Audio Interview, Peter Fisher, 1974
- BRUCE JEWELL: In the gay community
- for your book, The Gay Mystique, which
- was published about two years ago.
- PETER FISHER: Yeah, it was published in 1972.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And could you tell me
- something about what you intended
- to accomplish with that book?
- And I know it's now being used as a textbook in one
- college in Rochester.
- Seems to be a fairly--
- PETER FISHER: It's being used in a number of places.
- Basically, what the publishers, Stein and Day,
- wanted me to write-- they came up with the idea of the title,
- The Gay Mystique.
- And then proceeded to look for somebody to write the book.
- And I was in GAA at the time, organizing a demonstration
- against Harper's Magazine.
- BRUCE JEWELL: That was for their article--
- who was it that--
- PETER FISHER: Joseph Epstein.
- It was a very anti-gay article.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Joseph Epstein, when
- he wished us all off the earth.
- I think that was the one.
- PETER FISHER: Exactly.
- So we held a demonstration in their offices, part of which
- was presenting them with several articles by gay people,
- asking them to print the opposing view, which
- they refused to do.
- And one of the articles was mine.
- And George Caldwell, who was the managing editor
- of Stein and Day, saw it.
- So he suggested to me that I submit an outline,
- because they were interested in doing a book like that.
- And basically, their concept of the book
- was a book that would be written to sort of explain
- the gay world to straight people.
- They didn't want a thing that was merely
- from the movement perspective.
- They wanted a more general book that
- talked about some of the myths and misconceptions
- that the straight world and even many gay people
- have about homosexuality.
- So I tried to write a book that did that.
- But I also tried to write it--
- I tried to show it from a human point of view,
- by writing about my own life, my own experiences.
- I think so many of us gay people go
- through almost a standard pattern of experiences because
- of growing up in a society that has been
- so negative about gay things.
- I know when I was a teenager, first wondering if I was gay,
- I went to the library.
- And all I could find-- homosexuality
- was listed under psychosis.
- And the books were filled with these descriptions that
- called me sick and twisted and this and that.
- And it was very damaging.
- And so one of my own goals was to write
- a book that would sort of tell it like it is,
- and a book that would be there for young people who wondered
- if they were gay to read and maybe get
- a less frightening and less disturbing
- picture of what sexuality was about.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I've sometimes found
- people are remarkably insensitive to things
- like those book titles.
- For a long time, I felt that myself.
- Like announcing that I was a homosexual would be like saying
- I was a psychotic, sick, perverted deviant.
- And you don't exactly tell your friends
- and family things like that.
- It was pretty bad.
- I guess Barbara Gittings is changing
- the library scene a bit.
- PETER FISHER: Yes, she's been a remarkable person.
- She organized a group called the Gay Task
- Force within the American Library Association.
- This was gay librarians who examined the books that
- existed and criticized many of the very anti-gay ones that
- were in libraries and criticized basically the fact
- that all things that were positive about homosexuality
- had been carefully screened out of most libraries.
- And the Gay Task Force--
- I was very fortunate to receive, to be
- a co-winner of their award of the Gay Book of the Year
- in 1972, with Lesbian/Woman-- along with Lesbian/Woman by Del
- Martin and Phyllis Lyon.
- And I think that by each year focusing on gay books
- and also by providing a gay bibliography,
- the task force of the librarians does a remarkable job for us.
- They were the first professional association to organize.
- Now there are gays organizing within the medical profession,
- lawyers, sociologists, psychologists.
- There are gays organizing within all professions.
- And it may be that we will get employment protection
- this way faster than by work on the type of civil rights laws
- that we're also pushing for.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, covering information about homosexuals
- is not--
- we're not the only ones, you know.
- Helen Keller was a lifelong Socialist Workers Party member.
- And she used to, almost every year,
- deliver speeches at their rallies.
- And of course this never came out about Helen Keller.
- PETER FISHER: I never heard it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: It was--
- the medias often do a pretty effective job
- of keeping the facts away from people about lives.
- Though that seems to have changed.
- I noticed when WH Auden died, one magazine, either Time
- or Newsweek, I forget which one, did
- mention that he was homosexual.
- Though when they went on to talk about his lifelong interest
- in freedom and justice for people and the inspiration
- for his poetry and so on, they never
- made any connection whatsoever.
- The homosexuality was just something
- that happened and had no relationship to his work
- as an artist.
- And I don't think that's very often true.
- It's like looking at the Sistine Chapel and all
- those male figures and assuming that Michelangelo's sexuality
- had nothing to do with the type of paintings he painted.
- Well, we've been in the gay--
- PETER FISHER: That reminds me of something, in that we
- had hearings just recently.
- It was the third or fourth round of public hearings, third round
- of public hearings on our civil rights bill
- in the New York City Council.
- And as usual, the testimony in favor of it was overwhelming.
- Many, many prominent people from all areas, all
- walks of life, all professions and everything.
- But there were, as usual, a few people coming down
- to testify against it, religious cranks and people
- with hangups about homosexuality.
- There was one man who came down and first of all,
- he went through an incredible trip
- of saying that ours was a love so evil that it was hate.
- And that if the bill passed, America
- would be taken over by psychic mutants, which
- is how he viewed gay people.
- But the thing that brought it to mind
- was that he then went on to say how homosexuality was just
- a sign of decadence.
- And as an example, he used Greece and Rome.
