Video Interview, Tim Mains, April 11, 2012

  • TIM MAINS: I hope so.
  • Look good enough.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, once I get into this, Tim,
  • it's just going to be a conversation between you and I.
  • TIM MAINS: Right.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
  • Ignore all this stuff.
  • TIM MAINS: Right.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: You know, in the final piece,
  • people are not going to hear my questions to you,
  • so if you could try and kind of--
  • when I ask you something, repeat something back to me
  • in the form of answers.
  • Like if I asked you did you notice the color of the sky
  • today, Tim, your answer back to me would be,
  • you know, when I was driving around,
  • I noticed the color of the sky today.
  • It was blue.
  • TIM MAINS: So be sure to incorporate
  • the answer to the question--
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Question--
  • TIM MAINS: --in the answer, yeah.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: And when you're talking, and you kind of get
  • lost, and just--
  • you lose your train of thought or something,
  • just say let me start that again.
  • TIM MAINS: OK.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So we're on tape here, so it doesn't matter.
  • We're not live.
  • TIM MAINS: And we can edit anything.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Anything you want.
  • TIM MAINS: Anything.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Yep.
  • Are we rolling?
  • EVELYN BAILEY: Your eyebrows look wonderful.
  • TIM MAINS: Oh wow, thank you.
  • My fake eyebrows.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, the first thing
  • I want to start with you, because this seems
  • to be ingrained in you at a very early age,
  • is your political interests and your political aspirations.
  • Talk to me a little bit about how your interest in politics
  • began.
  • TIM MAINS: I grew up in a political family,
  • and so my interest in politics really
  • originates with my father.
  • My dad was a very active Democrat committeeman.
  • He raised funds and had fundraisers at our house
  • for Senator Birch Bayh and Senator Vance Hartke.
  • So I met folks who were active in politics
  • when I was a little boy.
  • My father actually ran for office twice.
  • He ran for district attorney, and he ran for a judgeship.
  • And in both instances, I was the only member
  • in the family who would go out and campaign with him.
  • My job was to keep the campaign literature wrapped up
  • in a newspaper so that it wouldn't get wet if it rained.
  • And I think he found that if he had a 10-year-old boy with him
  • that people were more likely to open the door.
  • So my job was to hand the literature.
  • I didn't say anything.
  • I just-- but I watched that process--
  • that person running for office interacting directly
  • with the public.
  • And I was raised to believe that public service--
  • that serving in public office.
  • Let me say that again.
  • I was raised to believe that serving in public office
  • was some of the highest public service
  • that one could provide to their community.
  • The attitude today may be a little different,
  • but that was the spirit in which I was raised.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Just touch upon-- for me just
  • briefly some of the more memorable political experiences
  • that you experienced as a younger person.
  • You know, your experience with Bobby Kennedy comes to mind.
  • TIM MAINS: My father never won political office.
  • He was trounced seriously in running in Indianapolis, which
  • was a fairly Republican dominated area,
  • but he fought the good fight.
  • And I also learned a bit about--
  • you know, you don't always win in politics,
  • that you have to-- that it is about fighting the good fight.
  • And I had the benefit when I was in college.
  • I'd gotten very active and was very much against the Vietnam
  • War and concerned about what President Nixon was
  • doing to the country.
  • In the 1968 Democratic presidential primary,
  • there were lots of options, and I was particularly
  • drawn to Bobby Kennedy.
  • I actually went out of my way to find out,
  • using contacts that my father had really established for me,
  • to reach out.
  • How do I get in touch with this campaign?
  • How do I work for this person that I
  • thought would have a chance to change
  • the direction of this country?
  • And I got that opportunity.
  • I worked for Bobby Kennedy and his presidential primary
  • in Indiana.
  • I organized speaking engagements for him
  • at different college campuses, and I
  • got a chance to meet him when he was at Ball State.
  • So it was just an inspiring opportunity.
  • I suppose that if they had-- well,
  • they did ask me to travel with him to California and do some
  • of the same kind of work there, and I knew that I couldn't.
  • But had I done that, because basically the kind of work
  • I did was advance work in setting up arrangements
  • for speaking engagements, then I probably
  • would have been in the Ambassador Hotel.
  • And the tragedy of Bobby Kennedy's assassination
  • was just more than I could bear three thousand miles away.
  • I don't know.
  • I can't imagine how I would have responded, had I been there.
  • But he was an inspiration to me.
  • And after his death, I had decided
  • that I was going to stay out of politics for a while.
  • And I did, until I came to Rochester.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: And then what happened?
  • Take it from there.
  • You came to Rochester.
  • You started to get more involved in the local politics and such.
  • Why?
  • TIM MAINS: I can't stay away from it.
  • It was part of my blood.
  • It was part of how I was raised.
  • It was part of my belief system that public service
  • and the political process was critical to what
  • happens in this country.
  • And I was a social studies teacher.
  • And I was really big on government
  • and how things work--
  • inspired to travel to Washington DC
  • and see government in action, witness people
  • debating on the floor of the Senate or the House.
  • So politics and the political process,
  • since it had always been important to me,
  • as much as I tried to stay out of it or stay away from it,
  • I couldn't.
