In the Life: Ep. 1809, "40th Anniversary of Stonewall"

[Michael Billy:] Coming up, on "In the Life", From Stonewall to Prop 8, we look at the state of the LGBT movement. [Cleve Jones:] This summer is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City, that launched the modern gay liberation movement. [Billy:] Queer communication. The power of the written word. A Conversation With... Lady Bunny and Larry Kramer. Have we made any progress? Of course, we've made progress. [Billy:] LGBT youth, a new generation rises up. And the gay Betsey Ross. I'm making all these flags, and I couldn't keep up. [Billy:] All this and more, on "In the Life". [Announcer:] "In the Life" is funded in part by: the H. van Ameringen Foundation; Arcus Foundation; Newpol Foundation; The Estate of Richard W. Weiland; Gill Foundation; Collingwood Foundation; Otto Haas Charitable Trust #2; and these funders; and by the annual support of In the Life members, like you. Welcome to "In the Life". I'm Michael Billy. In this episode, we celebrate LGBT Pride, and the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, a turning point in our history, and a milestone in our ongoing struggle for civil rights and true equality. ["In the Life" theme music] In the early morning hours of June 28th, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a Mafia-run bar on Christopher Street in New York City's Greenwich Village. What happened that night has been hotly debated. But beyond dispute is that the violent protests and street demonstrations that broke out sparked a movement that continues today. Although there has been progress, visibility in the media, and growth in number of organizations that represent us, 40 years later, we are still fighting for basic civil rights. Our first story explores where we've come from and how far we have to go. [Over bullhorn:] If you don't yet already have a sign, grab a sign. [Andrea Shorter:] How many of you are here, and this is the first time that you have ever marched for your civil rights? Welcome. Now, I have the supreme pleasure of introducing Cleve Jones. [crowd cheering] This summer is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City that launched the modern gay liberation movement. We have been marching and fighting and struggling for 40 years. We will not wait 40 more. [crowd cheering] [crowd chanting:] We'll never be silent again! [music] [police sirens] [Matthew Coles:] Stonewall, to me, is less a date than a concept. There were lots of things that happened before Stonewall. But to me, it marks the point where LGBT people said, "Enough, we're not going to take that anymore." We're not going to take the society's imposition, that we are really somehow inherently undeserving, inherently unequal, inherently not a fair part of the society. [Cathy Renna:] I've always thought of Stonewall as a spark, or kick in the ass, for the community. It made people really sit up and take notice, on a - from a popular, cultural context, and a media context as well. Here's those drag queens in this bar in 1969, when it was totally unsafe to be out. Regularly this bar gets raided, and then somehow, they muster up the courage to fight back. I'm just in awe of that. ["You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" by Sylvester] [Coles:] Back in those days, most states made any kind of intimacy between two people of the same sex, a crime. We were mostly regarded as, as criminals. [Coles:] Interestingly enough, the first case for recognition of marriages of same-sex couples that got any serious attention in court was in 1971, but we certainly moved forward more quickly on decriminalization than anything else, because it was going to be very hard to get society to take the notion of our relationships seriously as long as intimacy was still a crime. [chanting:] Gay is good, and gay is great! [Rea Carey:] Coming out around the time of Stonewall, in the late '60s, was so powerful because relatively few people had been able to do so before then. Coming out was a powerful first step in organizing, in self-actualization and insisting on being who we are. [Jones:] When I look back to 40 years ago, it's hard to imagine for young people today, but I did not know that there were other people like me. This is the one thing that has really changed profoundly. I don't think there's many queer children growing up in America today who are completely unaware that there are other people on this planet who share their feelings. But this is a common experience for people of my generation. [Coles:] Harvey Milk always kept saying, "Come out, come out." The best way to change people's minds on LGBT issues is for gay people and their closest allies to talk to friends and family, people they already have a connection with, about what it's like to be gay. People can't love ya, if they don't know ya. They can't like ya, if they don't know you. You cannot fight for equality and be absent in the equation. [Jones:] Almost everything we did back then was directed at visibility. Zaps, actions, kiss-ins, anything to let people know, "Hey, we exist." When Harvey was elected, millions of young, gay men, lesbians, women, learned for the first time that there were other people, like them, and that we were actually coming together and starting a movement. [New Wave music] [Vic Basile:] I began at HRC in '83. Our goal was to try to build awareness in Congress about discrimination on the job, primarily. And try to get co-sponsors for the Gay Rights Bill, which was a precursor to ENDA. It covered not just employment discrimination but housing and public accommodations as well. And along came AIDS, and AIDS in the '80s eclipsed everything. That became the dominant issue. Lesbians lived in a separate world from gay men in the late '70s. But when the AIDS epidemic struck, we came together. [Torie Osborn:] I remember San Francisco Hospital put out a call for nurses, 'cause they couldn't keep nurses, because