Audio Interview, Bruce Voeller, June 23, 1973

  • BRUCE JEWELL: Could you tell me something about your background
  • leading up to becoming president of GAA?
  • And perhaps something about your own coming out as a gay person.
  • DR. BRUCE VOELLER: Well, I'd been married and gone
  • through the whole syndrome of most or many gay people
  • who've been raised in small communities or in isolation
  • from other gay people, and refused
  • to accept the plain fact that I was a homosexual.
  • My sexual orientation was very much
  • towards members of my own sex.
  • And presently, after having gone through years of refusing to
  • accept this--
  • you know, I knew it deep down in--
  • I did, and it happened to coincide
  • with my wife's wishing to be divorced
  • on separate and other grounds.
  • And at that point, I decided that I should come out
  • and did, and immediately got involved with the Gay Activists
  • Alliance.
  • It was at the time that several members
  • of the alliance and a number of other former homosexuals
  • who'd been converted to heterosexuality purportedly
  • were on The David Susskind Show.
  • And I'd been terribly impressed by the GAA representatives,
  • and came to a meeting of the organization,
  • and got very actively involved ever more and more so
  • until finally, I found myself chairman of the State
  • and Federal Government Committee and presently
  • president of the organization.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I don't--
  • I'm not quite sure what your academic background is.
  • Does it have anything to do with sociology or anthropology,
  • or anything like that?
  • DR. BRUCE VOELLER: Well, no.
  • I'm a biologist.
  • I originally was going to be an anthropologist
  • in undergraduate school, but changed my mind.
  • Went into biology and am a geneticist
  • and developmental biologist.
  • And I've been at Rockefeller University since 1956
  • for seventeen years.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: There's been a great deal
  • of work of late on possible genetic and biological causes
  • of homosexuality.
  • Perhaps you could give me some expert opinion on that matter.
  • DR. BRUCE VOELLER: Well, I think the main thing that has
  • to be said, it doesn't matter.
  • I mean, it's an academic interest.
  • I suppose whether people are of one kind of origin
  • or not, the important thing and which
  • really is at issue is whether or not gay people should
  • be treated differently.
  • And of course, they should not as human beings
  • with all kinds of rights under the Constitution
  • and under the Declaration of Human Rights of the United
  • Nations.
  • People have rights which they have been denied because
  • of their homosexual orientation, and I think
  • that's what should be at issue.
  • And I'm concerned about the studies that
  • are done on hormonal levels and such because too often, what's
  • done with them is to say that homosexuals if they do--
  • which hasn't been proven--
  • if they do have lower testosterone levels,
  • for example, one of the male sex hormones,
  • they're therefore curable.
  • All we'd have to do to cure them or the like
  • would be to give them more hormone.
  • And of course, that's not what society should be doing at all,
  • any more than they should be feeding pills to black people
  • to make them white or to Jews to make them into Christians.
  • Any minority group should be a proud and dignified body,
  • and should find joy and pride in its minority group position.
  • And we as a nation should find pride in these things
  • and the kinds of diversity that we have as a nation,
  • and in the kind of benefits and understandings
  • and special awarenesses that we can contribute
  • to our national life through our differences
  • and through our experiences in being different.
  • So that's why, you know, it's a long background kind
  • of answer to your question about genetics and hormones,
  • and things like that.
  • But I think it's an important thing
  • that people should understand before one even
  • enters into a discussion about that as a question.
  • I think there are a couple of interesting things,
  • now addressing the hormonal question directly.
  • It's been reported by a couple of different groups
  • that there are lower testosterone
  • levels in homosexual groups they investigated
  • compared to heterosexual men.
  • More recently, at the last meeting of the American Medical
  • Association, this was contradicted,
  • and other workers were unable to confirm this.
  • However, one group did have an interesting thing
  • if it's borne out, and that was that homosexuals
  • who were closeted, that is to say, were not open
  • and were afraid to let people know their homosexuality,
  • were found to have lower testosterone
  • levels, as were soldiers going into battle in Vietnam.
  • By contrast--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: You're suggesting it's
  • an anxiety phenomenon then?
  • DR. BRUCE VOELLER: Yes.
  • I'm raising that as a thing that needs
  • further investigation, but a very interesting possibility.
  • The contrasting control groups, both of homosexual men
  • who were members of gay liberation groups and openly
  • gay, and of soldiers here in the main part of the United States
  • and knowing they were not being shipped off to Vietnam
  • to battle, had comparable levels and were similar--
  • the same as the hormonal levels of the general heterosexual
  • male population.
  • So yes, I think there is a possibility of that.