- Two civilizations, he said, that were
- built entirely by heterosexuals and destroyed by homosexuals.
- And that's-- everybody in the audience there in the City
- Council Chamber laughed.
- But there is an incredible pattern
- where the gayness of, you know, major historical figures
- has just been sort of hidden away
- and pretended that there really weren't
- any gay people in history, or that there aren't
- any prominent gay people today.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I'm often amazed by
- the Greek and Roman business.
- Because in both civilizations, so much of it, in fact,
- reached its height under the ruling of homosexuals.
- PETER FISHER: Exactly, and the Renaissance also--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Not-- if we were going
- to attribute declines of empires,
- we could just as easily attribute them
- to heterosexuals.
- We might even think of our own country in that,
- in its present period.
- PETER FISHER: It was during the period
- when Rome was declining that Christianity became the Roman
- power.
- And it was then that gay people were
- put to death in the coliseums.
- And it seems to me that that was a sign of decay,
- rather than the gay people.
- And I think that the pattern has been in history that,
- when there was the freedom for wide diversity of lifestyles
- including homosexuality and a flexibility,
- a fluidity of roles, that these were the most creative periods,
- such as the golden age of Greece and the Renaissance.
- And I think that if we're really entering a period now where
- gay people are allowed to exist as part of the rest of humanity
- and there is that kind of freedom,
- we may be going into a new period
- where there will be a real renaissance and a new burst
- of creativity.
- I think we certainly need it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How do you--
- Intro 2 is now being discussed again.
- It's old Intro 475.
- PETER FISHER: That's right.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And the chances have seemed fairly good
- for that bill to pass here in New York City.
- It's gone through what--
- I don't quite understand the mechanism of city government
- here.
- PETER FISHER: Well, the process is
- that a bill gets introduced at the city council
- and it's placed in a committee to be considered.
- And when it's voted upon, if the committee passes on it,
- it then goes before the full city council for a vote.
- And the way the city council operates
- in practice rather than principle,
- a bill never leaves a committee unless the major powers
- in the city council are behind it.
- And if a bill is voted out of committee,
- it will automatically pass the city council.
- And no bill has failed in the city
- council that was passed by committee in thirty-four years.
- And so we were assuming and had been told by our people
- in the political system that are helping us with this bill,
- including its sponsors, that if the bill passed out
- of committee, we were really guaranteed
- that it would pass the council.
- And it took us three years.
- It was on-- no bill in the history of the City Council
- has ever been bottled up in committee as long
- as the gay bill.
- No bill had four votes on it before coming to the floor.
- But finally, we had the fourth vote just a few weeks ago.
- And the bill was voted seven to one
- out of the General Welfare Committee,
- now to come before the full City Council.
- And the stories in the press the next day
- all said that, in political circles,
- it was assumed that the bill would pass with no difficulty.
- But a few days later, a full page ad
- appeared in The Daily News, calling for a mass rally--
- called by the firefighters officers union,
- or the uniformed firefighters officers association,
- interestingly enough, which is headed
- by one of the men who was accused
- of beating gays at the Inner Circle event last year.
- Anyhow, the union took its funds and placed these ads
- in The Daily News and in the Long Island Press, where
- many firemen lived, calling for a mass rally
- against the bill at City Hall.
- And they had a lot of sort of ugly language
- in their advertisement.
- The bill would force employers to hire perverts,
- expose our children to the influence of sodomites, et
- cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
- All typical hate rhetoric, in which
- if you were to substitute the word negro or the word Jew
- or the word Catholic into any of these places
- instead of homosexual, it would read like a manifesto out
- of Nazi Germany.
- But we always encounter a little bit of this.
- We were just surprised to find it so well-organized.
- And then, upon the heels of that, the Catholic archdiocese
- of New York, put an editorial on the front page of The Catholic
- News in a long article urging defeat of the bill,
- and sent letters out to all the priests in the city,
- urging them to read the letter opposite of the bill
- and to preach sermons urging their people to write
- letters and defeat the bill.
- And as a result, apparently there's
- been an outpouring of hate mail into the City Council.
- BRUCE JEWELL: That's practically a tradition within the Catholic
- Church.
- PETER FISHER: Well, yes, it's been done on abortion
- and a lot of other issues.
- The New York State penal code which was revised--
- I'm not sure of the exact date, but it was about a decade ago,
- I guess--
- had removed the provisions for sodomy.
- But from what I was told, the lobbying
- of the Catholic Church in Albany had it--
- sodomy law put back in.
- That's why we still--
- BRUCE JEWELL: It was a trade off--
- PETER FISHER: On abortion?
- BRUCE JEWELL: On abortion, yes.
- PETER FISHER: And of course, this
- is all in spite of the clear law which
- prohibits tax exempt institutions from engaging
- in political lobbying.
- The Catholic Church, of course, is tax exempt.
- But that hasn't stopped them from opposing our bill.
- And the sad thing is that it's not the position
- that all or probably even most Catholics take today.
- From the surveys that have been taken,
- there have been many prominent Catholics
- who have supported the bill right from the start.
- In addition, there are--
- well, one of the sponsors, the chief sponsors
- of the bill, Carter Burden is Catholic, and Meade Esposito,
- who is one of the powerful political leaders
- in the city, who has thrown his weight behind the bill.
- And if it passes, it will be probably
- because of his support.
- He's Catholic, and after the diocese started this campaign,
- we were very gratified to see him come forth again
- and repeat that he was a Catholic.
