Audio Interview, Bill Giancursio, April 27, 2012

BILL GIANCURSIO: But I'm afraid I don't have a lot to add.

I wasn't on the Empty Closet for a very long time.

EVELYN BAILEY: But do you recall where it was before Jim's?

BILL GIANCURSIO: You know, I was trying to remember that.

And for some reason, I just draw a blank.

Didn't you just interview Tim?

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, it was at Jay Baker's for a while.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Tim was already the editor when

I worked for the Empty Closet.

And I think Joe Baker had it in his own private residence

up to that point.

But it seems to me there was some intermediary place

for a while before we moved to Jim's.

But I'm drawing a blank.

EVELYN BAILEY: It went from the U of R

to Brown Street to Joe Baker.

And when it left Joe Baker's, I thought--

I'm going to have to go back.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I think I remember Tim saying something

about an old empty warehouse.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Oh, that's right,

the warehouse on University.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, it was on University

BILL GIANCURSIO: But yes, that's right.

That's where I started working.

I'm having trouble remembering if it was the warehouse first,

and then Jim's.

I think it was the warehouse first, and then Jim's.

And then from Jim's, it went to Monroe Avenue, upstairs.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right, the Genesee Co-op.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Well, no, actually not

even the Genesee Co-op.

There was another place in between--

Upper Monroe.

It was in a building upstairs.

EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, Friar's?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Well, it might have been.

It was that--

EVELYN BAILEY: Because Friar's is where Woody's is now.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yes, I believe it was.

I wasn't involved at that point.

I was just doing ads and dropping them off.

Deb Drexler was the Art Director at that point.

EVELYN BAILEY: Alright.

Talk to me about Deb Drexler.

Who is she?

BILL GIANCURSIO: She's a lesbian.

She got the CETA job.

Did Tim ever talk about the CETA job?

EVELYN BAILEY: No.

BILL GIANCURSIO: There was a CETA job.

And you know, I'm not even straight on how this all

worked out.

EVELYN BAILEY: The second year of the funding.

BILL GIANCURSIO: It was the government funding that was

set aside for the Empty Closet.

There were three positions.

One of them was artist.

And I was in line for the job.

But what happened is, it got hung up

in bureaucratic garbage somebody didn't

like distributing the funds.

The Chamber of Commerce wound up taking it over.

EVELYN BAILEY: That was the first year.

BILL GIANCURSIO: And I couldn't wait.

I needed a job, so I went to work for the city school

district.

And Deb Drexler got the job.

She took it on for a whole year.

So she followed me as artist.

And I don't know where she is these days.

She just moved away.

EVELYN BAILEY: So you were the graphic artist before her?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yes.

Yeah, for not quite a year-- probably closer to nine months.

I think I started in March, and ran

through the rest of the year.

And then after that, I just did some ads for assorted people.

And I worked on production a little bit,

but probably only a year is all I worked on the paper.

I went through some of the issues to refresh my memory,

because it was a long time ago.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now, were you involved with the Alliance,

other than being the artist for the EC?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Not really.

I didn't hold any positions or anything like that.

I knew people on the Alliance.

It actually wasn't the Alliance at that point.

It was the Lesbian Resource Center and the Gay Brotherhood

that made up--

and it later became the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley.

But when it moved into the Genesee Co-op,

and they tried to unify everybody,

including the newspaper-- at least that's my recollection.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right, that was in 1973.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Was it that early?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Well, I don't have my newspapers

in front of me.

I thought it was 1976 when I actually

worked for the newspaper.

Because the bicentennial was in 1976.

And my last cover for the Empty Closet

was "Bye Bye Bicentennial", which was 1976.

EVELYN BAILEY: So they were already at the Co-op.

BILL GIANCURSIO: I think they may have been.

I know that we worked on University Avenue

in the cage for a while--

for several months.

EVELYN BAILEY: In the cage?

BILL GIANCURSIO: It was in the basement,

over that gigantic industrial building on the corner

of University and Culver.

And in the basement was a caged-off area.

That's all I can tell you.

It was just a cage.

It was a big area, but it was all--

and we worked in a cage.

EVELYN BAILEY: Who connected you to the EC?

How did you get involved?

BILL GIANCURSIO: It's a romantic story,

if you want to know the truth.

