Video Interview, Larry Fine, March 25, 2013
- CREW: I'm going to roll the camera.
- Going to do a quick slate so they have it.
- This is clip one.
- And you can start.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: OK, Larry.
- Talk about coming to terms with your gay identity at college.
- And hear a brief mention of that psych prof.
- who facilitated your coming out.
- LARRY FINE: Well, I entered the U of R in the fall of 1968
- as a physics major.
- I was kind of nerdy, Tending toward being a lonely guy.
- Not very social.
- Pleasant enough, but not very social.
- And the first year was very tough.
- It was tough, in part, because I wasn't doing well in physics.
- But it was also tough because I was very lonely.
- The social scene was basically men and women hooking up
- with each other.
- And I just didn't fit into that, and really
- didn't know what to do about it.
- I knew I was gay, although I didn't
- know the word gay at the time.
- I had had no contact whatsoever with any other gay people.
- I didn't know there was any gay community.
- I knew nothing, except that I was weird, an outsider.
- And so the combination of the difficulties
- with my studies and the difficulties socially,
- I was fairly unhappy.
- By the end of that year, I also realized
- I was going to need to look for another major.
- And I started to take some psychology courses.
- And one of them was taught by a very well-liked professor, Jay
- Efran, who was a short man with shockingly red hair
- who was very funny.
- And his classes were, if anything, oversubscribed.
- And during one of his classes--
- I don't remember, this might have
- been the summer between my freshman and sophomore years,
- or maybe it was the fall of my sophomore year--
- he mentioned that he was going to be
- doing some kind of experiment having to do with counseling.
- And he was looking for volunteers.
- So I volunteered.
- Somehow I had a feel like I might get some benefit from it.
- And the counseling sessions were weekly, I believe.
- And there was usually a grad student present.
- And at first we just talked about my loneliness and so on.
- Eventually he started to ask me about sex,
- and I didn't want to talk about it.
- At some point the grad student disappeared.
- And maybe the experiment ended, but he kept me
- on for counseling because he could see I was
- getting something out of it.
- And he began to press me to talk about sex.
- And I finally got the courage to tell him
- that I thought I was a homosexual.
- It was very difficult for me to get that out of my mouth.
- And, in fact, he had me repeat it several times
- to get used to saying it.
- And then he told me that it was OK, and that blew my mind.
- I had never imagined that somebody
- would tell me that it was OK.
- So for a number of sessions we worked on that.
- And I don't remember too many details about it,
- but it was very, very helpful to me.
- Finally, toward the spring, I think, of--
- I guess would be the spring of 1970--
- he told me that he thought it would be of benefit for me
- to be--
- to meet other gay students.
- And he told me that it was really not proper-- according
- to professional ethics-- for him to be introducing me
- to other students-- other gay students.
- But that, in fact, he thought that's exactly what I needed.
- And that he was going to do that,
- if it was OK with me, and of course
- with the permission of the other students.
- So first he introduced me to somebody
- who was a little bit wishy-washy about their sexual orientation,
- and not a very likable person.
- And that didn't help me very much.
- But then he finally introduced me
- to someone who was a very likable guy, very handsome,
- a graduating senior, active in theater.
- His name was Jeff.
- And Jeff told me all about the gay movement, and about
- San Francisco, and about--
- that there was a whole community of people like us,
- and a whole movement going on.
- And that was the beginning of the rest of my life.
- And I remember the day that that happened,
- it was April 28, 1970.
- And everything changed for me after that.
- And one of the things that changed
- was that I decided then and there that come the summer,
- I was going to have to go out to San Francisco
- and see for myself what was happening.
- And my plan was to come back to Rochester in the fall
- and start a gay liberation group.
- So that's how it all started.
- And as an example of my excitement you might say--
- or as a symptom of that--
- about a week after my meeting with Jeff I actually put an ad
- in the Campus Times-- a classified ad--
- I did it anonymously.
- I remember it cost fifty cents, and I
- put my fifty cents and my copy in an envelope
- and dropped it in the slot through the door at night.
- And it said, "Take heart, brothers, gay lib is coming."
- That's all it said.
- There was no phone number, no name, no nothing.
- So that was the beginning of--
- that was the beginning of gay liberation in Rochester,
- at least for me.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: Yeah.
- And then the next fall--
- CREW: Well, just before you ask, Pete, could you bring your seat
- a little bit further over.