- But this was a moral position, that people have a right
- to their civil rights.
- And it was sort of stunning, again,
- to find that religion was not on the side of a moral issue.
- You know, what kind of a gap has happened in religious life
- when the church is taking immoral stands
- and urging discrimination against people
- and promoting hatred?
- It's very sad.
- And, of course, it's hardest on people
- who are Catholics and gay.
- One person who has been working closely
- with the gay organizations is Bob Carter,
- who is a member of an organization called Dignity,
- which is a group with chapters in many cities of gay Catholics
- and also people of other faiths.
- But basically, people who've been rejected
- by their religion, but who do feel
- they have a right to retain their relationship to God.
- And there also has formed in New York
- City another gay organization called Catholics
- for Gay Rights.
- But it's very sad.
- But I think in a way, if some of these people
- would read their own scriptures, or read
- the simplest, basic messages about loving their neighbors
- and judging not, lest they be judged,
- they would probably do better than
- with launching these kind of campaigns
- to create a climate of morality in the country.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I've heard some people comment
- that here in New York City, if Intro 2 is defeated,
- it doesn't seem likely that any kind of legislation
- will pass within the next few years.
- This would require then a whole new turn
- of movement activities, a change in the outlook
- of the gay movement here in the city.
- What kind of turn would you foresee?
- What kind of movement activity?
- PETER FISHER: Well, we haven't really grappled with this yet.
- It's just beginning to happen to us.
- No matter what happens with Intro 2,
- it's going to mark the beginning of a period of great change
- for the movement and the gay community in New York.
- Because the struggle for Intro 2 has really sort of given
- shape to the movement here.
- And if Intro is passed, we'll have to decide whether we--
- what we want to do.
- The original concept of why a gay civil rights
- bill was needed was not so much that it would really
- change things or really, you know, make things magically
- easy for gay people overnight.
- Nobody expects that to happen.
- But it was felt that in terms of consciousness raising,
- the work to pass such a bill would alert gays in the city
- to their rights and to the need to stand up against oppression.
- And that it would alert--
- it would also educate straight society.
- And I think it's having a very strong educative
- and consciousness raising impact already.
- If it passes, it'll be just even better.
- On the other hand, maybe that's all we need--
- GAA and the other groups need to do.
- Maybe we can just leave it there and let the Human Rights
- Commission start protecting gay people's rights,
- and we'll turn to other things.
- On the other hand, it may be that GAA
- might want to start actively looking for test cases,
- as the women's movement has done.
- Once they got protection under human rights laws,
- now has brought many cases against companies and agencies
- that discriminate against women.
- It may be that GAA or other groups
- will want to start looking for cases like that
- and bringing them.
- But I think that another possibility that
- we have to face, in fact, I think that basically we
- have to consider it a probability,
- is that the bill will fail because
- of the opposition it has received
- and the kind of fear that has engendered.
- In which case, we'll be faced with the question,
- do we start all over again?
- I know most of us who have worked closely on the bill
- feel we've been through this so many times
- and really been hurt by it so many times,
- defeat after defeat.
- And time after time have people vote
- that you're not a human being, that you're not
- entitled to the basic human rights
- that everybody else is entitled to--
- it's a very, very painful thing to have
- happen after you've put in months and years of work
- and devotion towards a bill.
- And the last time the bill was defeated, some of us
- felt that maybe the movement in New York,
- we should just turn away from it and leave it and devote
- ourselves to something else that--
- that maybe it was just tying us down too much
- to one issue and one area of work, and that we'd done all
- we could there.
- And also that it had just taken too much out of us.
- I don't know what will happen if it's
- defeated this time, in terms of people working more.
- I also don't know what will happen
- in terms of the tone it gives to the movement.
- I think that for four years now we have diligently and--
- we've worked within the system.
- From petitioning to writing letters, to going and visiting
- politicians and lobbying--
- of course, it took us a long time
- before they would even agree to meet with us.
- But we've worked and worked and worked within the system.
- And time after time, at the last minute,
- the promises that politicians gave us fell apart,
- and the bill was defeated again and again.
- People didn't show up for votes.
- People changed their votes.
- And the way I feel about it is that there's
- a danger that if the bill is defeated, then
- it's just going to sort of have made people
- feel the system isn't worth working in.
- I don't see the movement turning into violence because I just
- don't think that that's the climate.
- But I do see gay people becoming much more alienated
- from straight society.
- I know it's very hard to feel friendly to a society that
- keeps dumping on you.
- I find it very hard myself.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, you know, I think
- there is an emphasis on politics which perhaps is in a sense
- too great.
- The legislators and the city councilman
- actually did not create the laws which discriminate
- against gay people.
- And now, for reasons of their own,
- they're afraid to change them frequently enough.
- However, the society, it seems to me, as a whole,
- has not shown itself that unresponsive.
- PETER FISHER: No, you're really right there.
- You're right.
- Because I think, in city after city,
- as this kind of legislation has come up,
- when the hate mongers have turned out
- and started their propaganda, it has turned out
- that the average citizen was pretty decent
- and was not about to treat gay people that way.
- And this is the amazing thing here,
- which the firemen called their rally for last Tuesday.
- And they were saying it was going
- to be a rally of 5,000 people and that they wanted all
- organizations and all people--
- all straight people, they specified in the ad--
- to support it and defeat this abominable bill.