And it's kind of interesting, because I was just coming out

of that time, in 1976.

Maybe a little bit earlier, '75 I started to come out.

And I was going to bars and stuff.

And I just wasn't meeting the right kind of people

that I wanted to meet.

It was just all very superficial.

And I thought, well, there has to be some substance somewhere.

And so I thought that I would get involved

in more political things.

Like, I met Michael Robertson, who was the president of--

well, it was the Gay Brotherhood,

but it also may have been considered the Gay Alliance

as well back then.

And I met Tim at that time too.

And I was kind of interested in Tim,

so I started working for the Closet, as a way--

EVELYN BAILEY: Tim Mains?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yeah, getting to know Tim.

And getting to know other people, which I did.

And it just became much more--

a greater opportunity for social interaction.

As opposed to the bar, where everyone got drunk--

well, you know the dynamics of that.

Because there weren't a lot of outlets available to us.

You went to the bar to meet people,

or you didn't meet anybody.

And so you had to just kind of go

through that sort of meat-rack syndrome,

that was just really horrendous back in those days.

Well, for some people-- some people loved it.

But there weren't a lot of places to meet people.

And so social organizations like the Gay Alliance

and the Empty Closet were opportunities.

And there was a great social network too.

I mean, just among the men and the women.

We would have production meetings--

decide what the theme was for the paper for that month.

We'd meet like we are here, around a big table,

or in someone's living room.

And sit and talk about what the theme was going to be,

and who was going to handle what stories and stuff.

We didn't have a lot of actual people working for the paper.

A lot of it was borrowed from other sources.

And that was our biggest problem,

was getting reporters who could do local stories

and stuff like that.

A lot of it was composites from here and there.

And so it took a while for it really

to get the point where it is right now,

which is we've got a whole staff of writers and people involved.

But there wasn't a lot of that.

And so somebody would take responsibility

for the lead story, whatever it was.

And just kind of do whatever they could to kind of pull it

all together.

But it was really very, very elementary by comparisons.

It was all done on a typewriter.

Later on, we went to typesetting,

but initially it was all typed in columns on a typewriter.

And pasted-- in the old-fashioned way of doing

things--

that kind of cut and paste.

EVELYN BAILEY: Are you from Rochester?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yes.

EVELYN BAILEY: So you were born and raised here?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yep.

EVELYN BAILEY: In what area of the city?

BILL GIANCURSIO: I lived over--

Broad Street, Smith Street, Grape Street-- that area.

Dutchtown, I guess.

I'm not sure if it exactly was Dutchtown,

but it was close to that.

EVELYN BAILEY: When did you begin, Bill,

to recognize, or sense within yourself that you were gay?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Well, growing up, I was an artist.

So I was always kind of a sensitive kid anyway.

And there was always something a little peculiar about me.

At least, I thought there was.

I just always felt a little alienated and different.

I don't know that I really classified it in my own mind

as being gay, until maybe I went to college.

Because I had been in the military prior to that--

in 1966 to '68--

so I really didn't think of myself

as being gay at that time.

Or I would have got out of the Army during the Vietnam era.

But I think shortly after getting out, and going

to college--

I started with the GI Bill.

I went to college, and started to meet other people.

And just kind of, like, met some gay people at college.

And sort of made that gradual transition to,

maybe I'm bisexual.

I think the way I approached it was, I said,

you know what, I don't know.

I have feelings for guys, and I'm also dating women.

So I'm not quite sure where I stand,

but I'm going to just give myself

a two-year period to kind of experiment with my sexuality.

Because, you know, during the '70s everybody

was doing that anyway.

It was sort of the generation to get stoned, and do

what you wanted to do.

So everything was very liberated at that point.

And so I just sort of took a couple of years

and experimented.

And I said, after two years, I'll

assess whether or not I'm gay.

And of course, I never looked back, so. (Laughs)

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did it really take you two years?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Well, I don't think it did.

But I sort of set that as a deadline.

And then two years later, I said, well,

we have to come back and decide.

And I said, well, there's no deciding.

I mean, this feels natural.

This feels right to me.

And this is kind of what I've been maybe struggling

with all my life, on some level, and just not really aware

of it.

I mean, I clearly avoided a lot of intimate interactions

with women, because I sort of knew that it wasn't where

I wanted to go on some level.