  • I really couldn't.
  • I was, shortly after arriving in Rochester, to come and take
  • my first job as a teacher.
  • I was walking down East Avenue and happened
  • to walk past the campaign headquarters for Better
  • Education Today.
  • Now, I was plugged in.
  • I read the newspapers.
  • I knew what was going on.
  • I knew that Better Education Today was a progressive slate
  • of school board candidates that were really
  • fighting to do progressive things in the city school
  • district, and that the people who
  • are running against them were very conservative,
  • anti-busing, didn't want anything to do with change.
  • And so I couldn't help but at least go in and check it out,
  • and see if maybe there's something that I could do.
  • And I met the man who was running their campaign
  • at the time, who I would later come to know as my county
  • legislator, Bill Benet.
  • And Bill sensed right away that I was the kind of person
  • that he wanted to reel in.
  • And in short order, I was active campaigning for the Better
  • Education Today slate.
  • Tom Frye was on that slate, who would later
  • become a state assemblyperson and later the county executive.
  • So it wasn't long after that that I
  • became a Democratic committeeman,
  • and then I was out off working on dozens of campaigns.
  • And so in the course of the next ten, twenty years,
  • I served as a Democratic committeeman
  • and worked on all kinds of local campaigns.
  • Midge Costanza's campaign was memorable,
  • helping her to become the first woman elected to the Rochester
  • city council.
  • Lots of progressive races.
  • Lots of exciting times.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: I was going to ask this next question
  • a little later on, but it actually seems
  • like a good point to ask now.
  • As you started to get into gay activism
  • here in Rochester, your involvement with the Gay
  • Alliance and the Empty Closet and beyond that.
  • How does your political knowledge and your political
  • experience previously-- well, that you just talked about.
  • How does that all fit in within your gay activism
  • here in Rochester?
  • TIM MAINS: Well, certainly there came a time,
  • as I continued to be active in politics,
  • I would also be influenced by my own involvement-- engagement
  • with what we then called the Rochester Gay Task
  • Force, which was the political arm at the time
  • of our local movement.
  • And one of the issues that we had
  • was increasing the visibility of the gay, lesbian, bisexual
  • community.
  • And so getting politicians to pay attention to the fact
  • that there was another constituency out
  • there was important.
  • So certainly I wouldn't work for a candidate that didn't
  • have a progressive stance.
  • There were personal and private conversations
  • I would have with candidates, trying
  • to figure out what did they know about our community?
  • What connections do they have with our community?
  • How comfortable were they with our community?
  • And I made sure that they knew, because all of us at the time
  • were about making a political statement, small p,
  • by being visible, by being open.
  • And so when I would work on a campaign,
  • people obviously knew that I was gay.
  • They knew that I was active in the Rochester Gay Task Force,
  • and so that became an element.
  • And certainly we got to a point where
  • we were very pointed in terms of sending out questionnaires,
  • showing up at candidate's nights,
  • and peppering people with questions about where they
  • stood on equal rights for gay and lesbian people
  • that lived in Rochester.
  • We got a little nudgy, I guess you could say.
  • And so that clearly did influence the work that I did.
  • And when a candidate was particularly noxious
  • on our issues, regardless of what party
  • they might belong to, then we would spend
  • some time going after them.
  • And I had great energy for that.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Moving a few years ahead,
  • running for political office yourself, city council, elected
  • to city council, ran for mayor's office,
  • yet you kind of have to find a balance there
  • between your gay activism and your political aspirations
  • for just the local community as a whole.
  • How did you balance that out?
  • How did you--
  • Because you didn't really run as the gay candidate,
  • but there was probably a lot of people in this community
  • that were trying to put that title on you.
  • TIM MAINS: I guess the way that I frame it is then,
  • and to a certain extent now, as well--
  • gay issues, gay rights issues are really mostly
  • a state and federal level concern.
  • And civil rights, well, you can grant them at a local level,
  • and eventually we did, but those battles
  • are most importantly fought at the state and national level.
  • So running as a local candidate, there
  • aren't a lot of gay, quote unquote, gay issues
  • that present themselves.
  • And so I wasn't motivated to run for local office
  • because there was some gay agenda that, you know--
  • despite the fact that they said we had a gay agenda.
  • There wasn't one.
  • The agenda that we had was raising people's sensitivity
  • by refusing to be silent and refusing to be invisible.
  • And so I certainly didn't have a choice
  • but to acknowledge my activism in the gay community.
  • But I also--
  • That wasn't the reason that I ran.
  • The reason that I ran was because I
  • wanted to make Rochester a better place,
  • and I was concerned about things like low income housing
  • and lack of a very serious human relations training
  • in the police department, very poor actions on the city's part
  • to promote economic development.
  • Those were issues that were important to me,
  • and that's why I ran.
  • At the same time, I had to do so the same way
  • that I have lived my private and professional life--
  • making sure that people understood who
  • I was, what my background was.
  • So I did it as an out, as a visible gay man,
  • but not with an agenda or a platform
  • or a series of issues that were necessarily gay-related.
  • So constantly-- didn't come up in the mayor's race hardly
  • at all, but certainly when I first ran for city council,
  • it was a huge issue.
