Video Interview, Thomas Warfield, October 20, 2012

  • THOMAS WARFIELD: I have something about them really.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: OK so let's start out just by coming out.
  • Because from what you've told me,
  • you remember some of the early bars like Jim's and that kind
  • of stuff.
  • So talk to me about being a gay youth
  • and coming out and coming into early adulthood
  • and finding a gay community.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: You know, I think I had it kind of easy.
  • I hate to use that word.
  • But in a way, I did.
  • I mean I went to East High, and all my friends practically
  • were gay.
  • And at that time, it wasn't like now where there's gay clubs
  • and whatever there's gay straight alliances.
  • There was none of that.
  • But there was the theater area, and so we all gravitated there.
  • I had a boyfriend when I was 14.
  • He was 13, always the younger guy.
  • So it was kind of general knowledge in school.
  • So I don't know.
  • Where I started, I went to my first bar
  • I think either at 16 or 17.
  • Those were the days when they didn't card.
  • it was none of that.
  • And I think it was Friar's, although it could have been
  • Jim's.
  • I think it was Friar's.
  • And wow.
  • I mean, what the world opened up.
  • It was the middle of the disco time.
  • And the music was so jubilant, such a celebration.
  • So it wasn't that hard.
  • Now I did, in a way, lead two different lives.
  • It I mean, at home, I was still the son of a preacher.
  • There was still that.
  • But more and more, I think my gay identity was more and more
  • being visible.
  • the bars at that time--
  • there were so many bars here then.
  • And they all had a kind of a different character.
  • You know Friar's was more yuppie.
  • Jim's was really free and down and dirty.
  • And there was Rosie's across the street there.
  • It was more lesbian bar, but the music was great.
  • So I didn't know.
  • And I had a group of friends--
  • mostly high school friends--
  • we all went out all the time.
  • And it went on for years.
  • Eventually around that time or shortly after that I think,
  • I started playing piano at Tara's.
  • And Buddy Wagman who owned Tara's, he-- what a character--
  • hired me.
  • And it was a great job.
  • It was like it was one of my first jobs I think.
  • And I didn't drive so I had all these bags of music.
  • And at 2:00 o'clock, I used to have
  • to walk home or call my brother who
  • had a car to come pick me up.
  • So it was a great time.
  • It really was a great time.
  • We didn't have-- as an LGBT community-- we didn't
  • have all the rights, I suppose.
  • You know "rights" that we have now
  • or it wasn't as openly welcoming as it is now
  • in general population.
  • But yet, I don't know.
  • I sort of miss the it's celebration of it
  • all, that life.
  • And maybe that also had to do with because it was hidden.
  • And so you had to celebrate the only way you could--
  • who you were and the people you hung out
  • with and that whole community.
  • It was really, it was the only place
  • you could come and celebrate.
  • I mean now you've got all the online this and online that,
  • and nobody ever talks to anybody.
  • And it's a little more--
  • we're much more into the mainstream now.
  • Before, all the gay people live near Park Avenue and Monroe.
  • And now, they live all over the place.
  • They have their families, they have kids.
  • A lot of straight people go to the gay bars.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's pull back a little bit.
  • You're the perfect person to ask this because you've
  • traveled all over the world.
  • You mentioned back in that time, there
  • was point where I could count 15 gay bars here in Rochester.
  • Compared to where you've travel around the world, what does
  • that say about Rochester?
  • How is it that small little city like Rochester could
  • have 15 gay bars at one time?
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: That's a great question.
  • I think-- and you know, you hardly
  • ever saw that anywhere except like New York, or Chicago
  • or something.
  • But I think Rochester always had a kind of birthing something.
  • I don't know the word I'm looking for,
  • but I always felt that about here.
  • There was only something invented, something birthed--
  • an idea or invention or or a cause.
  • And I think that's part of it.
  • I think it's in the environment.
  • Because I want to see it's in the blood,
  • but not everybody is born here.
