. Belmonte What types of professions were people in? 14 �Dodwell Doctors, lawyers, laymen, I mean, just anything. All kinds of people. We had chefs, and we had counselors; we had unemployed. We had lots of different walks of life, and that’s what’s needed for that kind of thing. We had people who had never done a helpline or anything like that, and so when they would come aboard, they would be terrified. What happens if they get a phone call and somebody is wanting to commit suicide or wanting to do this—and which we had those calls, and we had to talk people either out of it or try to get help to them as soon as possible. It was a lot of trading involved. The phones rang off the hook. It was constantly busy, especially in the evening because people in the community found out that we started having the helpline from eight to ten every night. Oh my gosh, it was just incredible. Belmonte What were some of the more memorable calls you had? Dodwell I had a phone call from a man—actually a straight man who felt that he was a woman. Back then, transgenderism was just not really talked about a whole lot; there was not a lot of education on it. We had books and brochures but not a whole lot of experience with it. He was—I was on the phone with this man for over an hour. He was—didn’t know where to go, how he was going to fit in, and trying to find the resources to help this person was almost impossible. The nearest resource I had was Dallas. While I had him on the phone, I start looking at different resources that we had from different states that surrounded us, and the nearest one I had was Dallas. I remember this guy because he called back, and about two weeks later, he called these other people and said he was better, and he felt much better about the situation, and he was happy and that he might be on the road to recovery for whatever reason. We’d get the calls that—you know, from the kids, they would—that’s normal. A lot of the volunteers would get upset over it. It’s like, they’re just curious. I mean, yeah, if they’re calling you and saying they’re going to kill you, yeah, that’s a different story, but they’re not. Belmonte They would call just to prank call. Dodwell Right. There was a woman who called when I was training somebody, and she was being—she was locked in her bedroom, and she was being beat by her lover. You could hear in the background the sounds of her being hit and the screaming. It was probably the most disturbing phone call that I had ever gotten. The poor guy, it was his first day that he had started working there, just trying to calm her down, but it wasn’t going to make her situation any better unless she was going to get out of there. I was able to get her to get to the phone and pick up the—she threw it on the bed, I guess, and she got the phone, and I got her address. I was able to call the police. That’s probably the worst. There were a whole lot more needy calls if you want to say it because back then is when AIDS was really coming out, and really, people 15 �were being, “What’s this gay disease?” It was a really big deal. Had a lot of phone calls about health issues, and it’s really hard. They’d have to call the Center for Disease Control for the most part because we didn’t have all of that information that they needed. Everybody knew that it was a gay disease, so we also dealt with that, all the different HIV and AIDS calls. Some of them were just—people were just bored, or they’re lonely. I know that there are still people out there like that who need a helpline, and I hope that we do it again. That was a very good experience for me. Belmonte We’re actually talking about reactivating it, trying to keep it going through the day, actually. Dodwell Good, it’s very much needed. Oh, god. Belmonte People call all the time, Dodwell Yes, they do. Belmonte Those pained coming out calls in particular. Dodwell Yeah, the coming out ones. Oh yeah. Oh gosh, yeah. Belmonte You’ve alluded several times to drug and alcohol use in the community. What are your impressions of the role that it’s played in gay life in Tulsa? Do you think the situation is similar now, or has it changed over time? Dodwell Well, even back then, I think the drug use—I don’t really think it was any different than in the straight community. We might have used a little more poppers, but I don’t think there was that much of a difference. As far as the role that it played, I know that, especially when HIV came up so strong and they finally realized what it was, there were so many people who continued to want to use drugs and knew that it could lower your immune system, or it could do some damage to your system for whatever reason. I think as far as—there’s a lot of people in the straight community who think that we’re all about drugs and sex, and maybe they need to look in their own backyard. Belmonte Right. Let’s backtrack a little bit and talk about your nephew. It sounds like he was quite flamboyant. It sounds like you might have had some familiarity with the drag community in Tulsa, which is not something I’ve heard much about. Dodwell Really? Belmonte Could you tell me—well, I have some interviews scheduled, people that are definitely going to fill that gap, but it sounds like you have been seeing drag 16 �shows and knowing the people that perform drag for quite a long time. Care to elaborate on that? Dodwell Sure. I came out during the times when Trudy Tyler used to be real big, real big. Patty and Tuna Melt were real big. Have you heard of them? And Miko, yes. Miko. Belmonte Nico with an N? Dodwell With an M. Belmonte Miko. Okay. Dodwell Yeah, I’m real close to the drag community even today. I think they’re an important part of our community. Sure, they’re dramatic; they’re supposed to be. (Laughs) Early on, the drag community was very small. Now it’s very big in Tulsa. It’s even bigger in different states, but it’s much bigger now than I ever imagined it to be. I just think that they played a really important part in our community and the way that—I don’t know if the mainstream society will ever see them as being okay, but that’s their problem. Belmonte Tell me some about what you think that role is and has been historically? When was the first time you went to a drag club? Dodwell Oh gosh, it was Zipper’s, and it was the early ’80s, ’83 or ’84, something like that. I just fell in love with them. I just did, and I don’t know why. (Laughs) I still don’t know why. (Laughs) I thought they had attitude, and most of them had talent; most of them did. As far as their role in historic— maybe just from their sheer talent and guts and strength, they’re very strong, strong people. Maybe when they just have a wig on, but at least they’re strong then. Maybe if they take the wig off, it’s not so much, but at least they get the point across. I’ve been to drag queen car washes that used to be on Peoria quite a bit, and they would be in full drag in the heat. Can you imagine? Heat and heels: no, no, no. (Laughs) They donated all their money to whatever, and most of the time, most of the drag shows—unless it’s a competition or a pageant or something—they donate their money to causes in the community. They pick certain ones to do that with. There’s always some kind of a drag queen war going on in between each other, but they all do the same thing. Belmonte What were some of the other bars that became known for drag? Dodwell There was Zipper’s, and Tracy’s was a big drag bar, definitely. For a short time, and I don’t know why, but TNT’s was a drag bar. It wasn’t all men, but it was kind of a combination of drag queen and king. They did it for a while, and then of course, there are plenty more now. I know that there’s 17 �another one that was really big into drag, but I can’t remember. Of course, The Jewel Box, (Laughs) yes, with their shag carpet, and The Bamboo. That’s it. There may be more, but those are the ones that I remember the most that people knew that they could call and say, “When are you having your next drag show?” and all of that. Belmonte When was the first time you remember hearing about AIDS in Tulsa? Dodwell While I was working on the helpline. I was on the board, and we got something. Doug Hartson was president at the time, and we got something from the newspaper or somewhere, but we had an emergency board meeting about it. They were talking about this gay disease, and we need to—and also from Nancy McDonald because she was working on something up there too. Just kind of a combination of a couple people. Belmonte How did the community mobilize in response to AIDS? Did it mobilize? Dodwell Well, I think the leaders of the community did, and the health department, of course. Once the news media got a hold of it, that’s all we needed. It was just “Get away from gay people,” “Oh, he’s gay. Yeah, he’s got AIDS. I’m sure.” We had the stigma just probably like every other community did. Ours might have lasted a little longer; there are people still very uneducated over that. Belmonte Did you ever go to follies review or any of the—what were some of the fundraisers along those lines that you recall that helped raise money for AIDS? Dodwell Went to a lot of drag shows. They did that. I went to the follies, and I went to two or three of them at least, maybe more, that the money that was raised went to some sort of research, or through Tulsa Cares, or something like the HIV helping agencies and things like that. Mostly the bars, the bars really kicked in on a lot of things. “We’ll have these shows, no problem. We’ll lower the drink prices so people will come in, and do this.” I think as a community as a whole, I know everybody was terrified. I know they were. They didn’t know what to do, and so they were doing everything they could to maybe make it better. If the money helped, then great. Belmonte Were any of your personal acquaintances or friends victims of the disease? Dodwell Oh yeah. I’ve been to more funerals than I’d prefer to be. My very first friend who died from AIDS is Eric Guinness, and he was a very good friend of mine. When his partner—when he was dying, and his partner took him to the hospital, it was the St. Francis’ in Broken Arrow, took him over there. He was throwing up blood, and he was just really bad. They would not touch 18 �him because they knew he had AIDS. They would not touch him. They told him he needed to go to the one in Tulsa, the hospital in Tulsa. Belmonte Do you recall what year that was? Dodwell That was ’89 or ’90. Belmonte Tell me if you can recall any other instances along those lines: people’s family reactions, people whose partners might have then had clashes with family. Do you recall any instances like that? Dodwell Are you talking about for AIDS? Belmonte For AIDS in particular, with hospital, medical authorities. Dodwell Medical authorities, oh yeah. It was a real big deal. Of course, it was full gown, and facial, and gloves, and everything for everybody that would enter the room, including the doctor and nurses. I was an HIV care coordinator for OSU, and this—just recently I guess. I’d go up to the hospital—even today, would go to the hospitals here, TRMC or any of these hospitals around. It’s awful, but especially like St. John’s and St. Francis, they just don’t know how to treat it; they don’t want to treat it. I don’t know why, whatever, maybe it’s a religious thing. I do know that TRMC is the most compassionate, from my experience, with people like that. As far as reactions, they just get treated differently. Whenever I was going before to my friends and seeing them in the hospital and to now, it’s getting a little better, maybe because education is better, I hope. Back then, even the doctors and the nurses were not as educated as what they should be. They would never think of kissing somebody on the lips who had AIDS. I mean, they just don’t understand what it’s about. Belmonte When did you become an HIV/AIDS educator? Dodwell Let’s see. When I went to work for OSU, that’s how I started— Belmonte OSU Medical School? Dodwell Yeah, off Southwest Boulevard. It was a grant-funded position, so it was a short-term thing. I started doing that four years ago, almost four years ago. I worked there two and a half, three years, two and a half years, I guess. I did testing, HIV testing and counseling. Did the statistics and everything as far as the patients that were coming in. I learned, and I saw a lot. A lot of times they’ll come in to be tested, and they’re straight. It’s like, “I can’t have AIDS because I’m not a homosexual,” so I have to educate them and talk to them, and it takes forever. It was important to me that if they did, if they were positive, they needed to be educated just for the safety of their own 19 �self. I saw a lot in the community. Some people who get AIDS, they have a whole different look at life after they get over all the pissed off stage and everything else, and they kind of get down to it. It’s like, “Okay. Well, let’s see. I’ve got this much to live or not to live or whatever. I’m going to make a difference.” Hopefully they continue to do that, and most of them did. Belmonte Have you had much experience with members of the black gay and lesbian community in Tulsa? Dodwell Very little. Very little. Belmonte Do you have any theories why there may be such a—it’s a tremendous gap in this community along this line. Do you have any impressions as to why that might be? Dodwell Do you really want to know? Belmonte Yeah. Dodwell The ones that I do know—the ones that I’ve met and talked to, I’ve asked them—especially when I was on the board, I would say, “Why are you coming to be on the board? Have you volunteered? Bring some of your friends. We have a resource here, and this is really good.” It was like, “I don’t have enough money for them.” That’s been the rumor for years. What do you do? I say, “No, no, you have this talent. You have this, and you have this. You can do it,” but it’s going to take more than just one or two people to go out and say, “Come on in. Come in and talk to us. Join us here.” Other than being a cultural difference, I don’t know what else it would be. Belmonte Do you think that class gap that you’re alluding to affects a lot of white members of the gay and lesbian community? Dodwell You bet it does. Belmonte Tell me more about that because this is not the first time I’m hearing this charge made at TOHR. (Laughter) Dodwell I have no real issues with TOHR. I believe in it. I want to continue to believe in it. There are a lot of people who are believing right now that it’s an elitist society. As far as—you have to be somebody to be a part of it. I’ve been a part of TOHR since the ’80s. Belmonte For twenty years. Dodwell Yeah. I don’t think I have much of a balance on my checkbook. You know, I don’t have that much money, but I believe in the community, and I believe 20 �in the people in the community. But from what I have heard—I get a lot of emails from people just telling me things that they’ve experienced like, “I went into TOHR. I went into the office, and they looked at me like I was just this bum, and I wasn’t going to be accepted, and I didn’t feel right. They’re all walking around with suits and briefcases.” Anyway, they would say this, and I’d write back and just like, “Give them another chance and go back up there. Try to see what you can do.” There are a lot of people right now—I cannot believe I’m telling you this—but there are just a lot of people that have lost any kind of hope for TOHR. You know that. Belmonte I do know that. As someone who’s on the board, it’s something I care about and hope to change. One of the reasons why I founded this project is I want everyone’s voices to be heard as part of this. Dodwell Right. It’s important to me that people understand that TOHR is what you make it, or the community is what you make it, period. I may not agree with everything that they do, but who does? That’s crazy. Everybody has their own agenda and whatever. I just—there’s a lot of people on the bandwagon right now that are just saying, “Oh, they did this, and they’re doing this. They’re doing that.” One thing that I have preached and preached, and you know, it’s [inaudible] thing. I’ve said, “Keep whining because that’s all you’re going to get is whine. That’s it. Do something about it. Get up off your butt and go down there and volunteer and do something about it. Stop your frickin’ whining.” I will continue to say that. If things work out—if a building is built, and these people still think this way, it doesn’t always— people don’t always come when you build the building. You have to get it going. It takes some time. Belmonte It sounds like you’ve done a lot of different things over the years for the community. You mentioned HIV and the hotline. What are some of the other things that you have done as a volunteer in the community? Dodwell I was on the board. I’ve been on the board twice. The first time was the helpline, and the second time I was the programming. Belmonte What year was this? Dodwell When I was on the board the first time, it was 1985 to ’89. Yes. Belmonte Do you remember who else was on the board with you at that time? Dodwell Penny Humphrey, Doug Hartson, Dwight Kealiher, Bonnie—and I can’t remember her last name. I think she was with Penny. Steve—I can’t remember his name. Anyway, most of the people—I’m sure people who know them will see this—McCurly, Steve McCurly. I think Cynthia Corberay, I think. 21 �Belmonte Cynthia what? Dodwell Corberay, I believe. Yeah. Belmonte Tell me what you felt—what was the board like in that first period? What was TOHR like? Dodwell The board was actually fun. There was a lot of energy, a lot of motivation to get people involved. There were some problems in the sidelines, just like any other board, but they were, for the most part, pretty positive. We had a lot of speakers at our meetings. We did our best to plan events and to increase membership and then members coming in to the center. We had a little—a small library, and I think we had a few videos people could check out, but not a lot. The main focus of the actual office was the helpline. It was a big deal. It was really kind of nice to be on the board and just to see—or to be a part of TOHR at that time. There were a lot of changes that were going on: some negative, some positive. Belmonte Give me some examples. Dodwell The negatives were changing with AIDS and having to make those precautions. Changes with—as far as positive—just more people being interested in what’s going on. We have more—we had garage sales and things to raise money for different events that were coming up. The follies were real big, and of course gay pride. The picnics were really big too. Belmonte Tell me about those. What was the first one of those that you went to? Dodwell I went to my first picnic—it was at Mohawk. Belmonte How did you guys get the word out in the community? Dodwell Through the bars, for the most part, and through—some through TOHR but mostly through the bars. Lots of signs. That was when the bars are the ones really who put it on. People from TOHR and other people came to it, but they would cook hot dogs, and they’d have hamburgers. It was just—they’d have their kids there and whatever. It would be a big, ole—well, by the end of the day, it was a drunk fest, but it was fun! (Laughter) Belmonte Do you remember how many people would go to those? Dodwell Hundreds. It was pretty big. Never really had any trouble at Mohawk Park that I know of. Went there a couple of summers a couple of times, two that I know of, maybe three. Then it was moved to another park on the west side 22 �of Tulsa, and we were there for a couple of years. I think from there it went to Veteran’s Park. Belmonte Do you—you remember ever going to the Black and White parties? Dodwell Oh yeah. Belmonte Tell me what those were like. Dodwell Well, the first Black and White I went to, The Village People were there to perform. That’s when I took my mother. That was a lot of fun. People were in there—I mean, it was packed. It was at the fairgrounds; it was packed. It was every combination of black and white you can imagine was there. Some people were in tuxes, some people had limos they’d come in, and they would—of course that’s when I think the bar—it was an open bar, you didn’t have to pay or something. I can’t remember, but it was a real big deal because they had to limit your drinks. The music was great, and it was just—it was a huge success. I went to three of them. I do remember, however, whenever the Black and White used to be by invitation only, and if you didn’t know somebody who was going or who was a part of it, then you couldn’t get in. I remember that. I was so mad because I thought, “Why?” Belmonte It changed from an invitation-only event to one that was publicized, and you could just pay at the door? Is that what you’re telling me? Dodwell Yeah, several years later. There, for a while it was like, “You got Black and White too? How did you do that? Who do you know?” It was a big deal. Belmonte Did you go to any of the Harwelden? Dodwell No, I did not. No. Belmonte Which remains invitation-only. Okay. Dodwell Yeah. Belmonte You were on the TOHR board. What made you get off the board the first time? Dodwell I think I had some personal issues with my family that I had to pay attention to that I wasn’t able to do it. I was still involved; I just stepped down from the—well, from the helpline the first time. The second time that I was on the board, I was helping take care of an elderly family member, my ex’s. Belmonte What year was this? 23 �Dodwell This was just a little over two years ago. I wasn’t going to have time. Well, they were also phasing out the programming, and so basically I wasn’t going to be on the board anymore. I thought, “This is probably a good time for me to step down.” Belmonte What was the rationale behind that? Dodwell Let’s see. Belmonte I know some of this might be sensitive in terms of personalities. Dodwell No, that’s okay! People are people. They’ve got to do what they’ve got to do. We had a training with the board. It was downtown, and it was a whole day training. At that training, they decided to go ahead and eliminate the programming of TOHR. I thought, “Okay, where does this leave me?” They wanted to do it until either they got a building or until they got things a little more straightened out with legalities. We had issues—we had so many programs that we wanted to work. We had one for the elderly where we could go and check on our lesbian and gay elderly people and make sure they were okay, run to the store if we needed to or whatever, and we had volunteers to do that. Issues came up with—“What if they didn’t have insurance on their car? Is it going to come back to TOHR because they’re volunteering in TOHR?” It was just—it just kept building and building and building, and it got to the point where it was like, “Okay, wait. We need to stop. We can’t have these programs anymore.” We had the Rainbow Families, which was huge, and they met at the center, and then they met in other different places. There were some people who were uncomfortable with children being in the center. Mainly—there were some of the transgendered people who were a little concerned because they didn’t want to confuse them, because a lot of times they would be dressing in one room, and they didn’t want the kids to run into the room and things like that. It was just—it was kind of a legal thing. They wanted to have everything written and drawn up, and they wanted to have enough volunteers to run those programs. We didn’t at the time. People were dropping out of TOHR just right and left because of whatever they disagreed with or whatever. Belmonte What were some of those reasons? Do you recall? Dodwell Most of the reasons were—they felt like—they would volunteer information; they would say, “Okay, I have an idea. Why don’t we do this or this or this?” and then someone on the board or whatever would just say, “Well, that’s a stupid idea.” Or, they would make time to come to our board meeting, which usually was like five hours long. 24 �Belmonte Still is. (Laughs) Dodwell They would make time to go, and they would sit there during the whole meeting. It’s like “No, we need to get them out of here and listen to what they have to say.” When they would listen to what they had to say, nobody else would respond to it. They would say, “Well, okay. We’ll look at it.” They would leave the room, and as soon as they would, they would just turn the paper over and go, “Okay, next.” They wouldn’t about it. They wouldn’t even think about an idea or a problem or something like that. There were a lot of emotions involved whenever I was involved the last time I was on the board. As far as changes and people getting hurt or feeling like they weren’t being listened to or that “Oh, it’s just like it was before. You’ve got to have a lot of money. You’ve got to be a man before you’re in TOHR.” I don’t believe that myself, really, but you know… Belmonte This was in the—this period you’re talking about now, be more chronologically specific. Dodwell Chronologically specific. About three years ago. Belmonte Was this when Carrie and Greg were the president—who was president during this period? Dodwell Brent. Belmonte Brent. Okay. Dodwell Yes, Brent was, and Carrie was President Emeritus. There were issues even there. Greg was still on the board, too. Belmonte Right. They were—this was when Dee was president very briefly, and Brent came up. Dodwell Yes, I was on the board then, too. Belmonte I’m sure there was some fallout in the wake of that. Dodwell Yeah, there was. I will say something, though. I will say that I don’t know what Dee did. I don’t know what she did, but it was—considering the time I have known about TOHR and the things that TOHR has done, she is the only person who has every brought that many people into the center, in my opinion, in history of TOHR. I don’t know how she did it. I know she probably did some things, and maybe she shouldn’t have, but she brought the community together more than I have seen anybody else. I don’t even—I don’t know Dee all that well, but I just know that I wish we could do that again because we were having people—we had waiting lists for people to 25 �get a space at the center. There were that many people there. It was just incredible. You’d go into the center, and you’d have to go down the hall and squeeze through people and stuff; they’re everywhere. I just wanted to say that. Belmonte That’s good to know. Bought all of her volunteer mobilization policies. (Laughter) Dodwell No kidding. Belmonte That’s one thing that’s very interesting about being a historian: there are many sides of the same event. I’m sure that Dee’s take on this would differ from others. Dodwell It might even differ from mine. (Laughs) Belmonte Right. Were you involved on the board when they started having the gay pride march? Dodwell You mean the… Belmonte The actual march that precedes the festival. Dodwell Yeah. Well, was I? No, I wasn’t on the board when they first did it. No, I was not. Belmonte Okay. We talked about the origins of that some. Oh! Let’s talk about your alter ego, Dyke Divine! How could we not talk about that? How long have you done this? Did you do it before email? Tell me some about the history of Dyke Divine. How could I forget that? Oh my goodness. Dodwell (Laughs) I’ve been doing the Dyke Divine thing for a little over six years, roughly. How it started was my mother got really sick, and I needed an outlet over something. I was depressed, and upset, and I didn’t really know what to do, and so I started to write. There was a guy named David Jennings, a real asshole—oh, sorry. Anyway. Belmonte That’s okay. (Laughter) There’s profanity on it elsewhere. Dodwell Okay. He did something called GayTulsa.org. I was starting to read his stuff, and it was like, oh my gosh, he was horrible. He was cutting down the bars and all this. I thought he was very funny, but some of the stuff was like, “Man, that’s going to get you killed!” Well, I started writing to him, and as I did that, he said, “If you’ve got something to say, why don’t you write for me?” “Okay then.” I just started doing that, and I started just being myself and writing about things and people. Sometimes I did bar reviews, and 26 �usually that got me death threats. I started with the community and talking about those kind of things. Belmonte Do you have hard copies of a lot of these things? Dodwell You bet I do. Belmonte Would you be willing to donate copies of them to the project? Dodwell Sure, you bet. Belmonte Great. We’ll talk about that in the future. Dodwell I just started to get emails. I mean, I would open my email, and I’d have thirty, forty a day. It was like, oh my gosh, it’s like, “When are you going to write again? When are you going to write again?” He’d post all of my articles and things, and I’d try to write every other day. Then people started writing, just like, “You know, you really helped. You helped me.” It’s like, “I can’t get enough of you.” Belmonte What type of things would you write about? Dodwell Sometimes I would write about breakups. I went through a really—well, it should have been a better breakup than what it was. Belmonte Isn’t that always the case, though? Dodwell Everybody tried to help. I wrote this really, really, really, really bad article about people minding their own frickin’ business. It was a hit, (Laughs) and I just—I didn’t stop. I think part of it, I was angry about my mom. I didn’t want her to be sick, but it was a real good release for me. I never mentioned anybody’s names, and most of the time—most of my articles have a lot to do with something I’ve either experienced personally, or I know personally somebody else who has done it, but I don’t use other people’s names. Sometimes it’s like, give me a break. It’s like the whining thing. I wrote about that. It’s like, you know, just shit or get off the pot. Come on. I don’t believe that people—maybe I say things—and I’ve heard this from a lot of people, but I say things that most people don’t, or never would want to say to anybody else in their life, because I try to tell people how it is. I try to do it. I love to write. Then I figured out that I had something to say to the community, and they were listening. Oh my god, they were listening to me. (Laughs) Belmonte Thirty, forty emails a day, boy, that’s a lot of time to invest in— 27 �Dodwell Yeah, and it got more. I got a whole lot more. Then I finally got my own domain, and I have my own site now in which I do all my own stuff. Oh man. Belmonte Did you teach yourself how to do all of the web design and everything? Dodwell Yeah. Belmonte You started building this rather amazing email database. How many people do you think are in that list now? Dodwell I have 2,800 people on my list. Belmonte That’s impressive. Dodwell (Laughs) It’s a lot. Yeah, it’s about 2,800. Belmonte Mostly women? Dodwell Combination. A lot of straight people and just people who have said, “Put me on the email list. I want that.” Belmonte What do you do? You do a weekly newsletter, postings, what do you use this list for mainly? Dodwell To give information out about things that are going on in the community. I don’t use it for things—that other email that was going around. I might send that to one or two people but not the community. It’s usually community events. I don’t know, just—I believe that these—I don’t know. I kept telling my ex, I said, “How in the world are they—it’s like they’re not working or sleeping or something. It’s like they’ve emailed me two, three times a day.” I didn’t know what to do with all that. Boy, let me tell you: it gets your head really big. I had to really watch it. (Laughs) Belmonte That’s clearly serving a need. Dodwell Yeah, I’m glad I am. It makes me feel good, makes me feel really good. Terry You’ve got a big gay pride parade, and she wore a t-shirt, and on the back it said “Dyke Divine.” People would walk up and go, “Oh man, I love your website!” Belmonte That’s great. In some ways, it strikes me as you’ve just taken the helpline work you did digital. 28 �Dodwell Yes. Then I’ll get an email that will say “searching for help.” I’m like, “Oh god, here we go.” It’s like, “Okay.” Sometimes it’s something real basic, and sometimes it’s, “I need to get out of this abusive situation,” or “I just left my husband. I know I’m a lesbian, but he’s going to kill me.” There’s just—I can’t stop it because now people depend on it. It took me a while to figure that out. I was just like, “Oh, they don’t pay attention.” The very first—two prides ago, maybe three, I was DJ’ing at the picnic. It was when, right in the middle of the ole Dyke Divine thing going, and girls would come up and they’d always be like, “Where’s Dyke Divine?” They would come up to the picnic thing; they’d come up to my little booth, and they’d go, “Can you sign my shirt?” (Laughs) “Sure,” and I’d dot my I’s. (Laughter) It’s been a lot of fun. It really has. I’m glad it’s helped some people. Belmonte That’s great. I think I have covered a lot of ground with you here, and I certainly appreciate your time, both of your time. Unless you have anything you’d like to add … Dodwell I do have one thing I’d like to add. I want to tell you a small story about—it was Christmastime, and we did what’s called a fairy tree at the center. It was for people who had some kids or knew people who had kids that might need some help at Christmas. The whole community would get together, and they would buy gifts. They would bring them to the—instead of an angel tree, we called it a fairy tree. Anyway, we were there one night, and a whole bunch of us were there, and there was a guy that came in. He looked like just this big, ole, burly—this bald-headed boy; he was just tough-looking. He said, “Is this TOHR?” and I said “Yes it is.” He said, “I’ve got some toys for you. You may want to come out and get them.” I thought, “I don’t even know this guy. Okay.” I went out, and he did. His whole back end of his truck was full of toys. We were on our way out there, and he said, “I can’t use them anymore,” and he would bring the toys. He starts bringing them in and all this. On the last load, he’s bringing them in; he starts to cry. He said, “You want to know why I’m doing this?” I said, “Okay.” He said, “I just came from”—he had just came from his parents’ house, and I guess his—not his parents, his oldest daughter’s house. His oldest daughter would not let him give all these gifts. He had four grandchildren he had never met. She would not let him see them, or give them gifts, or even leave the gifts for them because he was gay. He was in tears. This big man put the sack down, and he just grabbed me and just was crying. He said, “I don’t know what I would have done if you all would not have been open.” That is why we need [inaudible], and that was why we need [inaudible]. Belmonte That’s a pretty poignant way to end this, and I appreciate your time. This concludes this interview. 29 �------- End of interview ------- 30 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2004] Anna Dodwell Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 1, 2004 Subject The topic of the resource Anna Dodwell Oral History Project Interview from August 1, 2004 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on August 1, 2004. Anna was born on September 7th, 1963, in Tulsa. She attended public schools in Tulsa. Around 1983, she became aware of Oklahomans for Human Rights, Tulsa Chapter, [predecessor to Oklahomans for Equality] through her contact with its Helpline. She recalls the bar life around this time and other aspects of the Tulsa LGBTQ+ community. She became an active volunteer with OHR and then its successor organization Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights, serving on the board and active participant with the Helpline. Through Oklahoma State University, she became a HIV/AIDS educator. She wrote the highly popular “Dyke Divine.” She discusses the various challenges facing the organization and the “class” divide within the community. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anna Dodwell, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2004 AIDS AIDS/HIV AIDS/HIV education Anna Dodwell bar life Dyke Divine helpline HIV HIV Education HIV/AIDs interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OHR OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahomans for Human Rights Oklahomans for Human Rights - Tulsa Chapter oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU TOHR TOHR helpline transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2005] Bill Bissey Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcription of Laura Belmonte’s November 19, 2025, interview. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> Bill was born on July 6, 1932, in Clay County, Illinois and passed on April 10, 2019, in Tulsa. He served in the Air Force and moved with his Tulsa-born wife from Illinois to Tulsa in 1956. Following a divorce, he moved to Houston for his job and entered an eighteen-year relationship until his partner developed HIV and died in 1996. When he returned to Tulsa, he was active with the Prime Timers, the social organization for gay and bisexual men. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 18, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bill Bissey, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2005 AIDS AIDS/HIV available at Center Bill Bissey HIV HIV/AIDs interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Prime Timers Primetimers transcript video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/2ba0854d31555f052589ee6f8f30d589.pdf c075226804ee57c66ba45d915a484f5e PDF Text Text OKLAHOMANS FOR EQUALITY OkEq History Project – Oral History Series Interview of Bill Francisco conducted by Toby Jenkins on September 13, 2011 Bill Francisco – Born September 5th, 1933, Passed December 25, 2024 Jenkins I'm Toby Jenkins, Executive Director of Oklahomans for Equality, and here we are at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center on September 13, 2011, for our Vintage Series, where we capture the stories of those who lived our history and made history. They came out, and we don't want them to have to go back in and keep their stories silent. So today we've got Bill Francisco, who will be my guest of honor, and we're going to find out about what Tulsa was like in the period of life that he lived here, and he lived in some other places and witnessed some very significant events associated with our community and the struggle for equality. Welcome, Bill. Are you excited to be here? Francisco Oh, absolutely. I understand that you just celebrated a birthday. Yes, I did. Do you really want to know? Yes. I'm 80 years old, September the 5th. September the 5th. Well, happy birthday, Bill. We welcome you today, and you've lived now seven decades on planet Earth. That's right. Any regrets? A few, but we forgot about those. Oh, you forgot about those? 1 �Yes, absolutely. I want to start a little bit today and talk about your early childhood and a little bit about what Tulsa was like in those days, and then we'll move through to some of the most recent things in your life where you've been honored by your own community, and we'll talk. I want to know some dirt on some people, so I'll be asking you some of those questions, and then I want to hear some secrets that maybe nobody else, because inquiring minds, want to know . Uh-oh. I'm in trouble already, aren't I? You were born what year? 1931. 1931, so that would have been in the middle of the Depression. That's right. I was a Depression baby. And you were born in Oklahoma? I was born in Oklahoma on a dirt farm right outside of Catoosa. Okay, born at home? Born at home. All right. Tell us a little bit about your parents. My parents were Portuguese. Portuguese, so that's what Francisco is? Francisco is the last name in the Portuguese. Francisco is a first name in Italian, but in Portuguese, it is the last name. The last name. Yeah, right. And so they were farmers. They were dirt farmers. Dirt farmers. Yes. And now did they raise their produce, and then they bring it to town and sell it? Is that kind of what they did, like drug farmers? Kind of like that. Yes. Now, where did you go to school? 2 �I went to, I guess, five grade schools. Okay. Here in Tulsa. In Tulsa. Yeah, yeah. Eventually, they moved into Tulsa into an apartment. Okay. And we went from apartment to apartment all until I was the sixth grade. Sixth grade. So I've been to practically every elementary school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now, what elementary schools did you attend that the buildings would still be standing? Several of those have probably been. Yes. Lincoln School, which is now Lincoln Plaza on there on 15th. In Cherry Street area? 15th and Cherry Street. It's Jason's Deli. I danced in Jason's Deli. And it was an elementary school. And it was an elementary school. All right. My first one was at Roosevelt. No, not Roosevelt. Longfellow. Okay. Longfellow. So it's now demolished. And there's the Native American Health Clinic there in Sixth and Peoria. Sixth and Peoria . That's where Longfellow Junior High School was. All right. So you attended elementary there. Yeah. Did you have some interest? Did you play sports or were you interested in music or dance? I didn't know what I was interested in. But I did become interested in the theater In the theater. 3 �Yes. And what was your first exposure to that? My first exposure was I was elected to play the part of the little boy, the pioneer woman, the little boy from Ponca City, Oklahoma. They was having some statue things for a benefit for the school. Right. And I was about this tall. And they said, oh, you'd be great as the little boy and the pioneer woman. You know? So I was all done up like a little pioneer boy. But it was all statues. And I had to stand still for three minutes without moving. And how old were you? Seven years old. Seven years old. Okay. Can you imagine a seven-year-old kid standing still for that long? What I did was I wanted to do such a good job that I held my breath for three minutes. It's a wonder you didn't pass out. And I almost passed out. You're right. I almost passed out. But I did it. And they thought it was great. They thought it was great. But I got interested then in the theater. In the theater. Because I love applause. Well, I think we all do. You like being the center of attention. It wasn't that. It was just the appreciation of the people who acknowledged it. Hey, he's okay. Now, did you ever do any dancing in those days? Oh, no. No. No. I didn't start dancing until I was in high school. 4 �Okay. I was a musician before that. What instrument did you play? Well, it's a bastard instrument now, but it was the accordion. Okay. And I think we have a picture of you. You're awful dressed up here. Oh, yeah. Now, there you are playing the accordion. Wow. Very distinguished. Looked like you should have been on the Ed Sullivan show. Well, this was taken in Chicago. At Lawrence Welk. That's right. But they were better than I was. But this was a competition at the Palmer House in Chicago, I think it was. The Palmer Hotel, I guess it was. And we went up there, a group of accordionists or accordion players, or whatever they're calling them, and went up there and competed in the national accordion. Now, where did you go to high school? I went to high school at Will Rogers. Will Rogers High School. And I think I have a picture of you. Looks like you might have your letter sweater on. Oh, yeah. I don't even remember this picture. Okay. Somebody sent this to me, and I said, are you sure that's me? Yep, that's you. No, I was a cheerleader. You were a cheerleader for Will Rogers High School? I was a cheerleader for Will Rogers High School. In those days, Will Rogers High School, is it in the present building? Oh, absolutely. Now, that was probably in the days when it was a brand new building, and it was the top design. I was in the 10th graduating class. 10th graduating 5 �class. And they called it Will on the Hill, because it was way out in the country, on the hill out there. All right. They called it Will on the Hill. Now, did you have any part-time jobs while you were in school? Like maybe work for a newspaper or anything? Well, my parents did not appreciate me going into the theater. Okay. So I left home very early. Very early? Very early. Had to support yourself? Had to support myself from whatever. I delivered the Tulsa World in the mornings so that I could go to school, and I delivered the Tulsa World out in the White City District. Okay. About 11th and Yale area? From 3rd to 11th Street, east of Yale. Yeah, the White City neighborhood. White City neighborhood. Yeah, it's not called that anymore. It's called Brayton Park now. Oh, is it really? At those days, it was called White City. Well, it really didn't mean White City. Right. It didn't mean it was named after something else. Yes, it was not. But anyway. Now, did you walk and deliver the newspaper or ride a bicycle? I did a bicycle and I did horseback. All right. Yale Avenue was a two-lane highway back then, and they had drainage ditches on each side of the highway. 6 �You're shaking your head. Do you know that? No. And they had these little wooden bridges to go through to the side streets, you know? And it was way out in the country. So I could ride my horse out there, you know? But the people of White City, there was a brand new, elegant addition. And I would ride my horse through their lawns to put the paper on their porch for them, you know? And when it would rain, I'd go through their lawn and put the paper on their porch, and they complained because I was digging up their lawn. Your horse was digging up their yard. Absolutely. So didn't you get fired from the Tulsa World because of that? No, they told me to stop riding the horse. So you went to Will Rogers High School. Yes. And you got interested in the theater. I got really interested in the theater. And when did you become interested in dancing? Because I understand that you had some interest in that. Yes. Actually, I was a little older. I was probably about 18 or 19 when I started to dance. Okay. I have your graduation picture right here. Graduation picture from Will Rogers High School. That doesn't look like me. You were very handsome. Yeah. That's a good picture, though. So when you were 19, you got interested in? In dancing. 7 �In dancing. Now, I know you rode horses, but what exactly is this picture? It looks like a mule to me. It's a toro. A toro. Okay. So it's a bull. It's a bull. All right. And I'm the back end of the bull. All right. And this is a theater group? This is the Tulsa Opera. And you were in a Tulsa Opera production. I was in a Tulsa Opera. Tulsa Opera first started out with operettas. You know, they weren't big enough yet. And all their first productions were all operettas. Okay. That was from Rio Rita. Okay. This is from the Desert Song with the Tulsa Opera. Then later on, they became legitimate and started to do the real opera. Okay. If this is an opera, did you dance or did you sing? We danced. Oh, yes. We danced. Okay. And I notice you are bare-chested, so they like to show off your bare chest. Well, I don't know. And this would have been in what year? Oh, gosh. Sometime in the 40s or 50s? 8 �Oh, it's got to be in the 50s. 50s? Okay. Yeah. I graduated in 49. It's got to be in the 50s. So about how? You were about 20, 22? Yeah. I was about 20, 22. Okay. And so you were involved with the Tulsa Opera and the Tulsa Ballet. At first. At first. At the Tulsa Opera was first. Then I got a scholarship to go to Los Angeles. And I went to Los Angeles and studied with Ruth St. Dennis Studio, which was a – people don't know her now, but she was one of – I guess – I don't know. I guess she was very famous as a spiritual modern dancer. And I got a scholarship to go – she was 82 years old when I went out there. Wow. Okay. Now, she didn't teach me much movement in dance, but the philosophy behind this woman just changed my whole life. She was really a remarkable woman. So you were out in Los Angeles. I was out in Los Angeles. Near Hollywood. Near Hollywood. And I studied. And I took lessons from Eugene Loring at the Hollywood School of Ballet. And I auditioned for a movie. This is when the musicals were all fabulous musicals, you know. What was it? The 50s, 60s, 50s? And I auditioned for a musical with Gwynne Verdon and Danny Kaye. And it was on the Riviera. But there was 500 dancers auditioned. I got to the final audition, and then I got a notice from Uncle Sam, come back to Tulsa, I was drafted. That brings us to this. That brings us to this. So there you are. Yes, I am. 9 �What branch of the military were you in? I was in the artillery. Army? Army. The Army artillery. That's where I started. That's where they drafted me, you know. Now, boot camp, where was boot camp at? Camp Chaffee, Arkansas. Oh, that's hot down there, wasn't it? Yeah, it was hot. Yeah, it was really hot. Really hot. It was very hot. So you went to Fort Chaffee for? Went to Fort Chaffee for my boot camp. For my boot camp. And then where were your assignments? My assignment was in Germany. I was very fortunate. It was right after the Korean War. It was in the middle of it before Vietnam, in between. And so I didn't have to go to Vietnam or Korea. They sent me to Europe, and I worked with the special services over there in Europe. So I had a good job, you know. I really didn't mind that much. I never carried a gun in my life, but it was pretty nice. Now, I see here that this is a Tulsa World newspaper, and it says GI Dancer, formerly with the Tulsa Opera, wins coveted medal in German Festival. So there's a picture of you bare-chested. They seem to like to show off your chest in those days. And you're bare-chested, and you're in front of a bunch of children. Tell us exactly what you were doing there. And apparently the Tulsa World was pretty proud. Tulsa was apparently pretty proud that... This article was originally done by the German newspaper. And it was all in German. And I couldn't understand a word of it. So I sent it home to my mother and said, could you get this, what do you call it? Translated. Translated, yeah. Get it translated. So she took it to the Tulsa World, and they just said, wow, this is wonderful. And they translated it and put it in the paper. Oh, am I moving? See, I get all... 10 �So you were there in Germany working with these school children. Now, what were you doing exactly? I was teaching them a lot of American dance in Augsburg, Germany. Okay. I was also helping to rehabilitate children from World War II. Okay. So you were part of the restoration. Part of the restoration of World War II. And I was teaching the children, and they honored me with this great honor from the city of Augsburg. Now, here's a picture. I don't know if our cameras can catch that, but it looks like you're dancing with someone with a crown on her head. Yes. That's the Princess of Augsburg. Okay. That I was dancing. And you got an opportunity to dance. Was she a good dancer? No. No, okay. But you made her look good, didn't you? Oh, yes. We just really, really appreciate it. And here you are with some of your military buddies. Yes, this is all my military buddies. Now, that was all there in Germany, correct? Yes, that's all in Germany. All right, so you did that in the military. And when did you get out of the military? 