Video Interview, Gerry Szymanski, September 6, 2013
- CREW: One moment, please.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: All right.
- No worries.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: And yeah, so this
- is going to be conversation just between us.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Don't even worry about the camera.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Sure.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You don't have to address and them at all.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Remember that the audience is not
- going to hear my question to you,
- so trying to formulate your answer in a way
- that you're kind of introducing the topic that you're talking
- about in that kind of a way.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: OK, sure.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: If you lose your train of thought
- or you get tongue-tied, just stop and start again.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: OK.
- CREW: I'm rolling, sir.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You know what?
- (laughter)
- Actually, stop for a second.
- CREW: Oh, sure.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I'm going to put a little powder on you.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Oh, OK.
- CREW: And I am rolling, sir.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- First question, Gerry-- give us the correct spelling
- of your first and last name of how
- you want it to appear onscreen.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Sure.
- My first name should be G-E-R-R-Y,
- and my last name should be S-Z-Y-M-A-N-S-K-I.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: And if we were to put a title for you,
- what do you think it should be?
- GAGV Library?
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: I guess you could say--
- I call myself the GAGV Librarian.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Yeah.
- That would be fine.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's put it in the context,
- for me, if you can, Gerry.
- Again, pre-Stonewall-- 1950s, early '60s, maybe even before
- that, late '40s--
- what can you tell me about the Gay Rights
- Movement in that time period.
- What were the things that were bubbling up?
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Well, before Stonewall--
- actually quite a few years before
- Stonewall-- there was a very short-lived gay rights
- organization in Chicago.
- It only was around for a year, and it was a bit
- of a social club for gay men.
- But it wasn't really until the late 1940s, when
- a man named Harry Hay was at a party with some guys
- and thought, we should have like a gay rights organization.
- He ended up contacting all the folks
- that he spoke with at the party the next morning,
- and they couldn't even remember him talking about this
- because they were so hungover.
- But this idea stuck with him, and so by 1950,
- he had founded the Mattachine Society.
- And it was very small.
- It was just maybe a half-dozen or so guys.
- But it was this idea with a charter that
- was called "The Call" that sort of identified some goals
- that gay people should be recognized
- as rightful members of society.
- And one of the things that Hay saw--
- especially in the late 1940s with McCarthyism,
- which was then targeting communists,
- with Hollywood writers being blacklisted
- and all sorts of folks being assumed to be communists--
- that gay people were next.
- And he really wanted to try to stem that tide as quickly
- as possible, which was very forward-thinking on his part.
- And so these guys got together.
- They first call themselves the Society of Fools,
- and then someone recalled that there was this Société de
- Mattachine in France back in the Middle Ages,
- and they were guys who wore masks and were almost like
- court jesters.
- They were able to sort of say things against the government
- and against the King and not get in trouble for it.
- So the idea of the court jester and the court jesters outfit
- with the diamonds became the symbol of this new society.
- It started out first as a national society,
- and then there were chapters in major places
- all across the country.
- They came out with their own magazine, Mattachine Review,
- which the GAGV is lucky to have some copies of from the 1950s.
- But it was very much an underground movement, you know.
- People's initials were used instead of their full names
- because people could get arrested just for admitting
- being a homosexual.
- On the women's side, there was a group
- called the Daughters of Bilitis, and that was founded
- by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.
- And they were pretty closely affiliated
- with Mattachine Society.
- But it's really kind of amazing.
- You read about how they actually had
- a conference in San Francisco.
- The police actually raided the conference,
- and they came in to make sure that none of the women
- were wearing men's clothing, which would have been illegal.
- It just is mind-blowing.
- So both of these organizations were
- kind of existing in centralized locations like San Francisco,
- and the Mattachine Society was located in LA.
- But then they had chapters that were all across the country.
- They were kind of, you know, underground.
- One of the things that they wanted to make sure
- that they did was to let everyone
- know that homosexuals were not any different
- than regular people.
- And so at these meetings, or if anyone spoke in public,
- they were always well dressed--
- you know, women wearing dresses and stockings,
- and men were wearing ties and suits.
- They were really kind of trying to change things
- from within by sort of conforming to societal norms.
- One of the earliest things that happened,
- though, was that a gentleman who was part of the Mattachine
- Society was actually arrested for public lewdness.
- He was arrested because someone actually--
- a police officer saw what he thought he saw.
- And instead of just sort of acquiescing and accepting
- the charges, which is what a lot of gay guys would do,
- he actually fought it in court.
- And the decision was sort of neutral.