- A little bit more.
- There we go, perfect.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: And then the next fall
- talk about seeing the notice that
- suddenly appeared at the first meeting of the gay liberation
- front.
- And what did you think, and how did you feel when you saw that?
- LARRY FINE: After I had put that notice in the Campus Times,
- I stayed on campus for the summer doing some work
- or taking some courses.
- And then in August, I put a pack on my back
- and I hitchhiked to San Francisco from Rochester.
- Now that was an epic journey as well,
- although not pertinent to the topic here.
- Except that I did go out there.
- I spent a few weeks out there, and found my way
- to the gay liberation subculture there that was just starting.
- Interestingly, while I was there someone
- told me that someone from Rochester
- had passed through there and was going
- to start a group in the fall.
- That was actually my first inkling of it.
- And I think they gave me a name, although it was not
- Bob Osborn's name, it was somebody else's name.
- While I was in San Francisco, I came down
- with mono, mononucleosis.
- I got quite sick.
- And I got myself back to Rochester,
- but was not able to do anything immediately
- by starting a group.
- And then at some point, I saw this notice
- about a group that was starting.
- I don't remember where I saw it, whether it was on a bulletin
- board, or whether there was a notice in the Campus Times.
- I don't recall.
- But I did go to the meeting.
- I don't remember a lot about the meeting.
- It was in Todd, which was the union--
- the student union at the time.
- There were not a lot of people there.
- Bob Osborn and Pierre Lawson were leading it, along with,
- I think somebody from a Cornell group
- that started around that time, or earlier as well.
- And the three of them talked to the assembled group--
- and they were I think just a few students--
- but I don't remember exactly.
- And part of my feeling was a little bit of envy,
- because I had wanted to start the group.
- But I wasn't in a position to because
- of my illness at that time.
- I don't remember a lot of what I felt in that meeting.
- I think mostly I felt great expectations,
- and curiosity about who else would be there.
- And that's all I remember really.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: Any fear walking into that room?
- Any hesitation?
- LARRY FINE: I don't recall fear about it.
- I can't imagine I might--
- I must not have felt some nervousness.
- But remember that I had just been to San Francisco--
- the center of it all--
- and had been very pumped up by that.
- So I think my feelings were more about the opportunities
- to come than the fear of what might happen
- or who might see me.
- CREW: OK, let's stop there.
- (pause in recording)
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: --those topics.
- It's moving.
- That's moved along.
- That's moved along nicely.
- CREW: Clip two.
- And when you're ready.
- LARRY FINE: What's next on our list?
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: OK.
- In the early meetings, what kinds of things
- were talked about?
- And what were people trying to achieve?
- And why were the meetings so necessary?
- LARRY FINE: Well, Bob Osborn had come out
- of the civil rights movement.
- And he very much wanted to equate the gay movement
- with the civil rights movement.
- To use all of the same terminology, the same concepts,
- and so on.
- And he knew, I think, that most of us
- had no consciousness about our being gay
- except in extremely personal terms.
- And he wanted people to know the larger picture.
- So he had a series of meetings he had planned--
- that he already planned once a week or once every two weeks,
- for the next month or two--
- about the homosexual and the law, the homosexual
- and the military, and so on and so forth.
- And for each of them had speakers planned.
- And I think there was also a subtext, you might say,
- of the social interactions that would happened
- was well between people.
- Although that was not really planned exactly,
- but that would be an obvious outcome as well.
- So the meetings were a little bit
- formal in their organization, at least at the beginning
- to get things started.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: And could you give us
- a quick take, just more on Bob?
- What was he like?
- And what about his-- you've talk about his leadership--
- and what contributions do you see that he made
- to the gay liberation front?
- LARRY FINE: Well, Bob deserves a lot
- of credit, obviously, for starting this and putting
- together programs and bringing speakers in and all that.
- I got to know Bob quite well, and we became friends.
- I found him a bit stiff and doctrinaire, to be honest.
- But he also had a fun side, and a good sense of humor, too.
- He was very judgmental I would say.
- And he wanted to put everything in political terms.
- And, for me in particular, my coming out
- was recent and was a very personal journey.
- And although I came to be able to speak the political talk,
- I never completely bought into it, I think.
- It was a very personal thing for me.
- But Bob was there for the first few months,
- and then he had doctoral research to do in astrophysics.