54. 11 �54? Did you come back to Tulsa? Oh, yes. Now, had Tulsa changed much because of the war? I understand there was a lot of building and GI homes were being thrown up. The GI homes were being thrown up. Brookside really became very, very, very big after World War II. With brand new homes and grocery stores and things. Little wooden houses, you know, all along Brookside. What did they call them? The little Cape Cod houses? All was done in Brookside. Now, Tulsa had big movie theaters in those days. And I understand you used to work at some of the big movie palaces. Yes. I was an usher. Of course, I still had to work my way through. Through living, you know, I was an usher at the Orpheum Theater. One of the most ornate, burlesque houses in the Midwest. It was absolutely elegant. Of course, they tore it down and built up a glass building there instead of it. Where was the? About a third in Cheyenne area. Second or third? It was a little bit past that. But anyway, it was a beautiful ornate theater. It was absolutely gorgeous. And I'd like to know where the Oklahoma Historic Society was at that time. Or the Preservationists. Preservationists, allow them to tear that theater down. It was just gorgeous. Now, were you there at that movie theater working there when they had the world premiere of Tulsa? Yes, I was. Yes, I was. And so you met? Yes, I was. What was her name though? Rita Hayworth. 12 �Rita Hayworth, yes. I ushered her down into the theater. They had a big parade down Main Street for the opening of the movie Tulsa. Okay. Big, big deal. Big deal in Tulsa. Thousands of people down there. And they had the premiere in the Orpheum Theater. And I was privileged to usher her down to the front row. Was she beautiful and gracious? Yeah, well. No, not really. She was kind of snooty. She was famous at the time. When they get famous and do things like that, you know these movie stars. Now I see in this picture, was this on a beach here in Tulsa? No. No? That's on Jones Beach in New York. Does anybody know where Jones Beach is? So you ended up in New York. Now how did you end up in New York? Okay. Did dancing take you there? No, no. I joined American Airlines in 1955, I guess it was. And I also worked with the Tulsa Ballet. Tulsa Civic Ballet at that time with Marceline Larkin. And with the Tulsa Opera, who became a legitimate opera house. I did Faust and I did, what was the other one I did? Faust and another opera with them. And that's where I stopped singing. There was this diva from New York, you know, they used to hire all the people to come in to sing the top roles. Well, oh, Aida, it was Aida. Okay. It was painted all in gold and everything. And at that time, they allowed all of the chorus and the dancers, they all had ballet in the operas, a quart of ballet in the operas. Well, they always allowed them to come in and sing at the finale. So they'd have a big crowd there. Well, I came in and I was right behind this metropolitan opera star in the back, just singing like mad. I thought I was doing great. She turned around to me and said, mouth it, buddy. I thought, oh, my God. I was throwing her off key. I have never sung in notes since. All right. 13 �I do some lip syncing now, but I've never done it. All right. So how did you end up in New York? You worked for American Airlines? I worked for American Airlines. They moved the accounting office from 910 South Boston to New York City. When they bought their first computer, IBM would not install a computer except in New York City, because nobody knew how they wanted them, you know. So they moved the entire part of American Airlines up to New York City. That's how I got to New York City. All right. And what did you do in New York City besides work? I understand you studied a little bit. I studied music. Yes, yes. I studied dancing, really. I was at the International School of Dance at Carnegie Hall. I did that of an evening after work, you know. So I didn't have much time to play because I was studying all the time I was there. And that's where I fell in love with clogging. They had a semester there of American folk dancing with square dancing and clogging and all. And I took a semester of clogging up in New York and I said, this is fantastic. I love this. I don't want to do ballet anymore. I don't want to clog because there's so much fun. And, you know, kids from three years old up to 80 years old can clog, you know. It's just wonderful. So I did that. And when I came back to Tulsa, I thought, this is really strange. I grew up in Oklahoma where clogging was all over the world and I didn't even think about it. I had to go to New York City to find out, hey, I love to clog. And I had it all around me all the time I was there. Now you're rushing ahead because I want to ask about some secret things. You were in New York. Did you ever, I understand in those days, lots of Oklahomans fled Oklahoma and they moved to New York for the gay culture, for the gay life subculture that was there in New York. There were clubs and bars, entertainment venues. Did you ever go out and have a drink at some of the nightclubs? Oh, yes, I did. And you met, did you meet anybody special there? I met my one and only partner. I've never had one since. And I was, what, 20, 24, 25. You fell madly in love. 14 �And I fell madly in love. His name was Nick. That was there in New York. And it was in New York City. Now in June... We used to go out dancing on Sunday brunch. They had big dances, tea dances they called them at the time. Sunday brunches, we would go out to the club, to one of our favorite clubs there in New York. And we would dance Sundays from 11 o'clock until 6 at night. He was the disco. He couldn't dance anything else. But he was a great disco dancer. And I had a great time. I really did. Now, and you were there in New York when the Stonewall riots happened. Yes. You were just around the corner, understand? What were you doing that night? Nick and I had gone down to the village to a little restaurant. They had these restaurants which was underneath the brownstones, you know, where they went down underneath it. Below street level. Below street level. They had these little restaurants there. And we went to our favorite restaurant. And we heard all this commotion going on outside, you know. And everybody in the restaurant got up, went out on the street. And we was a block away. We was a block away from Stonewall. But we saw everything that was going on down there. And... It was very frightening. Yes. But that started the gay movement. Now, did you have any friends who were injured or knew any of the people that were arrested? No, I really didn't. I really didn't. I really didn't. After it was almost... We stood out there for, oh, I guess about an hour. And we didn't even know what it was all about at the time, you know. And we walked down to the subway after dinner. And we went home. And the next morning on the paper, the Village Voice, we saw what it was all about. I wasn't in it, but I really, I really saw it. And you said there was quite a pushback from New York over it. And then there was a march a few days later. Yeah. Where they told everybody to come out and march in the streets. Yes, yes. 15 �And did you march in the streets with them in that parade? We had to work. And people were afraid still, weren't they afraid of being out? They were afraid. You had to have somebody with you. Okay. But the police was very cautious at the time. And that was the very first Gay Pride March? The very first Gay Pride March is in Greenwich Village in New York. 1969. 1969 it was. Yeah, and that started the whole gay movement. Look where we've come from. So whenever you, probably when we come around Pride time and you think about our parades, lots of young people today don't even realize we're commemorating an act of war. When they were waging war on us in 1969. And it was the retaliation. We stood up for ourselves. And we're commemorating when we stood up and said you're not going to do this to us anymore. Yep, that's right. So whenever we have Pride parades, do you ever allow your mind to think about that, that maybe some of our young people don't understand what it's really about? Oh, all the time. All the time. The young people today have so much freedom. When I grew up, there was no freedom in the gay community. No, there wasn't even a community. But the kids today have so much freedom to do whatever they want to do, whatever they want to do. And I just keep thinking, God, if I'd have had that when I was young, they have bars they can go to now. There wasn't a gay bar in Tulsa when I grew up here. I wouldn't even think about it. Except the Bamboo Lounge was the first gay bar in Tulsa. So you came back to Tulsa in the early 1970s? Yes, yes. I came back in, I guess about 75, I guess it was. And you had discovered clogging. I had discovered clogging. 16 �And you came back. In fact, did you hunt down the gay community when you got back to Tulsa? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I found freedom at last. You came back and told them about New York, right? Yes, yes. Now, what bars were there in that day in the 1970s? In Tulsa? Well, I can't remember all of them because I didn't go to all of them. My favorite was Tim's Playroom. Tim's Playroom. Oh, good. You could go in there and you could dance disco from nine o'clock at night until two o'clock in the morning without even stopping. And I used to go in there and just dance all night long, all night long. One of the greatest DJs that ever lived was in that bar. Now, you were talking about what young people have today. Yes. Whenever you think about the equality center and it being downtown, what do you think about that in Oklahomans for Equality? Oh, what you have done for equality is really great. I started out, well, coming from New York back down here and seeing all of the things going on, I helped start TOHR. Oklahomans for Human Rights is what it was called. Yes, Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. That's what it was. There was about five or six very prominent people in Tulsa, and then there was me, the little guy that didn't have any money or anything. But I went in with them and I said, come on, let's do it. You knew Dennis Neill on that day? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I knew Dennis Neill. I'll tell you something about Dennis Neill. He used to live right around the corner from me on 31st and Woodard Boulevard. This was a long time ago. And after work, he would jog, I guess it was called jogging then, he would jog after work down 31st Street down to River Park and back to home. I'd be out working in the yard. He'd always wave at me, you know, as he goes by. Hi, Bill. Hi, Dennis. And great guy. And I saw his first turnabout performance. Oh, he's done drag? I don't think any of us knew that. 17 �There was a big benefit out at this restaurant on 71st Street. It's no longer out there, no longer a restaurant. But they had a big turnabout benefit out there. And Dennis Neill was in drag. So you all formed this organization 31 years ago. Yeah. And so it's an entirely different world, isn't it, than it was 31 years ago? Oh, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Now, when did you start clogging with, put together your clogging group? My first clogging group was 1986. I formed it because of the Oklahoma OGRA, which is the Oklahoma Gay Rodeo Association. We didn't have one in Tulsa. So I formed a group called the Green Country Cloggers. The Green Country Cloggers. And it was a great group. It was a wonderful group. And we performed all over the Midwest. We went from all the gay rodeos, from Denver, Phoenix, California, Kansas, Oklahoma. They didn't have one in Arkansas at the time. But I mean, every one of them. Texas, Texas was the big one. The big gay rodeo in Texas. And we became pretty famous, didn't we? Yes. Now, that was 1986. That was 1986. That would have been right in the middle of the epidemic. So we were having people, AIDS was in full swing and people were dying. And there were probably people here in Tulsa who had been infected. They were. They were. What are your thoughts about how the community reacted to that? I don't think they reacted. I really don't. They should have had more, but there was not enough information to say, Oh, hey, we're not affected by this. And out of my 12 cloggers, I lost seven. Out of your original things. So then we disbanded and I couldn't handle it anymore. And later on, when Tulsa got its own rodeo, SSRA rodeo, I started the SSRA clogging team, Sooner State Cloggers. Now here's a picture of your cloggers dressed up as the village people. That was the original Green Country cloggers. 18 �All right. And here you are. Are you the muscle guy or the police officer? I'm Felipe, the Indian. So you were the Indian. Well, that's a great picture. I love that. This guy right here, he runs the Eagle in Dallas, Texas. He owns the Eagle in Dallas, Texas. This guy here was one of the original owners of the toolbox. And this guy right here, beautiful man. Well, they're all very handsome. All very handsome. Yeah. Good group. Now you did clogging and somewhere in there, somebody decided that you looked a little bit like Santa Claus. And you started doing... Yes. I was doing, I was teaching clogging out in Glenpool at the Glenpool Community Center, which Glenpool was nothing then, I don't think. But we did a couple of shows out at Black Gold Days. I guess it was. Every year they had the Black Gold Days out at Glenpool. And I was working with the kids out there. And one of the organizers said, Bill, would you play Santa Claus for us? And I said, well, sure. I never get a chance to entertain, you know. I'm such a ham anyway. But I said, sure, I will. So they gave me this old Santa Claus, a moth-eaten Santa Claus suit and a phony beard. And I went out there and I clogged for their Christmas show. Well, the kids just went crazy. They thought it was the funniest thing to see Santa Claus clogging. And I said, well, you know, I continue to do it from then on because I made the kids so happy with that. And that's how it all started. We're looking at a magazine article from 1998 in The Oklahoman. And it's a feature article on you, The Dancing Santa. And it tells about his opera days and what he did in the restoration of Europe and his work with German children. But it also talks about how he just lights up the day and makes these kids' parties so exciting with Santa who dances. Well, you've had quite a remarkable life. I'm looking right here. You've been given seven awards. This is a lifetime achievement award that you received last year. Clogger Bill, with huge thanks from the Tulsa gay community, 2009. You are our hero. That was in 2009. And you've continued to do a lot of benefit work for lots of different nonprofits. And lots of organizations that serve people living with HIV AIDS. 19 �Absolutely. The other night... I'm a server. You are. I try to do everything to serve. I don't want anything for myself. Well, almost. You won't turn it down, is what you're saying. That's where we go. You know, the other night... I'm very humble. I just don't want anything, except I do love applause. Well, I think we all like attention. The other night, the Tulsa Eagle threw a birthday party for you, celebrating your 80th birthday. Unbelievable. And the place was packed. And such good fun. I want you to know, I was looking forward to that and I was excited being able to attend. And then I want our audience to know that a few days before that, you called me and you said, Toby, I want to do something to remember the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people who died on 9-11. Nobody's ever thought about them. So you wanted to inflate helium balloons in pastel colors. We spent all afternoon blowing up the balloons. And you said, Toby, I want us to launch the balloons a little after seven. So that was what I was so touched by because I'd been watching on 9-11 Sunday. I'd been watching all the coverage of the dedication of the 9-11 memorial and how that affected Oklahomans. And then I attended the event at the BOK Center that OCCJ sponsored. And then to be able to go to your party where our community gathered and we wanted to make sure that our people had not been forgotten, been recognized. And we set those balloons off at 7-15. We read the names of all of the hundreds of gay people who died on 9-11. And we set those balloons off. And it was the strangest thing, there was a set of jets doing a maneuver up in the sky. And right when we set those balloons off, the balloons took off and those jets crossed right in the middle of the sky. And there was this huge cross in the sky as we set those balloons off. Now, Bill, I checked. To my knowledge, there was not another memorial tribute to the gay victims of 9-11 than the one in Tulsa, Oklahoma that Bill Francisco wanted to do. It was his day, but you still wanted to think of others. Now, because of that, that night they surprised you. And I think probably this sums up your life. It takes a moment to change history. It takes love to change lives. The Imperial Court of all Oklahoma hereby proclaims the Youth Scholarship to be forever named in the honor of Clogger Bill Francisco Youth Scholarship Fund, September 11, 2011. That night they surprised you by naming a youth scholarship in your honor. How do you feel about that? Oh, my God. First, I wish they wouldn't do it until after the show. Because I was so emotional, I couldn't hardly dance. It's a big honor 20 �. It's a very big honor. Now, what do you think when young people, young gay and lesbian people who are applying for scholarships to be able to go to college and further their education, when they hear about this scholarship opportunity and they read the story about who it's named after, what do you want to be able to tell them? I want them to follow their dreams. Go for it. Well, thank you very much. You've been with us today while we've interviewed here on Vintage, Bill Francisco, who I think followed his dreams and he did go for it. And our city is richer because of his contribution. Thank you so much for joining us today. Applause How was that? 21 � https://history.okeq.org/files/original/cae0cab67dbba006859779f324fcbc61.mp4 e71dbd9d5040432cf3641c9dd2b8169e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2011] Bill Francisco Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcription of Toby Jenkin’s September 13th, 2011 Vintage Series Interview. Bill was born on September 5th, 1931, on a dirt farm outside of Catoosa, Oklahoma. He passed on December 25, 2024, in Tulsa. He made his first stage appearance in a school play in Tuls at the age of 7. At that moment, he was attracted to the theatre and applause. From being a high school cheerleader to playing the accordion to forming Green Country Cloggers, Bill was a ham. He served in the Army, spent time in Los Angeles learning dance and ballet and lived and worked in New York City before returning to Tulsa. He witnessed the first Gay Pride Parade in New York City in 1969 following the Stonewall Riot. He was locally famous as the “Dancing Santa,” exciting children throughout the Tulsa area. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bill Francisco, Toby Jenkins, Dennis Neill Subject The topic of the resource Bill Francisco Vintage Series Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 13, 2011 Bill Francisco Green Country Clogger Green Country Cloggers interview OKEQ Oral History Project oral history Oral History Project Toby Jenkins video Vintage Vintage Series Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2005] Bob Cisar and Kirk Holt Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte April 9, 2005. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research</strong><strong>.</strong> Bob Cisar was born on February 18, 1942, and grew up in Oklahoma City. Married and then divorced, Bob served in the army as a surgical nurse in Vietnam during the war. In the interview, Bob discusses his career and social experiences in Tulsa, and early involvement with Oklahomans for Human Rights and Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. With his partner of twenty-one years, Kirk Holt, was a well-known interior designer until his death on March 10, 2006. Kirk Holt was born on July 2, 1961, in Oklahoma City. He graduated in 1983 from Oklahoma State University with a degree in interior design. Together, Kirk and Bob ran a successful interior design studio and retail operation. Before his passing, Bob worked with Kirk in helping design the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center prior to the 2007 move-in. Kirk lead the design effort in 2017 when the Center underwent a major re-design and served for several years on the Board of Trustees for Oklahomans for Equality. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 9, 2005 Subject The topic of the resource Bob Cisar and Kirk Holt Oral History Project Interview from April 9, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bob Cisar, Kirk Holt, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2005 available at Center Bob Cisar Dennis R. Neill Equality Center Equality Center Equality Center Opening interview Kirk Holt Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OHR OkEq OKEQ Board OkEq Equality Center OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahomans for Equality Oklahomans for Equality (OKEQ) Oklahomans for Equality Board Oklahomans for Human Rights Oklahomans for Human Rights - Tulsa Chapter oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU TOHR transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2004] Bob Inglish Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 30, 2004 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on January 30, 2004. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research</strong><strong>.</strong> Bob grew Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He attended Oklahoma State University and received a law degree from the University of Oklahoma. While at OU, he came “out.” He returned to Okmulgee and entered into a law practice with his father. Although practicing in Okmulgee, Bob lived in Tulsa, where he realized in the late 1970s that the gay life was almost solely centered on the bars. With Dennis Neill, Mike Green, Gary Durst and others, in 1980 they became the Tulsa Chapter of Oklahomans for Human Rights, which was formed around 1977 in Oklahoma City. Bob served as the first treasurer of OHR. The early focus of OHR was to provide social and educational opportunities to the LGBTQ community in addition to the bars. In 1985, the organization became its own nonprofit under the name of Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. Bob highlights the early challenge of engaging with the lesbian community to broaden OHR and TOHR’s outreach. He discusses the origins of the Harwelden Party which began in 1980, and the Black and White Party held for 10 years in the 1980s. He talks about his involvement with the ACLU and Tulsa’s and TOHR’s response to the AIDS crisis. Subject The topic of the resource Bob Inglish Oral History Project Interview from January 30, 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bob Inglish, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2004 ACLU AIDS AIDS/HIV available at Center Black and White Gala Black and White Party Bob Inglish Dennis Neill Gary Durst Harwelden Party HIV/AIDs interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte Mike Green OHR OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahomans for Human Rights Oklahomans for Human Rights - Tulsa Chapter oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU OU TOHR transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) University of Oklahoma University of Oklahoma (OU) video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2020] Bob Ritz Interview Subject The topic of the resource Bob Ritz Oral History Project Interview from August 4, 2020 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Morgan Allen and Fraser Kastner on August 4, 2020. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> In the interview, Bob discusses his early life, coming out in the late 1960s, his military experience, involvement in the Tulsa LGBTQ community and work on behalf of immigrant rights. Bob passed on October 21, 2024. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bob Ritz, Morgan Allen, Fraser Kastner, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 4, 2020 2020 available at Center Bob Ritz Fraser Kastner immigration interview Morgan Allen OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript transcript video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/21d02a6d92c0f1bbc38aeacb4b197e21.mp4 d3d143b8975e231e89aee433ebbabac8 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/7fda3ee82db9d17466e3443f6b5400c5.pdf 2acf3458bfdcb44db5b39b13eba43da3 PDF Text Text �������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2003] Dennis Neill Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 10, 2003 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on December 10, 2003. Dennis discusses his early life growing up in Ponca City, Oklahoma, experiences at Oklahoma State University and the University of Texas Law School. In 1977, he moved to Tulsa to begin his legal career and then joining the Schusterman family in their oil and gas business. As a co-founder of the Tulsa Chapter of Oklahomans for Human Rights, which in 1985 became Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights and then in 2006 Oklahomans for Equality, he reviews the early years of the organization and involvement with other civic activities and the beginnings of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Tulsa and the community response. Subject The topic of the resource Dennis Neill Oral History Project Interview from December 10, 2003 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dennis Neill, Laura Belmonte 2003 AIDS AIDS/HIV Dennis Neill HIV/AIDs interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OkEq OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahomans for Equality Oklahomans for Equality (OKEQ) oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU TOHR transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) University of Texas University of Texas Law School video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2020] Donald Fruechting Interview Subject The topic of the resource Donald Fruechting Oral History Project Interview from November 20, 2020 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Morgan Allen on November 20, 2020. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong><strong> </strong>Donald discusses his early life, family background, military service, personal relationships, and experiences living with HIV. Donald shares insights into his identity as a gay man, the challenges he faced, and the importance of community and family support. He reflects on his journey through love, loss, and spirituality, emphasizing the blessings he has received throughout his life. Donald was born on July 4th, 1938 in rural Owasso, Oklahoma and passed on August 21, 2021 in Tulsa. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Fruechting, Morgan Allen, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 20, 2020 2020 AIDS/HIV available at Center Donald Fruechting HIV HIV/AIDs interview Morgan Allen OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript transcript video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2019] Dwight Kealiher Interview Subject The topic of the resource Dwight Kealiher OSU Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project Interview from February 13, 2019 Description An account of the resource Dwight was interviewed on February 13, 2019, by Oklahoma State University as part of its Diverse Sexuality and Gender Oral History Project. Dwight discusses his early life, experiences at Oklahoma State University (the Oklahoma A&amp;M College) in the 1950s, his marriage and family and later coming out. As a CPA in Tulsa, he reviews his long-time association with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (now Oklahomans for Equality,) Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN), Tulsa Cares and Health Outreach Prevention Education (HOPE). Dwight was born on August 15, 1937, in Checotah, Oklahoma and passed on August 15, 2024. <strong>A copy of the transcript is on file in the History Project Archives at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center.</strong> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dwight Kealiher, Angus Henderson, Allison Richmond, Micki White, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 13, 2019 2019 Allison Richmond Angus Henderson available at Center Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project Dwight Kealiher H.O.P.E. Health Outreach Prevention and Education (H.O.P.E.) HOPE interview Micki White Oklahoma Oral History Research Program Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahoma State University Archives oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU OSU Archives OSU Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project RAIN Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN) TOHR transcript Tulsa CARES Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2004] Dwight Kealiher Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 25, 2004 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on July 25, 2004. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> Dwight Kealiher was born in Tulsa and lived in Poteau, Sallisaw, Sulphur, Ada, and Checotah. He grew up in a Southern Baptist family, living a pretty typical small-town life. 6 After graduating from Checotah High School, he enrolled at Oklahoma State University (then, Oklahoma A&amp;M College) in 1955 as a business major. After college, he married a girl he knew from Checotah, staying married for twenty years and having three sons. During that time, however, Dwight also fully recognized that he was gay. Also after college, he spent six months, active duty, at Fort Leonard Wood in the National Guard. He then moved to Tulsa where he fulfilled the remaining five and a half years in the Reserves of his six-year commitment and got a job with a CPA firm. He took some accounting classes at University of Tulsa and later passed the CPA exam, and in 1989, he ventured out on his own, opening his own office in Tulsa. Over the years, he’s been active in local LGBTQ+ support groups such as Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (now Oklahomans for Equality), Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN), Tulsa Cares, and Health Outreach Prevention Education (HOPE), along with being a successful businessman. Subject The topic of the resource Dwight Kealiher Oral History Project Interview from July 25, 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dwight Kealiher, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2004 available at Center Dwight Kealiher H.O.P.E. Health Outreach Prevention and Education (H.O.P.E.) HOPE interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU RAIN Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN) TOHR transcript TU Tulsa CARES Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) University of Tulsa video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2005] Glenna Cooper Interview Description An account of the resource Transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on January 31, 2005. <strong>Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> In the inteview, Glenna discusses the challenges facing the deaf community and their interactions with the LGBTQ+ community.<br /><br />No tape, done on computer. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 31, 2005 Subject The topic of the resource Glenna Cooper Oral History Project Interview from January 31, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Glenna Cooper, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2005 available at Center deaf community Glenna Cooper interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2005] Jack Waggoner Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 3, 2005 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on December 3, 2005. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> Born in Western Kansas in 1936, Jack graduated from Pawnee Rock High School and then joined the Navy in 1954. He attended University of Kansas and began his professional career in Kansas City, Missouri and became involved in the gay community. Upon moving to Tulsa, he became an interstate truck driver. In the interview, he discusses the various gay bars, his eleven year relationship with a bartender and other activities and interactions in the Tulsa gay community. Subject The topic of the resource Jack Waggoner Oral History Project Interview from December 3, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jack Waggoner, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2003 available at Center bar life gay bar Gay Bars interview Jack Waggoner Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript transcript University of Kansas video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/18ab089ee94d63ffd9e7d04ee1d65c33.mp4 7d9e214b99d8ee9a56603bf83ef4c16e https://history.okeq.org/files/original/bd38c834e284b300aec3bb350b6559a0.pdf c65882cf093a1122f482853b3eeea6c7 PDF Text Text Oral History Interview with Janet Gearin Interview Conducted by Laura Belmonte February 22, 2004 OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma Oral History Research Program Edmon Low Library ● Oklahoma State University ©2004 �OKEQ Oral History Project Interview History Interviewer: Laura Belmonte Transcriber: Janet Gearin Editors: Anika Benthem The recording and transcript of this interview were processed at the Oklahoma State University Library in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Project Detail The OKEQ Oral History Project is a series of interviews documenting the rich contributions of LGBTQ community members in the state of Oklahoma, with a particular emphasis on Tulsa and the surrounding area. These interviews were conducted by members of Oklahomans for Equality, formerly Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. Legal Status Scholarly use of the recordings and transcripts of the interview with Janet Gearin is unrestricted. The interview agreement was signed on February 22, 2004. 2 �OKEQ Oral History Project Janet Gearin Oral History Interview [Editor note – Janet provided an update in March 2026 which is at the end of this transcript in an Addendum.] Interviewed by Laura Belmonte February 22, 2004 Tulsa, Oklahoma Belmonte It is Sunday, February 22, 2004, and I am Laura Belmonte with Jennifer Davis, and today we are interviewing Janet Gearin. Janet, will you just begin with some basic, biographical information? Gearin You want my age and all of that? (Laughs) Belmonte Your birthday, occupation, you know, that sort of stuff. Gearin Now, I just turned February 3. I was born in 1947, so I’m fifty-seven years old. I’m from Oklahoma, born in Vinita. Didn’t live there very long. Folks lived mostly in Duncan, and I actually finished high school in Lindsay, Oklahoma, which is south of Oklahoma City. When I finished high school, I decided that I wanted to go to college, did so, and went to the University of—Oklahoma College of Liberal Arts, I should say. It had changed—it was OCW, which was Oklahoma College for Women, but the year before I went, they actually changed it to a co-ed school, so that was really quite an experience to be there at a university that had been a women’s college for fifty-some-odd years. I had a really good time there. I was a biology major, minored in chemistry, and I was pre-med at that time. When it got time for me to go and interview at the University of Oklahoma for med school, I was declined admission, primarily because I was a woman, but at that time, I didn’t really want to take issue with it. I kind of started to get cold feet anyway, so I—after I finished my degree there, I went ahead and worked for a year at Saint Francis. I worked in labor and delivery and decided that that was my life. I really like labor and delivery and thought seriously that I would be like a midwife. I stayed there for a little over a year. I applied to nursing school and was accepted into the University of Colorado and was there for three years getting a bachelor’s of science and nursing. However, along the way, while I 3 �was in that process of three years, I realized that there was very little work and employment for midwives. Unless you lived in Kentucky or parts of Tennessee, you really couldn’t practice that. I made a course change as I was in nursing school and decided that I really psychiatry. From that point on, I became invested in pursuing a career in psychiatric nursing. While there, I was talked to by my professor, and she suggested that I consider going to get my master’s degree and becoming what they were calling a clinical specialist. It was a brand new role, been out for a couple of years. I looked at the various universities across the country, and basically, there were ten that offered that degree: places like Rutgers, Boston University, Case Western University, University of Colorado, University of California, San Francisco, University of Washington—really great places. Had no way of being able to travel and seeing where I wanted to go, so just kind of talking with various professors and ruling out places because they only accepted men, which was really (Laughs)—I had no idea that I would get accepted to all of them, and I felt that surely if I found one that would take me, that would answer that question. I ended up getting accepted to all ten universities, and then I had to make a choice. I decided that I wanted to go west and went to the University of California, San Francisco and lived there for two years while I worked on my master’s degree. Then decided at that point in time that I really needed to come home. My parents were aging; I had a grandmother that was in her eighties, and I felt like I really needed to come back to Oklahoma. I’d always said that if I got my degree, I would come back to Oklahoma and try and help upgrade nursing here because it was really quite antiquated compared to how progressive it was on each coast. Did come back. The only way I could come back was by working with the Department of Veterans Affairs because no one else was going to pay me the salary that I felt like I at least needed and wanted, so I did come back, work with the VA in Muskogee. Started there March of ’75, and I’ve been with the VA ever since then. Opened a brand new mental health clinic in Muskogee. I was the first person they hired for that clinic, and then, when we moved up to Tulsa in ’79, I opened the clinic there, helped get that set up. Then three years ago, we relocated here in Tulsa to 41st and Mingo and opened that one. Actually have now been in three different mental health clinics, but all with the VA. I now have twenty-nine years of experience there and work with veterans within mental health, and love my work. I truly do. I have still great energy and a gift for my work and love it, dearly love it. That’s kind of where I’ve been. The other parts of my life, in terms of more personal, is I’m the youngest of six children, and it was yours, mine, and our—I’m the “our” child. I have, surviving, I have two older brothers and one older sister; the other two are deceased. There’s a difference of twenty-one years between me and my 4 �oldest sister, and the next youngest is eleven years older than I am. For the most part, I was really kind of an alone child who grew up pretty much kind of on my own, latchkey kid. My father was a grocery man and did that until he retired because of health reasons. Parents are both deceased. When I was in college in Chickasha, realized that I probably was not quite like everybody else in terms of my sexual orientation, and that’s really kind of when I began to explore some of that. Belmonte Now, have you classified yourself as homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual for most of your adult life? Gearin Homosexual. My family has pretty much known about that for the last thirty years. Didn’t really while I was out and away and going to school. It really was never talked about, you know, any of that. My one, big, huge regret is that my mother died before we really had a chance to talk about that because I was really very young. I was just into my thirties when she died and was in a very early relationship, my first real relationship, and just didn’t really get a chance to talk about that, and I regret that. I really wish that I had. I’ve had talks with brothers and sisters and my father, had a good talk with him about it. You know, that’s kind of how that got involved. When I started work here in Tulsa, I never really belonged to any kind of organization. I know that part of your interest, I guess, still is TOHR [Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights], but— Belmonte Not specifically, the whole community. Gearin Okay. When I moved here, I was in a relationship, and it was another nurse that was with the VA, and she had to medically retire because she was injured on the job. Altogether, we were in a twenty-five year relationship. I have a long history here in Tulsa. I’ve met lots of—I don’t even know how many hundreds of people I’ve met over the years. I feel that I’ve had a very rich life, and it’s been very different from my professional life, though, because I’m not exactly out, as you would say, in terms of my work, but I know that those folks have known me all these years. A majority of them do know, and I do have a couple of really good friends at work that do know. When I was—my relationship ended a few years ago, it was very difficult for me, and I confided in the psychiatrist that I work with here. She already knew pretty much anyway, so without her help and my other friends’ help, I really would have had a difficult time. Belmonte How old were you when you had your first homosexual experience? Gearin Let’s see, I think I was fifteen, if I remember…I believe I was fifteen! And it was in the back of a car! (Laughter) That’s not even the best part. The best part is that it was moving; it was being driven by the girl’s mother. We were 5 �on our way to California. I was just about to panic; I’ll never forget that. That was probably the most priceless experience I had in my life. Belmonte Had you suspected there was something different? When do you recall thinking that for the first time? Gearin Actually, it was because of her. When I was in high school—this will really—well, I’ve already told you how old I am. I was in band. I was a very active band student, a very good musician. Belmonte What years did you go to high school? Gearin This would have been, let’s see, I was in ninth grade, so this would have been freshman in high school. It would’ve ben ’61? There were a group of us girls that we’d hang out. The other girls were a year older than I, and so they would have been sophomores in high school. It was so funny. We really were close; we were really tight knit. All of the sudden I realized—I went to class one day, went to band; band was first thing in the morning, and it was like, “Okay, we’re not talking to Vivienne.” “We’re not? Why?” “She’s queer.” I thought, well—my definition was queer was “odd.” I had no other definition for queer. I’m thinking, “Well, what’s that got to do with not talking to her?” Had not sexualized this at all. Had not a clue. I was just so naïve. We go then to another class, and I’m sitting there, and I’m talking to one of the students before the class starts, and I said, “I don’t really understand what the heck you’re talking about. What’s so strange about Vivienne?” She said, “Janet, that’s not queer. Don’t you know what queer is?” I said, “Yes. It’s strange, odd.” I’m trying to remember what else it was in terms of Webster’s Dictionary. She said, “Janet, no. She’s a lesbian; she’s gay.” Or homosexual, I’m sorry, I don’t even think gay was being used then. I said, “Oh.” I still wasn’t even sure, and I thought, “Huh, how do you know that?” That was my question, was “How do you know that?” Belmonte What did she say? Gearin She said, “Well, one of the girls, Martha told us.” “Well, how does Martha know?” It was like—I was no big deal, so what’s the difference? As it was, the ostracization that she suffered, it was just terrible. I’ve never been able to understand how people discriminate. To me, you care for somebody because of who they are, the person that they are. This was a girl that we had all been friends for many years. We had grown up together, we were in band together, we ran around together, we did things together. Now, they’re saying that because she was queer and she was a homosexual, that now we could no longer have a relationship with her. I probably endured that for, I’d say, maybe a month. I just couldn’t do it anymore. It was like, I would 6 �watch her. She would walk by herself to class. Nobody walked with her, nobody talked with her. Boys made fun of her. Girls would—I mean, it was just awful, it was just absolutely awful. I literally could not tolerate it, and so I just decided one day, I’m walking with her. I went up and walked with her to class, I don’t care. You know, if they don’t like me, that’s it. If I’m like her, then I guess I’m like her. It was at that point in time that I really became very interested in humanity and how we treat each other for being different and not really understanding why we were treating people that differently and hating her and calling her names. I realized that there’s sometimes that you take a risk. I lost my naivete. I realize that there’s times where you take a risk for disclosure of some of this information. I really found her to be extremely brave. I don’t know how she did it because there was a lot of abuse that she endured. I never saw her cry, I never saw her break down, I never saw her complain. It was a really troubling time, but yet it was also a really good time. I became her friend. We had been friends, but it was like I just wasn’t going to let my relationship with her go because other people wouldn’t associate with her. Slowly but surely, and I don’t know that I ever got much in terms of repercussions because after all this time, I don’t really remember anybody saying anything negative to me or distancing themselves the way they did, but it was kind of like people followed suit as I started talking to her again and interacting with her again, other people, I guess, decided that it was okay. I think that maybe many of them felt badly because this was a small town, a small school. There were like sixty of us in my class and maybe about that many in the class ahead of me, so we’re really talking about a pretty small school. A lot of that started to stop and I don’t remember people calling her names or anything else like that after that. It was—but this was the young girl that—she kind of became infatuated with me, and I guess I could understand that, and I did become infatuated with her; she was really my first love. I had no idea until we were in the backseat of that car going to California, and she kissed me. It was like, “Oh.” (Laughs) “I don’t think we should be doing this,” because it was not just a kiss on the cheek, it was like—oh my word. Then I didn’t know what to do because I knew I shouldn’t say anything because her mother was driving. I’m all the sudden thinking, “Oh my god, is she able to see in the rearview mirror?” You know, all these are going through your mind. It’s like, “Stop it, stop it. Don’t do that to me. Stop it. Help. No, no, don’t do this.” Then I was like, “Oh no, you know, this is just not supposed to be happening.” It was really pretty traumatic for me, but at the same time, I think I really was kind of intrigued by it as well. That was the first time. Belmonte Did you wind up having a relationship with Vivienne? 