- It was deadlocked between the folks
- who were deciding the case.
- And they thought of that as a bit of a victory.
- It was like the first time they had sort of fought back.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's move a little forward then.
- In the research that you do, and you have done,
- have you found any local awareness of the Mattachine
- Society here in the Rochester area,
- any involvement with them?
- I know there was one chapter, I think, in Buffalo.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: There was a Mattachine chapter in Buffalo.
- There was not one in Rochester.
- And from what I can tell, after the foundation of the GLF,
- there was some contact with it.
- But what you find is that there were folks in the 1950s
- and '60s who thought that the Mattachine
- Society and the Daughters of Bilitis were like too radical.
- But by the time of Stonewall, they were really
- thought of as old-fashioned, and both groups actually
- kind of faded from the scene.
- I haven't really been able to find
- any indication of any contact with folks in Rochester
- in print or in any kind of records,
- being in contact with those societies in the past though.
- But if there was a chapter in Buffalo,
- I'm sure that there are people in Rochester that
- had connections to them.
- But yeah, they were both kind of seen as being, well,
- this isn't really the way that we want gay activism to be.
- We want it to be more upfront, in your face,
- and that's not the way that these two societies really
- were.
- Another thing that has a bit of a Rochester connection
- because the folks who took part in these events
- actually came to our town--
- and it was pre-Stonewall, it was maybe four or five years
- before Stonewall-- there were a group of gay people, lesbians
- and gays, who picketed outside of the Liberty Bell,
- in that square there, in Philadelphia.
- They marched around with signs that advocated for homosexual
- rights, and they were all well-dressed--
- you know, the men were in suits and women in dresses--
- and they only marched for like maybe 10, 15 minutes,
- and then they walked away.
- It was quite a thing for gay people
- to do that in public and before Stonewall.
- Those folks-- some of them were connected
- to both the Mattachine Society and the Daughters
- of Bilitis-- but those folks are folks that
- were like the next generation.
- They were like the '60s advocates as opposed
- to the '50s advocates.
- And those are folks who were featured in the film Gay
- Pioneers.
- We were very lucky to have three of those folks come
- to the ImageOut Film Festival.
- And after the showing of the documentary, there was a Q&A,
- and it was really terrific to be able to see them
- and to meet them.
- For myself, one of them was a real inspiration for me,
- and that was Barbara Gittings because she was a librarian.
- And after Stonewall, she was one of the first people
- to have the American Library Association actually
- have like a working group about gay people,
- and she was the first to publish a bibliography--
- a printed bibliography that was distributed about gay subjects.
- And that was a really big deal in the early 1970s.
- She was really quite terrific.
- I remember having a meeting with her
- after the showing of the film because she
- was interested in the library at the GAGV.
- And I ended up taking her back to her hotel.
- So she's riding in my car, and she just came out and said,
- "Isn't it wonderful to be a homosexual?"
- And I just had never really heard anyone say that.
- And I thought, you know, it is.
- And it was really quite wonderful.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to follow up with something here that you
- just touched upon, that she being
- an early pioneer in the 1970s of starting to get things
- included in libraries and stuff like that.
- But before that, there wasn't much available to read
- or to pick up.
- You couldn't go to your library and find a lot of information
- about gay and lesbian people.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: You could not find very much information
- at all at libraries.
- Many times, libraries would just not purchase anything
- about gay and lesbian people.
- If they did purchase it, it was often kept in a room,
- and you'd have to ask about it.
- And so asking about it was almost like outing yourself.
- What we've discovered, is that sometimes those materials would
- get stolen from a library--
- either by somebody who needs them,
- like a gay person who's too afraid to check them out
- on their ID card, or by someone who feels that they're
- inappropriate for a library.
- I know a few years ago, they found a bunch of gay books
- in the Genesee River that had been stolen from the Rochester
- Public Library.
- Somebody was like, hey, there's library books
- down here in the riverbed, and I think quite a few of them
- are ruined.
- And it was because someone didn't
- feel that the library should actually have this information.
- So to have someone on the American Library Association,
- up in their ranks, actually sort of advocating for gay people
- was a really big deal.
- It's kind of wonderful.
- Barbara passed away in 2007, just three years after she
- had come to Rochester.
- And her papers and all of her stuff
- for her career as a librarian and with the American Library
- Association-- and with this picket march in Philadelphia--
- are now at the New York Public Library in their collection,
- which is pretty terrific.
- It's interesting.
- You know, when you go back before the Mattachine folks,
- we really have like no record.
- There's like nothing really.
