Video Interview, Tim Sally, December 14, 2012

  • INTERVIEWER: Or do you have the question in your hand?
  • TIM SALLY: I have that.
  • INTERVIEWER: OK.
  • TIM SALLY: I was raised Roman Catholic by my mother.
  • Though by the time it came for my confirmation,
  • I already knew on a basic level who I was,
  • and that I was in conflict with church teaching.
  • And I already had, somehow, the strength of character
  • to say to myself, if this is what the Catholic
  • Church believes, and this is who I am,
  • I would be a hypocrite to get confirmed into this religion
  • that I really don't believe in and that I had sort of lapsed
  • from.
  • And as I became a teenager, and my mother
  • had less and less control over me to take me to church,
  • I opted myself not to go to Mass.
  • It wasn't until I got involved in DI
  • that the religion and the spirituality
  • had greater meaning for me, especially
  • in light of Vatican II, which called for tolerance, and love,
  • and respect, and a greater openness, particularly
  • on issues of sexuality.
  • So I really had great hopes, when I joined DI,
  • that the church could change, and that I
  • could be a small part of helping the church
  • to change and to open up on the issue
  • of human sexuality and gay rights, in particular.
  • I became involved as a co-founder
  • of AIDS Rochester in 1983, and that was a result
  • of my involvement in DI.
  • And there had been a gentleman who was born and raised
  • in Rochester, and who later moved to New York City
  • and contracted the AIDS virus, and then
  • moved back to Rochester but was looking
  • for local spiritual support.
  • And his name was Dan Cappiello, and at the time,
  • I visited him in the hospital, more
  • as a show of friendship and support,
  • because at that time to be a person diagnosed
  • with HIV or AIDS, you were a social pariah.
  • Nobody wanted to touch you.
  • And I just wanted to express to Dan that he wasn't alone,
  • and so we developed a good friendship out of that
  • for the duration of his life.
  • And in fact, after I moved to San Francisco,
  • and the NAMES project evolved, I made a panel for the AIDS quilt
  • in his memory.
  • And so, that was very important motivation for me
  • to be involved in the founding of AIDS Rochester.
  • INTERVIEWER: When did you come out,
  • and how old were you at that time?
  • TIM SALLY: I came out probably in 1971.
  • I was in my early years of high school, and--
  • INTERVIEWER: Let's start back from the top.
  • Because there's a bit (unintelligible).
  • TIM SALLY: Yeah.
  • INTERVIEWER: How old were you when you came out?
  • TIM SALLY: I think I came out in 1971,
  • and that came about as a result of two things.
  • One was that there was a Life magazine
  • story about the year in review in 1971,
  • or 1970, something like that.
  • And one of the articles was about homosexuals in revolt,
  • and it was about the emergence of the gay liberation movement,
  • as it was called back then.
  • And I remember seeing pictures that, it just
  • resonated with me.
  • There was a picture of a wedding cake with two grooms
  • and two brides on the top.
  • There was a very dramatic photo of gay people
  • in New York looking very angry with their fists
  • clenched and raising them in the air.
  • There was another photo of--
  • I think it was taken in West Hollywood--
  • of some cross-dressing guys, one of whom
  • had this long, sort of like, ermine coat
  • and a bouffant hairdo with a sweatshirt.
  • And he had a beard, by the way, and he's smoking a cigarette.
  • And he had a sweatshirt that had a raised
  • fist with the words, gay liberation,
  • written over the fist.
  • And I was so struck by that that I--
  • I was a model airplane maker when I was a child,
  • and so I had lots of little bottles of paint.
  • And I found a button that had belonged to my grandmother.
  • It had a photo of General Douglas
  • MacArthur on the button, and it stated, America's hero
  • MacArthur.
  • And I painted over that, and drew a fist,
  • and wrote Gay LIB on it, and wore that button
  • into high school.
  • So that was very pivotal for me in realizing that there were
  • other gay people out there.
  • And one other striking photo from that issue
  • also is a photo of Reverend Troy Perry from Metropolitan
  • Community Church talking about how
  • it was possible to be gay and Christian--
  • that the two were not mutually exclusive,
  • and that gave me a lot of motivation to come out.
  • INTERVIEWER: Tim, I always ask this question
  • of people who are activists.
  • Is there anything in your character,
  • in your experience, that caused you to be an activist, where
  • other people are content to just let
  • others do that kind of work.
  • Why are you an activist?