7 �Gearin To some degree, yes. You’re in high school and you’re doing different things, and she was a year older, so this was the summer before her junior year and my sophomore year. We really only had two more years together. We really were good companions. She was a latchkey kid; I was a latchkey kid. We lived close in terms of proximity, and it was kind of a—it was really just a very good friendship. It never really did progress the way it probably would have if I had really known what was going on and understood things. I didn’t push for that much, and she didn’t either. When she went to college—she went to a small college, went to the Oklahoma College for Women—I followed her. I basically did follow her. Since the last—I didn’t want to go to a big university. I knew that I really was not prepared to go to a big university; I had always thought I would go to the University of Oklahoma. I had been—had music scholarships and everything, but just couldn’t quite cut that, so I made the choice to go to a small school, which was just about thirty-five miles from where I lived. They had changed that over that year, and it still was predominantly women, you know, young girls, young women that were at the university there, and it was just a fun—I had a marvelous time for those four years there, just had a marvelous time. Belmonte You know, many women’s colleges have had very active lesbian networks, social lives, you know, even through the twentieth century and late nineteenth century. How would you describe the climate of your school on that? Gearin It was extremely closeted, let me tell you. I didn’t really appreciate the dangers involved. Vivienne, my friend, was really—I think she was always kind of cut out to be the one that was going to be taking that step and be on the edge. She wanted the freedom; she wanted to be who she was and to do what she wanted to do. She ended up being expelled my freshman year for homosexuality, and it was like—I think it was pretty late into my second semester. Belmonte This would have been around, what, 1966? Gearin This was ’66, no ’65. No, I’m sorry. It was ’66, spring of ’66. It was really awful. It was an awful, awful time for me. I can remember, you know, having—we were in a social club. They didn’t have a sorority on this campus, but they had social clubs for women, and we belonged to the same social club. Several of the members were real upset that she was just flaunting her sexuality and had been caught several times in the dorm by the dorm mother and stuff like this, and was just making no secret of it. It was causing a lot of uncomfortableness. They had tried talking with her and everything else and knew that she and I had been friends and said, “Janet, please talk with her.” I did, and she said, “Hey, I’m in love. I don’t care.” I said, “But you have to care. You know, this is—you know, you’re also looking at your career, your life, you know. They’re saying that you may get 8 �kicked out.” She said, “I don’t believe that.” It’s against the wall, or something like this, I can’t even remember. It’s been so many years ago. At any rate, she did get caught and got turned in. I remember she was coming out of the auditorium from the business offices with her mother and father, and I just absolutely was devastated because she was gone. You know, she was gone. The next thing I knew—it was a couple of days later— I get called into the Dean of Women’s office and that was an even bigger eye-opener because at that point in time, I’m told that I’ve implicated that I’m one of the homosexuals on campus. I’m sitting there, and all of the sudden I realize, this is not when you really want to tell people who you are. I’ve just seen what happened to my very best friend and knew that that was, you know, going to be really difficult for her for a long time. I had seen the look on her parents’ face, and I thought, “I will deny. I will do what I have to do.” I really was just still very naïve, and it wasn’t very difficult for me, as well. I just didn’t say anything; I didn’t volunteer. I said, “Well, that’s really not true.” I really had not been active on campus, but yet, you know, this was what was going to be said. Didn’t know if it was—if I had been implicated or not, it was all very hush-hush. This was a very crucial time, and this woman was really not a very nice woman; she was pretty mean, pretty vindictive. She had already had a…kind of a reputation among the students anyway as being somebody that was very bold, and so I kept my mouth shut. She made some comments, and I can’t remember now what it was that—I went to my friends and I said, “What does this mean?” (Laughs) I think she used the term “active.” I think that was what it was. I had not a clue what she was really talking about. I could remember running over to one of the few women that I really, honestly did know that she was a homosexual or a lesbian, went running over to her room afterwards—she wasn’t even going to let me in the room because everybody then—talk about shutting down doors. I mean, it was just really serious business because I wasn’t the only one that got called into office; several did. As far as I know, nobody else got dismissed, but it was— Belmonte It sounds as if Vivienne was asked to name names. Gearin Oh, and that she did. She did. She named quite a few, which really was kind of bad. I felt worse in terms of her having done that because of the repercussions for all of us. I often wondered if she was angry at me. I’ve often wondered if she was angry at me, and that’s why she did that for some reason. Although, I didn’t know what I had done to anger her. Belmonte It’s possible they told her if she did, they’d let her off. Gearin Might have, yeah. It’s hard to say, not knowing what the conversation was. 9 �Belmonte It’s interesting because a lot of students, I think, have—you know, they think the ’60s, they think wild sexual revolution but don’t really understand that policies like this were still in place all over the country, that these changes were really not made until after the ’60s, in some ways. OSU had very similar policies during the same time. Do you know what happened to Vivienne, ultimately? Gearin Yeah, she left school. She and the woman that she was involved with, they both got expelled from school. She went to California, where she had a brother and a sister living out there, and lived out there for several years and then ended up moving back to Oklahoma. Lived in Norman and worked with the post office. When I actually had finished my master’s degree, that was ’75, I came back in ’75, she was working with the post office in Norman. We actually got to meet up again after all those years, and that— but I never did remember to ask her that question, why she did do that. It was like we didn’t talk about it. I don’t think—I spent a few months with her. Off-and-on, we had a talking relationship for maybe about a year, but we didn’t get to see each other very frequently because I was busy with my status in my career at Muskogee, and she was very busy there and was in a relationship. I never did really find out exactly why she did what she did what she did. We had never talked about it. It was just kind of—we never really talked about it at that point. She was pretty actively involved in the gay community in Oklahoma City, Norman. You know, she was really—I think she may have even been out at work. I’m not so sure that she might not have been. This would have been ’75. Belmonte Sounds like someone who would have just been compelled to do it. Gearin Absolutely. Belmonte After this rather horrible experience in college, did you just go back in the closet to yourself? Gearin Oh, absolutely. Oh, listen. This was—we were about fifty miles from Lawton, and Lawton was a big military town, Army primarily. It was like the Army guys were always up every weekend because this was a women’s college, remember, so it was great for women dating soldiers. I mean, it was a great atmosphere. After that happened, [inaudible] decided, “Okay, I’m going to look real normal on this campus,” (Laughs) because I valued what I was doing there. I really wanted to make sure I got my education. The message was really clear; I mean, we were just—there was no way; everybody on campus knew what had happened. The Dean of Women made it very clear; the president made it very clear that, “Hey, you behave that way and we catch you, you’re gone.” It was like all of us—talk about going into the closet; we were down underneath the ground. We were so buried so 10 �deep. It was—I, at that point, in time decided, “Well, I think I’ll go and explore the other side and see what that’s like.” I really became heterosexual at that particular point in time in my life. It was like, that’s gone. I’m not going to do that again; I buried it. It’s too costly. It’s too much to risk. I don’t want to lose all of these things I wanted. That was kind of the brunt of that, and really it was not bad because I think all of those experiences of dating the military men have helped me in my career with the VA; it’s interesting. Belmonte When did you once again decide this is a part of me that I am not willing to sublimate anymore? Gearin When I was working on my master’s degree—this is kind of a funny story— when I was working on my master’s degree—here I am in San Francisco, which, I mean, the openness of the gay community, even in the ’70s, the early ’70s, was really pretty remarkable. Belmonte Do you recall how you responded to them initially? Gearin Well, I can remember thinking, “Oh, they’re really bold here!” It was like, “Oh my god, are they going to get arrested?” Then I realized that nobody noticed. It was like nobody saw two men walking down the street, holding hands, hugging, kissing; it was like nobody paid any attention. It was a normal part of behavior. My brain started trying to unwind some of all that I had twisted, and it was like, “Okay, if it’s all right to do this, well, now the thoughts come back.” Maybe this is the time where I can start to go back and look at this because I knew that I really was not heterosexual; there was no doubt in my mind. That was not where I wanted to be. I had gone that route just to be normal, and I had engaged myself really, totally in studies. I was a really good student, and I loved school. I really just kind of sublimated all of my sexual energy in just, you know, “Okay, we don’t exist. Let’s just do well in school, study, and have friends.” I did a lot of fun things, traveled a lot, and enjoyed my college—my careers. Remember, this is my third university now. I’m at the University of California, San Francisco, which is actually my third stop. Along the way, I had to take a course with getting a degree in—a master’s in psychiatric nursing. One of the courses that I had to take was human sexuality. In fact, we had several courses that we had to take. I had several clinical hours that I had to do stuff. It was like—I remember the first class, and we were sitting there, talking. There was like twenty of us in the class. The professor came in, and she said, “Okay, these are the things that you will be doing by the end of the term.” We had to [inaudible], we had to— yeah, see the life of prostitutes and all this other sort of stuff. We ended up having to go the sexual history museum there, which was just incredible. I mean, if you’ve never been to San Francisco and been to their museum of 11 �pornography and sexual history, it just—it was incredible. Had to go to a gay bar, had to go to—had to interview people with disabilities that had sexual dysfunctioning because of physical limitations. It was all sorts of things that was included in this course. I became very familiar with SIECUS [Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States]. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with SIECUS, but that was my first introduction, really, to SIECUS and knowing and understanding that that really existed. Belmonte SIECUS is the nation’s, I think, oldest sex education advocacy organization. Gearin Right. They provided all the film work, and all of the films that we saw in the class were actually done by them. It was like, “Well, you’re turned loose on the city, so here you go.” Belmonte Now, this would have been coexistent with the time that it was tremendous tumult in the psychiatric profession about the removal of homosexuality from the— Gearin It was. It happened actually just two years later. I’m trying to remember what year was that... Belmonte ’74. Gearin Was it ’74? Yeah. This was ’72 when I was there. Belmonte Do you recall what you were being taught about homosexuality and whether or not the professors you had were challenging that? Gearin They were not challenging that, and they were really already talking pretty much as if it wasn’t an abomination; it was not a mental disorder. I can remember that several of the professors, several of the psychiatrists that we came in contact with in our clinical rotations, we had homosexual patients, but they did not really—unless their sexuality was an issue with that particular person, it was not an issue. I mean, if they were depressed, and they happened to be gay, that was not—you know, you didn’t treat them being gay. We didn’t try to change them or anything like this. I had seen some of that when I was in the University of Colorado, where there was some real effort to change. You know, they were doing sex changes in San Francisco, by the way, and I got in on doing some interviews with psychologists and joined through some of the progress—some of the process of what they were doing to see if indeed this person was mentally stable for a sex change operation. They had to go through a huge psychological evaluation before the surgeons—you know, they would really do any kind of procedures and things like this. Being involved in how they 12 �were preparing for those interviews and what kind of information they wanted to get and, you know, all this sort of thing. It was really a pretty fascinating time. Belmonte Definitely. When did you decide to come back to Tulsa? Gearin I had really pretty much decided when I went to graduate school, that after I finished, I really wanted to come home. I had been away for a long time. I knew that the education I had gotten, that nurses here were not getting that. I really wanted to be able to bring some of that back and to perhaps do some changing in education for nursing here in Oklahoma, and the only way you’re going to do that is you have to bring what you learned back. So I did do that. When I interviewed for the job position in Muskogee, I had to, first of all, be approved by the University of Oklahoma. In fact, it was a clinical appointment. Muskogee and the VA would not have been able to have hired me had not the University of Oklahoma approved my. Now, mind you, the irony in all of this is that the University of Oklahoma denied me admission to medical school, but now I’m good enough to teach their students and their residents. I thought that was really kind of a neat irony in my lifetime, that I had come back around, and, you know, that bus does keep coming back around. When I interviewed at the University of Oklahoma and talked with them, they asked me to do a colloquium because they had no idea that nursing education was as broad as [inaudible] and that I could do and that I had the ability to do what I did, which was primarily to be a psychotherapist. I had a huge background in medicine, as well. I had several classes in psychopharmacology, and they were just asking me questions. “Well, what about this drug? What about that drug? What about this diagnosis?” They could not believe the level of the education that I had, so I was the first clinical specialist to come to the state of Oklahoma and practice. I was the first to be asked to do a colloquium for the University of Oklahoma. Went down to Oklahoma City and, you know, did a presentation with—I think it was—it seemed like, to me, it was two hundred of them at that audience because I was a little overwhelmed that everyone there was a physician, but they were all fascinated and wanted to know how I knew what I knew and what kind of education I had gotten. It was really a very rewarding experience to go back and talk with the doctors, and, you know, they really treated me as a peer, which was a real special feeling for me. Belmonte How did you find out about gay life in Tulsa? Gearin It’s kind of interesting. When I got to Muskogee…you’ll laugh at this. This will tell you how I really met my lover of twenty-five years. I was working at the VA, and I had just gotten there from California. This—when I was when I was a nurse, and she worked on one of the units. She was—they 13 �were actually the first unit to call me for a consult. They had a patient there that was giving them some problems, and they felt like maybe I could come in and see the patient. So I came in, all very serious-minded, and I had to wear lab coats at that time, but I couldn’t wear regular clothes. Now, I was a California girl by this time and grew up just after the flower children. I was in the—lived right on Haight-Ashbury, lived right on Ashbury Street, just up from Haight. It was all a lot of flower children, free thinking, and I had had a wonderful, rich life when I lived in San Francisco. One of the things was mini-skirts were really big then, and I had some wonderful mini-skirts and things like this. I was much slimmer, and I’m tall anyway and was very tan. I guess when I came on to the hospital, I had all the doctors just absolutely coming in, married or not married, and it was like, “Oh no, don’t want to go here, don’t want to do this.” When I first came on that unit, Linda saw me, and she was the one that had actually requested the consult. This is a straight woman; she had already been married three times, I think it was. Belmonte Clearly didn’t take. Gearin Cleary. (Laughter) Clearly didn’t take. At any rate she—after I finished the consult, she says, “Why don’t you call me sometime?” Well, I’ve never— when you do that, you have to ask me specifically. I’m so naïve, and up in here, I don’t see things. I had no “gay-dar.” Absolutely none, zero, zip. I still don’t have a whole lot of it, but she had good “gay-dar,” which was good for us in our relationship because that’s really how we made friends. She was able to sense and understand, and after we did get together, we started dating and things like this. We met a couple there in Muskogee, and they told us about a bar here in Tulsa. It was over on Memorial, and “Let’s just go up.” I can remember that we, the four of us, came up one Saturday, drove up from Muskogee and walked into that bar, and I thought, “Oh my god, this is wonderful.” Belmonte What was the name of this bar? Gearin Oh my lord, you would ask me. I know I know it just as well, and everybody will know it…The Club. Just The Club: that was it, The Club. Jody and Muriel did—they were a great couple. We became pretty regular customers. (Laughs) You know, every weekend, we’d come up, and, you know, pretty much every weekend, met a group of women and started socializing. Then I had an opportunity to move up here in ’78 because we were going to open a clinic. We knew by that time that we were going to open a clinic here in Tulsa. I had made some really good friends, a couple of guys that we met— they were really—one of them was really quite closeted. He worked at American Airlines, so that was still, you know, early ’70s, late ’70s, early ’80s. He was not inclined to be too out at that particular time, and so we met 14 �these two guys and we just had a great time. Jan was from Amsterdam, and we just had a—we were just kind of soulmates, the four of us. We always had a really good time in doing things, and so the house next door to them came up for sale. Even though I knew we were going to move up here eventually, I didn’t really anticipate that it would be ’78, but it was ’78 when we bought the house and moved in. A year later, the clinic opened. Seventy-nine is when the clinic in the VA opened, so I no longer had to commute, which was much better, because that was a long commute. Once we moved up here, then things really began to grow and stuff. Linda was always a very social person, I mean, and very talented. She was a singer, so she was always out in clubs and things like this. She never met strangers. We very rapidly developed a good, close network of friends, and actually met Dennis Neill through—who’s involved—founder, really, of TOHR, pretty much. Met him and started doing some socializing through the Black and White group. I don’t know if you’ve—have you heard about the Black and White? Belmonte Tell me what you know about it. Gearin Oh, lord. That was a group of guys that decided they wanted to have fun and have a big party every year, so they would have a black and white party. You wore black and white. I mean, the theme was always black and white. You knew what it was, what it was going to be. I’m trying to think—there was quite a few of them at first. I knew several of them, and the first one we went to was down—the first one that Linda and I went to was on—just off of Riverside, at that club—I can’t think of the name of it—but I do believe that was the very first year they had that. That was at like 19th and Riverside, just right up over Riverside. It was the most wonderful time; we just had a ball. It was just all gay people. I mean, it was just absolutely wonderful to think that there’s this many of us, you know. It grew and grew and grew. I mean, every year, it got bigger and bigger. I think—I’m not sure how many years we did that, but it was quite a few years that they did that. It was the big party of the year. Belmonte Was that the first time you recall being at a place with a large number of gay people in Tulsa? Gearin Yes, so it was really fun. It was a lot of fun. Belmonte One of the things that strikes me was being in Tulsa in 2004, is it’s very easy to tap into networks of guys here, but the women’s community is very different. Yet, every once in a while, you’ll stumble into a party or something, and there are two, three hundred people that you probably will never see again. Do you recall similar experiences earlier? 15 �Gearin You know, it was really difficult to meet a lot of women. Most of the women we met were through The Club, which was predominantly a women’s bar. Yeah, you know, it was like—most of the times we went to events, we would be sometimes the only women, or there might be one other couple. Now, at the Black and White, that was not necessarily true, and gradually, more and more women did come. That first year, there weren’t nearly as many women as there were men, but it’s always kind of been that way; it’s an interesting phenomenon, I think, for here. I think today, it still is, to some of that degree. Lots of times, we’ll go to dinner parties and things like this and be the only women, you know. I know that these gay guys have other gay women friends, but it’s—I don’t know, it’s just kind of a strange situation. Belmonte You’ve mentioned The Club. Do you recall any other lesbian establishments? Gearin That was the major—there were several other bars around, but that really was the one that was best known for the women. It was owned by the women and operated by them, so even though the guys would come in there, it was pretty well known that it was primarily the women’s bar. You could go to some of the other gay bars in town, but lots of times, if you went, there may not be any other women there. It was pretty much the men that were in the other bars. Belmonte Now, were you involved in any sort of sports networks? I know that’s always been a good place for gay women to find one another. Gearin Actually not. I didn’t play sports. I really was a very good softball player, basketball player in college, but somehow, didn’t fall into that—how I really started meeting women outside of the bars was through TOHR. I was just earlier talking with a friend, trying to remember exactly when that was. I believe that I first started getting involved with TOHR about ’84, ’83, ’84…’85. How I really got involved with them—I remember doing by-laws; I can remember all sorts of things. They developed the telephone hotline, and John Dratz, who was an attorney here at that particular point in time, was trying to get it going. I had helped Tulsa, the city of Tulsa, develop the hotline here and train, and so he wanted me to work on the hotline for TOHR. That’s—I’m not sure what year that was that we opened that, but I think it was like ’85, maybe, or ’86. I’m not real sure. That was when the helpline really came into play. We even had it at a bar; we had it at Zipper’s. That’s where we were the very first few times that we took calls. (Laughter) I’d go down to the bar and, you know, walk in and go through the bar and go to the back office, you know. It was just amazing, it was just amazing. Belmonte Zipper’s sounds like it was quite the hub of gay life here for a long time. Do you have any memories of Zipper’s? 16 �Gearin Oh yes. It was really a great place. It was for everybody: you know, lots of dancing, lots of good music. It was really a pretty fun place to go. As I said, when I first was going there, I was working. You know, I was going into the back rooms and answering the phone. It was really was a fun place. Lots of folks would be there. We would always just be real decadent and acting out and doing our thing and thinking, “Oh, I wonder if anybody knows what really goes on behind these walls.” By the way, that would have been a good name for a movie, If These Walls Could Talk. You know, we had lots of fun with that. That was kind of interesting times, fun times. Belmonte You began telling us this story about what happened to Vivienne. Do you recall instances of discrimination and harassment of women you knew or men you knew in Tulsa in this period? Gearin You know, kind of by hearsay, never somebody I really knew closely. I can remember hearing stories of somebody that lost their job or was refused housing, you know, this kind of thing. We were—you know, I think in the early ’80s, we were still careful. I mean, you weren’t just real free with— you were careful with what you did. There were a lot of things that we did in homes, lots of parties and things, dinners. I went to a lot of events that were in people’s homes. A lot of that I think was because of safety issues; it was more that we felt like we were—you know, could be safe and not have to worry about walking out to our car and having the police follow you. I can remember tales where some women and guys would have left the club and been stopped by the police and harassed because they knew. The police knew that it was gay bars. They knew, you know, they knew where they were. We weren’t fooling anybody; they know where we were. I never personally was involved in it, and none of my really good friends were ever a part of that, but I did hear about it. I knew a couple of times there were some beatings. Some of the guys got beat up, but they were never people that I really knew. I may have known of them, but I didn’t know them really personally, know them well. I was pretty fortunate in that aspect. Belmonte Tell me about what you remember about AIDS reaching Tulsa? Gearin That was horrible. I had several really good friends that died in the mid ’80s and in the late ‘80s. I started having veterans come in at work, as well, and it was probably the worst time of my life: to have people that you know and love and you care about, and to watch them just very rapidly deteriorate and die. They didn’t live; they died. It changed my whole approach to life because I realized how precious it truly is. We don’t, any of us, have the luxury of knowing, but those guys had the misfortune of knowing that they weren’t going to live very long once they received their diagnosis. Most of them had been positive, probably, for quite some time, but we didn’t really 17 �know and understand the diseases nearly as well as we do now. Those times were really difficult, and I felt compelled to do something to help, not just professionally but also within the community because we were losing a lot of gay men. How follies was born, and I was a part of that. TOHR had been real active with that. This was 1988. I’ll never forget this. How I know this is I’m an OU fan; I love basketball. The University of Oklahoma was in the final four in 1988. They played the University of Kansas, in fact, in the championship game and lost. We were at follies, which TOHR produced as a fundraiser every year, and my lover and Ellis Wagoner, who at that time worked with the Tulsa Tribune—there were two papers at that time—he was the entertainment editor, and he was gay, and his lover was there. We were there—the four of us were there, and Linda and Ellis get off on this tangent, and they’re talking about, “You know what? We could put on a musical variety show and raise a hell of a lot of money,” because there were like, maybe a couple of hundred there. “We could really do this big; we could really do this.” We know all of the musicians; we knew—they knew talent. They started plotting all of this out. That was actually the birth of follies review, which for ten years did a musical variety show annually, and all the money that we made from that, outside of our expenses, we turned over to the community to agencies such as Tulsa Cares, RAIN, you know, anybody that was taking care of—St. Joseph’s. We gave money to anybody that was providing any kind of health care or any kind of benefits to people with AIDS. That was the birth of that, and that was through—and TOHR actually sponsored us our first two years. We did the first musical variety show in 1989 downtown at the PAC, the Performing Arts Center. We had the small stage—one of the small stages, John Williams, and we ran these people across and did music—it was a musical variety show. Had it for three nights, and that was 1989. Did it again in ’90 with TOHR, and then decided in ’93 we’d incorporate it and just decided to do it all on our own. The next eight years, we just did it all as our own…our own source, our own wings, [inaudible]. We gave away almost 300,000 dollars in ten years. We raised quite a bit of money and gave it to these little grass-roots organizations. I was very actively involved on several boards with Shanti. I was on their first board of directors. I did group therapy with AIDS patients, and the community helped establish some of those groups. I was just as—I mean, really there was days during the week that I would leave work and go do some of this stuff, and it was like, almost a twenty-four hour kind of thing. I was just very actively involved in doing everything that I could. Did so for about ten years and gradually kind of started to burn out with some of them because you just don’t have the energy. Buried a lot of friends during those years; that was an awful time. Tremendous losses, you know, you had such a 18 �wonderful, talented group of people, and they’re no longer here. It’s really too bad because they were in the primes of their lives. They would’ve, you know, had AIDS not come around, been there, been here. Belmonte It sounds to me like Tulsa was actually pretty bold in responding to AIDS in the early stages. Gearin Very. We got very well organized through the Community Service Council, which was a United Way foundation group. Janice Nicolas and Joan Flint were kind of the spearhead of that, and they started getting the community together. All the organizations that were doing anything, we all started networking and we would meet down there once a month, and we would do planning. We would look at, “What are we having problems with? What do we need?” but there were several organizations that—respectable, you know, straight organizations—that were involved. It still offered, I think, for all of us, a little bit of a hope that not everybody is discriminatory, not everybody is going to dismiss us, that, you know, we are real people, we do have something to contribute. It was through those efforts of those women and some of the other—like the Visiting Nurse Association, our affiliation there—it was, really it was a wonderful time of networking and doing liaison work and growing and developing and, you know, meeting people and trying to see that we had a real need here, and we had a real void, and what could we do to plug in. It was a great time. It was a busy time, a hugely busy time, but very successful, as well. We had an infectious disease physician, who was very well-known in the community, Dr. Jeff Beale and his lover, Ted Campbell, and they were spearheading all the medical parts of it. They helped, you know. Everybody was involved; everybody was doing things. If you weren’t doing things, you at least went to some of the events and gave your money, you know, like follies or some of the other things. I can remember ice cream—there was always something going on. Interfaith AIDS Network was also around then, and they were an even—really smaller group. It was the Quakers and some of those folks, and they were involved, and they were doing ice cream socials and street fairs, and you know, everybody was trying to turn a dime. I mean, we were all trying to get money because we were wanting these organizations to help these young men. Trying to provide them buddies, trying to provide them support groups…we felt they were just hugely necessary. Catholic charities had St. Joe’s house, which was taking care of those that, once they became so debilitated, families couldn’t take care of them, and we could—you know, or they were abandoned. We could put them in there, and we could help take care of them. It was a time when everybody kind of bonded and pulled together. I think the gay community really started to see that they could have some support with the straight community. I mean, it 19 �was like—there were some real inroads made during that time. The AIDS crisis did a lot for other things, too. It wasn’t just the bad things; there were also some really very good things, very positive things that came out of that. This is just an incidental we’ll add in here. (Laughter) We’re going to backtrack a little. There were a lot of really funny things that happened when Linda and I used to go to The Club. They had a woman that was all into her; her name was Suki. Suki would always kind of monitor if we came in and came out and stuff like this. Jody usually was working behind the bar. Mary would sometimes, as well, and they would kind of circulate. They were the owners of the bar. One night, Linda and I were there, and it was a big crowd. I can’t remember exactly what happened to start it all off, but as I recall, I think a guy got pretty drunk and started getting pretty disorderly. Jody came flying across the bar, (Laughs) nailed a guy, pushed him up to the wall, and was holding him. Well, everybody is jumping up, and it’s like— everybody is now going to—when you know that something is happening, like a fight or something like this—it was the closest I ever came to being in a fight. It was like, everybody just wanted to, just gravitate. I’m up and out of the table, and the only thing I was really going to do was just to try and prevent other people from getting involved because Jody really had the situation under control, and the guy wasn’t really trying to fight her once he realized what was going on. I don’t think he ever expected that Jody was going to do that. None of us really did, but anyway, I was just trying to keep people back and keep them away. When I went back to the table, Linda is sitting there, looking at me, and she says, “My god,” she says, “I thought you were going to get in a fight!” (Laughter) I said, “Fight? No, I wasn’t going to fight. I was just trying to make sure that Jody didn’t get into trouble because all the other people trying to climb in top of him and get involved,” because back then, some of those women would have really just loved to have gotten involved. I was like, “Okay guys, Jody’s handling it. Just, you know, let’s let her.” I mean, they really would have liked to have handled it because there was a lot of role changes there. A lot of that was going on, that was when I was coming out with all of this. Women that were the butch and the ones that were the femmes. Belmonte So this was even in the ’80s that was still entrenched here. Gearin Actually, yes. That would have been the early ’80s. Probably because Tulsa is still behind, you’ve got to remember. (Laughter) Everything gravitates from the coasts, you know, either the West Coast or the East Coast. It takes it a while to get to the middle part of the country. Belmonte Janet, you were describing a few minutes ago a rather volatile situation at a bar in Tulsa and alluded to… 20 �Gearin Yes. Very exciting. Belmonte …the existence of kind of defined butch/femme roles in the Tulsa lesbian community. This is interesting, given that this was the early ’80s. Tell me a little bit more about that. Was that common among the couples that you knew? Gearin Oh, absolutely. When you went to the bar, it was—a lot of times, it was very much—you knew who was butch, and you knew who was femme—couples, you knew who were couples. I can remember Linda and I laughing and saying, “Do we look like them?” I never did see myself as one way or the other, but it was like when you went to the bar, it was really—it had to be kind of clarified as to who was who. You know, I would have people say, “Well, is that your wife?” and these kinds of things. I’m going, “Linda [inaudible] ever going to be my wife?” (Laughs) you know, because I had never—we didn’t know. We really were both pretty green with all of this because I didn’t have a whole lot of experience, and she had absolutely none. It was kind of fun because we didn’t really know how we were to behave, or if we had to assume a certain role, or not assume a certain role, or how we were to interact with these women. Over a period of time, you just kind of—you don’t even look at it, you don’t even see it, but I can remember the first few times going into the bar and seeing women who really looked more like men than they did women and thinking, “Wow, this is kind of interesting,” and wondering, “Should I—do I need to do that?” You know, this sort of thing. “Or are they just going to think we’re both femmes? What are we going to both be?” Struggling with some of that and not really knowing, having no [inaudible] what a lot of these women had gone through, it was kind of interesting to learn that they were very much that way all the time. They were that way in their jobs. I can remember my brother worked with Telex—one of my brothers—and there were several of the women that worked at Telex. They worked on those boards; you know, they did the computer things like that, and he knew them. He knew these women. He knew that they were lesbians, so at that particular time—we’ve since talked about all of this, I’ve asked him about it in terms of—retrospectively. It was kind of interesting at that time that they really dressed that way, they looked that way, and they had their wives, they had their girlfriends, whatever. You were real careful. I did see some fights. It was a whole new world to me to see women fighting, you know, across the lines and things like this. “Oh no, that’s my woman. That’s my wife. Leave her alone.” It was an interesting time at the bar. 21 �Belmonte Sure. That’s fascinating because this is something other parts of the country have been documented as disappearing. It’s starting to disappear in the ’70s. Gearin We probably, as I said, weren’t there. We probably weren’t there because we’ve always been a little bit behind. Belmonte You mentioned that you started to get a little burnt out with the AIDS activism. Gearin More burnt out, not so much with the activism, but with the follies. That was a ten-year, a year-round job for us. Rehearsals were in my house. (Laughter) All this sort of stuff, you can’t imagine. We made props in my house, and you’ve seen the house on [inaudible], so thank god it was as big as it was. We’ve had rehearsals out in the backyard by the pool, in the yard, dance lessons—I mean, the whole nine yards. It was a rigorous undertaking because it took a big part of the year to plan it. You had to know what you were going to do in terms of music. You had to get the music. Then we would have auditions and get entertainers and people across the city to help us backstage because we had to have a lot of help backstage. It was really a huge, huge undertaking. We did this on a shoestring budget. We would just leave ourselves enough money at the end of the previous show—we would just leave enough money in our budget to get started again the next year. We were always on a shoestring, but I knew it was always going to come through. I wore lots of hats: I sold advertisements, walked into businesses in the city and tried to sell ads, sold tickets. We did what we had to do. It was like ten of us that were on the board; we were a working board, and we worked very hard. It was a year-round thing. Belmonte Why was follies disbanded? Gearin Primarily because we just burned out with it. After ten years, we did ten years, and it was just too much. We were extremely successful; it was a very—by the time we quit, we were really doing quite well financially with it because we were making a lot of money. We had a patron chair; we started doing that early on. Bob Caesar was one of our board of members, and Bob was very—he’s an interior designer like Charles Faudree—and he was very—knew a lot of people. When we first were getting started with this, we wanted to try and get into the community—the straight community, if you will, because the gay community was getting pumped out, I mean, money-wise. They were supporting all of the AIDS things going on. We really felt like Tulsa, as a whole, needed to know about it, and they also needed to contribute. We needed the money; we needed their support. There came a period in time while follies was doing this, and I believe it was like around ’92, ’93, ’94, about those three years, that AIDS and HIV 22 �became a real popular bandwagon for you to contribute to if you were in the straight world. We took a real big hook and advantage of that. Part of that was Bob helped us to get chairmen—our patron chair, who would lend their name to the event and give us their guest list. We had huge numbers of people that we got involved and bought tickets and came to the show that were straight. We brought in a lot of money that wasn’t being tapped into, and that was really a good thing. That was a really good thing. During the course of the show, I would always give some interesting statistics. I was the announcer. I never was on stage. I was always backstairs, behind the scenes, with the camera off the stage area. You just heard my voice, and I always was the one that would announce the acts and introduce them and do all of these neat little things. I would develop some kind of dialogue so that I would give some information and history during the course of the show about what was going on in Tulsa and nationwide and worldwide. Belmonte Are there any tapes of any of these shows? Gearin I may have some of them still around. I’m not sure if I do or not. I’ll look in the archives and see. Belmonte It would be wonderful to have some of those, copies of some of those. Do you recall, in conjunction with the work you did with AIDS, getting opposition from the community in Tulsa? Gearin Yes, I got a lot of doors slammed in my face when I would go and want to try and sell ads or something like this. People, “Oh no, I’m not supporting that. Those men deserve what they got.” That sort of thing, I got it a few times. Not too much, but I did get it from a few businesses and things like that when I would try to sell advertising. When you have somebody that’s very well-known in this community, and very powerful, and very rich, and very wealthy, and they’re behind your show; they’re your chairperson, that’s pretty hard to say no to. I found that I would make it clear who was our sponsoring chair and what was going to be our patrons. Once they found out that, then I opened a lot more doors and was really helpful to us in getting incredible amounts of help from printing at the program. We got our program usually printed free, Judy Rogers’ lithograph. We had Kery Walsh, who was our designer for that. He still probably is very active in the community. Kery was wonderful to do all of our graphic work for our program and our layout, and we had several—we had two board members that primarily just did nothing but work on our program and our posters. We had some very well-known artists do posters for us: P.S. Gordon, for one. We just had an overall response that just helped bring in more and more people and get more and more involved. As I said, when you have patrons that have a name for themselves, then you have a little bit more 23 �legitimacy. That helped us. It opened doors. It did open doors for us. It was just a matter of like, after ten years, you just got [inaudible] about it. Belmonte Right. So the last year of follies was… Gearin ’98. Belmonte Oh, so not that long ago. Gearin We did the first one in ’89 and did the last one in ’98. Belmonte How do you think the gay community in Tulsa has changed from the time you’re describing, the years of the club, and now? You’ve recently made the decision to be part of TOHR again. Gearin Back—I was an active member for, I guess, about four years, five years. Then to come back after all this time…. I missed kind of some of the old things, to be quite honest. It’s interesting. I know—like with TOHR, when I first was going there and was really actively involved, we had huge meetings. I mean, we might have a couple hundred people come to a meeting. It was lots of folks; that’s what they were involved in. I miss kind of that. I miss the [inaudible] of getting up, conducting the meeting, all the things that go with that. The little subcommittees that, you know—I did bylaws one year, and I’ll never do that again; that was a terrible job for TOHR. I do miss some of those older things that we had because it was really nice. Now, it’s pretty much just the board and not so much the whole community as a whole that’s involved. That was nice. That was a nice thing to do. It was a great time. Belmonte I hope we can get that back. Gearin That would be nice. I really think it would be nice. It was very much needed back then, and I suspect it still is probably very much needed, that people do need to be out. I think the difference—in terms of following along with that—the difference is that, I think, I now go out more to people’s homes, even more so than I did back then. Years ago, I was out to the bars and things like this quite a bit, doing things, but now, it’s like you have small dinners with friends, maybe there’s ten of you and maybe there’s eight of you. It’s not quite so many large functions that I go to. I still know people that I met in the late ’70s, the early’80s, and they’re still good friends and we still socialize and things like this. I kind of—this is one reason why I wanted to get back with TOHR, was to get back with the [inaudible], see how much change has there been? Sometimes when you’re in a relationship, you don’t always see things and do things. When I was in follies, that was year-round. Even though the gay community was very much involved in all of that, it was also the straight community, as well. It was like working both 24 �of them because there were people on the board that were gay, but there were people on our board that were straight. I was not doing a lot of the other social things that I was doing when I first got to Tulsa. I was getting my social needs met differently, I guess you would say. It was more smallerscale in terms of homes and things like this. Belmonte Politically, Oklahoma obviously has a lot of work to do on gay rights issues. What’s your sense as a long-term Tulsa resident? Gearin I’ve always thought that there’s a certain part of Tulsa that’s going to be the redneck part, probably no matter what. You’re going to meet people that have bias; they’re probably not going to change their minds. I worry less about changing people’s minds directly; I’ve always been somebody, who, if I can lead them there and they don’t know I’ve led them there, or I can push them there—and I’ve done this for patients. That’s, I think, why I’m successful as a therapist is, I let the patients talk their way through things. Eventually, I give them little guidance here and there, and eventually they come around to where I feel they need to be to be healthier. They would agree with that, I’m sure. It’s the same thing in terms of the gay community. It’s like, you know, sometimes we beat that wall and we don’t really need to be beating it. If we just let life go, people come around. They realize that this is a democracy. This is, you know—we all want to just be treated equally, and that “Oh my gosh, did you know that your brother’s gay?” You find out that you know somebody gay. Back then, we didn’t find out that because we kept it more of a secret. Now, I think you see that people do know somebody that’s gay or they know of somebody that’s gay, and it’s like “Okay. Well, they’re a nice guy,” or “They’re a nice lady, it’s okay.” I think as we’re out, and that’s the beauty, I guess, of being out, is that people will see and understand us and know us for the people that we are. Eventually, our sexuality is not going to be a big issue in that. We’re all going to get there; it’s just a matter of time. It’s a process that we all have to kind of go through. I think that’s kind of where we’re headed. I think that’s a positive thing. Being a little bit of along the conservative and an old hat, some of the new things that were going on, like with the gay marriages, and I’m sitting there going, “Am I appalled or not? How do I feel about this?” (Laughter) It’s like, “Parts of that scare me and parts of it not scare me, but parts of that bother me in a sense that—oh, I guess I get the people with honey, not put it in their face.” There’s a little bit—it’s a fine line. Sometimes I really have to put it in people’s face, but then I don’t know if I want to be the one that does it. It’s like, “Okay, I’ll just sit back and watch it, see what’s going to happen.” I don’t know that I could honestly be on the front part with some of that, either. I would probably be more inclined to be—unlike Vivienne. Vivienne’s probably out there leading all of this. I’m sure she’s probably 25 �been on the steps of San Francisco. I’m not really quite that way. I’m kind of more of a behind the person, but I’m not going to lie to you, either. If people ask, I generally will tell them. I’m not going to try and hide that. I’m one of those that doesn’t talk about it a lot, it just is. As you get to know me, you probably know that, or you’ll sense that, but we’ll talk about everything, talk about me as a person, as a human, that comes first. Belmonte I think we’re going to end on that note. Davis Well, I have one thing I was going to throw out to see. You remember the VA. What was the impact of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in that community? Belmonte That’s an excellent question. Gearin The military guys—it’s really—I’m in mental health, so everyone I work with personally is very progressive. You’ve got to understand that they’re not going to be the ones that think that. We’ve been working in therapy with people who have been gay for years, so it’s not an issue. I think for other people, we all kind of laugh at it. It’s like, you’ve got to be kidding. That was the dumbest—I still think that was such a huge error in judgement to even have that as part of the military. Gays have always been in the military. They got by; they did well. They weren’t out, for the most part, although I think, again, a lot of people probably knew that they were gay, but they didn’t flaunt it, so they left them alone, and they didn’t—they just managed to make it. I’ve had too many men that were very actively gay when they were in the military, but they were also discrete, too. It’s a line of—you have to be real careful with it because there are some serious repercussions; you get booted out. If you get a dishonorable discharge, that’s a terrible thing. I think most of the guys would probably like to just see it not be there at all. It’s almost like it was an embarrassment to have it. It probably caused more bad than it helped. That’s usually perception of the military men that I’ve talked with. I have a lot of straight guys that talked—they knew they were fighting next to a gay guy, but they couldn’t care less. In Vietnam or Desert Storm or wherever, if they were able to fire at the enemy and protect his backside, I guarantee you they didn’t care that he was homosexual. They cared that he was a good soldier because that’s really why they were there, was to be a good soldier. I guess overall, it was—I think it was—probably most of us would probably say it was a bad thing. Again, I think it was a bad thing because originally, Clinton wanted to get rid of it altogether. When he realized he wasn’t going to be able to do that because he didn’t have the power to do it, then they changed it. To be quite honest, I think it probably would have been better off just to have left it as it was. I’ve always felt that that was—I think probably 26 �most of the people that worked with the VA or veterans probably feel the same way. I think we’re already doing “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” I mean, when you really think about it, isn’t that kind of what we’ve been doing all along, to some degree in various ways? It’s always “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” I’ve had people ask me over the years, “Well, how did your brothers find out? What if somebody asked you?” I’m going to tell them. I figure if they ask me, then they’re wanting to know, otherwise they wouldn’t ask me. I want to tell them if they ask me. If they don’t ask me, I may not necessarily volunteer; it just depends. Depend on how comfortable I am. Belmonte Janet, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us this afternoon. Gearin You’re welcome. I’ve enjoyed it, thank you very much. Belmonte This completes our interview. ------- End of interview ------- Addendum – Janet added this additional information in March 2026: Janet finished her career with the VA in January 2013. This is a brief synopsis of her career highlights with special emphasis on her carryover of her HIV work within the VA system. “I am not sure of the date, but I was invited to attend a 1-day VA Conference in Dallas Texas. That conference basically brought me into the HIV approach about treatment and education of VA personnel across the country. Since my area of practice within the VA was in Mental Health, I was a bit confused as to why I was invited. The conference was led by Dr Bopper Deyton from the VA Central Office. At the end of the 1 day event I was asked to attend a more detailed 3-day training in Baltimore. It was at that training event that I had been selected to be one of an HIV Consortium that would work across the country to other VA Hospitals to train medical and nursing staff on the care and treatment of persons with HIV/AIDS that presented to the VA for care. It was to be one of the most gratifying and rewarding experiences of my career. As an aside note I was sent to Chicago for an HIV National convention. Dr Deyton met me at the Conference Center and sent me to sit beside his friend and mentor. I was stunned when during our introduction to each other he noted he was Dr. Anthony Fauci. It would be the first of several HIV meetings/Conferences that we would meet. 27 �As a “by the way” I learned that Dr Deyton learned of me through a mutual friend…. Dr Jeff Beal! 28 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2004] Janet Gearin Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 22, 2004 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on February 22, 2004. Born in Vinita, Oklahoma on February 3, 1947, Janet lived in Duncan, Oklahoma and graduated High School in Lindsey, Oklahoma. She attended University of Oklahoma College of Liberal Arts (previously Oklahoma College for Women) in Chickasha, Oklahoma. She attended the University of Colorado and received a master’s in clinical psychiatric nursing from the University of California, San Francisco. With aging parents, she returned to Oklahoma and practiced with the 9 Department of Veteran Affairs in Muskogee and then in Tulsa. Janet entered into a 25- year relationship with a fellow VA nurse, Linda Stevens. In the 1980’s, both got involved with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR), the predecessor to Oklahomans for Equality. Janet helped with the TOHR helpline and became a key volunteer in TOHR’s HIV/AIDS outreach and testing. In 1989, Linda, Janet and others revamped TOHR’s annual Follies Review (dance and song stage show) for HIV/AIDS programming support. The Follies Review was presented annually through 2008. She also served as a counselor and advisor to Shanti, an AIDS support program started in Tulsa in 1986, and served on the TOHR board. Subject The topic of the resource Janet Gearin Oral History Project Interview from February 22, 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Janet Gearin, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2004 AIDS Support Program AIDS testing AIDS/HIV AIDS/HIV testing Department of Veteran Affairs follies HIV testing HIV/AIDs HIV/AIDs outreach HIV/AIDs testing hotline interview Janet Gearin Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte Linda Stevens OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma College for Women oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Shanti Shanti Project TOHR TOHR Board of Directors Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Board of Directors Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights HIV Testing University of California University of California San Francisco University of Colorado University of Oklahoma College of Liberal Arts video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2005] Janie Reeves Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcription of Laura Belmonte’s interview with Janie Reeves on November 19, 2005. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> Janie was born in Denver in 1971. She attended the University of Tulsa and became involved with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights, the predecessor to Oklahomans for Equality. She served as board president in 1991. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 19, 2005 Subject The topic of the resource Janie Reeves Oral History Project Interview from November 19, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Janie Reeves, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2005 available at Center Board President Janie Reeves Dennis Neill interview Janie Reeves Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript TOHR TOHR Board of Directors transcript TU Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Board of Directors University of Tulsa video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/cb45fd2c080c696f642bbf3a4ec34ca2.mp4 5200eb31f5519513b3b1c578c0a4b556 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/0a9ad56686aff1c861791cbd6e559964.pdf 9f05611ad7684b1eccd5aa7a33466e4d PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with Jeremy Simmons Interview Conducted by Dennis Neill Date: January 21, 2026 Transcribed and Edited By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video AI, February 26, 2026 Restrictions: Interviewee requested: N/A Oklahomans for Equality History Project 621 E. 4th Street Tulsa, OK. 74120 918.743.4297 historyproject@okeq.org 1 �About Jeremy Simmons Keywords Jeremy Simmons, LGBTQ+, sexual orientation, HIV awareness, community advocacy, personal identity, religious background, nonprofit management, Tulsa, equality Takeaways  Jeremy grew up in a conservative, religious environment.  He navigated his sexual identity amidst societal expectations.  Experiences of bullying shaped his understanding of acceptance.  He identifies as more attracted to men but has explored bisexuality.  Performance art has been a form of self-expression for him.  Community engagement has been a significant part of his life.  He has worked with various organizations for HIV awareness.  Transitioning from OKQ to HOPE was a pivotal moment in his career.  Nonprofit management presents unique challenges and opportunities.  He believes in the potential for positive change in the community. Summary In this interview, Jeremy Simmons shares his journey of self-discovery and advocacy within the LGBTQ+ community. Growing up in a conservative, religious environment, he navigated the complexities of his sexual identity while facing societal expectations and bullying. His experiences shaped his commitment to community engagement and HIV awareness, leading to significant roles in various organizations. Jeremy reflects on the challenges of nonprofit management and expresses hope for the future of the LGBTQ+ community, emphasizing the importance of continued advocacy and support. 2 �Chapters 00:00 Jeremy Simmons Oral History Interview January 22, 2026 01:24:24 Introduction and Early Life 01:27:21 Religious Background and Identity 01:30:25 Navigating Sexual Orientation in Adolescence 01:33:35 Experiences of Bullying and Acceptance 01:36:31 Understanding Bisexuality and Self-Identification 01:39:24 Relationships and Social Circles 01:42:27 Coming Out and Community Engagement 01:45:21 Work History and Involvement with Equality Center 01:48:09 HIV Testing and Support Services 01:51:19 Challenges in Healthcare Access 01:54:15 Personal Experiences with HIV and Community Support 02:03:57 The Evolution of HIV Treatment and Public Perception 02:08:30 Community Outreach and Testing Initiatives 02:13:33 Navigating Funding Challenges in Nonprofits 02:20:23 The Impact of Government Regulations on Nonprofits 02:25:31 The Journey of Hope: From Formation to Growth 02:32:55 Reflections on Personal Growth and Community Engagement 02:40:16 Advocacy and the Changing Landscape of LGBTQ+ Rights 02:47:42 Looking Forward: Optimism for the Future Jeremy Simmons Oral History Interview January 21, 2026 Dennis Neill: Good afternoon. It is January, the 21st, 2026, and we're in the Nancy and Joe McDonald Rainbow Library at the Equality Center and we're having the opportunity to interview Jeremy Simmons. And Jeremy, would you state your name and give us some basic biographical information, like your birthday, your early growing up experiences, a little bit of your family background that you might want to share and your early education? Jeremy Simmons: Sure, Jeremy Simmons, I grew up in and around Bartlesville, so Washington County, so in the city of Bartlesville and it's, and in very small places like around Ramona and Tulala, like so in the middle of nowhere. At one point we had a 3 �house. It was like a half a mile away from anybody, so remote for some of that. I was born a long time ago and I'm much older now and I moved to Tulsa in 94 and that's where I've lived here over half my life and because it's been so long and like all of my adult life, I think of Tulsa as my home now. Dennis Neill: And where'd you do your elementary and high school work? Jeremy Simmons: That's a great question. I did it in different, at Caney Valley in Bartlesville, where the two schools that I was in and Wesleyan religious school at the beginningDennis Neill: is that the one in Bartlesville? Jeremy Simmons: Yes Dennis Neill: What year did you graduate from high school? Jeremy Simmons: Sometime in the 90s, and they have 56 peopleDennis Neill: Did you go immediately on to post-secondary? Jeremy Simmons: Not right away. I spent a little time at Tulsa Community College trying to sort of know what I wanted to do, and then I went to the University of Tulsa later in the 90s. I have an associate's degree in humanities from TCC and I had worked on a sociology degree that I did not complete. Dennis Neill: Okay, great, great, anything else that you can share with us about your family background, like siblings or other information you want to share about? Jeremy Simmons: So my life before I moved here was quite different and I don't really like to dig super deep into it. Just to be honest with you. I feel comfortable saying I grew up in extremely isolated rural areas, pretty religious background, as you can imagine. I did pre-k, kindergarten and first grade at the Wesleyan school, which is quite traditional conservative. So, coming from that background, although the interesting thing about it was kind of interesting going to the Weslyan School, I was surrounded by people from different countries and different races and nationalities, so then going to smaller schools and being not around that was sometimes more conservative, honestly, being in the public schools in a small town. Dennis Neill: Talk a little bit more about your early religious experience and how that's evolved over time. Any intersection with how you identify from a sexual orientation? Jeremy Simmons: Oh, that's a great question. So for me, in the way that I grew up, so all of my family was very religious and most of the people in my area were just very religious. So religion just dominated everything. And at one point for many years, next to a Southern Baptist Church, it was this like the second biggest building in town after the school. So it makes quite an impression. I was very Christian in a very traditional conservative way because I thought that that was there wasn't really any thought about it. It's like when you grow up in rural spaces a lot of times it's just like, everybody thinks that abortion is wrong and 4 �everybody thinks that homosexuality is wrong and everybody supports the troops and it's like they're sort of a far-right cultural line that blends with the religion and you just like 80- 90% of the people feel that way, or they pretend to. Yeah, so when I was quite young I was actually fairly conservative, which, looking back, it's kind of like okay, but then it's just kind of hard to integrate that old life with who I was later. But I also started making out with boys when I was a very young. Dennis Neill: Do you mind sharing what age you're talking about? Jeremy Simmons: Definitely by sixth grade, maybe by fifth grade range, roughly so. So even though everybody was far right religious, there was same-sex stuff and drinking. There were things that always happened. They were just very underground. You just had to be very, very careful about them, right? Dennis Neill: In that period, were you also trying to deal and date the opposite sex while you were in junior high, high school? How did you kind of blend those thoughts with your other aspects of your peers? Jeremy Simmons: That's another really great question and it's so hard to put into words. So, without, especially without doing like getting into psychobabble language, but cognitive dissonance is definitely a thing. I viewed myself as heterosexual and so I had girlfriends, but I didn't want to have sex with any of them and I did want to have sex with men and so, but it got to a certain point. as you get older, I think it's harder to even be gay undercover in some of those situations. I stopped doing anything with boys by probably 14, 15, definitely 16.. I remember by the time we were all driving age for sure, , like none of us were doing that anymore. It was considered like something that you just did as a kid and didn't talk about it anymore. So I just thought I genuinely thought for a while that if I just kept giving it a try, I'd meet the right girl. That's where my head was with all that. Dennis Neill: And did you go to like the proms or the other school events like that with… Jeremy Simmons: Very weirdly, yeah, I know, it was like when I talk to people who grew up, they want to talk to people my age or older. I come across a lot of parallels, or even younger people who grew up in rural areas still like who grew up 10, 20 years later than me. They're like: oh yeah, I mean, you've had to have a girlfriend. That was just a part of it. So also to, I was also kind of smaller. I wasn't super athletic. Not getting picked on meant being conservative and being straight and doing certain things. Dennis Neill: So did you have bullying experiences? Jeremy Simmons: Oh sure Dennis Neill: Over what reasons? Or what characteristics? Jeremy Simmons: I mean sometimes I would get called a faggot or or a sissy or whatever, something that, some type of equivalent of that. Some of that was 5 �probably more intentionally directed. And then some of it is just things that people say that are hurtful, like, if someone's slightly effeminate or smaller framed. They're gonna be compared to being girlish, separate from their gender identity or sexuality. I think it's just a jab, right, it's something that could be hurtful. And then some of it felt like more directed. I remember there was a lot of different experiences. Sometimes a lot of kids that were like one to three years older than us and that kind of range would try and isolate us and pick on us, and there was a one time where some older kids may just take our clothes off and I thought something like sexual assault was going to happen and it didn't, fortunately. That was one of the weirder things, but that's one of those things that happens when you get a bunch of other kids that are all supposed to be straight and hyper conservative. Dennis Neill: Were there any of these peers as you're growing up through high school that were more clearly out and comfortable with their different sexual orientations? Jeremy Simmons: No, not so. It depends on where. Probably in Bartlesville, but I didn't go to school there- very much, I think, and definitely not in the Weslyan school. Like you literally couldn't be gay and be at the Weslyan school, like that's a part of their rules. So it's like that wouldn't have been it, there wouldn't have been an option. At that time they only had school up through sixth grade and I quit before then. There are probably kids that that, looking back on it, seemed more effeminate or seem more physically intimate with the same-sex. That might have been something, but when you're young enough, that's all, that's okay. , there's a certain level like there's a little bit of bullying. But unless it gets like, unless you get really affectionate or something , like a little bit of that's okay. It's whenyou get into junior high kind of…Sixth grade and up is when I think people really start having more expectations. That was my experience anyway, and so everything started to get more codified, going to the dances and having regular girlfriends, you are serious enough to change exchange class rings, like there are certain rituals. It's like you needed to participate, and it was much easier for you if you did participate in that. So to not participate in that, even if you were straight and cisgendered and healthy, like, even if you were able, but like even if you didn't have a lot of bullying potential, if you removed yourself from the heterosexual norms, you definitely made yourself a target, so you had to either be- and some kids could do it. I remember the few people that did it- they had to have like a schtick, like they had to be the stoner with the motorcycle or something, like they had to have something, like you could be a black sheep in some, in some ways, but you couldn't just be like, oh, I'm just not gonna date me, buddy, right? Dennis Neill: Talk a little bit more about the process of when you finally decided what your orientation was, and how do you identify now that kind of that path that you followed in getting comfortable with how you currently identify? Jeremy Simmons: Right after high school, I decided that I was bisexual and I actually had sex with women, but very little and I didn't hate it. So bisexuality is somewhat applicable to me, I feel, but it was definitely for me. 6 �It was more of a transitional phase, and I hate saying that because a lot of people sort of pigeonhole bisexuality in general as that, and I very much don't feel that way. There's definitely bisexuality and pansexuality and all the other things are valid for me. I'm just very strongly attracted to other men. I had one girlfriend that was just like you're just not that into this, you just need to be gay. I spent two semesters briefly in Stillwater. I always forget about that in interviews and I was not very successful at school there because I was just interested in figuring out my sexuality and drinking, and doing whatever, so that actually I always forget that part that played. But even though it was just a couple of semesters, it played a huge role in my development because that's because I don't think I would have been able to be bisexual in Bartlesville or Ramona or wherever Copan, anywhere else around there. I mean like none of those places would have tolerated that. At the time in the 90s, I think a lot of people thought that that was just a bullshit thing, even amongst gay people and straight people. I think a lot of people were like, oh, there's just two genders and everybody's either straight or very gay. Everything seemed very bipolar in the 90s. You were just like: I'm this or that. Dennis Neill: Have you ever been married? Jeremy Simmons: No. Dennis Neill: What about any significant long-term relationships that you want to share. Jeremy Simmons: I dated a guy named Robert who's still saved in my phone as bastard ex-boyfriend for a couple of years in the 90s. He's actually a very dear friend. Once we figured out that we were supposed to be friends, everything was great. Um, that's my longest relationship. So when you asked earlier how I identify myself, I try not to do a lot of labels. I just I find it kind of constraining and tedious and then even when you get, even when you pick a label, then five years from now, like the culture and the language is going to change. It just seems like, oh, I'm just human. But the question is very valid, because I am much more into men than women. I feel comfortable as a male, and have always been perceived as more male than female. I feel like it's important to state this is where I come from, this is what I am. But I've had fun dressing up as women. I won by comp, by by crowd vote, at an 80s prom with the full canes. I won prom queen dressed up as Annie Lennox one year. So it's like I'm not really a drag queen all the time, but I feel very comfortable being, I felt comfortable being intimate with women. I feel comfortable being in women's clothes. But I feel more comfortable as a man and more comfortable being with other men. Dennis Neill: Do you consider your drag experience like performance art when you've been on stage, or have you actually been on stage? Jeremy Simmons: Nnot in a traditional way where I would get tips, no, It's been fun, something I've done a handful of times successfully and it was very interesting. 7 �To explain more about me to- I am a little bit of an experience junkie, so I like to fully understand things by immersing myself in them, without doing something like going really hardcore, then I don't feel like I've understood something. But a lot of times I'll do something like dress up in drag. I also was on stage for an S&M ball that my friends did and it's very fun, it's very engaging, but then I'm like: got it done, so, and I don't really know how to put that into words when it comes to…when you talk about sexual identity, because some people like, well, you're a sex addict and I was like absolutely not, like I haven't had sex since before COVID. Sexual sex is very low priority for me, right, but asexuality also doesn't feel right. It's like I say one thing and somebody's always like: oh, so you're asexual and I'm like: no, like I'm physically capable of having sex and I'm interested in maybe doing it again. , probably with a guy now in your network of friends. I have a huge network of friends. So that's one of the nice things about not dating or not having kids: it gives you a lot of time to follow personal interests and develop friend networks. So, yes, I have tons of friends here and I never have enough time to keep up with all of them, which is lovely. I have some that are much closer, but I don't know, when I was younger it was much more important for me to identify as gay and I think because- but I think a part of that was because I was told that that was wrong and because it was so much harder to do that in the 90s- be openly gay, especially if you were young and didn't have a ton of money. I think for people who have a lot of money or people who live in certain cities, it's always been easier for anything . A lot of that identity stuff was very important to me then, and dating was very important to me. Then the 2000s hit, I just got less interested in it and so every now and then I'll date and it just seems to run its course faster and it's done. Dennis Neill: Did you immediately get acclimated to the gay and lesbian community, like through the bars or other social activities? Jeremy Simmons: Yeah, Dennis Neill: And what was kind of some of your first experiences, going out and socializing like locations? Jeremy Simmons: Yes,in the 80s and 90s at a certain point it was okay to go out to after-hours clubs and and whatever your age was, and then I think maybe 92 to 94 range, before I moved here, they changed the city, passed law saying that they couldn't do that anymore. When I was a baby, like I remember- I remember going to Icon that did after-hour stuff and I didn't have my driver's license yet, so I was probably 15 at the oldest. And while that wasn't a gay club, it was a very gay-friendly place. Yeah, I remember the name, but where is the location? It used to be on Peoria, Brookside proper, close to where, I think it was in or near where Sharkey's is right now. Dennis Neill: Okay, so it was on that side [east] of the street? 8 �Jeremy Simmons: Yep, on the east side, definitely. Because at one time there was also what, Concessions? Dennis Neill: Concessions was across the street, very close there. Jeremy Simmons: Icon was great. And it was definitely, for somebody who was trying to figure themselves out, being in an environment like rural Washington County, and then coming there where there were people dressed in drag, and there was goth people, and there was ravers, and there was weird old bikers, and people were doing drugs all over the place. And so that was a very different world. It was very interesting. It was very fun for me. I was very young, so I was a little too timid to get too involved with anything, but it was definitely fun to be a fly on the wall at that time. While I didn't grow up here, I do remember things from the 80s and earlier 90s from here, because I've always lived near Tulsa. I remember coming out to some of those spaces that were definitely gayadjacent. And like many other men my age, around that time, I went to the Toolbox before I was 21, and that's the bar, which is now the Eagle on 3rd. I don't remember when, but it would have been, I don't know, before I moved here in 94. Dennis Neill: Did you live on your own initially? Jeremy Simmons: I had roommates for quite a while. Dennis Neill: Gay, straight, mix, were they your roommates? Jeremy Simmons: I mainly lived with a straight couple at first, but a lot of the crew that I was in were kind of ambiguous. I fell in with a crew of people that were more in the rave scene. I think that they were, and they were doing, there were tons of drugs all the time. I remember that much. I think there was a little bit of like vague bisexuality, but most of them were straight. Dennis Neill: How about once you left the high school environment and went on for post-secondary and then up to today, have you personally experienced any discrimination and prejudice with regard to your sexual orientation or how people perceive your sexual orientation or close friends that have experienced that? Jeremy Simmons: Oh, sure. I've actually experienced fairly little. Well, I feel like it's fairly little. Sometimes when I describe my life story to people who grew up in other progressive places, they're like, Oklahoma sounds like a shithole. But I also, once I was here, I was just like, I'm gay if you don't like it, fuck off. I made a lot of decisions based off of being safe as a gay person. I do remember one of my first apartments that I lived in by myself on Riverside, the guy made me put down an extra deposit because he said that if I got sick from AIDS, it was something like that I was more of a risk. I was like, but I don't even have HIV. But he was like, no, you're welcome here. It's just anybody with health problems or anybody that's risky has to put down an extra $250 deposit, which was a lot of money at the time. And I thought that was weird. I still think it's weird looking back on it. I was originally an employee at the Equality Center and then Hope split off, but then we still worked with the Equality Center forever. I was here one time when a guy 9 �came in and broke a lamp in the hallway and said he was going to something, shoot everybody. I don't know. That would have been…It was when we were on Brookside, and so it would have been after 95, but not a lot after 95. Dennis Neill: Yeah, we were up in there from about 96 to about 99. Jeremy Simmons: I was going to say maybe 97, roughly. So again, when people ask me to do the dates, it's kind of hard because I have to pick anchor events. I don't remember years well. So I know that it was after we'd phased out the 42nd Street Clinic and integrated into there, and that's when we were becoming more public, as OkEq was becoming more public about being an LGBT center. I think that even at the beginning, even when we were doing stuff, there was an effort to kind of have a little bit of a vague gray umbrella around a lot of the language that we used. And then when that center started on Brookside, that just wasn't working anymore. It's like, this is where gay people are. Dennis Neill: So was that your first experience with TOHR, or when we had the location there at the 41st apartment, were you ever involved in that small space that we had with the hotline and a little community? Jeremy Simmons: Yeah, so like I said, I think in 95 I came there for services, and then in 96 I came back for services early and started volunteering there. I had a traditional day-hour job, I think, at the time, and they had night clinics Mondays and Thursdays, which I think they still do to this day. So I was volunteering on Monday or Thursday. One of the night clinics, once a week I would come in and volunteer a few hours. Yeah, and to refresh my memory, so we had the space there at like 39th and Harvard on the east side, where the HIV testing center was like at 42nd and Harvard on the west side. Dennis Neill: So were you volunteering there? Jeremy Simmons: The 42nd, yeah, the clinic. So it's like, yeah, you go just past 41st and Harvard, take the right end on the west side there, go into that little clinic next to Tulsa Cares. We answered the gay, I think they called it the gay hotline at that time, something to that effect. That went into the clinic because we were staffed. And so I did get a very limited amount of training, and sometimes I would take calls for that. So it was usually clinic calls, but the other line came in too. And honestly, I didn't even know. It wasn't until then that I realized that the clinic was not a part, I knew that it was separate from Tulsa Cares. It wasn't just in a separate building, but it wasn't until then, later, I think it wasn't until 96 that I even really knew that there was an LGBT group that was in the space. Dennis Neill: Walk me through your early work history from the time you left college through the early years. Jeremy Simmons: Okay. Well, I did a lot of this and that. There wasn't a lot that was super interesting. When I was a teenager, I worked for my grandpa. He had a garage in Ramona, and so I did that for a while. But just surface stuff like pumping gas and 10 �bringing people parts, nothing too complicated. And then I got a job when I was, I think, 16 or 17, which sounds crazy now, but back then everybody just did that at Walmart in Bartlesville, and that was before Walmart became this massive sprawling show that it is today. So I did just miscellaneous stuff. I moved here, and I was doing Thrifty Car Rental which had their corporate headquarters here, and I think that they've been merged into Dollar, Avis, or some other group now, but they were a standalone car reservation place that was based in Tulsa for a long time, and I worked the reservation center for maybe a couple of years. And I was doing that while I was volunteering with OkEq. Dennis Neill: Is that when they relocated what is now Legacy Towers? Jeremy Simmons: Right, around 31st and Yale. And that was kind of interesting because I got to talk to people from all over the world. But it ran its course too. It was never like a permanent thing. And so then, in 96, I was volunteering with the Equality Center, not thinking about it, and they offered me a job, which kind of surprised me. I don't really know why. I think so and again, I just, , I grew up in a pretty small town and I come from pretty conservative background, and so I think people were like: you have to work and own your own business and and make yourself successful that way, or you have to go and work for a big company and make a lot of money. There's the concept of, I don't know, being a social service provider, , or an educator, or something like that it just wasn't really on my radar, which is weird because I was volunteering. So on the one hand, it was right because I was taking my time to help for free, so I had that in my nature. But then also I was like, oh, this isn't something people can do for a living, right, but it offered about the same pay as I was making Thrifty and I was like, yeah, fuck it. So it was kind of a lark, honestly, to start working at OkEq. Dennis Neill: Who actually hired you? Jeremy Simmons: Claudette Peterson. Dennis Neill: She was head of the testing program? Jeremy Simmons: Yes, right. Dennis Neill: Who was it before then? Jeremy Simmons: His first name was Jason, so Jason was doing the position that I filled. I don't know who was in charge before Claudette. Dennis Neill: I think it might have been Roger Morris. Jeremy Simmons: Yeah, that name is not familiar to me. Dennis Neill: Walk us through a little bit about your involvement there and then the transition process with regard to the testing clinic, as you recall, and the staffing changes that you recall. Jeremy Simmons: Sure, so it was also kind of interesting because I thought, because it's a medical job, and I thought, well, you have to be certified medically, but 11 �the state was doing finger stick testing. They were just doing a little finger stick, taking a little bit of blood and putting on a blotter card. Didn't have to be a phlebotomist, didn't have to be a nurse, didn't have to be anything. They trained you how to do that and it was surprisingly easy, and so I think that a lot of people were terrified coming in and so just making it feel normal and being nice to people was the biggest part of the job. That was the most important thing by far, and we had, I think, four employees at the time and that would shift quite a bit based off of state funding. When the state contracts would change, like the positions would come and go. It felt a little chaotic and it did for a long time, honestly, and it's a challenge for a lot of nonprofits, even as they get bigger. If the government funding is such a big chunk and then their priorities shift, then it's like, well, you have to be more of a counselor now, or you have to be more medical now, or you have to do group sessions now, and so you just kind of have to roll with whatever the grant says or get replaced. Fortunately they were pretty good…the state and OkEq and then later HOPE separately, were all pretty good about doing the trainings that were necessary because a lot of them weren't that complicated. They always kept it to where less medical or non-medical staff, non-counseling staff could do the jobs, because it just wouldn't have been an affordable otherwise, because we always needed a lot of free volunteers and low-paid staff or it just wouldn't have worked. Dennis Neill: When you did the finger stick at that time, was that still the requirement to send it off and wait two weeks. Jeremy Simmons: Right. Dennis Neill: What was your experience with that? Knowing folks were coming in getting tested. Did all of them, or a majority of them, come back and the experience you had when you were having to deliver a positive result? I mean, was there hope at that period of time? Jeremy Simmons: Not really. It was really really rough. It was hard getting people to come in, but if they came in they usually came back for their results. So if they were committed. We had something like 75- 80 percent return rate, which I always thought, oh, that's just so, so many people aren't getting their results. But at a lot of testing sites it was like 60 percent or less. So we actually had a good follow-up rate. I think a part of that was just being so openly gay-friendly and non-judgmental about drug use and sex workers and all the other things that people might get worked up about. We did have a lot of people come back in. It was quite, I remember, being from experiencing from the other side- like waiting for 10 to 14 days to get a result back was felt very stressful. While protease inhibitors came out in the 90s, their use and full understanding wasn't, wasn't in place yet. It wasn't until the early 2000s where that started to kind of shift. It took a little bit longer to get it fully ingrained- where we can have these long-term undetectable status kind of thing, a different ballgame. So then there really wasn't a lot that you could do. Getting tested really was more about hoping that you were negative,and then if you found out that you had HIV, then it was a little bit more about when am I going to need hospice care? How am I gonna live a fulfilling life for 20 years? It was more about okay, at a certain point this is going to catch up with me. 12 �Dennis Neill: The folks that did test positive, did you all have a referral list of doctors and counselors that you could provide to help them on their path? Jeremy Simmons: Sort of. There were always people providing services here, but not a lot, and it if you didn't have the right health insurance, it could be very difficult to get into the right people. I remember early on there was a guy named Jeffrey BealI'm sure you remember Dr. Beal- who was like I'm gonna make a clinic that focuses on HIV care and does a good job of it and it's gay, affirming and doesn't matter if people do some drugs or have hep C to or any that like. But a lot of places wouldn't take anybody with HIV. Or if they would, they wouldn't take any other problems, like if you had hep C at the same time or if you couldn't pass a drug test or if you didn't have good insurance or any number of things, because it was already kind of a stretch for them to deal with HIV. So we had some resources. They were few and far between and some of the ones that did it, like Dr. Beal, could quickly get booked up. So, yes, technically, there were resources, but for many people if you lived outside of Tulsa, if you didn't have health insurance, if you didn't have disposable income, if you had a comorbidity, you weren't really going to get care or very good care. Dennis Neill: In addition to Dr. Beal, did you work closely with Ted, his partner, who was providing counseling services. Jeremy Simmons: Fortunately, most of our test results were negative. When we would get a positive test result, people handled that wildly differently. That case where you just felt like, wow, this is gonna be a really tough case, both for you emotionally as well. Sure. So there are some people who like, under underneath it all, have a have a lot of cynicism or cynicism or optimism about life, and so this was definitely a job that taught me a lot about that. Because some people who have really terrible circumstances already and then we're getting HIV positive result, we're like, well, this is a hassle, we're gonna navigate it as best we can. And then some people- it was just all they could think about was how they were going to die. it was very clear, they were like, oh, and also some people wouldn't go into care because then they couldn't let anybody know is how they felt. Even if they had health insurance and even if they lived in Tulsa and had disposable income and didn't have a comorbidity, they might have been so closeted about their sexuality and in some cases, even if they were openly gay and had everything going for them, they felt like they could not let anyone know they had HIV or they would be shunned at the bar or they might be kicked out of an apartment or lose access to a kid or lose a job, which are things that definitely did happen to people. Not extremely often, but regularly, so the fear of them happening was much bigger than the actuality, but they were things that regularly occurred and so it made it made it kind of difficult. Trying to get people into counseling was always great. Some people would spiral and just party and not go to the doctor and their health conditions and overall life would get much, much worse. So not suicide by direct action, but definitely like, well, if I have five more years, I'm just going to enjoy it. 13 �Dennis Neill: How would you compare the percent, you said, fortunately, it was quite low on the positive side in the 90s. How does that compare with today, would you say, the more recent pattern? Jeremy Simmons: It's definitely shifted way down. There was a lot of things happening. It's just, it's a very different, from a public health perspective, communicable disease perspective, it's a very different game now. So back then, there weren't great treatments, like you could get on AZT and maybe combine that with something else, maybe get off and on AZT. There were different things that you could do. And it was sort of the chemotherapy approach. We're just like, hey, we're going to bombard your system with a bunch of toxicity that's going to kill the HIV more than it kills your healthy tissue, but it's definitely going to kill your healthy tissue. So you're going to get sick at a certain point if you stay on AZT or any of these other antivirals at high doses enough to actually help you. It was kind of a gamble. People had to just do their best with it. Now, not only are people living longer, but their health outcomes are much better and they're much less likely to transmit. So we had a lot of people who would get very sick from HIV or very sick from the medications or some of both and try and balance that back and forth. But meanwhile, they were often having a high viral load or a moderate viral load. And so their long-term health outcomes were never going to be great and they were highly infectious to other people. While not everybody fully understood that at the time, enough people understood it. You were shunned if you had HIV was often the case, but not by everyone. It didn't bother me, because I'm in the office around it all the time. But I knew that I was not the norm. There was so much fear among so many gay men that they might get it too. And even if you weren't worried about directly having sexual or blood contact with somebody, I just think a lot of, a lot of gay men looked at other gay men as, oh, well, they're going to get sick soon, sooner rather than later, , and they are potentially infectious. So we have to be more careful around them. There was, even amongst ourselves, I think there was a lot of people, there was a lot of, I think, serosorting is a term I've heard, where it was like there were groups of HIV positive men within gay men that were still, that would still hang out and have community. Which is why places like we talked about earlier, like Our House, were much more relevant at that time. But it's such a different thing now. We would often get 5% or higher HIV rates. Still over 90% of our test results were coming back negative pretty regularly. That would fluctuate a little bit month to month or year to year. But oh, when you looked at year long stretches and multi-year long stretches, it was pretty consistently under 10%, sometimes less than 5%. Now, as hope evolved and even got bigger and started testing more people, like sometimes the positivity rate would be less than 3%, less than 2%. You see a lot less of it. And the biggest part of that is the viral load being much more manageable means that people aren't going to accidentally give it to other people. 