So being with men just seemed more natural to me,

more comfortable for me.

And I don't ever think of it--

I never thought of it in a sexual context, initially.

It just felt like I was more comfortable in the presence

of men than I was with women.

Or at least that's where I wanted to be.

That's what I felt was missing from my life.

And you know, I think that sort of came from childhood.

Because my father died when I was six years old,

and my mother moved home with her mother and her mother's

sister.

So I was pretty much raised in a female household.

So that sort of, like, male connection

was kind of missing from me.

And there was sort of that desire, or curiosity,

or necessity to sort of find the maleness in me,

or find that sort of equivalency, whatever.

So I just naturally moved in that direction,

and just never looked back.

Thought, yeah, that's right.

The interesting thing is, Tim, who I initially

joined the paper for, and I became very best friends

for many years.

And eighteen years later at a fundraiser for Tim,

I met Tom, my husband of eighteen years.

So it was kind of full circle.

Eventually it paid off--

the social aspects of it--

which is kind of amusing.

But that's my story.

EVELYN BAILEY: Where did you go to college?

BILL GIANCURSIO: RIT and MCC.

I started at MCC.

MCC is actually where I started to come out.

I met someone in one of my psychology classes who was gay.

And we just kind of became friends.

And I met him and his partner.

And I would have dinner there.

And you know, just kind of like getting my feet wet,

and feeling comfortable around it.

And so yeah, that's where it started for me.

EVELYN BAILEY: Where did you meet Tim?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Tim I met working on the Empty Closet.

EVELYN BAILEY: But how did you find him?

BILL GIANCURSIO: I knew he was the Editor of the Empty Closet,

because I would read the paper.

Actually it was a little confusing,

because I had him confused with somebody else.

I knew that he worked for the Empty Closet.

And so I thought, well, if I want to get to know him better,

and kind of get to be more sociable with other people,

I would go to work and bring my skills.

Because they always needed volunteers back then.

I mean, the paper was desperate for people to do stuff.

EVELYN BAILEY: When you were in the process of coming out,

were there other periodicals, other newspapers?

I mean, what were you finding out there

to help you with your meanderings?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Books at the library.

I would go to the library.

And that little section on homosexuality

is where I would sort of peruse books.

Just kind of find things like, Society

and the Healthy Homosexual, Loving Someone Gay.

You know, those are all books from way back,

that dealt with the concept that it's OK to be gay.

And it's not psycho--

and the other thing is too, back in college in 1976--

well, I was actually in college I think in '75.

It was around '74, '75 when the American Psychiatric

Association said, it's not a sickness to be gay anymore.

So we were just kind of coming into that mode, where

we were of the mind that it was alright to be gay--

that it wasn't a sickness.

So up to then, we didn't have any great role models, really,

to look to--

other than people who were flamboyantly gay.

And many of us just didn't identify with that role model.

And plus, you had society saying, these are sick people.

It was just not somewhere you wanted to be.

But reading periodicals-- books mostly.

The Empty Closet didn't have a large following.

We used to hand it out at the bars at night.

I can remember one evening standing

by the door handing them out.

Empty Closet, Empty Closet, Empty Closet.

And some very flamboyant guy took it from me

and said, "It certainly is empty!"

And threw it on the floor and walked out.

It cracked me up.

It was really very funny.

I didn't think about it that much, other than the fact

that it was something very amusing.

His perspective on it was, that there was really nothing in it.

It was kind of like, well, gee, maybe

we really need to put some more effort into this newspaper.

(Laughs)

But it met a lot of people's needs, I think.

I mean, it was important to have something out there,

other than just Stone.

Because there wasn't a lot to rely on,

other than those books.

And there wasn't a great deal in print.

EVELYN BAILEY: And was this at Jim's, that you

were handing out the paper?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yes, it was at Jim's.

Because on nights when we did distribution--

when the paper was printed, after the bars at night,

we'd stand at the door and hand them out

at 2:00 AM in the morning.

but we were also working in the basement too, at Jim's.

Pamie and-- have you interviewed Pamela at all?

EVELYN BAILEY: Pam Barrale?

Yes.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yeah, I thought it

would be kind of interesting to see if you could get some

of the production staff together-- the old production

staff-- to sit around and reminisce about the paper.

It might stimulate ideas among us.