  • But I think once you are here, there is a sense of I'm
  • going to make this, I'm going to create this,
  • or I'm going to do this.
  • And there's like minded people around.
  • And so you feed off of each other.
  • So over the last 15 or so years or maybe
  • since I've been back here, I don't really feel it as much.
  • But I don't know if that's my aging or what.
  • I don't know.
  • But I know, when I was young, boy, it just
  • seemed like the whole world was convening here.
  • And and I think that may have something
  • to do with the many bars.
  • there was the idea of making my own thing
  • so there were all these.
  • I think it's also that there was a sense of we want
  • to come together as a community, even though I can't say
  • it was a very integrated, diverse community
  • as far as being together.
  • But if I think about diversity in terms of male,
  • female young, old--
  • I think we really did come together in many ways.
  • And I think we saw the strength in that.
  • And it helped to really build or set
  • a foundation here for things--
  • a fertile ground for things to really blossom.
  • I mean, I remember those first years of AIDS Rochester.
  • Wow, people just came out, it was really amazing.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: We're going to get to that.
  • But I want to hold on to that before AIDS really.
  • But a lot of it was during AIDS.
  • It was a great time.
  • We had all of these bars are going to, we were having fun.
  • But it wasn't always a big party for you.
  • You're a man of color, talk me about that
  • about being a man of color in the gay community.
  • Was there any racism.
  • I mean let's put it out there.
  • Did you find it at all difficult?
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: I think it's I've had a very unique journey.
  • Though yes, I have faced racism but probably not to the extent
  • that I saw it on other people.
  • I can remember one time I was with a friend of mine we were--
  • I forget the name of that--
  • there was an ice cream store in Monroe that was pretty popular,
  • Gelato's?
  • Oh I can't remember the name of it.
  • Anyway we were getting ice cream and then walking back
  • to his apartment, which was on Park Avenue.
  • And the police stopped us.
  • He was white and turned to me, didn't say a thing to him,
  • and wanted to know if I was a prostitute.
  • I think I laughed actually at the time,
  • but it was a little scary.
  • That wasn't the only time that something like that happened.
  • In the gay community, I think partly
  • because I had a pretty outgoing personality,
  • I really like people.
  • I pushed myself into all kinds of different communities.
  • I wasn't as-- and this is a weird word
  • to be saying probably-- but I wasn't
  • as threatening to people.
  • I didn't talk black, I didn't act black,
  • I didn't whatever the you know stereotypes are.
  • And so people felt comfortable.
  • I mean I even had friends at that time say
  • I don't think of you as black.
  • Actually, I've heard people say that to me recently.
  • But so I think I slid under the racism door a little bit.
  • It did happen at times like--
  • it's sort of a reverse maybe kind of thing
  • where oh, let's get Thomas to be on that
  • or do this as the token black person who's
  • not going to really ruffle up the status quo.
  • So there's been that.
  • And even though that doesn't seem like racism
  • on the surface, actually it really is.
  • And I was aware, I wasn't totally naive about it.
  • And so I did and actually, as a black person,
  • you do this anyway.
  • You sort of adjust to your environment a lot.
  • You're constantly figuring out, OK, what people are these
  • and how do they need to accept me.
  • And so there was a lot--
  • I learned a lot of that actually during that time.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: That's Interesting
  • because I would say the same thing about a lot of gay people
  • do the same thing.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: Yes that's true.
  • I had a double whammy.
  • Yeah the whole hiding thing, I mean
  • I think a lot of that is not prevalent as much
  • as it was then.
  • But I remember as a teenager, I never
  • even heard the word gay until--
  • I don't know I can't even remember.
  • I don't think as a teenager I ever heard the word gay.
  • And I think I saw the word homosexual for the first time
  • one time when I was reading the Village
  • Voice when I was like 16 or 17.
  • And I just I mean, you just never heard it or saw it.
  • So I can remember that day very vividly,
  • how it both sort of gave me this sense of pride in one way,
  • but the fear of being exposed even
  • though I had nothing to do with me the article or whatever.