14 �Dennis Neill: I know there was an effort at one point in time to really reach out to the African American community with regard to testing. There was actually an organization that partnered with testing to reach out to the African American community. Were you part of that effort? Do you remember the special grants I think that organization received? Jeremy Simmons: I partnered with them. So there was, Derek Davis was very involved, Donald Rose. And this is that thing about human memory. Tall guy, what was his name? Dennis Neill: FUSO [Friends in Unity Social Organization] was the name. Jeremy Simmons: The interesting thing is we just always called it FUSO. They never spelled it out, so like that was the incorporated name. And they at one point they- Renfro was also a guy who was very active with them and I worked with [R.F.] Renfro and then he died, which was one of the…sorry, I'm usually very nonemotional these things, but every now and then he was a very sweet person and not that…that sounds like a shitty thing to say, like no one deserves to die from something so painful. He was involved with this group. He was so sweet and he was so bright and was so healthy and then, like a year, he was gone. Sorry, that's one of the ones that's always still really hard for me to talk about. Dennis Neill: He was not only part of that organization but a close friend as well? Jeremy Simmons: He was a friend, yes, and I knew him a lot better than many of the others and worked with him. It was very surreal, I think, when it came to the clients and I knew people in real life who had HIV too. I just had enough of a wall built up where I could still be engaged with then and care about them. I think that the grant, the process kind of fell away. He was a guiding force behind it, Derek [Davis] was very engaged, I think, Donald, and was as well…and I'm- I'm sorry I'm blanking on that, still blanking on the guy. I can see his face and he's a very tall and he would come up here once in a while. The way I understand it, it's just a lot of those grants, but a lot of those things fluctuate, and so sometimes too- I'm trying to say this politically correct- sometimes the funding sources change so radically that it it it becomes apparent that either someone doesn't know what the fuck they're doing or they're intentionally sabotaging the programs , and it can be hard to tell, because if we're talking about stuff that can start at the federal level and can have lots of intermediaries. For example, when we we formed HOPE as a separate breakaway, in part because state legislators were going after LGBT organizations and OkEq wasn't 100% doing something right on the financials and it was something that a lot of nonprofits would do- shell games with money, but it was also something that if someone wanted to pull the funds, they could do it right. While it was something that a lot of people did and it wasn't a problem, when you live in a place like Oklahoma, when someone goes on the warpath against you, it's just like okay. But even when we did everything we were supposed to do and became a health organization that focused on gay services instead of a gay organization, so we wouldn't get as much grief- the CDC cut funding to the whole state for all HIV programs because the state was just fucking things up so much. 15 �There's a lot of at state and federal levels and I think that I don't want to speak too much for a few. Because I knew them well and I love Renfro and I still keep up a little bit with Derek and Donald…I don't know all of the details there- they were there and it was great to see them being there. And when we phased out of the 42nd office, we moved over and had two or three offices were kind of designated to the HOPE wing or that. That's not what they called it then. They called it just something else simple like the HIV Testing Clinic or the HIV Services or something more generic like that. And then FUSO had a small office in the Equality Center on Brookside. Briefly. Dennis Neill: Talk a little bit more about that transition from 1998 when it became its own nonprofit. How did that whole process, and then when you felt like the ship was getting righted, as far as the relationship with the funders like the state and so on. And the various locations that you've experienced in HOPE testing. Jeremy Simmons: So, as I mentioned, we had some state funders come to us and said, hey, the state is going after anything that's too drug-friendly, anything that's too gay-friendly, and they're not going to give you money next year, probably. If you stay here, they also might audit you and they might end - was happening to an Oklahoma City agency that got shut down right after that. So, I felt like that was pretty sage advice. Dennis Neill: Do you remember the name of the Oklahoma City organization? They started something called the AIDS Support Program. Jeremy Simmons: It was something that hadn't been around forever and then went away. I can't remember it. And they had, because they were a part of an sort of an LGBT organization, someone there, an employee, had promoted some kind of material from NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association. And that was just like the grossest, dumbest thing, They were very, like at their core, that group, it's kind of like when you talk to certain people, there's like the public pitch, but at their core, they were very much about grooming and having sex with very young, under 18 people. That was a core part of that NAMBLA group. So it's like, you don't touch them. You don't have to listen to their pitch too much and you kind of dig into what's like what's going on. That's what did them in. I don't even know that they were necessarily promoting something that would have been child molesting oriented. They just did something with that group. At the time, I remember having this conversation with Nancy McDonald and I was kind of against her, but then as I looked back on it, because I wanted to do a leather S&M focused HIV group and just call it what it was. And she was like, no, that's not smart. And I was like, well, okay. That would not have been good. There's just certain things you can't do here or you're gonna get on somebody's radar. That's how it was in the nineties. I think this was actually before we split away from OkEq. I don't remember exactly. I just remember she was one of the ones and I didn't know her very well and I always liked her and respected her, but we, she was very, very cautious compared to what I wanted to do. In retrospect though, I get it. It's one of those things where I was like, I'm happy to say that I would have made the wrong decision on that call. 16 �There’s just certain things you just couldn't do without raising too many red flags and then the next thing , and they're going to find a way. First they'll audit you and then if you're not doing everything right, which many nonprofits weren't in the eighties and nineties, when you really look into it… like we were on a reimbursement contract, not a grant saying we could spend whatever. So we had to use the money and then get reimbursed. If you didn't do it in just the right way, if you did it and people would be like, oh well, but we have to pay the lights and so we're gonna do this with that, then we'll catch up and pay that. At the end of the year, would it all work out? Sure. But you can't, when you're dealing with the Feds in general or when you're dealing with hostile state-level people, you can't shell game with the money at all. Or you can maybe for a year or five years or ten years, like you can for a while. But at some point they're gonna catch you and be like, no, no, you didn't do this exactly right according to this contract. And so now we're gonna pull all your funds and mark you as someone who can't be funded again. Dennis Neill: So in the current day is the HOPE deal where it's a reimbursement type of process as opposed to…. Jeremy Simmons: as opposed to a straight grant? Yep. So that HIV money, ever since I've been involved since 96, whether it was for anybody, like OkEq. HOPE, Tulsa Cares, anybody, whether it's CDC-based, HRSA-based, this is what you do. They'll sometimes make exceptions if you can deal with them directly federally. So there are some exceptions. But most people get reimbursed through the state as an intermediary. And the state's like, you have to do all these things. You have to show us that you've paid for it, and then we'll reimburse you. If you get really lucky, even if you're doing everything right, you're jumping through all the hoops, and you're spending all the money exactly right, and going to all that work, something like COVID will come along. They just won't pay you for five months. Doing that work can be really tough on the people at the top trying to figure out the money. It is challenging for everybody. It always cracks me up when people want to start nonprofits. And they're like, well, we'll get government money. And I'm like, no. You have to have so much liability insurance before certain government agencies will even want to touch you. And that's cost prohibitive to a lot of places. It's like there's just all these big things you have to have in place. And most of them now require annual audits. And if not annual, you will, at least every second or third year, have a serious, deep audit. You have to have all your time ducks in a row, because even trying to do the right thing. We got better as we split away, we were like, OK, we're going to be more legit about money. We still made mistakes. We got better over time. There's always gray areas. , they can come in and be like, well, you're not separating the gloves that you bought from the state health department money from the gloves you're buying for this. And so now you're going to have to pay us back for these gloves, because we can't prove by a visual check that you're the blah, blah, blah. 17 �But we're using all the free gloves you give us, and then we're spending our own money buying other gloves on top of that. Does that not show you that we're using all of the gloves? Anyway, any state or federal agency, if they want to cause problems for you, they can come in and say, oh, well, you didn't do this exactly right. And sometimes it's not even in the contract, which is the most frustrating. , when it's like, OK, we did everything according to the contract. I'm like, well, but this is still an expectation. Dennis Neill: Did you say it was 96 when you first started with the testing? Do you recall what month you started with testing? Jeremy Simmons: I became an employee in the summer. I believe it was July 1st. Because at that point, the state's contract, their annual calendar started something in the summer, June 1st, July 1st, August 1st, something like that. Dennis Neill: And was it HOPE at that point in time? Jeremy Simmons: It was. Dennis Neill: Can you tell us what it was and how that transitioned? Jeremy Simmons: So when we were doing it at first, while Claudette was still here, when we would answer the phone, I would just say it was something very generic but plain, like HIV Testing Clinic, or something really just direct. I don't remember what it was that we said. I don't think anybody was too uptight about it at the time. But we weren't like, thanks for calling the Equality Center, or thanks for calling OkEq, or thanks for calling whatever. It wasn't about branding or anything. It was just like, you've called. Because in part, that building we were in was separate, and it was literally only for… When the people came in for the gay hotline, it rang on a different line. So we needed to answer that as like something, Oklahoma gay hotline, or something. We might have used OkEq as part of that, or TOHR. For a long time. It wasn't until it was not until probably mid-97 to late 97 that I think, we started getting warnings that the state was gonna be auditing people that weren't doing things right. The state was coming for gay dollars. At a certain point before we left, we were like, okay, we need to differentiate ourselves. To be perfectly honest, many of us that were doing the actual work were like, oh yeah, we're gonna have to become a separate financial institution, because this thing where- and it didn't happen all the time, but occasionally we wouldn't get paid or we would have to sit on mileage reimbursements and we weren't making a lot of money. And that's the one sure way to piss your employees off and be like, hey, we actually have to do this stuff with the money instead. So your paychecks gonna be next week, or we're gonna give you a paycheck but you need to sit on it for eight more days, or whatever. And we started calling ourselves HOPE right before we left, but I don't remember when. Dennis Neill: Do you know how that name came about or who created… 18 �Jeremy Simmons: That's a good question, because and- and I looked back- when we did a history project thing and I was like I think I incorporated us both times and Ithere's three people that incorporated HOPE. It was originally HIV outreach, prevention education incorporated and then about a year and a half later we changed it to health outreach, prevention, education. And I remember much more vividly the second conversation because there was this huge debate about whether we were going to be an HIV specific organization or not and branch out into Hep C services and etc. At the beginning I don't recall, but I and Christy Frisbee and Johnny Eilert's were the three people that incorporated the organization as HIV Outreach. So I was involved. I was like oh, yeah, that's my signature, so it is interesting what you kind of remember and kind of don't. But I don't remember a lot of conversation about it. I think for me at the beginning part I was like this was also the 90s, was a different time and I was much younger and I think at the time I was like branding, shmanding, Now I have much, I have much more appreciation for it, but at the time I was like oh, yeah, sure, yeah, we'll call it the this. It was like we have to keep the services going and if we don't, I think if we don't break away, they're gonna come after OkEq, sorry, TOHR. It's hard for me to use that name for some reason, even though I used it, and so the funny thing is technically I was an employee of TOHR . I was paid from Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights, so I saw that name all the time. It's just merged, now OkEq. There was definitely a desperation. There was a lot of board discussion and some of it got quite heated because a lot of people felt like no, no, no, this is just blustering, which I don't think was true, but also I get it. It's like sure somebody, some random people- the state- say this and they're like: have them come to the meeting. No, that's not how it works. They're telling us this as a favor because they like us and they want the program to keep going, and they're seeing what's happening in Oklahoma City and it's duh, it's like Tulsa's gonna be next. That's what a lot of times the state people do. They start in Oklahoma City and then, if they have enough steam and need more attention or whatever, then they're just like: oh yeah, let's go after those guys in Tulsa and Lawton and Bartlesville, wherever else. Once we finally agreed to split apart, we stayed at the old building for a while and then we ended up getting another building space that was next door to Tulsa Cares again, and that was on Admiral, just a little bit east of Harvard. Dennis Neill: You were in the same structure? Jeremy Simmons: Right. For many years they had their main building and then there was a small building next door that was separated and we were there. They originally started off the model that they had when at the 42nd and Harvard complex, where they were like we're gonna be a home for a dozen organizations or more, so like the Names Project had like a, or Shanti had like a little teeny, tiny office, baby office there for a little bit. And then who else? There were other groups that had spaces there and we were one of them. We were definitely the second largest because of our staffing size and our funding capacities. RAIN [Regional AIDS 19 �Interfaith Network] was there for a little bit before they had their own thing. So it was supposed to be sort of like a coalition space. But pretty quickly, it became obvious that Tulsa Cares was getting the bulk of the money and that HOPE was getting another big chunk of money and everybody else was like 10% or less of what we were. The staffing and the client needs were overwhelmingly Tulsa Cares and secondarily HOPE. Over time, everything else, a lot of the other smaller organizations kind of merged into Tulsa Cares or finally moved out and got their own spaces. We were there for a while. Dennis Neill: Can you remember the street address? Jeremy Simmons: I think it's 3540 East Admiral Street. It's the Admiral that's north. I can see it always and there's a big church that was on the other side of the street and the building's still there and it looks almost identical to how it looked. I'm not sure if it's even being used right now. Blue and white. Tulsa Cares also started doing group meals at that time. IT started kind of changing what they were a little bit, I think. It was still good for us to have a separate space because people were just so terrified still of getting tested and I think they wanted like the least possible human interaction, the most private parking lot just as possible. We were there for three years to five years. I know that's a very broad term. I don't know exactly how long we were there. Then Tulsa Cares just kept growing and growing and growing and we were slowly growing and we were definitely, so we became the last two. All the other places weren't there anymore. And at a certain point Tulsa Cares was like, hey, we need to have a pantry and we need to expand these food services and we just cannot do this without a lot of extra physical space so you guys are going to need to go. And that was kind of debated and I think my director at the time thought that it wasn't going to happen and it ended up happening though. Christy Fresbee and I were the only two people that were incorporators on both times that we did the name change. We needed space, we had a lot of money for staffing and medical services but we were having a really hard time getting money for a facility and that's just a much, rent or owning is just its own thing. And Community of Hope on 25th and Yale was kind enough to let us stay there for like a year and a half to two years as a temporary transitional space. Then we moved, 3540 might be the 31st Street location. Then we moved to 31st Street which I think was a 3540 location. So that was on 31st a little bit east of Harvard. And we were there for about a decade. That was our longest location. Then we moved to a shopping center for a year and a half around 51st and Harvard and then Hope bought its final location that it owns now that's closer to 51st and Yale. Dennis Neill: When did you decide to leave HOPE and what are you up to now? Jeremy Simmons: I love being at Starlight, I think, but there was a thing going around for volunteer requests from OkEq for Pride and I thought about doing it but I kind of enjoy taking a break from HOPE and being distanced from that and being in some of those same spaces people just walk up and expect me to do HOPE stuff and so I was like I mean I think I just need to be a little further away. 20 �Dennis Neill: I was thinking maybe the late 80s early 90s Starlight was a gay bar but I could be wrong about that. Jeremy Simmons: Forever before it was Starlight it was the Chatterbox which was definitely not a gay bar but yes back in the 80s and 90s remember how we talked earlier about there was this golden time for teenagers where you could be wherever there was an after-hours thing. One of the names was The Factory. It was called many different things and so I went there as a little teenager but you had to wait until 1:45 A.M. or 2:15 or whatever because they made money as a bar and then reopened back up and sold non-alcoholic beverages. So yes, that was definitely... In different incarnations, a more overtly gay space or a kind of gay friendly space. But many of the after-hours places were…It was kind of Wild West compared to what it's like now. There's so many liquor laws now and there's so many ABLE Commission and police…there's just so many guidelines and so many people watching what you do now. Back then it was just like, yeah, someone's coming out of the bathroom with coke on their face, who cares? There's this wild thinking of that. As a teenager, like having access to that world, it felt like when people say it wasn't Studio 54, but when I see stuff like that for Manhattan, I was just like I get that general vibe. I don't know how it happens, but there's like you pay off the cops or you stay off their radar long enough or something , and it's just like people were just like whatever, and so there was more of that at those places. It was more of that live and let live, yeah, kind of a thing. Even the straight people were like, whatever, everybody's doing their own thing Dennis Neill: Switching a little bit to more kind of the broader community you're in, your involvement, advocacy, social activities and particularly your board service with OkEq. Jeremy Simmons: There was a little bit of confusion and hostility when HOPE split away from OkEq. I think it was pretty minimal and it was understandable. It's like okay. There was a little brief period of detente, but I think within several months, definitely within a year, there was conversations about us doing testing on Saturdays at the Equality Center. So we pretty quickly moved past whatever that was, and and started doing regular services here, in part to sort of help- and I've always loved it here- but in part also to sort of seem at that bridge between HOPEand OkEq. I became a board member and I became a committee member. I don't know exactly what they called it, it was something like the rebranding committee, so it was for conversations around the name change and logo, and so I was just… I was on a committee of people, some some board members, but a lot of other just community members, and so I did that and really loved it. It was a lot of fun- and then got on the general board and then the executive committee of the board. Again, I'm terrible with years, but I was on the executive committee as we moved into this building. Dennis Neill: So we moved in 2007. Jeremy Simmons: Okay, I knew it was after the millennia, but I couldn't, but it's just like. That's definitely one of those. I have a hard time anchoring it to another event. 21 �When I was on the committee, we were still in that shopping center on the 41st Street. Dennis Neill: You probably had what- Mark Bonney and Laura BelmonteJeremy Simmons: Yep, yep, I was much more involved with Laura because she was on. …She was very involved. Mark, I believe, was the president, but she was on the committee that brought me in, so I was much more involved with her, and then she became president at a certain point, yeah, and so I always remember being much more involved with her and, while she's on a separate board somewhat, I was more involved with Sue Welch occasionally for other things. I still, even though I'm with on the board, I'm still not a hundred percent sure what the different duties are between the two, like the, the two boards, just to be honest with…the Board of Trustees. I get it in general, but especially as we moved into the building, there was a lot of oh, we want to do this, we want to do that, and there was just like there was….It was very interesting trying to sort of figure all that out still is, because it's like everybody has so many good intentions and so many opinions and so many preferences, right, and so it's hard coordinating that. I- and it's something that I learned a lot from here- and I was like, okay, and I actually heard someone else say this from another LGBT group in another city- and they're like, well, but it's different, not that other marginalized communities or individual communities don't have problems also, but like a lot of immigrant families, a lot of black Americans, a lot of indigenous Americans….A lot of groups are raised within their own communities. So there are, generally speaking, a lot more acceptable norms and like expectations of what is gonna happen, whereas we come from every larger and smaller community. So I think it makes it even harder to get a lot of consensus. We have men and women and transgender people, we have all races, all regions, all socio-economic background, , and so there's all religions. There's not like an overarching norm, aside from maybe being an American, which is a million different things. I think it's just, I think it's common at LGBT centers, to make it harder to get true consensus because there's just so many different drives. Dennis Neill: HOPE in a way, it's certainly been on the forefront of advocacy with its education and outreach, so you've been part of that for decades. Are there other aspects of our community where you felt like you've taken on an advocacy role or in the future, you want to get more involved as you transition and any thoughts about our community at large as its transitioned over the years, the good and the bad. Jeremy Simmons: Oh, that's a really big one. I've worked with several different groups. I worked with the American Red Cross doing HIV education and education around blood-borne pathogens, and it was interesting working within a large bureaucratic, large system and trying to sort of make it be not scared of HIV, to be more open to LGBT. That's not my strength is. I enjoy doing it, but I think I need more immediate results. So I've always dealt with probably smaller groups. I volunteered for a while off and on with the Nightingale Theater and that was fun before the theater was here. There's a lot of small venues here in Tulsa, but before there was a theater here, Nightingale is one of those few spaces where you could do some really sexually 22 �explicit material, thematically or overtly, like, and so they did like a gay spin on the Dukes of Hazzard, stuff like that- that just there wasn't a place for it. Now we have an option here as well, which is great. So that was fun. I was one of the founding board members with the Equality Network, which picked up some steam but then eventually merged with Cimarron Alliance to become Freedom Oklahoma. I think it might have been called something else at first, but now it's Freedom Oklahoma, I believe. I've not kept up with them super well. They invited us to come and I spoke to some state senators about HIV laws and changing them, and that feels good in the moment. It's interesting to do. But also it's like four senators showed up- what I mean, and so- and they were mostly women from progressive women from Oklahoma City who were gonna vote with us anyway. Sometimes at the state level, it even it feels it can feel a little daunting. But because of that, I think that groups like OkEq and Freedom Oklahoma need to continue the pressure because- and sometimes it's just luck, right, sometimes things just line up in ways you can't expect, like we got law enforcement to to get on board with decriminalizing needles to a degree, and that's not the group that I would have thought would have supported us, but they're the groups getting stuck when they do frisking right. Jeremy Simmons: Sometimes something comes from a place , and so it's like, oh, legislators will listen to them, in conjunction with other community groups and public health people, to to maybe decriminalize this. So we understand it's like: no, we need cleaner needles so that everyone, not just the people that are using, but everybodyhas fewer blood-borne pathogens that they have to worry about. So there definitely needs to keep happening. That's harder for me to be engaged with personally. As I've gotten older, as I've lived and been an American, America has gotten overwhelmingly more gay-friendly and Oklahoma has not. There's pockets, in Tulsa and Oklahoma City that are way more gay-friendly. But I just think everybody understands that those are little isolated oases. Dennis Neill: Now that you're kind of free from HOPE, that stability, but also that confinement of being in that one job, do you still feel like you're anchored in Tulsa, or are you anxious to experiment, go other places? Jeremy Simmons: I'm open to see where the future takes me. Some friends of mine moved to Spain recently, and they're making a big pitch for me to come to Spain with them. Which sounds kind of ridiculous, but then also I'm like, there's certain skills like bartending that are kind of universal. It's easier to be a bartender in places like Spain than it is to be a phlebotomist. So, maybe. We'll see. I really like being here, though. I love... when I came here, I just knew almost no one. I had tons of casual acquaintances at first. And building up all these deep friendships and seeing these nonprofits and these cool, unique little businesses thrive here, and being able to even just support them a little bit in some way, has been really lovely. I really love Tulsa. So, I'm very open to anything now. I don't feel... So, forever, I did feel like... And I didn't fully understand this until I left, but I felt like I had to stay. 23 �And I don't really know why, because everybody else left a long time ago from the 90s, but I felt like I had to keep HOPE going. I personally had to make sure that HOPE was going, which is dumb. Everybody eventually ages out. Everybody dies, if nothing else. And then everybody gets tired. Like, when you're helping people... I was a full-time employee for 24 years. And I loved it for a lot of that. And then, towards the end, I didn't love it anymore. I think sometimes when you're helping people, you have to make a choice to go do something else that's more fun or go do something else that makes more money for a while. I'm not sure. I'm sure there are the Mother Teresa types that can do it indefinitely. But I'm like, I need to... so, whatever I'm doing in the future, for the latter part of my life, I need to get paid more per hour than what I was at HOPE, or having more fun than what I was getting at HOPE towards the end. It has to be at least one of those two things. Preferably both. Everybody wants that job, and that's hard to find. But I did feel very anchored to HOPE. I was just like, we are one and the same. To the point that I'm not sure it was super healthy, honestly. Dennis Neill: Well, you provide us with a valuable history about HOPE, AIDS, and your engagement. Are there any final comments you want to make as we bring the interview to conclusion? Jeremy Simmons: While the current federal administration is abysmal, I think this is some dying last gasps of some outmoded thinking. And so while things feel very dark right now, I think things are about to get much better in the next several years. And here, and everywhere else in the United States. And I really appreciate everybody who's been involved with HOPE, and OkEq, and all the other groups. Tulsa Cares, Our House, all the other LGBT groups, all the other HIV and Hep C and harm reduction groups like SHOTS. I just love that I know so many people that are doing so much great work. And it keeps me... While I personally need a break from it, I love getting on social media. I love showing up to the Equality Center. I love going to a gala randomly somewhere and seeing all of the support that Tulsa still has to give. So, I think the future's going to be great. And I appreciate y'all taking some time with me. And I appreciate everybody who's interested enough in this to listen to it. And just keep reminding yourself that even though things look very... feel very heavy right now, this is temporary. It will shift back. Dennis Neill: Jeremy, thank you so much. This is an invaluable interview. And we look forward to your continued advocacy in our community. Thank you very much. Jeremy Simmons: Thank you. 24 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2026] Jeremy Simmons Interview Description An account of the resource Jeremy Simmons shares his journey of self-discovery and advocacy within the LGBTQ+ community. Growing up in a conservative, religious environment, he navigated the complexities of his sexual identity while facing societal expectations and bullying. His experiences shaped his commitment to community engagement and HIV awareness, leading his long-time involvement first as a volunteer and then 30 years as an HIV educator and tester with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights and then HOPE. Jeremy reflects on the challenges of nonprofit management and expresses hope for the future of the LGBTQ+ community, emphasizing the importance of continued advocacy and support. Subject The topic of the resource Jeremy Simmons Oral History Project Interview from January 21, 2026 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jeremy Simmons, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 21, 2026 2026 AIDS/HIV AIDS/HIV education Dennis Neill Dennis R. Neill HIV HIV Education HIV Outreach Education Program HIV Outreach Education Program (HOPE) HIV/AIDs HIV/AIDs outreach HOPE interview Jeremy Simmons OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript TOHR transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/6da3185e3c9411346acb45f174dd3c31.jpg 98c26387f8be6f490a4a4fa8804ee6c2 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/98b5266fc83c9948564198c691c566c6.mp4 0c0146cc3f558b39b5d63d4dae7ac832 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/062906c82060eb043f35e0daa45468ba.pdf 569c6056020b1a38f0eec877c89425b5 PDF Text Text Jimmy Flowers Story Subject Jimmy Flowers Description From Julie Tucker - Trainum, August 2019 - Jimmy Flowers was one of the very first members of the AIDS Coalition in Tulsa. he was a young man when he was part of Stonewall and in his interview he talks about Stonewall. jimmy died in the mid 2000s. he was interviewed so we could share his story at the YST support group "Tulsa Youth Discovering Diversity." Creator Julie Tucker-Trainum, Youth Services of Tulsa Date Interview was conducted in 1999 or 2000 Original Format VHS Duration 1 hour 20 minutes [00:00:00] Julie Trainum: And we're here to talk to a fellow by the name of Jimmy Flowers, and Jimmy is 41. He told me his age, so I hope he doesn't mind me telling the tape. And all the things that you're seeing on these tables are things that Jimmy has gathered up over the years, specifically about the gay movement. And all of these things are very, very telling, but probably the best person that can tell is Jimmy himself. And he's been real interested in talking with us and with the young people to let them know what he went through and the things that he saw. [00:00:36] Julie Trainum: So, Jimmy, how are you? [00:00:38] Jimmy Flowers: Well, so far so good. [00:00:40] Julie Trainum: So far so good? [00:00:41] Jimmy Flowers: Yeah. [00:00:41] Julie Trainum: Can you begin a little bit with your history and saying what happened with you when you were a youngster? You can maybe talk specifically about when you first understood that you were gay and what happened with your family. [00:00:59] Jimmy Flowers: Well, number one, I've always known that I was gay. Number two, I was about 11 years old, and what happened was that I was kissing a guy underneath the staircase. He was 14 and I was 11, just kissing. And then my father, of course, he was the supervisor of the building. And I didn't realize he was home, and he caught me underneath the staircase, kissing the guy. He dragged me by the hair and sort of beat me, slapped me around, saying it wasn't natural, it was disgusting, it was a sin, and everything like that. [00:01:45] Jimmy Flowers: And my mother started yelling at me and, you know. Then took me to the school psychiatrist. This is going back to 1966. [00:01:54] Julie Trainum: And you were about 11 at the time? [00:01:56] Jimmy Flowers: I was about 11. I can't remember exactly every date or detail, but I was about 11, 11 and a half maybe. And what happened was that they thought at that time that if you were gay or lesbian, if they catch you at an early age that you would become a heterosexual. And so they put me in a mental institution for almost two and a half, three years. And in that time, they tried to come to us that we were sick, 1 �that it wasn't natural, that we were sinners of God. And they also, some of the things they did was very disgusting. [00:02:40] Jimmy Flowers: They forced us to be in the same room with another lesbian young woman. We were both nude. They thought if we saw each other's body that we would be attracted to each other. But unfortunately it didn't work that way. And then they showed us pictures of videotapes of men and women having sex. [00:03:04] Julie Trainum: And this is still when you were a youngster? [00:03:08] Jimmy Flowers: Oh yes. They thought if we saw the actual lovemaking of heterosexuals making love, intercourse, that it would change us to become heterosexuals. We were constantly pumped in our heads that we were not gay. At that time, we didn't know the word gay. We used the word fancy because it wasn't offensive to us. We didn't like the word homosexual. We didn't like the word homo or faggot or queer or bull dyke or lesbians. So therefore we used the word fancy because it wasn't too offensive. Then, in this time, they showed the male tenants, which was the guard. [00:04:00] Jimmy Flowers: Forgive me if I get a little bit emotional because some of the things that happened in the mental institution, you wouldn't believe unless you saw it yourself. I was given Thorazine and child treatment to become straight. And I kept on saying I was born gay. It's a little bit hard to explain because I like the word gay. I said I was born to be a fancy. And they brought a priest in since they thought I was on the religious side. They brought a priest in. And the priest said to me, and I'll never forget it. [00:04:48] Jimmy Flowers: He said, you are a sinner of God and it's wrong. It's not natural. It's against nature. And I just kept on saying I was born this way. [00:04:57] Jimmy Flowers: And then he slapped me, and I got a little bit angry, and I took Grant's collar from his neck, he was a Roman Catholic priest, and I said how dare you call yourself a man of God, if you are. That's pretty courageous for a youngster. I was about 11, 11 and a half, 12 maybe. And some gays and some young lesbians, they thought they were safe, and they committed suicide because they could not change. [00:05:32] Jimmy Flowers: And they made a stand up while they took a 14 year old lesbian young woman, and laid her down while the male attendants, she wanted to shoot me, while the male attendants forced us to watch while they were having intercourse with her. They thought by us watching, all the gay males we lined up, and the young gay females lined up on each side. They thought that they would make us to be straight, and they were constantly crinkling into our ears that we were sick. [00:06:31] Jimmy Flowers: So there was a lot of reason for young gay and lesbian kids to not come out, and to not say, and not let other people know because of the possibility that this would happen. So anyway, the young lesbian woman, a few months later, I don't want to go into every single detail because it would take hours and hours. The young lesbian woman, she was pregnant, and she committed suicide in her own room, and she hung herself. And I discovered her because we were friends. They had the females on one side, and the males on the other. [00:07:20] Jimmy Flowers: And I was the one that found her, and I will never forget that. Then there was a gay, we started a hunger strike in the mental institution, which was called Primory and King's Park State Hospital. And then there was another one called King's County. And during that time, there was this gay psychiatrist and gay therapist that was helping us getting out of the place. Of course, we had to lie and say we were straight, and that we enjoyed having sex with women, and the women enjoyed having sex with men. [00:08:06] Jimmy Flowers: And I promised myself, once I get out of that place, that I would never lie again. And I haven't lied since then, and I'm not going to now, and I never will until the day I die. Let's go ahead and cut there for a second. After I got out, it was about 1968. Did you go back to your parents? Yes, I went back to my family. And things were still, I had to pretend that I had a girlfriend, and then went to high school. During that time I was put away, I didn't have no school at all. And then I was kicked out of high school for trying to start a gay movement. [00:08:52] Jimmy Flowers: And that was back in 69, but we didn't call it a gay movement, we called it the Pansy Movement. Now I can laugh at it, but then it was serious. Was that in Brooklyn? No, at that time we lived in the Bronx, Bronx, New York. Then my mother and father, they found out I was still gay, they kicked me out 2 �of the house. I was about 14 and a half years old, or 14 or 14 and a half. I roamed the streets, lived from one person to the next. [00:09:25] Jimmy Flowers: And then there was hundreds, literally hundreds of young lesbians and young gay men that was actually kicked out of the streets for being gay. Because their family couldn't deal with it. And, um... [00:09:43] Jimmy Flowers: Then there was Spanish in society, and they wanted us to be good little boys and girls and not to kiss in public or to hold hands in public. They were using the word flaunting our gayness. And then we were all young. There was lesbians, there was gay blacks, there was gay Puerto Ricans, there was gay religious lesbians from all walks of life that was kicked out in the streets because of being gay. [00:10:17] Julie Trainum: It's a real diverse crowd out there. Real diverse. [00:10:21] Jimmy Flowers: Yes. The young gay blacks was considered a disgrace to their race if they were gay. A lesbian woman wasn't a real woman. They used slogans like, oh, what you need is a good man. And they used to use the word revise to the gay men that what you really need was a good woman. And we used to sock it back to them. I said, no. What you need is a good woman, and what we need is a good man. And so one guy, I remember one guy would say, you're not a real man. I said, how do you know? I said, did you have one? Of course, I'm a man's man. [00:11:10] Jimmy Flowers: And so therefore, if you haven't had a man, then you're not a man. And the lesbians used to sock it to them on their level too. Well, you're not a real woman until you have a woman, you know. [00:11:24] Julie Trainum: So a lot of the young people who were kind of on the street had to make up their own philosophy of living. [00:11:31] Jimmy Flowers: Right. [00:11:31] Julie Trainum: And philosophy of being gay and what that felt like. [00:11:34] Jimmy Flowers: Right. I'm not ashamed of it. I had to do some hustling to be able to hustle, and I was a go-go boy at the Stonewall. [00:11:45] Julie Trainum: What does that mean, go-go boy? [00:11:47] Jimmy Flowers: A go-go boy dancer. I should have brought my uniform, but they called me the gay midnight cowboy. That was part of my act. I had a black cowboy hat, purple shirt with white fringes, purple hot pants with silver sequins and cowboy boots. And of course, I was on the platform, and that's how I made to put food in my stomach. And at that time, I had to hustle because who was going to give a 14-and-ahalf-year-old person, young person, a full-time job or housing? And a lot of young lesbians and young gays had to do that. [00:12:26] Jimmy Flowers: But we protected each other, and we stood in a group. And we also protected the old ones that were taking us in, and we were not abused. We were not forced to have sex with them. As a matter of fact, there used to be a joke about me because I felt guilty for taking money for sex. So while they were sleeping, I used to get out and clean their apartments. So there used to be a joke going around saying, take the redhead because you get two for the price of one. Then came the raids of the bars constantly. Now we're getting into 69. [00:13:13] Julie Trainum: And this is in Brooklyn? [00:13:15] Jimmy Flowers: No, Manhattan. Greenwich Village. Then we started arguing with the police. There were entrapments of police undercover. There were police officers undercover taking license plates, numbers of cars that was in the neighborhood because they presumed that everybody in that section of the neighborhood were all gay, all lesbians. They were raiding the lesbian bars constantly, and the gay bars. We wasn't allowed to hold hands in our own bars. We wasn't allowed to sit close together, more than 12 feet. [00:13:56] Jimmy Flowers: And plainclothes cops used to come in and make sure that we did not do these things or slow dance together. There was also the gay rich was being blackmailed by plainclothes cops. 3 �[00:14:12] Julie Trainum: The gay, say that again. [00:14:12] Jimmy Flowers: The gay rich. [00:14:14] Julie Trainum: Okay. [00:14:14] Jimmy Flowers: Because they had money. [00:14:16] Julie Trainum: I see. [00:14:16] Jimmy Flowers: And if they were caught in the section and the plainclothes cops caught them in that area, they just assumed that they were automatically gay and they would call up their boss and tell him that they were gay and they wouldn't have a job, they'd be fired. [00:14:29] Julie Trainum: I see. [00:14:29] Jimmy Flowers: And then at that time, there was lesbians that were beaten up, gay men that was found in the Hudson River that was dead. With their thing cut off, found in the Hudson River. And then at that time, we had signs on the bars that said, enter in your own grips, you may be arrested. Some lesbians was raped by male undercover cops. [00:14:58] Jimmy Flowers: Years later, we found out those license plates that they had, which was over 100,000 license plates they had, was going to the FBI. What license plates were those? Lesbians and gays and people that was parked in the Greenwich Village area. [00:15:17] Julie Trainum: Okay, so they would take that information, the cars parked in the village area and send it to the FBI? Right. [00:15:24] Jimmy Flowers: At that time, that's what they did, and they called it a scare tactic. [00:15:30] Julie Trainum: Scare tactic. [00:15:31] Jimmy Flowers: Yes, to keep gays and lesbians away from getting together and uniting. [00:15:39] Julie Trainum: Okay. [00:15:39] Jimmy Flowers: At that time, we started having arguments with Mattachine Society. [00:15:46] Julie Trainum: Tell us a little bit about what that organization is. [00:15:49] Jimmy Flowers: Well, Mattachine Society started after World War II, about 1945, and they did a lot of things. They did help out a lot of people through courts, and they helped try to get a gay rights bill passed, a lesbian gay rights bill passed, secretly behind the scenes. [00:16:12] Julie Trainum: Okay. [00:16:12] Jimmy Flowers: They believed and dressed in ties and suits, and women, lesbian women, had to wear high heels and dresses and be very conservative. [00:16:24] Julie Trainum: What was their theory behind this dress and doing things behind the scenes? [00:16:28] Jimmy Flowers: Well, their theory figured that not let the public, the religious groups, or the straight community know what was going on in the world. They wanted to try to pass the bill of rights for lesbians and gays secretly behind the scenes, behind the doors. [00:16:49] Julie Trainum: So as to not make waves? [00:16:51] Jimmy Flowers: Right, not to make waves, and Mattachine Society were the older people at that time. Remember, the ones that lived on the streets, the homeless, lesbians and gays, and young gays, we were all young, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 years of age, 19, 20, some was even 13, and the youngest was 12 and a half years old, believe it or not. And then the older ones that was part of Mattachine, they were in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 4 �and 60s, and they used to come out at us for holding hands in public. Don't do that, the cops will get you arrested. [00:17:40] Julie Trainum: Okay, so that was the beginning of some of those arguments you were saying? [00:17:43] Jimmy Flowers: Yes. [00:17:43] Julie Trainum: So they did not like the fact that you were much more out in your appearance? [00:17:49] Julie Trainum: Okay. [00:17:49] Jimmy Flowers: They said you ruined everything that we were trying to accomplish, and we turned around and we said, well, this is 1969, and you've had since 1945 to do something, and it's time for a change, and the change is now. Well, the cops came and raided the Stonewall, and 200 of us took to the streets. Yes, there was drag queens there, there was lesbians, there was gay blacks, gay Puerto Ricans, but we were not all drag queens, let me just make that very clear. We were from all walks of life, all colors. [00:18:29] Julie Trainum: Has that been something that they've tried to state over and over, that it was just the drag queens that rioted? [00:18:36] Jimmy Flowers: Yes. [00:18:37] Julie Trainum: Okay. [00:18:37] Jimmy Flowers: Even, I got to admit, even the gay press keeps on saying drag queens. It just didn't happen like that. What has happened to be to Stonewall was incidents of the raiding of bars, being put away for being gay, entrapments, license plates being taken, beating up of lesbians and gays, dead bodies of gay males being found in the Hudson River, harassment, blackmail of the gay rich because they paid off the cops because they were afraid to lose their jobs. Lesbians were being raped by plainclothes cops, beaten up, and they were forced to fight back. [00:19:25] Julie Trainum: So people, in a sense, have had their fill of the harassment and the hatred, so that when that particular bar was raided... [00:19:35] Jimmy Flowers: It wasn't just that particular bar. [00:19:37] Julie Trainum: Was it not? [00:19:38] Jimmy Flowers: It started... See, all the bars in that area was being raided like every weekend. [00:19:44] Julie Trainum: Okay. [00:19:44] Jimmy Flowers: But, the Stonewall, we're the ones that came out of the Stonewall and we said, enough is enough, we're going to take the streets now. [00:19:57] Julie Trainum: Okay. [00:19:58] Jimmy Flowers: And that was the word gay. And we started using the word gay. A lot of people, even some of the gay people themselves, don't like to use the word gay. They don't use the word homosexual. Well, we name ourselves gay. [00:20:13] Jimmy Flowers: Homosexuality, faggot, queer, fruit, homo, pansy, bull dyke, lesbian, all those names were labeled on us by society. The word gay, we took as being proud. And the word lesbian, as proud as being a lesbian woman. So then, then we start taking into the streets. And we started turning over police cars and we started dancing in the streets and we started yelling out gay rights now. And I remember this big black guy, about six foot four, something like that, kicked up a paddy wagon and turned it over. [00:20:59] Jimmy Flowers: And three lesbians pulled over the paddy wagons and the best fighters, I gotta admit, was the drag queens and the lesbians. And, but people like me too was there too. We were, I was the one that was underneath the paddy wagon as they were pulling the gays and lesbians into the paddy wagon, I was underneath the paddy wagon punching the cops between the legs. And then as they were going out, the lesbians, 5 �gays were running out of the paddy wagons. Jim, you were back there when I was a little girl. Well, you know, at that time, you did what you had to do. [00:21:41] Jimmy Flowers: And about how old were you at the time then? I was about 14 and a half years old, 15 years old. And there were some other gay youth there as well? And that's that one thing we all had in common. We were all young and we were all gay and lesbians. Let's stop there for just a second, okay? Yeah, all right. [00:22:03] Jimmy Flowers: As I was saying before, when they were dragging in the lesbians and gays, I was underneath the paddy wagon punching below the belt of the police officers and the lesbians and gays would run out of the paddy wagon while the cops were going out, you know? Okay, great. And then we started marching in the streets, yelling out gay rights now and this and that. And they would throw gas bombs at us and we had handkerchiefs we wrapped around our faces and we threw it back at the cops. And we was turning over the paddy wagon to the police cars. [00:22:44] Jimmy Flowers: We marched to the 10th precinct, which was the Greenwich Village Police Station. And we marched around there, started singing We Shall Overcome. And then we started marching towards out of the gay ghetto. And that's when everything started beginning. We started marching up 6th Avenue. They knew that we was gonna be on 5th Avenue to St. Patrick's because see, on 5th Avenue was St. Patrick's Cathedral and sinners of God wasn't allowed to be on 5th Avenue. [00:23:16] Julie Trainum: Bless you. [00:23:18] Jimmy Flowers: And so anyway, we started marching on 6th Avenue but we had a plan. And we all ran arm to arm, black, white, young and old. Some of us, most of us was young. And we started doing the can-can. And as we started kicking the lesbians and gays, drag queens, blacks and whites, and yes, even some atheists and Christians, we started doing the can-can and started saying gay rights now, lesbian power now. And as we kicked, the police officers backed away. They took one step back and then we started taking advantage of it. Each night, the crowd grew larger. [00:24:08] Jimmy Flowers: And as we was doing the can-can down the street of 6th Avenue, the cops, they have never faced this situation before. They were scared to death of us. That night, the crowds grew to about 1,000. And we started rowing. And then when we got to 45th Street, cut off on to 5th Avenue, the cops had the barricade of police cars and the lesbians and the gay men and the drag queens and the transvestites. And we just pushed the cars off the streets and just pushed them onto the sidewalks. And then we went right on to 5th Avenue and we started marching up. [00:25:00] Jimmy Flowers: Then they had another barricade. And then we started marching towards St. Patrick's. And as we was doing the kicking in the air and singing all sorts of things, and unite, we stand, fight back now, the cops were backing up and backing up and the crowd just grew larger and larger. [00:25:24] Jimmy Flowers: That night was 1,000 and we started holding hands and marching around St. Patrick's Day, and we started singing We Shall Overcome, and we did it all night long. And then people started saying that homosexuals is taking over the country. There