they didn't know how it was spread. And the lesbian nurses, all signed up. And they had no close gay male friends. So, they weren't actually, kind of, doing it for a brother. But they became brothers. It transformed us. [Linda Villarosa:] HIV/AIDS was very sobering. It made us much more serious. It made us more thoughtful, as a group. It made us more loving and caring for each other. Gay men realized they needed us as allies and caretakers, caregivers, and friends. [Basile, emotionally:] It did bring us all together. And I think it kept us together. I mean, I would see lesbians go to hospital - hospitals to take care of gay men. It was a very moving experience. [Shorter:] The impact of the AIDS crises on LGBT community, I think, is immeasurable. Clearly it took away a lot of the talent and leadership and really changed the culture of the community. [Gwen Baba:] Men were dying. And it started leaving these huge, sort of, holes in the organizations and in the leadership. [Baba:] And women felt people needed us to step into more leadership positions. [Ann Northrup:] And I'm going to tell you it's your duty to speak up! You must represent yourselves and you must speak directly to the public. [applause] [Basile:] We became quick learners about the political process. [Basile:] It sort of catapulted the movement forward. You know, we grew very fast. So when our government turned its backs on us, we learned to take care of ourselves. And we gave money like never before, so philanthropy grew at an amazing rate. [Carey:] It was a particularly unique time. I mean, this was a time when government officials wouldn't acknowledge a syndrome that was rapidly killing, not only members of our community, but also of other communities. They wouldn't even talk about it. [chanting:] History will recall, Reagan did nothing at all. [chanting:] Boycott! Boycott! [Carey:] Groups like ACT UP and Queer Nation were created. [chanting:] Act up, fight back, fight AIDS! [Carey:] There were very smart people who were involved, who realize imagery can be so powerful. [Larry Kramer:] There are now 70 chapters of ACT UP around the world, and that we can claim something like a quarter million members. But the backlash is not going to happen against the activists now. The backlash is going to happen against the system. [Coles:] We had, as a country, pretty wretched AIDS policy in the United States until 1993. And we got much better AIDS policy starting in 1993, because the institutions of the federal government were open to listening to reason, and didn't see us as inherently evil. [music] [Renna:] One of the most fascinating things for me, has been seeing in a very personal way, the impact that media images can have, whether they're in the news, or whether they're in entertainment. [Joan Garry:] The late '90s, sort of, was this spark, where first it was "Ellen", then it was "Will & Grace". [Garry:] But that same year, 1998, was the year that Matt Shepard was killed. So there were all of these juxtapositions. You had "Will & Grace", you know, yakking it up in their kitchen, and you had national news covering Matt Shepard's death. [Garry:] We put Cathy Renna from GLAAD on the ground in Laramie, because we could see that it was going to become a big story. And we wanted to move the conversation forward in a way that, it, it basically broadened the understanding of the American public. I think it's unmistakable that Matthew's death had a tremendous impact on this nation. [Renna:] Thousands of people, gay and straight rallied, both in vigils prior to his death and after he died. It was really a national wake-up call, and kind of a tipping point. It was a time where our country was ready to talk about these issues. What are you, a fag? The next time you use words like these, think about what they really mean. [dramatic music] [Renna:] The murder of Matthew Shepard. GLAAD's campaign against Dr. Laura's defamatory comments about our community. The battle over Eminem. It's those touchstones that people see, and it allows for a broader conversation. Media depiction of queer people has changed. [Jewelle Gomez:] A lot of that is because we have a lot more gay elected officials. I mean, I just read this article about the first transgender mayor. And I thought, "Oh yeah, you know, this is definitely about opening your eyes and changing the world." [techno music] The reality is we've made a tremendous amount of cultural progress. That culture progress has not been matched on the policy level. At the state level, at the federal level, you know, at any of the places where we need to institutionalize and codify the kind of cultural change that we've been able to create. [chanting:] Protect our children! [Garry:] The anti-gay industry, their strategy for decades, has been a strategy of abstraction. "Those people aren't - they're actually not people." [Garry:] And here comes the marriage debate. Here we are, as human as you can possibly be, "I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you." That's humanity. There is nothing more human than loving and being loved by someone else. [Gomez, on screen:] I hate to be corny, but it is an emotional thing to know you can now get married. [Gomez, voiceover:] I want every civil right that is due me, and marriage is one of them. Marriage is like sitting-in at Woolworth's. You didn't sit in during the civil rights movement at Woolworth's 'cause the food was good. You sat in because you wanted the right to go there, or not go there. And I feel like marriage is that parallel for me. [Shorter:] It's not just the, sort of, academic interest in what marriage can do, in terms of providing a multitude of rights, but it really has touched a chord, in terms of people needing and wanting to feel once and for all, that our relationships are just as valid. [chanting:] Hey, hey (ho, ho) ho, ho. Prop 8 has got to go! [Coles:] The kids today who are outraged about Proposition 8 in