  • And I would constantly have to say yes, yes.
  • So people would get on television
  • and they go "Tim Mains gay."
  • And then I would get on and say yes,
  • and then I would talk about issues.
  • And if you turned off the volume and just watched
  • the TV, what you saw was these kind of crazy,
  • wacko people being all animated and agitated and angry.
  • And then I would come on, comfortable, and say, "Yes,
  • that's-- yes, I'm gay, but that's not why I'm running.
  • I'm running about these things."
  • And I would continue to talk about the issues.
  • So I would acknowledge my sexual orientation
  • and then talk about what I thought was important.
  • And that was pretty consistently how we
  • moved through the whole piece.
  • The problem was that there was a huge amount of homophobia then,
  • much more so then than now.
  • And so in the early to mid-eighties, that was still
  • a big deal, and sadly, some people
  • could just never stop talking about that.
  • So I inaccurately thought that at some point in the campaign,
  • it would just become passe-- that eventually people
  • would get over it and that it would be done,
  • but that never happened, that it remained
  • an issue because people made sure
  • that it was an issue, right up to the bitter end.
  • And I think as evidence that it was an issue,
  • the closeness of the race was an indication
  • that there were still a lot of people
  • who weren't quite sure that they wanted
  • to have a gay person on the Rochester city council.
  • I mean, I only won by eleven votes.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's change gears just a little bit.
  • TIM MAINS: Sure.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: 1970s.
  • You arrived in Rochester.
  • What were you finding in Rochester in regards
  • to what the gay community was like
  • and how did you find yourself--
  • how did you start merging yourself
  • into the gay community?
  • TIM MAINS: You got to keep in mind where I came from.
  • For me to emerge into the gay community in Rochester
  • coming from Indiana, a state, Indianapolis, a city that
  • was probably twenty years behind where people were here--
  • coming from a city where I would not want to be visible.
  • I'd come out to my parents, but they
  • were very uncomfortable and unhappy with what they thought
  • was my choice at the time.
  • They got better educated along the way.
  • But I came here really with a sense of freedom
  • because I was away.
  • I was gone from the community where I grew up.
  • I was starting fresh.
  • I was someplace where nobody knew me.
  • I still came with the conservative baggage
  • that I carried with me from my college in Indiana,
  • so I did presume that I would need, as a public educator,
  • to keep my private life private.
  • And so I initially came here believing
  • that I'd be a teacher by day but at night, on the weekends,
  • I could do what I wanted to do, go where I wanted to go.
  • And so I explored Rochester and found Jim's.
  • And I actually was very fond of going
  • to the Riverview, which was a women's bar,
  • but they put up with me.
  • And I had a lot of women friends,
  • so I could go to the lesbian bar.
  • I could go to the gay bar.
  • I wasn't so fond of Dick's 43, but I
  • liked Jim's and I liked to dance and I liked music.
  • So it was a great outlet to go and meet people.
  • And to me, as a new arrival as a fairly conservative upbringing
  • in a conservative state, I was very happy.
  • I just found all this opportunity
  • that I had not seen before.
  • In Indianapolis, when I went to gay bars,
  • the only thing that I ever saw were drag shows.
  • And there were still drag shows at Jim's or at Dick's 43,
  • but they weren't constant.
  • Occasionally, there were drag shows.
  • The sense I had in Indiana was if I wanted to be gay,
  • I had to dress up as a woman.
  • And I found that very confusing because I didn't
  • want to dress up as a woman.
  • I'd spent all this time figuring out
  • how I wanted to be a man who loves other men.
  • And so I found that there was a broader expression for gay men
  • in Rochester, and gay women as well,
  • and enjoyed getting to know other gay people.
  • So it wasn't just my goal to hook up
  • or to score or to find somebody that I could go home with
  • but to meet people.
  • I mean, to genuinely meet people that could become friends.
  • And some of them have become lifelong friends.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Back in those days,
  • were the bars the only places that you were finding
  • to be able to socialize?
  • TIM MAINS: Mostly.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you talk to me a little about that?
  • TIM MAINS: Yeah, it was a pretty bar-oriented culture
  • at that point.
  • I would later discover that there was a small campus
  • group at the U of R that existed for gay men and women,
  • but other than that, there really was the bars.
  • I had been told that there were cruising spots in parks
  • and up at Durand Eastman Beach.
  • I never found that exciting or appealing.
  • So I never explored any of that.
  • That didn't interest me.
  • So it was pretty much bars.
  • And that was the case for a while.
  • Even after the Gay Alliance was formed,
  • and we tried to create alternative social
  • opportunities, they weren't numerous enough--
  • that the kind of events that we did
  • and meetings that we had that weren't widely publicized,
  • and they weren't numerous enough to really draw much of a crowd.
  • I mean, they were an alternative,
  • but it was just a fledgling beginning at that point.
  • As we succeeded in bringing more people out,
  • I think, and getting more people visible--
  • I mean, today you can meet people at Starbucks.
  • You can meet-- gay people meet everywhere.
  • And the bars are much less of an influence.
  • Thank goodness, because I'm not sure the bars were necessarily
  • the most positive approach.