- So we were expecting a really hideous scene
- down at City Hall.
- And we had decided that we would have no--
- we were not going to seek any sort of confrontation
- by sending a group of gays down to demonstrate or anything.
- We felt we'd just let them do their ugly trip.
- But many of us did want to get down just to see what happened.
- So we went down and looked around.
- And it was really so refreshing.
- Here was this small band of firemen in uniform,
- fire officers with white hats, trying
- to get people to sign their petition against the bill,
- trying to give out leaflets.
- And people didn't want to be bothered.
- They weren't listening.
- They couldn't even draw a crowd.
- Finally, at the peak of it, about forty fire officers
- appeared on the steps of City Hall with flags
- and spoke over a microphone.
- You couldn't hear a word they said.
- And they marched down to the City Hall parking lot
- and milled around for about a half hour.
- And that was the rally.
- And if they had, at a maximum, maybe 300 or 400 people--
- probably half of whom were gay people
- there just to see what was happening, you know?
- It was just a total flop.
- And so they immediately announced,
- when the press was interviewing them that they had canceled it,
- that that was why there was nobody there,
- which was totally untrue.
- And it made us all feel so good, because we really
- felt that it was something that New York City could be very
- proud of, that when there was a call for hate,
- people didn't turn out.
- And I thought it was something that the fire department could
- be enormously proud of, too.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You know, my feelings
- are contrary to some degree to yours.
- I don't-- as I said, I don't feel that people by and large,
- have been unresponsive.
- I don't feel there's a basis for alienation
- from the general society, other than for the reasons
- that other people seem to get alienated as well.
- It seems to me that one of the problems the gay movement has
- yet to meet at all successfully is setting up
- some kind of alternative models, as we
- were discussing about earlier.
- And we find-- at least I find-- many of the meeting
- places that gays still go to are the same things that
- have been around for ten or fifteen years.
- The attitudes within these places
- are just as repressive as they ever were.
- The general styles of social interaction
- are just as unbecoming.
- And this is something that gay people
- could deal with, insofar as it involves relationships
- among ourselves.
- And as a step towards this, a certain number of us
- are more or less out.
- A certain number of us have demonstrated, by being out,
- that you can be out without facing enormous problems.
- I'm interested to know, you know,
- what you think we might be doing in that type of area.
- We're already getting into areas like music
- again, with albums being released.
- Clearly there's been a big impact here.
- Sometimes you wish that some people
- hadn't taken up the theme.
- I'm thinking of somebody like the New York
- Dolls, who are, I gather, straight,
- and really no credit to anyone.
- And so how do we take advantage of what is now a society which
- is becoming more responsive?
- PETER FISHER: Well, I don't know how we take advantage of it.
- I think it's just sort of-- it's happening as a large process,
- that very slowly, we're being accepted into the mainstream
- of American culture.
- Oh, I shouldn't say slowly, really.
- I think it's--
- I'm surprised at how fast it's happening in some ways.
- Something like popular music--
- it's so important to me there be gay music, because the songs
- that are played on the radio day after day shape
- the consciousness of the people who listen to them, I think.
- And I think it is very important that gay people have gay music
- to listen to, that they be able to tune in to a station
- and hear gay music that expresses their reality
- and their consciousness and their experiences,
- and not just in the guise of heterosexual terms.
- So many beautiful love songs that have become old standards
- were written by gay people about people they loved and yet they
- were always assumed to be--
- they were always taken in a heterosexual context.
- BRUCE JEWELL: One of the things that I
- find saddening is that there are a great many writers
- and playwrights in this country who are gay.
- More and more of them are coming out.
- And yet they're really still writing
- for a heterosexual audience.
- And I think there's a big difference between gay people
- who write or do work for heterosexual audiences
- and gay people who are doing it--
- doing their artistic activities for gay audiences.
- It shapes-- I find usually that the material that
- comes out for straight audiences is, to my mind, unsuccessful.
- And in fact, usually fails to convey very much of what
- gay life is really like.
- You have to speak to people who you assume
- have some understanding of what you're speaking about in order
- to really say very much.
- And I'm wondering, here again, if we can't look forward
- to more activities, theatre, literature.
- There has been some literature.
- There was a book-- what was it called The Lord Won't Mind.
- It was a perfect piece of trash, as a matter of fact.
- It was pro-gay, but still--
- it was trash.
- PETER FISHER: It presented a world that was so unreal.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah, it was just incredible.
- And that was on the best seller list,
- I think, for weeks and weeks.
- PETER FISHER: If it had said the Lord won't mind if you're gay,
- it wouldn't have sold, because gay people would
- have been afraid to buy it because the word gay was on it.
- And this is one, you know, the oppression works two ways.
- For one thing, straight business people, publishers,
- music people in the music industry,
- promoters, whatever, don't want open gays,
- or haven't until very recently.
- They wouldn't go near an openly gay person for any sort
- of artistic endeavor.
- And the other thing is that gay people themselves,
- for fear of being thought to be gay,
- have often shunned anything that was openly or proudly gay.
- And it's a real shame, because there's so much
- gay talent that has just been--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, I--
- PETER FISHER: --stranded.
- I've seen like several gay cultural ventures here
- in the city have just folded because no financial backing
- could be gotten.
- Everybody's working on a volunteer
- basis, people writing for magazines,
- nobody getting any pay.
- And yet you couldn't find a single gay businessman
- or businesswoman in this city-- you have so many successful
- gays in it--
- who would put anything behind it.