- And since then, the folks that were part of this movement
- have kept just attics full of stuff.
- I remember seeing a documentary short about Frank Kameny, who
- was also one of the picketers there in Philadelphia,
- and how they went up into his attic,
- and it was just full of stuff, including some of the picket
- signs from this march.
- And those are now at the Library of Congress.
- The Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons archive
- is at the Gay and Lesbian Historical
- Society in San Francisco.
- The last person that's sort of from this whole group that's
- still alive, Lilli Vincenz, who also came to Rochester,
- she just donated her stuff to the Library of Congress
- as well.
- So it's the individuals who were taking part
- in these activities that have been the people that
- are caretaking this stuff that is this treasure
- trove of history.
- It's just amazing to me that 40 years ago, these people
- would have been fired from their jobs.
- You couldn't find books about gay subjects in libraries,
- and now these large libraries and archival institutions
- are welcoming these collections and making
- them available for researchers, and kind of validating what
- these folks did and the fact that these folks saved
- all this stuff.
- To me, that's really amazing.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Just to pull you back,
- just so we don't get too far ahead here.
- I want to still stay kind of with pre-Stonewall for just
- a little bit longer here.
- In the things that you've researched,
- and the things that you're finding,
- and things that you're including in your library,
- what have you been finding in regards
- to pre-Stonewall publications, and the kind of things
- that you're finding?
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Sure.
- Well, we're finding-- at least in print--
- two different things.
- We're finding things that are being issued by these secret,
- semi-secret homophile societies--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- Set it up for me though with something like, you know,
- the print stuff that we find in pre-Stonewall
- are-- that kind of thing.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Well, the print stuff
- that we find that is coming out pre-Stonewall is really
- a sort of two varieties.
- You're finding things that are being issued by these
- semi-secret societies, these homophile societies like
- the Mattachine Society--
- they had a magazine called the Mattachine Review--
- like the Daughters of Bilitis.
- And another organization that was
- a merger of gays and lesbians called ONE,
- they had a magazine called The Ladder.
- We have one copy of that.
- And they're just like little digest publications
- that kind of talk about what's going on with the organization.
- And then we have things like, you know,
- muscle magazines and little digest-size sort of pinup
- things, but with men.
- And they're from the Grecian Model Guild,
- and they show guys wearing underwear and posing
- and that kind of thing.
- And you know that was the kind of thing
- that gay men would buy back in the 1950s and '60s.
- And apart from that, it's like there's nothing else really.
- There's not a whole lot.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: But going back to my first question,
- these rare publications that we're finding,
- a lot of them that were underground.
- I mean, it was almost, I'm guessing,
- word of mouth that you would even know that it existed,
- that still was kind of the beginnings of what
- was going to eventually become the gay movement.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Totally.
- This whole sort of secret word-of-mouth thing,
- where a gay guy would be at a party with other gay guys,
- and he would have a copy of this magazine-- have you seen this?
- And he would pass it on to someone else.
- Or lesbians would get together for a meal,
- and they would look over the most recent issue
- of The Ladder.
- And it's amazing.
- You know, before the internet, before long distance,
- when people were still calling, before touch-tone phones,
- and when stuff was going through the mail and stuff could even
- be confiscated because of its nature--
- if there was anything to do with homosexuality.
- And people could get in trouble for owning
- this type of publication, as innocuous as it might seem now.
- It's amazing that word spread and that different chapters
- of these organizations were popping
- up all across the country very quickly.
- And it was very much word of mouth.
- A lot of this sort of took place without any sort
- of paper proceedings.
- It was all people talking and maybe even using coded language
- to have a meeting, or to get together, or to talk
- about it on the phone.
- It's really amazing to think now that people couldn't do
- this kind of thing in public.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So from that historical perspective
- of what you just said, that everything was very much
- underground, can you give me your thoughts
- on how significant it was that very soon after Stonewall we
- had a gay organization starting on the University of Rochester
- campus?
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: I think it planted the seeds.
- It really did.
- But I also think that there was a bit
- of a disconnect between the young people that
- were at the colleges all across the country that were starting
- gay liberation chapters and organizations, that they
- sort of saw Stonewall as being this liberating moment.
- And a lot of folks that were connected to these societies
- were very nervous about that.
- They were kind of wary of what was happening.
- And so I think that, for older folks, what
- was happening after Stonewall was almost like,
- oh, well you know, we've been doing this,
- and you're doing this now.
- It took a while for, I think, them
- to find some common ground.