  • But it was like, oh my god, someone is going to find out.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Well let me ask you this,
  • because you do a very religious family.
  • How did you deal with it not only from a family
  • point of view but internally?
  • Because I know a lot of gay people
  • who came out of religious families,
  • they thought they were sinning.
  • Around is obviously is not something that they should be.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: And I never thought I was sinning.
  • I don't know why, I just never did.
  • But I think part of it, I had a very strong sense of--
  • well, I had a strong sense of myself.
  • That was one.
  • And I think I also had this--
  • and now I look back and I think of it as a false idea--
  • but for the time being, it was a good thing I think.
  • I had this feeling that gay or straight
  • or whatever, you'll fall in love with somebody,
  • you'll have sex with them once you get married or married,
  • "married"
  • And so I really didn't sleep around the lot at that time.
  • And I think that, in my mind, helped
  • me to deal with whatever thoughts of this
  • being immoral or sinful or well, no because I'm following the--
  • this is how are you supposed to do.
  • And so I think it really, psychologically, I
  • think it really cradled any ideas of this is bad.
  • I think it really kind put that to rest.
  • My mother-- who was a minister and quite kind of fire
  • and brimstone background--
  • never talked about it that much really.
  • And when she did, I remember one time
  • I used to have friends stay over.
  • And a couple of times, they were maybe
  • like five, six, or seven of us in my bedroom sleeping over.
  • And one morning, my mother came in.
  • And people are sleeping on the floor all over the place.
  • And she gave us this big lecture about religion and sexuality.
  • I mean, she's pretty blunt.
  • But most of my friends knew so it wasn't a big shock.
  • They were just, yes, yes Ms. Warfield.
  • But then my father, after she finished, came and said to us,
  • this is your house.
  • You can do whatever you want here.
  • Your friends are welcome here any time,
  • and we love you just the way you are-- something like that.
  • He was always kind of balancing out any of that.
  • There wasn't a lot of that negativity really around it.
  • There was at church.
  • and people are going to hell.
  • And I have to say that actually maybe the first time
  • I heard homosexuality was a church.
  • But it wasn't a very good light, but I never took it personally.
  • I really didn't.
  • And I think I just had that way.
  • It wasn't just about that.
  • It was just a lot a lot of things in the Bible,
  • I just didn't take them literally.
  • So for me it wasn't a huge process
  • between separating my sort of religious upbringing
  • with my being gay, although I never really you
  • sid it to my parents until I was like 20.
  • And I was I was living in New York already.
  • So that's funny.
  • even though I did feel somewhat comfortable,
  • I didn't feel that comfortable to bring it up.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you talk a little bit about being gay--
  • not you personally being gay in the black community--
  • but the essence of homosexuality within the black community
  • because that is still an issue today--
  • the black community, the Latino community
  • because they are so religiously bound.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: That's right and that morality
  • is so connected to the religious teaching.
  • There's still a lot of it.
  • And I should say that's where I got most of the bigotry
  • from was out of the church, even though in the church where
  • my mother was a minister I played the piano for the choir.
  • I sang in the choir.
  • And sometimes, I directed the choir.
  • I was on this group or that group.
  • But there wasn't so much the older people,
  • but the younger people my age or younger
  • who didn't bully me face to face but kind
  • of in a covert way, where they would do things without me
  • or talk about me, whisper about me just in the view here
  • that I wasn't really aware.
  • But they did it enough to make sure I did know.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Can I pul you back at the beginning of that?
  • I should've warned you at a time because people aren't
  • hearing my questions to you.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: Oh sorry.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: No it's my fault,
  • I should have told you that I need
  • you set up the scene for me and then answer.
  • So could you set up about homosexuality
  • in the black community and where a lot of the bigotry
  • was found in the church?
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: So homosexuality
  • in the black community and in a lot of minority communities
  • that are bound to religious teachings very strongly
  • and the morality is very tied to that
  • have a very harsh, not only look or observation of LGBT,
  • but a behavior that is--
  • well I can't really call it anything but bigotry.