California, I think it's a great thing, and it brings incredible energy back into the movement. [cheering] [Shorter:] Well, I think the younger people just pretty much expect that everyone is equal. Right? So that is the success of what older people have done. [Shorter:] They have actually worked to instill in them, a different idea of what's possible. And so they are now coming back, saying, "Hey, we believe you. Everyone should be equal." And so, let's work for that society. [crowd chanting:] Equal rights! Equal rights! [Ron Zacchi:] I came out when I was 13 years old. Went to college, joined a fraternity, was out to all the fraternity brothers. Had been out in every job I've had. And then, I got to the point where I was like, "Oh, maybe marriage," and found out that I couldn't. And that's really what started me in activism. The older generations' work now has afforded us to have this as a next struggle. We've made such progress, but marriage is definitely the next step. [Jones:] What I'm most interested in right now, is what this new generation of emerging leaders does. I'm fascinated by these new young people who have access to technology that was literally science-fiction when I was a child, whether they will be able to use that technology to take the movement to a new level. [Michael Crawford:] It's not just about the internet, but it's about the internet as a way of empowering people. It combines both the tried and true Harvey Milk-style, you know, door-to-door person-to-person outreach with the cutting edge online technologies, infusing them in a way that allows for really innovative and creative things to happen. [Zacchi:] Facebook and the internet has definitely allowed us to communicate, discuss and plan more openly and more rapidly. [Baba:] For the larger organizations and for the community center organizations, it's really a way to connect people in. But it presents some challenges, which is to stay ahead of the curve, and to stay relevant, and make sure that what we get back is the kind of activism that pushes forward the movement. [Justice John Roberts:] Congratulations Mr. President. [crowd cheering] [Carey:] It literally must have been when President Obama was taking the Oath of Office, the website of the White House changed. LGBT issues went up on their website as something that the President stands for. [Garry:] We have not had a seat at the table in eight years. We have allies inside the administration in a way that we haven't in a long time. [Basile:] In this Congress, we should see hate crimes pass, and ENDA pass, and repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. When you get Colin Powell now saying, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell should be re-evaluated" and the momentum seems to be there for those three things. [Crawford:] But in order to really achieve that shift in the culture, we're gonna need to have the kind of movement that encourages people to go out, to talk to, you know, friends, family, coworkers, strangers even about gay people and about the various issues impacting our lives. I think our movement is still maturing. We're a very young movement. [Renna:] The organizations that have become well-known, have multiple-million dollar budgets, play a very particular role. They establish the kind of credibility that we need with politicians, and media corporations. What I think they need to hold onto though, is that activist edge. I worry about our community, that it even is - we still call ourselves a community as though we're separate. We need to be much more a part of the larger community so that our issues are everyone's issues. So that somebody says, "Oh, lesbian and gay people can't get married? That's not right." [Jones:] My hope for our movement is that we will continue to grow and that we will continue to press for unequivocal equality, but that we will do so in coalitions. I want us to move forward but I want us to do so with all of the other ordinary men and women across this planet, who are trying to build a world of peace and social justice. [Osborn:] We do have it - this extraordinarily vibrant movement that has passed the torch across several generations from 1969 straight through to 2009. We have 40 unbroken years of social activism. [Jones, on microphone:] No people in history have ever achieved their rights without a struggle. This will not be granted to you easily, and you must be prepared to fight with every strength you can muster! Now is the time! If you think you are equal, then act like it! Thank you! Keep fighting! [crowd cheering] Si se puede! Si se puede. Si se puede. Our next segment focuses on the written word. From early newsletters and magazines, to today's blogs, the power of the written word has connected LGBT people from communities across the country. "In the Life" looks at how we communicated in the past, and the evolution of our messaging and coded language. ["Electric Feel" by MGMT] [Jeanne Cordova:] The written word goes in cycles. New technology, I think, has fueled this new wave. [Michael Musto:] People just assumed that gay was everywhere, that there was gay media everywhere you turned. That's a fallacy. [Martin Meeker:] In the 1930s or 1940s, in the era before there were any gay publications available, we had to engage in a whole variety of, sort of, underground practices, in many ways. [Musto:] It used to be you had to search for it. You had to use coded words. You had to, like, meet in dark alleys. Try to find another gay while looking for the cops behind your back. [Phyllis Lyon:] People were fired for being gay, thrown out of their housing for being gay, put in jail for being gay. It was all very secretive. In that era, you were so isolated. And it really did seem that you'd never find anybody else, or that maybe you were the unique aberration on the planet. [Meeker:] Back during this era, most queer communications were coded. "Interests: camping, nature study, cave