  • It's far from proved.
  • And just another part of it, you ask about genetics,
  • I think there's no substantial data
  • to give an indication whatever or to what extent
  • heterosexuality or homosexuality, either one,
  • is inherited or predisposed as an inherited part of one's
  • being, and to what extent it's an acquired
  • characteristic from one's environmental experience.
  • I don't think there's any data at all.
  • There is, of course, a batch of older studies
  • of identical twins, but these are very faulty studies.
  • They got much wrong with them.
  • Twins raised in isolation, identical twins
  • raised in isolation in the classic way
  • of getting at information.
  • And usually, the twins aren't separated
  • until they're several years old or after they've already
  • had a considerable living experience.
  • I think it's very bad data.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: One of the problems
  • that gay people have confronted in their political and legal
  • struggles seems to be connected with the publicizing
  • of the type of struggle that we are going through.
  • During the early stages of the black civil rights
  • movement in the south, sit-ins at lunch counters and protests
  • over separate restroom facilities and so on for blacks
  • were national issues.
  • However, in the course of the gay movement,
  • it's become much less of a national issue,
  • perhaps due to lack of national coverage,
  • though we are struggling for the right
  • to be employed by the government,
  • though we're struggling for housing rights, employment
  • rights in general, and struggling in many other areas.
  • We certainly haven't been able to get the kind of publicity,
  • let alone favorable publicity, that other civil rights
  • movements have received.
  • How is GAA trying to handle this situation?
  • DR. BRUCE VOELLER: Well, I think that is changing radically.
  • We've recognized from the outset the importance of publicity
  • and of the press.
  • And I think that we've put enormous amount of energy
  • into getting that kind of attention,
  • and with a great deal of success.
  • It's absolutely true that the press in general
  • had had a major blackout on any kind of homosexual news.
  • It was considered an unfit topic to discuss in the public press,
  • just as ten years ago, abortion was and contraception.
  • And nevertheless, these are things that
  • affect people's daily lives.
  • I think anything that touches on sexuality or sex
  • immediately becomes scary for the general public
  • and for the press and for politicians.
  • It's a taboo subject.
  • We're a very sex-negative culture.
  • We're scared to death of sex in America and in much of Europe.
  • And the topic is very toxic for most people.
  • And we've had to overcome that, and I think we're doing it.
  • There have been now major breakthroughs at The New York
  • Times and several of the nationally prominent magazines.
  • And we here in New York anyway get regular coverage now
  • whenever we have any important event or any newsworthy
  • item on television, especially.
  • And we've been on quite a number of nationally broadcast
  • programs, including The Cavett Show, the Paar
  • Show, and the like.
  • And I think that all of those things
  • are making for a big change.
  • We've also had, here in New York,
  • a substantial breakthrough in cable TV.
  • We have a regular program on cable TV,
  • and also on radio and the like in a number of areas.
  • There's WBAI here in New York has
  • several regular programs done by gay people for gay people.
  • So I think that's changing.
  • In the last year or so, I've seen
  • a great number of breakthroughs in press coverage.
  • Even as you earlier mentioned before we started
  • talking for this broadcast, the National Observer,
  • which is published by Dow Jones.
  • The publishers of the Wall Street Journal
  • had front-page coverage with a very favorable article
  • a couple of months ago.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I'm curious about--
  • you mentioned the TV shows.
  • And the Jack Paar show, which you appeared on along
  • with two other people who were members of GAA
  • received a good deal of publicity
  • in the gay press, and not too favorable.
  • I saw the program, and it was pretty clear
  • that Paar was fairly hostile.
  • Could you tell us--
  • tell me a little bit about what happened there?
  • And it was rather unclear about why
  • he was so hostile, particularly in connection
  • with a woman appearing on your panel.
  • DR. BRUCE VOELLER: Yeah.
  • Well, first, just the two parts, your first thing being
  • about the gay press.
  • As far as I'm aware, the only press
  • that was hostile to us of gay press
  • was the publication Gay, whose views I didn't particularly
  • care one way about or the other.
  • I don't think they were very important.
  • I think the rest of the press and the more important press,
  • such as The Advocate and the like, made no adverse comment.
  • And I think that what happened there
  • was Paar was very hostile.
  • We had originally gone to him and demanded time
  • because he broadcast a long series of fag jokes,
  • of ugly and unpleasant comments and jokes about gay people,
  • and had done an interview in The New York
  • Times in the entertainment section one
  • Sunday, indicating how opposed he was to people denigrating
  • other human beings and making jokes of their lives.
  • And he had, of course, special reference
  • to blacks and the like.