  • I mean, I think if you look at the stats,
  • we've got an awful lot of gay people who
  • are alcoholic and drug addicted and people
  • who get into escaping the difficulties of their lives
  • through drugs and alcohol.
  • I think all that gets promoted if the bars are
  • the primary social venue.
  • But that's what it was then and--
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me a little bit about--
  • there was also some harassment at the bars,
  • particularly by the police department, et cetera.
  • You had a particular incident.
  • TIM MAINS: I did.
  • I--
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Tell me the story.
  • TIM MAINS: I did.
  • We had long believed that the police kept a homo file.
  • And when I worked on the Empty Closet,
  • Jay Baker was absolutely convinced,
  • and we got lots of reports from different gay men who
  • would claim that they were being harassed by the police
  • and that the police had actually taken down their license plate
  • number while they were parked in the parking lot
  • at Jim's or Dick's 43 or the Bachelor Forum.
  • And the police categorically denied this.
  • No, we don't keep any file.
  • But there was a strong belief, and we had enough anecdotal
  • information that was given to us by members of our own community
  • that we said that was probably true.
  • I came out of the Bachelor Forum one night.
  • It happened to be a weekend when Rochester
  • was hosting the New York State Coalition of Gay
  • Organizations, NYSCGO.
  • So NYSCGO was in town.
  • Lots of people were there.
  • We were having a good time.
  • We'd been out at the Bachelor Forum.
  • We were going to go someplace else, I don't remember,
  • but the next stop was going to be perhaps Jim's.
  • And as I walked to the parking lot,
  • I saw a police car parked with its lights out.
  • And I could tell that one of the officers--
  • there were two officers in the car.
  • One of the officers was turned and writing something down.
  • So I had a pretty strong hunch they were taking down
  • license plate numbers.
  • So I took a--
  • ever the good Empty Closet reporter,
  • I always had a notebook in my back pocket.
  • I took out my notebook and walked up
  • and looked at the front of the car
  • and pointedly wrote down the license number of the-- it's
  • not a regular license number, but the letter and code number
  • on the license plate of the police car and then
  • pointedly put it back in my pocket.
  • Immediately, the lights came on on the police car.
  • The men jumped out, grabbed me, both of them--
  • pretty much larger than I--
  • had me twisted like a pretzel on the hood
  • of a car nearby with my face ground into the hood.
  • They're demanding to see my license and registration.
  • And I asked them if I was being arrested for a moving traffic
  • violation.
  • They said, "No, smart ass.
  • We want to see your driver's license and your--" I'm sorry,
  • they didn't ask for my registration.
  • They asked my driver's license.
  • They said, "We want to see your driver's license."
  • I said, "Well, I don't need to show that
  • to you if I'm not being arrested or stopped for a moving traffic
  • violation.
  • I'm happy to give you my name and address.
  • My name is Tim Mains.
  • I live at--" I gave him my address at the time.
  • And they kept insisting that they wanted
  • to see my driver's license until finally one of our friends,
  • who had now gathered around and watched this, afraid
  • that I'd wind up in the police station in jail
  • over the weekend, because it was Labor Day weekend,
  • and probably I wouldn't get out until Tuesday morning,
  • fished my license out of my wallet, out of my back pocket,
  • and then handed the officer my license.
  • It was a really clear case of police overreacting,
  • and I actually filed a protest and filed a complaint
  • about the officers and about how I was treated.
  • Once they took down the information,
  • they told me that I shouldn't be seen hanging around
  • this area again, another indication to me of what
  • they were actually doing.
  • But when I filed a complaint, it took several months
  • before I got a response.
  • And the response was, oh, they had stopped me
  • because I looked like a suspect in a nearby burglary.
  • Lame excuse.
  • And I'll never know for sure what happened,
  • but I didn't get arrested.
  • I did call them on something I thought
  • that they shouldn't be doing.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's talk about the Gay Liberation Front
  • at the U of R. You'd mentioned that you had somehow
  • become aware of them.
  • At some point, you then asked them
  • to come and do some speaker bureau stuff at your school.
  • Kind of walk me through that a little bit.
  • TIM MAINS: Sure.
  • When I first came to teach here and in Rochester
  • and in the Greece central schools, first of all,
  • I loved teaching and found it a great outlet
  • in that my goal was--
  • other people who taught social studies
  • thought that social studies was about memorizing
  • dates and wars and generals and that kind of thing.
  • I thought that social studies is about helping
  • people be better citizens.
  • And so a lot of what I did in my class work
  • was to try and give kids experiences
  • where they were making sense of the world,
  • learning about government and history and sociology
  • and political science, but doing so
  • in a way that was useful to them as they would grow up
  • to be responsible citizens.
  • I had the opportunity to teach--
  • to create some individual ten week elective courses,
  • and I created a course called "The Future."
  • Everybody else was teaching the past.
  • I'll teach the future.
  • It was basically what at the time
  • we would have referred to in social sciences
  • as a social problems course--
  • that is, problems that exist in society that people
  • are trying to wrestle with and figure out and determine
  • how to resolve.
  • So issues like overpopulation.
  • At the time, it was called ecology.