  • I don't know what else to say.
  • But in their own minds, it's valid behavior
  • for them, the whole judgment.
  • And I think it's also just the fear
  • also because I think it's with the males what
  • I remember from growing up is they were the harshest.
  • The women always seemed to be a little
  • soft about their discriminatory behavior.
  • But the males are always really harsh
  • and would just say it right out or call you a fag or whatever.
  • I don't think I ever remember that
  • from a female in that community.
  • But then I realized getting older--
  • a teenager, 20-- a lot of those guys were sort of /
  • and so then it just made me think, well, they're afraid.
  • So to dispel or deflect away from them,
  • it's easier to put it on you, which probably has a lot
  • to do with bullying anyway.
  • So the church was not always an easy place.
  • The music, fortunately, was a place where I could hide
  • and I did.
  • And that benefited me.
  • That's my talent was nurtured and cultivated because of it.
  • Really I think in some ways.
  • And even in high school, I think that's true.
  • Even though I really was very good at basketball, track,
  • I even played touch football.
  • But I was really ostracized.
  • I was the last kid picked, nobody wanted the other team,
  • kids call me fat.
  • so I eventually left taking gym, my sort of dance thing
  • took my credit for that.
  • So I kind of became submerged into my world of art.
  • And looking back, of course it was actually not a bad thing.
  • But I don't know if I hadn't had that, I'm not really sure what
  • would have happened.
  • I mean because you can only take on so much of that
  • and then you explode in some way.
  • But I had an outlet for that energy.
  • I had a place.
  • It wasn't really counseling, but it really took the place of it.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So segue into the arts.
  • You've been a strong proponent about using art
  • to advocate for change, a strong proponent about using art
  • to help fund-raise for AIDS care and AIDS awareness.
  • one of the things that we do need
  • to work into this documentary is gays and art and gays, lesbians
  • and the arts and cultural scene.
  • So talk about that.
  • Talk to me about using the tools that you have at hand--
  • your artistic talents about creating change.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: Well you know this idea
  • of using art to inspire change, I
  • mean it was something I did even as a child really.
  • My parents were-- my father was a musician, singer, conductor.
  • My mother was a minister, but very involved
  • with social issues.
  • And so we were really fed both of those ideas all the time.
  • I started piano when I was four.
  • We always had people living in our house who
  • didn't have a place to live or feeding people.
  • so I saw that, I mean I lived it.
  • And somehow in my mind, I think--
  • the music, the dance, theater, I think it all that kind of I
  • saw it as a vehicle for change for helping maybe.
  • I don't know if I saw it for change as a kid,
  • but I did see it as a way to help people.
  • Either people are touched by your performance
  • or you do something with somebody and it creates a bond.
  • But there was some kind of hoping or thing going on there.
  • It wasn't until I moved to New York that
  • and then the AIDS epidemic started up,
  • that I started to sort of piece in my head,
  • I think, I can do something.
  • I have a skill that I think I can help with.
  • When AIDS first came on the scene,
  • I guess it like 1983, around there.
  • And I remember one of the first groups in New York to be formed
  • was the AIDS Resource Center.
  • And what they would do, well they
  • were a resource for people living with HIV and AIDS.
  • And I remember I volunteered there.
  • And I would go to people's houses and read to them
  • or wash their dishes or whenever they needed to do.
  • But I could see in that interaction
  • with them was very similar to how I would interact
  • with the other dancers.
  • There was a kind of give and take.
  • There was a learning about the other person
  • and how what they contributed.
  • Even just from singing in a choir,
  • you get that you know because all the voices have to blend.
  • And I really processed that I think during that time, where
  • eventually I created Peace Art to use
  • the ideas of creativity and the arts to help inspire change.
  • And mostly, it's been about change
  • within individuals themselves.
  • So through the process of creating with other people,
  • you find out something about yourself that you alter
  • or that you enhance.
  • but it comes from that interaction and creativity.
  • And so that's where the idea is kind of germinated from.