exploring, short story writing, collecting of foreign paper money." [begin "Please Mister Postman" by The Beatles] [Meeker:] There were a lot of these sort of contact clubs and hobbyist magazines. They could in fact, provide a portal, really, into the gay world. A creative reader would begin to realize that, "you know what? Maybe I should start up a correspondence with this gentleman in San Francisco, share my interests in male physique photography, and who knows where it might lead." ["Please Mister Postman" by The Beatles] [Ann Bannon:] When I wrote my first book, I, I really didn't have any of that in my vocabulary. I picked up the coded language of that era as I went along. I knew a few technical terms but even those were hard to find. I mean, if you went into the library, they had to unlock the stacks and let you in. And then you got funny looks. ["All Shook Up" by Elvis Presley] [Bannon:] A lot of those words ended up on the covers of the lesbian pulps. Words like, "shadow" or "twilight" or "secret". [laughs] All that sort of stuff, which was very titillating was immediately translated by the women who were looking for the pulps as, "Oh, I found one. I found one." [teen screaming] [Meeker:] Then you have the emergence of a whole series of organizations. Collectively these organizations were called the Homophile movement. They established the first robust, permanent, candid, queer print culture. [Begin "Lovely Day" by Bill Withers] [Ken Burns:] Mattachine started in the '50s. The purpose was to present to society, people that were no different from anybody else in society, the straight society if you want to call it that. [Cordova:] The Ladder was the magazine out of the Daughters of Bilitis. For that closeted lesbian who wanted to come out, who thought we should have rights. We decided to do a newsletter, which later turned out to be a magazine called The Ladder. [begin "Magazine" by Rebecca Pidgeon ] [Lyon:] We ran the first issue off on the mimeograph that the Mattachine Society had. We got as far as, I think, 165 copies before we went kaput. [Cordova:] You'd find little tiny pictures and great columns of words. [Lyon:] We mailed it out to everybody that anybody knew anywhere. [Cordova:] And you had the real feeling that people were reading it from cover-to-cover and then giving it to a friend, who gave it to a friend, who gave it to a friend. It was a great hit, because there hadn't been anything like that out. ["Magazine" by Rebecca Pidgeon] [Meeker:] So one thing that starts to happen by the end of the 1960s, the mass media started to do some of the work that these smaller publications were trying to do. They began to talk about homosexuality and ease people out of isolation, into some knowledge, into some connection with the wider gay world. Differentiation happens with the ability of people to represent themselves and their desires in ever increasing detail. ["Jumpin' Jack Flash" by The Rolling Stones] [Cordova:] The newspapers were very important to us back then, the gay men's papers too. Back then, it was the written word, and it really moved people. If you picked up a copy of The Lesbian Tide, and you'd find it, kind of pushing the edge sort of, topic, sexually, but in a political way, and music and culture and everything else that was going on in the community. ["Let the Sunshine In" by The 5th Dimension] [Meeker:] By the late 1960s, there were hundreds. By the 1970s there were thousands of these publications, that were very explicitly gay. They were distributed in gay book stores. [Bannon:] The gay and lesbian bookstores were a godsend when they began to happen. And they were not only places to find books you couldn't find anywhere else, but they became social hubs. The gay bookstores in particular were wonderful sort of places to meet and mingle, and find other people interested in literature or even just trash. I loved Oscar Wilde, I loved Different Light. I had events there and it was also a place for me to connect with my readers. [Meeker:] These places that people used to go to find connection are now really disappearing, because people are now going online. [digital music] [Musto:] With the internet, there was just an avalanche of gay media. There were gay websites. You could turn to certain places for gay news. [Stephen Macias:] There is a large amount of LGBT bloggers that are breaking news, that are breaking stories, that are connecting the dots in ways that sometimes mainstream publications can't do. [Andy Towle:] I have the ability to sort of share information with people that they wouldn't necessarily get on like a mainstream news outlet, which is stuff like anti-gay hate crimes that are being committed across the country, which aren't covered, you know, on CNN. [Musto:] It's like a wild west situation nowadays where anybody can start their own blog. Where do I fit in? Well, I'm doing a blog too, so I've joined them. They can't even hold a candle to how gay my blog and my column are. [laughs] ["Kids" by MGMT] [Michael K:] D-Listed is, you know, it's like a potpourri. There's, you know, stories about real people from a gay point of view. There's animal stories. People like those. They like a kitten on a vacuum, for some reason. [From video:] Magic! [Musto:] There is a certain gay-speak. We have certain phrases, "Fierce. Girlfriend. Work it." You know. And that comes from being an oppressed minority that had to learn how to communicate to each other, how to find each other in places way back when it was illegal to be gay. As we've evolved, and gays have become more accepted in society, the need for coding your profile so that nobody knows that you're a man seeking a man, has really gone away. The internet has taken the way that everybody, not just gay people are able to meet and interact and find each other to a much easier, much better level. Nowadays, any isolated gay person out there has a better shot at finding your best friends