was headlines in the newspapers and everything, it was on the news, and then we started protesting at City Hall. The first protest at City Hall was 1970 for the gay rights. Only 40 people showed up at that time. As the year went by, the crowd at City Hall grew larger and larger and larger. [00:26:17] Jimmy Flowers: The gay and lesbian community started uniting. At one point around 1973, the politicians and the religious groups, the Orthodox Jewish community and the Catholics saying, well there's really nothing about lesbians in the Bible, it's okay to be a lesbian. And what they were trying to do is split us apart and to make us weak, because unity there is strength. So I say to the young ones today, don't let politicians or anybody split y'all up because of politics, because we are in it together and there must be unity. [00:27:06] Jimmy Flowers: Then we started marching towards politicians and we started having sit-ins and we started having sit-ins to go into the City Hall chambers and about 100 of us or 200 of us, and we started singing We Shall Overcome each and every time there was a lesbian gay rights hearing. And then we started having the Lesbian Gay Parade, which was 1970. The very first one was 1970, and we marched from Greenwich Village to Central Park, which by the way was only 9,000 people. Excellent about that. [00:27:48] Julie Trainum: Has there been one every year then? 6 �[00:27:50] Jimmy Flowers: Yes, every one, and last year, the 25th anniversary, lesbians gays from all over the world came. There was people from Switzerland, lesbians and gays from Russia, there was lesbians and gays from Puerto Rico, from Cuba, there was lesbians and gays from Texas and Oklahoma, there was lesbians and gays from Kansas City, Philadelphia, you name it, they were all there. Gays and lesbians from Alaska. [00:28:28] Julie Trainum: How many do you think, in your opinion, were actually in attendance? [00:28:32] Jimmy Flowers: Well, later on when you see the pictures up close. The newspaper says 100,000, but the newspapers always lie when it comes to lesbians and gays marching in the streets. I estimate there was close to one million lesbians and gays, and parents of gays, and friends of gays, and lesbians and gays themselves from all walks of life, from all over the world, was marching because we had three avenues. [00:29:02] Jimmy Flowers: Excuse me, I think it's important at this point to recognize that Jimmy was honored as one of the 15 only survivors from the original Stonewall Uprising, and he was honored this past year during the 20th anniversary as one of those 15,... Oklahoma in that. [00:29:25] Julie Trainum: How many Oklahomans were also in that group? Were you the only one? [00:29:31] Jimmy Flowers: I was the only one. [00:29:33] Julie Trainum: Well, we're proud of you. Let's go ahead at this point and... [00:29:36] Jimmy Flowers: But I wasn't born in Oklahoma. [00:29:38] Julie Trainum: I understand, but we have you now. We'll go ahead and stop the film for a second so that we can get up and take a look. And what we're going to do right now is take a look at some of the mementos that Jimmy has brought. We have an array of t-shirts here, and we're going to listen a little bit about what each one... [00:29:56] Julie Trainum: Where each one came from and so on and anything else that Jimmy can tell us about it. So you want to start over there with the Lambda? [00:30:04] Jimmy Flowers: Okay. The Lambda was the first gay t-shirt that lesbians and gays wore as a symbol of lesbian gay power. There was a little bit of confusion about the Lambda bit because it stood for gay males, but there was a little confusion about that too as well. [00:30:23] Julie Trainum: Okay. [00:30:24] Jimmy Flowers: So this was the first lesbian gay t-shirt even though there was some confusion. This one here was about Reagan's time where two guys and we took his slogan and we said breathe my lips and there's two guys kissing. Also we started using slogans like cruise men not missiles. Then there was the gay independent democrats. We started registering people to vote and I have myself registered in New York City over 10,000 lesbians and gay voters, all democrats. [00:31:03] Julie Trainum: So you helped to get people signed up to register to vote? [00:31:05] Jimmy Flowers: Oh yes I did. [00:31:06] Julie Trainum: Excellent. [00:31:07] Julie Trainum: Okay. [00:31:08] Jimmy Flowers: This is the t-shirt of the coalition. This was the original lesbian gay flag which I designed it and a lesbian woman made the flag. [00:31:20] Julie Trainum: Cool. [00:31:21] Jimmy Flowers: It was June 1st, 1976. That was the symbol, the first original lesbian gay flag. It stands for unity. This here was the first march on Washington D.C. national wise. There was other marches besides that. There was Madison Society had a group in 1966 marching in front of the White House, but this 7 �was the first national march on Washington with Harvey Milk's name. Then later on, this picture here of me, 1976, I had a t-shirt that said I'm a gay American. And that there came out in one of the gay newspapers. [00:32:10] Julie Trainum: Great. [00:32:11] Jimmy Flowers: This here, later on, there was words mixed up so we started using, we realized that some lesbians wanted to be called lesbians and some wanted to be called gay. So to make everybody happy, we decided to use the word gay and lesbian independent democrats. [00:32:31] Julie Trainum: Great. [00:32:33] Jimmy Flowers: And then here was the first picture of the first protest march at City Hall in 1970. Then comes the American Cypriot Union book around 1975. Then I got a letter from the White House, from Jimmy Carter, from the assistants. And then around 1980, I had a discrimination case against Victor Gonthown, DC-37 in New York, which sexual orientation was passed on AFCIO Union, which they took my case on, which I'm very proud of that. [00:33:18] Julie Trainum: Okay, let me just get kind of a pan shot of some of these things and a view of all the goodies that we have. [00:33:24] Jimmy Flowers: Well, this one, this one here was taken in 1976, I'm a gay American. This one here with the lesbian gay flag, the original one, in front of St. Patrick's Day, saying that we are children of God too. This one here was the first print of the original lesbian gay flag which stands for unity. [00:33:53] Julie Trainum: I like that theme a lot. I like that theme. [00:33:57] Jimmy Flowers: Then here's a pamphlet that we tried to pass in New York City. I was kicked out of a restaurant for wearing a gay t-shirt and they took my case to the human rights, which I won the first gay case in human rights back in 1978. And finally won on paper. [00:34:26] Julie Trainum: Can you tell us a little bit about the Stonewall sash that you're wearing? [00:34:31] Jimmy Flowers: Well, around 1979, Ed Murphy, one of the people in Stonewall, he was a door bouncer at the Stonewall, gave all of these banners to all the Stonewall people that was there. And I've had it since 19... [00:34:49] Jimmy Flowers: 78 something. It was purple and gold, but now it's turning into pink and gold. [00:35:04] Julie Trainum: Tell us a little about your hat. [00:35:05] Jimmy Flowers: Well, my hat has got all the buttons on it about AIDS, be safe, about lesbian and gay rights, civil rights. I'll have a talk and take it off and show you. Boycott homophobia, remember the quilt, silent equals death, stop AIDS, fight back, act up. This is the newest one, Stonewall 25, keep on marching. This symbol of AIDS awareness and over here it says gay rights are civil rights. [00:35:50] Julie Trainum: I love that one. Okay, we need to go ahead and end up this portion. [00:35:55] Jimmy Flowers: Okay. [00:35:56] Julie Trainum: And so what I will do real quick is to, these are pictures of the 25th anniversary of Stonewall. [00:36:03] Jimmy Flowers: Right here. [00:36:04] Julie Trainum: That we're taking in June of this year and some fabulous buttons. [00:36:07] Jimmy Flowers: This one here is I Am All of Us, Harvey Milk. That was printed in 1979. This one here was the first gay button and this was the second one, 1970 and 1970. And then all the other buttons came afterwards. And then we even had a button, boyfriend wanted no experience necessary. Homophobia is a social disease. Then we had this Harvey Milk riot which I will explain later what really happened on that day. 8 �And then we had the pink triangle which gays and lesbians were forced to wear during World War II as in the prisons. [00:36:58] Jimmy Flowers: The gay Jewish, I don't have here a button, but if you was gay and Jewish you wore a yellow and pink star. This one here to sign to the born again Christians. [00:37:10] Julie Trainum: Born again gay. [00:37:11] Jimmy Flowers: Born again gay. [00:37:12] Julie Trainum: Very nice. [00:37:12] Jimmy Flowers: And then there's the teddy bear here with the symbol of the male symbol of gay men. And then we have here of a cat with the lesbian symbol here on the cat. And then we had over here the pink triangle, fight for lesbian gay liberation. And then there was Gay Teachers Unite which came out about 1972. [00:37:38] Julie Trainum: Wow, that's great. We're going to go ahead and end up today's segment. And in a few days we'll get back together and take another look at the remaining memorabilia and finish up Jimmy's story. Hi Jimmy, this is December the 19th and we're back to complete hopefully our session on some of the gay history that you're very familiar with. I think we left off beginning to talk about Stonewall 25 that happened here just last June of 1994. Go ahead if you would and give us your view of what happened last June and what you saw and just go from there. [00:38:19] Jimmy Flowers: Well, number one, it was really beautiful. I found the George Segal statue was put up in the park which was two women and two men holding an armed arm in the park. [00:38:33] Julie Trainum: Was he the sculptor? [00:38:34] Jimmy Flowers: He was George Segal, yeah. It went through the United States and then ended up at Sheridan Square which is in Greenwich Village. And I was part of that. A lot of people was at that time in 1977 when they built the statues of two men and two women holding hands in the park. The Italians got upset and the religious right got upset. Left? [00:39:07] Julie Trainum: Right. [00:39:07] Jimmy Flowers: Right. And they got upset all about the statues. But all there is is that two women is holding arm to arm sitting on the park bench and two guys standing up holding each other with love. Well, I was glad to see that because I collected over 15,000 signatures for those statues. Wow. But I wasn't the only one. Let me put that very clear. I wasn't the only person that was doing it. [00:39:40] Julie Trainum: When did you do this project? [00:39:42] Jimmy Flowers: This was 1977-78. [00:39:44] Julie Trainum: And so you now saw them in the... [00:39:47] Jimmy Flowers: I saw them in the park at Sheridan Square which I was very proud of. [00:39:51] Jimmy Flowers: Finally they got it there. [00:39:54] Jimmy Flowers: Through court battles. They called it freedom of speech. When you show affection towards the same sex. So we used the expression freedom of speech. [00:40:06] Jimmy Flowers: Also, on the day of the parade, which was beautiful, they took up 5th Avenue, 6th Avenue, and also 1st Avenue from the United Nations building. From the United Nations building, there was lesbians and gays from all over the world. From Japan, from China, from Russia, from Italy, from Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio, Philadelphia, California, Boston, Connecticut, Africa. There was lesbians and gays from Switzerland, Italy, you name it, they were there. [00:40:51] Julie Trainum: Sounds like that was the place to get a pen pal. 9 �[00:40:53] Jimmy Flowers: It was beautiful. And the Stonewall led the whole parade, all 18 of us, that was led from the original Stonewall veterans, they called us. I didn't know I was a veteran until the 25th. But, also, from all over the world, over 25,000 ACT UP members marched up 5th Avenue, in front of St. Patrick's Metro, and passed there. And they assembled there, and they started singing, We Shall Overcome. And, of course, then they started marching again. [00:41:31] Jimmy Flowers: On 6th Avenue, over 66,000 lesbians from all over the country, in the United States, and parts of the other world, marched up 6th Avenue to Central Park. We arrived at the park about approximately 11.30am. At 6.30pm, they were still coming into the park, and the parade has not ended. The parade ended coming into the park around 9pm. So, the newspapers always lie about how many numbers there is, especially when it comes to lesbians and gays marching. The newspaper says 100,000, but that's in the pig's eye. It's a lie. [00:42:24] Jimmy Flowers: So, anyway, I, X-Men, and so did a lot of lesbians and gays that was there. XMen, there was 1 million lesbians and gays. We also had straights and gays, women for gay rights, we had parents for gay rights, we had grandmothers marching for gay rights. We had a few members from Mattachine Society that was in it for 36 years, marched too as well. There was about 5 people, I remember, from Mattachine, and they were carrying a sign, 36 years, of 2 women and 1 gay man. That was, as I can remember, from Mattachine Society that was marching. [00:43:16] Julie Trainum: So, that's 36 years of trying to fight for gay rights? [00:43:19] Jimmy Flowers: Oh, that's for gay rights. Okay. From up to last year. Okay. But, there was other gay movements before then. In 1920, Oscar Wilde in England, the case of Oscar Wilde, which by the way, the gay rights bill over there was passed about 45, 40 years ago. And, of course, I can turn around to the religious groups and tell them that see, England did not fall apart. And, the reason, one of the reasons why Queen Elizabeth I, there was no law against lesbianism, but there was laws against gay men. [00:44:06] Jimmy Flowers: Because Queen Elizabeth I believed that women don't do such things. So, therefore, there was no law against being a lesbian, only against being a gay male. Because men do do those types of things. Right. Okay. That's what they said. And, we all know that's a lie. Also, going back, now we're going to go back to 1970, 73. [00:44:37] Julie Trainum: Okay. [00:44:37] Jimmy Flowers: 1970 was the Gay Activist Alliance. After we did the Stonewall, we started realizing we must stop fighting in the streets. And, start protesting peacefully and ordinarily matter. [00:44:48] Jimmy Flowers: We did, sometimes we had kiss-ins, holding hands, walking the streets, but by groups. Sometimes two or three hundred would have a kiss-in on the steps of St. Patrick's or on the steps of City Hall to show the public that here we are, we're not going to hide our affection, our love, and our tenderness to be towards each other. Because, see, gay is not just sex, as most people think that it is. Being a lesbian or being gay is not sex, it's the way of life, it's the way of love, it's the way you were born, it's the way you are. [00:45:31] Jimmy Flowers: And we are human beings and children of God just as well as anybody else. There's been Michelangelo that was gay, Jonathan and David, Einstein, and I can go down the list, which will take hours. [00:45:44] Julie Trainum: One of my favorite posters, have you seen it, is depicting all of the people, so many of the people, down through history. And it's just crowded with faces, it's really nice to see. [00:45:59] Jimmy Flowers: I love that poster. [00:45:59] Julie Trainum: Creative, talented. Very much so. [00:46:02] Jimmy Flowers: And also there was Jim Levin, Jim Levin was the gay lawyer who went around mostly towards me because I always seemed to get into trouble. Mostly because of the mouth. Not that I just stood up for what I believed in, but I got my first job in 1971 as a construction worker working on highways cleaning. And the other guys, they had black power on their helmet, kiss me I'm Italian, kiss me I'm Italian. So what I did on my hard hat, helmet, is put gay power on my helmet. 10 �[00:46:43] Jimmy Flowers: But that was totally a different story when it came to the union, D.C. 37, Victor Garfield. And then they tried to make separate bathrooms. A gay men's bathroom and a gay straight men's bathroom. And I fought that because to me that's discrimination, that's like a war fountain for whites and a war fountain for blacks. And to me that is discrimination. So anyway, also in their locker rooms, in their lockers, they had pictures of nude women. So what I did, to be myself, I put up a picture of a nude man on my locker inside my locker. [00:47:28] Jimmy Flowers: And of course that was totally a different story. At that time I had a boyfriend I was going to study with for two years. And their wives and their girlfriends came and picked up the guys from work and they hugged and kissed. You know, hello. So my boyfriend came up and we hugged and he kissed me. And brother, let me tell you, hell just broke loose. So they tried to fire me. And I went to the human rights, filed a complaint, went to D.C. 37 and filed a complaint with Victor Garfield to hit the union. The big cheese there. [00:48:13] Jimmy Flowers: And he says, we're going too far for lesbian gay rights. I said, what do you mean too far? We just want equal rights just like anybody else. And he says, well you're just going too far. And I said, no we're not. So Jim Levin was my lawyer again after a couple of cases I had. Because every time I hear or see something wrong I speak up. Then came the gay rights bill. Mostly that got me into a lot of trouble. Because I always speak up when I see or hear something wrong. Then came 1973, I believe. [00:48:55] Jimmy Flowers: The mental psychiatrists and therapists from all over the country came to New York and they were having a conference. And their discussion was, what are we going to do about these homosexuals in America? And at that time, the gay movement was just beginning to get on its high pit. [00:49:18] Julie Trainum: So it wasn't what can we do for the gay community, it was what are we going to do about? [00:49:22] Jimmy Flowers: About. About, alright. About the homosexuals in America. Mostly, they were concerned mostly of gay males. Don't ask me why, that's the way they did it. So we had a plan to have lesbians and gays to march together outside of the conference building. Which was held on 34th Street, Madison Square Garden. [00:49:49] Jimmy Flowers: And we, as we were protesting outside, about five to six hundred lesbians and gay therapists and psychiatrists came out of the closet at that time, at the conference, and the rest of the people that were inside, the so-called straight people, the heads that were saying what we were going to do about these homosexuals in America, that they're going too far, and that there decided, when they came out, psychiatrists and therapists came out, which shocked the living heck out of them, they decided then and there that it was not an illness, it was not a sickness. [00:50:38] Jimmy Flowers: This, I believe, was back in 1973. I'm not exactly sure on the exact date, but it's about there. So mental illness is not social disease or mental disease or mental order or anything like that, what they thought in the old days. And we're surely not sinners of God, we're children of God as well as anybody else. And also, and then we started protesting the city council people. The first one was 1970, with 30 people. Each year, the crowd grew bigger and bigger. [00:51:21] Julie Trainum: What types of issues did you bring before the council? [00:51:23] Jimmy Flowers: Equal rights in housing, jobs, unemployment, public accommodations, and we tried to put in marriages, lesbian and gay marriages, but that didn't go through. But we got jobs, housing, public accommodations in those orders. [00:51:44] Julie Trainum: How long did that take? That took from 1970 to 1986. [00:51:46] Jimmy Flowers: And that's in New York City? [00:51:53] Julie Trainum: That's in New York City. [00:51:55] Jimmy Flowers: And each year, the protests marched because we kept on insisting. So every six months, we were at City Hall protesting, and each time, the crowd grew larger and larger and larger. In 1986, we started registering, around 1980, we started registering lesbians and gays. We went to the bars, we went to the bathhouses, we went to the backroom bars, we went to the piers, we went wherever lesbians and gays went, we went there. 11 �[00:52:27] Julie Trainum: Registering at the bar? [00:52:29] Jimmy Flowers: Yes. And I, myself, registered over 10,000 lesbians and gays through the bars, through the backrooms, through the lesbian bars. And by the way, I was the first gay male to enter a lesbian and gay bar. Because at that time, lesbians wanted to keep to themselves because a lot of straight guys used to come in and harass them all the time, and it was a lot of trouble. [00:52:57] Jimmy Flowers: So Betty Santora, Eleanor Cooper, they were part of the group, and they said, Look, he's here trying to get signatures and register people to vote, and he's here for your cause as well as for ours. We're supposed to be together and be united. So I was the first male that ever went to a lesbian bar. [00:53:18] Julie Trainum: How'd that feel? [00:53:19] Jimmy Flowers: I felt terrific. You know, most likely, I got along with lesbians better than I did with gay males. I don't know why, but it just happens. There was a joke going around about me, that I was a lesbian trapped in a gay man's body. [00:53:37] Julie Trainum: Did you find that a compliment or not a compliment? [00:53:42] Jimmy Flowers: Well, at the time, I felt both. It was a compliment and it was an insult. But now I think it's a compliment. Then around 19, we started protesting the White House. 1971, we started putting paths. About 100 of us started marching to Washington on foot. [00:54:13] Julie Trainum: You thought you would tell Mr. Nixon a thing or two? [00:54:15] Jimmy Flowers: We thought we would, yeah. [00:54:16] Julie Trainum: How'd that go? [00:54:18] Jimmy Flowers: Well, as we passed each state, the crowd grew larger and larger. When we got to Washington, D.C., finally, it took about almost a week or so. We had rain and everything, and through the sun and everything. And people, as we were walking, with signs and paths on them, the crowd grew to 1,000. [00:54:43] Jimmy Flowers: from 100 from New York and then as we went to Washington they grew to 1,000. But I also got to say, too, there was other protest march back in 1966 by a group of about 25 to 30 lesbians and gay males from Mattachine Society. It wasn't the first march, but it wasn't a national march. The first national march on Washington from the country, the United States, was 1979, then again 1987, and then 1990, a few years later. [00:55:29] Julie Trainum: Early 90s. [00:55:30] Jimmy Flowers: Early 90s. [00:55:31] Julie Trainum: Sure. [00:55:33] Jimmy Flowers: The first one was sensational. We had the first march on Washington was over 500,000 lesbians and gays. The second one was over 50,000 lesbians and gays. Then they estimate the last one that we had was close to over a million lesbians and gays in Washington, even though the newspaper says 50,000 marched. Some said 40,000. Some of the media said 30,000, but if you saw the march yourself and you saw the crowd, you would know that there was five times more than that. [00:56:17] Julie Trainum: I was there. There was a million, believe me. [00:56:19] Julie Trainum: Have you been seeing more gay young people in the marches and parades? Jimmy, did you want to go ahead and continue with what was happening there in the late 70s and 80s? [00:56:31] Jimmy Flowers: Well, around 1976, Anita Bryant started a campaign against lesbians and gay rights, not only in one state in Florida, which passed an anti-gay lesbian rights bill, but then she started campaigning throughout the country. A lot of lesbians and gays, even movie stars and actors, got upset with her because most of her people that was working with her were gay people. That's number one. Number two, she 12 �was actually slapping people in the face that we wasn't human, we wasn't children of God, and we wasn't Americans and everything like that. [00:57:14] Jimmy Flowers: She was trying to get the religious groups to come out and say we are not. But I must say, and I also was one of the people that threw a fruit pie in her face. I was upset, I was angry, and I am American, a gay one, I'm proud of it. The Constitution of the United States says we the people, not we the blacks, not we the straights, not we the women, not we the lesbians and gays, but we the people. And even politicians forget what the Constitution says. And we have to remember that, that we are the people as well. [00:58:00] Jimmy Flowers: And we are just as human beings as anybody else. Because if you cut my wrist, I will bleed red blood just like anyone else. And I also believe that I was born gay, not made. Also, I would like to say that to black youth of America, that be proud of being gay. Don't be ashamed. Because in the 70s, if you was gay and black, their own race said that they were a disgrace to their race because they were black. But that's not true. Be proud to be gay, be proud to be black, and be proud to be Christian and gay or lesbians. [00:58:45] Jimmy Flowers: We must stand in unity and don't let politicians or religion try to split us up. Like, for instance, at City Hall, and I also heard it here at City Hall in Oklahoma, that, oh well, there's nothing against lesbians in the Bible. But they also forget Joan of Arc was burned to the stake because she was a lesbian. And they also forget about that, that's the Roman Catholics. There's a lot of things that in the Bible you can also prove. [00:59:19] Jimmy Flowers: If you put 20 people in the room, and each one of them read the Bible, you will find you get 20 different opinions of what the Bible says. So therefore, should we put a woman down because she's wearing a red dress? That's in the Bible. You know, they said, thy shall not kill. But yet, the Orthodox Jewish people, back in 1986, asked for the death penalty for being gay. Even the gay community, the Jewish gay community, got upset. And all, at the same time, in City Hall, we all stood up. [01:00:01] Jimmy Flowers: Black gays, Jewish gays, Christian gays, gay atheists, we all stood up and we yelled out, Hai Hitler to them. [01:00:10] Jimmy Flowers: That was the most insulting thing to them. They all got up, all the Orthodox Jewish community walked up and out of City Hall. And we applauded and we yelled out hallelujah, you know. [01:00:25] Julie Trainum: What are some of the things that you see that divide the gay community? [01:00:30] Jimmy Flowers: Well, number one, the money bed should not divide the community. The poor, middle class, and the rich. We must work together. Young, old, woman, man, black, and white. There must be unity. Because in numbers there is strength. Martin Luther King said one thing, In unity we have strength, divided we will fall. That's what Martin Luther King said. And we have to remember those words. Because so far what I have seen, we are divided now. But we have to start getting together. [01:01:12] Jimmy Flowers: Because sometimes I feel like I'm reliving the 70s and the 80s all over again right here in Oklahoma. I say to the youth of America, stand up, be proud, and don't let people push you down because you're simply a lesbian or gay or bisexual. Be proud of what you are. Because it's not just sex, it's a wave of life, and it's a wave of human sexuality. I believe that if human sexuality is taught at an early age, you will not have all this hang up about sex, about divorce, about women and men, about gay and lesbians and bisexuality. [01:02:00] Jimmy Flowers: I don't feel that there will be so much uptightness if people and children are taught at an early age about human sexuality and let them be themselves as they grow up. But be taught the right way. Some of us, we learned the hard way. And I must say, we may have all different ways of doing things, we may have all different ideas, we may have all different faiths. But when we step outside and protest peacefully, hand in hand, number one, we must be in unity and we must be in numbers. That's 65 people marching. [01:02:50] Jimmy Flowers: Because politicians, when they look out that window, they say, oh it's only 65, because they're thinking of voters. But if they see 200, 300, 5,000, or 10,000, or even 1 million people out there, they're going to wake up and they say, oh, voters, we better shape up or we're going to get shipped out. So therefore, I say, register the vote when you're 18. Put your money where your mouth is and tell it like it is. Go out there and be peaceful. March peaceful. Have kiss-ins, because there's no law against kissing of the same sex. 13 �[01:03:34] Jimmy Flowers: There is no law against people of two women holding hands, or two men holding hands. So we can easily have kiss-ins, walk hand in hand, surrounding city hall, singing We Shall Overcome. That would get them more anything. They would wake up. That's what we should be doing. And also to educate society that we're here to stay and we're not going away. Lesbians and gays have been here for the longest time. And since the time began, we're going to be here now, until the end of time. [01:04:13] Julie Trainum: Because gay young people, and actually any young person, has a whole lot more to face these days than we did 20 years ago or so, what types of messages would you give kids today when they look at their health and safety? [01:04:29] Jimmy Flowers: Well, number one, be safe. Use condoms. There's different ways of making love without sexual intercourse. That goes for male or female. There's touching, there's feeling, there's holding, there's caressing. There's more ways of making love without intercourse. And if you do have it, get a checkup. Play safe. Use condoms. Or don't use condoms, but be safe with sass. And have checkups. That's what I would say to the youth of America. [01:05:07] Jimmy Flowers: to play safe and also tell the government there must be a cure of AIDS now. Not tomorrow, not ten years from now, but now. Over 40 or 50 million people throughout the world have AIDS. And every day the numbers are growing and growing. And mostly now the young heterosexual community are getting them. And we have to reach out towards them. But just because you're HIV does not make you less of a woman, just because you're HIV does not make you less of a man, or gay, or straight, or black, or white. Be proud of those issues. Be proud of being black. [01:05:59] Jimmy Flowers: Don't let no one say, well, you're HIV now. Now keep silence, because silence to me equals death. It's time to act up peacefully and out there to march and let the politicians know that we are here and we're not going to take it no more. Did you participate in the AIDS walk this past year? Yes, I did. Can you tell us about that? Well, I carried the sign. I got to admit, the crowd was much bigger in Oklahoma than last year. Last year there was only 65 and I was sort of a little bit upset about it. [01:06:37] Jimmy Flowers: And I got a little emotional and a little angry and I went back to those groups and I told them, shame, shame on you for not being at the walk. This year we had close to 150 or 200 people. What I hear in Oklahoma, that was great. But I like to see next year 1,000 people out there marching. Lesbians and gays. Straight people. Parents of gays. [01:07:05] Jimmy Flowers: And even Christians can get AIDS. Yeah, I just wanted to mention that because sometimes they say they're Christian and there was one guy, I won't mention no names, he was going with a woman every day and then all of a sudden with another woman and I told him, I tried to get him condoms and I gave him brochures and he said, well his minister told him it was a gay disease. And I said, no it is not a gay disease. It's a human disease. And which our own government has lied about it. The blood banks have lied about it. [01:07:45] Jimmy Flowers: The Christians tried to put the blame on the gay, that it was God's punishment to gay people. AIDS is man-made. Two scientists already came out and made a statement that in 1969 they developed AIDS as German warfare. Now this was on television because I watch a lot of talk shows. There's also, they were experiment on green monkeys. And in Africa, their food supplies is green monkeys that they eat because of lack of food. Throughout the country, in Africa alone, 10 million plus has AIDS. Mostly heterosexuals. In this country it hit the gay population. [01:08:37] Jimmy Flowers: Yes, that's true at first. But in other parts of the world, Russia, Japan, China, Switzerland, Germany, East Germany, West Germany, also Africa, all the other countries it hit the heterosexuals. But somehow the gays get the blame for it. Don't ask me why, I don't know why. But it's time now to come out and not to do it violently, but peacefully protest by numbers. I've been asked that question quite a lot. And my answer is, no, I will not do anything differently. [01:09:30] Jimmy Flowers: Because I believe very strongly that I was born gay, not made, and I also believe in God, and I also believe in Jesus. And I believe in a God of love, not a God of hate. I also believe that Jesus preached love in the Ten Commandments, if you looked at it. It does not say, thy shall not be a homosexual. Which in 1976, some of the religious groups wanted to bring Eleventh Commandment on the Ten Commandments. And I was doing the Neal O'Brien situation. Which, by the way, I was one of the people that threw a fruit pie at the Neal O'Brien's face. 14 �[01:10:22] Jimmy Flowers: And she forgave me. [01:10:25] Julie Trainum: How do you know she forgave you? [01:10:27] Jimmy Flowers: Because she said it on television that she forgives me. [01:10:30] Julie Trainum: I'm glad you brought that up again because a lot of the younger people may not remember who Anita O'Brien is. [01:10:35] Jimmy Flowers: Well, Anita O'Brien was the one that was doing the commercials, and she was a singer, and a blogger. [01:10:43] Julie Trainum: But before that, wasn't she like a Miss America or some type like that? [01:10:47] Jimmy Flowers: She came in second place. [01:10:49] Julie Trainum: Okay, well it makes her like this all-American type, and people are going to maybe listen to her. And so then she went into entertainment. [01:10:56] Jimmy Flowers: Well, I can say this. We're all Americans here. No matter what color, what background, if you're a woman, if you're a man, young, old, black and white, of race. We're all Americans here. But if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty, the only Americans here that's true Americans is the American Indians. I mean, let's face it. You know, white men brought the diseases over from Europe. [01:11:26] Jimmy Flowers: If these diseases, if they would think, if you think about this, number one, if the government could spend $2.3 billion on one bomb that would destroy countries and life, human life, from all walks of life. Why can't they spend, and we've got enough weapons and bombs and airplanes to destroy this world 20 times over, if not more. It is now time to put an end to all diseases and put the money together and have all the scientists throughout the world in this country. And I'm not just talking about AIDS. I'm talking about diabetes. [01:12:11] Jimmy Flowers: I'm talking about heart trouble or cancer and liver problems. If they will find and put their money to save human life instead of destroying human life, I'll bet you, ten to one, we will be much happier. Because in the Constitution of the United States too, it says, life, liberty, and presumed happiness. And so far, I really haven't seen much of that. And I'm sure a lot of others haven't either. [01:12:43] Julie Trainum: But... [01:12:43] Julie Trainum: Okay, let me stop there for a second. [01:12:45] Julie Trainum: Stand by, stand by. We're looking at some of the things that Jimmy brought with him. Just kind of show real quick a few of these items. And let's go back over here to the purple outfit. Tell us what this is and when you wore it. [01:13:04] Jimmy Flowers: Okay. This was part of my go-go outfit. I was a go-go boy. [01:13:09] Julie Trainum: What is that again? You're a dancer. [01:13:09] Julie Trainum: And I also was a go-go boy at [01:13:11] Jimmy Flowers: the Gay Activist Alliance of New York City in the firehouse of GAA and at the Stonewall and at the Church of the Beloved Disciples, which was the first gay church in 1970 to raise money for the Church of the Beloved Disciples. [01:13:41] Julie Trainum: Okay. [01:13:42] Jimmy Flowers: And also, at that time, they called them hot pants. And that was part... I had black boots and a black cowboy hat and with the saccadone lights. That was part of my outfit. [01:13:55] Julie Trainum: Okay, great. And let's go back over here to this T-shirt here. This is really neat. 15 �[01:14:02] Jimmy Flowers: Well, I was the marshal of the... In 1983, one of the marshals, which is one of the grand marshals of the... You were chosen to be one of the persons that was involved in Stonewall and they called you a grand marshal. [01:14:28] Julie Trainum: Okay. [01:14:29] Jimmy Flowers: And this is the T-shirt from the 25th anniversary of Stonewall, which Stonewall would include all lesbians and gays from all over the world. [01:14:40] Julie Trainum: Okay. [01:14:40] Jimmy Flowers: And marched on the United Nations building to show that we want lesbian and gay rights throughout the world. [01:14:49] Julie Trainum: Okay. [01:14:50] Julie Trainum: And was this the Marshall T-shirt you were studying? [01:14:54] Julie Trainum: Yeah. [01:14:54] Jimmy Flowers: Which was 1983. [01:14:57] Julie Trainum: That's great. Okay. [01:15:01] Julie Trainum: And this banner? [01:15:02] Jimmy Flowers: That's the Stonewall banner which was given to me by Ed Murphy in late 70s. We all got one. As you see it's turning pink, but it was purple and gold. Lavender and purple and white is the lesbian and gay colors. [01:15:21] Julie Trainum: Okay. Great. Let's move over here and take a look at some of these buttons you have here. [01:15:28] Jimmy Flowers: Well, this shows you here in New York City in 1988. This was in the 80s. The gay 90s are coming. This here is the P flag. [01:15:42] Jimmy Flowers: This was the symbol for gay black of Africans, America, Americans. [01:15:50] Jimmy Flowers: This was the button on March of 87 to the White House. And this button here was printed in 1971, gay love, it's the real thing. This here was printed in 1970, I'm a man's man. This here is lesbian gay vote 89. And this was the first march in 1979 on Washington, National March. This is a button that says I support lesbian gay rights. This button here is the quilt, the names of the project. And this here says fight for lesbian gay rights, liberation. And you see the fist in the air means power to the people. [01:16:43] Julie Trainum: You told me one time how many buttons you actually collected when you had all of them. Do you remember how many? [01:16:48] Jimmy Flowers: Oh, I remember how many. Yes, definitely. Before I left New York in 89, I donated over 2,000 lesbian gay buttons to the Lesbian Gay Community Center. I also donated over 1,500 lesbian gay books that was printed from the 50s and 60s to the Lesbian Gay Community Center and the original lesbian gay flag. [01:17:14] Julie Trainum: What I'd like to do is just to get you to summarize, if you would, some of the ideas that you have about what you'd like to see happen in Tulsa. [01:17:25] Jimmy Flowers: Well, number one, I'd like to see Oklahoma wake up and smell the flowers. And also to see more unity instead of more divided. The hungry power should stop the dividing of lesbians and gays and young gays and older gays and black gays and lesbian black gays. What I am seeing now is what I feel like sometimes I'm reliving the 70s and the 80s all over again. What I'd like to see is more unity among all of us. The young, the old, the black, the white, and even some of the straight people in the community to get involved. 16 �[01:18:14] Jimmy Flowers: And also get the politicians to wake up and realize that we are here, we're not going away, we're going to be out there marching. But I insist, let's march peacefully, no violence. We must do it in unity. Once we step outside of the door, we must show numbers, unity, and strength. And let the politicians and the media and the Christians know that we mean business. That we are Americans and we're human beings and we are children of God. And we're just like anybody else. [01:19:04] Jimmy Flowers: We come from poor to black to rich, middle class, upper class, or lower class, and even homeless people. There are homeless people out there who has HIV and AIDS and they're not hardly getting no help at all. There's people from all over here that we have to educate the politicians that it's not a gay disease. It's a human disease and we must put a stop to it now. I say to the gay youth, come out, be proud, and be careful, and play safe. Show affection, be yourselves, and start marching. [01:19:54] Julie Trainum: Thanks, Jim. 17 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data VHS Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1 hour 20 minutes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [c. 2000] The Jimmy Flowers Story Subject The topic of the resource Jimmy Flowers Interview for Tulsa Youth Discovering Diversity Description An account of the resource From Julie Tucker - Trainum, August 2019 - Jimmy Flowers was one of the very first members of the AIDS Coalition in Tulsa. He was a young man when he was part of Stonewall and in his interview he talks about Stonewall. Jimmy died in the mid 2000s. He was interviewed so we could share his story at the YST support group "Tulsa Youth Discovering Diversity." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jimmy Flowers, Julie Tucker-Trainum, Youth Services of Tulsa, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Interview was conducted in 1999 or 2000 1999 2000 AIDS AIDS Coalition of Tulsa HIV interview Jimmy Flowers Julie Tucker-Trainum OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Stonewall transcript Tulsa Youth Discovering Diversity video Youth Services of Tulsa YST https://history.okeq.org/files/original/f72c2df42fc84be737c24550dce17aec.mp4 d517224038d8563bc6f524eb2753e69d https://history.okeq.org/files/original/9c5aa6299e0ece9650f1789f237c463b.pdf fc9870b8c20fb40b7478d0f28e9f551a PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with John Madigan Interview Conducted by Toby Jenkins Date: January 13, 2026 Transcribed By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video AI, January 25, 2026 Restrictions: Interviewee requested: N/A Oklahomans for Equality History Project 621 E. 4th Street Tulsa, OK. 74120 918.743.4297 historyproject@okeq.org 1 �About John Madigan Summary This conversation with John Madigan explores his life journey from a small mining town in Canada to becoming an influential figure in the LGBTQ+ community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. John shares his experiences growing up on a farm, his transition into the oil and gas industry, and his eventual involvement in various LGBTQ+ organizations, including Prime Timers. He reflects on the intersection of faith and sexuality, the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community, and the importance of advocacy and inclusion for older adults. John's insights provide a rich narrative of resilience, community, and the ongoing fight for equality. Takeaways 2  John was born in a small mining town in Canada.  He grew up on a farm with 12 siblings.  Education was a significant part of his early life.  John transitioned to the oil and gas industry in the 1960s.  He moved to Tulsa in 1990 and became involved in the local community.  John identifies as a gay man and became aware of his sexuality in adolescence.  He has maintained his Catholic faith throughout his life. � John has been actively involved in LGBTQ+ organizations, including Prime Timers.  He emphasizes the importance of community and advocacy for older LGBTQ+ adults.  John believes in the need for ongoing activism to protect LGBTQ+ rights. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Early Life 02:47 Growing Up on the Farm 06:00 Education and Early Career 09:00 Transition to the Oil and Gas Industry 12:02 Life in Tulsa and Community Engagement 15:02 Understanding Sexual Identity 18:02 Faith and Sexuality 20:55 Involvement in LGBTQ+ Organizations 23:48 The Formation of Prime Timers 26:57 Community Building and Advocacy 30:08 Challenges and Triumphs in the LGBTQ+ Community 33:09 Reflections on Aging and Inclusion 36:01 Future of LGBTQ+ Advocacy 38:59 Final Thoughts and Legacy John Madigan Interview Toby Jenkins: Good afternoon. We are here at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in the Joe and Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library. And we have an interview with John Madigan. John, for archival purposes, tell us your full name, your date of birth, and your physical address. John Madigan: John T. Madigan. 04-24-45, XXXXX, Tulsa. 3 �Toby Jenkins: All right. So we're going to jump right in. John, where were you born? John Madigan: Luscar, Alberta, in Canada. Toby Jenkins: In Canada. So you're from Canada. Is that a big city, small city, little town, hole in the wall? What is it? John Madigan: Well, back in the early 40s, it was a mining town. Today, it's a, what do you want to say? It's got a signpost to say where it was. Toby Jenkins: So you were born there in Canada. And at that time, so 1945, it would have been a mining town. What would the population have been? John Madigan: 400 or 500 people. They're just miners. Toby Jenkins: So it was still just a small town. And did your father work in the mine? John Madigan: Yes. That was his military duty. Toby Jenkins: OK. He was required to do it, or it was his assignment. Was he assigned there for security or for just a? John Madigan: He worked in it. Toby Jenkins: OK. And did your mother work outside the home? John Madigan: No. Toby Jenkins: And how many siblings do you have? John Madigan: 12. Toby Jenkins: 12. And this would have been in 1945 in Canada. And your father was able to support the family with the money he made at the mine? John Madigan: Well, that lasted only after the war was over. Then we moved back to Saskatchewan where he was raised to his parents' homestead. Toby Jenkins: So they had a farm? John Madigan: His parents moved from Ontario to Saskatchewan in 1905 when the three provinces were divided up. And so they had to have people to populate it. So it was just like Oklahoma. You had a homestead. Toby Jenkins: OK. And so you kind of grew up on a farm then? Toby Jenkins: How old were you when you moved back to Saskatchewan? 4 �John Madigan: About a year old. Toby Jenkins: Oh, so you were just a toddler. Where are you in the birth order of 12 kids? John Madigan: At the top. Toby Jenkins: You're the oldest? John Madigan: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Well, that's incredible. There was a lot of pressure on you. Now, with 12 children, what was their religious affiliation? John Madigan: They were Roman Catholic. Toby Jenkins: Roman Catholic. That explains the 12 children. So you lived there, and you lived on what would have been your grandparents' homestead. So did you farm? John Madigan: When in 46, 47, we moved to my uncle's farm. And then he moved back to Ontario. And so we had the farm until 2018. Everybody quit farming. Toby Jenkins: What kind of did y'all raise? Crops, cattle, sheep, goats? John Madigan: No goats. No, it was wheat farming. And we had cows on the side for eating purposes. Toby Jenkins: Was there a little school in this little town that y'all went back to? John Madigan: Yeah, we had two. It was called Naomi. It was three miles from the house. And then when we started to go to school, we walked or rode the horse. We didn't get to drive the buggy until we were eight, nine years old. Toby Jenkins: No school bus? John Madigan: School bus? We're lucky we had a car. Toby Jenkins: So you had to go three miles to school. Now was that a Canadian public school, or was that a private Catholic school? John Madigan: Public school. Toby Jenkins: And is that where you graduated from high school? John Madigan: No, that was my elementary. And then they closed it and they consolidated the school district. So we had to move to town to go to school. That's when we found out there was a school bus that worked. 5 �Toby Jenkins: And what was the town, the bigger city? John Madigan: Ceylon Toby Jenkins: And so they had a high school, a public high school. John Madigan: It went from first to twelfth grade. Toby Jenkins: Do you remember what year you graduated from high school? John Madigan: 1964. Toby Jenkins: 1964. How many were in your graduating class? John Madigan: Twelve. Toby Jenkins: Twelve. Wow. Well, that sounds so wonderful. So you were twelve years old. You graduated from a class of twelve, my apologies. And when you finished high school, you had all of these younger siblings. What was your plan? Do you remember what your plan was as a senior in high school? What you kind of dreamed. Did you dream you were going to farm? Or did you dream you were going to stay there? No. John Madigan: No. Farming was not my forte. I was not going to make that as a career and I didn't. Toby Jenkins: So what did you do right after high school? John Madigan: So after high school, then did odd jobs. And then I got a summer job with the highway department. John Madigan: The, what do you want to call it? District office was there in town. Toby Jenkins: So you did that, but you still were staying at home in that area. John Madigan: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And still helping with your family. John Madigan: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: When did you finally leave there? John Madigan: Then that winter I got a job with the company doing oil and gas exploration from here in Tulsa. Toby Jenkins: In 1965? John Madigan: It's about 67. 