Because we really were actually--

and I didn't know how much of this

you want to know-- the scuttlebutt behind the scenes.

But we really had a hard time with Tim.

Tim was just a despot from the very beginning.

He had worked on the newspaper at Ball State.

He knew how a newspaper had to be run,

and everything had to be done Tim's way.

There was no way, or Tim's way.

And it got to the point where people wouldn't work

for the paper, because of Tim.

Because he was so hard to work for.

These years later, it has proven that Tim is just

as difficult to work for.

I mean, that's off the record, of course.

But he is a perfectionist, when it comes

to doing things a certain way.

And we used to have interventions with Tim.

Where the staff would sit down, and we'd invite Tim over.

And we'd all have dinner.

And then after dinner, we'd sit.

And we'd say, OK, we have problems.

We have issues, Tim.

Things are just not getting done,

because you're pissing a lot of people off.

Because everything everybody does, you don't like,

or you find fault with.

So people say, well, fuck you, I'm not going to do it.

I'm just not going to work with you.

And that really, I think, was a major deterrent

in getting Tim to lighten up a little bit.

Because he was just so adamant about having things

done a certain way--

this level of perfectionism.

But that's something we joke a lot about, Pam and I, when

we get together and talk about how difficult he

was to work with.

And Geryllaeyn Naundorf was on the paper too back then.

EVELYN BAILEY: Geryllaeyn, yeah.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Geryllaeyn was Pam's--

actually, they had a union.

They were together for about two years.

They used to live upstairs from Michael Robertson on Harvard

in Whitey's building.

So it was a fun group to hang with.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, I just want to kind of explore

just a little bit more.

You started talking about it a little bit,

but describe for me more about the environment

of being around that table, and putting this paper together.

And the kind of conversations you guys were having.

And you know, did you have any sense of what you were really

doing for the community?

BILL GIANCURSIO: I think we tried

to deal with issues that were important.

Like, we did an issue on rape in Rochester.

We tried to bring a consciousness, awareness

to people, about things that we felt needed to be--

there was really a high level of consciousness

raising in the production of the newspaper.

It wasn't just fun and games.

There was a serious component to it.

I think we really were trying to bring

an awareness to the public.

There really was that sort of serious component

to putting the paper together.

But it was difficult to do.

Because like I said, we didn't have

a lot of reporters, a lot of people

who were willing to come out.

And in fact, we had a few people working

for the paper using pseudonyms.

Who just didn't want to be identified, because they

were in the closet.

And so the environment was such, that it

wasn't easy to put out a newspaper locally--

when you didn't have a lot of local people

who wanted to be associated with it,

or wanted to have their names in print.

So we would sit around, and we would talk about it.

And we would kind of go down a list of, well,

who's going to do this?

And the room would go silent.

And then finally, somebody would say, "OK, I'll do it."

And then five minutes later, the same person saying,

"OK, I'll do it."

It was always a fragile sort of environment.

We knew there were things that had to be accomplished.

But accomplishing them also meant being very much out,

and being very much visible as being

connected to the newspaper.

And that was not an easy thing to do.

It really wasn't.

I think there was a time when, in the production

box on the newspaper, we would just

have people listed by their first names,

as staff members who were on production.

Who worked on production?

Joe, Pete, Mike, Bill, Mary.

We just didn't list names.

And we always had that disclaimer

in there, that anybody working for the newspaper,

it wasn't necessarily an indication

of their sexual orientation.

Because there was always sort of the fear that--

you know, it was new.

The concept of being out was not like it

is today, where it doesn't make a bit of difference

in a lot of regards.

I mean, there were still a lot of fear associated with it.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about some of the graphic work.

Describe for me what kind of graphic work you were doing.

And describe for me, maybe, some of your favorite pieces of work

for a particular story.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Well, "Bi-bi Bicentennial"

was one of my favorites.

I mean, I used to do the cover designs.

I did them for about a year.

And we had "Rape in Rochester."

We had "Gays in Prison."

I could probably pull up all the covers and show them to you.

Every year, we had a different theme.

We had one for the political issue.

And I would come up with ideas, basically,

and talk to Tim about what would work.

Or we would brainstorm about what might be

an interesting kind of visual.

And then, I would work up the idea into some kind of visual.

And I would do the drawings.

It was basically all drawn by hand.