- I think that the younger people who were founding the GLF--
- those college students, and being connected to a college
- group like in Ithaca or in Buffalo--
- those kids really didn't--
- I don't think they really had a strong connection to what
- was going on with the adults, the squares, you know,
- in the 1950s and '60s.
- They would have been their older brothers or uncles, you know.
- Maybe not quite their parents' age, but really different.
- And you know, the younger people that were at the U of R
- then in the early 1970s, they're the people
- that were the children of Vietnam,
- the children of flower children, the children of rock and roll,
- you know, of psychedelic life.
- And that was so far removed from the Lawrence Welk type
- world of the people that were sort of, well,
- how can we figure this out?
- How can we figure out how to be gay?
- And how can we advance the gay cause while
- at the same time not rocking the boat?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's jump to historical preservation.
- Setting aside our bias that we're
- involved in with the documentary project.
- We're at a very interesting time right now--
- you know, 40-plus years of Gay Alliance history,
- but even history before that.
- But we're in an interesting time now where
- we either step forward and start saving this history,
- seeking this history out, pulling it
- all together, and now, in terms of technology,
- digitizing it all.
- How exciting is that?
- Why, again, is this such a significant opportunity
- right now to be able to do this-- not to be able to do it,
- but to just do it?
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Well, I think it's
- a really exciting time for the preservation
- of this gay history.
- You know, with some of these gay pioneers
- passing away or getting really old,
- their papers are now going to these really important
- institutions, like in their public library, the Library
- of Congress, the Smithsonian.
- But it's now apparent to agencies like the New York
- State Education Department, they're
- starting to fund grants for LGBT organizations
- to be able to document their history,
- to be able to say, OK, what's out there?
- And we've been really lucky to receive some of those grants
- here at the GAGV, to be able to research
- the different gay groups that have been around,
- and to even be able to preserve our own history.
- We're really lucky that we have an agreement with Cornell
- University, which has a giant human sexuality archive founded
- by an early AIDS researcher and a former publisher
- of The Advocate magazine.
- And it's great because everything
- is in climate-controlled conditions,
- and it's not terribly far away from us.
- It's wonderful because they have stuff
- from gay people all over the country,
- as well as part of the GAGV's archival history too.
- There is a great archive in Florida, the Stonewall
- Archives.
- People are really sort of saying, OK, this is important.
- This is really important.
- And these people are getting older,
- the folks that were involved with something like these
- pre-Stonewall movements--
- they're getting quite old--
- or with Stonewall, or with AIDS research and what
- was going on during the AIDS movement.
- And what we're finding is that filmmakers are making
- documentaries about these types of things to try to capture
- these stories before the primary source material--
- the people themselves--
- are gone.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: How lucky is it that we have an Empty Closet
- newspaper that's been in existence for almost 40 years?
- There's not a lot of communities around this country that
- has that significant resource available to them.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: I think it's fantastic
- that the Empty Closet has been around for all of these years
- and continuously.
- When I tell people in other places
- that we have a gay newspaper, they're like, well,
- you have a gay newspaper?
- I'm like, yeah, it's been published since 1971.
- They're amazed because they don't have this community
- resource.
- They don't have this history, this printed
- history and printed, you know, this
- is what's going to happen--
- this is what happened.
- You know, this is how it worked out.
- Here's a photograph.
- Who's going to speak?
- This is what it was like when this person spoke
- and what they spoke about.
- This event is going to happen.
- And to have that be this massive resource is amazing.
- And the fact that we were able to get it digitized
- with the help of donors and with the University of Rochester
- to have it as a resource for everyone
- to be able to research, I think it's amazing.
- It is an absolute treasure and a gem.
- It is a primary source document that not very many communities
- have, and not very many communities
- the size of Rochester.
- It's wonderful.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Same kind of question,
- slightly different take on it, is
- that the Empty Closet, given its history,
- is no longer just a gay and lesbian newspaper.
- It's a historical tool.
- It's a historical resource.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: The Empty Closet is a historical tool,
- and it is a great tool for research.
- But it's also being added to every single month
- when the next issue comes out.
- And I remember going to give a talk about the gay library,
- and I brought the most recent issue of the EC,
- and I said you are holding a piece of history.
- You know, this is a record of what
- happened in the gay community last month
- and what's going to happen this month and maybe
- a month and a half away from now.
- But it's sort of now part of this historical record.
- It's going to get digitized and uploaded,
- and this is going to be--
- it's like just adding to this wonderful history.
- You know, going back from this little chapbook
- to mimeographed sheets to printed on newsprint and now
- it's in color--
- it's part of that, and I just think it's fantastic.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think that covers it.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: OK.