6 �Toby Jenkins: 67. Okay. So you're a Canadian farm boy and you went from there to Tulsa, Oklahoma. John Madigan: Well, I spent the winter in Canada doing exploration. And then the next spring he moved us down here to Kansas. That was the first job in exploration down here. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So did you have to have a visa, a work permit? John Madigan: Yeah, I had a work visa. Toby Jenkins: And so that would have been in the 60s. Were you excited about coming to work in the U.S.? John Madigan: Yes, it was a good job. Toby Jenkins: You were just glad to get off the farm. John Madigan: That was something to do. Toby Jenkins: And so you came to the middle of the country and you said you started out in Kansas. And what exactly were you doing in the oil and gas? Were you a roughneck? John Madigan: No. No, it was exploration. We used gravity for our readings. It's similar to seismic, where they drilled holes and used dynamite for their energy. We had a machine that was gravity. It would read the pull of gravity. It changed at every spot that we were in. Toby Jenkins: So eventually, you said you started out in Kansas. Then eventually they moved you to Tulsa? John Madigan: Well, we went from Kansas. That year we went to Iowa. Then from Iowa we went to Nevada. Spent over about a year in Nevada. And then we went to Utah, to north of Salt Lake, Ogden. And worked out on the Salt Lake flat. And then we moved back to Kansas, to Goodland. And then from there, went back to Williston, North Dakota. And then we moved down to San Antonio, Texas in July, so you know what the temperature was there, when the humidity and the temperature were the same. Toby Jenkins: But I would have thought you would have been grateful to get out in North Dakota in the summer. John Madigan: That was coming summer. The fun of job, working exploration, was we worked in the summer in the south and worked in the winter in the north. 7 �Toby Jenkins: Isn't that the way it always is? So while you're bouncing around all over the midsection of America in the oil and gas industry, were you staying in contact with your family? I mean, were you sending money home? John Madigan: No. Toby Jenkins: But you were writing them letters, talking to them. John Madigan: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Your siblings, did you make trips home during the holidays? John Madigan: Every once in a while, yeah. We had vacation time. Toby Jenkins: When did you eventually land in Tulsa? What year would that have been? John Madigan: I came to Tulsa to stay in 1990, in January. Toby Jenkins: So all of those years, would they have you visit Tulsa for companyrelated issues? John Madigan: Yeah, the only time coming to town was just between jobs, change equipment or something like that. Toby Jenkins: And so what was your thoughts of Tulsa in those days when you first were exposed to it? Because that would have been in the days we were the oil capital of the world. John Madigan: Yeah, that was, well, I didn't stay in very long, but it was a nice city, liked it. That's why I come back. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, and do you remember what the company was you worked with, what the name of the company was? John Madigan: They started out as E.V. McCollum & Company. And then when the owner finally, to decide, when he was in his 80s, to retire, it was called Gravimetrics. And we had an office down on South Main, just across the street from Texaco building. Dennis, you'd know where the Texaco building was. Toby Jenkins: All right, so about what age was it you finally moved to Tulsa, officially, permanently? John Madigan: I guess that's 90, that's 35 years ago. You take that from 80, I'm about 50. 8 �Toby Jenkins: You were in your 40s, late 40s. Okay, so all of this time you're here, did you become a U.S. citizen, or did you maintain your Canadian citizenship? John Madigan: Yeah, I still got my Canadian citizenship. I couldn't give it up, I couldn't afford to. Toby Jenkins: Right, so during this time you would have been a young adult man. Did you ever marry? Did you ever have children? John Madigan: No. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So you were a farm boy, and you landed this job, and it took you all over the country. How do you identify? What is your sexual orientation? John Madigan: Gay. Toby Jenkins: So you consider yourself a gay man. When did you begin to be aware that you were different than other people, different than other farm boys? Speaker 3: 13. Toby Jenkins: So you began to be aware of some differences when you were an adolescent. And when you finally get out of Canada, and you're traveling with this oil and gas company, was this an identity or sexual orientation? You became more aware of it, more confident that that's? John Madigan: Oh yeah, because you met different people in different towns. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, so when you would travel to these towns, would there be places to meet other men who were like yourself? John Madigan: Well, there could be, but I wasn't pursuing that. Toby Jenkins: Okay. But you knew that, by then you knew that you... John Madigan: Oh yeah, because you knew. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so when you came to Tulsa, did you meet any other gay people here in Tulsa? John Madigan: Well, that's when I, by 95, that's when I joined Prime Timers. Toby Jenkins: Okay, but that would have been a couple of years after you had arrived. What about when you first arrived in Tulsa? John Madigan: Oh, yeah, we got to know a friend that, he was a Prime Timer too, and he was working at the hotel that I was staying over in West Tulsa. 9 �Toby Jenkins: Okay, do you remember who that was? Was that just a friend, or was that a boyfriend? John Madigan: No, we got to know each other, and his name was Jim Young. Toby Jenkins: Jim Young, okay, very good. Do you remember, when you first moved here, did you go to the gay bars here in Tulsa? Did you find them? John Madigan: I knew of them, but I didn't go to them. Toby Jenkins: Was it because that wasn't your thing, or you were still, you weren't out to people at work? I mean, what was the motivation for kind of segregating yourself from the community? John Madigan: No, it was just not that, I wasn't a bar person. I went to bars when I was working, you know, friends and co-workers. When I was working in different towns, I went to bars, but it was not very often. Toby Jenkins: So, you met this guy, and did he then kind of introduce you to other gay men, the bigger community? John Madigan: No, the conversation got around to it, you know. And he knew people here in Tulsa, because he moved from Eufaula up to Tulsa get away from the kinfolk. Toby Jenkins: Now, you had never married, and you were staying in contact with your family. Did you ever have a discussion with your family that you identified as gay, or did they ever ask? John Madigan: They didn't ask, and so I just kept things quiet. So, I'm sure they, you know, we just don't speak about it. A couple of my brothers, I am sure they're gay. Toby Jenkins: So, we all just, it's just not a conversation. Now, when you were addressing this, was there, did you have any kind of internal turmoil? I mean, did you feel like there was something wrong with you being this way, and so you felt like you needed to date women, or you needed to make everybody think you were straight? John Madigan: No, I just didn't. It was not a topic of discussion, even though I had coworkers that voiced their hetero feelings. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, talking about women all the time. John Madigan: And about gays. You know, they'd run into them in their lifetime, and well, we got talking about it, and they'd run them down, and I'd just cut them off at the knees and say, this is not appropriate to the job. 10 �Toby Jenkins: Okay, so what about, you were born into a Catholic family. Was there, and now, are you still a practicing Catholic? John Madigan: Oh, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, still identifies Roman Catholic, and where do you attend services? John Madigan: Christ the King, Cherry Street. Toby Jenkins: Was there ever a time where your faith and your sexuality, there was a struggle, or did you come to a resolution? Did you seek out pastoral counseling? John Madigan: No, not really. But I knew that that was not the norm of the traditional religious in the church. Yeah. But just...I had people that had conflicts with their religion and voiced it, you know, but that's just part of the tradition, you know, that was not in, so yeah, you deal with it. Toby Jenkins: Did you ever feel any kind of, um, like you were being attacked or you were being questioned at your church? Did they want to know why you weren't married, or, John Madigan: No. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so you never had a priest or a religious leader who tried to reassure you that you were welcome at the church and maybe talk about that? John Madigan: I never felt unwelcome at any church that I went to. Toby Jenkins: Were there other LGBTQ people in your congregation that you knew? John Madigan: Oh, heck yes, you know them. Toby Jenkins: So, uh, just, just out of curiosity, as an 80 year old Catholic Canadian, what did you think when our previous Pope began to really make waves and say some pretty unexpected things affirming and loving towards LGBTQ people, specifically when he said priests could, um, uh, say a prayer at, uh, at same sex, uh, marriage ceremony, they, you couldn't do the ceremony, but they could, I guess, bless it. John Madigan: Bless it, yeah. Toby Jenkins: What was, what was your thoughts when that happened? John Madigan: That was, well, the, uh, this is the recognition by the church that we're children of God. There's no discrimination. It's only humans discriminate against. We'll always have homophobes. 11 �Toby Jenkins: Were you surprised that the Pope came out so strongly, supportingly, and lovingly of LGBTQ people? No. John Madigan: No. It was, it was in the, kind of in the flow. Toby Jenkins: Okay. John Madigan: It was, the church has, has to, uh, adjust to the society. Toby Jenkins: So the, the present Pope, who's an American Pope, um, do you feel like he's going to continue the work of the previous Pope of inclusion and moving the church towards a more welcoming faith community? John Madigan: Well, they're going to be more open about it. It was not saying that the church was not welcoming to you. They just didn't say anything about it. Toby Jenkins: Very interesting. Anything else you want to say about faith and sexuality or anything about that before? John Madigan: You know, since we’ve worked for the last 40 years or more, we made our voice, our presence known. We live in this country. We're a part of everything. Toby Jenkins: Ok. So it's, um, you're here, you know that you're a gay man, you're in Tulsa, Oklahoma, you've met this one friend, um, and, uh, you didn't really, from what you're told us, you didn't really connect, you know, with the clubs, the bars. Um, were you aware of TOHR, uh, and it's different names, what we call Oklahomans for Equality today? John Madigan: And, uh, I didn't, hmm, may have heard about it, but didn't, you know, make any concerted connection to it until after I, that both of us joined Prime Timers. Toby Jenkins: Okay. John Madigan: And then, and then, then right there you had 40 gay people right in front of you, yeah. Toby Jenkins: So, uh, did, in those, like in the early 90s when it was forming, did y'all meet at the community center? Um, do you remember? John Madigan: We met at the, there was a meeting room at, um, Harvard where the, uh, TOHR had their call center. Toby Jenkins: And their and their HIV testing, yeah. John Madigan: No, it didn't have that, it was, uh, you know, just the telephone. You called in and. 12 �Toby Jenkins: Okay, the helpline. John Madigan: Yeah, the helpline, that's right, and because a couple of the, uh, Prime Timers were working there. Toby Jenkins: Were volunteering on it. And so they would meet there in the meeting room. John Madigan: Yeah, they had a meeting room there. Toby Jenkins: Ok. So, you, you met this friend, and did he tell you about Prime Timers, or were y'all a part of Prime Timers forming? John Madigan: One of his friends that he knew, uh, mentioned it, and, uh. And I think Jim knew about Wesley, which was the founder. Toby Jenkins: Wesley, do you remember his last name? John Madigan Bauer. Toby Jenkins: Bauer, okay. Toby Jenkins: So Wesley had formed a chapter of Prime Timers. For our viewers, please tell us what Prime Timers is, and what it means, and what its mission. John Madigan: Okay. Prime Timers started in Boston. He was a professor, and he wanted to have a group of men of like persuasion for older guys to have a place to go and meet and greet, have fellowship and things. He started the organization in 1983. In 1993, Wesley and Omer started Tulsa Area Prime Timers. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So it was a chapter of a national affiliate. And so did they have monthly meetings, monthly discussion groups? John Madigan: We had a monthly meeting, and we had activities during the month. Toby Jenkins: What were you doing to be connected to the national group? Because I guess by then it probably had chapters all over the country, didn't it? John Madigan: Oh, yeah. Even off in other countries. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, around the world. My awareness of it is, to me, it seems to be having a resurgence. Do you think that's because there's more older men now that we're seeing? Our LGBTQ community, we're seeing a larger group of older, middleaged retired men? 13 �John Madigan: Oh, yes. It's more acceptable and open, and there's less conflict and stigma in this. And then the mission of the organization was to have something for older men to do, meet others. Toby Jenkins: And so it was just for men? John Madigan: Yes, it is just a men's group. Toby Jenkins: How did you handle, if you had an individual who identified as a female person, they wanted to be a part of the group, how did you handle that? John Madigan: Just told them away. When we were at the meeting down at Peoria... Toby Jenkins: On the Brookside location. John Madigan: On the Brookside location, we had just one lady come up and says, can we join Prime Timers? And I says, no, it's a men's only organization. And she says, well, could we start one? I says, yeah, you can start a girls' Prime Timers. Toby Jenkins: And there is a similar organization. I think it's changed its name a couple of times, but it is for older women who identify as lesbian or bisexual. How did you handle individuals who might have been transgender? John Madigan: Well, we had a member that transed while she was a member. And after she transed, then she was out of the group. We didn't ostracize her. She would come to the all activities. Toby Jenkins: So as she transitioned, came into the group identifying as male and transitioned to a female person. And so once she transitioned, she left the group. John Madigan: Yeah, well, she was identifying as female. Toby Jenkins: So that would have been the 90s and you got involved in it. What else would you like to say about Prime Timers? John Madigan: It's a great organization for gay men. Toby Jenkins: Bisexual men. John Madigan: Yes. Toby Jenkins: And you have, I know you'll have lots of brunches and lunches and you go to the movies and I know several of you travel to the National Gathering every year. You have a monthly meeting here at the Center. You have big holiday parties. I went to one of your recent holiday parties. I don't know how, there's probably 60 men in that 14 �house. And it was a blast and I got hand warmers in the gift exchange. I was tickled to death. Toby Jenkins: So Prime Timers, while it's its own separate individual 501c3 and its own program for gay and bisexual men, you had said that you were meeting, you were meeting at the Center. You talked about how the Harvard location, the Brookside location, and then I can, I think the first time I was exposed to you was when we were 21st and Memorial in the meeting room downstairs, which was not super accessible for people who had, people who had difficulty going up and down. When did you begin to get more involved with the organization? I mean, originally it was called Oklahomans for Human Rights and it became Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights and then eventually Oklahomans for Equality. John Madigan: I got into TOHR, oh I guess 97, 98, and just since I worked at nights and Tuesdays was usually my day off. So I'd go down to the Center on Memorial and sit at the meeting. Toby Jenkins: Okay. You would volunteer? John Madigan: No, just got interested. Toby Jenkins: Now were you ever involved in PFLAG with Nancy and Joe McDonald? John Madigan: Oh yes. Got connected at Fellowship [Congregational Christian Church] when they were having meetings there. Toby Jenkins: Okay. John Madigan: Nancy. TOHR. Then after that, then they got to, they got started with the Pyramid Project and just one day I got roped in by Sue and Marcy. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And what was the, if you, for our viewers, tell us what the Pyramid Project was? John Madigan: The Pyramid Project was set up for, for the organization to find a permanent building. So it's in 2004, was it then? Then we finally bought the building. Toby Jenkins: Why did we need a permanent building? John Madigan: Well, because our landlords weren't very good. Toby Jenkins: Wouldn't let us fly a rainbow flag over the building. So you helped with that project? John Madigan: Yes 15 �Toby Jenkins: So were you here that day we bought the building and raised the flag and we had the bagpiper here. What were your thoughts that day after y'all spent how many years? John Madigan: I guess about eight years, you know, convincing the gay community in Tulsa that we got the dirt. Back then we always had to say, well you don't have any dirt so we won't give you any money. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, so by dirt you mean geographical possession of a piece of property. John Madigan: Yeah, and so then when we did, we signed the deed on this building, then we come up and says, okay now, we got the dirt. We want your money. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, and they come across. Toby Jenkins: We all work together. Do you, so you were involved in Prime Timers and you were involved in this organization's formation and supporting the purchase of a permanent building. Did you participate in any of the renovation days that we would have? John Madigan: Oh yeah, When I had days off. John Madigan: when, of course, mornings was... Okay, gay people don't start before nine o'clock. So... Toby Jenkins: So, I want to, I don't want to miss it. Is there anything during that time, anything else that stands out in your mind, like pride festivals? Did Prime Timers participate in the pride festivals and the pride parades? John Madigan: Oh, yes. That was our community exposure. Toby Jenkins: That's what people found out about you. So we moved into this building and then y'all started having your monthly meetings here. Do you remember when they, do you remember when they were going to lift the ban on gays in the military? And were you a part of helping me collect names for our wall of honor? John Madigan: Yes, it is right over there. Toby Jenkins: And many of those were Prime Timers, weren't they? John Madigan: Yes Toby Jenkins: And we've lost many of them. John Madigan: Like most of them. 16 �Toby Jenkins: Most of them on the military wall, our wall of honor, which we dedicated that whenever the ban was lifted. And so, do you remember anything you want to say about that and what that experience was like? John Madigan: Well, that was a nice gesture by the organization to honor those people that served for freedom in this country. Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: Even though they had to keep their mouth shut, otherwise they would have been kicked out. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. So when did there begin to be a stronger emphasis on providing programming for older adults? When did that really take off? John Madigan: I guess about 2009, 10, when you run into the SAGE organization. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, Serena Worthington. John Madigan: Yeah, Serena. Toby Jenkins: I heard her speak at Creating Change in Chicago, and it's like, do you remember me coming back and telling you, John, we're going to start a SAGE program? John Madigan: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Because this is what everybody does. And can you tell me about those first few months, maybe that first year, until we finally got it right? John Madigan: Well, it was just like any gay group. It was about older adults and gay people in this country. In this town, didn't. There was nothing for seniors. That what it is all about? It took a lot of voicing and twisting arms. We're not going to kill you just because you're old. Toby Jenkins: So I think you might remember that first year, you and I would create programs. We would have the Area Aging on Aging come. We would have funeral homes, nursing homes come, and nobody would show up. John Madigan: Some still don't today sometimes. Toby Jenkins: Because we just thought we needed to provide programming agerelated. Well, that was a mistake, wasn't it? John Madigan: Well, it was not what they were thinking. Toby Jenkins: Right. 17 �John Madigan: Process. When we brought them there, and the whole intent was just to have those organizations and how they treated us as senior gay and lesbian people in their entities. Now, how were you gonna be treated after you died when you went to a funeral home? Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: Or you went to a senior center? Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: Were you gonna be put in the back room way down in the hall and they show up every couple of days for you because you're gay? Toby Jenkins: Yeah. So it had an advocacy element of it where while we were networking with these senior serving agencies, we were trying to make them more inclusive. John Madigan: Well, and that's what SAGE was all about. Toby Jenkins: Right. So what was it? We finally did that everybody got with it and they decided they wanted to be a part of it. John Madigan: You convinced Serena to have a gay conference here. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, we hosted. John Madigan: And hosted it. And they finally, oh, okay, that's something cool. Toby Jenkins: So you remember how we began to shift our attention from making them aware of resources to social activity like trips and pool parties and luncheons and entertainment, movie days and book story, book reviews. That's when we really began to see it take off and grow. John Madigan: Oh, yeah, because we did other things then just sit around and talk. Toby Jenkins: Talk about old stuff. John Madigan: Well, about each other. And did things that were interesting to people. Toby Jenkins: And more social. John Madigan: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Creating social opportunity. John Madigan: Yeah. 18 �Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: And the trips went to places where the people that are born, raised and lived and worked in this county had never been there. Never been, oh, I've never been here in all my life. Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Museums. John Madigan: Like going down to Fort Gibson. Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: It's been here before the state was a state. Toby Jenkins: Um, yeah, we, activities began to be, in those days we used to have to rent vehicles and eventually we ended up with the equality van. And while we were traveling all over the country going to these things, it was branded so that other people knew about us and how to find us. John Madigan: Well, you couldn't miss it, the advertising name on the vehicle. Toby Jenkins: How did people find SAGE when we started that chapter? Cause we had lots of interesting, do you remember any of the stories about how people just showed up? John Madigan: No, they just showed up and just people come in and say, well, well, first it was something for the senior group and other than, it was geared to them and they felt comfortable. Yeah, the age group was right. Toby Jenkins: What about you? I know you were involved in the veterans wall. Also, our former director, Greg Gatewood, who had been the former director, he used to have an event on Thanksgiving day for older adults who were by themselves. And so I felt like we need to keep that going. Do you remember the days when we finally decided we wanted to create a Thanksgiving dinner here? So people started out as a thing for older adults who were by themselves and then it... John Madigan: Become a community meal. That was giving thanks for us. We had some place to go to and we had a community that you could relate to. Toby Jenkins: And how many people would come to those meals? John Madigan: Couple of hundred. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, and who would help provide the food? 19 �John Madigan: The allied churches. Oh, they'd fight each other trying to see who was going to get there. Toby Jenkins: Over who was bringing green beans or… John Madigan: Or cookies or cake. Toby Jenkins: But that was a huge project, wasn't it? John Madigan: Oh, yes. Toby Jenkins: And then we'd prepare the meals for people who couldn't come so they could have these takeaway meals which would be older adults who were shut in and couldn't. So, you've kind of been involved in so many facets of the community. And so, 80 years old, you look marvelous. I know multiple times you've traveled with the organization to conferences, trying to remember all the ones you went to, because every time we went to Creating Change, I would drag you out and make, I know your favorite one must have been when we took 56 people on a bus to Washington, D.C. John Madigan: Well, that was, you're not gonna forget that trip. Toby Jenkins: No, well, especially getting trapped in the Appalachian Mountains, in the fog, and we had to get out and walk through the mountains to keep the bus, oh, gosh, yeah, that was a… John Madigan: And then when we got there, the city shut down. Toby Jenkins: It was in the middle of the government shutdown under Trump, his original residency, and we marched, didn't we, against Trump and his attack on the LGBT community in his first, first term. So, you're 80 years old. And tell me your thoughts about, your thoughts for the future and your suggestions on what might help us improve to make sure everybody's included. John Madigan: Well, right now, in this day and age, is senior mobility. We have seniors, gay and lesbian seniors, at home that would like to come down here, but can't, don't have any availability to transportation. We had a lady, senior, ask us about coming to the OKEQ Senior Group, but she needed transportation. So, you gotta, that way you gotta have somebody to go pick her up, and her, him, didn't know which one it was, but anyway. Toby Jenkins: Would it be possible to work with non-profit organization, or non-profit or governmental transportation modules to be able to figure out a way to get them here? 20 �John Madigan: Well, yeah, there are other organizations in town that have transportation for their groups, but they don't have, can they fit in that, or do they belong to that? Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: Life Senior Services, or the VA? Toby Jenkins: Possibly, y'all could partner with Tulsa, I forget what it's called, the bus system here has... John Madigan: The Lift. Toby Jenkins: The Lift. John Madigan: But then they, there they have to reserve the pickup time, two, three days out. Toby Jenkins: But that could be something that could be coordinated. John Madigan: Could be, yeah. Toby Jenkins: What else do you think is, when you're thinking of, you're youthful, 80 years old, you're eight decades on Planet Earth, what, do you have concerns about our present situations? Just curious, because this won't happen very often, we've got a reallife Canadian across the table from us, how does it make you feel whenever our present White House leadership is so combative and adversarial with Canada, our nearest neighbor? John Madigan: Our present President is, he's an opportunist and an agitator. He loves poke you on the ribs about things, and it's the things that are done behind the scenes. With the LGBT community, we got to be on guard 25-8 to keep what we got, because it'll go out the window in a flash. Most LGBT people think we got it made. Nah, the kids don't have a clue where we started. That's where the history should start. History 101 to the 20-year-olds, what it was like in 1980. Dennis Neill: This being a history project, this is John with Tay and others, when we drop boxes off for them to help support the resurgence of the history project. So maybe ask him a few questions about his experience with that. Toby Jenkins: Dennis has a picture of you and Tay and some other people in there. What year would that have been? 21 �Dennis Neill: I would say, John, probably around 2002 was when Laura and I relaunched the history project. And I was dropping boxes off. Would that be at Tay's house? John Madigan: Yeah, that's Tay Clare”s house. Dennis Neill: There's a few more pictures with a few more people in it. Toby Jenkins: So what we were talking about is all the different things you've been involved in. So you would have been right there. We got the pictures to prove it. As they say, a photo, it didn't happen. Well, there it happened. And we got you... John Madigan: This group of people here that started this were trying to keep it going. A bunch of women. And most of these women went to MCC. And it was still going back then. Toby Jenkins: Metropolitan Community Church. John Madigan: And it was kind of an outreach for them, too. Toby Jenkins: So this would have been when Dennis was a young man. So that would have been 20... John Madigan: When we were all pups. Toby Jenkins: It would be about 2002. And Dr. Laura Belmonte, who would have been our board president at that time, professor at OSU. And you look like you were involved in relaunching, as Dennis and John, his partner John and Laura Belmonte, wanted to relaunch the history archives and the history project. So that's what this picture is. John Madigan: Yeah, they were going through photos that people had for... Going back for 30 years by that time. Toby Jenkins: I loved what you said. We have our archivist, Amanda. I felt like his last line when he said... We've got Dennis Neill, founder of Oklahomans for Equality, and Amanda Thompson, our archivist. I felt like if you're going to have a promotional, John Madigan's line, History 101, I felt like that could have sold why this, what we're doing, is so critical. Anything else, John, as we come to the end of this, our time together, anything else you would want to say? John Madigan: We have to fight. Keep it going. They'll run us down. That's what the young people have to do. 22 �Toby Jenkins: All right. Well, thank you so much. That concludes our interview with John Madigan here at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center on January the 13th, 2026, at his youthful 80 years old. Addendum: Photos of volunteers at Tay Clare’s house sorting OkEq archival materials, circa 200 2. 23 �24 �25 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2026] John Madigan Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Toby Jenkins on January 13, 2026. John explores his life journey from a small mining town in Canada to becoming an influential member in the LGBTQ+ community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. John shares his experiences growing up on a farm, his transition into the oil and gas industry, and his eventual involvement in various LGBTQ+ organizations, including Prime Timers and OkEq Seniors. He reflects on the intersection of faith and sexuality, the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community, and the importance of advocacy and inclusion for older adults. John's insights provide a rich narrative of resilience, community, and the ongoing fight for equality. Subject The topic of the resource John Madigan Oral History Project Interview from January 13, 2026 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Madigan, Toby Jenkins, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 13, 2026 2026 interview John Madigan OKEQ Oral History Project OKEQ Seniors oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Prime Timers Primetimers Toby Jenkins transcript video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/d9c8a6149f14a01008d49c6d3f611a9e.pdf b4ccfe0cef6ae75fb4be9ca4125dc32d PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs Interview Conducted by Toby Jenkins (and Dennis Neill) Date: March 19, 2026 Edited By: Dennis Neill using Riverside Studio AI, March 21th, 2026 Restrictions: Interviewee requested: N/A Oklahomans for Equality History Project 621 E. 4th Street Tulsa, OK. 74120 918.743.4297 historyproject@okeq.org 1 �About John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs Summary This interview with Pat Hobbs and John Orsulak explores their 36-year relationship, their careers in theater, music, and education, and their activism within the LGBTQ community in Tulsa. They share personal stories, insights on community involvement, and their vision for a more inclusive future. Keywords LGBTQ, Tulsa, theater, activism, community, aging in place, Rainbow Room, cohousing, Pride, advocacy Key Topics  Personal stories of Pat Hobbs and John Orsulak  Their careers in theater, music, and education  Involvement in LGBTQ advocacy and community building  The vision for the Rainbow Room and co-housing in Tulsa Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the Oklahoma LGBTQ History Archives 02:59 Love Story: Pat and John's Journey Together 05:49 Childhood and Early Influences 08:57 Navigating Identity and Sexual Orientation 12:00 The Impact of AIDS on Personal Lives 14:58 Career Paths and Community Involvement 17:49 Theater and Music: A Shared Passion 2 �20:53 Family Dynamics and Acceptance 23:58 Reflections on Life and Legacy 39:31 Theater Memories and Personal Triumphs 42:08 Integrity in Arts Organizations 43:27 Reflections on the Catholic Church and Leadership 45:22 The Journey of Finale's Restaurant 52:40 Y2K and the Impact on Business 54:50 Gardening and Community Living 56:28 The Vision Behind Heartwood Commons 01:01:32 The Role of the Rainbow Room in Tulsa 01:09:42 Theater Community Health and Future 01:14:38 Being a Face of the LGBTQ+ Community 01:18:39 Messages for Future Generations John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs Oral History Interview March 19, 2026 Toby Jenkins: Today is March 19th, 2026. We are at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in the Joe and Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library interviewing today two wonderful people for our Oklahoma LGBTQ History Archives. Present in the room is Dennis Neill, founder of Oklahomans for Equality. Amanda Thompson, our archivist, and Toby Jenkins. Could you tell us your names? Pat Hobbs: I'm Pat Hobbs. John Orsulak: I'm John Orsulak. Toby Jenkins: And just to kick this off, how long have you been together? Pat and John: 36 years. Toby Jenkins: Now, we're interviewing this couple together and then we're going to find out a little bit about their lives. But I think for our purposes today, I'd like to start out with this question, because I know Oprah would ask. How did y'all meet? Pat Hobbs: Oh, Lord. In church. John Orsulak: Well, church rectory. At the time, I was a church music director at a small Catholic church in Bay City, Michigan, birthplace of Madonna. And the staff was invited over to the rectory for Thanksgiving. And the pastor I worked for was gay. Not that that makes any difference. But anyway, he had the staff over. Pat was visiting a mutual friend of ours who happened to be living there at the time. And Pat 3 �came into the kitchen and we started talking about theater. My ex at the time also showed up at the time, and he'd had a few. But we just hit it off and then... go ahead. Pat Hobbs: Well, we hit it off and he invited me to breakfast on Monday before I left town. And we started a long-distance conversation for about a month. And we met for the next time in Chicago for New Year's Eve. And I spent New Year's in Chicago. John Orsulak: I came down for Valentine's. Pat Hobbs: He came down in February to meet Tulsa. It was his Tulsa debut at Jerry Jackson's and Jeff Feist House for a big party. And then it just evolved. John Orsulak: You came in April. Pat Hobbs: I came in April, went back up there. And it was just kind of a decision. Who's got the better job? He was in music and he can do that anywhere. And I had a really good job here at the time. So we just decided to move here. And John moved down July 4th weekend. Toby Jenkins: And what year would that have been? Pat Hobbs: That was 1990. John Orsulak: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: All right. Well, let's find out how you two people became smitten with each other. What led to that moment? Pat, tell us about your childhood and your family. Pat Hobbs: Well, I'm the second of four boys growing up in Southeast Texas. My dad was a lieutenant colonel in the Marines. So we were his four Marine Corps boys. My baby brother was gay. He was five years younger than me. But we didn't realize that until 1990. So I grew up in Beaumont, Texas and spent time at the farm up in Newton County. And just considered myself kind of a country boy at some point. Toby Jenkins: So where did you go to high school? Pat Hobbs: Went to high school in Beaumont, Texas. Toby Jenkins: Beaumont, Texas. And what year did you graduate? Pat Hobbs: 1970. Toby Jenkins: So it's 1970. What was the world like in 1970, your world? Pat Hobbs: Oh, it was hippie time and it was protest time. Protesting the Vietnam War. Nixon was president. A lot of politics going on. But the draft was going on too. And sending kids overseas to fight in a war that we didn't, many of us didn't believe in. Luckily, I had a very high draft number and I didn't go. Toby Jenkins: So you never did get called up? Pat Hobbs: Never got called up. Toby Jenkins: What were your interests in school? 4 �Pat Hobbs: All my interests in high school were band and theater. And when I was in high school, I went with a friend to help him audition. They convinced me to audition and I got the lead. And it was the first thing I'd ever done. So it was one of those real quick things that, oh, this is fun. Toby Jenkins And what was the production? Pat Hobbs: It was a play called See How They Run. Toby Jenkins: Okay, it wasn't a musical. Pat Hobbs: No, we didn't do musicals in high school because the drama department did not speak to the choir department. They were at the same period, so we never did a musical. But I always loved them. Toby Jenkins: So that piqued your interest in performance. Were you in the band? Pat Hobbs: I was in the band, marching band. I played tuba. Toby Jenkins: Tuba. Pat Hobbs: I played tuba in the marching band. Toby Jenkins: And it probably was bigger than you were. Pat Hobbs: It was bigger than me, but you know, I placed first my junior and senior year. I placed first in competition. Toby Jenkins: In tuba. In Texas. Pat Hobbs: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Well, of course you did. You've always been an overachiever. Pat Hobbs: And then I actually won a state award my senior year. I was the first from our high school since 1952 to win a state UIL, University Interscholastic League award for boys' prose reading. And my winning selection was James Thurber's Unicorn in the Garden. Toby Jenkins: Wow, How appropriate. Okay. So this was 1970. Do you happen to remember how many were in your graduating class from Beaumont? Pat Hobbs: 289. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so it was a mid-sized Texas town. Did you go to college after that? Technical school? Pat Hobbs: I went to SMU the following fall and spent four years at. Toby Jenkins: And SMU is? Pat Hobbs: Southern Methodist University. I was a theater major my first year. And it was just a weird time for me because I thought there were a bunch of weirdos in the theater department. I wasn't out, but there were just a lot of weirdos. I mean, gay people. You know, what I thought were gay people. And I ended up transferring over to the business school and got a degree in accounting and finance but kept my love 5 �for theater and performing. And I would do all-school talent shows when it didn't involve the theater. Toby Jenkins: At SMU? Pat Hobbs: Uh-huh, when it didn't involve the theater department, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Did you, by then, you're a college student. Did you, how do you identify? What is your sexual orientation? Pat Hobbs: At college? Toby Jenkins: Well, now. Pat Hobbs: Oh, now I'm gay. Toby Jenkins: Okay, what about at college? Pat Hobbs: I was straight, struggling. Toby Jenkins: Okay, but you had that sexual attraction to persons of the same sex. Pat Hobbs: I did, but, you know, it took a long time to get to the point, to actual coming out. Toby Jenkins: So you got a accounting degree from SMU. Pat Hobbs: I did. Toby Jenkins: And what happened after that? Pat Hobbs: You know, I had a job there in Dallas, and then I was dating a young woman, and she had a family business here in Tulsa. Their accountant retired, so they asked me if I would come to work for them here in Tulsa, so that's how I got to Tulsa. Toby Jenkins: And what year was that? Pat Hobbs: I worked for them, that was in 76, and worked for them until 1987. Toby Jenkins: Now, were you married? Pat Hobbs: Yes. Toby Jenkins: And how long were you married? Pat Hobbs: 11 years. Toby Jenkins: 11 years. Any children? Pat Hobbs: No children. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And during that 11 years, were there any kind of struggles over that? Did you have a sense of insecurity in your sexuality, or were you comfortable in that relationship? 6 �Pat Hobbs: I was very comfortable in it until the last couple of years, and there was this desire to see what's out there, you know? Toby Jenkins: Okay. John, tell us about your childhood. John Orsulak: Oh, gosh. Born in 1954. I'm the youngest of six. I have three brothers, two sisters, and also a stepsister, which was later, after I was an adult. Used to be, I think, current count on nieces and nephews is 13, though I do have some grand, or great, whatever it is, nieces and nephews now, and I think I'm even now getting to the great, great stage, which is weird. Lived in Danville, Illinois, hometown of Dick Van Dyke, Donald O'Connor, Gene Hackman, Bobby Short, and myself. It's mid-size at the time, blue-collar, Hyster, a lot of GM plants and things, they're all shuttered now and the town is kind of drying up sort of. I graduated in 72 from Danville High School, was involved in choir, got involved in junior high and then that transferred into high school. My high school choral teacher, Helen Wolfe, was instrumental in getting me into the drama department or a drama club and I don't, I'm trying to think, I was more behind the scenes than on stage at the time and ended up for some weird quirk the president of the club my senior year. While I was in choir, the music department held their very first two musicals while I was there. My junior year it was Brigadoon. I have a picture that was in the yearbook of me within my kilt with a hand up and it looks very gay, as far as the skirt a little hiked up on the leg. And then the second, the senior year was Little Abner and I was just, I think I was the milkman. But that was really the last theater I did for many years. I went to Danville Junior College to, now it's Community College, and got my degree there. That was the era of Streakers, had my first experience with people streaking down the quad, that was interesting. And then went, transferred to Illinois State University and got my degree in elementary ed. Toby Jenkins: And where was that? John Orsulak: Normal, Illinois. Bloomington Normal, where State Farm is located, their headquarters. Didn't do any theater, got very active with the Newman Club there, was involved in all kind of things. Toby Jenkins: So you were Roman Catholic. John Orsulak: Right, right. Toby Jenkins: Did you, you talked about theater, when did you become a musician? When did you become... John Orsulak: Oh gosh, I did that back as a kid. My grade school that I went to, St. Joseph's, which is no longer in existence, long time. They had a small pipe organ they needed somebody to play. I was, had taken piano and just kind of self-taught myself and would play for services. And then that just kind of evolved over time. I really didn't do anything that I recall in college. When I got out, I had my degree, I worked for the Catholic school. Our parish merged with another one, because that was the time small parishes had to do that. And so I taught at what was then, used to 7 �be St. Patrick's, now is Holy Family. I don't even think it's in existence now. Catholic school was seventh and eighth grade, language arts to start with, was doing no theater at all. Still would do the church music. For me as a kid, it was an escape at recess to go over and practice, just so I didn't have to deal with sports and bullying or anything else on the playground. But a friend of mine who had got her degree in theater at Illinois State, talked me into auditioning for a production, local theater production of Annie Get Your Gun. And so did that, chorus, and then from that point on, I basically got hooked, because the next show I got a featured role, Mr. Snow in Brigadoon, not Brigadoon, [ Pat added Carousel] yeah, that one. Thank you. And then just kind of off and on things there, I decided to get out of education, because I was drawn more toward church music, and went back to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana to get my undergrad work in music. Had to audition for voice, so I had to take voice as part of it. And when I walked into the audition studio, here is William Warfield. Old Man River himself, sitting there, and I'm singing, you know, I'm in my probably mid-20s by then, and it was, you know, I don't recall anything. It was just kind of a blur. It was just seeing him but did that and then continued working and doing church work, moved to a small parish in Decatur, Illinois, if you know where that is. Was there a year, got fired, didn't work. I was a little too progressive for them because at the Newman Center, it was a very progressive Newman Center, and I mean the priests didn't wear a collar, the the woman who was religious, you know, didn't wear a habit. It was very laid-back, very contemporary. Toby Jenkins: Lots of folk music. John Orsulak: Yes, sang a lot of Godspell, things like that. But I did that and then went back from there, came back to my home parish in Danville, worked there for a while, and then went to Bloomington, which was the sister city of where I went to college, Bloomington Normal. Worked at the church there for a year. It didn't work out, though I did get a chance to participate in the renovation of the church, which was, that was a big deal. It was an old Art Deco style, but then they really stripped a lot out and got it. I don't know what it looks like now. Toby Jenkins: So was your career, just like Pat’s was accounting, was your career in church music? John Orsulak: I thought it was going to be. I did it for, I taught for five years and then went into church music full-time and then when I moved here, that's what I thought I was going to do and continue. And at the time there was only, I think, one parish that had any kind of an opening and just didn't feel, just moving here and experiencing their version of Catholic liturgy, they were so far behind. About ten, I was spoiled with a very progressive bishop and again, he was one that you taught, you called him Ken, you didn't call him Bishop, and it was just very laid-back. During that time when I was in Michigan, it's when I had my first relationship with a man and just kind of then met him [Pat] and the rest was history. Toby Jenkins: So during that time how did you identify and what is your sexual orientation? 