  • And it kind of took on a life of its own.
  • When I went off to graduate school
  • is really when that kind of solidified itself.
  • And then coming back to Rochester
  • eventually, the World AIDS Day concerts really
  • became the vehicle, in a way, for not only raising
  • money-- it was about raising money,
  • and it was about raising awareness too.
  • But it was actually for me it was
  • it had an underlying purpose that it brought people together
  • that may not ordinarily come together
  • and provided a space that was where people could
  • feel sort of vulnerable and allow
  • whatever happening to kind of inspire them in their own lives
  • I think that was really the purpose for me in doing it,
  • although it did raise money.
  • And it did raise awareness.
  • And I think that that's great.
  • I remember when I first started doing those--
  • when I originally started doing them when
  • I was in grad school in Utah.
  • But then when I brought it the concert to Rochester too
  • when I came here.
  • And people would say to me--
  • from our community-- would say, well, I
  • don't understand why you're raising money for children
  • in some other country.
  • I mean we have a lot of needs right here in our own city.
  • And they want to go on and list all the things.
  • And I would just listen and say, well, you
  • know those children are no less our children or needing
  • than people here.
  • But the thing is people here do have somebody working for them
  • and these children don't.
  • And also I felt on that day specifically
  • called World AIDS Day it was a time for us
  • to connect with other parts of the world who were also
  • similarly invested and involved, afflicted
  • and affected by this crisis.
  • And so I really felt it was a time for us
  • to really turn our awareness into a broader
  • scope of our awareness.
  • So I hope it did do that.
  • Occasionally I did get those comments anyway.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: We'll just stay with this
  • just for a brief moment here I want
  • to go back to the beginning of the first time
  • you heard of AIDS and what it was
  • doing to the gay community, what do
  • you remember from that moment?
  • What was your feelings, your fears, your thoughts?
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: When I first heard about AIDS.
  • I think I read in The New York Times, I was 21.
  • When I first heard about AIDS, I had read it
  • in The New York Times.
  • And actually, I think it was called gay cancer at that time.
  • And I was about 21, I think.
  • And I was in New York.
  • And it just I didn't really think
  • it affected me or had anything to do
  • with me, as far as I didn't feel like I was going to get it.
  • I just felt like, wow, how can we help this?
  • But I think through that first year
  • as I saw people dying who I knew, I thought, oh my god.
  • Yeah, this is about me.
  • And I think that motivated me even more.
  • I got involved with ACT UP when it first started.
  • And I became pretty militant as I recall.
  • But I think that that initial reading of it--
  • and I think I also thought to myself oh god, something else
  • for us?
  • I mean, come on, really?
  • Don't we go through enough?
  • And I think I also thought of it as, oh, this
  • is ammunition for the other side,
  • like oh boy, they're going to throw this in our face now--
  • which of course, they did.
  • It was a really it was a really surreal time
  • because I remember people--
  • you didn't know how you got it really
  • or how it was transmitted.
  • people thought from touching, from kissing,
  • from breathing on another person.
  • people would walk around--
  • I can remember guys having rubber gloves
  • on to touch anybody.
  • People wore masks when having sex.
  • I mean it was really a--
  • surreal is the only word I can think--
  • it was very weird.
  • People were terrified.
  • If you had a blemish or anything,
  • people were like, oh my god, that person's sick.
  • I can't go near them.
  • And that was just within our community,
  • I mean it was even worse.
  • I can remember adults saying things to me like--
  • or wanting to share a glass or giving me a paper cup
  • or not coming near their children.
  • But you know that that hatred and that fear,
  • I think motivated.
  • I mean I think if it hadn't been for the gay community,
  • we wouldn't have had the strives that we've had,
  • which have really helped the entire community--
  • the whole world really.
  • So sometimes if you can find the courage in those times,
  • you can really accomplish an enormous amount.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So I want to get your thoughts
  • on this in hindsight--
  • not that AIDS is behind this--
  • but as tragic as it was it still is,
  • it did kind of push us out of the closet.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: AIDS definitely pushed us out of the closet.