- Venture after venture has gone under like this.
- There are a number of really fine gay plays
- and musical revues around which should get a wider hearing,
- which should be recorded.
- And I think that there are a lot of wealthy, closeted gays
- who are afraid to go near it for fear
- that somehow it will rub off on them.
- And it's a shame, because these people are probably
- in a better position than anybody else
- to be out of the closet.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I don't know.
- It's difficult for me to say what's going on.
- Or even-- there was, in Rochester at the Kodak,
- a gay play was put on at the Kodak buildings there.
- And it played for two days, a Saturday and a Sunday,
- and it was absolutely packed.
- It was put on by Kodak employees.
- I guess they were gay Kodak employees, which
- is very interesting.
- Here the company is actually supplying
- the facilities for the production of a gay play
- by gay men.
- PETER FISHER: That sounds like a first, as far as I know.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And it was packed, you know.
- It went over very well.
- I've often been surprised, though,
- that for example, gay organizations have never
- really opened up, let's say, a gay bar.
- We know that that's a service that gay people use.
- Yet I have noted that Bruce Feller and some other people
- from GAA opened up a restaurant, and it's
- turned into a place where Westchester matrons come to--
- PETER FISHER: Oh, not at all.
- It's a lovely place.
- It's a very mixed--
- you have gay people and straight people.
- I think mostly-- it's more from the Soho area than Westchester.
- The times I've been there, we've just
- loved the whole feeling of it.
- That's one of the few gay ventures
- that seems to have gotten off the ground.
- But in terms of opening up a bar, this is a kind of problem
- that GAA grappled with.
- Because we felt very much, say, back in the first two years,
- and most of us still feel very strongly,
- that the movement provides alternatives and should
- provide alternatives.
- It provides all sorts ways for people
- to meet each other aside from having to stand packed in a bar
- or get loaded before ever getting to know one another.
- And for a lot of people, like myself,
- who don't feel comfortable, don't
- know how to go up and strike up a conversation in a bar,
- it's much easier to get to know people
- within the movement at meetings and cultural events and things.
- It's providing that.
- But in terms of providing an alternate,
- providing a good version of the bars, that's been really hard.
- GAA thought that its dances could, you know,
- be a good positive alternative to the bars.
- And that was one of the reasons for getting the Firehouse.
- Once we had the Firehouse, we had a rent to pay,
- which meant we had to hold the dances every single week
- and had to make such and such an amount of money
- on them, which meant that we had to ask a donation
- rather than have them be free.
- It also meant we had to run them in such a way as
- to draw a big enough crowd to make money to pay the rent.
- And so the dances became more and more indistinguishable
- from the way the bars were.
- They became packed.
- They became less and less human, less and less,
- you know, the kind of thing that we had
- wanted to be an alternative.
- And I fear that the same sort of thing
- would happen with an attempt to open a liberated gay bar.
- I think somehow, I don't know.
- It's really hard to run a money making proposition
- without, you know, closing off a lot of the alternatives
- you want to keep.
- One place that has been rather successful in this
- is a gay bar in midtown in Manhattan called
- Brothers and Sisters, which was started by a number of people
- who had been in the movement and on the fringes, people
- connected with the theater, people who are now involved
- in a group called The Other Side of Silence, which is doing
- some very, very creative, fine things about gay people now.
- But they formed this bar, and it has been--
- it has a very nice sort of feel to it.
- It's been a place where gay women and men mingle.
- Which is kind of rare in New York City, where
- most of the bars are either--
- most of the bars are men's bars and a very few of the bars
- are women's bars.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Peter, I know you're interested in the phases
- that movements go through.
- Sociologists have outlined some of them,
- and we can observe them ourselves
- as people who have been active in one movement or another.
- What kind of phases do you think the gay movement
- has gone through, is going through,
- and can look forward to?
- PETER FISHER: Well it's really--
- it went through an initial stage where
- there were a few organizations working very quietly sort
- of behind the scenes.
- The early Mattachine Society was really revolutionary
- for its time, but it was a much more quiet operation
- than gay organizations are today.
- It worked behind the scenes providing legal services
- and attempting to use educational means
- to change society.
- And with the Stonewall rebellion in 1969,
- the movement really entered a new phase of activism.
- It started off with GLF, the Gay Liberation Front, militantly
- visible, politically committed.
- And in the course of the next year,
- GLF spun off the Gay Activist Alliance,
- which was also militantly visible and political,
- but it was a single issue organization.
- The Gay Liberation Front had basically
- been working on the theory that all minority groups had
- a common struggle and so that the gay fight, the gays
- should align themselves with other struggles.
- What ended up happening, at least
- in the opinion of many people, was
- that although gays turned out in support of many other issues,
- none of the support was returned.
- And gay people were usually left off the lists
- of oppressed minorities--
- blacks, women, Chicanos, Indians, I mean,
- you can tick them off down the list.
- But they never quite got to gay people, or if we were included,
- we were always the last on the list.
- And when there were rallies, nobody
- wanted to have gay speakers speak along
- with the other ones.
- So there was a feeling that the gay movement
- needed to at least go through a period of being a single issue
- movement, where we worked on our own issues,
- on issues concerning homosexuals,
- and we didn't focus on other issues.
- Of course, and so, an organization like GAA
- was formed, which was a single issue organization.