online. [K:] The internet has given a huge platform for gay people. You know, there are readers who write me that don't know any gay people. And now they do because they're reading me every day. [Macias:] Every community has its isms and its nuances that are developed out of our own culture, that are rich in its history, and quite frankly are some of those things that bring us together. [music] Author and activist, Larry Kramer, who helped found Gay Men's Health Crisis and ACT UP sits down with entertainer and Wigstock organizer Lady Bunny. With Bunny's humor and Larry's anger, they speak their minds about gays in the White House, the state of activism today, and gay history. It is my pleasure to interview legendary AIDS activist, playwright, Larry Kramer, who founded ACT UP, GMHC, and came out with "The Tragedy of Today's Gays" when George Bush was elected. [Kramer:] This is supposed to be in honor of Stonewall? And have we made any progress? Of course we've made progress. Have we not made any progress? Of course we haven't made any progress. But certain things we've lost. We used to have a lot more fun. And we used to be able to make love without fear of death. So that's - those are both very heavy things and they're interrelated. So I'm sure this has had a great psychic effect on the population. How could it not? What it hasn't been able to do, somehow, is to help take it to the next level, you know. [Kramer:] To take that, and work with it, and overcome it. A huge number of gay people do not self-identify first and foremost as gay. Until we can self-identify, every one of us, first and foremost as gay, before anything else, we're not gonna be able to put a population out there that's meaningful. I consider myself gay first, before I'm a gay - before I'm a gay man or a gay Jew, or, or, or a gay writer, or a gay activist. I am gay. [Kramer:] And that dictates every way, everything I do, how I look at things, how I react, how I write. The Advocate has an article about all the new people who have been app- that Obama has appointed who are gay who are working in the White House. And, it scared me, because they're all saying things like, "We're all in this together, blah, blah," meaning straights and gay, we're all in - that's the new, that's the new philosophy. We're all gonna work together in this. And, and I just, I just, I just almost had a fit. We're not all in this together! We are not all in this together! They are not with us! [Kramer:] We have to go, and we have to fight for us. I don't want you being in the White House, not fighting for US, first and foremost, you gays and lesbians who are on Obama's staff. [Lady Bunny:] Well, I mean, he's, he's obviously an improvement. [Kramer laughs] But were you glad to see the large turnout for Prop 8 protests? I mean, one of your points in "The Tragedy of Today's Gays" is that today's gays are not involved in activism. It was so little - too little, too late. And, and it was very unfocused. The people came out, but they didn't know what to do when they came out. [Kramer:] Once again we're leaderless. Once again we're unfocused. Once again we're not angry enough. Anger is what fo-, is what makes activism work, and I don't see any anger now, or fear. [Kramer:] The triumph that we had with ACT UP, getting all the drugs, has been dissipated because ACT UP self-destructed, and everybody went back out as if AIDS had never happened. So that's, that's been very hard for me to accept, that people have returned to what we were doing before. And I don't see the spirit that ACT UP engendered [Bunny:] Mmm hmm. [Kramer:] carried on. I mean, that woman in Seattle had done a wonderful job getting things going, but it's, it's just, it's Kindergarten stuff compared with what we need. Did we deserve to lose? We certainly didn't fight a good fight. Why do you think that younger people have lost the taste for activism? I go around to schools and colleges a lot, and I talk to a lot of kids and they know they're passive. They know it. [Kramer:] I don't know what that means, when you know you're passive and still stay... [Bunny:] That means you're a bottom. [Kramer laughs] [Bunny:] Oh, oh, you mean... politically passive. [Kramer:] They're docile. So we the people have got to start the fight again? [Kramer:] Well... You know, I say at Gay Pride rallies that are often on Sundays around the country, "It's great that we come out and we have a party, and we say 'we're not ashamed to be gay'. And we celebrate the different types of gay people in the community, lesbian, whatever," [Kramer:] Population. Yeah, population, sorry. And um, and I say, "but we do this - we come out one Sunday per year. Our enemies come out every Sunday per year, in a church." [Kramer:] Exactly! In church. [Bunny:] 52 to one are the odds. How can we win? We've got to get organized and we've got to me- but in order to do that, we've got to care. And I just don't see that, that younger people care. Forget younger people. Any gay people. I don't see any gay people anywhere caring to the extent they should care, that they need to care, for us to have any kind of power. Do you think that's it's not- that's it's also straight people, who just don't care? [Bunny:] That, you know, [Kramer:] No, I think you're right. [Bunny:] George Bush took away the writ of habeas corpus and which, has, what, predated the Magna Carta? I mean, not even the Constitution. And I just think that that just floats by us, because we're so concerned with Jennifer Aniston's latest hairstyle. Or you know... [Kramer:] You don't move in a very butch crowd, do you? [Bunny laughs] Larry! [laughs] I can't imagine what you mean by that ridiculous statement! Well, I mean... you know, I mean, I - my people don't think about Jennifer Aniston, whoever my people are. [Bunny:] They don't? [Kramer:] No. But even our newscasters, I mean, "news" is, you know, trying to get people to call in and text in, and make YouTube videos