- Cool.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Anything else that you
- wanted to say that I didn't know enough to ask you?
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: No.
- I guess in thinking about this, I
- wanted to let you know that I actually
- have some photographs of these people
- from when they came to town.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, I figured as much.
- You have a photograph of everybody.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: And you know, I'm like, oh, we're in 2004.
- So I can find those, and I can send you some.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I'll keep that in mind.
- Are you going away anywhere?
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: I am not, not anymore.
- I'm staying.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Like within the next two weeks?
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: And then the other thing, of course,
- is that we digitized some of those covers
- of those Mattachine Reviews, and I
- think the one issue of The Ladder that we have,
- which is actually kind of late.
- It's from like the '70s.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That doesn't matter.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: And those are actually
- up on that Google Drive, so you can access those,
- and they're pretty high quality, so when I'm talking about that.
- You know, we have a book about Harry Hay.
- We have like books that have all this kind of stuff.
- But it's really interesting to think about this.
- And one of the things I was amazed about
- was that there was a transcript online of an interview with Hay
- that someone had done in 1974.
- And when he was not even out yet,
- he was propositioned by an older gentleman in San Francisco.
- And the older gentleman-- this is in like 1929--
- the older gentleman had connections
- to this group in Chicago, this first
- ever gay group which was around for a year.
- And the interviewer said to Harry Hay, well,
- did you kind of think about them?
- Were you thinking about them when you were founding this?
- And he said, well, I didn't model it exactly on them,
- but it was in my memory from this conversation with this man
- almost 20 years before.
- And I thought, wow, that's just so wild
- that there was sort of a thing, a thing, a thing, a thing,
- a thing, a thing that's connecting this up together.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I'm just thinking through my head,
- thinking what else I need to support it.
- No, I don't think so.
- Actually there is a question, and you may or may not
- have an answer to this because if you did,
- you probably would've told me already.
- Again, pre-Stonewall, anything you know about Rochester
- locally in regards to the gay rights movement--
- you know, before the GLF, before things started bubbling there?
- Do you have a sense of what it was like here in Rochester?
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: I have a sense of what
- it was like in Rochester from talking to older folks.
- You know, from talking to someone like Bruce Wolley,
- but he was here you know so close to the time
- of GLF being founded.
- But talking to older folks and learning
- that there were bars and clubs that gay people would frequent.
- They may not be thought of as what we think of as a gay bar
- today, but that there were people getting together
- for dinner, that there were people getting together.
- But it was just so underground.
- Everything was just so--
- yeah.
- And it's like there's nothing in print--
- nothing-- because it was so underground, you know?
- And I think for us to not just have the founding of the GLF,
- but for them to say, oh, we're going
- to have like a little newspaper too, when they could have just
- had meetings, and we would have no record
- really unless they kept minutes and someone saved them.
- But like, oh, we're actually going to have a publication,
- and we're going to spread it around.
- To me, it's kind of amazing.
- And you know, perhaps that is their connection
- to the Mattachine Society and to the Daughters of Bilitis
- and to ONE, in that they thought,
- hey, let's start a newspaper, and then
- we're going to work on this, and it's
- going to come out every month, and it's
- going to turn into what it turned into now.
- You know, where they could have just had a meeting.
- Oh, we're going to get together, you know, put up a poster
- that we would never see it since this was like a college group.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, talk to me about the difficulties
- about researching a history that, until recently, really
- wasn't recorded because it was so underground
- and people were afraid to put things out
- on paper, and the importance, again,
- of capturing these stories now because the histories are
- in people's memories.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Yeah, and it might--
- we hope it's accurate as people are thinking back 40 years.
- That's the difficulty is that since so much of this
- was not written down on paper, is that we
- have to talk to these folks.
- We have to interview them.
- We have to say, how did this happen?
- Who did you meet with?
- Who is this person in this picture?
- You know, that kind of a thing, so
- that we are able to fill in those gaps
- with personal record.
- (side conversation)
- CREW: Still rolling.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Take it back just a little bit.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Because these things
- were happening without any kind of paper records,
- we have to rely on talking to people who were alive then,
- who were involved then, and getting their stories down.
- We have to interview them.
- We have to find out--
- what happened?
- Who is this person that's in this photograph?
- Where did you guys meet?
- What did you talk about?
- We can't research that.
- It has to come from the people who were there.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Good.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: We'll leave it at that.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let me get this off of you.
- GERRY SZYMANSKI: Sure, sure.