  • Yeah, that's very true.
  • We became civil rights activists in a way
  • that had not happened before.
  • It also brought the community together in many ways
  • that it had not been before.
  • I can remember when I volunteered at Gay Men's Health
  • Crisis well before it had that name actually,
  • but it was amazing to see all the different ethnicities
  • of people, all the different economic ranges of people
  • in this one place, helping in some way.
  • I mean it was really it was a transformative thing for me.
  • One of the first times maybe that I ever
  • saw this diverse group of people coming together.
  • It was really amazing.
  • I mean I think AIDS really--
  • it still continues to be horrific,
  • but I think it really molded our humanity.
  • It really brought it out and made us feel something
  • beyond ourselves.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to give back to the arts
  • a little bit here, not so specifically
  • with what you do and what you particularly with Peace Art.
  • I just want to get your thoughts how the gay movement has been
  • political, it has been social, it has been
  • economic it has been religious.
  • It's also been arts and cultural instead
  • gay people learn how to use the arts as a way
  • to, again, advocate for change or to express who we are.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: Yeah I think the--
  • it that popped into my head to say gay liberation movement.
  • But in a way it has been very artistic
  • and cultural and creative.
  • And even though we sometimes take all of that for granted,
  • in a way that has ushered us into a new time.
  • The parades, even here in Rochester, I
  • mean if you think about Art Walk,
  • I mean Dudd created Art Walk.
  • Here is a gay man who had this idea about community, not just
  • his community, but this larger community and used art
  • as a way of bringing the communities together.
  • And it's just become this enormous pride
  • for this whole region.
  • The arts, I think also the arts have allowed LGBT people
  • to fit into the mainstream.
  • So
  • That's an avenue that's accepted.
  • And so we can come in on that on a level playing
  • field with everybody else through the arts.
  • People need music.
  • It's so it's like, oh yeah, we really need that.
  • And so they welcome it know, in a sense.
  • And it I think opens the door then to bring up other--
  • I mean for example with me I don't
  • think I would have had the ear of the mayor or the senators
  • or if it hadn't been for the avenue of art, that's
  • where we kind of converged.
  • And I could bring up other issues
  • because of that relationship.
  • So yeah I think art has--
  • it plays such an important role in our lives
  • that we're not fully aware of it really because we
  • take so much of it for granted.
  • People listen to the radio all the time, there's music.
  • Somebody is making it.
  • We go out dancing, we don't even think of that
  • as-- it's just something.
  • But it really feeds our lives so much.
  • And I think on some level, we understand that.
  • And when a person is an artist, I
  • think they do come in to the general population
  • with a kind of oh OK, well are a little strange,
  • but that's an artist.
  • And it's somewhat accepted, where, if you just said oh
  • this is a gay person ah well.
  • I think that still happens really.
  • If you think of like--
  • I don't know-- like oh, this person's a gay lawyer or maybe
  • or I don't know.
  • And that's a very different impact
  • on people than oh this person's a dancer and then might go,
  • oh yeah, well that's how dancers are well a gay lawyer?
  • I better look for a lawyer I know or whatever.
  • So yeah the arts really are important.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: I'm just going throw some quick thoughts
  • at you here because I want to get your thoughts about Image
  • Out.
  • Talk to me about Image Out and your passion for that festival.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: Oh I love Image Out.
  • I think I've been to almost every year since the beginning.
  • I remember in the beginning, it wasn't really a festival.
  • It was showing films.
  • it's just grown to be it's just an amazing organization.
  • I mean I have some uneasiness about it too.
  • But I think overall, it's really--
  • one, it's just given us such a great cinema.
  • And it's brought the community together in many ways.
  • And I mean just the branches that has spread from it--
  • Image Art to and then the poetry--
  • just the building of community that it's done.
  • I mean I think the structure of how
  • that organization-- and I'm not in the organization I
  • don't know.
  • But from the outside, the structure of how it functions
  • is just amazing.