  • And at the end of that interview,
  • he made a smart aleck remark about gay people.
  • And of course, he'd been doing that on broadcasts repeatedly.
  • So we told him that either this stopped and he made an apology,
  • or we'd be forced to retaliate.
  • And he presently discovered that we had, in fact, obtained
  • a very large number of tickets to his shows, his broadcasts,
  • and he was very concerned that we might disrupt his programs
  • unless he did allow us to speak.
  • And he initially, at my request, agreed
  • to have a woman on the show.
  • We said that you-- and he then a few weeks later
  • called shortly, the week before the broadcast itself
  • and said, no.
  • He wasn't going to have a woman, that he'd offended no women,
  • and would have no gay women on his show.
  • And our point was, well, quite the contrary.
  • When you offend gay people, you offend all of us
  • because of our homosexuality.
  • You weren't talking about us as men or as anything else.
  • You were talking about us and making jokes of us
  • as homosexuals, and homosexuals are both women and men.
  • By analogy, if you were to say something offensive
  • about a black man, you affront black women.
  • You're talking not about them as men, but them as blacks.
  • And if you make jokes about any minority group,
  • it's because of their minority status
  • that offend all who share that.
  • So he refused.
  • So we told him, well, we're coming.
  • We're going to keep our end of the bargain,
  • and you'd better keep yours.
  • And as this kind of warning, and we said it
  • in a very clear warning tone.
  • And we told him that furthermore, we
  • would be down to appear on the program
  • with several prominent members of the local city
  • government, some council members and the son
  • of the former mayor, Robert Wagner, who
  • was running for city council at that point and has just won,
  • and several prominent TV reviewers for the press,
  • including The New York Times and Arthur Bell from The Village
  • Voice.
  • And of course, he didn't believe us.
  • Well, we did.
  • We appeared there with those people.
  • We meant every word we said.
  • And so he immediately then put Nath Rockhill on the show.
  • So that was how we got on.
  • So needless to say, we didn't know until minutes
  • before the broadcast began whether we were going
  • to have a demonstration during his taping
  • and possibly all be arrested, or whether we were going on
  • and do a reasonable show.
  • Secondly, we discussed at length beforehand
  • what audience we wanted--
  • (pause in recording)
  • Secondly, we discussed at length beforehand,
  • quite a number of us, including Ron Gold,
  • who's our publicity head, how we should go about approaching
  • our TV audience.
  • Who should we be speaking to?
  • We knew that if we got on the program
  • and did a lot of militant numbers
  • and were very aggressive and very strong and insistent
  • and talked a hard line that we would make a big impression,
  • and everybody within the movement
  • would cheer us and say, great.
  • Well done.
  • You showed them, and all of that.
  • But we felt that this was not the thing to do.
  • We've done that on other occasions
  • when it was the proper thing to do,
  • and we're all masters of it.
  • That's why we're where we are.
  • But we didn't feel this was the time or place for that.
  • The audience, we had an opportunity
  • to reach across the country, and that
  • was quite a large number of millions of people
  • all across the country.
  • It was principally the isolated, lone gay in small towns
  • or even out in Queens or Brooklyn
  • and parts where they don't have regular access
  • or acquaintanceship with any gay people who are open and out.
  • And we felt that that was the audience we had to speak to,
  • and that it was necessary to try and be as reasonable, as decent
  • and the like as we could be, while at the same point
  • making clear what we stood for, and that we
  • weren't going to take any nonsense from anybody.
  • So we agreed beforehand in short to have a kind of attitude
  • towards Paar as if he were a kind of favorite uncle
  • who is awfully old-fashioned and rather dowdy,
  • and didn't really know where things were at in modern life.
  • And even though he was very difficult and all,
  • we had an affection for him, and we
  • were going to try and explain to him what it was all about,
  • and that we would reach our audience that way.
  • And I think that's exactly what happened.
  • We quite predictably were criticized
  • by Gay and all those people who are talked to all the time.
  • You know, all the gay militants, or a number of them anyway
  • who didn't perceive what the audience was
  • and how it should best be handled,
  • were irate because we didn't rant and rave
  • and shout and do a traditional kind of GAA zap.
  • They were upset about that, but we felt, fine.
  • They're going to have to be.
  • They get talked to all the time.
  • They have the benefit of constant association
  • with all kinds of gay people.
  • They have the benefit of constant exposure
  • to the rhetoric of the movement and the like.
  • That's not the audience that we ought to be talking to.
  • They don't need it.
  • They don't need us.
  • Let them take care of themselves, even if they yell.
  • And of course, they did.
  • (end of recording)