so that they can get involved, and, and be stars in some way. I think it's a national obsession. And it's, it's a selfishness. It has nothing to do with furthering the, the, the needs of a comm- population. Sorry. [laughs] I put my blood into "The Tragedy of Today's Gays", that little book. And it's still out there and I tell everybody, "Read it, and if it doesn't scare you, do something about it." But... Well. It, it scared me. It thrilled me. I mean, it, it shot an arrow straight into my heart. And, you know, kind of lit a fire of activism in me. [Bunny:] I have to admit that back in the days of ACT UP, it was so popular, that it kind of became notorious as a cruising ground! And I felt like I might not measure - might not be macho enough to make the cut at the meetings! [Kramer:] How do you think I felt? [Bunny:] If the truth be told! But, um, anyway, you are busy working on a book? Oh please. It's 4000 pages. I just printed it out. The first draft, I just printed out. [Bunny:] Wow. [Kramer:] I've discovered so many things, you know, about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, and Andrew Jackson, and Lewis of Lewis and Clark, and de Tocqueville. We've got a lot of gay brothers out there. [Bunny:] Wow. [Kramer:] We do. That's another thing that bugs me totally, is that gay history is not taught anywhere. Gender studies is taught. Gender studies is not gay history. [Bunny:] Gender studies? [Kramer:] Yes, darling. [Bunny:] What is that? [Kramer laughs] I love you! [Bunny laughs] Oh, I'll tell that to the Yale faculty. [Bunny laughs] Gender studies is why you... [Bunny:] No, I... [Kramer:] why you wearing a wig. I - you know, my parents ask that. [Kramer:] Yeah. [Bunny:] A lot. [laughs] [Kramer:] They go into the history of why people wear wigs, or something, but if they don't go into, you know, the history of George Washington being gay. [Bunny:] Well, honey, this country , this great country, was founded by men wearing wigs. And I think that it's time to take the nation back. [both laugh] We have a history, and we have to know it. So maybe let Stonewall be symbolic of that. Somewhere there gotta be a few diamonds in the rough, like you and me. We came out of that. You know, I went to discos all the time too. And we came out of it. So let's hope that there're others that can come out of it too. Where are you?! [Bunny:] Come on! Come out, come out, wherever you are! [music] Not many can say for certain who ignited the spark that led to the Stonewall Rebellion. What is certain, is that many of the instigators were young, some transgender, and a few even homeless. Youth with nothing to lose, and everything to fight for. 40 years later, LGBT youth services provide support throughout the country. Yet, as providers will tell you, "these are the best and the worst of times for our young people." ["Til the Moon Turns Blue" by Hear Kitty Kitty] [Different youth voices:] I was 13 when I finally came out to myself that I was gay. I was like, 14, 13. I'm the first openly gay person in my family. I came out in eighth grade. At 16, I just broke out. 15, I'm 14. I came out in high school. I was probably seven, or eight, maybe. [school bell rings] [Kevin Jennings:] I think in a lot of way, 2009 is the best of times and the worst of times to be an LGBT youth. [Student:] We're growing, we're getting out there. We're more open than just for gay people. We have straight people, we have transgender people, we have people who are confused and still learning. I would like to get out of today, inspiration from young people. [Jennings:] Because of the greater visibility in the media, because of Gay Straight Alliances in schools, there's more avenues through which you can come to understand who you are, and express who you are than existed when I was in high school. [Billy:] In the 1970s, the average person self-identified as gay, between the ages of 19 and 21. Today that number has dropped to 13 and under. [Jennings:] There were always lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered students, but we suffered in silence. Today's LGBT students are coming out when they're in junior high, when they're in high school. There's been tremendous progress, the thousands of Gay Straight Alliances, the number of states that now protect students. GLYS has played a really central role in helping students organize and advocate for themselves. [Student:] I think GSAs are great, because it gives you like a safe space where you can talk about things. Rising up above challenges, being able to cause and/or promote change. I feel like I can really be myself here. [Jennings:] But on the other hand, the visibility is not an unmixed blessing. Being more visible makes you a bigger target. And a bigger target is easier to hit, sometimes quite literally. [police sirens] [911 call:] We need an ambulance. The ambulance is on the way. Do you know who shot him? We have police there now. Yes, I hear 'em. I hear 'em, okay. And we do have somebody on the phone that's with the victim. So, we're trying to help him, okay? Thank you, thank you, goodbye. [Billy:] In February of 2008, 15 year old Lawrence King was shot to death in school by another boy whom he had asked to be his Valentine days before. The violent incident raised national attention not just to school violence perpetrated against LGBT youth, but also the increasingly vulnerable age in which young people are coming out. [Larry King:] Hundreds of thousands of students will take a vow of silence on April 25th, as part of the 12th annual National Day of Silence. They'll honor the memory of 15 year old Larry King and the countless other students who've had their voices taken from them, simply because of their sexual orientation or gender expression. [Thomas Krever:] It's, it's really a mixed blessing. On one hand, you want to celebrate a young person's affirmation to know who and what they are, and you want to applaud their bravery. But the