  • TIM SALLY: I would say that I'm an activist because I have
  • always felt like I was outside of the mainstream
  • and that I didn't necessarily accept the status quo for being
  • valuable, in and of itself.
  • And being outside of the mainstream,
  • I think it's a natural reaction to question what you're told--
  • what you're told is good for you,
  • what you're told you should be, what you're told you should do.
  • And the more you question things, the more it
  • gives you a bigger perspective on the world
  • and introduces you to other issues that could be related,
  • other human rights issues--
  • for example, women's rights, pro-choice when
  • it comes to reproductive freedom, genital integrity
  • rights for children, you know, fighting against circumcision
  • of boys and girls.
  • All of these things are interrelated.
  • And I think I'm an activist because I
  • was outside of the mainstream, and I
  • was forced to question things.
  • INTERVIEWER: In your experience, how old
  • were you when you came out?
  • TIM SALLY: Probably eleven--
  • or well, when I came out to myself, probably--
  • and identified myself as, this is me.
  • I'm gay, 1971-- but it was just a couple of years
  • later when I actually consummated my identity
  • with another man.
  • INTERVIEWER: In the process coming out
  • and in the process of coming out,
  • which is an ongoing process, were there people
  • that inspired you--
  • that somebody, either a writer, or politician, or some--
  • maybe somebody who you knew personally.
  • Who was inspiring to you for this?
  • Who did you look to for--
  • TIM SALLY: Well, I looked to many people for inspiration.
  • When I joined DI, some of the most inspirational people to me
  • were Cindy Birch and Margaret Mary Lau.
  • They demonstrated what it meant to be true Christians,
  • and love unconditionally, and love with such a sense of joy.
  • And we became very, very close friends
  • and are still in contact to this day.
  • They showed me what it truly meant to love as a Christian
  • and as a human being--
  • Bill DeStevens as well, because he
  • was kind of like the big brother I never had and demonstrated
  • what it was like to have a conviction,
  • and to stand strong in that, and to speak out for that.
  • On the national level, of course,
  • Harvey Milk was my hero.
  • At the time, I was subscribing to the Advocate news magazine
  • and keeping a close followup on what
  • was happening around the country on gay rights issues,
  • and of course a lot was happening in the 1970s,
  • in San Francisco especially--
  • in the later part of that decade when
  • Harvey Milk became supervisor.
  • And when he was assassinated with Mayor Moscone,
  • I was devastated.
  • It was, for me, like what it must
  • have felt like for African-Americans when
  • Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, or for Americans when John F
  • Kennedy was assassinated.
  • Milk, for me, was that hero, and his assassination just
  • drove a stake through my heart.
  • But it also energized me to do what
  • I could to carry on his legacy locally in Rochester.
  • Of course, I'm proud of my involvement in DI
  • and being a co-founder of PFLAG and AIDS Rochester,
  • but I think what I'm also proud of is
  • that these organizations allowed me to hone my activist skills.
  • And they also informed me about other human rights issues that
  • involve sexuality and choice.
  • An example of that is my twenty-year involvement
  • in the genital integrity movement
  • to protect children from being circumcised.
  • I lived in San Francisco for almost twenty-five years
  • until 2007 when I was compelled to move to Canada,
  • where I live now, in Vancouver, with my German husband,
  • because at the time, he was no longer
  • able to live legally in the US.
  • So it was a choice between my relationship and my country,
  • and it was an easy choice to make.
  • I first became aware of the PFLAG organization
  • from my reading of the Advocate news
  • magazine and reading about what other chapters around the US
  • and internationally were doing, and I
  • decided, in the late '70s, that Rochester could
  • benefit by having a chapter.
  • And I think there were attempts, prior to us,
  • starting our chapter, but they kind of failed,
  • and they disbanded.
  • But it was through the efforts of myself and Pauline Giraldo,
  • Margaret Mary's straight sister, and Horace Lethbridge,
  • a local psychologist who was a member of DI--
  • that we worked together to start a chapter of PFLAG,
  • and we called it Families and Friends of Gays,
  • because we wanted to be inclusive of other people who
  • were not necessarily parents.
  • And what motivated me to really move
  • on that was not just knowing about PFLAG, but one
  • of my volunteer duties that I took on in DI
  • was to staff the DI office in St. Luke's Church.
  • And it was very common to get phone messages on the answering
  • machine from parents calling in and saying,
  • I've just learned that my son is gay,
  • or my daughter is a lesbian.
  • And I don't know what to do with this information.