8 �John Orsulak: Now I'm definitely gay. Back then it was, I think I'm straight. It didn't really feel right. It was, you know, there was a little experimentation here and there and I had one person at a rehearsal, no, it was a cast party after a show, who pursued me home and I was scared to death. I mean, I went to the garage, turned off the lights, got in the house as quickly as I could, turned off the lights and, you know, now I converse with him occasionally through Facebook and that's, you know, and there's no issue with that at all, but yeah, it was church music for a long time when I moved here and there wasn't anything available. I just went back to what I knew, which was education. So I got back to doing subbing in different school districts. I became popular, so to speak, in Jenks because they got to know me well. They liked me and I was offered a position to open the southeast campus when it first opened and from that point on I worked for Jenks over 20 years, fifth grade mainly. Toby Jenkins: Did Jenks school, did they know you were gay? John Orsulak: I wasn't out, but people knew. They knew and parents figured it out. I think a lot of parents did. The biggest controversy, occasionally he would be with me and I just would sidestep it, but... Pat Hobbs: May I interject here? John Orsulak: Go ahead. Pat Hobbs: So if any of you know about the Malcolm Baldrige Award, it's a highly prestigious award given by the Department of Transportation, no, Department of Commerce. Three or four companies a year win this award. Jenks schools won it. Mesa Products won it three times, twice when I was with them, so we called ourselves the Baldrige Boys. Well, when they made the presentation at the Hyatt, or the Marriott, it's now the Marriott down there, they had a nice little presentation thing at 7 o'clock one night, and I was late getting there, John was sitting at a big table of eight with his principal, and they left the chair open for me to come in next to the principal, and I came in and I sat down, and the principal did this, he actually moved his chair two feet away when I sat next to him. John Orsulak Yeah, that was uncomfortable, to say the least. Pat Hobbs: It was very uncomfortable. Toby Jenkins: And that was what year? John Orsulak: That was, oh gosh, that was... Toward the end. 2 Pat Hobbs: 2011, 20... I was at Mesa seven years, 2010, 2011. Toby Jenkins: So towards the end of your career in teaching at Jenks, did you see the culture change where administration and maybe other teachers were more supportive? John Orsulak: It was never an issue. People met Pat, they were comfortable with him. My co-workers, we never discussed it, but they were fine with him, they had no issues. About the only thing that really was controversial with me was for my 40th, I 9 �decided to pierce my ear. I had just done a production of Annie here locally, had done the whole bald head thing, and I was growing it back. And so I had just a poster, a hoop in. Well, there were parents that were just aghast, and they tried to get me to either, I don't know if they were trying to get rid of the earring or get rid of me, and one of the assistant superintendents, who I knew well and they knew me well, supported me and told them no. And from that point on, it was not... Pat Hobbs: But you even had the support of the superintendent, Kirby Lehman, back then. You know how they do prom pictures in Woodward Park? Every Friday and Saturday night during the spring, you can't find a place to park because all the kids are taking prom pictures. Well, living across the street from the park, our driveway was a turnaround, and we saw Dr. Lehman down the street. He became a really good friend of ours through some work with Theater Tulsa, and he came over and had a glass of wine with us. You know, it was our home, you know, come in while you're getting your pictures made, you know. John Orsulak: What do you do? Do you invite him in? Pat Hobbs: Yeah, invite him in and have a glass of wine. John Orsulak: And that was the year, had a young man drive up in a vintage Mustang with his girlfriend for pictures. And we're out there with a cocktail in hand, gawking at how people are dressed, like we normally did. And this kid looks over to me and says, hi, Mr. O, and he told me his name, and I immediately knew it was a former student of mine, but it was not, it was no big deal. And here are the two of us, I was like, okay, he's figured that out. But, yeah, it's... Toby Jenkins: Yeah, so your house faced Woodward Park. What was the street there? John and Pat: Rockford. Toby Jenkins: Rockford. So, well, you talked a little bit about your career and how you ended up in Tulsa. Did you want to talk any more about what your other interests, like how you got into the theater community here, or, I know you had that day job as an accountant. Pat Hobbs: Oh, yeah, but that was just a day job, you know, it paid the bills. Since 19... I had moved here in 76 and auditioned for a show in 77 for Theater Tulsa and did shows for them ever since. Did shows for all the theater companies here in town just about once, two, three, four times a year, you know, kept it up. Toby Jenkins: I know that you developed a character who became kind of wellknown, kind of a comedian musical character, you want to tell us about that? Pat Hobbs: Danny Day? Danny Day is almost a, oh, I don't know what to call it now…autobiographical story. He started in theater when he was five, playing Tiny Tim. And he was 55, the last time he was on stage he was 55, 60 years old. And he had done all the shows. He had done all the musicals in town. Sometimes two or three times. Sometimes this part. Sometimes he had a lead. Sometimes he had a supporting role. But he knew all the gossip. He knew all the scoop about what was 10 �going on in town. And he knew where the bodies were buried. He knew who slept with whom, and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it was a little character I made up. But it was very autobiographical at the same time. Toby Jenkins: It was very popular. You did it several times. Pat Hobbs: I did, yeah. Toby Jenkins: So you came to Tulsa, what year was it? Pat Hobbs: 76. Toby Jenkins: And I know you were married, and then you divorced. You were in Tulsa, this was, let's talk about before, and then John would have been still in Illinois, correct, during that period. You're men who are figuring yourselves out. Tell me about the first time you heard about AIDS. John Orsulak: Oh gosh. Pat Hobbs: Probably on TV. Probably? John Orsulak: Yeah, I really can't think of a date or a year either. Pat Hobbs: Early to mid 80s. 83, 84, 85. Toby Jenkins: Did you see the impact of that on maybe people that associated with the churches you were working for? Did you see an impact on friends, family? John Orsulak: I didn't really until I moved here. And got involved with the center. Pat Hobbs: And the Names Project. John Orsulak: Yeah, and then Billy. Pat Hobbs: And then my brother. Toby Jenkins: Okay, tell us about that. Pat Hobbs: Billy's five years younger than me. He was born in 1957. And it's a really lovely story, but he came out to me and John. We were all in New York one weekend for New Year's, and he came out to us at the dinner table one night, and we had no idea. I mean, just absolutely no idea. And we had this wonderful relationship for about three or four years. We'd go down to Houston where he lived. He'd come up here to Tulsa. We just had a really grand old gay time. He even had a parking place at J.R.'s, a private parking place at J.R.'s in Houston. He was so popular. But it was right after mother died, and we were, in fact, it was the day after, the afternoon after her funeral, and the four of us boys were sitting on the front porch. You know, it was, the will was cut and dried. We all knew what was gonna go on. And we were talking about the farm, what we were gonna do with the farm. And we're sitting there in our rocking chairs, just rocking back and forth like this. And he stands up and had a cigarette going, and he threw the cigarette out in the yard, and he said, it doesn't make any goddamn difference to me. I'm dying of the 11 �fucking AIDS. And he got up and he walked off in the woods. And about a month later, I got a call from a friend of his in Houston. And he said, I think you need to come down one weekend. You know, come down, see what's going on. So from that point on, John and I, we either drove down or we flew down every other weekend for a year to make sure he had food in the house, care in the house, a clean house, do all the things that we could do from a distance. John Orsulak: And it was right before the cocktail. Pat Hobbs: And it was right before, right before. Toby Jenkins: So it was 1995. Explain the cocktail. Pat Hobbs: 1995. John Orsulak: Gosh, originally it was just ATZ. Then other drugs, combinations came about that helped prolong life. And for Billy, it was just, he was too far gone. Pat Hobbs: Six months, six months. John Orsulak: Luckily he had good hospice care toward the end. Pat Hobbs: We had, yeah, very good hospice care. Toby Jenkins: This would have been what year? Pat Hobbs: 95. Toby Jenkins: And he would have been how old, Pat? Pat Hobbs: 37. Toby Jenkins: 37, yeah. Dennis Neill: Pat, how did your other brothers deal with it? Pat Hobbs: I'm just gonna say that my other brother between the two of us, what do we tell people he died off. That's as much as I'm going to say. But we found a hospice in Houston, Omega House, and it was just like, similar to St. Joseph's here in Tulsa, where the designers had taken a room and designed a room. And it was small, it was there in the Montrose area of Houston. And that's where he spent the last six or eight weeks of his life. And if you recall the pictures you saw on television of people in their last stages, the wasting syndrome, the weight loss, that's what Billy was. His wasn't a, I'm not going to say it wasn't a dignified death. Physically it was not a dignified death. What we did going down there was make sure that he died a dignified death by having food and help and making sure his will was properly prepared before he died. But his was one of the worst, wasting, devastating deaths. John Orsulak: But your nieces were very supportive. Pat Hobbs: They were very supportive. And they were very young, too. Toby Jenkins: Now, you told us that your brother, you and John, had already been together. Had you come out to your family as gay? 12 �Pat Hobbs: You know, I... John Orsulak: First time I met the family was at his father's funeral. Pat Hobbs: At my father's funeral. And, you know, John drove down to Texas and we buried Daddy. And from then on, it was, he was fixing mommy drinks at five o'clock every afternoon. I didn't have to say anything. You know, it was just... Toby Jenkins: So his mother met you. John Orsulak: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pat Hobbs: And mother's uncle was gay. He had two long-term relationships, Uncle Fred, that we grew up with. So it wasn't a surprise to her. You know, she never said anything. I never said, hey, mom. You know, but he was always there at the house. John Orsulak: Tell the story of when I was moving. When we stopped in Danville. Pat Hobbs: Oh, oh, yeah. This is his dad. So we were moving down from Michigan. And we had a U-Haul van filled with his stuff and had the car towed behind. And we stopped at his folks' house in Danville to spend the night. And it was a tiny little house, and a tiny little bedroom that we were in with a tiny little almost twin bed that we shared. And we got up the next morning and had breakfast and getting ready to move on. And his dad takes me aside. His dad says, take care of my son. John Orsulak: No more words. Pat Hobbs: Take care of my son. John Orsulak: Yeah, it was never discussed. It was just a given. Yeah. Pat Hobbs: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Still welcomed by your family. John and Pat: Oh, very much. John Orsulak: When I come home, where's Pat? Toby Jenkins: Okay. Well, you're fortunate. I think you know that. But you're fortunate that you found each other. And you're fortunate that your families maintain the relationship. Tell us a little bit about some of your, I mean, you both had careers. But tell us a little bit about some of the things that you began to get involved in here in Tulsa. All of the organizations and the things that were passionate to you and the projects. Pat Hobbs: Oh, geez. How can you, you know, over the years, how many boards did I serve on? Including this one, twice. You know, of course, the arts have always been a passion of mine. And I've served on the AHHA board. I was on staff at Mayfest for a while. The Tulsa Garden Center. Anything creative and artistic, I was either on the board or on staff at some point, volunteer staff. And then got involved here at OkEq back in 2001 or 2002, when Brent Ortolani was president. And the previous president was Michelle. Help me out. She's in Kansas now. [Michelle Hoffman.] 13 �Anyway, because of my accounting background, they asked me if I would be treasurer. And this was when the center was located at 21st and Memorial. And I would go down and do the books on Sunday mornings while you'd go to church. I'd go down and do the books at this office we had down there that had no heat. I would bundle up in my coat to go down there. We didn't even have, we had, it wasn't even QuickBooks or Quicken, and it was some very, very elementary software program that we had. And it took maybe a couple hours to go in and write checks. And I think our total budget at the time was maybe $19,000. It was just, yeah, very grassroots at the time, if you will. And the smell from the bar next door, from being open on a Saturday night, I'd come home and have to hang my clothes outside on a Sunday afternoon just to get rid of the smoke that was in the office in the afternoon. But yeah, I served as treasurer for a couple of years until some health issues took over. And I had to relinquish those to Dwight [Kealiher]. And Dwight took over until the organization kept growing and growing and growing. We had $21,000 in the bank. This is one of my reports. 2021. Oh, wow. Just when the Pyramid Project was in its infancy. Toby Jenkins: So John, he said, so were you still playing, doing music for a congregation here at the time? John Orsulak: Not at first. I did do a little bit with one congregation. It didn't last long. Pat Hobbs: You did St. John's for a while. John Orsulak: Right. I was there at Jerome's, but it didn't last terribly long. Toby Jenkins: I think there were some, I don't remember what the reason was, but it just didn't work. Pat Hobbs: Political issues. John Orsulak: Yeah. Yeah. Probably more interpersonal things. But no, I really got back into education. And then because I moved here and we already had the love of theater between us, within a month, I was cast in a show. It wasn't a musical, but started my career with Theater Tulsa and then just kind of branched out into musicals. Toby Jenkins: So when he says he was working on the books and you were at church, are you still active in that? John Orsulak: No. No. Toby Jenkins: Okay. John Orsulak: I haven't been for a long time. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dennis Neill: Excuse me. John, what was your favorite acting role that you've... 14 �John Orsulak: Oh my gosh. That's a tough one. Probably the one that I'm proudest of, it was probably the hardest role I had to do was Juan Peron in Evita. Not only did I have to dye my hair, because it's very gray, the best they could do was a dark brown, but musically it was some of the toughest stuff I ever had to learn. And I'd have to drill and drill and drill because it was very atonal, but it was this critical speech I do on a balcony and just getting through that was a triumph for me because it was a challenge. Otherwise, things came fairly easy, so it was nice to get a challenge that would push you a little bit more. Now, we've kind of aged out. Roles are few and far between. Dennis Neill: So with that Evita role, that was not that long ago, right? John Orsulak: What would you say? 10, 15? Pat Hobbs: It was probably 10 years ago. Dennis Neill: Oh, it was that long ago? Pat Hobbs: Yeah. John Orsulak: Yeah. Dennis Neill: And then Pat, how about you? Your favorite role and then also your favorite board position? All the non-profits you've served on. Pat Hobbs: Oh, my favorite role by far is Zaza, the Drag Queen in La Cage. Dennis Neill: And you did that as Tulsa... Pat Hobbs: Tulsa Project Theater, and it was an equity show, I got equity points. I'm equity eligible for that show. Dennis Neill: And how much did you get paid? Pat Hobbs: Oh, it was a hundred dollars. But the story I like to tell about that is that the end of Act I is when Albin is out there, or Zaza is in her full sequins and feathers and everything, dismisses the entire cast and sings the gay anthem, I Am What I Am, and it closes Act I. And I had the privilege of singing with an 18-piece Tulsa Symphony Orchestra in that show. It's Jerry Herman. It's horns. It's a beautiful orchestration. But here I am on stage by myself for the last five minutes singing this wonderful, wonderful song. And I realized on, it was dress rehearsal, when you're just totally in that role and you're totally singing, and you finish that last number, and you rip that wig off, and the curtain comes down, and there's nobody around you. You've just done the performance of your life, and there is, the cast has gone upstairs to change clothes for Act II. The only person on your left over here is the stage manager who calls curtain. There's nobody else on stage, nobody to catch it. And it's like, so after that happened on dress rehearsal, I asked my co-star Chris, who was my husband in the show, I said, would you please stand offstage on stage right and just hold me when I come off? Because you just exposed every nerve and every emotion in your body singing this wonderful gay anthem. And I just needed 15 �somebody to hold me, you know? So from there on, for every performance, Chris was there to catch me. But I love that. That was my... Dennis Neill: I loved the show. Pat Hobbs: I would love to do that again, too. Favorite board position. Oh, geez. You know, Dennis, my integrity, my professional accounting integrity, has gotten the best of me sometimes, being a board member. And specifically with a couple of arts organizations here in town who were doing the wrong thing and blowing through Harwelden money like they were going to get it next year, you know, get the same amount next year. And they kept blowing through it and they didn't have their policies and procedures in place. I'm not going to say I have the best organization I stayed on, okay, that I served on. But there were some fun moments for all of them. But all of my integrity got to me on a couple of them, really, and just had to walk away. Toby Jenkins: I wanted to ask this. We were... I was going to ask you about... You had worked for these churches and apparently still were connected, so you're no longer involved with the Catholic Church. As a former Catholic, I guess is the way I'd... What do you think about our present Pope? John Orsulak: Hopeful. The previous Pope, I liked him a lot, just he was on the right track. I don't know. I don't still... I'm waiting to see how he deals with people who are gay. The number of people who work for the church who are gay is... I think if people realized that, they'd be astounded. I worked for two gay pastors, very obviously, an assistant. And it's like, okay. Here locally, you just kind of wonder. I see a lot of cassocks and old school looks, and it's like, okay, what are you hiding from? Just not of interest to me anymore. I don't want to play the game. Toby Jenkins: It's still pretty profound though, that the world's number one religious leader for all of Christianity, whether they acknowledge him as their spiritual head, it's pretty significant that the last three or four years we've had a Pope who called us to treat people with dignity regardless of their journey. John Orsulak: John, the current one, he's from Illinois, my home state, and he's a Cubs fan, so you can't beat that. Good combination. Toby Jenkins: He's pretty critical of the United States' present positions on multiple issues, calls us out. Pat and John: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay, I just was curious about that. Now, let me ask you about this. Tell us about Finales. Pat Hobbs: Lord, really? John Orsulak: I need a drink. Pat Hobbs: That was the most expensive MBA anyone has ever gone through. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Pat Hobbs: I think we were kind of like Joseph in The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in that we were years ahead of our time, just ahead of our time. We 16 �found a space down here on First Street, and it was my dream to have a restaurant with entertainment, like Lucy and Desi, come down to the club. So we remodeled the first floor of the Jacobs Building down here on First Street and hired James Schrader as our chef, who ended up doing a dang good job of it. We hired people like you. We didn't know what we were doing, but we had fun at it at the same time. We had cast parties for opening night for several of the touring companies that would come in. The opening night cast party for Chicago was our biggest night that we ever had. My God, it was a fabulous evening. Beauty and the Beast, we had their cast party. And for all the local companies here in Tulsa, we have opening night cast parties, a place for people to go. Now they go to Kilkenny's or they go to McNeely's after a show. Toby Jenkins: So your vision was a restaurant with entertainment. Pat Hobbs: With entertainment, and it was before and after the theater. It was within walking distance. It was 476 steps from the Performing Arts Center. So if you're going to the Symphony or the Ballet, come have a nice dinner at 6, walk over to the PAC, come back and have coffee and dessert. Toby Jenkins: And so in those days, downtown was pretty deserted. Pat Hobbs: Oh, downtown. Toby Jenkins: You were it. Pat Hobbs: I think the May Rooms were still open. Toby Jenkins: And then across the railroad tracks was the Spaghetti Warehouse, but that was it. Pat Hobbs: That was it. Toby Jenkins: There were no other restaurants. Pat Hobbs: There was no Art District. Toby Jenkins: No other restaurants. Dennis Neill: And what's the time period? Pat Hobbs: This was 1998. 1998 to 2000. Toby Jenkins: And for our viewers, I was out and I needed a part-time job, and Pat and John, his partner, and his other folks who were there with him, took me under their arm and they taught me how to do fine dining. I didn't know how to, I never drank wine. They had to teach me how to serve it. But it was elegant. Tulsa's power people loved it. Tulsa's people who desired fine dining and entertainment supported it. Pat Hobbs: And we had a 1921 Steinway in the center of the restaurant. John Orsulak: You bought sight unseen. 17 �Pat Hobbs: I bought sight unseen out of California on the internet before they had pictures. John said, this is a drug deal going bad. And they delivered it to our house and I went, oh my God. Toby Jenkins: It was elegant. Pat Hobbs: It was, yeah. Toby Jenkins: But there was nothing in downtown Tulsa. Pat Hobbs: No, there was nothing. Toby Jenkins: Nobody lived in downtown Tulsa. There were no other restaurants. You were definitely pioneers of the revitalization and the restoration of our urban core, which we all take for granted. And younger people today just assume that it's always been like this. Because there was a period when downtown Tulsa was the place to be. And then everything left downtown Tulsa. And you and your colleagues were trying to, you could see it before others couldn't. Pat Hobbs: Well, thank you. Yeah, we just wanted to, the desire was to build it near the Performing Arts, find a place near the Performing Arts Center. And we looked two or three places before then. And the story goes, the name at the time was Finale's Cabaret and Restaurant. That is how we initially, and the word cabaret in Oklahoma in the 1990s did not mean the type of cabaret entertainment you see in New York City. That is musical theater, that's piano, piano bar, cabaret means strip clubs. So we found this place over here on Cincinnati and 2nd, right behind what was then Oklahoma Tire and Supply. It's now the Chinese place. And it was a twostory run-down building and we were gonna buy the building and renovate it. And then the word got over to the Williams Companies that cabaret, that a strip club was gonna open up across the street from the Williams Company's tower. And they came in and bought it out from under us and tore the building down because they didn't want a strip club because cabaret meant strip club. So we hunted for a couple of other places and found this one over on 1st Street, which wasToby Jenkins: And that was an old historical hotel. Pat Hobbs: That was an old historical hotel that was built in 21. Dennis Neill: And who was the landlord? Pat Hobbs: You know, the landlord, the legal landlord that owned the building or the one that... The legal landlord was a guy by the name of Ferretti and he lived in Oklahoma City. And he was this little short Italian guy who drove a big fancy Mercedes. I think he was mob related. But he owned the building and then Mike Sager got involved in it. And Michael Sager was the mouthpiece. And after we vacated the building, Sager had his name put at the top of the building, the Sager, but it's since gone. It's now Jacob, since Jacob's building again. But yeah, Michael Sager was the mouthpiece for Mr. Ferretti. Toby Jenkins: So this was going, and for our viewers, I was a waiter. And that is where I met Mary and Sharon Bishop Baldwin. They were there celebrating their anniversary. I was their waiter. I mean, it was a very, very elegant, impressive place 18 �to be. But I want to bring us to the place of closing night was what was going on in the world, closing night. Pat Hobbs: It was Y2K. You know, we had had, like I said, the night of Chicago was our biggest night. We had a private party in between the dinner hour and the cast party, and it was a big, and something happened in 1999, and the world was predicted to go dark because of the changeover, Y2K, 2000. Everything was gonna go, you're gonna lose your power. Nobody wanted to make New Year's Eve reservations. The year before, we had two turns. We turned that restaurant twice on New Year's Eve. This New Year's Eve, I think we may have had 80 reservations, and that was it. So we ended up catering a dinner for 37 up to the IT people up at Williams. So they, because they were on staff that night because we all knew the lights were gonna go out, and they didn't. Toby Jenkins: Oh yeah, we were afraid planes would fall out of the sky. Your current model cars would just shut down. Your computers would. Pat Hobbs: But you know, we were so hoping. I mean, you know, because restaurants are, you know, your margins are that big in a restaurant. And that was gonna get us through the next few months, you know, what we made off of New Year's Eve, and it just didn't happen. So we just kind of, we turned our own lights out. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, so I want our viewers to know that it was Pat Hobbs' idea to revitalize downtown Tulsa. Pat Hobbs: Oh no. Toby Jenkins: And you know, that, in 1999, he saw the vision, and so the city councilors should name a street after you. Pat Hobbs: And like I said, it was a very expensive MBA. Toby Jenkins: So, you're together, you're in Tulsa, you have your careers, you have your interests. Dennis has already questioned you about your involvement in all the non-profits. During this time, what else has been going on in your life, and what was passionate to you? Pat Hobbs: Gardening, gardening. We loved our yard over on Rockford, designed, initially designed by Dave Collins, did a fantastic job. We even brought cypress trees up from the farm. We had some cypress trees cut and Dave designed a beautiful cypress deck for us. And that was our passion for many, many years was our yard. And John's even a Linnaeus, was Woodward Park Teaching Garden. John Orsulak: Yeah, yeah. Formerly Linnaeus. Pat Hobbs: And still, you still volunteer every Tuesday. John Orsulak: Tuesday, now, yeah. Toby Jenkins: With who? John Orsulak: The Teaching Garden at Woodward Park, formerly Linnaeus, that's a whole story. But, yeah, I do that just to keep my fingers in it, because it's, it was, well, 19 �when we moved from the house, we moved downtown for three years while we were waiting for Heartland Commons to be built. And we really had no place to do, I could still go out and do some things at the garden. He had nothing, and it was driving him nuts. And that's been the one blessing of our current home is we've got a yard that's pretty much nothing was there and gave him a place to play. Dennis Neill: And give us a little more background on your thoughts about forming Heartland Commons, your passion about that, some co-housing with you. John Orsulak: Oh, gosh. Pat Hobbs: Okay, real quick, I'll give you the condensed, real quick condensed version. Performer Melanie Fry, we all know Melanie Fry here in town, been performing for 50 years, just did a production of Love Letters back in, for Valentine's. Melanie thought she and her girlfriends would get together and play water volleyball and drink wine in the summertime. And they thought, well, wouldn't this be a great idea if we all, as we age, all bought homes in the same cul-de-sac, and we can all live together and watch and take care of each other. Well, as they researched that, they found the co-housing website, and co-housing was developed in Denmark back in the 60s. And one thing led to another, they had an introductory meeting, Melanie is no longer involved in the project, she was for a little while, but she got us started along with four other families that started this journey back in 2015, I think. John Orsulak: Sounds about right. Pat Hobbs: It's been about 11 years when the initial conversation got started. But it's all about aging in place, keep going. John Orsulak: Well, it's, it's, you get, you, it's about community and having a support network that you can depend on. The house is secondary, it's nice to have, it's a new build, the, you're, you walk through the community to do what you need to do. If you're going to get mail, it's kind of like a condo place where you do that, however, if somebody's on their front porch, in co-housing, you're considered fair game. And you can be, you can visit and interact. If they're on their back porch, you usually leave them alone. That's a private space, but you're walking to get your mail, which normally would take you what, five, 10 minutes, depending on where you were in the community. For us, and that would turn into a half hour or more because you keep running into people who want to visit, who want to interact In some communities, that means a glass of wine, bottle of beer, sitting on the rail of the porch and just interacting and it's, it makes for a healthier lifestyle for older, for senior co-housing compared to traditional co-housing that is multi-generational. But it just enhances, gives you more opportunity for interaction, stimulation. You've got somebody to depend on if you need a ride, if you're needing an egg. You put it out there, somebody, you'll end up with a dozen eggs just because people want to help you out. Toby Jenkins: Very secure. 20 �Pat Hobbs: Very secure. Pat Hobbs: And you kind of look out for each other. John Orsulak: Right. We're basically our own neighborhood watch. That's evolved. We've been there over a year and we've had a few issues, but we've been working them out and had the Riverside Police, which is just two doors down from us, come over one evening and talk to us about safe practices and what to do and what not to do. And it's good to have those relationships. Toby Jenkins: So it's intentional housing, not just organic where you may know your neighbors and they sell their house and a new person moves in and you may not care for them. These are all people you chose to be around. Pat Hobbs: Everybody's become their best friends now. And it's kind of like family too because you have personalities. And sometimes your personality is buttheads, especially in a, what do I want to say, a homeowner's association meeting. And that happens everywhere. But yeah, we have common meals twice or three times a week. And it's where one of the residents will be responsible for buying the provisions. And we have a commercial kitchen in our common house and they are a team will do this evening meal for six o'clock and do the cleanup and everybody chips in $7 for their meal. And we all got, we had how many first St. Patrick's Day about, 28 or 29 of us and had this St. Patrick's meal with corned beef and hash and cabbage and it's community meal. It's all about community. John Orsulak: Yeah, it's got its pros, it's occasional cons. But overall, it's been a good experience. Toby Jenkins: Let me deviate a little bit from this because I do feel like it was good that we talk about that because there are going to be more of us that are older and we, instead of just letting housing happen, this is you purposely planning, this is what… John Orsulak: Oh, we looked at over 50 properties when we were in the area, north, south, east, downtown. And actually, we rejected the property we're currently in originally but came back to it and we realized this is where we want to be. Pat Hobbs: And it's five acres located at 71st and Riverside in that vicinity and it was an old farm, two and a half acres per lot. So we took the five acres and our community pitched in and we bought the property, we secured the bank loan to do the construction. John Orsulak: We designed it. Pat Hobbs: We had consultants come in and design it. John Orsulak: But we have, the nice thing with co-housing is you have input. You're not dictated like a traditional senior living. Nothing wrong with them, if that's your thing, good. But we set the rules. We have our own, we call them agreements that we've developed so that everybody's on the same page. You're not told what to do. You can do as much as you want. If you want to be active, you can be active. If you 21 �want to stay in your home, you can stay at home. We've got a mahjong group. We've got puzzles and TV and movie nights and it's just kind of like, okay, that floats your boat. You can be there. If not, you can just stay at home and curl up with your dog or cat if you have one. And yeah. Toby Jenkins: So thank you for sharing about this because this is, we've covered kind of a lot of areas. I want to, what a lot of people may know you for is here at the Lynn Riggs Theater in the Rainbow Room. Tell us a bit about your, just like Pat had the vision for the revitalization of downtown Tulsa with his pioneering days, he had a vision of he and John the Rainbow Room. And tell us a little bit about your vision for that in the Lynn Riggs Theater. Pat Hobbs: Well, let's go back to the 13 bullets for $13. That kind of, in my view, it kind of kicked this whole thing off when we had to replace the front windows. And that snowballed into basically an international fundraising campaign. But turning the garage downstairs into a theater. Thanks to David Nelson's help and Dennis's help and everybody else, I mean there were dozens of us on that team that were consulting on this thing. But we opened it in February of 2018. 2018, which was eight years ago. And I thought about it for a while and I thought, you know, let's do something fun with it. And I went over, I made the proposal to you, Toby. I remember going over to your house that afternoon and saying, I'd like to do this. Take it to the board or see what you have to do. And came up with the idea of Third Thursdays in the Rainbow Room. Which would be the third Thursday of every month. We do musical presentations. Now I say musical presentations. Tulsa has a plethora of talent in this town. And when people do their 32nd Chamber of Commerce elevator speech, they always talk about the arts. The philharmonic, the symphony, the ballet, the opera. But they don't really talk about the musical theater company. We have such a talented group of people in this town. And that was my vision, is to get some of these people, when they're not doing a show, to come in and do an hour and a half show. Come in and do a two-hour show. Do your own thing. If you want to do a one man show, do a one man show. If you've got half a dozen people, come in. And they're thematic. And I think one of the neatest things that I ever saw come out of this was a knight of musical theater. K-N-I-G-H-T, a knight of musical theater. And it was all songs from Camelot and Something's Rotten and Spamalot. And it was all songs about knights in musical theater. We've had some wonderful talent come through here though. We only had two presentations in 2020 because of COVID. But we've had over 60, 61, I counted them today. We've had 61 individual presentations as part of the third Thursdays. And now it's just Thursdays in the Rainbow Room because you can't just do the third Thursday. There's so much going on in town that people schedule. You've got to have it listed on a Thursday. But we've had 61 different performers. Janet Rutland, who is one of the most talented singers in Northeast Oklahoma, does her show in the Rainbow Room every two years. The latest one she did is around the Hollywood Campfire with John Wooley. And it has taken off, and she has performed that show all around Oklahoma this last year, but she premiered it here. Travis Guillory did his first drag show here. And it was three years ago, so it was 2023, I think he did his first drag Christmas. And look at him, Travis is now Miss Gay America. 22 �Toby Jenkins: Miss Gay America USA. Pat Hobbs: But we've had some wonderful, wonderful talent through this place. And I think it's exposed the center also. Having this little theater down here has exposed the Tulsa community to what we have. Many people have come in to see their friend perform, not just theater friends, but you know, like Janet, some of Janet's followings. They didn't even know it existed. They didn't know the Equality Center existed. You know, so they come down here and they, with our bar now and our seating, you know, they just, it's just like a little nightclub on a Thursday night. Dennis Neill: And Pat, do you think the opportunity for the performers to pocket a little bit of money, is that kind of a unique opportunity for some of these performers compared to the rest of them? Pat Hobbs: You know, absolutely, when you do musical theater, when you do community theater here in Tulsa, you don't get paid. It costs you two or three, $400 a show with meals and gas and costumes. But here you've got a chance to curate your own show. And the split that we've done with ticket sales is that the performers get 70% of the ticket sales. 30% goes back to the center. And you know, in most cases, that's eight, 900, $1,100 that goes back to the performer, you know, which, I don't know, you know, pays your pianist. It keeps, it's just a little enticement to keep people going, you know? Yeah. Dennis Neill: And knowing how important theater has been for both of you all this time, what do you think is the health of our theater community and where do you see it going in the future? Much like we've seen in other groups, there's a lot of small spinoffs and a lot of new theaters emerging. Are we healthy enough to support these and how do you feel like the direction is going to go for live theater? John Orsulak: That concerns me at this stage. Having moved, when I moved here, summer stage was still going on at the Performing Arts Center and that meant that was the only opportunity to do a musical for most, when Pat was doing Little Shop, or not Little Shop, Best Little Whorehouse when I moved here. And that was it. You had one show, one musical, and there were no touring companies coming around as I recall. A lot of straight plays, comedies, dramas, but if you aren't into that, it gave you no avenue. Now, I fear there have become so many splintered groups and so many organizations now within the community that it's almost spread too thin. They have so many opportunities now where these kids can do multiple shows in a year, multiple musicals in a year. But are there enough audience people to support it? It gets expensive. This past month, I don't know how many shows were going on, and the performers who want to go out and support their friends, they can't afford and they have to pick and choose. Okay, I can go to this show, but I'm gonna have to skip this one, or can I get to an IVR to see a rehearsal? Pat Hobbs: Our budget only allows us to go see so much. We're seeing, this is the third weekend of three weekends since we've been back, and it's like, okay, do we want to go? I want to go see my friends, but you know, yeah, there's a finite audience out there, I think, but they're doing some fantastic stuff. They're just doing some awesome, awesome shows. 23 �John Orsulak: And a lot of the, like Theatre Tulsa, for example, they've had ebbs and flows, the dips. So when I was there, it was an upswing, and then it had a major dip funding-wise, and they struggled, and they almost went under. But they clawed their way back up, and they've been able to, I think, restore, you know, there are always things you're always going to disagree with, as far as philosophy or structure. But, you know, Theatre Tulsa has that studio now, that used to be a dollar store, and it seems to be doing well. Pat Hobbs: It kind of makes me mad that they did that, because we've got this beautiful 100-seat theater here that they can use, but now they're using their own, because it doesn't cost them anything, you know? John Orsulak: But the nice thing with this theater, with Lynn Riggs, is it is small. It's a black box, so you have lots of flexibility on how it's used. You've got people, like Eli, running things, as far as the tech part of it. And it's big enough to do some good, solid productions, but it's small enough to be... Pat Hobbs: And we have done some really neat things here. I mean, when the Lynn Riggs can host the Tulsa Opera in a performance of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, and do the job that they did, it was a beautiful production. And even Chamber Music Tulsa, you know, was booked in here. So, it's taken a few years, but, you know, word's getting out. Toby Jenkins: Well, I may be overreaching, and Dennis can slap me, but that's because of you. You made it happen. He made sure the resources were there, but you sold Tulsa on Lynn Riggs' theater. Dennis Neill: Yeah, you've helped bring Bill and Jason aboard to carry on some interesting... Pat Hobbs: I know, and I'm so, so excited about those two guys who bring just another level of energy, another age, another age group, and the way Bill and Jason have embraced the community, and the way the community have embraced Bill and Jason, to have this new Broadway Clubhouse come out here later this month is just so exciting. I can't wait. Toby Jenkins: Okay, I just want to ask you, I had a situation that...How does it feel to be the face of the gay community as an older couple? How does it feel? And by that I'm talking about the day that you were on the front cover of Life Senior Services. Pat Hobbs: Vintage Magazine. Toby Jenkins: Their very first openly gay married couple in Oklahoma. And how did that feel? And did you get any... I know that's incredible support, but I want to know, have y'all had experience pushback at your life in this time? John Orsulak: No, we've been told some people, what, three times over the years. I'm not saying we're normalized, but we certainly were nothing to be afraid of. And we believe in the community. We're the only gay couple at Heartwood Commons. That doesn't mean we won't have more, but we're accepted, we're not shunned. 24 �Pat Hobbs: I just wish that I had a publicist, because all these things just came about. I mean, there was no rhyme or reason. I don't have an agent. To have all these things happen, you know, Tulsa People three times, and Vintage Magazine, and then there's a couple more. They just happen. They just happen. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, Vintage Magazine goes to 400,000 people. Did you know that? Pat Hobbs: No, I did not. Toby Jenkins: It's one of the largest senior publications in the country. Pat Hobbs: I feel honored. Well, you know how that came about. Toby Jenkins: No, you tell us. Pat Hobbs: My post-retirement gig at the Garden Center, I was keeping their books, and there was a young gentleman that was doing an internship in communications, coordinating website, Facebook, Instagram, and all of this. Actually, Vintage Tulsa called him to find…they wanted a face for their issue, and he had the office right next to him. He says, hey, Pat, you and John want to do this? I said, okay. It didn't even dawn on me that he could have picked another couple. He could have picked a heterosexual couple. He could have picked an individual. But he just leaned over and said, hey, you and John want to do this? They need somebody for the cover of this magazine. Oh, okay. But we never got any derogatory feedback on that. Never got any hate mail. Toby Jenkins: So you may not have gotten hate mail, and you may not have gotten overt rejection or harassment. As a couple, have there been times when you've known if you were welcome in the room or not? I mean, you talked earlier about the crews. Yeah, the Malcolm Baldrige. Pat Hobbs: Well, the Baldrige Award thing, where the principal moved his chair two feet away. You know, at this day and age, not so much anymore. John Orsulak: Yeah, I just say this is my husband, and like it or love it. Pat Hobbs: You know, honest to God, since the legalization back in 2014, that's what we do. We introduce each other as our husbands, not partner, not roommate. I mean, and it's more accepted, isn’t it? John Orsulak: I just say it. Toby Jenkins: Well, that leads us right into kind of the closing of our time together. What would you say, I mean, our situations, we're seeing so much pushback against our community, on public policy. Today, the lead story in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Tulsa World was state agencies, not state-funded organizations or agencies or colleges or universities or schools, could not acknowledge Pride Month. They couldn't fly a rainbow flag. Pat Hobbs: Well, let me tell you a story about what happened over at the Garden Center a couple of years ago. Dennis, thank you for the flag. May I tell this story? So, you supplied... 25 �Dennis Neill: Tulsa Progress Flags. Pat Hobbs: Tulsa Progress Flags. And it was flown, the Garden Center manager, Lee, flew it over the teaching garden and was instructed that the only time that the flag could be flown was during the month of June and immediately take it down the first of July. You know, half the staff at the garden center at the time identifies as LGBTQ+. And it was a city, it's city property. Take the flag down. Just made me so mad. You know, and this whole thing with the flag, it doesn't make any sense. What have we done differently over the last 20 years? Why now? Why are you offended? Toby Jenkins: So what would be your messages to those who come after us or for young activists? I always like to say it this way. In a hundred years, archaeologists are going to dig through the ruins of this property and they're going to discover that there was a day in America where there had to be LGBT centers and they uncover our archives. So the archaeologists, when they uncover your interview, what would be your message for the future, for those who come after us, and for young LGBTQ people and who identify as queer today? John Orsulak: Gosh, it's changed so much over the my lifetime. I have a former student of mine, fifth grade. I remember seeing him doing pirouettes on the playground. And I pegged him. At least I thought I did. And then later on, sure enough, and he's very now very active in the arts community here in Tulsa, has a husband, supportive family, and it's just like, oh, you know, it's become normal, much more normalized, and I hope it continues to be normalized where we don't have to live with any fear. That it's just, we're kind of at the point where it's like, I don't give a damn anymore. You know, you live with who I am, how I am, and if you don't like it, then go away or do whatever and I'll survive. I'm a worker bee, so it doesn't bother me. Pat Hobbs: Well, I've got my political comments, some that need to remain. I need to sit on it for a minute, but these bigots out there, these right-wing bigots, why now? What have we done? Like I said, what have we done? You still get your hair cut by a gay barber, okay? You still buy flowers at a gay florist, don't you? I don't understand why this movement is... And the one thing that scares me, though, is that they call them immigration detention centers for all these warehouses, that these empty warehouses, they're going to put all these immigration…I don't think it's going to be mostly for immigrants. I think it's going to turn out they're going to pick and choose what part of society goes in these places. That's just my opinion. I don't think there's enough immigrants to fill up all these warehouses. Toby Jenkins: Any other things for the future or for those who come after us or for today, for people who are wanting to know what to do. John Orsulak: And use your resources, the Equality Center. I hope it survives and continues to flourish because you need this. You need support. You know, if you're not alone, they need to know that. Pat Hobbs: The one thing I have learned from the Rainbow Room and the people who come here is that we are designated here at OkEq as a safe place. Always have been. And I guess it was during Pride or maybe that first Pride piano thing that we 26 �had a couple of years ago. But I had a lady come up to me and say, I feel safe here. Yes, that's why we need this place. Toby Jenkins: Well, it is March 19th, 2026 and today our interviewees, our special guests have been John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs. And they've been together 36 years. And joining us have been Dennis Neill, the founder of Oklahomans for Equality, and Amanda Thompson, the archivist. And this is Toby Jenkins. Thank you so much for tuning in. 27 � https://history.okeq.org/files/original/0655db9527d9c965e3ae77cf9ab9ecd7.mp4 5fe3a81c4475dc5db209b6fe8bc46c29 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2026] John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs Interview Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Orsulak, Pat Hobbs, Toby Jenkins, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 19, 2026 Subject The topic of the resource John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs Oral History Interview from March 19, 2026 Description An account of the resource This interview with Pat Hobbs and John Orsulak explores their 36-year relationship following a chance encounter at a church, their careers and longtime involvement in theater and music. They also highlight their activism within the LGBTQ community in Tulsa and the vision they had and implemented to bring the Lynn Riggs Theatre at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center to life. They share personal stories, including the passing of Pat’s brother to AIDS, insights on community involvement, and their vision for a more inclusive future. 2026 AIDS AIDS/HIV Dennis Neill Dennis R. Neill HIV/AIDs interview John Orsulak Lynn Riggs Theatre OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Pat Hobbs Toby Jenkins transcript video