The production of the paper was the old way

of doing things, where you didn't do anything

with a computer, obviously.

And in fact, the only thing we did have done,

was the typesetting, eventually.

But up to that point, it was just all put together

piecemeal, in the old way of doing graphics.

Which was with blue lining on paper, and cutting and pasting.

And we had margins that we had to adhere to.

It was old-style production.

Where the pages would all be lined up,

and we'd just kind of cut and paste.

And wax everything, so we could move it around.

And just fill in here and there with a political cartoon,

or something.

I did a few of those.

But in fact, when I left the paper,

I went to work for the city school district

as a graphic designer.

And I was doing that same sort of stuff

for the school district, under the CETA

grant for a whole year.

And it was the same process, of just putting together

a newspaper, and a bunch of other periodicals

and publications that were just all done the hard way, by hand.

Well, I don't think it was the hard way.

It was kind of the fun way.

Now you do all that layout on a computer,

and it's a much different process.

But that's how it was done.

And we worked on a light table, too.

You had a light table so you could see what was behind you,

and could do drawings.

The other thing about production is, any headlines were all

done with press type.

You know press type is?

You buy sheets of--

and you kind of sit there and rub a letter at a time,

until you've made the words.

And so it was all done the old way.

It took an enormous amount of time to do it, really.

And we would have production week.

Where we would all sort of get together

on that evening, or that week before the newspaper

had to go to press.

That's when we would meet in the basement,

and start to put the paper together.

And stay up till very late, just working downstairs

in the cold basement with the rats.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now, the graphics that you did,

were they all pencil?

BILL GIANCURSIO: No, they were done in pen and ink.

They had to be a high-contrast pen and ink--

high-contrast black and white.

Occasionally I would do something in pencil.

But the reproduction really was a consideration,

of what would reproduce.

So it pretty much had to be done in high-contrast

black and white.

EVELYN BAILEY: And that was, like, India ink?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: With pen tips?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yeah, done with pens, paint brushes.

Sometimes I would just do composite images.

Like, steal stuff that wasn't copyrighted,

and we could use that.

But it had to be stuff that would reproduce.

EVELYN BAILEY: And then, it was sent to a printer?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: But before the printer,

you guys did it yourself, didn't you?

Or did you always have someone to copy it and print it?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Well, no, we didn't print the paper.

We'd put it all together, and then send it off to a printer.

Who would send us back a proof copy to look at.

And we would look at that, make corrections, and then send it

back.

I want to say Girling--

EVELYN BAILEY: Was that Bill Girling?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Webster Post, Webster Printing.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yeah.

And eventually, Girling used to do the typesetting, too.

So yeah, we were not printing the paper.

We didn't have the means to print it.

Joe Baker used to print his own.

I don't know how he did it, on a mimeograph machine or what.

But we were a little more sophisticated.

We put all of the sheets together.

The technical terms for all of these, I've lost.

I don't remember them anymore.

Yeah, we would we would put it all together down

in the basement on light table.

And then, it would just go to the printer--

a stack of sheets.

It's interesting, because I pulled out--

I have hard copies of the issues that I did.

And I pulled them out to look through them.

And my recollection of the paper was

that it was much bigger and much more substantial

than it actually was.

Wow, I mean, I really thought this was something.

It's just really not a lot-- a few pages.

It was a step up from just a couple

of sheets of printed paper.

But it was certainly a big deal.

Back then, it was something, and it made a difference.

I think it did anyway.

And of course now, it's really quite slick,

the way it's all put together.

And it's quite substantial, and there's a lot of stuff in it.

It's a big paper now, compared to the way it was.

But humble beginnings.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Anywhere in this time period,

do you, or do you know anyone that

may have any photos of you guys working around the tables,

putting this thing together?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yes, actually there is an edition.

And I was looking at it, "The Empty Closet Looks At Itself."

And I was astonished to find that.

I have that at home.

It's one I worked on.

But it has the whole process of production--

how we put the paper together.

You might find that especially useful.

It was probably in June or July of '76.

You can find it online.

And of course, I do have a hard copy of it I can let you take.

It has pictures of us all down the side,

putting the paper together.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Those photos might be there now.

The original photos might still be down in the archives.

BILL GIANCURSIO: They probably are.

EVELYN BAILEY: I'll make another date with you.