- And its members could participate
- in other political causes outside of the framework
- of the organization, but the organization itself
- was only to work on issues affecting gay people.
- And that gave us the kind of focus, I think,
- that made successful activism possible.
- And I think it launched the era we're now
- seeing all across the country of gay activism.
- You see it in major cities virtually in every state,
- in every single state.
- You see it on the campuses of most large universities.
- And the single issue concept is very strong in the country now.
- Some groups adhere to it more firmly than others.
- But I think that era will eventually pass.
- I think the era of activism will eventually pass
- and there will probably a quiet era.
- When you think of the gap in time between feminist work
- at the turn of the century and throughout the century,
- then the real rebirth of the women's
- movement in the last decade or so.
- We may have a long period of quietness also.
- I don't know.
- I think that today movements evolve and grow and die
- and are reborn much faster because of the operation
- of the mass media.
- I think we've gone through stages
- of getting into the media a lot faster than earlier
- civil rights movements.
- I think we'll also probably, you know, evolve and pass
- on to another stage faster, too.
- One possible direction that I think we'll eventually be going
- is based basically on the way I perceive the world.
- I think that one of the major problems facing the world
- is overpopulation.
- And that if the world is not to become just a nightmare,
- we're going to have to come to grips with that problem.
- We're already on the brink of very terrible famines
- in the coming years in Africa and other parts of the world.
- We have a terrible imbalance in the distribution
- of wealth and resources.
- And every year the population increase goes on,
- it's just going to be made worse.
- I think that what will have to come
- will be a reinterpretation of the nature of sexuality.
- So that sexuality is not viewed primarily
- as a reproductive function, but rather
- as a social one, an expressive function.
- And I think that gay people and other sexual minorities
- will necessarily have to get their rights as this new view
- of sexuality comes in.
- For that reason, I think that the gay movement
- or the gay cause is intimately and theoretically and basically
- linked to women's liberation, to other movements, conservation,
- ecology, zero population growth.
- I believe that ultimately--
- and really also-- but really in the very near future-- already
- we're working very closely with the other minorities in city
- politics.
- There isn't anything like a common front,
- but we are now beginning to get support
- from black politicians, Puerto Rican politicians.
- The women's movement that has been
- very supportive of the gay movement recently.
- It started off initially with a lot of fear about gay women
- and purges of lesbians.
- But I think that by and large they've gotten past that.
- They've been very, very helpful in organizing hearings
- and the testimony that we've had in relation to our bill,
- and they've been supportive in other demonstrations
- and other programs.
- I think that the two movements are very, very
- basically linked.
- It's--sexual freedom for women and for gays are inseparable.
- But we're still at the point where, for example, GAA
- is a single issue organization.
- And NOW is a feminist organization.
- And the issues have not merged together.
- But I think in the long range, they may.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Do you think, if we do have a quiet period,
- then this might provide an opportunity for more grassroots
- work within our own people?
- The gay movement came very suddenly.
- I'm not really sure that we have ever
- been too successful at explaining issues
- that exist to gay people.
- One of the comments that I've often heard
- is, well, it's my private life.
- And I don't want to involve myself
- with my private life in public matters.
- Actually, the underlying tone there
- is that the person is afraid of his private life.
- In fact, it's not a private life--
- PETER FISHER: Or that it's a separate compartment, isolated
- from the whole rest of their existence.
- BRUCE JEWELL: But it's really not a private life when
- you have to be afraid of it.
- Privacy is something that has to be built.
- When it isn't existed, then you become afraid
- of your activities.
- And that is the tone I get to those types of comments
- about "my private life," that it's really not private
- because they're afraid that it will become
- a basis for other types of action, their work or something
- like that.
- PETER FISHER: Well, I don't think that the movement will
- become quiet all of a sudden.
- I think there are many years of gay activism left.
- It's still working itself out all across the country.
- I think that the era of gay activism
- will probably be over when the sodomy laws have been repealed
- in the states of the nation and there are fair employment
- laws protecting gay people, human rights
- laws protecting gay people throughout the country.
- But I think that what we move on to then
- is what you're talking about, which is the need
- to translate these political changes into a much more
- meaningful change in the kind of situation
- gay people live in, the way gay people perceive themselves,
- to bring these changes home to the gay population.
- And I don't think politics can do that.
- At least, that's been the experience in New York.
- The movement has touched only a tiny part
- of the gay population.
- And that lots of--
- not that-- I shouldn't say that there
- haven't been some influences.
- But most gay people don't identify with the movement,
- don't identify themselves as open homosexuals.
- And I think that that won't happen.
- You won't find people coming out in large numbers
- and adopting proud, self-confident lifestyles
- until there have been cultural changes.
- And this is why things like gay music, gay literature,
- gay films, all these different gay ventures
- are very, very important.
- Because they provide new ways for gay people
- to see themselves.
- New models for people to base their lives on.
- If you see--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Let me get into something here.
- You're certainly out.
- PETER FISHER: Mhm.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I'm interested to know what kinds of changes
- you've gone through in terms of perspective.
- As one comes out, I think you--
- the perspective of your life does change.
- You gain kind of more room to breathe in, in a sense.
- You know where the boundaries are or aren't, or whatever.
- Could you describe some of the changes
- that you've gone through or?
- PETER FISHER: Well, it's like a different life.
- I was a very unhappy person before I accepted myself,
- which was really the first step in coming out.
- And just in terms of my life has been a lot happier.
