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)