- He was a grad student in astrophysics,
- and he had doctoral research to do in Texas.
- And he was gone a great deal of the time from--
- I'm guessing-- December through March or April
- or something like that.
- And so he started-- he got the ball rolling--
- and then he left it for the rest of us
- to kind of keep things going.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: Was Karen Hagberg part of that group?
- And what do you remember of her contributions and activities?
- LARRY FINE: Karen was part of the group.
- I don't have very much recollection of her.
- CREW: Could you start that over and say her full name?
- LARRY FINE: Yeah.
- Karen Hagberg was part of the group.
- I don't have a great deal of recollection about her.
- You know, the group was technically a River Campus
- group, and Karen was at Eastman, along with RJ Alcala.
- And they did things at Eastman, and I don't remember very much
- about that.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: Could you talk about the first dance
- that was held on campus?
- What do you remember about planning it?
- And then, what about that evening, the atmosphere,
- the people, the excitement?
- And then looking back, why do you
- think this was a significant event for the gay community,
- particularly Gays on Campus?
- LARRY FINE: The first dance we had--
- which was in December, which was co-sponsored
- by the Women's Liberation Front--
- was a very significant event for the group.
- For one thing, it was the most public event
- we had done up to that point.
- Although the other meetings we had weren't technically public,
- this was one to which everyone was invited.
- And it was also significant in some ways, because at the time
- a lot of youth culture was centered around dances.
- Now, that may still be true.
- I don't know, I have no connection
- with youth culture today.
- But dances were really important.
- And the idea that we would be able to dance
- with others of the same sex was very, very significant.
- Now, to be honest, most dancing at that time--
- and probably today too-- is just a whole lot
- of wiggle on your own, it really doesn't
- matter who you are near.
- But even so, we considered it very significant,
- and we put a lot of effort into planning.
- I only remember a few little tidbits about the planning.
- I remember at the last minute running over
- to the reserve reading room--
- at Rush Rhees Library, where I worked part time--
- to get a rubber stamp that we could
- used to stamp on people's hands to show they paid.
- And the one particular rubber stamp I picked up
- was the one that said score.
- It was the one that was stamped on musical scores, you know.
- And it was just by accident that that happened.
- I think we had beer at the event.
- I have a vague recollection about having
- to order kegs of beer or something of that nature.
- But it was very exciting.
- It was well-attended, even though it was a snowy evening.
- And I don't know how many people there were there,
- but I wouldn't be surprised if there
- were at least one hundred.
- It was very big.
- And we had a great time, really had a great time.
- I seem to recall that maybe some photos were taken of the event
- as well.
- I have some in my mind, that stick out in my mind.
- One unfortunate thing that happened at the dance--
- which is not known by most people--
- is that the monetary proceeds of the dance
- were ripped off afterwards and never recovered.
- And that's a whole other story.
- It was actually ripped off by a member of the group.
- And we could not get the money back, or we did not try.
- I don't know exactly what happened.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: Could you talk about the birth
- of the Empty Closet in the newspaper?
- And whose idea was it?
- And what did the early issues look like?
- And what was it that Gay Liberation Front
- members were trying to achieve with the publication?
- LARRY FINE: Concerning the birth of the Empty Closet you know,
- every organization has to have a newsletter of some kind.
- And that was certainly as true then as it is today.
- It was a lot more of a chore then to put a newsletter out
- than it is today.
- There was no internet and no websites, no computers.
- And so everything was done either with printing presses
- or mimeograph machines.
- We started the Empty Closet as a combination
- of a newsletter and a literary magazine, you might say.
- And it was a eight-and-a-half by eleven folded in half
- and stapled in the middle kind of thing.
- And I don't remember how many pages, maybe sixteen
- or thirty-two pages.
- And I believe it was mimeographed.
- I have a recollection for the first issue
- of Bob Osborn taking a number of us
- downtown to a friend of his who ran a print shop--
- and who did printing for what was known as The Movement,
- meaning the left-- the leftist groups--
- and showing us how to run the mimeograph machine,
- or showing us how to type stencils up
- or something like that.
- So the first few issues had a mixture
- of news announcements, poetry, stories, coming out stories.
- Coming out stories were very big around that time.
- During those days, the first thing
- you would do when you got to know someone who was gay
- would be to exchange coming out stories.
- That was the central way that you'd communicate at first.