  • Now the green movement or the environmental movement.
  • And at the time, the sexual revolution was a big deal.
  • This is the early seventies, so you have,
  • basically, the women's liberation movement
  • that had begun in the sixties and then,
  • in the very early seventies, the gay liberation movement.
  • In planning out the course, I had formed a team of students
  • to advise and to give me suggestions about things
  • that they might want to do.
  • So I put a whole bunch of topics out there
  • and let them decide if of these fifteen topics, if we
  • could only do seven or eight of them, what would
  • you like to do?
  • And so we kind of narrowed down the field.
  • And the sexual revolution was a big deal
  • that stayed on the table the whole time.
  • And they also had indicated to me
  • that one of the ways that they'd like
  • to learn about that is they'd like
  • to invite speakers to come in.
  • So that's actually the point where
  • I did enough research to find out, oh my god, there
  • is a group at the U of R.
  • And so we invited speakers.
  • I contacted the Speakers Bureau coordinator, Karen Hagberg
  • and Karen indicated to me that they'd been burned once
  • before when they had gone to a high school,
  • and so they wanted to make sure that this
  • was an official invitation and a proper invitation.
  • So I went to my vice principal at the time
  • and said, "Here's the deal.
  • I'm doing this class.
  • And here all the speakers I want to invite.
  • And the kids would like me to invite people from the National
  • Organization for Women for women's lib and people
  • from the Gay Liberation Front at the University of Rochester
  • for gay lib.
  • Will you write the letter?"
  • She said, "Well, you draft it for me,
  • and I'll fluff it up and do whoever."
  • But so the letter actually went out under her signature.
  • We tried to be careful.
  • I anticipated that there might be
  • a bit of a reaction from kids, so I selected two seniors,
  • who were eighteen years of age, who
  • were legal adults, so that they could
  • be their escort for the day.
  • So if anybody ever made any accusations,
  • I'd have had two independent witnesses who
  • would be able to kind of buffer my guest
  • speakers from any harassment or accusations that
  • might have come from people who are naysayers in the student
  • body.
  • The day came and U of R sent five speakers.
  • So I was expecting two.
  • I was expecting a man and a woman, a lesbian and a gay man,
  • and instead they decided, among themselves and the Speakers
  • Bureau, that it would be good if they
  • sent a lesbian couple, and a gay couple, and then
  • a single gay male.
  • So that's what I got.
  • The speakers were--
  • It was a very memorable day.
  • The speakers were like the Pied Piper.
  • Everywhere they walked, there was
  • a string of kids walking with about ten feet
  • between the string of kids and the speakers,
  • so they just followed and gawk at them all day long.
  • At lunchtime, the cafeteria ladies stopped serving food
  • and all lined up and watch them go
  • through the line of the cafeteria.
  • At the end of the lunch period, some students
  • had rolled folded up lunch tables
  • in front of the door of the faculty dining room,
  • so when we got ready to leave, we were actually
  • kind of barricaded in, and we needed to push our way out
  • to get them out.
  • At the end of the day, word of this, of course,
  • had spread throughout the school within the first thirty minutes
  • of their being there.
  • And in the last period of the day,
  • students were jammed in the back stairwell of the school trying
  • to get to the first floor because my classroom was
  • right there.
  • It was the first classroom next to the stairwell
  • in the back of the school.
  • And I had to stand there with the vice
  • principal and two members of the student leader
  • corps picking out--
  • that one's mine, that one's mine,
  • identifying who was actually legitimately my student
  • so that they could come into the classroom.
  • Now, I know you would think that if a teacher could
  • get three hundred kids to want to come to his class
  • that they weren't scheduled for, that probably I should get
  • a commendation or something.
  • I did not get a commendation.
  • Instead, I got a letter of reprimand.
  • So I was called on the carpet the next day,
  • and I had a meeting with the superintendent
  • and the principal.
  • And the superintendent never questioned
  • the instructional validity of what I-- never addressed
  • whether that was OK or not OK.
  • He addressed what I consider to be peripheral issues.
  • You know, clearly this had caused a controversy.
  • Clearly people had been upset.
  • Clearly people had called and complained
  • to school board members, to the police department,
  • that I had created such a stir that perhaps I
  • might have endangered this special elective program
  • that we were piloting.
  • In fact, I might have even endangered passing
  • of the school budget in May.
  • And worst of all, I had created a fire hazard, because there
  • were three hundred children jammed
  • in the back stairwell of the school
  • that if a fire had occurred, would not
  • have been able to escape in time.
  • So it was kind of like falling down the rabbit hole
  • and finding yourself trying to respond to things that you
  • hadn't ever anticipated.
  • It was a long, drawn out year.
  • It was only my second year as a teacher.
  • I did not have tenure.
  • I didn't have any protections at all.
  • The union jumped to my defense and actually brought
  • in a very high-powered lawyer from NEA
  • that came from the national board, who I would later
  • discover himself was gay, and was
  • highly motivated to defend me and to make sure
  • that I was not done in by this, and that I had played
  • by the rules, I'd done everything right,
  • the letter had been officially issued by the school,
  • that students hadn't done anything wrong,
  • I hadn't done anything wrong, and that the superintendent
  • really is not my direct supervisor
  • and has no right putting a letter of reprimand
  • in my folder.