- There were so many--
- you know, hiding puts so many strains on you.
- The things you can't say, things you can't even
- let yourself think about, pretenses you have to make.
- All of which-- each little thing you do to deny yourself
- and to squelch yourself has a cost
- and takes something out of you.
- So when you finally do come out, it's
- just like you're so much more in touch with yourself.
- One woman I know spoke of it in terms of just being
- an integrated human being.
- That it's so destructive to take your sexuality or your love
- or your feelings and put them into a little box,
- and say,"Well, that's not part of me--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah.
- PETER FISHER: --that's an affliction or something,"
- rather than, "That's something beautiful."
- And when you do get in touch with yourself,
- it just changes your life dramatically.
- To watch gay people who come into the movement-- let me see,
- who's my most current example?
- Because my lover and I have always
- loved watching new people come into the movement
- and be transformed.
- The guy who lives across the hall from us
- here in our apartment, the first year or so after he moved in,
- we didn't really know where he was at.
- He was a pleasant person to have for a neighbor.
- Kept pretty much to himself, quiet.
- But we really didn't know where he was at.
- He didn't seem to be bothered by us being openly gay.
- Finally, just a year ago, just about a year
- ago, he began to very tentatively hint
- that he had had some homosexual experiences
- and began to hint very slightly that he was gay.
- So we ended up inviting him to come to the gay pride
- march with us that year.
- And it all comes back to me because I was looking through
- our photographs just the other day, and looking
- at the picture of him as he looked then
- and comparing it to how he looks now.
- He was quite a heavyset guy who dressed in a very,
- or floppy sort of colorless clothes.
- You know, he did not feel like he was an attractive person.
- He wasn't trying to be.
- He was sort of disguising himself,
- making himself as unnoticeable as possible.
- Anyhow, he went to the march with us.
- He told me later that he had, up until the moment we
- started marching, he hadn't known
- if he would be able to do it, whether he would actually
- be able to march in the gay parade.
- But he did, and in the weeks following that, he became--
- and he began looking around at different gay organizations.
- And he wasn't really at all into gay politics or activism.
- But he found an organization called the West Side Discussion
- Group, which is probably the oldest
- organization in the city, a gay organization.
- It's a very conservative sort of semi-closeted thing
- where there is a discussion once a week.
- And the people who come to listen, they're all gay people,
- but it's been quite quiet.
- So he became involved there.
- And before he knew it, he was one of the main workers.
- He was building the stage sets for the drama
- that they were putting on.
- He was helping them in the coffee house.
- And he was doing this, and next he was a coordinator.
- And he just kept taking on more and more responsibility.
- And we would see him just go through this change.
- He became more and more--
- he stood up straighter.
- And I don't mean by straight, heterosexual.
- I mean proud and happy.
- He just stood very tall and he began
- to really work on taking down his weight to the point
- where he looks like a different person.
- He's become a very attractive young man.
- And he's still not particularly out of the closet.
- He's open about being gay in gay circles.
- But he doesn't, you know, he doesn't go
- to demonstrations or anything.
- But the change in the way he feels about himself
- is just so remarkable.
- And I saw myself go through it.
- It's the difference between night and day
- to accept yourself and be proud of yourself,
- and stop fighting yourself.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I think, I'm certainly speaking for myself.
- I don't know if you ever get out of the closet completely.
- I am always surprised to discover,
- as I do every now and then, that there are areas of my mind
- which are really in the closet in terms
- of how I perceive possibilities and so on and so forth.
- I recently met a gay married couple
- and realized I never thought about gay marriage
- or what that could mean in terms of celebrating
- one's relationship.
- It seemed good enough to me simply to have a relationship.
- And it never occurred to me that you could actually
- celebrate the thing in a church, which this couple had done.
- And I find, though, that there's a certain gap, sometimes,
- between myself, say, and people who are more in the closet.
- My perspective, I see, has shifted on things.
- I am less willing to worry.
- I am less paranoid, less willing to worry
- about what straight people may think,
- which is certainly one of the controlling
- factors in a lot of lives.
- PETER FISHER: Well, there are so many fears that we walk
- around with which are not necessarily realistic.
- I think most gay people expect straight people to be much more
- hostile than they really are.
- In spite of all the, you know-- it takes a lot of nerve
- to, like, hold hands in public or to give out
- a leaflet the first time.
- But I hold hands.
- There are lots of places where I don't hold hands.
- There are places I wouldn't give out leaflets.
- There are places I wouldn't wear a gay button.
- But there are, you know, there are
- places where I just wouldn't go period
- whether I was straight or gay or whatever,
- because they're just not safe places.
- So there are places where I'm not that out.
- But when I am out, when Mark and I are holding hands on a subway
- or walking through a neighborhood
- where we feel comfortable or if we're giving leaflets,
- nobody really does anything.
- The most you get is occasional remark from somebody.
- But nobody does anything to you.
- And a lot of gay people walk around with all sorts of fears
- that they really don't need to have.
- All of us do.
- I know there are lots of barriers that I haven't tested
- yet, lots of ways I, you know, really inhibit myself
- where I don't really need to.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Peter, I know you're working on a new book.
- Could you tell me something about that?
- PETER FISHER: Well, yes, it's a novel set--
- well, it spans the year 1972.
- And it's a story about-- it's a gay love story, really,
- two people falling in love.