  • I don't know where to go for support.
  • And it told me that those kinds of calls were cries for help
  • and that we needed such a chapter,
  • so we did start a chapter, and it met monthly
  • in St. Luke's Church.
  • I found DI to be extremely different from mainstream
  • religion, because in my experience,
  • mainstream religion, at least in the Catholic church,
  • was all about being somber, being polite, behaving
  • yourself, genuflecting, getting up and down off your knees--
  • which I guess was good practice for later.
  • It was good practice for later in life.
  • That's priceless.
  • INTERVIEWER: What did you say about getting
  • up and down on your knees?
  • TIM SALLY: It was good practice for later in life.
  • Oh, golly.
  • INTERVIEWER: You really got into that.
  • TIM SALLY: I really-- well, you know?
  • It trained my knees well.
  • We're not still filming, are we?
  • Another aspect of my coming out was not just
  • an intellectual coming out but actually
  • the physical coming out.
  • I was lucky enough, when I was in high school
  • at East High School, to meet another gay person.
  • His name was Judson.
  • We still stay in contact to this day,
  • and we became very good friends.
  • We also became intimate, and eventually that relationship
  • evolved into a full friendship.
  • And he was the one who was responsible for telling me
  • about Dignity Integrity and suggesting that maybe I
  • would benefit from attending services there, where I could
  • be part of a larger community.
  • And I'm really, really grateful to Judson for that
  • and for opening me up to the gay world, in a sense.
  • INTERVIEWER: Tim, what happened in the sixth grade?
  • TIM SALLY: Gosh, I remember this funny experience.
  • Well, now it's funny, but back then it was kind of, like,
  • devastating that we had had mandatory sex education
  • classes.
  • And they were all under the auspices of the science
  • curriculum, and so we would go off and take our sex education
  • classes, and then we'd come back to science class.
  • And I remember my science teacher,
  • at the time, Mr. Clark, who asked the class,
  • so what did you learn?
  • And I raised my hand, and I said, "I learned
  • that I think you're sexy."
  • And there were giggles in the classroom.
  • And Mr. Clark maintained his composure,
  • and he was very thoughtful.
  • And he says, "Well, what does sexy mean to you, Tim?"
  • And then I had to go into this damage-control mode
  • and think, well, what does that mean?
  • I just knew that I was attracted to him,
  • but he approached it in a very respectful way
  • and didn't freak out, and I think that was the right way
  • to handle it.
  • And so, I just look back at that as an amusing part of my life.
  • I found DI to be profoundly different from mainstream
  • religion, because in my experience
  • growing up in the Catholic church,
  • going to church was all about being quiet,
  • keeping your hands folded, and just doing what you're told
  • when you're supposed to do it.
  • And that meant, you know, genuflecting,
  • getting up and down off your knees,
  • and crossing yourself, and all this other kind of stuff.
  • DI was free, it was loving, it was accepting, it was joyous--
  • a stark contrast to what I grew up
  • with in the traditional Catholic church.
  • It was all about, in DI, celebrating--
  • celebrating who you are as a person,
  • celebrating your spirituality, and celebrating your sexuality.
  • And the two were not divorced as they are in the Catholic church
  • even to this day.
  • Before meeting Dan, my very first person with AIDS
  • that I actually knew, and put a face to, and touch
  • him, and shake his hand--
  • AIDS, of course, registered with me,
  • because it was splashed about the gay media
  • and the mainstream media.
  • At that time, I think it was called GRID, Gay-Related Immune
  • Deficiency syndrome, and other people were calling it
  • the Gay Cancer, because people weren't really sure
  • what it was, and how it was being transmitted.
  • And even though, in larger cities like New York, LA,
  • and San Francisco, there was considerable fear
  • about the disease, at the time in Rochester,
  • my recollection was that there wasn't
  • a lot of real deep concern about the disease.
  • Because I think somehow a lot of us felt, living in Rochester,
  • we were removed from the problem--
  • that this was a problem of big city promiscuous gays,
  • and that it couldn't possibly touch us in Rochester.
  • And I think there was a lot of apathy at the time.
  • INTERVIEWER: You talked about coming out to your mother,
  • and there weren't necessarily a lot of other people
  • to come out to, but that we, as gay people,
  • do have to come out, and it is an ongoing process.
  • Did you find that in your life-- that, ultimately, you
  • were on the road coming out many times?