double-edged sword is, people at the age of 13, no matter how advanced skilled they may be, no matter how much mental prowess, they may have, they're still young people. [Billy:] Young people coming out in a society that is increasingly tolerant of gay people, but who are still fully dependent on support systems where tolerance is not always found. [Different youth voices:] I grew up, being made fun of in school. I had cans and bottles thrown at me. Ashley killed herself, because she couldn't handle the pressure. And I know a lot of parents are like, "No, we don't support it." I found myself homeless for a second time in my life. [Lucky Michaels:] In 2007, we surveyed the youth in a number of the organizations, that served this population. There were 1600, at least, LGBTQ youth that were on the streets on a nightly basis. And at that point there was only 75 beds in the entire city for those youths. [Michaels:] Sylvia's Place is a shelter and full-time drop-in services for LGBTQ homeless youth. With them coming out younger and younger, if they're in an environment that is not accepting of that, then ultimately, more youth are gonna be homeless. [Michaels:] They have been abandoned at the most crucial point in their developmental process, and then forced to deal with things at earlier stages than they should, because they are living off the streets. [Moises:] When I was 16, when I first ran away from home, I had to do "the stroll", as they call it, like the slang, prostitution, to survive. There are countless number of stories of young people engaging in risky sexual behavior in exchange for a place to stay. Because what other options do they have? I mean, the kids out here just got younger and younger. They're starting at ages 11, just coming down here. They can go out there to the stroll and make money like crazy. But the long-term purpose of that, is to catch an STD, or HIV. The infection rate amongst 13 to 19 year old young men, within our community, has doubled in the last five years. [Youth:] A lot of my friends I know, they, they're positive. Like, as far as being in the streets and when you're hungry, you'll do anything to eat. This is our pantry. We have a washer and a dryer available for them to wash their clothes. We have clothes available. We have toiletries. We have food pantry bags. We have a full shower, for anybody who needs it at any time. [Moises:] I come here for the services that they provide. You know, it was a place where I was accepted. You know, being able to learn from others. The resources I didn't have was a place to live, food, clothes, you know, a place to sleep at, a room, bed. Well, in seven years, I really haven't seen a decrease in homelessness in the young people . I haven't seen a decrease in the homophobia that they find in society and schools, at home. It's pretty much the same. [Krever:] And so what's happening is, for instance, at Hetrick-Martin Institute, we're seeing a tremendous spike in services here at the agency. And so at the end of each day, we provide dinner for all young people. And we're seeing that even the number of meals we are serving is, on some days, at capacity. And we're having to open up new spaces where the young people can actually eat these meals. And so, it's presenting a challenge for us on how to administer these services. [Krever:] Coming out at a young age, is a pretty heroic effort, in our eyes, when you perhaps do not have that safety support or safety net around you to do so. [Jennings:] Today there are hundreds of thousands of young people stepping forward and advocating for themselves. There's more of a chance to be honest than ever before but that honesty sometimes isn't rewarded, it's punished. And what we need to continue to work on to change, is to make sure that young people can just be who they are without fear. [Symba:] Every new generation that comes in, brings something new to the table. So, I think now is easier, but it's still not easy. There's still obviously people who are afraid to, like, say that they're gay, to let other people know that they accept gay people. [Jennings:] In the next generation, I'm hoping that homophobia is something they're going to study in their history class as a relic of the past. [Billy:] Despite some of the harsh realities many LGBT youth face, 40 years after Stonewall, the fact is, they're coming out in greater and greater numbers, giving those on the ground fighting with and for them, hope for this next generation of brave young people. [applause] [Lillian Rivera:] Because of their strength and their resiliency, I feel good, that someday, when I'm a senior citizen, that these kids are going to be running the world, because if they can get through this, they can do anything. They really can. Gilbert Baker is truly an unsung hero of the LGBT movement. In 1978, Baker created the universally recognized rainbow flag, a symbol that has become a rallying tool, and a declaration of pride for our community. Tonight, we hear from Gilbert Baker and some of his close friends about the evolution of this iconic symbol. [Man:] All human beings need symbols. All human beings use symbols, and we need a symbol the way other countries, movements, peoples need a symbol to identify us, to show solidarity with each other and to proclaim our presence. [Northrup:] The rainbow flag is a fresh new, free-standing, independent vision that has its own special power. [begin "Starman" by David Bowie] [Gilbert Baker:] I got my first sewing machine when I got out of the Army in 1972. '72 was like glam rock, and I just had to dress like David Bowie every second. And, of course, had no money to buy clothes. So I thought, well, I'll make my own clothes. [Charley Beal:] Whenever there was a march, they needed a banner. They called Gilbert because he's so... [laughs] [Baker:] I lived in San Francisco in 1978. It was an incredible place to be. It was a time of incredible empowerment and political