- It's narrated by one character who
- at the beginning of the book, basically
- thinks he's straight because he's managed to suppress
- a lot of homosexual feelings.
- But by the end of the book, he is in love
- with the other character.
- And I set the story against sort of the backdrop of the events
- of 1972, which I felt was a very, very important year
- in the country's history.
- I felt, as I was living through 1972,
- when the Watergate burglary was revealed and a lot of things
- were being revealed that most of the country
- didn't seem to be reacting to, I felt
- as though we were living through a period that
- was going to be looked back upon by history
- as a very important one.
- It was sort of the heights of the imperial presidency,
- with Nixon rising to his landslide
- and really taking control of the government.
- And so I felt that year that I wanted
- to write a book about what was happening.
- I wanted to immerse myself in it.
- I immersed myself in the media and the events,
- the Watergate hearings, tried to soak it
- up so that I could write a book about what was happening
- to the country, what it felt to be like in America in that,
- you know, the last year of the Vietnam War with the Christmas
- bombing and the many horrible things that were going on.
- And at the time, you know, I wished
- there would be something like a chance for the truth
- to come out, but I didn't really think there was much chance.
- I've been since--
- BRUCE JEWELL: The truth about Watergate?
- PETER FISHER: Watergate, yeah.
- I've been given a great deal more hope
- by the fact that the truth has come out
- and the country does seem to be waking up and returning
- to some of its older principles that it was founded on,
- at least making the attempt.
- But anyhow, I wanted to write about that year.
- And so that's what the book is about.
- And I'm hard at work on it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And it's a gay story set
- with this kind of background.
- PETER FISHER: Uh huh, well also--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Are you showing any interrelationship
- between the characters and the background, or is it--
- how is that being handled?
- PETER FISHER: Oh, well, basically, I'm
- showing how, you know, what the reactions of the narrator are,
- what my reactions were to the events that were going down.
- I also bring in--
- there were a number of things happening that year in terms
- of the gay movement in New York City, which
- is where the story takes place.
- It's pretty much an autobiographical book,
- just taking my life and putting it
- into several different characters.
- But a number of the things that happened that year
- showed where the gay movement was
- at, such as the beatings at the inner circle,
- dinner at the Hilton.
- There was the defeat of Intro 475.
- There was the involvement of the gay movement,
- not of the movement, but of some people
- in trying to work within the McGovern campaign.
- So it's really just--
- there are connections.
- I think that it was maybe a pivotal year
- at the gay movement, too.
- We certainly have gone on to better times
- in the gay movement.
- It was a very bad year for gay rights.
- We took a lot of defeats--
- -- painful defeats.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You've completed this book now?
- PETER FISHER: Well, it's not completed.
- I've completed several chapters and outlined the basic plot
- structure.
- So I'm at the point where I want to go look for a publisher now.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Do you have an idea of what
- the name of the book will be?
- PETER FISHER: Oh, yes, I have it very clearly in mind.
- I don't know how a publisher will feel about it,
- but it's called Numb Nuts.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Numb Nuts?
- PETER FISHER: Numb Nuts.
- And the reasons for that are hard to explain
- without going into it.
- But one of the characters in the book
- is based on Marty Robinson, who was
- one of the real, most inspired spirits
- of the early days of the movement.
- And Marty once had a rap to me about--
- he works as a carpenter and works with hardhats
- on construction sites.
- And he said one of the most common terms they use
- for each other is numb nuts.
- It's sort of a slang expression of affection.
- And he was pointing out how strange
- it is when men have to sort of castrate themselves
- in order to be affectionate, that the only way they can
- relate to each other is by numbing the affection,
- numbing their feelings.
- And Marty felt that the whole country
- was really numb in 1972.
- That Nixon and his administration
- were very adeptly playing upon the feelings of the country
- and dividing the country and numbing people
- to the kind of things that were really being done,
- the kind of things that were being done in their name.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, he had a silent majority
- that he talked about and he intended to keep them silent,
- I think.
- PETER FISHER: Yeah, well anyhow, that metaphor
- of Marty's and the whole numb nuts
- things just struck me as a central concept
- to a lot of what my book was about,
- about the country needing to wake up and not waking up,
- and also basically about exploring the kinds of roles
- that men are trapped into, being forced to deny their sexuality
- and be cut off from their feelings.
- That's another process that's going on in this story
- as the narrator develops and becomes
- more aware of his own feelings, he becomes less and less numb
- nuts, which is the nickname that Marty gives him.
- So I don't know how a publisher is
- going to react to a title like that,
- but that's what I think the book should be called,
- and that's what it is to me.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Are you planning any more books?
- You've written one book now on an essentially social,
- political issue, and now a novel?
- Do you have any other plans?
- PETER FISHER: I have several different books in mind
- that I want to write.
- There is mostly fiction.
- I really want to try to develop fiction as my writing form,
- because I think it's more flexible.
- The kind of things I want to talk about are more easily,
- I think will be more easily done in fiction.
- I don't know.
- We'll just have to see how it goes.
- But I want to write a couple of sort of science fiction books
- I'm interested in writing.
- Basically, it's very difficult to know
- where I'm going because I've got a lot of irons in the fire.
- I'm working with music and with painting and with the writing.
- But I think that probably the writing
- is the thing that will be most central for me.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you very much, Peter.
- I've enjoyed these few hours in your apartment and hope
- to meet you again.
- PETER FISHER: Thanks a lot, Bruce.
- (Tape recording ends)