- Now, kids come out in high school, and it's no big deal.
- But back then it was a big deal.
- You know, what did your parents say and all that kind of stuff.
- After a while this literary magazine--
- I think we only put out one or two
- issues of this little magazine.
- After that we realized it wasn't going
- to get done if we had to do that much work.
- So we changed it to a two sided sheet
- that came out once every couple of weeks or something.
- I do remember about the name.
- We were debating the name, and I still
- remember the room in which we were seated.
- There were several of us there, and somebody mentioned
- Fag Rag as a name, but that was considered too male oriented
- and a little bit derogatory.
- And then the word closet was mentioned, because coming out
- of the closet was a big theme.
- And then RJ, RJ Alcala, said, how about the Empty Closet?
- And that name stuck.
- That's the name that was used.
- CREW: OK.
- Let's reset again.
- (pause in recording)
- LARRY FINE: Yeah, I know.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: Yeah.
- CREW: Clip three.
- LARRY FINE: So a little bit more about the Empty Closet--
- what I remember.
- One thing I remember is that--
- well, first of all, I wrote an article called Feelin' Gay
- for--
- actually not for the Empty Closet, but for the UR Journal.
- The UR Journal was a literary magazine
- that was-- that the student body put out at that time.
- And my article was potentially very controversial.
- It was actually very explicit.
- It was about my own coming out journey,
- and I connected it with some political themes.
- But it contained some things in it
- that were sexually somewhat explicit,
- and might even be considered controversial today.
- But to their credit, they ran it.
- And then the Empty Closet reprinted it pretty soon
- after that.
- I actually got very good feedback about that article.
- And that was my big coming out to the campus actually.
- Even though I had been--
- I was very involved with the group
- through the winter and the spring--
- and in fact probably did as much work
- for the organization as anybody at that time
- especially while Bob Osborn was gone.
- That was my first big coming out to the campus at large.
- And I got a lot of really good feedback
- from people who were very happy to see that I had found myself.
- That was what they said.
- That I had found myself.
- CREW: No, let's start back.
- (pause in recording)
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: --main issues that the political process
- was going to push for.
- For instance, today it's gay marriage.
- CREW: Clip four.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: But for them it would have been--
- would it have been simply the sodomy laws?
- Is that-- whatever.
- Is
- LARRY FINE: Right.
- Well--
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: OK.
- Ready?
- LARRY FINE: The Empty Closet had in it
- a large variety of articles.
- You have to remember that this was a new organization,
- and a new movement.
- It wasn't specialized.
- It wasn't one group that just did legislative work,
- and one group that did social work, et cetera.
- One group had to do everything.
- And so the organization did a little of everything.
- And the Empty Closet had a little of everything in it.
- There were articles about gays and the law, about sodomy law.
- The group had done some work with the New York State
- Assembly to revise the sodomy law,
- to get rid of the sodomy law, and also revise
- other laws that affected gays.
- And there were some reports about that.
- There was a very large march on the state capitol in Albany
- by gays throughout New York State in the spring,
- in March of 1971.
- That was reported on extensively.
- There were coming out stories.
- There were-- there was poetry celebrating gay love.
- It was just a little of everything
- in the magazine at that time--
- in the Empty Closet-- whether it was a magazine
- or a brief newsletter.
- So it covered the gamut really.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: And did the--
- so the social activism circa 1970, that was rampant
- certainly on the campus.
- And how did that actions of the day
- influence or even propel some more of your actions
- for gay lib?
- LARRY FINE: Concerning the effect
- that the social movements of the day
- had on the gay movement in Rochester,
- clearly it had a big effect.
- Everything from what we named the group--
- Gay Liberation Front-- which was after the Women's Liberation
- Front, which was after something that had to do with Vietnam,
- I don't remember exactly.
- Certainly the anti-war movement was a very big deal there.
- And the terminologies were similar that
- were used to talk about it.
- It also made everyone more accepting
- of any group that was coming out and proclaiming its liberation.
- So there was a lot more acceptance
- at that time of basically any group that
- would come out that way.
- CREW: Just repeat that--
- those last few lines.
- LARRY FINE: OK.
- CREW: Did you lose your thought?
- LARRY FINE: I lost my thought, yeah.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: About-- in general
- about how the activist groups, and so much
- activity and the anti-war movement,
- allowed for things to be more accepted or more open.