  • It just accomplishes so much with so little and so little
  • time.
  • It's just unbelievable, the passion and the dedication
  • of those volunteers.
  • I do think it suffers from--
  • which our community does here in general--
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Hold that thought.
  • Huge sign there saying quiet please.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: I know I saw but you know.
  • Oh what was I saying?
  • Oh Image Out.
  • So I mean I think Image Out suffers a little bit from what
  • our LGBT community suffers from and in general here.
  • There is a kind of separation between--
  • I would say-- mostly the black community
  • and the white community, although I would actually
  • put Latino community over there with the black community too.
  • We do at times have films with people of color.
  • But what there isn't is an integration before that.
  • So what I mean is there's like almost two communities really
  • in the gay community here.
  • There's the gay community for people of color,
  • and then there's what I would say the white community mostly.
  • And the white community pretty much
  • has all this stuff, pretty much.
  • The GAGV is run and Image Out and Out and Equal,
  • they're pretty much run by what I would say--
  • I'm trying to think a better word to use--
  • the majority class.
  • And The non-majority glass creates their own sort
  • of subgroup of activities, of networking.
  • There's, at times, some reach across.
  • But it's not an integrated it's not integrated.
  • And so I think we all suffer from that actually
  • a little bit.
  • Because we're not getting as many perspectives as we could.
  • We're not getting as many voices as we should.
  • But anyway, I think that that's a problem just
  • in our community.
  • Actually it's a problem in the Rochester community actually.
  • But in these subgroups, it's also a problem.
  • But the Image Out has been just--
  • I mean I clear off my whole schedule really trying
  • to get to almost every night of Image Out.
  • i think it's gone beyond the idea of the films really.
  • I think it's the seeing people you haven't seen forever, just
  • being together.
  • This togetherness in The Little Theater
  • is just such a feeling of accomplishment, pride,
  • community.
  • And there's also a sense of--
  • it's funny, I do the sign language
  • before I could get the word out--
  • support.
  • I feel when you look up at the screen
  • before the movies start and there's
  • all these different organizations have their stuff
  • and you really see, that makes it so visible--
  • the support of the community.
  • And it's one of the few places where we actually
  • visibly acknowledge all the support that's
  • going on in this community.
  • And it's just that's almost more important to me
  • than the films themselves because we all
  • get to see that, we all get to share in that.
  • And you really feel good about where we've come.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Let to get your perspective on our pride
  • parades and our pride fest.
  • Ther was one year that you were the Grand Marshal,
  • talk to me about that.
  • Talk to me about, again, that sense of pride
  • in this community.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: We have a wonderful movement--
  • I guess-- in our gay pride time in July.
  • There's the raising of the flag at city hall.
  • There's the parade and the picnic, of course.
  • The years before the parade, the picnic
  • was kind of the meeting ground.
  • I mean it was the place we all came together.
  • I kind of wish there was a way we could figure out
  • how to put those two things together,
  • I think it would be really helpful.
  • But it's marvelous to be able to--
  • the time when I was the Grand Marshal,
  • I think the parade was a little longer
  • because I went all the way over to Manhattan Square Park.
  • And so I just remember looking out
  • at all of these people who not only feel pride
  • I think in the fact that we've got this parade here
  • and it's running right down the middle of Rochester for all
  • to see for all to partake for, but I
  • think there's a little pride also in the self--
  • like?
  • I'm here, I'm one of the supporters, this is my group,
  • these are the people I support.
  • I mean I think there's also little self
  • identification in I'm worthy and valuable and I have value.
  • I think the pride time does engender that, it really
  • does support that.
  • And so I think it's maybe that's also
  • why I try to march in the parade too because I love
  • to look out and see all these different people
  • and ages and colors.
  • And it's really extraordinary.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So what do you think
  • it says about Rochester, that our small little city could
  • have events like these on such scale than it is?
  • We're not New York, we're not Toronto,
  • we're not San Fransisco.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: Yeah we do have pretty big events actually
  • with Image Out, with Pride.
