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)