  • It was a very long year of meeting with lawyers
  • and going to hearings and discussing
  • things along the way.
  • At the end, there was a negotiated agreement
  • that my principal would evaluate me at the end of the year,
  • and if that evaluation was positive,
  • then the superintendent's letter would be removed from my file,
  • and if the evaluation was negative,
  • then the superintendent would replace that letter
  • with a different letter that basically
  • emphasized the negative evaluation that I
  • got from my principal.
  • So it's kind of a weird kind of thing,
  • but my lawyer kept saying, "Don't worry.
  • This is what we have to do for them to save face,
  • and it will work."
  • And it did.
  • I got a positive evaluation from my principal
  • at the end of the year, the letter came out,
  • and we were done.
  • But one thing happened at the very end
  • of that whole process that was significant to me personally.
  • We had insisted, throughout this back and forth,
  • that because they claimed that there
  • were hundreds, perhaps thousands of people
  • who had called to complain.
  • And we had said we're being tried here
  • by a jury of invisible people.
  • So you're claiming that there are all these complaints,
  • but we want to know who complained
  • and what were their complaints.
  • you keep saying that there was this--
  • but it was always very amorphous.
  • Well, the board clerk or the board
  • switchboard operator, whoever was at the school district,
  • never recorded, they told us, any of the names
  • or addresses or anything.
  • They just took messages and forwarded them to board members
  • or to the superintendent.
  • However, the police department did
  • have a list of complaints that had come in to them.
  • And so, as part of the negotiated agreement
  • at the end of that whole process, because we'd
  • been demanding to see who these people were,
  • we were allowed to go in and sit and look
  • at the log that was maintained by the police department.
  • And we had to sign an affidavit that we would not
  • memorize the names, and we would not copy the names,
  • and we would not contact any of these people,
  • and we would never use any of this information
  • against any of the people whose names we saw in the--
  • All kinds of stuff like that.
  • So we went in, and first of all, I was shocked that it was--
  • I expected to be, like, twenty pages, and it was three pages.
  • It was very short.
  • It wasn't anywhere near the length
  • of what they made it sound like.
  • But more importantly, as I went down the names,
  • I didn't recognize any of them.
  • Well, I shouldn't say that.
  • I recognized a couple, but they were
  • names of parents of kids that were not in my class.
  • Not one, not one, not one name on that list
  • came from a family whose students were in my class.
  • And I just found that that meant something to me.
  • And I talked to the lawyer as we laughed
  • and said, "I don't get it.
  • I mean, I would have thought that some people who probably
  • had a problem didn't have the courage to say something to me
  • might have shown up here on the list to complain."
  • And he said "No, it's really easy."
  • See the people who saw the speakers
  • and who heard the speakers, they had reality to report.
  • So his take was they went home, and they
  • had a conversation with their parents about what they saw
  • and heard.
  • Their parents may not have liked it,
  • but they did see and hear things,
  • and they talked about what they saw and heard.
  • And I will say my students were phenomenal
  • in the insight and the sensitivity
  • that they showed in the questions that they asked.
  • I was very pleased with how they handled themselves.
  • The lawyer said to me, the people
  • who didn't see the speakers had nothing to report but fantasy.
  • So since they didn't have anything,
  • they didn't see anybody, didn't hear anybody, they went home,
  • and they reported what they thought gay people did.
  • So that's why there were all these crazy accusations
  • about how they were kissing at the drinking fountain,
  • and they were fondling people in the bathroom,
  • and they were exposing themselves in the cafeteria.
  • All of those wild and crazy things
  • are kind of the stereotypes of what
  • they think crazy gay people do.
  • And kids who didn't have any reality to report certainly
  • knew that there were speakers there.
  • So they wanted to be able to talk about something,
  • and they made it up.
  • And that sounded plausible to me.
  • I mean, that was a reasonable explanation,
  • but it was significant because what
  • it said to me was that visibility
  • made a huge difference.
  • It was a switch between whether or not people were
  • able to deal with it or not.
  • And it really was at that point that I
  • began to question my own personal resolve that I
  • was going to continue my career being invisible.
  • Would I continue to do to my students
  • what my teachers had done to me?
  • Would I want kids in my classroom
  • who were gay or lesbian to grow up and think that there
  • was nobody like them?
  • Because that's how I grew up.
  • And steadily, didn't happen overnight, but steadily,
  • from that point forward, I began to try and get to know
  • these speakers that I had met.
  • I went to the Gay Liberation Front
  • twice and didn't even have the courage to go in.
  • It wasn't until my third time that I finally
  • had the nerve to actually walk into the building,
  • to Todd Union, and to attend a meeting.
  • And even then, some of the other folks who were there
  • thought I was coming as that supportive social studies
  • teacher who had invited the speakers out.
  • It wasn't readily apparent, nor was I
  • forthcoming, that I was really there
  • for my own personal agenda, not just supporting their cause--
  • that their cause was really my cause.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's talk about that then, after the bells.
  • TIM MAINS: I bet that happens a lot.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Every half hour, I think.