  • Like, did you--
  • TIM SALLY: Well, since I had a limited coming out
  • experience with family, being that it was just my mother--
  • I didn't really have a lot of friends to come out to--
  • any close friends that I felt it was appropriate to do that
  • with, so I kind of went from telling mom to being public,
  • because shortly after coming out to my mother,
  • I joined Dignity Integrity, and through that, I
  • became active and motivated to speak out publicly.
  • And so, I went onto Matt Rinadli's AM Rochester program
  • with Sue Cowell to talk about the gay prom couple
  • from Rhode Island, at that time, that had appeared on the Phil
  • Donahue Show.
  • And the purpose was to talk about the local gay community
  • in Rochester and also talk about my involvement
  • in Dignity Integrity, known at that time as DI.
  • So it kind of went from a personal coming out to a public
  • coming out in pretty short order,
  • and ever since that time from publicly coming
  • out, and writing letters to editors,
  • appearing on television programs,
  • speaking to city council, it pretty much
  • became the rule of my life as being publicly out.
  • INTERVIEWER: Were there any repercussions to initially
  • coming out publicly?
  • TIM SALLY: There were repercussions
  • from coming out publicly.
  • I remember, on several occasions,
  • when I wrote letters to the local newspaper,
  • either the Times Union or the Democrat and Chronicle,
  • at the time, people who either supported my position
  • or opposed it would look up my name
  • and address in the telephone book and write to me.
  • And I specifically remember a correspondence,
  • that I carried on for probably close to a year--
  • a very respectful conversation with a woman in Honeoye Falls,
  • I believe, who was very concerned about my soul.
  • And we had a very interesting letter-writing correspondence
  • back and forth, which basically ended up
  • in we agreed to disagree, but it was very respectful.
  • On the other hand, I got some very nasty letters--
  • some very--
  • well, today, they would be called hate speech.
  • These letters, particularly from one man in particular,
  • that just use every foul word in the dictionary
  • that he could find to describe what he thought of gay people.
  • It's interesting that when my mother found out I was gay,
  • it wasn't because I volunteered it to her
  • and had it on my agenda and under my control.
  • It just so happens that, because of my friendship with my friend
  • in high school, Judson, a good friend of my mother's
  • had noticed this friendship and thought
  • that it was an unusually close friendship for two boys
  • to have.
  • And so, as I understand it, she had asked my mother
  • if my mother thought I might be gay.
  • And I don't know whether it had really ever crossed her mind.
  • Perhaps, mother's intuition, it does,
  • but she had never verbalized that to me until one time
  • we were in the kitchen doing dishes.
  • And just out of the blue she says, "Tim, are you gay?"
  • And I was shocked, and I was like,
  • OK, here is a moment of truth.
  • What do I do?
  • You know, do I cover it up until I'm ready,
  • or do I just be honest with her?
  • And I chose to just be honest with her.
  • And she said, "Oh, OK."
  • And that was kind of the end of it.
  • And then later, questions started coming about gayness,
  • and then soon after that I got involved
  • in my first relationship, so she was
  • able to view that relationship.
  • So it was not a traumatic coming out for me.
  • But since I'm an only child, and I only
  • have my mother, coming out was kind
  • of a limited experience for me.
  • I didn't have a lot of friends that I could do that with,
  • but, you know, my initial coming out with my mother
  • was, I think, a very positive event.
  • Initially, we were quite fortunate,
  • with PFLAG, to start the group meetings with probably
  • five or six sets of parents, and in some cases
  • it was just the mother who came.
  • In others, it was just the father, but in most cases
  • it was both parents who came.
  • And it was a time for people who had already gone
  • through the coming out experience with their child
  • and were comfortable with their child
  • to be able to tell these new parents, who were just
  • learning about their children, that it'll be OK.
  • Give yourself time to learn and to understand,
  • and that was really the major goal of PFLAG at the time--
  • was purely to provide local emotional and friendship
  • support for other parents, who were just
  • taking on the news of their children's sexual orientation.
  • It didn't really have a political agenda,
  • but it definitely was a means to find support
  • for local parents in the Rochester community.
  • I think DI had a profound impact on the Rochester community,
  • because it stood in stark contrast to those people who
  • were saying that gays are sinners,
  • and that you cannot be gay and Christian.
  • And all of us in DI, whether we came
  • from the Catholic tradition, or the Episcopal tradition--
  • or we had a lot of members come who
  • were Baptists, and Methodists, and so forth,
  • because this was the only home that they
  • had for a spiritual community as gay and lesbian people.