Because we've taken the photos from,

not only the Empty Closet, but other photos

that were in the archives, just in boxes.

And we've had them placed in archival paper,

and tried to help preserve them.

But in many instances, we don't know

who they are, what people they are, where it is.

And they do go back to the very beginning, practically.

There's pictures of Whitey.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Whitey took a lot of the pictures.

He was the photographer.

So all the pictures of the production staff working,

Whitey took.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

But my intention is to have a number of people come here.

Bring those up and say, OK, let's go through them,

and try to identify who, where, what was happening.

But can you maybe talk a little bit more

about the general environment of Rochester at the time--

in terms of what it was like to be gay in 1976, 1977.

You alluded to it, in terms of tremendous fear of being outed.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Well, just what I was telling you.

Just w happened with the CETA grant

was an indication of the homophobia in this community.

The fact that we got these three positions--

applied for the grant.

Tim and-- I don't know who wrote the grant,

but they were ironclad.

They were really put together well,

and we got a grant for those three positions.

I was talking to Tim about it, and I

don't remember exactly who was responsible for administering

the grant money.

EVELYN BAILEY: In the end, you mean?

BILL GIANCURSIO: No, initially.

EVELYN BAILEY: Community Chest.

BILL GIANCURSIO: The Community Chest, OK.

And people just were outraged.

It seems to me it was somebody like Mike MacAluso

and his Citizens for a Decent Community, who took us to task

and started to block.

I'm not sure if it was him.

EVELYN BAILEY: It was Charlie Schiano.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Charlie Schiano, that's right.

That's exactly right.

He was on city council.

He blocked it.

And they just were holding up all this money because of it,

for months.

And finally, the Community Chest said, well,

we're not going to touch it.

We don't want our name associated with this mess.

So the Chamber of Commerce wound up taking it over.

EVELYN BAILEY: No, the Urban League took it over--

Bill Johnson.

BILL GIANCURSIO: OK.

I'm not clear on it.

EVELYN BAILEY: Bill Johnson, the Urban League, and Betty Dwyer

was hired to go through all the grants and reassign numbers

and so forth.

And then when it finally passed, Claire Parker

was the officer responsible for reporting here.

BILL GIANCURSIO: There was some issue

with the Chamber of Commerce and gays.

I don't know exactly what it was.

Because years later, in the '80s,

I was part of the Rochester Gay Men's Chorus.

And we had a performance in the Chamber of Commerce.

And it was the first time that the Chamber of Commerce

allowed a gay-identified organization into the place.

And it was a big thing.

We had certain things we could and couldn't do.

We couldn't wave the banner that we were there,

because we didn't want to upset the community.

But they allowed us to go in and have a performance there.

And we thought that was a major victory for gays,

because we were allowed to go into the Chamber of Commerce

and have a performance.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

The other issue with the chamber was,

the Alliance wanted to hold its annual dinner

at the Chamber of Commerce.

And Tom Mooney was the President of the Chamber,

and he wouldn't allow it.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Was that--

EVELYN BAILEY: With Jackie Nunn.

BILL GIANCURSIO: I don't remember the chronology

on that.

That was before?

EVELYN BAILEY: It would have been early '80s.

BILL GIANCURSIO: It might have been before the--

because I think we started to pave the way for acceptance

again with the Rochester Gay Men's Chorus.

They let us in, after having denied the--

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

The Chamber then passed a policy saying,

no group could hold an annual dinner,

or have a dinner at the Chamber.

Did not disallow meetings or other gatherings,

but no annual meeting dinner, or anything like that.

And I do recall the Gay Men's Chorus

appearing at the Chamber, and singing.

And I think that was after, to try to kind of re-ingratiate

the Chamber with the community, so that it would not be--

BILL GIANCURSIO: If you wanted to check that,

you could talk to Nick Williams about that.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah, we're going to interview Nick.

He's on our list.

The CETA funding was particularly negative.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Nasty!

It was nasty.

It really was.

And it just made us aware of the fact that,

even though we thought the times were changing,

they weren't changing as fast as we thought they were.

I have this kind of element of militancy in me these days,

because when I hear people still struggling

with the issue of gay rights it just drives me up a wall.

Because it seems to me, that's something

I dealt with in the early '70s.

This is the 21st century, and we're still dealing with this.

It's like, what the hell is going on?