  • Ten thirty?
  • CREW: No, it's eleven.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: It's eleven already?
  • TIM MAINS: Oh, wow.
  • See how flime ties.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: There we go.
  • CREW: Shut this off for a second.
  • TIM MAINS: Do you have another one coming at eleven?
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, we got Patti coming in at eleven,
  • but Evelyn can keep her at bay for a little bit.
  • TIM MAINS: I apologize.
  • I was late.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Pardon?
  • TIM MAINS: Yeah, I was a little bit late.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
  • TIM MAINS: I think it's louder as it goes on.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
  • TIM MAINS: Moving on.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: All right, so let's get into this
  • pretty quickly then.
  • TIM MAINS: Sure.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Your involvement with the Gay Liberation Front,
  • and how did you then--
  • you became involved with what became the Gay Alliance,
  • initially because you were actually
  • charged with drawing up the bylaws for them.
  • TIM MAINS: Right.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.
  • Talk to me about really your first initial involvement
  • with what eventually became the Gay Alliance.
  • TIM MAINS: Right.
  • The U of R realized that there are an awful lot of townies
  • coming to these meetings, and they basically
  • said to the officers of the Gay Liberation Front,
  • you're a student organization.
  • If you want to keep a mailbox in the student union
  • to be considered a student organization,
  • then you have to be a student organization,
  • and the non-student members have to go.
  • And so rather than jeopardize what
  • really was the founding effort for gay liberation in the city
  • of Rochester, those of us who were not students agreed, fine,
  • we'll go form our own organization.
  • At the time, there were already some other organizations
  • that had formed.
  • So, for example, there was a lesbian resource center.
  • So a number of lesbians were not just feminists but separatists.
  • They really believe that lesbians
  • were under-represented.
  • The minute you said gay, people thought of men and not women,
  • and it was very important to have a women's only entity.
  • And so the lesbian resource center had formed on its own
  • and probably deserves credit as the first independent gay
  • organization.
  • When we began to form what would become the alliance,
  • the name alliance comes from the sense
  • that we wanted to try and fold different organizations
  • together.
  • There was also a political-- at this point, the National Gay
  • Task Force-- today, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
  • had formed and was very active on the national level.
  • So we had the Rochester Gay Task Force
  • as kind of a political embodiment of people who
  • were interested in politics.
  • And so we thought if we got the Rochester Gay Task Force,
  • and we got the Lesbian Resource Center,
  • and then we formed a men's organization
  • to complement the Lesbian Resource Center, the Gay
  • Brotherhood, that we'd have three organizations.
  • And then the Empty Closet would become a fourth organization.
  • So we didn't want jeopardize LRC's independence.
  • So we didn't ask people to all come together
  • in one organization.
  • We decided to be an amalgam of what at the time
  • was separate organizations.
  • And that's really the concept that we approached people
  • like myself, who grew up in the sixties.
  • And I considered myself a feminist.
  • I had been a longstanding member of NOW.
  • But I also understood many women's need
  • to be independent and separate, to have their own newspaper,
  • to have their own organization.
  • That's fine.
  • No one wanted to tread on that territory,
  • but we wanted to bring all of everybody
  • together under one roof.
  • And so I was one of the people who
  • helped to write the bylaws on a little political government
  • thing.
  • And I was most proud of, actually,
  • the preamble that I wrote, which I think
  • has disappeared over the years.
  • But it was a passionate plea and call
  • for what we need to do in terms of standing up for ourselves,
  • and that we can stand up in different ways,
  • but at the end of the day, we do have something in common,
  • and that is that we're only going
  • to get people to understand who we are when we are visible.
  • And so we wrote the bylaws, we elected a board,
  • and we would have people from the different organizations
  • on the board and then some at large people.
  • And we first met over in Bull's Head, and eventually,
  • as we continued to grow as an organization,
  • looked to rent some space at the Genesee Co-op on Monroe Avenue,
  • and gave people--
  • gave the different officers a place to work.
  • The only operation that didn't really
  • work out of any of those centers was the Empty Closet,
  • which for years was published out of Jay Baker's apartment
  • on Alexander Street.
  • And that had a fair amount of independence.
  • Today the Gay Alliance considers the Empty Closet
  • its informational arm, so it doesn't view it as independent,
  • but back then we viewed it as an independent organization
  • within the alliance.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Tell me about the early days
  • of the Empty Closet, working as an editor.
  • And so tell me of working in Jay's apartment.
  • What was it like?
  • What were you guys--
  • the challenges and the fun of putting this thing together.
  • TIM MAINS: It was a small group, but everybody
  • was pretty dedicated.
  • Jay is a great character and very--
  • and he'd been doing it for a while.
  • Larry Fine, I think, had first published the Empty Closet
  • as a mimeograph sheet, and then Jay
  • had really tried to turn it into a newspaper.
  • But Jay didn't know anything about newspapers.
  • He was a physics professor, I think, or science professor
  • at MCC.
  • And I came on board, and I was kind of appalled at how
  • they put it all together.
  • But there was a great spirit of capturing
  • what was happening and letting people know what was happening.
  • And if we didn't have something, we'd
  • sit down and talk about what should be in the paper.