  • Our witness to the Rochester community
  • said, yes, we can be both gay and Christian,
  • and there is nothing mutually exclusive about the two.
  • Notice I gave a little-- oh, it's
  • usually only after cannabis that I get this giddy.
  • INTERVIEWER: Talking to me, Tim, how old were you
  • when you realized you were gay?
  • TIM SALLY: Well, I realized I was gay--
  • although I didn't attach that word to it,
  • I knew I was attracted to males probably when
  • I was six or seven, and I recall watching television series
  • of the day, where I was definitely
  • very attracted to the male lead characters in the programs.
  • And so, at that point, I knew who I was,
  • but I didn't know what I was.
  • My involvement in DI lasted from roughly 1976 to 1983,
  • and those were very, very meaningful years for me
  • because I got to be creative in terms
  • of how to bring the social consciousness
  • to other concerned people around the issue of gay equality.
  • I know that one year, DI marched in the St. Patrick's Day Parade
  • in Rochester, so we could get public witness to who we were
  • as gay and lesbian Christians.
  • I organized a Day of Remembrance for gay and lesbian victims
  • of the Holocaust that DI sponsored at St. Luke's Church.
  • I helped start the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
  • group, which at that time we decided to call
  • Families and Friends of Gays.
  • But I would staff information tables at the annual Gay Pride
  • picnics and just allow myself to be creative with what
  • I was passionate about--
  • and that was social justice and human rights.
  • INTERVIEWER: It's on the hour.
  • I mean--
  • TIM SALLY: My name is Tim Sally, and I
  • was born in Rochester in 1956.
  • I grew up, in my early years, on Hamilton Street,
  • which I guess now is a gay, gentrified neighborhood--
  • I think maybe part of the South Wedge, they call it.
  • Later, I and my mother moved over
  • to the east side of the city on Vermont Street
  • and attended East High School, where I graduated in 1975.
  • If I stop talking, that kind of--
  • INTERVIEWER: You're going to give a little open set-up.
  • OK.
  • TIM SALLY: So here's some interesting letters
  • that I got in response to my writing letters to the editor.
  • They range all the way from a very polite Christian woman
  • in Honeoye Falls--
  • April 4, 1980, she says, in part, "there
  • is no way that I can accept homosexuality
  • as a legitimate alternate lifestyle.
  • I do not have the right to judge you or any person,
  • but I do have the right to judge a lifestyle that
  • is an abomination to the Lord."
  • OK, everybody's entitled to their opinion.
  • And I got a letter here--
  • March 23rd, I assume it was the same year--
  • no signature on it other than the word disgusted.
  • "Dear Tim Sally, or is it really Sally Tim.
  • I really get fed up with the faggot population's
  • constant attempt to rationalize the legitimacy
  • of their homosexual activities.
  • You queers use the word gay in such a way
  • that it prostitutes the real meaning.
  • What you should call yourselves are exactly what you are,
  • male cocksuckers and asshole fuckers.
  • There, that doesn't sound so goddamn sweet and innocent,
  • does it?
  • It's not.
  • You fags have developed an accepted medical reputation
  • for spreading some pretty bad diseases amongst yourselves
  • after you suck some guy's dick after he has just
  • stuck it in your shitty ass.
  • Jesus, that is really sexually appealing.
  • I'll tell you one thing.
  • If I were a goddamn queer, I wouldn't
  • be so fucking proud of it, as you professional faggots
  • seem to be.
  • It just happens to be the opinion of most normal people
  • that the chief purposes of a prick is to piss through
  • and to screw a female with, not to stick in some man's asshole
  • or for another man to suck on.
  • You can argue all you wish, the fact
  • remains that queers are not normal people."
  • I did get some supportive letters.
  • This is August 6, 1980 from a gentleman by the name of Larry.
  • And I won't say his last name, but he just
  • says, "Greetings, the typist of this brief note
  • is an educator, 45, single, who grew up in Rochester,
  • but left when it's provincialism got to him.
  • I now return to Rochester only to visit my folks,
  • but I want you to know that I greatly appreciated your letter
  • in the Rochester paper.
  • It's great to know that there are
  • aware human beings in the Rochester community."
  • I left Rochester in 1983, because I
  • was drawn to professional gay activism,
  • and I chose San Francisco because that
  • was one of the few places that had paying positions.
  • And I eventually found a job there
  • as office manager of the AIDS Health Project.
  • INTERVIEWER: Very good.