organizing and community building and artistic expression. Really, up until the rainbow flag, the pink triangle was the dominant symbol that we used, but it came from the Nazis. It was put on us. And, you know, It had a really horrible negative origin about murder and holocaust. [Cleve Jones:] We were trying to change this symbol of oppression into a symbol of power. But there was still something about it that was fundamentally depressing. [Baker:] I didn't even think twice about what the flag would be. A rainbow fit us, it's from nature, it connects us to all the colors, all the colors of sexuality, all the diversity in our community. [Northrup:] This really sprang from the head of an artist and was a creative vision to create a symbol that would be a visceral, powerful way of expressing our community, ourselves as a people, and our desire for equality. [begin "She's a Rainbow" by The Rolling Stones] [Baker:] The original flag had eight colors, you know, the pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun, green for nature, turquoise for magic, blue for serenity and purple for the spirit. This was the hippie 1978 meanings for the things. Gilbert and Cleve Jones, they, they went to the parade committee, with the proposal that they needed to do some big symbol, and they proposed doing a flag. [Baker:] We made it at the Gay Community Center in San Francisco. Just an amazing process of, you know, a thousand yards of cotton that we had to wash several times to get the sizing out, and then, natural organic dyes that stain you forever when you're using them, [laughs] and, but make the most beautiful, vivid colors and then the fabric, a very thin cotton that lasted about, you know, a week. [laughs] But looked like silk. And, you know, endless hours of ironing, and, and the sewing, of course, on a little machine, stitch, stitch, stitch. Oh, it was breath-taking. I'll never forget it. It was at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco Civil Center. It was Gay Pride, June, 1978. [Baker:] It went up, publicly, on a big flag pole. 30 by 60 foot, twice. It was huge. [Jones:] There was a whole bunch of us, and Gilbert was in charge. And the wind was blowing, and we were struggling, and hooking it to the cords that would take it up. And as we started to, to pull on the rope, the wind took it, and it just billowed open. It was so beautiful, so astonishing. [music] [Baker:] I knew right at that moment, you know, when the flag went up, and I was looking into the eyes of people that were around, and seeing their reaction. I thought, "Oh my gosh, they - it's more than I dreamed." Hundreds of thousands of people saw these gorgeous flags up there in the, the sun and the wind and knew immediately that that was our new symbol. [music] Within five minutes, people were saying, "Make me one." You know, the first one up, people were saying, "Make me one." Really within a couple of months, I was like, "Oh my God." I'm making all these flags and I couldn't keep up. I ran out of pink fabric. I mean, I literally exhausted the entire supply of pink fabric. So I quickly compromised once I went into the flag industry, to the six color version, as I call it, the "commercial version". [music] [Beal:] When he - Gilbert chose that symbol for the gay and lesbian movement, it, it sort of eclipsed, I think, any other uses of the rainbow and everybody now, really, you know, connects that to the gay and lesbian movement. [crowd cheering] [Baker:] When I did the mile-long flag in New York City, the event itself was a big celebration, Stonewall 25, in New York. [Beal:] It made headlines around the world. I think it was the first time that the rainbow flag as a symbol for LGBT rights leapt across oceans to other countries. [Baker:] I had thought of everything, except about what to do with it after it was over. So I literally had teams of people running through it with scissors, chunking it, handing off pieces to people, you know, somebody from London was a friend. "Here, take this to London. Here, take this to, you know, Hong Kong." ["See the World" by Gomez] [Beal:] The very next year, pieces of that flag were marched in Cuba, China, all over Europe, South America. ["See the World" by Gomez] I get a lot of email stories from around the country, and around the world, about "I put a rainbow flag up on my house and it got vandalized." Or, you know, I wore a rainbow flag T-shirt to school and they sent me home. Or, you know, I put a rainbow flag sticker on my car and the windshield got broken." The people that have the courage to do that, the people that stand up, they're moving it forwards. So even though there are hate people out there, they know what they're hating. [Northup:] It has become a force in the world that is, I think, unexpected, I imagine, for Gilbert, and moving to all of us. [Jones:] You can go anywhere in the world, and you will find the rainbow flag and people will know what it means. And we owe that to Gilbert Baker. [crowd cheering] [Baker:] Together, we're changing our world, our planet, from a place of hate and violence and war, to a place of love and diversity and acceptance. And that is why we're here. I mean, that's, that's the big long rainbow. From before me, to well after me. [music] Thank you for watching "In the Life". To learn more about the issues in tonight's stories, and how they affect you, visit our website at inthelifetv.org. You can also watch extended interviews, sign up for monthly airdate alerts, and download past episodes 24/7. I'm Michael Billy. Thanks for tuning in, and please join us next month. ["Heroes" by David Bowie] [Announcer:] "In the Life" is funded in part by: the H. van Ameringen Foundation; Arcus Foundation; Newpol Foundation; The Estate of Richard W. Weiland; Gill Foundation; Collingwood Foundation; Otto Haas Charitable Trust #2; and these funders; and by the annual support of In the Life members, like you. [logo music] [logo music]