  • Even our-- is it Out and Equal?
  • Yeah, Out and Equal is enormous.
  • The strides that were made with Kodak and Bausch Lomb
  • and Xerox and LGBT community is just
  • it's astounding how we persevere on such a great sentence scale.
  • But again, I think like I say Rochester is a fertile ground
  • for developing something.
  • people get an idea, and all of a sudden,
  • there's other people on it.
  • And that just happens here.
  • I don't know what it is.
  • You know, it may have also something
  • to do with the geography.
  • We're far enough from New York that there's--
  • except for Toronto in another country--
  • there's no other big city to kind of overshadow us.
  • There are a lot of little places around us
  • where we can kind of take the lead in a way.
  • So the geography might have something to do with that.
  • Rochester, you can kind of think of it almost
  • as a gateway to something.
  • I think one of the reasons Rochester doesn't always--
  • we don't always get to like when start a big thing
  • but then it doesn't go over.
  • But I think there's something to that
  • because I think it's more that it launches
  • or it it's a gateway.
  • If you think about the Underground Railroad,
  • it wasn't a real stopping place actually.
  • But it was a very important pass through place.
  • And I think in some ways that's the spirit here in many ways.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So if other communities around the world
  • can take one message from Rochester, particularly with--
  • I don't want to say gay rights activism--
  • but maybe just activism in general,
  • what would the message be?
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: Well, what a thought.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: What lesson could they take from us?
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: That what would be the lesson that other places
  • could take from Rochester.
  • Well I think one of the lessons is
  • taking a risk is always worth it, whether it pans out or not.
  • The actual action of taking the risk
  • always builds on something.
  • So I think that's one thing, we are a place that will--
  • like I say, some people have an idea.
  • They'll go off and running with it,
  • and people will follow them.
  • Whether it becomes a major something
  • or doesn't, it always build something to the next thing.
  • And I think that's a great lesson to learn.
  • And we have really polished that process.
  • We have become experts, really, at taking an idea
  • and growing it.
  • It may grow into something else or whatever,
  • but that growth becomes just so many people
  • benefit from that growth time.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: What do you think,
  • from your experience and your vision forward,
  • do you think the challenges that lie ahead particularly
  • for our younger people?
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: Our younger people.
  • I think one of the challenges is going
  • to be continuing to see themselves
  • as valuable in this community.
  • The rift between groups is getting really enormous.
  • And without interaction with different kinds of people,
  • it's very difficult to grow.
  • There's no challenging of your own ideas or beliefs
  • or pushing you beyond them.
  • And I do see that kind of a lot, that we really
  • have got to figure out how to build
  • these alliances towards others.
  • We try, we're doing, We're trying.
  • But I think it has to be more than--
  • it has to be kind of a priority.
  • That seems to me to be one of the largest challenges for us
  • as an LGBT community, as a sub-community
  • of this great Rochester community,
  • and of the region in general.
  • There's either a sort of that's not my world
  • and I'm not involved with it or there's
  • a sort of bullying of that other world in a sense, which
  • doesn't fuel any kind of benefit really.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Future generations
  • looking back on this documentary,
  • looking back on our lives, what you
  • want them to know most about who you are
  • and what you've done to help make Rochester
  • a better place to live?
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: What do I want the future to look back
  • on and know about me or think about me?
  • Wow.
  • I think really what I want people
  • to know about me after I'm gone is I try to make what I--
  • how do I say that?
  • I really try to bring into reality
  • what my imagination was about.
  • The things I dreamed, the things I imagined, things I
  • envisioned, I really tried to make them real.
  • And I try to do it lovingly and welcoming others.
  • Yeah I think that's what I would really
  • like people to know and to remember I think.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Anything we missed?
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: I don't think so, oh my goodness.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: We talked about the arts,
  • we talked about coming out.
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: It was a lot.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: I think we got it.
  • OK
  • THOMAS WARFIELD: Good.
  • Well hopefully something in there is useful.