It just seems like, this is a long struggle.

It seems to me, we dealt with this a long time ago.

But we haven't.

People just don't evolve at the same level.

There's always the new people, who have to be educated

and brought up to speed.

EVELYN BAILEY: It's a new generation.

BILL GIANCURSIO: It's a more accepting generation.

And I don't think the battles are as hard to win.

But there are still people who are

very cautious about identifying as gay.

KEVIN INDOVINO: It's when we became a political weapon.

BILL GIANCURSIO: It's true.

It's true.

Even though it's more culturally acceptable to be gay,

I think that it's still a big deal.

It is a big deal.

I mean, because of the social stigma, not so much.

But your family-- it's really--

I don't think any heterosexual family takes delight

in knowing that their children are gay.

I don't think that's ever going to change.

I mean, my mother, who knew my first partner, Bruce,

for many years--

when I told her I was gay-- when I finally came out to her,

she was devastated.

I said, well, who did you think Bruce was all these years?

She said, well, I always thought he was gay,

but I never thought you were.

We lived together.

She told me an interesting story about the Empty Closet,

when Bruce and I were traveling cross-country.

We took a summer off.

She walked into my house.

She used to pick up my mail and drop it off in my house.

She walked into the house, and she

saw a copy of the Empty Closet sitting out in the open.

She picked it up.

She said, "I put it down and backed out of the house,

and I wouldn't go back in the house again."

It was just--

Yeah, that totally freaked her out.

And that was it.

I said, oh geez, I didn't know I left any papers out.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Fear of the unknown.

EVELYN BAILEY: You de-gay your apartment, or your home?

BILL GIANCURSIO: Well, I also assumed

that they knew, even though it was never made clear

that this man I lived with was more than just a roommate.

But denial does strange things to people.

I've seen it happen in so many instances.

It's never a good time to really be out.

You have to forge your own way.

You have to make it a good time.

You have to make people who don't

accept you either accept you or get the hell out of your way.

You can't cater to them, and you can't bow to their attitudes

about who you are.

You have to find your own way.

And you really do.

You can't let other people crap all over you because of it.

And the minute you started thinking

you're less of a person because of it,

you're in a bad situation.

You just can't do that.

EVELYN BAILEY: In your own life, Bill, have you ever been afraid

because you were gay?

BILL GIANCURSIO: I don't know if afraid is the word I would use.

Probably cautious is a better way.

I teach at RIT.

I've taught there for twenty-five years.

Being a gay instructor has never been

something that I felt was an element of my personality,

or my being that I had to bring into the classroom.

It's not that I felt like I had to hide it,

but I also was cautious about revealing

too much about myself.

It wasn't until many years later--

like, probably in the last ten years--

that I've actually not been afraid to talk

about my husband, or my personal life,

if it ever got to that point.

I've always kind of eased around the conversation.

I would never lie about my self, but I would withhold the truth.

Essentially they're the same thing,

depending on how you look at it.

I don't think I was ever afraid.

I can't think of any instances where I was ever afraid.

Cautious, probably, is a better way of thinking about it.

Guarded-- always on guard.

EVELYN BAILEY: Did you ever experience

being physically assaulted by anyone because you were gay?

BILL GIANCURSIO: No.

EVELYN BAILEY: I'm thinking about the early days,

the bars--

Front Street Bridge.

BILL GIANCURSIO: Yeah, that was a little before my time.

That was the earlier times.

That was before the stamp of approval

that we got from the American Psychiatric Association.

Yeah, Dick's 43 over on Stone Street,

that was before my time.

And then, on Washington Square, and the bridge--

that was also another time of a more homophobic--

I mean, there were always little components

where people would drive by and yell "fag" at you,

or something like that.

But you know, that was not really physically harmful.

I never found myself in a situation

where I was being persecuted because of being gay.

I've had other elements of homophobia.

I mean, my artwork is a lot about being gay.

I've had artwork taken down at RIT because somebody

was uncomfortable with the homosexual nature of it,

or content of it.

I've had that happen a couple of times.

Just a couple of years ago, the curator of the gallery

refused to hang a piece of artwork,

because it had frontal nudity in it.

And she interpreted it in a negative way,

and felt it was inappropriate.

So these sort of things are still there.

EVELYN BAILEY: But it didn't go any further than that?