  • And if we didn't have enough stuff, then we'd say, OK, well
  • we have to make some news.
  • We have to go and make some news.
  • So let's go interview somebody, or let's go have a march,
  • or let's go do something that we can create a story about.
  • So we could have a news--
  • He had this electric typewriter that he
  • had a roll of paper that would go through, and he'd type,
  • and when he ran across the line on the roll of paper that
  • was too far, and so that's how he would type his column.
  • Nothing was typeset back then.
  • He'd kind of paste it up on a big pasteboard
  • and give it to Bill Gerling, who would take it to the newspaper
  • company that he and his brother ran in Webster,
  • and they'd shoot it up or down to make it
  • fit on a tabloid sized paper.
  • I was fortunate that when I was in college,
  • when I was at Ball State University,
  • I'd been a student body president.
  • And I was student body president when I was junior,
  • and my vice president succeeded me
  • as president of the student body.
  • And Jerry, who lives in Rochester by the way,
  • now, with his wife, Cheryl--
  • and Jerry was a lot quieter than I was.
  • I was a lot more outgoing, a lot more visible,
  • and he was more reserved, more quiet.
  • And even though he invited me to sit on his staff
  • when he was student body president,
  • I knew if I was there, I'd get in his way.
  • But he really-- I mean, I had the good sense to say love you,
  • love what you're doing.
  • You're going to succeed more if I'm not around.
  • But I had to have something else to do,
  • so I got myself involved in the school newspaper.
  • And Ball State had a daily newspaper.
  • So for a year and a half, I worked on the Ball State Daily
  • News, and I learned all about layout,
  • and a whole lot about journalism.
  • And so I, kind of with a hands on experience,
  • came into the Empty Closet with a background
  • that nobody else that was helping had.
  • And so I convinced them that maybe we
  • should use layout sheets and showed them
  • how we could get things done-- eventually, how
  • we could get our copy typeset.
  • And slowly, the paper began to take
  • on a more professional look.
  • But never lost, even with the professional look,
  • it didn't lose that kind of in your face,
  • let's capture what's happening, and if not enough is happening,
  • then how can we agitate to make something happen
  • so that there'll be news.
  • Over time, I eventually spent time, a couple of times,
  • as the managing editor.
  • But the paper, both under Jay's leadership, my leadership,
  • Whitey's leadership, and a number of people
  • have run it over the years before we were fortunate enough
  • to find Susan Jordan--
  • but no matter who was in charge, that whole spirit
  • of this is a team effort, almost it's a collaborative,
  • was really behind how things worked.
  • And there were late nights, and there was lots of fun,
  • and people who cared about each other
  • and cared about getting the word out.
  • We made the decision at one point,
  • for example, that we would mail the paper
  • to every elected official and every clergyperson in Monroe
  • County.
  • We got the lists, and we figured even if they never
  • read the paper, even if they threw it in the trash,
  • that from the time it took them to open the envelope
  • and see what it was and throw it away,
  • they were going to be reminded that there
  • was a gay community in Rochester,
  • and that that was valuable and important.
  • And we targeted those two audiences, elected officials
  • and clergy, for that reason.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: Here, I'm going to wrap this up,
  • so I just got one more question for you.
  • CREW: Do you want to redo that last bit?
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: No, I actually have it
  • in my head where it happened, and I know how to edit it.
  • CREW: OK.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: So no thanks, but thanks for asking.
  • CREW: OK.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: You look over the past thirty-plus years
  • to where we are today.
  • What are your thoughts?
  • What are your thoughts as to how we got here today,
  • and more importantly, what are your thoughts
  • in regard to where do we still need to go?
  • TIM MAINS: I'm very convinced that we have gotten where
  • we are today because many, many, many brave women and men chose,
  • sometimes with a great personal sacrifice, to be visible
  • and not to hide.
  • And I think that the strength of this movement
  • is a direct reflection of that visibility.
  • In 1987, there was a war conference that
  • was held for leaders all across the country,
  • and one of the big things that came out of the war conference
  • was National Coming Out Day.
  • It was to have a day where people
  • were encouraged to be visible.
  • And I would say, even today, when
  • people who have a national or an international standing
  • come out, acknowledge their sexuality,
  • and add to the broader sense of visibility,
  • that that helps us as a community-- when people
  • can see that who we love or how we love is a minor factor.
  • Other than that, we're the same kinds
  • of people that everybody else is.
  • When people slowly let go of all of the--
  • we used to call it homophobia.
  • I'm not so sure that it was fear as it was ignorance.
  • But the ignorance led to fear, and people--
  • more afraid of themselves and their reactions
  • than they are about us, but people have
  • let go of a whole lot of that.
  • And I think we've come a huge distance.
  • I never would have predicted, thirty years ago,
  • that today I could marry my long-term partner.
  • I would not have imagined that.
  • So I think we've made tremendous, tremendous gains.
  • At the same time, there are people
  • with such deep seated hatred.
  • There are still people who are losing their lives because
  • of their sexual orientation.
  • That says to me we are not done.
  • We are far from it.
  • KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
  • It's a wrap.
  • TIM MAINS: OK.