- LARRY FINE: The anti-war movement and the movement
- for black liberation and women's liberation,
- it set the whole tone that made it easier for gay liberation
- to be accepted.
- People at least, were-- had their minds open to it,
- even if they weren't quite sure what to do with it.
- And the terminology was similar, and it
- was just a whole atmosphere of openness to new ideas.
- And the backlash to the gay movement
- really didn't start for a while.
- It took a while for people to think about it,
- and to develop arguments against it
- or reasons for arguments against it, if they were so inclined.
- One of the byproducts that I'm particularly
- aware of of this tying of the gay movement
- to the larger leftist movement, is that anyone who came out
- as a gay person I think felt inclined
- or almost compelled to accept the entire leftist line--
- political line, whatever it was--
- as being part of what they were going into,
- part of what they were accepting when they came out.
- And I was able to talk the political talk as well
- as anyone.
- But I think that it was on some level I didn't buy all of it.
- In part because I didn't think America was terrible,
- and other things like that.
- And it took a while for me-- and probably
- for a lot of other people-- to sort out exactly where
- their politics were.
- But at the beginning, I think everybody just
- accepted the whole thing.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: Now, looking back on those days,
- what are you most proud of in terms of your involvement
- with the Gay Liberation Front and with the Empty Closet?
- LARRY FINE: Well, I didn't set out really to change society
- in a big way.
- I think, for me, it was very intensely personal.
- And I didn't speak in political terms
- as much as say Bob Osborn did.
- I think that the biggest effect I have on other people
- was just living my life and being an example.
- And as an example of that, about twenty years later
- I reconnected with some people I had known at Rochester
- as a freshman and sophomore--
- some gay people-- but people who were not at the time
- that I was there.
- And much to my surprise--
- I mean, I thought they wouldn't even remember me--
- much to my surprise I was a hero to them.
- The article I had written in the UR Journal and other things
- I had done had made a profound effect on them,
- and it helped them to come out a few years later.
- It's surprised me, but it also taught
- me a lesson that just be who you are
- can have a tremendous effect on other people,
- even if you don't realize it at the time.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: Now, how should history
- reflect upon the work that was being done back then,
- and example?
- And the foundation that was being
- set for the future LGBT activists,
- and what about the courage that it
- took for people to step forward back in those days
- and demand to be acknowledged?
- CREW: Hold on, before--
- (pause in recording)
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: --people's fears about being
- able to step forward and do things publicly.
- Not fears in that regard.
- LARRY FINE: You know, everybody's situation
- is different.
- I didn't have a lot of fears about coming out.
- Actually, my biggest fears about coming out
- were telling my parents, and that I
- didn't do it for quite a while.
- I did that at the time I was--
- at the same time I told them I was dropping out of college.
- And I'm not sure which was more troublesome to them.
- The River Campus was it was a pretty sheltered place,
- and people were very accepting.
- There are a lot of other situations
- where I can imagine it would be a lot more
- frightening to people to come out,
- perhaps in the workplace or other things.
- I didn't have a lot of fears about that.
- And I also-- in general-- tend to be a bit of a risk taker,
- and tend to see more opportunities than risks.
- And I think I did things then that I'd probably
- be afraid to do today.
- You know, partly out of , naivety and because I was
- in a sheltered environment.
- But everybody has to determine these things for themselves
- as to when to take risks, and what the effect may be.
- It's not something you can make a blanket statement about.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: Spirit of the times maybe, too.
- CREW: Is that it?
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: That's it.
- (pause in recording)
- LARRY FINE: Actually, they did fund us,
- but there was some controversy about that.
- I don't know.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: OK.
- That's cool.
- CREW: Is there anything that you-- that pops out
- to you that you might want to share or add?
- LARRY FINE: You know, we already did
- a two hour audiotape on this.
- And I got all of it.
- CREW: You've exhausted the subject.
- LARRY FINE: I've exhausted the subject.
- You know, it's too bad that can't be integrated into this.
- Because there's probably a lot of things that were on there
- that are of interest.
- But do you recall anything that we talked about?
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: I think that these are chief topics.
- It's just it's just great.
- And things that you had also--
- I mean, you'd talked, again, about your professor
- and just how really, really lucky you were, and what
- a wonderful man he was.
- LARRY FINE: Yeah, he was.
- Yeah.
- BRUCE WOOLLEY: I think we've got a lot of--